soso’

soso’ n. [Boie’nen]  

1. River snail; black river snail; trumpet snail: A freshwater gastropod with a conical, spiral shell, often adult thumb-sized, ∼2.5–4 cm long. Shell is dark olive to black, usually banded or eroded at the tip. Common in slow rivers, creeks, and rice paddies.  

“Namurot kami nin soso’ sa sapa’.”  
“We gathered river snails from the creek.”  

Scientific names: Filopaludina angularis, Vivipara angularis, Angulyagra spp. Family Viviparidae. English: “black river snail”, “Asian river snail”.  

2. Food: Cooked as ninatkanasoso’ “river snails in coconut milk” with chili and kalunggay. Before cooking, the shell tip poro is clipped and the operculum lokaba is removed so the meat can be sucked out — sotsot.  
“Sotsoten mo sana, di’mona pagkitkiten.” “You just suck it out, no need to pick.”  

3. Material culture: Empty shells are scorched, quickly dunked in cold water to make them brittle, then crushed and finely powdered to produce apog lime for mama’en betel chew.  

4. Ecological sign: Soso’ climb banks before rain. A sudden line of soso’ above the waterline at dusk means linog weather or flood is coming. 

Related: lokaba “operculum, the door of the shell”, poro “shell tip/apex”, sotsot “to suck out snail meat with a sharp intake of air”, apog “lime”, mama’en “to chew betel”  

Distinguish from: ko-ol “golden apple snail, Pomacea canaliculata, invasive, larger, rounder, yellow-pink eggs”  

IPA: /soˈsoʔ/ with glottal stop