The Lumbia palm

A.Paulita Roa

HAVE you ever wondered why we have barangays in the city with names like Lumbia, Tagpangi, Dansolihon, Bugo, Pagatpat and Bayabas? We found out that these are names of trees, flowers and fruits that are endemic to said barangays.A good example of this is Barangay Lumbia that is named after an edilble palm that grew near the springs, creeks and under big trees.

I got a copy of the Five-Year Development Plan of  Barangay Lumbia and the portion about its history and folklore is well researched. Former barangay chairman Alan Angara should be commended for this excellent piece of work. I would like to share several portions of his work in this column.

In the 1860s, Barangay Lumbia was a densely forested area.There were several palms in the area like the buli, pitogo, kalainog, limbog and the lubi-lubi.But the most attractive of them all were the tall lumbia palms that many thought were the dweling places of the “engkantos” or the spirits.

During a severe famine, the people sought the help of the “magbabala,” a man who acted as the mediator between the spirits and man. On a night of the full moon, the men and the magbabala gathered around a lumbia palm and offered food, buyo or bettlenut and fermented wine to the spirits.Then the magbabala prayed and said a “panabitabi” or a request to stay in place where they stood for the rites lest them be trampled by the spirits. He pleaded to the spirits for forgiveness for whatever faults the people have committed that has caused the faminine. At the end of the rites, a lumbia palm was cut down to symbolize the serious intent of their ritual.

The following day, the water fetchers were surprised to see many wild pigs chewing at the trunk of the lumbia palm that was felled by the magbabala.The people summoned him so he can explain to them this phenomenon. He examined the trunk and saw that the wild pigs chewed at the trunk to be able to eat a powdery susbtance inside. The magbabala then declared the lumbia palm to be edible.

He cut down another lumbia palm and opened the trunk lengthwise. The women got their pestles and pounded the trunk until they were able to get a brown powdery substance inside that they called “onao.” They boiled this in water and later baked it into cakes sweetened with honey. In time, the lumbia palms became the staple food of the people.

In Manila, I met Mr. Noe Belsa Gapas, a phycologist and botanist of the National Museum of the Philippines. I told him about the lumbia palms and he got a thick book that contained the local and scientific names of all the plants and trees that are endemic to the Philippines. He thinks that the palm belongs to the sago family.In the book, we saw that there is a lumbia or the lumbiya with a scientific name “Metroxylon Sagu.” There is also another kind of lumbia the “Nypa Fruiticans Wurmb Arecaceae” commonly known as the nipa. However, in this case, it is the sago palm that saved the people of Lumbia from hunger and death during the great famine ages ago.