Excavating a hidden bell story from the Philippines: a revised myth of cultural-linguistic loss and recuperation

Abstract

Stories of hidden valuable artefacts are told in many parts of the Philippines. One such tale is of a church bell, concealed to prevent theft but now beyond reach (Motif V115.1.3 Sunken church bell cannot be raised). Typically, these stories are transmitted orally. However the small Eskaya community of southeast Bohol maintains a written version of a lost-bell tale included in a larger intergenerational archive of handcopied literature. Since the early 1980s, the Eskaya have been an object of media interest for having consciously created their own “indigenous” language, writing system and literary tradition. This paper examines the meanings of the Eskaya variant of the lost-bell story in the context of community aspirations for recognition as an indigenous minority. In the Eskaya version, pre-Hispanic native “faith” is valorized over the corrupted Christianity introduced by Spain. The deliberately concealed church bell and its promised future retrieval recapitulates wider postcolonial narratives of cultural-linguistic suppression and revitalization, underscoring the agency of Eskaya people in their retrieval (or reinvention) of a pre-colonial indigenous identity.