"Hinup-akan" the true origin of Inopacan

This is something to ponder about.

The most believable origin of Inopacan town's name is HINUP-ACAN, coming from the Cebuano root word hup-ak, referring to the luno (slough or the skin shed off by snakes).

The town proper in 2010 
(Photo by Edgie Polistico 2010)

The place is known not only for being infested with namok from which it got its old name Kanamokan (the place of mosquitoes) but also for being an old place where snakes were commonly found. A manifestation that snakes used to abound here was the seaside cave called Bay sa has (house of snake) and the story of Inong Pak-an fighting the serpentine snake. Another manifestation of snakes is the story of Barrio Binitinan. So called, because of bitin (snake) found in this place. Binitinan is the old name of what is now known as Barangay Guadalupe. Not to mention that there are many areas surrounding the town proper where tunneling caves and other subterranean crevices can be found and these were the favorite haven for snakes. The network of underground crevices even reached Cuatro Islas and the solitaire hill of Brgy. Bontoc, Hindang, Leyte.

When snake is shedding off its skin, we call it nagluno or nanghup-ak ang panit. A shed off of slough is locally called hinup-ak or hinup-akan and the place where the slough is found or where the snake would shed their skin is called hinup-akan.

Thus, we got the origin of the name "Inopacan" from the following transformation: 

HINUP-ACAN => HINUPACAN => INUPACAN => INOPACAN

The eventual disappearance of the letter H in Hinup-akan could be attributed to the fact that in Spanish, the letter H is often silently pronounced if it is used as the first letter in a word. e.g. hora (o-ra) for time, hielo (ye-lo) for ice, etc. It was during the Spanish colonization era that the names of places in the country were officially recorded.

Moreover, during Spanish time, what sounds like "K" is written with the prominent and same-sounding letter C in Spanish. For example, they used to write camo for kamo  (you), aco for ako (I), buac for buak (broken), calayo for kalayo (fire), caldero for kaldero (cooking pot), cura paruco for kura paruko (parish priest), and many more. This explains why the C in Inopacan sounds exactly like letter K. With this, we can shorten the derivation to look like this:

HINUP-ACAN => HINUPACAN => INUPACAN =>  INOPACAN

Related posts:

• Finding the true origin of Inopacan
  
• THE LEGEND OF INOPACAN (in my years of research)
• Inong Pak-an Festival (2009) - Youtube video