Tag Archives: Philippines

How Pineapples Came to Be

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 43
Occupation: AV technician
Residence: southern California
Performance Date: 29 April 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

My informant (A) is currently an AV technician. He grew up in Quezon City in the Philippines for the first 13 years of his life before moving with his family to San Francisco, California for a year and then moving down to southern California, where he has stayed every since. He first heard the story about how pineapples came to be from his mother when he was around six years old. The story is also used in reading books for children when they are learning to read in the Philippines. His mom and aunt told him this story to frighten him into behaving when he was a child, and he has since told the story to his younger sisters and a few other people when casually talking. The story is paraphrased below:

“There was a mom and daughter in the Philippines long ago. The daughter’s name was Piña. Piña constantly lost things and, instead of even trying to look for the things by herself, she would just ask her mom to find them. The mother was really busy because she had to work in the fields all day, but the mom still helped her daughter find the things she kept losing. One day the mom could not find her hat, which she needed when she was working in the fields to keep the sun out of her eyes. The mom asked Piña to help her find the hat because she had to hurry or she would be late to the fields. Piña replied ‘Nanay [the word for mom], I don’t where the hat is. I’m busy.’ The mom told Piña that she really needed help, so Piña finally got up and walked around pretending to look for the hat. She didn’t actually look for the hat and then told her mom that she couldn’t find it. The mom got really frustrated and then she found the hat, which wasn’t that hard to find and Piña should have seen it when she was looking. The mom got really mad and said ‘Piña, I hope you grow 1000 eyes so that you can find things.” Then the mom went to the fields and spent all day working in the fields. When she got back to the house, she asked Piña to make dinner, but Piña wasn’t there. The mom looked and looked but she couldn’t find her. Days and weeks and months go by, and still the mom can’t find Piña and gets very worried. After a while, the mom starts seeing weird plants that look like they have 1000 eyes. The mom realized that Piña had turned into these plants. These little plants are pineapples, and that’s how pineapples came to the Philippines.” (Note that Piña is the word for pineapple).

This tale seems to serve two purposes. One is that it explains how the pineapple came to the Philippines, which only happened in the 19th century, which is probably why this story is necessary to explain why they are a relatively recent addition to the fruits normally found in the Philippines. The other is a more practical purpose, which is a way for parents to scare their kids into doing stuff from themselves or risk turning into a pineapple. This is probably why it is continually told to children. My informant spelled out the name Piña for me, and he used the Spanish spelling instead of the Filipino one (pinya), even though he used the Filipino word for mom (nanay). This is also interesting because the Spanish introduced the pineapple to the Philippines.

This story touches on the tension between the older and younger generations, and the how physically hard the lives of women are.

Lanzones

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 35
Occupation: Retail Branch Manager
Residence: Yucaipa, CA
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

Steven “Ricky” Phillips was the son of a military family.  They moved around from base to base quite a bit.  He lived in the Philippines for a number of years before moving to The United States of America.  His father was in the Air Force and met his mother in the Philippines while stationed at the Clark Air Base.  Ricky currently resides in Yucaipa, CA with his wife and two daughters.  He is a Branch Manager for JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.

I also remember a story my mother had told me about a fruit that she and I used to pick on the air base called Lanzones.  As we picked and ate the fruit, she taught be to pinch the fruit by the stem to open and peel the fruit.  She told me the story of how this began and why it continues as the process of eating this particular fruit.

A village in the Philippines not believed this fruit to be poisonous, but the beauty of the fruit often caused doubt to its poisonous nature.   The temptation would cause villagers to venture and try it despite the risks.  An old woman visited this village.  She needed food, water and shelter.  This village was helpful and let her stay as long as she needed and provided food and water.  The villagers had told her about the poisonous fruit.  She asked to see it, and when they showed it to her, she taught them how to pinch the fruit at the stem to render the fruit harmless and edible.  She proved it by eating one after another.  Ever since, the method of pinching and peeling this fruit has continued, and the story passed on along with it.

