Chapter 8

The Story of Kangmenia

In the very old days in Katugasan, there was a time of drought and disease. Datu Umapaw was planning to leave the settlement to look for a new place for his people. “This land has been cursed,” his adviser, Datu Bognotan concluded. Their crops had failed after the rainy months and a strange disease afflicted the people. It was particularly fatal for the children. They would be seized by a fever that made them delirious and the fever would not break. They would writhe pathetically, the whites of their eyes showing through half-closed eyes. Then they would die. The mothers wept for days. Those whose children had not yet been afflicted were afraid and stayed away from the sick. But the sickness would not leave. Datu Umapaw could not accept that another child would be buried. He began to make plans to leave together with his council. They all agreed.

“Let me look for a cure, Datu,” the young warrior Omayon suggested to the council. “Omayon, you are not a father yet,” Datu Umapaw told him, “you do not know the suffering of the fathers and mothers. We must leave. There is nothing for us here anymore.” Omayon was just as desperate as any of them. He was still strong, unlike the others. He knew that he needed to go deep into the forest to find an answer. But he had never gone to the forest alone before. He was always with his fellow hunters. But he felt compelled. He knew that something was waiting for him there. He knew that he would find an answer. He went with only his spear and bow and arrow. He knew which plants in the forest were edible because his mother had been a healer.

He went looking, not knowing when he would return to the settlement. On his third day in the forest, he saw a deer but it was a different kind. The ones that he and his fellow warriors hunted were brown and spotted. This one was all white, like a bleached sea stone. He instantly knew that it was the sign he was looking for. Perhaps, if he killed it and brought it back to the settlement, it would cure all the sick. So he began to stalk the deer. He followed it for several hours, making good time. He saw that the deer was tiring.

The deer approached a stream and began to drink from the water. Omayon emerged from the rock from where he was hiding and knew that it was his time to strike. However, instead of seeing the deer by the water, he saw a maiden sitting by the stream. He became confused. Where did she come from?

He continued to approach. To his surprise, the maiden looked directly at him, as if she had been expecting him.

“What is it, warrior Omayon?” she asked him. He was surprised that she knew his name because he had never seen her before. She was very beautiful. Her skin glowed in the moonlight and she had long black hair. She smiled at him as if she was at home, waiting for him at a celebration.

“How did you know my name, lady?” Omayon asked. He concluded, from her appearance, that she was a datu’s daughter and addressed her as such.
“I know many things.”
“Lady, I came to the forest to seek an answer.”
“Are you seeking an answer? Or a cure?”
“A cure, lady.” Once again, he was amazed.
“You must be more specific when you ask.”
“Lady, can you help us? We are desperate. Our children are dying.”
“How would that concern me?” she asked.
“Lady, you must have mercy on us,” he said. He knelt before her and touched her feet. At this point, he knew that she was no ordinary woman.

At his touch, the woman knew his heart. It was her weakness, the hearts of humans—their beating, fiery hearts, their beautiful love, their foolish yearnings, and their desperate and triumphant struggles. She felt his sorrow. She felt the movement of his whole settlement, the death of each child. Whereas she was used to feeling the entire forest, the deaths, the births, cycles of life, in this one she felt his thoughts as well, the complexity of his guilt, the unstoppable desire to remain on the land, to be close to the forest, her forest.

“Lady, you do not need to. I know you are powerful. I know that my request is puny and insignificant. But still I ask,” he said, his head bowed low. His humility touched her.

“And if I go back to your people, what will you give me in return?” she asked. She only wanted to test him.
“I will give you my life, lady,” he said. She knew it was true.
“But I do not want your life. I have so much life here,” she gestured all around her.
“I give you my devotion,” he said, not knowing what else to say. She gestured for him to stand.
“Lead me to your people,” she said.

And so it was that the warrior Omayon returned from the forest after three days with a maiden so fair that people could not look at her face. They would look but they would turn away. Her face was like the sun—so bright, so beautiful, and so unbearable.

She kept her word to Omayon. Within a week, the sickness disappeared from the people. She made poultices from strange plants from the forest that even the healers did not use. She put herbs and powders in their homes, lining corners and crossing thresholds. She also employed all the warriors to empty the ditch near the animals that they raised. She told them that the water had become evil. They did all that they were told. She inspected their crops and prepared special water made with herbs and leaves for the forest. She sprinkled it over their dying plants and in another two weeks, they saw that the leaves of their vegetables had started to lose their brown rot.

The people rejoiced and planned a feast in honor of their savior.

“What is your name, lady, so that we will remember how you saved our settlement?” Datu Umapaw asked the woman.
“I am Menia,” she said simply.
“We will name our settlement Kangmenia, in your honor,” he said, bowing to her. She accepted his obeisance but asked him to stand immediately.

The people knew that this was to be their home from then on. The warrior Omayon asked the lady Menia what else there was that she would need from him. She smiled at him. “Nothing more, brave warrior.”

“I would ask you to be my wife,” Omayon said, “but you are a goddess.”
“No, Omayon, I would not ask that of you. Go and marry one of the village girls. Have children. Prosper.”

Menia returned to the forest, never to be seen again. Sometimes Omayon would still hunt deep in the forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of the white deer. But he never saw her again. For a very long time, the region was indeed called Kangmenia. But after the Spanish arrived, the name of town became Maria, after the Virgin Mary. But the people still remembered who the town was really named after, a beautiful and kind woman from the forest who saved them all. Her name was Menia.

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