I won’t tire of suggesting this: Cebu needs another major activity that would showcase its pre-Spanish past. I am reminded of this suggestion every time we celebrate the feast of the Sto. Niño through the Sinulog festival.
The Sinulog dance is not a pre-Spanish dance but is attached to our veneration of the Child Jesus. In the process, the culture that existed before Ferdinand Magellan arrived in Cebu and, decades after when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi colonized us has been glossed over.
When I wrote the history of the birthplace of my father, Tudela town in the Camotes group of islands, I realized how difficult it is to showcase pre-Spanish culture considering the hold of Catholicism in the country. Before the Spaniards introduced the fiesta, there was in Tudela the pagan ritual called “pag-anito” (Tudela is Spanish; the old name of the town was Tag-anito).
I had the urge to suggest to the government officials of Tudela to study the “pag-anito” ritual and use this as basis for a town festival separate from the annual feast of the Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception every December. When the late Demetrio Granada was the mayor of the town, he introduced the cassava festival as a lure
for tourists. Many festivals sprouted when Gwen Garcia was governor.
But my question was, how would the Catholics treat that festival, which would be based on a pagan ritual? I sourced the description of how the ritual was done from William Henry Scott’s book, “Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society.” Interestingly, the “pag-anito” he described was done by the natives of the Cebu mainland.
According to Scott, the “pag-anito” was held “for fertility of crops, newlyweds or domestic animals; for rain or fair weather; for victory in war or plunder in raids; recovery from illness or the control of epidemics; or the placating of the souls of the deceased.” I am sure choreographers can come up with dances with that ritual as basis.
The “pag-anito” was presided over by a babaylan, “an old womam wearing a headdress topped by a pair of horns” who was accompanied by a “second medium.” Both of them “carried bamboo trumpets which they either played or spoke through.” The babaylan and the second medium danced around a hog with scarfs in their hands, “acting out a dialogue between the spirits possessing them, drinking wine on their behalf, and sprinkling some of it on the hog.”
The hog was part of the offering with “red blossoms, roasted fish, rice and millet cakes wrapped in leaves and a piece of imported Cambay clothes.”
The hog, which was bound at the start of the ritual, would later be speared by the babaylan. It would then be “singed, butchered and cooked.”
That would be followed by a feast.
I actually think that the Spanish friars introduced the fiesta to counter the “pag-anito” ritual.
As a result, many Cebuanos do not know that such a ritual was practiced by our ancestors before Magellan came. We continue to be ignorant of our past and are only familiar with practices introduced by the powers that colonized us. Which to me is never a good setup. khanwens@gmail.com