Why the Ocean is Salty

“Frame” by Elizabeth Schoonmaker

Three retellings of Filipino folklore

I.

There is a giant. He is a builder named Ang-ngalo, created by God, sent forth to create the world. He makes a whole world for the humans, but he is still a wanderer. God neglected to tell him to build a home of his own. Ang-ngalo is not sad about this. He is usually busy with work. He is in love with it.

At this point, the Ocean is freshwater, a collection of goddess tears flowing down from the side of the mountain. The Ocean is the body that holds all their misery. Most of the goddesses are also angry. Ang-ngalo digs trenches, heaps mountains, pulls up trees to keep the goddesses of wind and water from flooding the earth.

Sipgnet, Goddess of the Dark, is one of these goddesses. She is sad and angry and also lonely living up in her dark castle all by herself. She is sunning herself on a rock in black garb in the middle of the Ocean, lazily waving an obsidian handkerchief. To Ang-ngalo, she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, and something swells in him. He does not want to wander anymore.

They spend all summer enraptured. She sends shadows across water, coaxes giant squid and many-tentacled creatures from the deep. Ang-ngalo constructs a parasol of tibatib fronds so that Sigpnet will not burn during their long hours in the sun.

Stop wandering, Ang-ngalo, Sigpnet says. Let’s build a mansion. White. Something that catches the sun. We will live in it together. We will dine on mangoes every night. You will never be without a home again.

Ang-ngalo obliges. Anything for her trench-dark gaze to alight on him. He calls on the God of Salt, Asin, and asks for one thousand blocks of his finest, whitest salt. He begins building their mansion, dragging the large salt-blocks, grunting, making a general ruckus.

The mansion is almost done when the Ocean awakes from all the noise. She is tired, upset to be alive—imagine having a body that is only sorrow! She sees Ang-ngalo and Sigpnet cradled together in their crystalline mansion, and she extends her heavy, foamy arms to take the mansion for herself. It dissolves at her touch, and the goddesses in the mountain are as happy as knives finally given the chance to cut. See, they cackle. This is why a wanderer must stay a wanderer.

This is why the ocean is salty: Ang-ngalo and Sigpnet tried to build something, but they did not ask the Ocean first.

II.

There is a giant. He is a builder named Ang-ngalo, created by God, sent forth to create the world. God wants Ang-ngalo to be a good builder: silent, hardworking, deferential. But Ang-ngalo is so tired of building. He fashions forests adorned with jade vine, carves rivers into the sides of mountains, and most importantly, drags blocks and blocks of salt to the villages for the humans to sell. All this, and Ang-ngalo is not allowed to rest. He asks God, May I build myself a cot, a small home? And God says, No. You still have work to do.

Ang-ngalo hatches a plan. He bundles up one thousand blocks of salt and slings them over his shoulder in a rucksack. He will escape across the Ocean and build himself a salt-palace in a new land. If he is going to leave, he might as well live in grandeur on a new coast. Maybe God will see him, finally, and say, Ang-ngalo! Your skills are unparalleled, your creation stunningly beautiful in all the light it reflects. I am sorry for taking you for granted. Come home. And Ang-ngalo will come home, but only to visit. He will always retreat to his salt-palace to enjoy his coast, his beach, the sound of the freshwater waves lapping at the shore, the telltale sound of the Earth and Ocean kissing their union into being. Maybe he, too, will find a wife.

Ang-ngalo must move fast, before God notices. There is no time to build a boat. He begins to wade through the Ocean, but he has misjudged her depth. She is far darker, far more treacherous, than he expected. He slips, his foot caught in a deep-sea trench. His towering frame crashes into the water, his stolen salt dispersing upon the impact.

This is why the Ocean is salty: Ang-ngalo thought he could leave, but he did not consider that in comparison to the Ocean, he is small and swallowable.

III.

There is a giant. He is a builder named Ang-ngalo, created by God, sent forth to create the world. He likes his job enough, but he is overworked. There are just so many things to be built! Dugong, geckos, eagles, crocodiles, even minute carpenter ants, the precise attachment of their six chitinous legs taking two hours or more. He leaves his station, a bounty of stolen salt tied to his back. He makes it to a new land, another coast, easy. God cannot find him here.

Ang-ngalo builds his salt palace. He lives as he always wished he would: worriless, air-conditioned, the days empty with leisure. He grows fat from rice and mangoes. He meets a beautiful goddess named Sigpnet and they have four children who, when they are old enough, also leave him. The sinews of his chest stretch and twist. He thinks of God, lonely on the island he abandoned. He turns from the freshwater Ocean and looks inland to the seas of grass and corn that his children now inhabit. They hardly visit anymore. Sigpnet slumbers somewhere in the salt-palace, tired from late-night bingo at the local casino.

Ang-ngalo wanders along the lip of the Ocean. The Ocean sees Ang-ngalo, feels the heavy dragging of his feet. Ang-ngalo, the Ocean says, why do you despair?

I don’t know, Ang-ngalo says. I guess I didn’t think it would be like this. My bones call out to my father. But I am too old to make the journey across you anymore, Ocean.

I can bring you to him, Ang-ngalo, the Ocean replies, but you will have to do what I say.

The Ocean tells Ang-ngalo to disassemble the palace of one-thousand salt-blocks. Carry them on your back, even if it stoops you low, the Ocean says, and tie them to yourself with rope. Sigpnet does not even stir as Ang-ngalo takes apart the house.

Now, wade into me, the Ocean says. Ang-ngalo follows the Ocean’s directions. Her current is gentle, but insistent. He wades further. The Ocean reaches his knees, then his waist, his lips, and finally, the crown of his head. The heavy salt-blocks tow him into the deep.

Let go, Ang-ngalo, says the Ocean. And Ang-ngalo does. His tendons and muscles and blood warp and disintegrate along with the salt on his back. The Ocean carries Ang-ngalo, now only particles, by way of water back to his father and the islands. Angnalo’s final thought before dissipating entirely is that of home.

Ang-ngalo’s children, now adults, return to the salt-palace for the holidays. They are surprised to find it completely gone. No, not even the outline remains. Sigpnet is slumbering and half-buried in a dune. The adults look at each other, unsettled. Their children, Ang-ngalo’s grandchildren, play in the sea grasses a ways off. The oldest of the grandchildren constructs a miniature boat out of driftwood, skims it across the soft blades of grass. The adults are overtaken by a sudden and terrible urge to rip the boat from the eldest grandchild’s hands and dash it against the rocks.

This is why the Ocean is salty: Ang-ngalo wanted to go home, and the Ocean let him.

About the Author

Kimberly Ramos is a queer Filipina writer from Missouri. They have never broken a bone. They are fascinated by the pomelo. They dream of becoming a cryptid and haunting the Midwest.

about the artist

Elizabeth Schoonmaker lives and work in the Town of Plainfield in upstate New York. Elizabeth received a Master of Fine Arts from the University at Albany and have exhibited her work in Chicago and New York. In her career as an artist and teacher at Munson-Williams -Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, N.Y. and Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY, Elizabeth launched several community-based projects. The Drawing Company”—a program offering drawing classes and exhibition opportunities for elderly residents of Brookfield, N.Y. and “A Wedding Gift,” a historical narrative, featuring stories and photographs about memorable wedding gifts and their owners. Elizabeth wrote and illustrated the picture books Square Catt and Square Cat ABC, published by Aladdin Books/ Simon & Schuster.

https://elizabethschoonmaker.blogspot.com/

https://eulathesquarecat.blogspot.com/