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Wedding Dance

By Amador Daguio

Awiyao reached for the upper horizontal log which served as the edge of the headhigh threshold.
Clinging to the log, he lifted himself with one bound that carried him across to the narrow door. He slid
back the cover, stepped inside, then pushed the cover back in place. After some moments during which
he seemed to wait, he talked to the listening darkness.

"I'm sorry this had to be done. I am really sorry. But neither of us can help it."

The sound of the gangsas beat through the walls of the dark house like muffled roars of falling waters.
The woman who had moved with a start when the sliding door opened had been hearing the gangsas for
she did not know how long. There was a sudden rush of fire in her. She gave no sign that she heard
Awiyao, but continued to sit unmoving in the darkness.

But Awiyao knew that she heard him and his heart pitied her. He crawled on all fours to the middle of
the room; he knew exactly where the stove was. With bare fingers he stirred the covered smoldering
embers, and blew into the stove. When the coals began to glow, Awiyao put pieces of pine on them,
then full round logs as his arms. The room brightened.

"Why don't you go out," he said, "and join the dancing women?" He felt a pang inside him, because
what he said was really not the right thing to say and because the woman did not stir. "You should join
the dancers," he said, "as if--as if nothing had happened." He looked at the woman huddled in a corner
of the room, leaning against the wall. The stove fire played with strange moving shadows and lights

upon her face. She was partly sullen, but her sullenness was not because of anger or hate.

"Go out--go out and dance. If you really don't hate me for this separation, go out and dance. One of the
men will see you dance well; he will like your dancing, he will marry you. Who knows but that, with him,
you will be luckier than you were with me."
"I don't want any man," she said sharply. "I don't want any other man."

He felt relieved that at least she talked: "You know very well that I won't want any other woman either.
You know that, don't you? Lumnay, you know it, don't you?"

She did not answer him.

"You know it Lumnay, don't you?" he repeated.

"Yes, I know," she said weakly.

"It is not my fault," he said, feeling relieved. "You cannot blame me; I have been a good husband to
you."

"Neither can you blame me," she said. She seemed about to cry.

"No, you have been very good to me. You have been a good wife. I have nothing to say against you." He
set some of the burning wood in place. "It's only that a man must have a child. Seven harvests is just too
long to wait. Yes, we have waited too long. We should have another chance before it is too late for both
of us."

This time the woman stirred, stretched her right leg out and bent her left leg in. She wound the blanket
more snugly around herself.

"You know that I have done my best," she said. "I have prayed to Kabunyan much. I have sacrificed many
chickens in my prayers."

"Yes, I know."
"You remember how angry you were once when you came home from your work in the terrace because
I butchered one of our pigs without your permission? I did it to appease Kabunyan, because, like you, I
wanted to have a child. But what could I do?"

"Kabunyan does not see fit for us to have a child," he said. He stirred the fire. The spark rose through the
crackles of the flames. The smoke and soot went up the ceiling.

Lumnay looked down and unconsciously started to pull at the rattan that kept the split bamboo flooring
in place. She tugged at the rattan flooring. Each time she did this the split bamboo went up and came
down with a slight rattle. The gong of the dancers clamorously called in her care through the walls.

Awiyao went to the corner where Lumnay sat, paused before her, looked at her bronzed and sturdy
face, then turned to where the jars of water stood piled one over the other. Awiyao took a coconut cup
and dipped it in the top jar and drank. Lumnay had filled the jars from the mountain creek early that
evening.

"I came home," he said. "Because I did not find you among the dancers. Of course, I am not forcing you
to come, if you don't want to join my wedding ceremony. I came to tell you that Madulimay, although I
am marrying her, can never become as good as you are. She is not as strong in planting beans, not as
fast in cleaning water jars, not as good keeping a house clean. You are one of the best wives in the

whole village."

"That has not done me any good, has it?" She said. She looked at him lovingly. She almost seemed to
smile.

