The River of Exchange: Music of Agusan Manobo and Visayan Relations in Caraga, Mindanao, Philippines (review)

José Buenconsejo’s The River of Exchange: Music of Agusan Manobo and Visayan Relations in Caraga, Mindanao, Philippines examines the ways in which Agusan Manobo song and ritual have contributed to peaceful interactions and coexistence with Cebuano-speaking Visayans in Loreto, Agusan Valley, in Mindanao Island, Philippines. The Agusan Manobos have long interacted with outside groups, but it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that the growing commercial logging industry and the influx of Visayan settlers began to transform Manobo territory and their way of life. Many Manobos have abandoned their traditional hunting and gathering economy, as well as swidden farming, which incorporates the agricultural technique of cutting and burning vegetation. Instead, most Manobos have chosen to settle in towns and assimilate into Visayan culture by converting to Catholicism, adopting a cash economy and intensive wet-rice cultivation, and playing Visayan and Western music. Using the metaphor of a river that connects the two groups, Buenconsejo examines how the Agusan Manobos and Visayans have taken elements of each other’s culture and made them their own.

Despite the film’s title, the so-called “river of exchange” between the Manobos and the Visayan settlers is more like a one-way stream. Buenconsejo does an excellent job of showing how Manobos have adopted Visayan cultural practices, but there is not much indication that Manobo culture has likewise influenced Visayan settlers. The film includes footage of Manobo youth strumming the guitar, and singing and dancing to pop music. It seems that younger generations have no interest in practicing older Manobo music performance and rituals. Even if they did, they would never perform them in towns where Visayans could watch. It is only in seclusion or in Manobo swiddens located in the outskirts of town that Manobos are inclined to practice traditional song and ritual. In some rituals, a Visayan spirit may be incarnated as a commanding authoritative figure, which is indicative of the unequal power relations between the two groups: Visayans assert their dominance even in the Manobos’ own rituals. The mute spirit that often accompanies the Visayan spirit seems to oppose the latter’s authority, but it cannot speak, which is perhaps reflective of how Manobos view themselves.

In addition to rituals, much of the film is devoted to tud-om, an improvised song form that, according to Buenconsejo, can prevent violence by allowing the singer to convey politely a difficult message, while at the same time, placating the person to whom the song is addressed. If this is so, one cannot help but wonder if this song form is actually an expression of a people who recognize that they are a marginalized group. In other words, do the Agusan Manobos and Visayan settlers enjoy peaceful relations because the Manobos always strive to appease those who seem to have more power? However, if this song form is only performed in the outskirts of town and presumably only among Manobos, it is not clear how it contributes to peaceful interactions between Manobos and Visayans. It is also not clear whether tud-om is a song form that is only performed between family and friends, or if it is used among strangers as well.

There is more of a clear exchange in the performing arts between Agusan Manobos and Visayans in the town ethnic festival, which features street dancing competitions that simulate Manobo rituals. Buenconsejo describes these competitions as forms of cultural appropriation used by the local government to draw in money-bearing tourists. He believes that the rituals, when taken out of their original contexts of providing moral lessons and healing, do not belong on the public stage as a part of a festival. Buenconsejo’s claims are valid, but he dismisses the possibility that the Visayan high school students who take part in these competitions, who...