The Tales of Latep Ngapoh Lake

This lake is the 4th among the 4 mystical lakes in Ballay, Kabayan. Among the 4, personally, this is my favorite. Same with Ambulalakaw lake, this lake is surrounded by a mossy forest, has icy water and just by merely looking at it, calms the soul.

Same with the other lakes, the folklore on Latep Ngapoh has various versions. I have already mentioned in my previous blogs that hunting was the main source of livelihood then. The folklore says that a hunter named Ngapoh used his dog to hunt for a deer. And usually, when a deer is tired it usually goes to a body of water to dip its body, (sometimes dive in the water) and hunter Ngapoh knew this. So what he did was to let his dog direct the deer to the lake’s location until the deer goes into the water and the deer couldn’t run anymore, and that was his kill time. So the lake was named as Latep Ngapoh because it is where numbers of deer dove into and where Ngapoh hunted them.

On one hand, another version of the tale was, a hunte challenged himself to see what lived inside the lake. So one day, he used a Ngapoh (a piece of wood torch) and he dove in the water (limatep). Therefore, the setters coined the name Latep Ngapoh, which means dive and wooden torch.

Nowadays, our Ibaloi folks named it as Detep Ngepos, which means the same thing. But to honor the Kalanguya ancestors who discovered the place and the mere fact that Barangay Ballay people are Kalanguya, personally I rather use Latep Ngapoh lake, because that really is its rightful name and our pride. Same goes to the other 3 lakes.

So, my Kalanguya folks, when people ask you of where and what are the names of the lake, be proud to provide the original Kalanguya names.

This ends the series of the folklores of the 4 mystical lakes in Ballay, Kabayan. Coming up will be the tale of Mt. Tabayok, the second highest mountain in North Luzon.