He put the coconut cup aside on the floor and came closer to her. He held her face between his hands
and looked longingly at her beauty. But her eyes looked away. Never again would he hold her face. The
next day she would not be his any more. She would go back to her parents. He let go of her face, and
she bent to the floor again and looked at her fingers as they tugged softly at the split bamboo floor.
"This house is yours," he said. "I built it for you. Make it your own, live in it as long as you wish. I will
build another house for Madulimay."

"I have no need for a house," she said slowly. "I'll go to my own house. My parents are old. They will
need help in the planting of the beans, in the pounding of the rice."

"I will give you the field that I dug out of the mountains during the first year of our marriage," he said.
"You know I did it for you. You helped me to make it for the two of us."

"I have no use for any field," she said.

He looked at her, then turned away, and became silent. They were silent for a time.

"Go back to the dance," she said finally. "It is not right for you to be here. They will wonder where you
are, and Madulimay will not feel good. Go back to the dance."

"I would feel better if you could come, and dance---for the last time. The gangsas are playing."

"You know that I cannot."

"Lumnay," he said tenderly. "Lumnay, if I did this it is because of my need for a child. You know that life
is not worth living without a child. The man have mocked me behind my back. You know that."

"I know it," he said. "I will pray that Kabunyan will bless you and Madulimay."

She bit her lips now, then shook her head wildly, and sobbed.
She thought of the seven harvests that had passed, the high hopes they had in the beginning of their
new life, the day he took her away from her parents across the roaring river, on the other side of the
mountain, the trip up the trail which they had to climb, the steep canyon which they had to cross. The
waters boiled in her mind in forms of white and jade and roaring silver; the waters tolled and growled,

resounded in thunderous echoes through the walls of the stiff cliffs; they were far away now from
somewhere on the tops of the other ranges, and they had looked carefully at the buttresses of rocks
they had to step on---a slip would have meant death.

They both drank of the water then rested on the other bank before they made the final climb to the
other side of the mountain.

She looked at his face with the fire playing upon his features---hard and strong, and kind. He had a sense
of lightness in his way of saying things which often made her and the village people laugh. How proud
she had been of his humor. The muscles where taut and firm, bronze and compact in their hold upon his
skull---how frank his bright eyes were. She looked at his body the carved out of the mountains

five fields for her; his wide and supple torso heaved as if a slab of shining lumber were heaving; his arms
and legs flowed down in fluent muscles--he was strong and for that she had lost him.

She flung herself upon his knees and clung to them. "Awiyao, Awiyao, my husband," she cried. "I did
everything to have a child," she said passionately in a hoarse whisper. "Look at me," she cried. "Look at
my body. Then it was full of promise. It could dance; it could work fast in the fields; it could climb the
mountains fast. Even now it is firm, full. But, Awiyao, I am useless. I must die."

"It will not be right to die," he said, gathering her in his arms. Her whole warm naked naked breast
quivered against his own; she clung now to his neck, and her hand lay upon his right shoulder; her hair
flowed down in cascades of gleaming darkness.

"I don't care about the fields," she said. "I don't care about the house. I don't care for anything but you.
I'll have no other man."

"Then you'll always be fruitless."


"I'll go back to my father, I'll die."

"Then you hate me," he said. "If you die it means you hate me. You do not want me to have a child. You
do not want my name to live on in our tribe."

She was silent.

"If I do not try a second time," he explained, "it means I'll die. Nobody will get the fields I have carved
out of the mountains; nobody will come after me."

"If you fail--if you fail this second time--" she said thoughtfully. The voice was a shudder. "No--no, I don't
want you to fail."

"If I fail," he said, "I'll come back to you. Then both of us will die together. Both of us will vanish from the
life of our tribe."

The gongs thundered through the walls of their house, sonorous and faraway.

"I'll keep my beads," she said. "Awiyao, let me keep my beads," she half-whispered.

"You will keep the beads. They come from far-off times. My grandmother said they come from up North,
from the slant-eyed people across the sea. You keep them, Lumnay. They are worth twenty fields."

"I'll keep them because they stand for the love you have for me," she said. "I love you. I love you and
have nothing to give."

