Isabelo’s Nature and Weather: Exploring Isabelo de los Reyes’ Notes on the Physical Environment in the El Folk-Lore Filipino (1889)

Abstract

In his analysis of Isabelo de los Reyes’ Historia de Ilocos (1890), Ubaldo
(2012) makes a case for the historiographical contribution of the work
in local historical studies by emphasizing the Ilocano intellectual
assertion of the participation of the people in precolonial and colonial
developments. In this observation, local and folk beliefs and practices
were important objects and subjects of historical knowledge
production. However, an earlier work made De los Reyes a trailblazer
in historical and cultural studies in the country. His 1889 work, El
Folk-Lore Filipino (1889) has been appraised as a pioneer scholarly
documentation of Philippine folk knowledge.
This paper presents a historical dissection of the El Folk-Lore Filipino
and identifies the valuable notes, descriptions, and analyses of the
physical environment, found in select sections of the book. This work
highlights this specific aspect of De los Reyes’ magnum opus and offers
another look into how the documentation of folklores and cultural
vignettes can shed light on how local communities make sense and
create meanings on nature and the environmental processes related to
it.

Keywords: Isabelo de los Reyes, physical environment, folk knowledge,
local history, knowledge production