Benguet Folktales: Bases for Tracing Family Bloodline?

Abstract

Many authors have classified folktales as fiction because these are just products of literary creativity. Also, authors say that they are not considered dogma or historical facts and they are generally the type of tales that fall in the category of fables and fairy tales. However, interviews, stories and local manuscripts show that folktales in the province of Benguet, Philippines might have actually happened; the characters in the stories may have existed. This study, therefore, is aimed at proving whether or not the characters in some Benguet folktales are real. Moreover, a deductive reasoning approach was used in this study to see if there are accounts, such as record books of families, which might prove the existence of the folktales’ characters. Through purposive sampling, three Benguet folktales were selected in the study. Regardless of what magical or unreal events happened in the selected folktale, it was proven that the characters were real since their descendants are still living in most parts of Benguet. Compelling evidence also revealed that the aforementioned characters of the two selected folktales were directly related. Hence, it was concluded that folktales are nonfiction, however, it would still depend on where the story came from.