Tangible heritage structures like old churches are extremely vulnerable to weathering and natural calamities, but intangible heritage practices are even more fragile. Frequent interruptions—like kuraldal being interrupted by war and revolution, or ligligan parul being disrupted by martial law, or lubenas and sabat santacruzan being discontinued by the pandemic—demotivate organizers and participants from resuming them after the crisis ends. Which is why I was delighted to find that the gosu is alive and well in a little barrio called San Antonio in Mexico, Pampanga.
If you don’t know what gosu is, imagine a group of carolers going from house to house to sing not Christmas carols but religious hymns dedicated to Jesus, Mary or the saints. Gosu is the word that refers to the hymn (corrupted from the Spanish gozo, which means the same thing) while pamanggosu is the practice, similar to the pamangaluluwa of the Tagalogs.
According to tradition, the gosu singers sing the hymn that matches the household’s patron saint, to ask the saint’s intercession for the repose of the souls of the departed members of that household. Like the Halloween practice of trick-or-treat, the household must reward the gosu singers or risk being pranked by them. In the old times, the pranks included throwing stones at the house and stealing hens. Thankfully, they don’t do it anymore.
The surviving gosu in Mexico, Pampanga is the effort of the barrio pastoral council of San Antonio as well as another barrio, San Pablo. If I’m not mistaken, there are still other scattered places in the province where they also do gosu, but they should all come forward to be recognized so that well-meaning benefactors, parish groups and government officials can extend appropriate help and encouragement.
Appreciative households give money to the gosu performers just like they give to Christmas carolers. In the case of San Antonio, the pastoral council use the funds for the coming lubenas (lantern procession) which, like the gosu, is a novena (nine-day prayers) to spiritually prepare Catholics for a big religious feast (All Saints Day for gosu, Christmas Day for lubenas). The lubenas of San Antonio is quite expensive because it is accompanied by a brass band and they really dress up the carroza, which is why they diligently do the gosu to raise more funds.
By the way, the Center for Kapampangan Studies published a book on gosu years ago. The title is Gale at Gosu: Songbook of Traditional Kapampangan Songs. Its author, the prolific Catholic composer Cris Cadiang, compiled 60 original hymns to saints and his own original compositions. It even won the National Book Award in 2012.