Lumuha ka, aking Bayan; buong lungkot mong iluha
Ang kawawang kapalaran ng lupain mong kawawa:
Ang bandilang sagisag mo?y lukob ng dayong bandila,
Pati wikang minana mo?y busabos ng ibang wika,
Ganito ring araw nang agawan ka ng laya,
Labintatlo ng Agosto nang saklutin ang Maynila,

Lumuha ka, habang sila ay palalong nagdiriwang,
Sa libingan ng maliit, ang malaki?y may libingan;
Katulad mo ay si Huli, naaliping bayad-utang,
Katulad mo ay si Sisa, binaliw ng kahirapan;
Walang lakas na magtanggol, walang tapang na lumaban,
Tumataghoy, kung paslangin; tumatangis, kung nakawan!

Iluha mo ang sambuntong kasawiang nagtalakop
Na sa iyo?y pampahirap, sa banyaga?y pampalusog:
Ang lahat mong kayamana?y kamal-kamal na naubos,
Ang lahat mong kalayaa?y sabay-sabay na natapos;
Masdan mo ang iyong lupa, dayong hukbo?y nakatanod,
Masdan mo ang iyong dagat, dayong bapor, nasa laot!

Lumuha ka kung sa puso ay nagmaliw na ang layon,
Kung ang araw sa langit mo ay lagi nang dapithapon,
Kung ang alon sa dagat mo ay ayaw nang magdaluyong,
Kung ang bulkan sa dibdib mo ay hindi man umuungol,
Kung wala nang maglalamay sa gabi ng pagbabangon,
Lumuha ka nang lumuha?t ang laya mo?y nakaburol.

May araw ding ang luha mo?y masasaid, matutuyo,
May araw ding di na luha sa mata mong namumugto
Ang dadaloy, kundi apoy, at apoy na kulay dugo,
Samantalang ang dugo mo ay aserong kumukulo;
Sisigaw kang buong giting sa liyab ng libong sulo
At ang lumang tanikala?y lalagutin mo ng punglo

Panniqui

What thing that God made sleeps with its head down?

Bat

2. Pantas ca man, at marunong bumasa at sumulat, aling ibon dito sa mundo ang lumilipad ay sumususo ang anak?

(Tag.) Kabag

Although you are wise and know how to read and write, which bird in this world flies and yet suckles its young?

Bat

3. Uppat iti adiguina, maysa iti baotna, dua iti paypayna, dua iti boneng.

(Iloc.) Carabao

Four posts, one whip, two fans, and two bolos.

Carabao

4. Apat na tukod langit at isang pang hagupit.

(Tag.) Kalabao

Four earth posts, two air posts and whip.

Carabao

5. Saquey so torutoro duaray quepay-quepay a patiray mansobsoblay.

(Pang.) Dueg

One pointing, two moving, four changing.

Carabao

The head points, the ears move, the legs change position.

6. Nu mat-tut-lud ay atanang udde; nu mat-tadag ay ibbafa.

(Gad.) Atu

If he sits down he is high; if he stands up he is low.

Dog

7. Adda maysa nga parsua ni Apo Dios nga adda uppat a sacana, ipusna quen maysa nga ulona nga aoan ti imana.

(Iloc.) Caballo

There is one creature of our Lord God which has four legs and a tail and one head; but it has no arms.

Horse

8. Carga nang carga ay ualang upa.

(Tag.) Babuy

Always working and no pay.

The pig

He is ever eating garbage and waste.

9. Eto na si “Nuno,” may sunong na guinto.

(Tag.) Babuy

Here comes “Nuno” with gold on his head.

Pig

The pig is a constant scavenger and frequents the space below latrines and privies; it is a common thing that his snout is yellow as result of his search.

10. Magmagna ni inam sangsangitam.

(Iloc.) Burias

While the mother is walking the child is crying.

A little pig

The Bugtong or riddle is one of the most ancient forms of Philippine poetry. These Filipino Poems are still used today.

photo from wikipedia

After years of this kind of life, the maharlika finally felt it was time to settle down and marry the woman of his choice. “But who is the woman to choose?” he asked himself as he sat in the rich splendour of his home, “All the women I know are beautiful and charming, but I am tired of the glitter of their jewels and the richness of their clothes!” He wanted a woman different from all the women he saw day and night, and found this in a simple village lass. She was charming in her own unaffected ways, and her
name was Dama.

