Specimens of Tagal Folklore

By Doctor J. Rizal

Proverbial Sayings

Malakas ang bulong sa sigaw, Low words are stronger than loud words.

Ang lakí sa layaw karaniwa ’y hubad, A petted child is generally naked (i.e. poor).

Hampasng magulang ay nakatabã, Parents’ punishment makes one fat.

Ibang harī ibang ugaīl, New king, new fashion.

Nagpupútol ang kapus, ang labis ay nagdurugtong, What is short cuts off a piece from itself, what is long adds another on (the poor gets poorer, the rich richer).

Ang nagsasabing tapus ay siyang kinakapus, He who finishes his words finds himself wanting.

Nangangakõ habang napapakõ, Man promises while in need.

Ang naglalakad ng maráhan, matinik may mababaw, He who walks slowly, though he may put his foot on a thorn, will not be hurt very much (Tagals mostly go barefooted).

Ang maniwalã sa sabi ’y walang bait na sarili, He who believes in tales has no own mind.

Ang may isinuksok sa dingding, ay may titingalain, He who has put something between the wall may afterwards look on (the saving man may afterwards be cheerful).—The wall of a Tagal house is made of palm-leaves and bamboo, so that it can be used as a cupboard.

Walang mahirap gisingin na paris nang nagtutulogtulugan, The most difficult to rouse from sleep is the man who pretends to be asleep.

Labis sa salitã, kapus sa gawã, Too many words, too little work.

Hipong tulog ay nadadalá ng ánod, The sleeping shrimp is carried away by the current.

Sa bibig nahuhuli ang isda, The fish is caught through the mouth.

Puzzles

Isang butil na palay sikip sa buony bahay, One rice-corn fills up all the house.—The light. The rice-corn with the husk is yellowish.

Matapang akó so dalawá, duag akó sa isá, I am brave against two, coward against one.—The bamboo bridge. When the bridge is made of one bamboo only, it is difficult to pass over; but when it is made of two or more, it is very easy.

Dalá akó niya, dalá ko siya, He carries me, I carry him.—The shoes.

Isang balong malalim puna ng patalím, A deep well filled with steel blades.—The mouth.

The Filipino colony in Spain had established a fortnightly review, published first in Barcelona and later in Madrid, to enlighten Spaniards on their distant colony, and Rizal wrote for it from the start. Its name, La Solidaridad, perhaps may be translated Equal Rights, as it aimed at like laws and the same privileges for the Peninsula and the possessions overseas.

From the Philippines came news of a contemptible attempt to reach Rizal through his family—one of many similar petty persecutions. His sister Lucia’s husband had died and the corpse was refused interment in consecrated ground, upon the pretext that the dead man, who had been exceptionally liberal to the church and was of unimpeachable character, had been negligent in his religious duties. Another individual with a notorious record of longer absence from confession died about the same time, and his funeral took place from the church without demur. The ugly feature about the refusal to bury Hervosa was that the telegram from the friar parish-priest to the Archbishop at Manila in asking instructions, was careful to mention that the deceased was a brother-in-law of Rizal. Doctor Rizal wrote a scorching article for La Solidaridad under the caption “An Outrage,” and took the matter up with the Spanish Colonial Minister, then Becerra, a professed Liberal. But that weakling statesman, more liberal in words than in actions, did nothing.

That the union of Church and State can be as demoralizing to religion as it is disastrous to good government seems sufficiently established by Philippine incidents like this, in which politics was substituted for piety as the test of a good Catholic, making marriage impossible and denying decent burial to the families of those who differed politically with the ministers of the national religion.

Of all his writings, the article in which Rizal speaks of this indignity to the dead comes nearest to exhibiting personal feeling and rancor. Yet his main point is to indicate generally what monstrous conditions the Philippine mixture of religion and politics made possible.

The following are part of a series of nineteen verses published in La Solidaridad over Rizal’s favorite pen name of Laong Laan: