The Wedding Dance another chance before it is too late for both of us.

"
By Amador Daguio
This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg
Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which out and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket
served as the edge of the headhigh threshold. Clinging more snugly around herself.
to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried
him across to the narrow door. He slid back the cover, "You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have
stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many
After some moments during which he seemed to wait, chickens in my prayers."
he talked to the listening darkness.
"Yes, I know."
"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But
neither of us can help it." "You remember how angry you were once when you
came home from your work in the terrace because I
The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I
dark house like muffled roars of falling waters. The did it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I
woman who had moved with a start when the sliding wanted to have a child. But what could I do?"
door opened had been hearing the gangsas for she did
not know how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in "Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he
her. She gave no sign that she heard Awiyao, but said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the
continued to sit unmoving in the darkness. crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up
the ceiling.
But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart
pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of the Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to
room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With bare pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring in
fingers he stirred the covered smoldering embers, and place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she
blew into the stove. When the coals began to glow, did this the split bamboo went up and came down with
Awiyao put pieces of pine on them, then full round logs a slight rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously
as his arms. The room brightened. called in her care through the walls.

"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused
women?" He felt a pang inside him, because what he before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy face, then
said was really not the right thing to say and because turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over
the woman did not stir. "You should join the dancers," the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup and dipped it in
he said, "as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from
at the woman huddled in a corner of the room, leaning the mountain creek early that evening.
against the wall. The stove fire played with strange
moving shadows and lights "I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you
upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you to
sullenness was not because of anger or hate. come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I
came to tell you that Madulimay, although I am
"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me marrying her, can never become as good as you are.
for this separation, go out and dance. One of the men She is not as strong in planting beans, not as fast in
will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean.
will marry you. Who knows but that, with him, you will You are one of the best wives in the
be luckier than you were with me." whole village."

"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want "That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She
any other man." looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to smile.

He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came
well that I won't want any other woman either. You closer to her. He held her face between his hands and
know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked
you?" away. Never again would he hold her face. The next
day she would not be his any more. She would go back
She did not answer him. to her parents. He let go of her face, and she bent to
the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged
"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated. softly at the split bamboo floor.

"Yes, I know," she said weakly. "This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make
it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will build
"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You another house for Madulimay."
cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to you."
"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to
"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed my own house. My parents are old. They will need help
about to cry. in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the
rice."
"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a
good wife. I have nothing to say against you." He set "I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains
some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a during the first year of our marriage," he said. "You
man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too long know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the
to wait. Yes, we have waited too long. We should have two of us."
"I have no use for any field," she said. "I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care
about the house. I don't care for anything but you. I'll
He looked at her, then turned away, and became have no other man."
silent. They were silent for a time.
"Then you'll always be fruitless."
"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right
for you to be here. They will wonder where you are, "I'll go back to my father, I'll die."
and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the
dance." "Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you
hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You do
"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for not want my name to live on in our tribe."
the last time. The gangsas are playing."
She was silent.
"You know that I cannot."
"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means
"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved out of
because of my need for a child. You know that life is the mountains; nobody will come after me."
not worth living without a child. The man have mocked
me behind my back. You know that." "If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said
thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't
"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will want you to fail."
bless you and Madulimay."
"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of
She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and us will die together. Both of us will vanish from the life
sobbed. of our tribe."

She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the The gongs thundered through the walls of their house,
high hopes they had in the beginning of their new life, sonorous and faraway.
the day he took her away from her parents across the
roaring river, on the other side of the mountain, the "I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my
trip up the trail which they had to climb, the steep beads," she half-whispered.
canyon which they had to cross. The waters boiled in
her mind in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; "You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times.
the waters tolled and growled, My grandmother said they come from up North, from
resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the slant-eyed people across the sea. You keep them,
the stiff cliffs; they were far away now from somewhere Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."
on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked
carefully at the buttresses of rocks they had to step "I'll keep them because they stand for the love you
on---a slip would have meant death. have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and have
nothing to give."
They both drank of the water then rested on the other
bank before they made the final climb to the other side She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling
of the mountain. out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O Awiyao!
They are looking for you at the dance!"
She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his
features---hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense "I am not in hurry."
of lightness in his way of saying things which often
made her and the village people laugh. How proud she "The elders will scold you. You had better go."
had been of his humor. The muscles where taut and
firm, bronze and compact in their hold upon his "Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."
skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at
his body the carved out of the mountains "It is all right with me."
five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as
if a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms and He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the
legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and tribe," he said.
for that she had lost him.
"I know," she said.
She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them.
"Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did He went to the door.
everything to have a child," she said passionately in a
hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at my "Awiyao!"
body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it
could work fast in the fields; it could climb the He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he
mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I turned to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him to
am useless. I must die." leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it
that made a man wish for a child? What was it in life,
"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in
arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast quivered the silence of the night, in the communing with
against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself
hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair flowed down that made man wish for the laughter and speech of a
in cascades of gleaming darkness. child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the
unwritten law demand, anyway, that a man, to be a the bonfire leaped in countless sparks which spread
man, must have a child to come after him? And if he and rose like yellow points and died out in the night.
was fruitless--but he loved Lumnay. It was like taking The blaze reached out to her like a spreading radiance.
away half of his life to leave her like this. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding
feast.
"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the
light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked to the Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away
farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they from the village. She thought of the new clearing of
kept their worldly possession---his battle-ax and his beans which Awiyao and she had started to make only
spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug four moons before. She followed the trail above the
out from the darkness the beads which had been given village.
to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the
beads on, and tied them in place. The white and jade When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it
and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream water
suddenly clung to him, clung to his neck as if she was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in
would never let him go. the moonlight shadows among the trees and shrubs.
Slowly she climbed the mountain.
"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she
closed her eyes and hurried her face in his neck. When Lumnay reached the clearing, she could see
from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge of
The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the
loosened, and he buried out into the night. far-off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their
sonorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain.
Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far to
went to the door and opened it. The moonlight struck her, to speak to her in the language of unspeaking
her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the whole love. She felt the pull of their gratitude for her
village. sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like
many gangsas.
She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to
her through the caverns of the other houses. She knew Lumnay thought of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had
that all the houses were empty and that the whole known long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his
tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And yet heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his
was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not home. She had met him one day as she was on her
have the most lightness and grace? Could she not, way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at
alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for the spring to drink and rest; and she had made him
grains on the ground, beautifully timed to the beat of drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell.
the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, After that it did not take him long to decide to throw
and the women envy the way she stretched her hands his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token of
like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as his desire to marry her.
she danced? How long ago did she dance at her own
wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing
once danced in her honor, were dancing now in honor moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of the
of another whose only claim was that perhaps she bean plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to
could give her husband a child. sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and
she was lost among them.
"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she
know? How can anybody know? It is not right," she A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more
said. harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding
the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but
Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the moist where the dew got into them, silver to look at,
dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the
elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; morning comes. The stretching of the bean pods full
nobody could take him away from her. Let her be the length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go
first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten on.
rule that a man may take another woman. She would
tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the
relent. Was not their love as strong as the river? growing bean pods.

She made for the other side of the village where the
dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the whole
place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas
clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they were
calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the
dancers clearly now. The men leaped lightly with their
gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in
feast garments and beads, tripping on the ground like
graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed
to the flaming call of the dance; strange heat in her
blood welled up, and she started to run. But the
gleaming brightness of the bonfire commanded her to
stop. Did anybody see her approach? She stopped.
What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of