They married and lived contentedly. She loved him and took care of him. She pampered him with the most delicious dishes, and kept his home and his clothes in order. But soon, the newness wore off for the maharlika. He started to long for the company of his friends. He took a good look at his wife and thought, she is not beautiful and she does not have the air of nobility abouther, she does not talk with wisdom. And so the maharlika returned to his own world of glitter and splendor. He spent his evenings sitting around with his friends in their noble homes , drank and talked till the first rays of the sun peeped from the iron grills of their ornate windows.

Poor Dama felt that she was losing her husband. She wept in the silence of their bedroom. “I cannot give my husband anything but the delights of my kitchen and the warmth of my bed. He is tired of me.” She looked to the heavens. “Oh, friendly spirits! Help me. Give me a magic charm. Just one little magic charm to make my husband come home again, that he will never want to leave my side, forever!”

It was midnight when the maharlika came home. He opened the door of their bedroom and called for Dama to tell her to prepare his nightclothes. “Dama! Dama, where are you?” he called. He shouted all around the bedroom. He sarched the whole house. Still the nobleman could not find his simple wife. Finally the nobleman returned to their bedroom, tired and cross. But, as he opened the door, he stopped.

A are scent, sweet and fragrant, drifted to him. It was a scent he had never smelled before. He entered the room and crossed to the window where the scent seemed to be floating from. A strange bush was growing outside the window. Some of its thin branches had aleady reached the iron grills and were twisting around. And all over the bush were thousands of tiny starlike, white flowers, from which burst forth a heavenly, enchanting scent!

He stood there, completely enraptured by the glorious smell. “Dama…” he whispered softly, onderingly, could this be Dama? The rich maharlika sat by the window, and waited for the return of his loving simple wife. But she did not come back. She never returned to him again. Only the
fragrance of the flowers stayed with him, casting a spell over his whole being.

In the moonlight, Dama of the night, or Dama de Noche would be in full bloom, capturing the rich maharlika, making him never want to leave her side, forever.

Josephine, Josephine
Who to these shores have come
Looking for a nest, a home,
Like a wandering swallow;
If your fate is taking you
To Japan, China or Shanghai,
Don’t forget that on these shores
A heart for you beats high.

ONE evening in August 1941, I came out of a late movie to a silent, cold night. I shivered a little as I stood for a moment in the narrow street, looking up at the distant sky, alive with stars. I stood there, letting the night wind seep through me, and listening. The street was empty, the houses on the street dim—with the kind of ghostly dimness that seems to embrace sleeping houses. I had always liked empty streets in the night; I had always stopped for a while in these streets listening for something I did not quite know what. Perhaps for low, soft cries that empty streets and sleeping houses seem to share in the night.

I lived in an old, nearly crumbling apartment house just across the street from the moviehouse. From the street, I could see into the open courtyard, around which rooms for the tenants, mostly a whole family to a single room, were ranged.

My room, like all the other rooms on the groundfloor, opened on this court. Three other boys, my cousins, shared the room with me. As I turned into the courtyard from the street, I noticed that the light over our study-table, which stood on the corridor outside our room, was still burning. Earlier in the evening after supper, I had taken out my books to study, but I went to a movie instead. I must have forgotten to turn off the light; apparently, the boys had forgotten, too.

I went around the low screen that partitioned off our “study” and there was a girl reading at the table. We looked at each other, startled. I had never seen her before. She was about eleven years old, and she wore a faded blue dress. She had long, straight hair falling to her shoulders. She was reading my copy of Greek Myths.

The eyes she had turned to me were wide, darkened a little by apprehension. For a long time neither of us said anything. She was a delicately pretty girl with a fine, smooth. pale olive skin that shone richly in the yellow light. Her nose was straight, small and finely molded. Her lips, full and red, were fixed and tense. And there was something else about her. Something lonely? something lost?

“I know,” I said, “I like stories, too. I read anything good I find lying around. Have you been reading long?”
“Yes,” she said. not looking at me now. She got up slowly, closing the book. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you want to read anymore? I asked her, trying to smile, trying to make her feel that everything was all right.
“No.” she said, “thank you.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, picking up the book. “It’s late. You ought to be in bed. But, you can take this along.”
She hesitated, hanging back, then shyly she took the book, brought it to her side. She looked down at her feet uncertain as to where to turn.

“You live here?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

“What room?”

She turned her face and nodded towards the far corner, across the courtyard, to a little room near the communal kitchen. It was the room occupied by the janitor: a small square room with no windows except for a transom above the door.
“You live with Mang Lucio?”

“He’s my uncle.”

“How long have you been here? I haven’t seen you before, have I?”

“I’ve always been here. I’ve seen you.”

“Oh. Well, good night—your name?”

“Maria.”

“Good night, Maria.”