Tinikling

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 35
Occupation: Retail Branch Manager
Residence: Yucaipa, CA
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

Steven “Ricky” Phillips was the son of a military family.  They moved around from base to base quite a bit.  He lived in the Philippines for a number of years before moving to The United States of America.  His father was in the Air Force and met his mother in the Philippines while stationed at the Clark Air Base.  Ricky currently resides in Yucaipa, CA with his wife and two daughters.  He is a Branch Manager for JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.

 

Somewhere in the middle of the earthquake and the eruption, I had the opportunity to discover more about our culture.  One popular activity is a dance called the Tinikling.  It generally involves two people partnering and dancing between two bamboo poles while another pair slap the sticks on the ground and then slide together.

The origin of this dance isn’t as festive.  It is believed to come from a time when in the 1500s the Spaniards conquered and surpressed the Filipino people, who spent most of their time in the rice paddies.  The Spaniards would punish those who did not work well by making the worker stand between two bamboo poles while they beat the poles against their legs.  After a while, in an attempt to avoid getting hurt, the workers would jump to escape the punishment.  The dance is now named after a local bird as it describes its leg movements, and the dance continues as a maneuver to avoid the sliding bamboo.

Aeta’s Revenge

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 35
Occupation: Retail Branch Manager
Residence: Yucaipa, CA
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

Steven “Ricky” Phillips was the son of a military family.  They moved around from base to base quite a bit.  He lived in the Philippines for a number of years before moving to The United States of America.  His father was in the Air Force and met his mother in the Philippines while stationed at the Clark Air Base.  Ricky currently resides in Yucaipa, CA with his wife and two daughters.  He is a Branch Manager for JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.

My mother is from the Philippines, but it wasn’t until I was 9 years old when I first lived there.  My father was in the US Air Force and was assigned to Clark Air Base.  I wasn’t a stranger to natural disasters at this point.  I’ve already experience earthquakes, tornadoes, and typhoons.  So I didn’t think twice about the 7.7 earthquake that changed not only my life, but the lives of many others and the world in general.

For the months following, I heard of a local tribe living around Mt Pinatubo claiming that their diety, Namalyadi, was angry.  At the time, I was too young to understand their story.  It wasn’t until later in life when I researched this story and discovered corporations had been logging and oil diggings in and around the then dormant volcano.

Fast forward a year later.  I could walk outside my front door, walk just a few steps and turn to my left.  Clouds of sulfur began filling the air.  The amplified smell of a sewer was an inescapable aroma.  Add constant ash falling on the ground, your car, and home.  The tribe known as the Aeta was right.  Namalyadi had demonstrated his anger and power as his control of the 500 year dormant Mt Pinatubo causes it to erupt, causing an almost degree Fahrenheit drop in temperature globally and increase in ozone depletion.  It became the second largest eruption in its century.  The spirit of the Aeta tribe literally blew its top.  Combined with a typhoon, it caused many deaths, injuries, illnesses, and rendered many more homeless.  Not too bad for a diety.

Banoonooed

Nationality: Philippeano
Age: 21
Occupation: Student, Part time facilities attendant at on campus gym
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/13/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The informant provided the following as a tale his father would tell him before bed,for the purpose of making sure he didn’t eat too much before going to sleep.

Alright, so, when I was a kid my Dad, (first of all my dad’s family is Philippeano. my dad is full Philippeano.) So he would tell me that, uh, if I ate right before bed I’d, what would happen was, it was called “banoonooed.” [ban-noon-noon-ed] and what that means is that if you eat before bed when you go to sleep you’ll have a bad dream and your entire hair will go, just like… white. So yeah, anyway, if you eat before dinner and if you eat too much, er, sorry, if you eat too much before you go to sleep it will give you nightmares, and those nightmares will be so scary that your hair will just go completely white and I think that’s, like my dad didn’t make it up, but I think it’s to stop people eating before going to bed and… yeah. 

As the informer notes, this tale is not specific to his family, but it does seem to be a Philippeano tale in general as opposed to one which has spread across cultures. As the informer noted to me, large meals are a significant part of Philippeano culture, and a tale warning against their consumption before bed is likely more relevant to their culture than others. Furthermore, the scare-tactics and over the top consequences for eating too much before bed, make it a good children’s story, and that gives its moral a context.