Balik sa Dagat Bangka Journey blessed and honored to be on Yelamu shores. Mabuhay!

For those interested in how to be a part of this community, please click here

Photos taken by Sam Estrada at Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch June 15, 2024, Yelamu (aka San Francisco, California, at the Aquatic Cove Park). Script below is from the Canoe Protocols in your language written by L Frank Manriquez & Emmy Akin Olivo and ______. Version 1.0 Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) 2024.

Nangayo mig permiso nga anhi diri. Nangayo kog permiso nga anhi dinhi.

Gikapoy mi. Gigutom mi.

Pahuway ta dinhi? Walay sapayan dinhi.

Nalipay kami kanimo nakabiyahe nga luwas.

Nagtanyag kami kanimong pagkaon, tubig at dapit nga pahulayan. 

Panahon na nga mamauli na ta.

Ako/kami nagpasalamat sa…pagkaon, tubig ug dapit nga pahulayan. 

Nanghinaot mi nga magkita ta
pag-usab.
Maayo ka
bisita sa atong
yutang natawhan.
Nanghinaut kami nga luwas ka
biyahe pauli.

We ask permission to be here. I ask permission to be here. We are tired and hungry. May we rest here? You are welcome here. We are glad you traveled safely. We offer you food water and a place to rest. It is now time for us to go home. I am/we are thankful for… food, water and a place to rest. We hope to see you again. You have been a good guest in our homelands. We wish you a safe
journey home.

Mabuhay kay Kanyon Sayer-Roods, on behalf of the Yelamu for a warm welcome. Thanks to the Indigenous peoples of Yelamu lands and waters for gifting us Filipinos-Fil-Amx of Balik sa Dagat Bangka Journey a sacred space to connect, reconnect, learn, and re-learn how to love, care, and share with each other. Thank you to the Pacific Northwest Tribal Canoe Journeys, Indi-Pinays, and Indi-Pinoys. WE LOVE YOU!

Thanks to the youthful folks from Kapwa is Medicine, led by Camille Santana and Erica, folks learned more about the World Bangka Journey’s stories. Thanks to Bituin Studio via Jenn Ban for hosting this World Bangka safely in SF’s SOMA. Thanks to the gift-making team led by Holly Calica and Grace Duenas. Much gratitude to the musicians and dancers led by Manong Alexis Canillo, Kulintang practitioners led by Conrad Jaminola Benedicto via Kulintang Dialect practitioners. Deep gratitude to skippers-in-training, Dhara Taneo, Fenua Ibabao and Champoy. Hands up in gratitude to drivers, the many hands that helped load/unload and moved bangka safely. Gratitude to Baylan Megino as this blogsite admin since 2012. Mabuhi tanan. Salamat sa Ginoo. 

Gift of this World Bangka’s Many Names:

Baba Adekunle Akangbe Ogun initiated by gifting its spirit name: Ọpọn Ayọ = Canoe of Joy. Stay tuned for the future naming ceremony of this World Bangka as Uncle Philip H. Red Eagle as we await its Salish name. Manong Alexis Canillo shared a Tagalog word, Tadhana which means Destiny.

Ifugao Mumbaki Master Carver Mamerto Lagitan Tindongan explained: “No canoe in our mountain abode, so we will just call it Hagabi, which is a prestige bench but looks like a canoe. One Ifugao elder, Engr. Art Butic, who now lives in Texas thinks that the Hagabi design could have been from a canoe form.”

Let it be known that for me, Mylene r.a.d. Leng Leng, the Bisayan name, Musayaw ni Lumba-Lumba which means Dolphin Dances fits, awaiting a collective conversation to consider for she does dance with joy esp. in the water and whether she is up in the air or on the ground she is dancing with joy, Ọpọn Ayọ.

I know that dear late elder Lolo Babe’s feet are dancing.

Honored with joy to reconnect with Ate Jeanette Acosta, whom I first met at a gathering of storytellers around a fire at Paddle to Swinomish 2011, in Anacortes, Washington State, where prayers and blessings were placed to the fires for the Filipinos showing up at Tribal Canoe Journey.

Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch
June 15, 2024, Yelamu (aka San Francisco, California Aquatic Cove Park). Photos taken by Sam Estrada.

elder L Frank Manriquez, Tongva at the 1st Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch
June 15, 2024, Yelamu (aka San Francisco, California Aquatic Cove Park).

canoe relatives paddling together for the 1st time via Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch on June 15, 2024, Yelamu (San Francisco, California Aquatic Cove Park).

 

Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch
June 15, 2024, Yelamu (aka San Francisco, California Aquatic Cove Park).

Kulintang practitioners and dancers. Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch
June 15, 2024, Yelamu (aka San Francisco, California Aquatic Cove Park).

 

Tara! Magbugsay ta! Let us paddle together.

Tara! Magbugsay ta! Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch 6/15/2024 Yelamu. Photos and video taken by Sam Estrada.

Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar – We Paddle Together 2024

Tara! Magbugsay ta!

For those interested in how to be a part of this community, please click here.

