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Heritage literary passages are versatile tools for language study. They illustrate HL in use (a
wide range of styles, genres, registers, and varieties); they provide meaningful and memorable
contexts for vocabulary expansion and grammar practice; they can serve as the basis for
listening, reading, speaking, and writing activities; and they develop students' ability to think
critically by inferring meaning, making interpretations, and expressing their own ideas and
emotions (Lazar 1993: 19).
A long time ago, a faming gripped Bohol. The people begged Sappia, the goddess of
mercy, to give them food. Sappia took pity on them and came down to earth.
All the land was bronw and dried up. A long drought left the land parched. Only the
hardiest weeds survived the long, rainless months, and already, people were dying for
hunger.
Her heart swelling with pity. Sappia bared her bosom and squeezed a drop of milk into
each barred ear of weeds. She emptied one breast, and then the other, but alas! There were a
few more weeds with empty ears. She implored heaven to give more milk, but when she
pressed her breast again, blood and not milk dropped into the remaining fruitless ears.
Having given all her blood, she bent low and whipered, “Oh, plants, bear thou in abundance,
and feed my hungry people.”
Therefore,saying, Sappia vanished from Earth. She returned to heaven where every day
she watched the useless weeds grow heavy with grain. She watched as hungry people
gathered the ripened stalks.
When people pound the harvest, most of the grains were milky whire. These came from
the ears, which Sappia filled with her milk. Some grains were red, andthese came from those,
which filled with her blood. However, red or white, people cooked the grains, found them
good to eat, and best of all, these nourished them back to strength. They saved some of the
seeds, which they planted when the rains came soon after. The seed gave a boundtiful
harvest. From her heavenly home,Sappia rejoiced eht the people. This life-giving rain, which
was her gift to the famine-stricken people of Bohol, is what we know as rice.