Filipiniana.net, the premier Philippine digital library, brings to the Internet "The World of Agusan Manobo Music," as it hosts Dr. José S. Buenconsejo's multimedia interpretation of an ethnolinguistic group that populate the eastern part of Mindanao— the Agusan Manobos. Focusing on the study of the sociocultural importance of the indigenous group's traditional instrumental music, this project contains audio and video files of songs and rituals that vividly reflect the ethnonational consciousness, societal structures, customs, traditions, belief system and other sociocultural institutions of the Agusan Manobos.
"In society, music does not exist alone. It is multimedia. Instrumental music, for example, is linked to myths of nature, propels and synchronizes dance movements, and it can simulate speech. More importantly, Agusan Manobo unaccompanied, solo song tud-om is associated with shamanic ritual performances. This verbal art is obviously multimedia for in ritual performance, participants experience song along with visual and kinesthetic gestures and objects. Hence, it is experienced multisensorially.
Thus, to explore the interconnections between music and the Manobo world, is to examine the performative contexts of music as multimedia, expressing multifaceted social meanings. Voice, body (gesture), and objects interweave a complex texture that constitutes the Manobo experience of music from this faraway place." (José S. Buenconsejo)
(Photos by Charles Nikolas J. Buenconsejo and Narciso S. Buenconsejo)