She took herself away from him, for a voice was calling out to him from outside. "Awiyao! Awiyao! O
Awiyao! They are looking for you at the dance!"
"I am not in hurry."

"The elders will scold you. You had better go."

"Not until you tell me that it is all right with you."

"It is all right with me."

He clasped her hands. "I do this for the sake of the tribe," he said.

"I know," she said.

He went to the door.

"Awiyao!"

He stopped as if suddenly hit by a spear. In pain he turned to her. Her face was in agony. It pained him
to leave. She had been wonderful to him. What was it that made a man wish for a child? What was it in
life, in the work in the field, in the planting and harvest, in the silence of the night, in the communing
with husband and wife, in the whole life of the tribe itself that made man wish for the laughter and
speech of a child? Suppose he changed his mind? Why did the unwritten law demand, anyway, that a
man, to be a man, must have a child to come after him? And if he was fruitless--but he loved Lumnay. It
was like taking away of his life to leave her like this.

"Awiyao," she said, and her eyes seemed to smile in the light. "The beads!" He turned back and walked
to the farthest corner of their room, to the trunk where they kept their worldly possession---his battle-
ax and his spear points, her betel nut box and her beads. He dug out from the darkness the beads which
had been given to him by his grandmother to give to Lumnay on the beads on, and tied them in place.
The white and jade and deep orange obsidians shone in the firelight. She suddenly clung to him, clung to
his neck as if she would never let him go.

"Awiyao! Awiyao, it is hard!" She gasped, and she closed her eyes and huried her face in his neck.

The call for him from the outside repeated; her grip loosened, and he buried out into the night.

Lumnay sat for some time in the darkness. Then she went to the door and opened it. The moonlight
struck her face; the moonlight spilled itself on the whole village.

She could hear the throbbing of the gangsas coming to her through the caverns of the other houses. She
knew that all the houses were empty that the whole tribe was at the dance. Only she was absent. And
yet was she not the best dancer of the village? Did she not have the most lightness and grace? Could she
not, alone among all women, dance like a bird tripping for grains on the ground, beautifully

timed to the beat of the gangsas? Did not the men praise her supple body, and the women envy the way
she stretched her hands like the wings of the mountain eagle now and then as she danced? How long
ago did she dance at her own wedding? Tonight, all the women who counted, who once danced in her
honor, were dancing now in honor of another whose only claim was that perhaps she could give her

husband a child.

"It is not right. It is not right!" she cried. "How does she know? How can anybody know? It is not right,"
she said.

Suddenly she found courage. She would go to the dance. She would go to the chief of the village, to the
elders, to tell them it was not right. Awiyao was hers; nobody could take him away from her. Let her be
the first woman to complain, to denounce the unwritten rule that a man may take another woman. She
would tell Awiyao to come back to her. He surely would relent. Was not their love as strong as the

river?

She made for the other side of the village where the dancing was. There was a flaming glow over the
whole place; a great bonfire was burning. The gangsas clamored more loudly now, and it seemed they
were calling to her. She was near at last. She could see the dancers clearly now. The man leaped lightly
with their gangsas as they circled the dancing women decked in feast garments and beads, tripping on
the ground like graceful birds, following their men. Her heart warmed to the flaming call of the dance;
strange heat in her blood welled up, and she started to run. But the gleaming brightness of the bonfire
commanded her to stop. Did anybody see her approach?

She stopped. What if somebody had seen her coming? The flames of the bonfire leaped in countless
sparks which spread and rose like yellow points and died out in the night. The blaze reached out to her
like a spreading radiance. She did not have the courage to break into the wedding feast.

Lumnay walked away from the dancing ground, away from the village. She thought of the new clearing
of beans which Awiyao and she had started to make only four moons before. She followed the trail
above the village.

When she came to the mountain stream she crossed it carefully. Nobody held her hand, and the stream
water was very cold. The trail went up again, and she was in the moonlight shadows among the trees
and shrubs. Slowly she climbed the mountain.

