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Sunday, January 08, 2006
Essay: Beyond the colors
By Erma M. Cuizon
Sun.star essay
One thing that the Sinulog has brought on is a sense of history that touches on the story of the origin of the Sto. Niño, and even stories before that, as performed by Sinulog participants. Now more people know what Magellan did and how the natives took him.
Inclusion of the pre-Spanish stories in the Sinulog parade would enhance the history of Christianization in the country.
Some contingents might take it on themselves to put up the story of the sky and water, and a hawk that were the only creations in existence at the beginning of time, says the early story of origin. But the hawk found no dry place to perch on, so he made the sky and water quarrel. And my, what natural drama came about!--–the sky throwing lightning all around, shaking the earth with thunder, then the water splashing up and down, fighting back, leaping, cutting fast across the path of the enemy with fury. When it was over, the water had been displaced and there came some dry spots on earth where the hawk could finally land. As it stood there, it found a bamboo pole near its feet, which it pecked on until the bamboo cracked open, then a man and a woman came out of it, named Kalak and Kabai.
Some pre-Spanish stories performed in the Sinulog parade would improve on the event, perhaps under another category. The natives didn’t run out of them, including the intriguing origins. They were people who connected as a way of life, they way modern Filipinos still do.
We remember not having seen such number of people out in the streets before. During the first Sinulog, we pushed our way out of the crowd to get to an elevation from where we could see the performances in the street as a whole, in that side of it.
From a roof garden, we looked down at the boulevard that snaked towards Colon and we saw a huge pack of human beings attracted by the drums, the happy noise, the show in alluring colors--–all in the streets.
This, you probably wouldn’t find in other places outside the country. Someone first drove through a neighborhood in New Jersey and saw cars parked in the side streets and in the garage. He looked around, overwhelmed by the number of cars but “Where are the people?”
Filipinos love the street, somehow, especially in a fiesta where at the right time they connect with loved ones, friends and warm strangers.
Take an ordinary street on an ordinary day, like Don Pedro Cui at sundown. People go out, as in a fiesta, flourish in the camaraderie with neighbors, hang around the small, lighted meal stores, tell stories, gossip. And they’d give anything to see someone dance or sing while the leisure hours last.
In the old pre-Spanish days, imagine the native stories that the neighbors exchanged with the others, not to talk of the stories behind the animistic rituals. This was probably the chance where to express happiness, to feast in thanksgiving, to enjoy the moment of harvest, to celebrate the rains after a drought.
The rituals kept the people one to be counted, to be safe in number even if surrounded by amazing but forbidding nature, to become one in purpose, to cooperate and be strong together. This would later be further assuaged by belief in the one true God which took away much of the fear in their hearts about the overpowering earth around them.
When the Spaniards came, they brought the natives even farther away from the forest of their fears, into what they called the town. They put up a church to where people would go to worship. They held community prayers--–all these activities were for their safety and to give them strength, but also to keep them closer to town, to better govern them.
But even the Catholic rituals would keep them in the street during fiestas. Color and music would still be the people’s attraction to streets. The Sto. Nino isn’t just an icon with power but a dear image in procession, lovingly dressed in velvet, its belt and sash studded with gold Spanish coins, its pendant cross with large diamonds, and large emeralds anywhere else.
Plus the miracles.
Such could bring anybody out to the streets in a procession, with the heart full of worship.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 8, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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