Dear Balik sa Dagat Bangka Journey Community and Friends,

Warm greetings. Maayong adlaw/hapon/gabii sa tanan.

Tara! Magbugsay ta! Eyoomkuuka’ro Kokomaar (We Paddle Together) Canoe Launch

June 15, 2024, Yelamu (aka San Francisco, California Aquatic Cove Park).

Ako si Mylene r.a.d. Leng Leng Amoguis Cahambing. Ako si enunja ti tatinmiji hataji. 

Special thanks to L Frank Manriquez – canoe beginnings via the Cultural Conservancy’s Guardians of the Waters program; many master carvers: George Porty Blake – Yurok, Wikuki Kingi – Maori, SFSU Native American students via Melissa Nelson, spiritual guidance by the late Dr Darryl Babe Wilson -Achumawi and Atsugewi, L Frank Manriquez – Tongva-Acjachemen 2-spirit elder who gifted the log that became this world bangka, Ethan Castro – Wailaki/Concow, Tek Tekh Gabaldon – Onatsatis, Philip H. Red Eagle – Salish-Dakota – co-founder Pacific Northwest Tribal Canoe Journey, initial Paddle to Swinomish invite via Diane and Shelly Vendiola – Swinomish- Bisayan, Mamerto Lagitan Tindongan – Ifugao Mumbaki, Baba Kasali Akangbe Ogun – Yoruban Master Shrine carver. Balik sa Dagat Bangka Journey’s (BSDBJ) lead carver, bùgsay dance lead: Alexis Canillo – Pomo- Cebuano, BSDBJ vision holder/blogger/lead coordinator – Peace Bangka Peace Canoe curriculum lead writer via NAPIESV National Org of Asians and Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence Mylene Amoguis Cahambing aka r.a.d. Leng Leng – halo-halo urban Bisayan, Holly Calica – Ilocana Fil-Am, Grace Villarin Dueñas- Tagalog- Illonga queer, Baylan Megino – Fil-Am, Junice Uy – Cebuana, Nestor Leonida Perez aka Aku Dorje – Catanauan- Spanish-Tsinoy; grateful for Apu Reyna Yolanda Liban Manalo and 100+ indigenous Babaylan blessings from Luzon, Bisayas and Mindanao.

Grateful for the many hands who built Bangka together including Santa Rosa Fil-Am communities, Leny Strobel and CFBS Center for Babaylan Studies community. Champoy’s lead in getting bangka out of Santa Rosa to Yelamu. Kapwa Medicine Circle via Camille Santana. And to so many more builders and supporters (forgive us as not all names are listed here but we love you all! ~ mabuhay tanan!

It is an honor to be on the unceded lands and waters of xučyun (Huichin), the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people, the successors of the sovereign Verona Band of Oakland, California in Alameda County.

It is an honor to be invited to Paddle to Swinomish 2011, my kayumanggi hands are held up to the skies to mga kababayan natin, mga halo-halo indi-pinays/indi-pinoys-x. Daghang salamat sa tanan.

It’s been a tremendous honor and a great privilege to be in service to this incredibly diverse World Bangkanihan-building community. Since its inception ~ in 2011 as its Volunteer Bangka Dream Weaver-Coordinator, it has been a beautiful privilege to witness Indigenous resilience despite the multiple challenges as an all-volunteer community-building effort that has produced monumental *living dreams exhibitions and programs, and especially to my bangka-journey heart’s dream, our Peace Bangka Peace Canoe NAPIESV-funded curriculum process.

I give many thanks to MONSOON Asians and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity, as our initial fiscal sponsor via Mira Yusef, and to all of my teachers and indigenous elders who said, ‘Yes.’ Most of all to Philip H. Red Eagle who asked: “Where is the Filipino canoe?” I give thanks to all who helped build this World Bangka with their hands, babaylan guided prayers, a 2-spirit gifted red western cedar log, our kollective rainbow dreams, and your continued and expanding support; and to those who will make their dream power búgsay and dream power paddle onward as a significant part of disrupting and dismantling colonial structures and heal by reconnecting-connecting with ancestral water practices, through loving, caring and sharing in unity and harmony, and much respect to many who continue to uphold their ancestral seafaring ways and practices. 

It comes with tremendous gratitude to share this as my final blog entry as I transition out of my role as Bangka Journey’s initial Balik sa Dagat coordinator/facilitator and social media content creator:

www.bangkajourney.com,

IG Baliksadagatbangkajourney, and

Facebook Bangka Journey 

and continue as a fellow artibista and advisor (upon consult) to Bangka Journey’s volunteers.

I am grateful to pass this on to kollective hands and look forward to witnessing World Bangka’s growth in its efforts to bring visibility and recognition to diverse seafaring practices, to continue to fulfill its dream of singers and dancers in a fleet of canoes to heal Earth. And now you all, consider what is your relationship to indigenous communities where you are?  How are you contributing to indigenous causes?

Tara! Magbugsay ta! Padayon.

Mabuhay.

Patnubay. Pagibig. Pagpapala.

Photos and video taken by Sam Estrada. Thank you, Sam.