A brief survey of Iloko literature from the beginnings to its present development, with a bibliography of works pertaining to the Iloko people and their language, by Leopoldo Y. Yabes.

36

ILOKO LITERATURE

custom to pursue higher studies, she never attended college.
She learned her letters from her parents and from a Filipino
clergyman, Rev. Evaristo Abaya, curate priest of Vigan, to
whom she owed her excellent command of Spanish. This clergyman was the first to discover the literary talent of the little girl
and did all within his means to develop it. She was unusually
precocious and even before she reached her tenth year she was
writing poetry.
She preferred to write in Iloko, and most cf her works
were in after years written in the vernacular. It has been said
that "she could dictate at once to three amanuenses on as many
different subjects" and at the same time jot down a composition herself.
Dolia Leona did not write for publication but only to please
herself and her circle of friends. But as true merit cannot be
hidden, her name as a poetess spread far and wide in northern
Luzon during her lifetime and after her death it reached Europe.
TIer works were voluminous, believed to be even more so than
those of Bukaneg. Her writings, extant and lost, if they had
been collected, would probably have filled ten good-sized volumes.
She was never robust. As a child her health was delicate
and was the cause of frequent anxiety. The duties of motherhood and her activity as a writer soon told on her, and at the
youthful age of 35-on October 4, 1884-she died of tuberculosis.
Unfortunately only a small portion of her writings has been
saved.8 Some of her poems have found their way into foreign
libraries and anthologies. Some are kept in the public libraries
in Paris, London, Madrid, and in our own National Library.
A number were exhibited in the "Exposition Internationale"
held in Paris in 1889 and in the "Exposicion General de Filipinas" held in Madrid in 1887. A French woman writer, Mme.
Andzia Wolska, in recognition of Dofia Leona's literary ability,
included her name and some of her works in the Bibliotheque
Internationale des Oeuvr.,s de Femmes which she edited in 1889.
Several glowing tributes have been paid her.9 She has been
called "the worthiest representative of Filipino women in the
7-See V. L. del Fierro, "The Five Greatest Filipino Women in
History, as Selected by Eulogio B. Rcdriguez", in Philippines Herald,
June 17, 1928, and El Folklore Filipino, p. 179. In a statement to the
writer Isabelo de los Reyes, her son, declared the story as true.
8-I. de los Reyes told the writer that most of the originals of her
poems and dramas have been lost due to carelessness on her own part and
on that of her relatives and friends, and the disorganization resulting from
the Philippine Revolution.
9-In Vigan, her home town, a monument was erected in her honor
in 1930 and one of the principal streets of the town has been named
"Leona Florentino".