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By: Mark Illusala

Kaamulan festival is an iconic Bukidnon ethnic festival held yearly in Malaybalay. It features street dancing, presentation of floats and ground presentation.

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Ritual

We got to the site early enough that we saw the tribe datu’s setting up the ritual area on the middle of the street. It’s just a small table covered with red cloth enough for offerings such as soft drinks, wine, biscuits, candies and coins. On the ground were three chickens and a pig.

A few minutes after setting up, the ritual started. The ritualist started the ritual with a prayer using a native language that only they, along with the other tribe datu understand, it was quite long and then it ended with the sacrifice of the lives of the three chicken and the pig with their blood spilled over the streets as a way of cleansing it and marks the start of the event.

Street Dance

The street was filled with colors, colors of the costumes and props; the sound of the instruments, the Kaamulan music loop and the happy noise of the spectators.

On the street, one by one the contingents paraded while dancing going to Malaybalay’s capitol grounds for the ground presentation.

Ground Presentation

Even in the scorching heat, the capitol grounds were filled with participants and all were patiently waiting and eager for their turn to present their stuff. There were 8 contingents all in all coming from municipalities of the province namely Malitbog, Kalilangan, Kitaotao, Manolo Fortich, Malaybalay, Valencia, Maramag and Don Carlos. All of them presented with style and according to their culture, it was so good that it was hard for me to judge who will win the contest

I had a great time during the Kaamulan festival, the event was fun even though I heard that the previous Kaamulan were way much better.

 

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