Unaw...

A favorite of the Butuanons and the Agusanons. Unaw has historically been a staple food in the Agusan area. Lumbia palm is so abundant in the area that unaw processing was once an important economic activity in the area in past. The development of tools in extracting unaw from the Lumbia clearly attest to this.

until now unaw serves as a substitute to rice especially among the inhabitants of the interior communities in upper Agusan especially after floods and droughts when rice is scarce.

Unaw and kinabol is still a popular though as merienda and in making of suman among the natives of Butuan and Agusan.

If you want know the how unaw helped the Caraganons during the the Second World War click here.

Posted below is the method of processing unaw as documented by the National Museum in Butuan City.


The Process of Unaw Flour-Making

Paraphernalia

  1. Baroto - dug-out boat used as a receptacle for the                labobo (sago pulp is sap).

  2. Hapos - an L-shaped instrument made of baklaw wood                used to scrape sago pulp off the trunk.

  3. Suo - posterior covering for the hapos.

  4. Sisil - metal end of suo.

  5. Tagik - platform for strainer.

  6. Agahan - a piece of sinamay or pinukpok cloth used as                  strainer.

  7. Kawot - a coconut-shell dish ladle.

  8. Bakid - cone-like containers for the sap.

  9. Taphin - dried sap-ong bark used as a protective               covering while removing wet flour from the trunk.

  10. Tusok - sago midrib used to fasten the agahan over the               tagik.

  11. Palwa - foot and tagik support.


Procedure:

A relatively tall sago palm tree is cut from the base of the trunk. When cut, the trunk measures some 12 meters or four dipa long. This is cut into two equal parts and is sliced into halves horizontally. Scraping the pulp (labobo) of the trunk is done by the use of hapos. These pulp grains are collected in a bucket of dried barks and are placed in the agahan. Water collected in the baroto receptacle is poured gradually over the pulp grains. The labobo is hand-squeezed to remove the sap which drains thorugh the tagik into the baroto receptacle. This step is done until all the pulp has been extracted thoroughly to get a very white, fine-textured unaw flour, the water contained in the baroto is continually changed and refiltered through the agahan thus removing the reddish strains on the flour. After several washing, the wet flour is transferred to a bakid where it dries into fine powdered flour.


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