When Lumnay reached the clearing, she cold see from where she stood the blazing bonfire at the edge
of the village, where the wedding was. She could hear the far-off clamor of the gongs, still rich in their
sonorousness, echoing from mountain to mountain. The sound did not mock her; they seemed to call far
to her, to speak to her in the language of unspeaking love. She felt the pull of their gratitude for her

sacrifice. Her heartbeat began to sound to her like many gangsas.

Lumnay though of Awiyao as the Awiyao she had known long ago-- a strong, muscular boy carrying his
heavy loads of fuel logs down the mountains to his home. She had met him one day as she was on her
way to fill her clay jars with water. He had stopped at the spring to drink and rest; and she had made
him drink the cool mountain water from her coconut shell. After that it did not take him long to decide
to throw his spear on the stairs of her father's house in token on his desire to marry her.

The mountain clearing was cold in the freezing moonlight. The wind began to stir the leaves of the bean
plants. Lumnay looked for a big rock on which to sit down. The bean plants now surrounded her, and
she was lost among them.
A few more weeks, a few more months, a few more harvests---what did it matter? She would be holding
the bean flowers, soft in the texture, silken almost, but moist where the dew got into them, silver to
look at, silver on the light blue, blooming whiteness, when the morning comes. The stretching of the
bean pods full length from the hearts of the wilting petals would go on.

Lumnay's fingers moved a long, long time among the growing bean pods.

Questions for Discussions

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Back to Philippine Literature in English

Six Symbolic Elements

Gangsas

The gangsas are culturally important. The sound of the gangsas represents the man in the wedding
ceremony. Like the gangsas, they are strong and provide a beat to the dance, or a "beat to life".

Dancing

Culturally, the dancing is a celebration of happiness. It is also a show of sexuality by the women. Because
Lumnay has not produced a child, she feels ashamed to dance and show herself to the other men, as she
believes no one will look at her.
The Fire

The fire or flames signify the burning intensity of both love and hate that Lumnay feels in the situation.
When Awiyao stirs the embers in Lumnay’s dark hut, he stirs up both of these feelings in her. Later, as
Lumnay watches the bonfire from afar, her physical distance from the fire reflects her emotional
separation from the man she loves.

The Beads

The beads in the story symbolize the promise that Awiyao made to Lumnay. They are also very precious
and are worth 20 fields. The fact that Awiyao gives them to Lumnay shows that he cherishes her, and
that he still believes she has worth. Although Lumnay rejects the hut and field Awiayo offers her, she
accepts the beads, suggesting her desire to remain connected to Awiyao.

The Floor

A number of times the narrator draws the reader’s attention to the rattan floor as Lumnay pulls it apart.
This is symbolic of their marriage unraveling.

The Night

The nighttime setting symbolically adds to the darkness and isolation that Lumnay feels as she runs away
from the village. As she works her way up the dark mountain alone, she is unable to envision a path to
the future. The reader, too, is left in darkness with the unresolved ending.

The Wedding Dance by Amador T. Daguio (Short Story) - Literary Analysis

The Wedding Dance by Amador T. Daguio is a story I particularly appreciate for the simple reason that
I'm an Igorot. The characters in the story are Igorots and the setting is in an Igorot village. The story
reminds me of the quaint little village in Mt. Province where I grew up. A story strikes you different if
you have a sense of place in it. This is one of such stories. This is a well-known tale within literary
communities in the Philippines. After reading it, I can see why. Everyone loves a love story. But a love
story between two tribal bodies stuck in an often romanticized period back in the day? Add in an
indifferent third party? That's honey for literary junkies.

The Characters

1. Awiyao - An Igorot man who decides to separate with his wife (a wife he dearly loves) because she
hasn't given him a child after seven years of marriage.

