Weaving Dreams of a World Among Worlds: T’nalak of the T’boli as an Ecological Practice

Abstract

George Marshall claims that environmental advocacy does not get enough traction despite the urgency of the climate crisis because of two things. One, the human brain reacts to things that are personal, definite, visible, and urgent. Climate change does not exhibit any of these and, thus, tends to be ignored. Two, most consciousness-raising efforts take the scientific route, disseminating information using technical jargon. While it appeals to the analytic side of the brain, it does not compel action. The brain’s intuitive/emotional side must be affected to elicit an effective response to an event. Affect is achieved creatively, especially through stories with which people can identify. The modern world, however, shuns stories as pre-scientific, outmoded, and false. Using a pluriversal view where the coexistence of different but overlapping epistemologies is imaginable, this paper shows that the reactivation of marginalized knowledge systems could counter the dominance and universalism of the (Western) modern world. Traditional epistemologies, as performances, could model the intuitive and personal relationship with the environment claimed to be effective in compelling climate action. It demonstrates this through the t’nalak culture of the T’boli, one of the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines. T’nalak-making is a sacred ritual that performs a cultural ecology that sees the world as divine, composed of spiritual beings that guard natural resources. As such, the T’boli build relationships with them by respecting and caring for the environment where these spirits dwell and rule. As the t’nalak gains wide recognition through the performance of the annual T’nalak Festival and the t’nalak itself gains protection from modern systems as an intellectual property, the t’nalak-based cultural ecology could inspire a similar attitude toward the planet to help mitigate the effect of climate change.