Gi-unsa kaha ug paglandi atong katigulangan? precolonial ?? landian/marriage thread kay balentayms and walay ko bblabs

im kidding i wouldve made this thread bisan may bblabs man ko first thing to note is the importance of betel nut chew. its like cigarettes, its mildly narcotic and you usually offer it to someone in either amicability or intimacy

to further pound in its importance: the preparation, exchange, and serving of betel nut was the most important social act among Visayans. men carried necessary ingredients in little baskets, like cigarette packs. women or men could offer partially chewed quids as flirtation

if a woman sends betel nut as a response to some man's secret request to flirt with her to make ligaw her was an acceptance. IF a woman sends it to a man without request, then it's an invitation to make landi

on to poetry: it must be reiterated that precolonial visayas (and this probably carried down to modern bisaya of course) were an intensely poetic culture. ordinary visayan speech was metaphor + imagery! this is why in my writing i've eschewed similes and go straight for metaphor

men, women, children are referred to by the names of birds, flowers, animals, even weapons they resemble: kiwo-kiwo (the wavy kalis/kris) was a cunning man, the red-faced are "dapdap blossoms", somebody who is talkative is luxuriant foliage, undecorated teeth is a chaw of coconut

formal visayan poetry had its own special vocabulary. Scott mentions that "handoy" was the poetic term for damsels, and "guhay" is the poetic term for slaves. Scott mentions that: "the essence of Visayan poetic skill lay not so much in a command of vocabulary as in the--

--ability to use words figuratively to create subtle images". Alcina says: "they no doubt excel us, for the language they use in their poems,... is very different from what they use in common everyday speech... even when using the ordinary words... what they say in verse is so--

--figurative that everything is the subtlest metaphor, and for one who doesn't know and understand them, it is impossible to understand them in it." you can see this in most bisaya languages: sinugbuanon, waray, hiligaynon, and probably some other ph languages

Scott mentions: "...when two lovers sang to each other, their words became mere symbols that were understood by nobody but the two of them"

you should know that the visayans had many different poetic forms, to rival the greeks even: ambahan was the most common. ambahan was an unhrymed seven-syllable couplet that had to contain a complete thought, and could be interchanged--

--and still make sense. i don't have a good enough grasp of hiligaynon, waray, or sinugbuanon right now to make an example, go awf bisaya poets anyway balak was a poetic debate (using ambahan) between a man and a woman on the subject of love.

bikal was another poetic contest using ambahan that consisted of them satirizing each other's physical or moral shortcomings with no hard feelings, which we still do just not in poem form anymore

so in precolonial visayas if u wanted a bblabs you needed to be good at poetry or else. the subing had a sound that could be shaped into code words understood only by the player and his sweetheart, so it was the courtship instrument

flirtation, as we can see, was kinda done secretly. in a kind of "only you and i can understand this". it was their part of the world. them and the gods and the trees only.

of course, datu/aristocrat flirting worked kind of differently: they would kidnap princesses to make into wives, or other datu would offer their daughters to create marriage alliances with other settlements and villages. aristocrat daughters were kept veiled so that they--

--could be sold away, etc. etc.. datu chiefs would have a primary wife and then multiple concubines. the popular hinilawod epic of panay had the main guy going around collecting wives from heaven and hell

slaves/servants on the other hand would simply be married off by their masters. weddings of datu were important social events in settlements. datu would have to pay bride price to the father of the daughter to be able to marry them

and the bride price HAD to be returned in the case of divorce (o dba may divorce na cla). the bride price was distributed among the kin group, which they would use to pay for their own bride prices in the future

aristocrat engagement had the relatives or friends of the suitor to open proceedings with the girl's daughter and it's all very long and complicated and it had spears striking ladders and counters being placed on gongs on the floor

during the wedding celebration, man and woman would sit next to each other tapos pa-shy shy pa muna sila raw haha tangina. and then their hair would be tied to each other

the newlyweds would eventually retire to the lady's chambers (usually the girl's bukot) and then tangina they had to pay off relatives who would bar the entrance, light a fire under the bukot, or stay within the house with torches haha gagi chill

and then the wedding feast was a prestige feast! meaning it was a moment to strengthen power, so surrounding settlements might be invited, and it would last as long as ten days

padre chirino recorded that divorce was allowed for the reasons of incompatibility, neglect, or misconduct (catch up naman tayo modern republic)

important to note that men that became asug (women thru priesthood) were considered societally women so they would've been weaving and doing other societally women things, including getting married to big dako datu men

like precolonial philippines/southeast asia? check out gubat banwa:

Gubat Banwa Early Access by makapatag

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Tactical Martial Arts and War Drama in Fantasy Medieval Philippines

https://makapatag.itch.io/gubat-banwa

like reading? consider the web serial set in gubat banwa:

Princess Murders The Hero

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The Hero Must Die.

http://princessmurdersthehero.com