She turned quickly, ran across the courtyard, straight to her room, and closed the door without looking back.

I undressed, turned off the light and lay in bed dreaming of far-away things. I was twenty-one and had a job for the first time. The salary was not much and I lived in a house that was slowly coming apart, but life seemed good. And in the evening when the noise of living had died down and you lay safe in bed, you could dream of better times, look back and ahead, and find that life could be gentle—even with the hardness. And afterwards, when the night had grown colder, and suddenly you felt alone in the world, adrift, caught in a current of mystery that came in the hour between sleep and waking, the vaguely frightening loneliness only brought you closer to everything, to the walls and the shadows on the walls, to the other sleeping people in the room, to everything within and beyond this house, this street, this city, everywhere.

I met Maria again one early evening, a week later, as I was coming home from the office. I saw her walking ahead of me, slowly, as if she could not be too careful, and with a kind of grownup poise that was somehow touching. But I did not know it was Maria until she stopped and I overtook her.

She was wearing a white dress that had been old many months ago. She wore a pair of brown sneakers that had been white once. She had stopped to look at the posters of pictures advertised as “Coming” to our neighborhood theater.
“Hello,” I said, trying to sound casual.

She smiled at me and looked away quickly. She did not say anything nor did she step away. I felt her shyness, but there was no self-consciousness, none of the tenseness and restraint of the night we first met. I stood beside her, looked at the pictures tacked to a tilted board, and tried whistling a tune.

She turned to go, hesitated, and looked at me full in the eyes. There was again that wide-eyed—and sad? —stare. I smiled, feeling a remote desire to comfort her, as if it would do any good, as if it was comfort she needed.
“I’ll return your book now,” she said.

“You’ve finished it?”

“Yes.”

We walked down the shadowed street. Magallanes Street in Intramuros, like all the other streets there, was not wide enough, hemmed in by old, mostly unpainted houses, clumsy and unlovely, even in the darkening light of the fading day.
We went into the apartment house and I followed her across the court. I stood outside the door which she closed carefully after her. She came out almost immediately and put in my hands the book of Greek myths. She did not look at me as she stood straight and remote.

“My name is Felix,” I said.

She smiled suddenly. It was a little smile, almost an unfinished smile. But, somehow, it felt special, something given from way deep inside in sincere friendship.

I walked away whistling. At the door of my room, I stopped and looked back. Maria was not in sight. Her door was firmly closed.

August, 1941, was a warm month. The hangover of summer still permeated the air, specially in Intramuros. But, like some of the days of late summer, there were afternoons when the weather was soft and clear, the sky a watery green, with a shell-like quality to it that almost made you see through and beyond, so that, watching it made you lightheaded.

I walked out of the office one day into just such an afternoon. The day had been full of grinding work—like all the other days past. I was tired. I walked slowly, towards the far side of the old city, where traffic was not heavy. On the street there were old trees, as old as the walls that enclosed the city. Half-way towards school, I changed my mind and headed for the gate that led out to Bonifacio Drive. I needed stiffer winds, wider skies. I needed all of the afternoon to myself.
Maria was sitting on the first bench, as you went up the sloping drive that curved away from the western gate. She saw me before I saw her. When I looked her way, she was already smiling that half-smile of hers, which even so told you all the truth she knew, without your asking.

“Hello,” I said. “It’s a small world.”

“What?”

“I said it’s nice running into you. Do you always come here?”

“As often as I can. I go to many places.”

“Doesn’t your uncle disapprove?”

“No. He’s never around. Besides, he doesn’t mind anything.”

“Where do you go?”

“Oh, up on the walls. In the gardens up there, near Victoria gate. D’you know?”

“I think so. What do you do up there?”

“Sit down and—”

“And what?”

“Nothing. Just sit down.”

She fell silent. Something seemed to come between us. She was suddenly far-away. It was like the first night again. I decided to change the subject.

“Look,” I said, carefully, “where are your folks?”

“You mean, my mother and father?”

“Yes. And your brothers and sisters, if any.”

“My mother and father are dead. My elder sister is married. She’s in the province. There isn’t anybody else.”

“Did you grow up with your uncle?”

“I think so.”

We were silent again. Maria had answered my questions without embarrassment. almost without emotion, in a cool light voice that had no tone.
“Are you in school, Maria?”

“Yes.”

“What grade?”

“Six.”

“How d’you like it?”

“Oh, I like it.”

“I know you like reading.”