2. Lumnay - Awiyao's wife.

3. Madulimay - Awiyao's new wife.

On his wedding night to a new bride, Awiyao decides to momentarily leave the celebrations to go to his
house and visit his previous wife, Lumnay. The two have been together for seven years but their union
has not produced an offspring. Thus Awiyao's decision to part ways with Lumnay and take another wife,
a younger woman named Madulimay. Awiyao still loves Lumnay and Lumnay still loves Awiyao. But in
order for Awiyao to prove himself a man in the eyes of his community, he must have an offspring.
Someone to carry his name forward, the way he carried his father's name.

Awiyao repeatedly asks Lumnay to leave the house and join the wedding dance outside. He tells her that
if she joins the dance, one of the men will take notice of her and might even ask to marry her. If she's
luckier with the man, she might even bear a child with him. But Lumnay tells him that she doens't wan't
anyone else. She only wants him.

Awiyao offers Lumnay the house but the latter refuses it, telling him that she needs to go to her parents
as they are already old and they need assistance in planting beans and pounding rice. Awiyao then offers
a field but Lumnay refuses the offer just the same. Lumnay only requests that she keeps her beads as
these remind her of the love that Awiyao has for her. The beads are worth twenty fields. Awiyao gave
the beads to her and left to rejoin the festivities.
Suddenly awash with the courage to fight for her feelings, Lumnay decides to go to the wedding and
confront the crowd. To tell the village chief that it is not right to take away Awiyao from her just because
she can't bear him a child. However, as she nears the clearing where the wedding dance is being held,
the bright lights spook her. She decides to just get away from there. She backs away and follows a trail
leading away from the village and up a mountain. From a clearing at the top, Lumnay can see the bright
lights of the wedding dance.

The story ends with Lumnay lost among the bean pods at the clearing

What is the central theme of the story? The story has a two-pronged theme. On one end is the
unbreakable romantic bond between Awiyao and Lumnay. On the other end are the demands of a
society deeply entrenched in cultural and traditional values. The central idea of the story lies in the area
where these two ends meet. I think we can mold the theme in the form of a question - What happens
when the bond between two people goes head to head with the bond of society-imposed conventions?
Which bond will break in the collission? Who will suffer?

What is the conflict in the story? A lot of readers think that the conflict in the story has Awiyao and
Lumnay as the opposing forces. I think this is a misreading of the tale. I would say that the opposing
forces are Awiyao and Lumnay on one side and society on the other side. If you read the story again,
both of them blatantly question what society demands of them. Awiyao questions the unwritten rule
that a man must have a child to come after him. Lumnay believes that it is not right for someone else to
take away Awiyao from her just because she can't bear him a child.

Awiyao and Lumnay both believe that the system is wrong. However, the difference lies in how they
tried to fight the system. Technically, Awiyao didn't fight it since he chose to look for a new wife in the
hope that she'll bear him a child. He basically gave in to the demands of the society he lives in. Lumnay
at least tried when she attempted to approach the wedding dance and confront the chief. She also has
the choice of joining the dance and potentially getting picked by another man. But she didn't do it. It's
either Awiyao or no one. She'd rather be alone than be with any other man.

What is the moral lesson in the story? Awiyao is a man who followed the demands of society instead of
following the demands of his heart. Lumnay, on the other hand, followed her heart to the very end. She
even contemplated confronting the whole village to fight for what she feels in her heart. In my eyes,
Lumnay is the hero of the story, albeit a broken one. Most stories end with the hero present as a parting
gesture. In The Wedding Dance, Lumnay ends the story.

Did Awiyao really love Lumnay? This is a question that comes up a lot. There are readers who theorize
that Awiyao didn't really love Lumnay and that he is using the "no child" issue as a convenient excuse to
ditch Lumnay and get a younger bride. Hmmm, maybe. It's definitely plausible. But the theory breaks
down in the context of the story.

