[ARTICLE] Masino Intaray playing the Kudyapi all the while rendering poems and epics depicting the deepest and oldest traditions of Palawan

    Masino Intaray is from the highlands of Southern Palawan, one of Palawan's major indigenous cultural communities, along with the Batak and Tagbanwa. The profoundly lyrical and nuanced concord of human beings with each other and with nature among the Palawan is the kulilal and bagit traditions - both of which are mastered by the Palawan. The kulilal is a very lyrical poem about passionate love, sung to the accompaniment of a man's kudyapi (two-stringed lute) and a woman's pagang (bamboo zither).

    The bagit, which is also played on the kudyapi, is strictly instrumental music that depicts the rhythms, movements, and sounds of nature, such as birds, monkeys, snakes, insects chirping, leaves rustling, the elements, and trance music. Masino, a brilliant poet, bard artist, and musician born at the head of the river in Makagwa valley on the foothills of Mantalingayan mountain, is an excellent master of the basal, kulilal, and bagit. The aforementioned lyrical poems are his most well-known, flexible art performances that are loyal to his Palawan indigenous roots, reflecting nature in its purest form through sounds, rhythms, and, on occasion, dance.

    Masino Intaray possesses the creative memory, endurance, intellectual clarity, and spiritual intent to chant all night, for successive nights, innumerable tultul (epics), sudsungit (narratives), and tuturan (myths of origin and teachings of ancestors). Masino and the Makagwa valley basal and kulilal ensemble are innovative, traditional artists of the greatest caliber. Intaray was honored in 1993 and died in 2013.

Reference

 Kallos S. (2019) Masino Intaray Works and Contribution

https://masinointaray.wordpress.com/

Photo taken by Renato S. Rastrollo

https://www.flickr.com/photos/govph/16360869176

Author of work: Vasquez, Mary Rose T.