Mindoro, Benguet, Cordillera, Cagayan and Samar were wondrous sites of exploration and ornithological discovery for John Whitehead. In Whitehead’s Ark, these forests are imagined and visualized like fabulous environments described in Bagobo Myths as documented by American ethnographer Laura Watson Benedict.
In “How to See the Buso”, Benedict relays instructions for seeing these demons that haunt graveyards, forests and rocks: “While the coffin for a dead man is being made, if you cut some chips from it and carry them to the place where the tree was felled from the box, and lay the chips on the stump from which the wood was cut, and then go again on the night of the funeral to the same place, you will see Buso.” If one stands near the stump, one will first see a swarm of fireflies, followed by grotesque iterations of the dead person, and finally, the Buso.
In “Adventures of the Tuglay”, Benedict tells of the journeys of the Tuglay or “old man” who defeated several buso and pursued his wife, the Moglung, on the way to her brother’s house in heaven. The Tuglay encountered several steep rock terraces, which he conquered after contemplating for eight days while chewing betel-nut. Having surmounted these terraces, he came at last to the gently-sloping Mountains of Bamboo and a meadow of gold, which he traveled through with ease.
While John Whitehead traveled through Philippine forests in pursuit of birds and scientific discovery, the Tuglay pursued love, community and self-discovery. Perhaps there is a beneficial way to combine both perspectives as they continue to shape our forests and environments today.