Fellow VDer Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s beautiful tribal story, “Hi Bugan ya Hi Kinggawan”, is now online at Fantasy Magazine. I first read it a year ago at VD4 in England, and just knew this awesome piece of prose would find a good home. Go read it!

If not for the Mama-oh’s quick actions, you would have grown up without a mother. With a bamboo tube, and a woven blanket, she captured your mother’s spirit just as it was leaving her body, and so your mother was restored to life.

Your father came to see you when he was told all was well.

He looked at you, and he looked at your mother, then he took you in his arms and he gave you your name.

“We will call her Bugan,” he said.

“A wise choice,” the Mama-oh replied. “The Sky Goddess will be pleased.”

There was a Canyao. A carabao was killed, two pigs were offered up, and rice wine flowed freely.

Read more.