DEATH AND OUR NEIGHBORS

TODAY being All Souls Day, let me share with you accounts of ancient practices associated with the dead, written by Prof. H. Otley Beyer's Kapampangan students in the early 1900s.

Our ancestors had very elaborate ways of preparing a body for burial, because they felt it was their duty to ease his transition to the next life and also because they feared reprisal from a dissatisfied soul.

As soon as someone died in the neighborhood (indicated by loud wailing), neighbors knew exactly what to do next. Members of the grieving family were not allowed to do any work, and so the neighbors took over. There were no funeral services, no embalming, and so everything that needed to be done must be done quickly, before decomposition set in (burial must take place within 24 hours).

The tasks were age-specific and gender-sensitive.

The women cooked for the bereaved, sewed their mourning dresses, prepared betel nuts for the visitors to chew, and washed plates, while the menfolk built the coffin and cut bamboos for the fire. The elders bathed and dressed up the body (male elders for dead men, female elders for dead women).

Dead children were dressed up like saints. The preferred saint for boys was St. Peter, in the hope of gaining easy admission at the gates of heaven.

Meanwhile, the teenagers stayed up all night to keep watch and guard against the magcucutud (or manananggal), the airborne supernatural creatures who stole corpses. They entertained themselves by playing card games like entre siete and pierde y gana or playing the traditional Kapampangan games of caragatan (or bugtungan) and talubangan (or bulaclacan), where the boys played butterflies to the girls' flowers.

The deceased was laid on his bed decorated with hangings (black for an adult, white for a child). If the deceased did not own a bed, he was laid out on a mat (dase or banig) on the floor.

The grieving family would have nothing to do but stay beside the dead to weep (they had less than 24 hours to say their final good-byes). If they had to talk to visitors at all, it should be about the life and legacy of the departed. The children of the deceased were not supposed to play; if they did, old folks warned, they'd go crazy.

Visitors from distant places were required to take some food before going back home. The neighbors, on the other hand, were expected to eat in their respective homes before proceeding to the wake.

In much earlier times ("200 years ago," according to one of Beyer's students in 1915), when a child died, his body was taken to the village where it was exposed for two or three days to let other villagers know who was missing from their tribe.

If the deceased was a male adult, male villagers went to his house bringing different objects that symbolized something, e.g. a jar of water to wash away his sins, seeds or seedlings to perpetuate his good deeds.

A child's corpse was always buried neck-deep while a male adult's corpse only knee-deep, in the belief that the soul of older people needed to get out of this world more quickly. As for dead women, their bodies were just thrown into a pit, because in those days, women were considered unworthy of even a decent burial.

These particular practices eventually faded away, but the rest persisted.

For example, in Macabebe they still do tagulele, an ancient practice that the Bergaño dictionary defined as "the chant of lamentation during a person's wake or burial, relating the bravery of the deceased."

Any form of house cleaning is still prohibited during the wake, or another member of the family might also die. When the coffin is already being carried out of the house, however, it should be followed with sweeping of the floor, to drive away illness and bad spirits.

Some relatives must also stay behind and peep out of the windows as the coffin is being taken out. The deceased person's bed must be discarded by taking it out of the house through a window, to ensure his happiness in the next life and to prevent another death in the family.

During the funeral procession, everyone (not just the family) should be in black and holding lighted candles. The widow and female relatives should wear sucong (long black veils). Rich families spend more to have a punebre (funeral band) and the parish priest accompanying the dead to the cemetery.

In those days when there were still no public cemeteries, the dead were buried in private properties, usually the backyard.

Before burial, relatives younger than the deceased took turns kissing his hand, while the children were held up and passed to waiting arms across the coffin. Everyone threw in a handful of soil as the casket was lowered, but only the gravediggers were permitted to look at it.

In the first two nights after burial, family and friends gathered around a makeshift altar inside the house to pray for the deceased, have bread, sweets and tea or coffee (nothing more), followed by merriment (more caragatan and talubangan).

On the third night, when the soul was believed to come for a brief visit, a seat would be reserved for him at the dining table where ash, instead of food, was put on his plate and covered with cacaricutcha leaves. The soul would be pleased to see this and would reward his loved ones with a passing apparition or even clues to some hidden wealth.

From fourth to eighth nights, only bread, sweets and tea/coffee would be served again to those who participated in the prayer vigils, but on the ninth night (the uacas of the pasiyam), a big dinner was served. Groups of visitors took turns praying for the deceased before proceeding to the dinner table.

The disappearance of these practices today is an indication of how much we have alienated ourselves from our neighbors, unlike our ancestors who could always rely on their kasiping-bale (kapit-bahay) in times of grief and trouble.

Today, our neighborhoods are nothing but rows of island fortresses, fully equipped with amenities so that we don't have to run to those living next door or across the street for help.

Someone once asked Christ, "Who is my neighbor?" More recently, the puppet gang on Sesame Street sang, "Who are the people in your neighborhood?"

Our ancestors knew. Do we?

Published in the Sun.Star Pampanga newspaper on November 02, 2010.