Alamat ng Palay (Rice)

Palay is the Tagalog word for rice in the husk. Milled grain is bigas, and cooked rice is kanin. Because rice is so central to daily life, many Filipino peoples tell how it first came to them. No old version that can be checked is known, so there is no single alamat to retell. Instead it gives the background that these stories grew from.

Science puts the first domestication of Asian rice in China, between about 8,200 and 13,500 years ago. Austronesian-speaking settlers then carried rice into the Philippine islands, at least 3,500 years ago. So the crop is very old here, and stories about its origin are old as well.

In the Cordillera, rice shapes the whole year. Ifugao farmers keep rites for each stage, from planting to eating. They grow a black rice called kalinayan, and they hold thanksgiving feasts after the harvest. A rest day follows, called tungul or tango, when field work is forbidden. Lowland retellings in school books often present rice as a gift. Each people tells its own version, so ask who is telling it and where.