Can you give me the whole story of the epiko ng Hudhod in Filipino ?

Answer 1

[There is no existing summary, in Filipino or in English, that anyone can readily refer to. It is a living oral tradition, still in the process of being documented. (read the draft paper, the one is refer to that cannot be quoted without author's prior permission.) But the quote below should give you a fair idea of what it's all about.]

"The Ifugao are celebrated not only for constructing an extensive rice-terrace system from the rocky mountain ranges of the Cordillera, but also for their rituals and songs that serve as “lasting memorials of an ancient culture that has maintained itself for ages.” (Lambrecht 267, 1967)

"Among these traditions is the hudhud, a non-ritual oral narrative which is chanted while weeding or harvesting, or during wakes. It is also chanted as part of the binugwa, a ritual wherein the Ifugaos exhume the bones of their dead for ritual cleansing, before these are interred again. There are more than 200 stories, which are generally composed of 40 episodes, and one complete narration may take anywhere from three to four days.

"The retelling of the exploits of mythical heroes and heroines that represent the best in the Ifugao character serves “to break the monotony of backbreaking physical labor or ease the oppressing silence of the nightly watches.” But more importantly, the hudhud is a celebration of Ifugao wealth, perhaps not surprising in a region where wealth is measured in rice fields formed by tamping down a mountain to size. In hudhud literature, all main characters are heroes and heroines of wealth and manly skill or vigor and physical beauty are the prerogatives of the wealthy.

"Also at the heart of the hudhud narratives are the legendary battles fought for love, honor and vengeance. Heroes endowed with extraordinary and sometimes magical skills go into battle for the sake of impressing a wealthy girl with his skill, or to vanquish an enemy who has kidnapped his beloved. Armed with great spears, the adversaries meet and make the rice fields their battleground. The characters fight not only to demonstrate their prowess, but also to protect the harvest.

"While the Ifugao believe that the hudhud has been a practice since time immemorial, they have no words to specify whether they mean a period of a hundred, several hundreds, or even thousands of years. However, a study by Francis Lambrecht of the topographic descriptions recurring in each hudhud tends to show that the hudhud existed even before the construction of the terrace systems. According to Dr. Jesus Peralta, the earliest C-14 dated human occupation of Banaue, Ifugao is between 1545 – 825 B.C. while the earliest dated terrace is 610 A.D. in Bunghalian, Ifugao."