Awiyao and Lumnay, the major characters in Amador Daguio’s short story, Wedding Dance, a long married couple from the mountain tribes. Awiyao, who in spite of being in love with his wife, Lumnay, feels the need to marry another woman in order to have a son. A child who will continue his bloodline to live in their tribe. Awiyao’s insensitiveness and being coward is introduced in the story. He is insensitive believing the answer to Lumnay’s sorrow would be to join the other women at the wedding dance.
On the other hand, he is coward because he chose to marry again with Madulimay to take the chance if they could bear a child together just to follow the unwritten law. Lumnay portrayed a good wife to Awiyao, but sadly they couldn’t bear a child. She showed not only a great love for Awiyao but a selfless love, that she’d rather be in pain than see Awiyao being mocked at his back for not having a baby. The author set the story in one of the mountainous provinces in the northern Philippines on the eve of Awiyao’s wedding to Madulimay, while gangsas beat and women dance to celebrate the union.
He went back home because he didn’t find Lumnay among the dancers at his wedding. The presence of light and darkness of the house in the story tells their conversation turned to a passionate goodbye, each expressing love for each other, their speeches filled with recollection of precious memories, finding it hard to let go of one another. Little regard for her feelings and the willingness to abandon her seem to be the predominate thoughts in the author’s mind.
Lumnay’s courage to face the chief of the village running, blood surging, resolved to stop the dance and complain about the rule. She was able to make it to the place where the wedding dance is taking place. But then, she backed off, defeated. Because of his great love for Awiyao, that she’d rather sacrifice her love than to see her man with her side unhappy for not having a baby. Lumnay could not take it anymore after seeing her husband married to another woman and just went to the mountain to clear awy the beans
