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SINAIT, ILOCOS SUR: THE TOWN OF MANY LEGENDS

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inait is a small idyllic town north of Vigan in the province of Ilocos Sur. Though bereft of the modern trimmings that characterize most of the neighboring localities, its charm never fails to court the attention of any visitor around. For the town is one place exploding with pastoral beauty, lush vegetation, green fields, towering bamboo grooves and a deep blue sea.

But Sinait is not only known for its indigenous attractions. Exploring deeper into the history of the town, one can hardly distinguish the line that separates myth from reality. The reason is, you can actually obtain, feel and even see the truth of many legends people used to tell about our hometown. Let us take, for instance the name of the town, Sinait, so the old folks say, came from the native word "Sin-nait" meaning competition, which was the brainchild of the then Spanish conquistador, Juan de Salcedo. It is recalled during his time as Encomiendero of Ilocos region, Sinait (not yet named during that time) was his favorite hideaway. One day, while the young Spanish fighter was taking his respite in this peaceful and tranquil town, he conceived the idea of conducting a sort of competition between his men and the natives of the place. In so doing he was able to form a kind of recreation for his combat weary soldiers after their town to town conquest in the area.

The competition made an instant hit as Salcedo fancied. Sports played were gabbo or wrestling, tinnekkenan or polevault, tinnarayan or track and field, linnyawan or broadjump, linnangoyan or swimming, sipa or football, gunnayangan or javelin throw, lumba ti kaballyo or horse racing, and many others.

From then on, Sinnait has become a good vehicle for more athletic competition in the locality during and after the regime of Juan de Salcedo. Because of the popularity of the contest, people started to call the sport site "Pagsisinnaitan" and eventually when the place became a pueblo it was named Sin-nait, and later on shortened into Sinait.

Ilocano Legend

Aran cave is now a tourist attraction, in Barangay Harnay, Sinait, Ilocos Sur. Aran in Ilocano legend, is a giant woman who came over to the Phillippines after a big flood. Its hilly portion is said to be the home of a thousand fairies. And many a night it is also said to twinkle a thousand and one fireflies that hover among, trees growing there, but actually others claim the place is a rich mindfield of diamonds and other minerals, including silver and gold. The barangay is only about 3 kilometers of Barangay Santa Cruz, north northeast and a little less than that north, northwest of Barangay Binacud.

A PLACE THEY CALL HOME

It was here where all the five children (Urbano, Artemio, Dionisio, Emilio and Irene) were born, raised and nurtured from their infancy to their 6-7 years elementary schooling.

The home site is at the southeast foot of a flat hill with some two to three meter higher elevation than the house with about a 7-8 meters in height would often be used alternately for growing rice seedling, vegetable gardening or grazing for domestic animals, like goats, cattle, carabaos. The hill rises sharply to double the hilts elevation towards southeast and directly south.

The ground west of the house is an open narrow valley of terraced rice fields with a flowing stream and irrigation canal at the foot of the elevated forested bamboo a d kalawati trees on it with the stream at its foot flowing northward to the Sta. Cruz River on an east west direction and about only two hundred meters from our home site.

It was here where all the five Tangonans developed affection for the place they call "home-sweet-home" and a strong feeling of well being. It can be applied to a sense of contentment in its haunts, as well as to the comfort felt by a person in familiar surroundings. It means the sense of being nourished by a place in which one belong. The word applies to the immediate surroundings in which a person lives.

It was here where they imbibed whatever learning and experiences their parents could impress in their young minds without any technical or scientific knowledge on how young minds develop except for their common sense, practicality and probable positive influence in their children's future growth, development, and expansion. For the children who are just starting life, multiply that ignorance of how a child grows and develops, several times over that of their parents.

From Arnold Gesell end Frances L. Ilg, in their book on Child Development: Human infancy was evolved to subserve the needs of racial inheritance and of individual growth. It is one of the major end products of evolution. During these ages the period of human infancy has been gradually prolonged, It is man's distinction that he has the longest infancy. The chimpanzee becomes an adult at about the age of nine years. The more complex and advanced the mature organism, the longer the period of infancy. It takes time to grow. Infancy is that time. The infancy of the human of the species has been prolonged and its plasticity have been greatly augmented. He is at birth already in possession of all the nerve cells he will ever have. These cells have much capacity for learning but to no small extent their organization has been either fixed or channeled by the countless generations of a past which stretches back into a vista of a billion years. The infant of today is a token of that past as well as a promise of the future. A baby is not only a specific embodiment of the venerable past of the human race. He represents a vast cloud of ancestral witnesses compacted into a single individuality. He is the inheritor of the ages.

On how the Tangonans' actually learned from their parents, the meaning of expanding horizons from their early pre-school years which maybe briefly described as follows:

Between their 3rd to 5th years, toddlers they would aptly call them, Basilia, their mother would require them not to miss watching the glorious sunrise by making it a racing contest to go uphill to witness the same in full view, except for a few bamboo grooves to obstruct their vision. Whoever would be first to return and describe to her what he saw would receive a few centavos to buy him a few candies in the neighborhood store or drop his bamboo bank.

She wanted them to do the same to see the sunset, but the shore and sea horizon was some three to four kilometers too far west without being overtaken by darkness, and therefore she had to require them to do this just once a year, on New Year's Day.

But one day their eldest son, Urbano, asked their mother why was she requiring them this as a matter of daily and annual routine, and their thoughtful mother explained: "Tapno masapa pay nga mailawlawa yo ti panagpanpanunot yo". Freely translated to English, it means, "So that you'll learn early how to expand your mental horizons." So from then on, the brothers would ponder and gradually realized thru the years, what that golden advice of their mother would mean to them.

For all their total lack of technical knowledge and information, to insure their proper growth and development, they could still manage to their maturity until their coming of age in their later years in man's never ending search of life's meaning and final destiny.