DANCING WITH THE GHOSTS OF THE SEA: EXPERIENCING THE PAGKANDULI RITUAL OF THE SAMA DILAUT (BAJAU LAUT) IN SIKULAN, TAWI-TAWI, SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES
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Abstract
Ritual reveals much about a culture through its elements, structure, and purpose. This paper discusses the importance of sacred dance performance by introducing the bansa, a category of “ghosts,†in the cosmology of the Sama Dilaut (Bajau Dilaut) of Sitangkai Island, Tawi-Tawi, Philippines. By having the Pagkanduli ritual of the
Sama Sitangkai of Tawi-Tawi, Southern Philippines, it describes the process of the ritual and its significance to the community livelihood. The first part narrates the various phases of the Pagkanduli ritual from the journey from Sitangkai to Sikulan Island to perform the dance named mag-igal under the dangkan tree. It starts with the procession to the dangkan tree and moves to the grove to perform the mag-igal, and then return to the dangkan tree area for games, and finally farewell incantation to the spirits to mark the ending of the ceremony. The second part of the paper provides an analysis on the types of bansa and the qualities of its character and categories of what they possess, what are done to them, and what they purportedly do. The paper puts forward an argument for the importance of ritual in the formation of identity via memory making and embodied practice.
Keywords: Pagkanduli ritual, bansa, identity, memory making, and cosmology
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