The cemetery is surrounded by a coral wall, commanded by a gate that bears a Latin epigram. The graves, as indicated by the mounds of dirt, are never very deep, and while a few are guarded by a wooden cross, forlornly decorated by a withered bunch of flowers, most of the graves receive no care at all. There may be one or two vaults overgrown with grass and in a bad state of repair. Around the big cross in the center is a ghastly heap of human bones and grinning skulls—grinning because somebody else now occupies their former grisly beds, the rent on which has long ago expired.
To the Visayan mind, death is a matter of bad luck. It is advisable to hinder it with anting-antings and medallions; but when it comes, the Filipino fatalist will take it philosophically. To the boys and girls a family death is the sensation of the year. It means to them nine days of celebration, when old women gather at the house, and, beating on the floor with hands and feet, put up a hopeless wail, while dogs without howl dismally and sympathetically. And at the end of the nine days, the soul then being out of purgatory, they will have a feast. A pig and a goat will be killed, not to speak of chickens—and the meat will be served up with calabash and rice; and visitors will come and look on while the people eat at the first table; and the second table and the third are finished, and the viands still hold out. But these are placed upon the table down below, where hoi polloi and the lame, blind, and halt sit down and eat. And back of all this superficiality lies the great superstitious dread by means of which the Church of Rome holds such authority.
I got to know the little village very well—to join the people in their foolish celebrations and their wedding feasts. I was among them when the town was swept by cholera; when, in their ignorance, they built a dozen little shrines—just nipa shelters for the Holy Virgin, decorated with red cloth and colored grass—and held processions carrying the wooden saints and burning candles.
Then the locusts came, and settled on the rice-fields—a great cloud of them, with whirring wings. They rattled on the nipa roofs like rain. The children took tin pans and drums and gave the enemy a noisy welcome. But the rains fell in the night, and the next morning all the ground was strewn with locusts trying heavily to fly. The ancient drum of the town-crier ushered in the day of work, and those who took this opportunity to pay their taxes gathered at the municipio—about a hundred ugly-looking men. They were equipped with working bolos, with their blades as sharp as scythes for cutting grass, and, looking at them, you were forcibly reminded of another day, another army with a similar accouterment. Even the presidente went barefooted as he gave directions for the work. Some were dispatched for nipa and bamboo, while others mowed the grass around the church. Another squad hauled heavy timbers, singing as they pulled in unison.
On Sunday mornings a young carabao was killed. The meat hacked off with little reference to anatomy was hung up in the public stall among the swarms of flies. Old women came and handled every piece, and haggled a good deal about the price. Each finally selected one, and swinging it from a short piece of cane, carried it home in triumph. Morning mass was held at the big simbahan, where the doleful music of the band suggested lost souls wailing on the borders of Cocytus or the Stygian creek. Young caballeros dressed in white, the concijales with their silver-headed canes and baggy trousers, and the “taos” in diaphanous and flimsy shirts that they had not yet learned to tuck inside, stood by to watch the señoritas on their way to church. The girls walked rather stiffly in their tight shoes; but as soon as mass was over, shoes and stockings came off, and the villagers relaxed into the bliss of informality.
I learned, when I last went to La Aurora, that Felicidad was going to be married; that the banns had been announced last Sunday in the church. The groom to be, Benito,—or Bonito as we called him on account of his good looks,—had recently returned from college in Cebu, bringing a string of fighting cocks, a fonografo, and a piebald racing pony. “When he sent me the white ribbon,” said Felicidad, “I was surprised, but mamma said that I was old enough to marry him—I was fourteen—and that the matter had been all arranged. And so I wore the ribbon in my hair, and also wrote my name Felicidad beneath his on the card that he had sent. And after that, when we went walking, the dueña was unnecessary.”
She confessed naïvely to a serenade under her balcony, of which I seem to have retained a hazy memory. And so the usual pig and goat were roasted, and the neighbors’ boys came in to help. The bride, with orange-blossoms in her hair, the daintiest kid slippers on her feet, and dressed in a white mist of piña, rode away in the new pony cart, the only one in town. The groom was dressed in baggy trousers, with a pink shirt and an azure tie. Most of the presents came from Chino Santiago’s store; but the best one was a beautiful piano from Cebu.
After the service in the church, a feast was held upstairs in the bride’s house. Ramon, the justice of the peace, the padre, Maestro Pepin, all the concijales, and the presidente were invited, and the groom owned up that he had spent his last cent on the refreshments that were passed around. It is the custom in the poorer families for the prospective groom to bond himself out for a certain length of time to the bride’s father, or even to purchase her with articles of merchandise. A combination of commercial interests was the result, however, of the marriage of Bonito and Felicidad.