The Values AT-ATO-AN can give
Having been with the old folks in the AT-ATO-AN lately, I came to realize instinct values found in our traditional practices to which Daw-es, Begnas, Awil, Lepas, a form of culture based rituals calls for peace and loving culture lived thru times. The lallakays can be credited by their passion of cultivating good practices which maintains good human relation among the neighborhood.
The full cultivation of Begnas demands an expenditure of culture understanding which is rarely available to one whose preoccupation is beyond this point. The ubiquity of the gramophone and the cascade of broadcast traditional music make a measure of musical understanding almost unavoidable, but this is not the same as the practice of the dictated traditional rituals which is the aim and reward of the existing cultures at present. Most practices consume comprehension not only in their way of realizing the procedures but also in their maintenance. One of the lallakay leaders I meet once remarked that if he omitted the practice exercise for one day, his calling as leader of traditional rituals would be ruined for a great cause.
The case of traditional practices in the highland provinces is well known. After a lifetime devoted to customary ritual processes, there seemed to have laid formation of values one can identify in our own culture. The pleasure of this time of culture-based activity points the moral to the present discussion. Any of the arts and literatures that are in the form of BEGNAS, LEPAS, AWIL, DAW-ES and the rest are may be within the scope of the people who seeks no more than a passing appreciation of culture associated with science.
To such, AT-ATO-AN is a revered place where values originated from the conventional teachings of the lallakays developed from day-to-day experience. I had made several appearances in the AT-ATO-AN during the times at which certain ritual have to be realized in relation to usual procedures before planting season and harvesting term. I was gladly amazed to witness justifiable proceedings initiated by the lallakay leaders in shifting the usual and legal process of conducting the BEGNAS from the standard process to modified version which came at the spur due to the absence of the some members of the AT-ATO-AN union.
On that day of the ritual, the lakay leader was informed that certain member of the union together with his family members went out of the town for a very important family affair. Instead of considering standard sacrificial animals to be butchered, he then advised the members to conduct the BEGNAS celebration in a simple way. According to him he said; it is not a good practice to flow out blood from the sacrificial animal when a member of the union were on leave on the day of the ritual proceedings as this may somehow cause trouble against him. Right then, the butchering items considered were the usual salted meat “INASIN” mixed with legumes. This is exactly the LUMLUMDANG version as observe in Bauko.
It may be the gesture of having a sensitive consideration in favor of the absent member to keep him away from form of misfortune. Whether it is a version of safekeeping thru which the shift was realized but it means deeper annotation. Modifying the ritual process this way is a very legitimate action to which it spells bottomless camaraderie among neighborhood. This is a great manifestation of respect over the person involved. Just imagine the present members during the rituals modifying the usual process of the practice so to keep safe the absent member. It’s indeed a very high form of respect.
The concern here is that, respect largely defines superior human relations, for culture these are completely relevant. In most cases, this happens in between the villagers so to maintain favors and blessings from God.
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