Saint-Day Parties, Requiem Suppers, Weddings
Every Filipino, in the Christian provinces, on the day of baptism, takes the name of some one of a long list of saints who, from that time on, is to…
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Saint-Day Parties, Requiem Suppers, Weddings” from In the Land of the Filipino by Ralph Kent Buckland, 1912.
Every Filipino, in the Christian provinces, on the day of baptism, takes the name of some one of a long list of saints who, from that time on, is to be his patron, protecting him and guiding him over life's troubled way until the end. Each saint has one day of the year set aside in his especial honor, although sometimes they have to double up, either because there are not enough days to go around, or because there are too many saints that need to be accommodated; and, on this day, all children and grown-ups who cling to this particular saint as their patron, celebrate by entertaining lavishly, or by passing around among the assembled guests, roasted bananas or camotes, according to the amount of money within reach at the time. Quantities of whatever kind of refreshments they intend serving have to be made ready; for whoever cares to drop in to offer congratulations, and, if there is dancing, to enjoy a waltz or two, is perfectly welcome.
This happy custom of entertaining on saint-days insures a perpetual round of parties, with the exception of the latter part of the Lenten season; for there is a saint for every day in the year, and an extra one to do duty on the twenty-ninth of February, besides those that manage to ring in on some other saint's section of the calendar. The really wealthy Filipinos plan to entertain royally when the saint-days of the members of their families come around; but the poorer ones do as best they can.
Sometimes, one will see some lazy crone humped up in the sun outside her shack, chewing at her betel-nut, looking the very picture of contentment, as though she did not care whether she ever moved another muscle or not. An inquiry as to why the loom stands neglected, will elicit nothing more than the languid reply:
"Acong dias, Senor" "My saint-day, Senor."
For these saint-day parties, no invitations are ever sent out; those belonging to the same social set are considered invited as a matter of course. It sometimes happens that a hostess is put out if certain ones fail to call at her house on her dias. It is considered almost a duty for all friends to come and wish the one for whom the party is being given many happy returns of the day.
In some towns, there may be a daughter in each of three or four prominent families laboring under the same given name. In the same town, there may be three or four Rosarios, all of them belonging to he same social circle, and all of them sufficiently rich to be able to give saint-day parties. In such a case, many of those who attend will visit each house in turn, so as not to offend any of the hostesses.
Saint-day parties are usually given for women and girls; but, sometimes, a man, pretty well up in the world, will celebrate his dias each year as conscieniously as though it was a religious duty.
A saint-day party in a home of wealth is identical with any formal dancing party. Only there is a little more jollity, perhaps, and a freer hospitality than it a straight-backed formal affair, where everybody is trying to show every other body in the room that they are the very pink of dignity and know-how-to-do-it-all.
Some unfortunates are named for saints whose days occur in or near Holy Week. These, of course, because of the sadness of the season, do not entertain, at least not in any gay manner. They may entertain callers and provide modest refreshments; but there will be no dancing nor any attempt at having a lively time.
One girl whom I knew very well was named Dolores. Her dias fell on the Friday just before Holy Week, so she never could entertain for herself; but her father thoughtfully arranged matters for her, so that she would not have to be without a party entirely. On this Friday of Dolores, it is one of the native customs for all who wish to do penance for some wrong-doing, to entertain at dinner twelve old women, the older and haggier the better. This father shoved all the work of his penance partly off on his daughter, then made out that it was also, in a way, her saint-day party. So, in truth, it was; for most of the planning came on her. She was one of those heavily-laden specimens of humanity common to all races, but uncommon in each race, one of those who bore many burdens intended for other shoulders than hers. Nor were the burdens of this girl confined to the giving of penance parties for her indolent father; on her devolved the bringing up of four motherless brothers and sisters, while papa did penance—and a few other things on the side.
During the first few months of my stay in Calivo, three of us Americans were sitting in my sala, talking, when a muchacho tag balayed—they never rap—and, on being given permission, entered. He passed around invitations to what, as we haltingly read the Spanish, seemed to be a funeral supper, a sort of death-angel banquet.
Then, W. looked up from his invitation and remarked: "Why, no, it isn't either. This old coot died twenty years ago. It must be an anniversary affair."
Sure enough, that is just what it was. We were asked to come over and to eat a bite in memory of one who had departed this life more than twenty years before. Think of having an annual grief stir-up, an annual rehearsal of the bowlings and yelping that in the Island always accompany obsequies. We went; but there did not seem to be much sadness, as we had feared there would be. There was no tear-shedding that I could see; I think we danced. Taking it all in all, it was a pretty expensive little party. No doubt, the soul of the one in whose memory it was given, felt quite gratified to think that there were still those on earth who cared enough about him and what he had been while on earth, for he had been in his day a Padre, to spend a little in his honor.
