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 theSanto 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.
The pounding of bass drums and the rhythmic tinkling of metal and stone on bottles reverberate in the air during the celebration. Monotonous and pulsating, the music blasts a while then stops to wait for a response from others. Drums beat continuously and everyone talks and shouts,BOOM BOOM BOOM BO BOOM BO BO BO BOOM!BOOM BOOM BOOM BO BOOM BO BO BO BOOM!
HALA BIRA, PUERA PASMA!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.
The celebration uncontrollably builds to the "bedlam of its climax-- the torch-lit Sunday procession," says Gabriel Casal, O.S.B., in his article in Filipino Heritage. Casal observes that the unyielding street dancers never fail to enter the Kalibo church every time they pass by. Repeated shouts of "Viva kay Santo Niño!" and placards carried around with the same slogan make it known to everybody that this profane merriment is the participants' raucous way of honoring theSanto Niño.
Casal said that the coming of the Santo Niño into the fiesta started with the intervention of the first encomiendero of Aklan, Don Antonio Flores. He made arrangements with Datu Malanga and Datu Madayog to have their then existing native celebration be dedicated to the Santo Niño.
When strong rains wiped out hillside crops in the distant past, the Atis came down to ask for food. The lowlanders who had a good harvest shared their blessings with the black, kinky-haired people. The Atis danced and sang in gratitude for the helping hand. Every year since then, the mountain people have come down to ritually solicit food though song and dance. The "lighter-skinned Maraynon, as the Borneans came to be called, got into the spirit of the newly-established friendship by daubing their faces with soot and danced with the Atis." (Casal, 2320)
Sometime in the 13th century, ten datus from Borneo fleeing the tyranny of Datu Makatunaw purchased some land in Panay from the Ati Marikudo, son of the old chief Populan. The price agreed upon was a solid gold hat and a basin. In addition, the Ati chief's wife wanted an ankle-length necklace for which the natives gave a bushel of live crabs, a long-tusked boar, and full-antlered white deer. Datu Puti, leader of the expedition and a relative of Makatunaw, established the Panay settlement and left Datu Sumakwel in charge.
Datu Puti went on farther north to the island of Luzon and left Datu Balensuela and Datu Dumangsil in a settlement in Taal. Datu Puti later returned to Borneo. These we gather from Maragtas, a book written by Pedro Monteclaro in 1907 and supposedly based on an ancient manuscript that nobody has ever seen.
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