About The Author

2. About The Author :

3. Other works of Amador T. Daguio :

4. About The Story

5. Background • Awiyao and Lumnay most likely to belong to the Igorot people who inhabit the
mountain areas of Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines. The Philippine islands were settled by
various migrants from Southeast Asia for centuries. These peoples built up a number of different
cultures and clan-based social structures on the many islands of the archipelago. In the 1500s, Spain
colonized the islands, spreading Christianity and the Spanish language. Following Spain’s loss in the
Spanish-American war of 1898, the Philippines became a territory of the United States. During World
War II, the islands were occupied by the Japanese until gaining their independence in 1945. The Igorot
people maintained many of their traditional cultural practices through the late 19th century. Even today,
dance and gangsa music form an important part of their celebrations

Major Characters Lumnay • Awiyao’s former wife who is still in love with him, despite the fact he
married another. Awiyao • The lead male in the story who loves Lumnay, but left her because she didn’t
produce children for him. Madulimay • Awiyao’s new, younger wife, with whom he hopes to have
children.

7. The Wedding Dance by: Amador T. Daguio

8. Synopsis of "The Wedding Dance" • "The Wedding Dance" by Amador Daguio, is a short story about a
husband and wife, Awiyao and Lumnay, who had been married for seven years. In spite of being in love
with his wife, Awiyao feels the need to marry again in order to have a son. At his second marriage
celebration, Awiyao goes to check on Lumnay, knowing she was upset. Awiyao thought the answer to
Lumnay's sorrow would be to have her join the other women during the wedding dance. Lumnay was in
fact at his wedding, but left. She could not stand the idea of her husband marrying another woman
because she could not give him children.

9. EXPOSITION •The story begins at night in a mountain village in the Philippines, where Awiyao has just
been remarried.
CONFLICT • Awiyao has left his wife Lumnay because she couldn’t give him a child. He has now married
Madulimay in the hope of having a son. Lumnay is upset because she loves Awiyao and doesn’t want
this separation. • The conflict here is Man vs. Society .The lead characters have to follow their tribe’s
custom , and it is resolved when they had a heart-to heart talk that they should separate and continue
with their separate lives. And if Awiyao's second marriage will not work he will come back to Lumnay's
arms again. They should follow their tribe's custom and on the part of Awiyao he shows that he really
wanted to have a child to follow his name but there is a bit hesitance on Lumnay's part.

11. RISING ACTION •Outside, the villagers are dancing in celebration of the wedding. Awiyao leaves to
try and comfort Lumnay. He offers her many items of the life that they built together. Lumnay refuses
them and clings to Awiyao, wishing he would stay.

12. CLIMAX •Awiyao finally leaves to re-join the wedding and Lumnay runs into the hills.

13. FALLING ACTION •Lumnay sits on the side of the mountain overlooking the blazing fire and dancing
women, thinking about how her life has changed. She has a sense of desperation, isolation, and
worthlessness.

14. RESOLUTION •The reader is left not knowing what will become of Lumnay.

15. Point of View • The Point of View used in this short story is the Omniscient Limited – The author tells
the story in third person (using pronouns they, she, he, it, etc). We know only what the character knows
and what the author allows him/her to tell us. We can see the thoughts and feelings of characters if the
author chooses to reveal them to us.

16. "The Wedding Dance" Theme : •If you truly love a person, you must let them be happy •Have you
ever heard the saying “if you love someone, let them go”? The story of Lumnay and Awiyao wrestles
with this difficult issue. Despite how upsetting it is to Lumnay, she must let Awiyao go, not only because
of their culture, but also because it is clear that he will not be happy without a child.

17. Six Symbolic Elements • Gangsas The gangsas are culturally important. The sound of the gangsas
represents the man in the wedding ceremony. Like the gangsas, they are strong and provide a beat to
the dance, or a "beat to life". • Dancing Culturally, the dancing is a celebration of happiness. It is also a
show of sexuality by the women. Because Lumnay has not produced a child, she feels ashamed to dance
and show herself to the other men, as she believes no one will look at her. • The Fire The fire or flames
signify the burning intensity of both love and hate that Lumnay feels in the situation. When Awiyao stirs
the embers in Lumnay’s dark hut, he stirs up both of these feelings in her. Later, as Lumnay watches the
bonfire from afar, her physical distance from the fire reflects her emotional separation from the man
she loves.

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