A long time after, for two years in succession, I myself took a prominent part in requiem banquets, although I was not the chief mourner, nor yet the one mourned. I acted temporarily, on each occasion, the part of an electric button; that is, nothing could be undertaken until I had first been pressed. And I was pressed, too. The family giving the banquet lived next door, and, in this case, too, the cause of it all was a dead Padre, of some six years' standing. I did not attend the affair either year; for each was of a much cruder order than the one in Calivo. Mournful singing and screeching took up most of the time; then was passed around among the guests a bamboo tube full of tuba, from which each in turn might take a swig.
Although I did not grace the little gathering with my presence, nevertheless I played a very important part. I furnished the wherewithal to pay for the bell-ringing and to buy the tuba. For once, I acted the very soul-satisfying part of the power behind the throne, unseen but indispensable. The day before each celebration, I was implored to come forward with a ten-peso bill; and, flattered, I presume, by the thought that I was really going to be the mainspring of a party in honor of the dead, flattered by the thought that I was embracing an opportunity to splurge as a penny philanthropist, each time I let the ten pesos slip through my fingers. I never saw either ten again. But I learned wisdom from experience, cheap at twenty pesos, and I learned to analyze my feelings, whenever tempted to oblige any loan solicitor, to find out truly whether I was going to give—in the Philippines, a loan is always a gift—to please the one wishing the loan, or to please myself, by playing for a little while the part of Lord Bountiful.
In the Philippines, weddings are not always considered necessary to consummate marriages. Many couples live together by the sanction of the common law without any church ceremony, and these marriages work out as well as many with all the red tape procurable tied around the participants. In either case, the newly married pair will quarrel like cats and dogs if so inclined and will eventually separate; in either case, if built that way, they will live peaceably together and stick through thick and thin to the very door of death. From a doubly refined moral stand- point, there is little difference between whether a priest gets up and jumbles through a lot of truck about loving and honoring, et cetera, or whether he does not. Any idiot knows how much of the whole performance is of value, and how many of the men, or of the women either, as far as that goes, feel bound by what they promise, that is after the honeymoon begins to wane.
Formal marriage, after all is said, falls back for its stability, and, therefore, for its success, on the two, the man and the woman, most concerned. All the church ceremonies under the sun would fail to produce a happy marriage if the husband was lax in doing his share or the wife slack about her tasks. The only real purposes served by a marriage ceremony is the securing to offspring of property rights by declaring them legitimate; and the protecting of each principal from the other; humans are always and forever making provision for their own frailty.
There are a great many common-law marriages in the Philippines. I have heard missionaries, almost with tears in their eyes, lament the dreadful state of affairs; yet the Filipinos are not rankly immoral people, and, on that score, there is little cause for lamentation. Many of them joined in this auto-matrimonial combination are as true as steel to one another. They could not be more so if forty Padres powwowed from morn until night to make of two but one. Besides, this class of people do not have to worry much over the legitimacy of their offspring before the laws of the land; for they have little or no property to leave behind them when they die.
Nor are the Filipinos a licentious people, in spite of the fact that a great many of them consider as unnecessary a ceremonious tying of the nuptial knot.
I once asked a widow, fifty years old, who, years before, had been bereft of her husband, how it happened that she had never set her cap for another man to worry and fuss over. She replied that, as the good God had seen fit to remove her first, she was not going to trouble herself about getting into any such mix-up again.
One of my missionary friends told me of a couple belonging to the middle class, who had lived together for twenty years, long before the American occupation, under the tie of a common-law relation. There had been several children born to the union, and they were being provided for and reared as well as most brown children. But the missionary convinced the twain that they were doing very wrong indeed; he married them gratis after twenty years of married life, and the missionary was so transparently certain that he had added yet another star to his crown. I could not help feeling slightly amused, and I fear I showed it a trifle.
Among the moneyed classes, common-law unions do occur, but not so very frequently. It is not because the upper classes have any scruples about the matter at all; it is because they thoroughly enjoy ceremonious display of all kinds, and because the church wedding, followed by a large baile offers such a splendid opportunity for showing off. They feel no more firmly bound together than do many couples of fairer complexion after a similar ceremony.
Buckland, Ralph Kent. In the Land of the Filipino. Every Where Publishing Company, 1912.
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