thugnaasty:

so BIBAK and other people actually worried about our culture, you know how we always talk about preserving our dances and songs and whatnot? what about the instruments? i feel like even in the philippines, the art of instrument making isn’t getting passed down. this is like batok in kalinga. the last traditional batok artist is really old and really sick and has been teaching her grand daughter how to do the traditional tattooing, but can she really retain the art and keep it going? i hope so.

i mean, sure, we can teach other generations how to dance, but if we don’t even have the music for those dances then to what will it amount? all of our respective tribes use the gongs. if there are no more artisans to create the gongs, i guess we’ll still have the ones our families have… but things happen over the years. one can be lost, broken, anything… then the set it broken. and the kalinga bamboo instruments! or the sulibao for the benguet! or the little metal things that my dad and uncle art play… lol. we’ve grown up with these things, but can you imagine living without them?

it honestly makes me want to cry.

i don’t know. i’m fearful. on the real.