Feastings

Sunday, February 12, 2012

YEARS ago, the late National Artist Alejandro Roces came out with a coffee table book about the fiesta culture of the Philippines.

Now with the “It’s Fun in the Philippines” slogan of the Department of Tourism, we can add that our fiestas are fun and it’s all over the islands. And don’t forget that here in Cagayan de Oro this coming August, we will be celebrating our 463rd fiesta.
 
What we generally know is that it was the Spaniards who introduced to us the concept of fiestas to honor the patron saints of every city, town and barangay. But do you know that the fiesta was a big socio-cultural practice of the ancient Pinoys?
 
I found this fascinating book titled Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographical Perspectives on Food, Politics and Power (Dietler, Michael and Brian Hayden (eds.) Smithsonian Institute 2001). This is a compendium of several papers that are all about feasting around the world as ritual, social and political activities.
 
In this book, Laura Lee Junker’s paper “The Evolution of Ritual Feasting Systems in Prehispanic Philippine Chiefdoms” is a standout. It deals about ancient feasting based on archaeological perspectives. Mind blowing as it widened my knowledge about the pre-hispanic period and those Chinese porcelain wares that are frequently discovered practically all over the country.
 
Also, I now understand a local lore that I once dismissed as grossly exaggerated.
 
Junker wrote that during the pre-hispanic period, the Philippine archipelago was composed of numerous coastal and riverine chiefdoms that were ruled by hereditary chiefs and that all interacted through maritime trade. Archaeological evidence show that these complex societies existed for over a thousand years before the coming of the Europeans. And that feasting was a common socio–cultural practice all over the islands.
 
There were different kinds of feasts – the merit feasts, the ritual and competitive feastings. The big source of revenues that funded these feasts came from long distance maritime trade of the chiefs with the Chinese empire and other Southeast Asian states.

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There was also this huge demand for Chinese porcelain, silks, metal goods like gongs and other exotic luxury items from other countries. These were symbols of power and social status for the chiefly elite. They were either displayed or given as gifts during the feasts.
 
Usually, feasts of merit served to strengthen social relations. It promoted oneness in the community and social rankings were reaffirmed through exchange of gifts. The chief’s oral narratives were recited, animal sacrifices and ancestor invoking rituals were performed. And of course, elaborate food presentations.
 
Merit feasts cultivated ties of personal loyalty and helped widen political influence of the chiefs through gift giving and ceremonialism.
    
Ritual feasts were described by 16th century Spanish chroniclers as “feasts of ostentations and vanity.” This feast was the central feature of the political economy of all chiefdoms. This was associated with life crisis events of the elite – birth, marriage, illness and death. And also with chiefly succession, warfare, trading and maritime raiding expeditions, political alliances and peace pacts, harvest festivals and other ritual events associated with agriculture.
 
In this feast, the wealth and power of the chief was revealed through the generous distribution of food to the nobles and commoners; the lavish gifts that were given to the elite guests like Chinese porcelain bowls, gold jewelry and gongs and the big number of animals sacrificed. This was the feast where political alliances were formed and peace pacts usually done through blood compacts between warring chiefs marked the cessation of hostilities.
 
A ritual feast can last for days depending on the food and wine supply of the host. A short supply of food and gifts will bring great shame to a chief and at times, made him lose his power and influence among his subjects and allies.
 
Based on Junker’s paper, the archaeological perspective on those pre hispanic feasts showed that the material evidence that were discovered all over the country were mostly Chinese porcelain belonging to different dynasties (though it also included ceramic wares from Thailand and Vietnam) and ranging from plates to jars and covered boxes; that these were all used for the feasts and as prestige burial goods of the elite.
 
Lastly, this brief local lore taken from Fr. Francisco Demetrio’s iconic book, The Village (1967): “There was a certain Datu named Bagonsaribo who had a very beautiful daughter. She was to marry the son of the Sultan of Lanao. The preparations for this wedding took a year and later, the wedding feast lasted for a month. After this feast, both the Datu and the Sultan decided to each hold a feast to display their wealth and see how long their provisions will hold out.
 
Bagonsaribo slaughtered more than a hundred carabaos and pigs. The Sultan did the same but after a while, his food supply was depleted and it proved no match to the wealth of the Datu. So he decided to leave and go back to Lanao, vowing never to go back to the land of the Datu for it caused him much shame.
 
Is this an exaggeration? Hardly.