The Ati-Atihan, held every January in
the town of Kalibo in the province of Aklan on the island of Panay, is
the wildest among Philippine fiestas. Celebrants paint their
faces with black soot and wear bright, outlandish costumes as they dance
in revelry during the last three days of this week-long festival.
The Ati-Atihan, a feast in honor of the Santo Niño, is
celebrated on the second Sunday after Epiphany. Catholics observe this
special day with processions, parades, dancing, and merrymaking. The Santo
Niño has long been the favorite of Filipinos and devotion to it
has been intense ever since an image was first presented to Juana, Queen
of Cebu, in 1521.
Although the Ati-Atihan seems to show only revelry, a closer
look shows that it has historic origins.
By midmorning, small groups gather in their
respective neighborhoods. They are prodded by drums as they dance their
way to the town center. They grow in numbers as different groups from
outlying areas merge into one as they get closer to the center of town.
Sometimes the crowd thins as a few drop out to worship in silence and
offer themselves to their own gods. But they always come back to rejoin
the group to disappear in the gyrating mob. The dancing never stops.
All week long, celebrants arrive by land, sea, and air. As inter-island
boats dock, they are greeted by pseudo-New Guinea tribal drummers.
Tourists are ferried across rice fields and coconut plantations to
Kalibo hotels while others are accommodated in private homes and public
buildings. Others camp on the beach. By weekend all accommodations are
gone although there seems to be no need for them as nobody bothers to
sleep anyway. There is music everywhere and the rowdy crowd often finds
itself inside improvised halls dancing all night long.
The steady beat of drums can sometimes be heard late in the night as a
lone drummer is suddenly inspired to pick up the rhythm. Or perhaps it
is only the drum in his own head that one hears as alcohol begins to
numb the senses.
VIVA EL SEÑOR SANTO NIÑO!
Celebrants ape the dance of the
Atis,
hence the name
Ati-Atihan which means "make-believe
Atis."
This ritual is said to be the result of the sale of land in Panay by
the
Ati chieftain Marikudo to Datu Puti and the Borneans so
that they can have a place to settle.
How did the
Santo Niño come into this pagan celebration? Is
this a Christian feast or a pagan ritual where devil-outfitted
participants dance hand-in-hand with old ladies in sarongs and young
colegialas,
arm-in-arm with dirty naked men, swig San Miguel beer and White Castle
whiskey as their fathers in miniskirts and their mothers in elaborate
headdresses watch? An uncle in a World War II guerilla uniform and a
brother wearing a rubber Nixon mask may also be watching, unconcerned.
In spite of the remoteness of some native
settlements, the
fiesta enabled the religious orders to reach
out to their scattered flock. "There were three
fiestas of
consequence to the Filipinos, namely, Holy Week, Corpus Christi, and the
feast in honor of the patron saint of the locality." The natives would
flock to the
cabecera and it was also an opportunity to
indoctrinate them in Christianity. Fiestas offered religious
processions, dances, music, and theatrical presentations to the people.
Although it may be "sacred or profane blended together...it is highly
doubtful that the Filipino were aware of the ceremony's elaborate
liturgical symbolism, but they evidently relished the pageantry
involved." (Phelan, 73) This statement seems particularly appropriate
for the
Ati-Atihan. Wherever the flock may be, they can hear
the drumbeats from far-away Kalibo calling them at the start of every
year.
Kalibo's
Ati-Atihan has become so popular that similar
festivals have cropped up all over Western Visayas. Antique has its
Binirayan
and
Handugan festivals while Iloilo City has a more lavish and
choreographed edition called
Dinagyang. Bacolod, not one to be
left behind, has also started its own version. (Hoefer, 255) In Cebu,
it comes as
Pit Senyor, a hopping dance to drums, (Joaquin, 18)
or
Sinulog. Today,
Ati-Atihan is celebrated in the
Aklan towns of Makato, Altavas, and Ibajay, a small town northeast of
Kalibo which claims to be the original site where the Negritos came down
from the hills to celebrate with the lowlanders. Of course, this claim
is recounted in various towns along the northeast coast of Panay but
through the years, Kalibo has established itself as the
Ati-Atihan
center.
