Princesses and whiteners

Social science research has become more complicated with the emergence of the Internet. Besides the regular books and journals in a library, social scientists surf and scour the Internet looking at what people are saying on blogs and social media. YouTube, too, has become an important resource with its postings reflecting the good, the bad and the ugly, as well as becoming an archive of research being done by mass media.

During the weekend I was looking for videos featuring traditional medical practitioners (for example, the hilot and albularyo), I found many postings; but while roaming around the site, I also found materials on the binukot. I found myself taking a long but welcome detour as I watched the videos, two of the best ones from GMA’s I-Witness.

But before going into the videos, let me explain what the binukot is, or rather who they are.

Young girls would be identified at an early age to be kept in seclusion, avoiding exposure to the sun because they had to be kept fair in complexion. As much as possible, their feet were not to touch the ground, so they were constantly being carried around.

These binukot were being groomed to be married off later, their value as a bride much higher than the non-binukot. In addition, they were schooled in the traditions of the village, taught to memorize epics and other oral literature, becoming keepers of culture.

You find similar traditions throughout the world, often vested with religious meanings as in Nepal’s kumari, believed to be reincarnations of the goddess Kali. Selected at a very early age, they are kept too in seclusion in temples, appearing in public only 13 times a year to be venerated by the public. Upon reaching puberty, the kumari retires, to be replaced by another prepubescent girl.

Our binukot are not worshipped or venerated, and they keep their position throughout life, even after they are married off, called to recite the epics during special occasions such as a wedding.

Rapunzel

GMA’s Kara David did a special on our binukot in 2004 entitled “Ang Huling Prinsesa (The Last Princess),” interviewing elderly binukot in Capiz and Iloilo. The other feature on the binukot also came from GMA but was a short news item, explaining that the main character in the telenovela series “Amaya” was inspired by the binukot.

As depicted in Amaya and in Kara’s documentary, the binukot come close to the western concept of a princess, but their lives can be tragic, coming closer to that of Rapunzel, the well-known German fairy tale of a maiden kept in a tower by an evil enchantress, Dame Gothel, whose power resides in Rapunzel’s long hair, never to be cut. A prince discovers Rapunzel and is able to climb into the tower, pulling himself up using her hair.

Apparently, the original versions of this fairy tale were quite bawdy, the prince not quite content to do wall climbing and Rapunzel asking her evil enchantress guardian, innocently, why her clothes were getting tighter.

But let’s leave Rapunzel and return to our binukot and their sad plight. Sure they are pampered and spoiled but their lives are lonely and they become crippled, physically and emotionally, from their sequestration. Alice Magus, an anthropologist from UP Visayas, was interviewed for Kara’s documentary and Magus noted that the decline of the binukot probably started during the Second World War, when Japanese soldiers would raid the villages. The able-bodied were able to flee but the binukot, unable to walk properly, were left behind and …

Living traditions

Kara David’s documentary takes an unexpected twist as she focuses on Balay Turun-an in Capiz, a school for living tradition where young people, male and female, can learn local epics and dances. It seems the epic poems were passed on from one famous binukot, Susan Caballero, to her son, Tata Pedring.

Kara compares the young students at the Balay Turun-an to the binukot, a new generation that will be free, so unlike the binukot. One of the songs featured in the documentary, sung by the young students, was about a binukot saddened by not being given permission to go to some event, and crying while clinging to a pillow.

Let me add still another twist to the binukot tale. My interest in the binukot dates back about two years when we began a research project with the University of Amsterdam looking at what young people use for their bodies, whether taken internally as with vitamins and tonics, or applied as in cosmetics. Our team was aware too of skin whiteners but still ended up shocked at the extent of their use, despite these products not having been proven to be effective in actually whitening the skin. (Some chemicals “work” by irritating the skin to give it a pinkish glow.)

The traditional explanation for these products’ popularity puts the blame on a colonial mentality, an attempt to look like westerners, but in our interviews young people, both females and males, talked about how being fair raised their social status because to be fair meant they did not have to work under the sun, something associated with the poor. Being maputi (white) also meant being malinis (clean), coming together to create kutis mayaman, the complexion of the rich.

Reading about the binukot made our team realize that perhaps the desire for fairness is not just a colonial legacy. In a sense then, we’re seeing a new form of binukot in young people fearful of becoming dark, with a self-imposed sequestration and a psychological dependency on the skin whiteners. Alas, there is no heritage component to all this, the “knowledge” acquired being limited to ways of keeping the skin fair, of dressing up to look like the upper classes.

There is irony in the way we put a premium on fair skin, when Caucasians and the rich are looking for ways to get themselves darker skin, as in a nice tan.

We should teach our young people that their self-worth should have nothing to do with being fair or tanned.   Parents need to show their pride in their sons and daughters, maybe affectionately called princes and princesses, for what they contribute to society, rather than in what they do to their skin and their bodies.

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