6.3 Literary Form - Oral Literature

• Riddles are a battle of wits among participants, made up of one or more measured lines with rhyme and may consist of four to 12 syllables.
• A riddle is a question or statement so framed as to exercise one’s ingenuity in answering it or discovering its meaning.
• Conundrums are made up of one or more measured lines with rhyme and may consist of four to 12 syllables.
• Proverbs, also known as salawikain, are wise sayings that contain a metaphor used to teach as a food for thought etc.
• A proverb is a piece of common-sense wisdom expressed in practical, homely terms.
• Tanaga is a mono-riming hepta-syllabic quatrain expressing insights and lessons on life, which is "more emotionally charged than the terse proverb and thus has affinities with the folk lyric."
• Folk Songs are a form of folk lyric which expresses the hopes and aspirations, the people's lifestyles as well as their loves.
• Folk Songs are often repetitive and sonorous, didactic and naïve.
• Hele or oyayi is a lullaby.
• Ambahan (Mangyan) is a 7-syllable per line poem that are about human relationships and social entertainment.
• Kalusan (Ivatan) are work songs that depict the livelihood of the people.
• Tagay (Cebuano and Waray) is a drinking song.
• Kanogan (Cebuano) is a song of lamentation for the dead.
• Pre-Spanish Era Music is a more conservative style of sacred music; religious and musicality-salvation of self-expression.
• Recitative: mostly simple two note music, music was composed of few notes.
• Epics are long narrative poems in which a series of heroic achievements or events, usually of a hero, are dealt with at length.
• An Epic is a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style.