The Subanens and the Story of Christmas

The Gospels give us a good idea of the joys, fears, and struggles that Mary and Joseph experienced that first Christmas. Jesus was born after his parents had walked 100 kilometers often over rugged terrain. Mary gave birth in a stable because there was no room for them in the Inn. Then, after visits from shepherds and wise men, Mary and Joseph had to flee to avoid Herod’s soldiers. Over the past several decades the Subanen people have experienced similar joys, fears, and struggles. When Subanens hear the Christmas story they say Joseph and Mary are like us.

The Subanens and the Story of Christmas

The Subanens are an indigenous people who live in the forested mountains of the Zamboanga peninsula in the Philippines. For centuries, they fished, hunted, gardened, and foraged for their food, medicine, and household needs. They also formed a close spiritual relationship with their tropical habitat and they celebrated that relationship in song, dance, and ritual. Since the 1950s land-hungry settlers from other parts of the Philippines pushed the shy Subanens deeper into the forest. In the 1960’s and 70’s logging companies chain-sawed their forest. Then, in the 1970’s and 80’s, armed conflict broke out in the peninsula as government and anti-government forces carried out military operations which often included indiscriminate killing. And now, mining companies want to bulldoze their remaining habitat. Slowly, the Subanens are being evicted from their forest home. The “innkeepers” of extractive industries and of warring political factions have no room for the Subanens in their world.  

Responding to the beauty and to the pain of the Subanen people the Columban Sisters started the Subanen Ministry. For over 30 years the Sisters have worked with Subanen elders and leaders to find healthy and sustainable ways to protect, nurture, and celebrate the Subanen culture and their endangered habitat. In 2001, with the help of the Subanen Ministry, I began working with Subanens to form a livelihood project in which they could use of their traditional crafting skills to make saleable jewelry, mandalas, children’s books, and cards.  Income from the Subanen Craft project helps the Subanen artists provide food, education, housing, and health care for their families. This income is especially useful during the “hunger season” which is the lean time between harvests.    

2015 Subanen Christmas Cards

Over the years the Subanen artists have crafted Christmas cards whose subject matter connected their experiences with the experiences of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. My contribution to the card-making process is to listen carefully to the Subanens and to study their habitat. Then, with their corrective help, I draw and re-draw card designs until we agree that the images were true to the Christmas story and true to the Subanen story. Then, after the finished designs are printed on card stock, the Subanen artists transform the images into works of art. With colored pencils they carefully tint each mountain, hill, and stone, and with razor-sharp blades they cut out each human figure and inlaid the figures with colored paper. Each year it takes us about 2 months to design the cards and another 5 months to craft them.  

Here are four examples of how we designed cards based on the experience of the Subanens and the experience of Joseph and Mary:

  1. Subanens walk every day over precarious mountain trails and so when we designed cards about the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem we highlighted how they carefully helped each other and their donkey through the rugged hills to Bethlehem.
  2. Like Mary, Subanen women also give birth in simple shelters with their farm animals kept safely nearby.   Subanens know that, in such circumstances, a mother needs supportive care and so when we created manger scenes we portrayed a helpful Joseph who cleaned the stable, repaired the manger, gathered firewood, fetched water, made a warming fire, cooked a meal, and watched over Jesus as Mary rested.
  3. Subanens have seen armed men killing innocent people, and they know the fear and sorrow of having to evacuate their homes and farms to save themselves and their children from such killings. And so when we created cards about their Flight to Egypt we drew attention a frightened and sorrowful Mary and Joseph as they fled Herod soldiers and wept for the innocents.   
  4. Subanens know that the food they eat, the water they drink, the homes they build, the air they breathe, and the beauty they behold,  depend on the soil, rivers, plants and animals of their habitat. They also know that their habitat is a gift from God. And so we crafted cards that thanked the God of Creation who so loved the world that He sent us His Son.

My journey with the Subanen artists is an ongoing reflection about living and working within the limits of God’s creation.  It is a mutually beneficial experience. The Subanen artists get to work in a project that provides them with modest livelihoods and I get to behold the miracle of creation through the eyes of a people who gracefully cooperate with that miracle.

Fr Vincent Busch has been a missionary in the Philippines since 1974.

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2015 Subanen Christmas Cards