The following is an excerpt from my research promoting Philippine mythology and storytelling through interactive art. It also summarizes my artist statement for my artwork. You may also check out the article I wrote for The Aswang Project, Modern Interpretations of the Tungkung Langit and Alunsina Story, where I breakdown the theoretical framework of theater productions as well as my own adaptations of Tungkung Langit and Alunsina. Or if you're not familiar with the story, you may read "Tungkung Langit and Alunsina" here.
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desaparecido
noun
plural noun: desaparecidos
(especially in South America) a person who has disappeared
The phenomena you just learned about in the video may call to mind the Panay-Visayan creation myth entitled "Tungkung Langit and Alunsina" also known as "Alamat ng Ulan". According to this myth, whenever it thunders or rains, it is Tungkung Langit, Pillar of the Sky, calling his beloved Alunsina back home after she ran away because of his wrath at her disobedience. Alunsina however is still yet to be found to this day. The creation of the world as we know it, it is said, was an attempt to make the world a better place for the lost.
In my previous post, I wrote about how mythology is “tribal propaganda”, the means through which the old communicates to the young, in the article entitled, "Shouldn't Mythology Be Dead by Now?" There is a common misconception that modern people no longer create myths. Myths, in this sense, do not refer to untruths, but a genre of narratives about the way the world works.
Now one may ask, so what if it's propaganda?
Why do we tell stories?
Not only do the interpretation or dismissal of these supposed “truths of experience”, a.k.a. myths, shape the way one views the world, but “literature is the education of the human heart”, and it “always speaks to the immediate wound” (Cordero, 2017).
Interestingly, literature has many ways of treating fresh wounds. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “the only way to shut a hole is to make it bigger” (Degrazia) .
“Tungkung Langit and Alunsina”, a Panay-Visayan creation myth, is special because it teaches us that hindi lahat ng nawala ay kawalan, sa umpisa, hindi naman ito atin (not everything that was lost is a loss. It wasn't ours to begin with.). We know this to be true for Tungkung Langit because separation was what lead to creation, and from the beginning, Alunsina was already called “The Unmarried One”.
“Tungkung Langit and Alunsina” is ultimately a story about love and loss. At the heart of this classic, it aims to reconcile how there can be a benevolent god when there is so much suffering in the world.
This story has a striking parallel to the creation story in Genesis. God gave man free will to enjoy everything He has created in Eden. He gave man liberty to all but one of His creations. But when man sought for themselves what was forbidden and disobeyed His only command, they were separated from God and it lead to suffering.
Many argue that either there is no God or that God is cruel because the world is full of suffering, when in fact, Genesis explains that suffering is a result of evil, disobedience against God. This explanation is called Theodicy. It comes from two Greek words: "theos" meaning “god”, and "dikē" which means “justice”; literally meaning, “justifying God”; an explanation for why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil” (Sherry, n.d.).
In the same way, "Tungkung Langit and Alunsina" depicts the creation of the world as a painful birth. He may have made the world a better place, but the world is not able to escape his tears. Just as in Genesis, separation lead to suffering. Yet the same tears that symbolize suffering is in fact a reminder that Tungkung Langit continues to reach out to Alunsina. And the fact remains that there is beauty in the world that was created. What is even more interesting in this story is that Alunsina is explicitly described to be a lazy, selfish, jealous goddess, while Tungkung Langit is kind, loving, and industrious. Yet even though Alunsina wasn't perfect, Tungkung Langit loved her anyway. He did everything he can to reach out to her, all without violating her free will. This tells us that just because there is suffering in the world (a result of free will), doesn't mean we must tire of reaching out to the lost and making the world a better place for them.
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