She had no comment. The afternoon had waned. The breeze from the sea had died down. The last lingering warmth of the sun was now edged with cold. The trees and buildings in the distance seemed to flounder in a red-gold mist. It was a time of day that never failed to carry an enchantment for me. Maria and I sat still together, caught in some spell that made the silence between us right, that made our being together on a bench in the boulevard, man and girl, stranger and stranger, a thing not to be wondered at, as natural and inevitable as the lengthening shadows before the setting sun.

Other days came, and soon it was the season of the rain. The city grew dim and gray at the first onslaught of the monsoon. There were no more walks in the sun. I caught a cold.

Maria and I had become friends now, though we saw each other infrequently. I became engrossed in my studies. You could not do anything else in a city caught in the rains. September came and went.

In November, the sun broke through the now ever present clouds, and for three or four days we had bright clear weather. Then, my mind once again began flitting from my desk, to the walls outside the office, to the gardens on the walls and the benches under the trees in the boulevards. Once, while working on a particularly bad copy on the news desk, my mind scattered, the way it sometimes does and, coming together again, went back to that first meeting with Maria. And the remembrance came clear, coming into sharper focus—the electric light, the shadows around us, the stillness. And Maria, with her wide-eyed stare, the lost look in her eyes…

IN December, I had a little fever. On sick leave, I went home to the province. I stayed three days. I felt restless, as if I had strayed and lost contact with myself. I suppose you got that way from being sick,
A pouring rain followed our train all the way back to Manila. Outside my window, the landscape was a series of dissolved hills and fields. What is it in the click of the wheels of a train that makes you feel gray inside? What is it in being sick, in lying abed that makes you feel you are awake in a dream, and that you are just an occurrence in the crying grief of streets and houses and people?
In December, we had our first air-raid practice.
I came home one night through darkened streets, peopled by shadows. There was a ragged look to everything, as if no one and nothing cared any more for appearances.
I reached my room just as the siren shrilled. I undressed and got into my old clothes. It was dark, darker than the moment after moon-set. I went out on the corridor and sat in a chair. All around me were movements and voices. anonymous and hushed, even when they laughed.
I sat still, afraid and cold.
“Is that you. Felix?”
“Yes. Maria.”
She was standing beside my chair, close to the wall. Her voice was small and disembodied in the darkness. A chill went through me, She said nothing more for a long time.
“I don’t like the darkness,” she said.
“Oh, come now. When you sleep, you turn the lights off, don’t you?”
“It’s not like this darkness,” she said, softly. “It’s all over the world.”
We did not speak again until the lights went on. Then she was gone.
The war happened not long after.
At first, everything was unreal. It was like living on a motion picture screen, with yourself as actor and audience. But the sounds of bombs exploding were real enough, thudding dully against the unready ear.
In Intramuros, the people left their homes the first night of the war. Many of them slept in the niches of the old walls the first time they heard the sirens scream in earnest. That evening, I returned home to find the apartment house empty. The janitor was there. My cousin who worked in the army was there. But the rest of the tenants were gone.
I asked Mang Lucio, “Maria?”
“She’s gone with your aunt to the walls.” he told me. “They will sleep there tonight.”
My cousin told me that in the morning we would transfer to Singalong. There was a house available. The only reason he was staying, he said, was because they were unable to move our things. Tomorrow that would be taken care of immediately.
“And you, Mang Lucio?”
“I don’t know where I could go.”
We ate canned pork and beans and bread. We slept on the floor, with the lights swathed in black cloth. The house creaked in the night and sent off hollow echoes. We slept uneasily.
I woke up early. It was disquieting to wake up to stillness in that house which rang with children’s voices and laughter the whole day everyday. In the kitchen, there were sounds and smells of cooking.
“Hello,” I said.
It was Maria, frying rice. She turned from the stove and looked at me for a long time. Then, without a word, she turned back to her cooking.
“Are you and your uncle going away?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he not tell you?”
“No.”
“We’re moving to Singalong.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, anyway, I’ll come back tonight. Maybe this afternoon. We’ll not have to say goodbye till then.”
She did not say anything. I finished washing and went back to my room. I dressed and went out.
At noon, I went to Singalong to eat. All our things were there already, and the folks were busy putting the house in order. As soon as I finished lunch, I went back to the office. There were few vehicles about. Air-raid alerts were frequent. The brightness of the day seemed glaring. The faces of people were all pale and drawn.
In the evening, I went back down the familiar street. I was stopped many times by air-raid volunteers. The house was dark. I walked back to the street. I stood for a long time before the house. Something did not want me to go away just yet. A light burst in my face. It was a volunteer.

“Do you live here?”

“I used to. Up to yesterday. I’m looking for the janitor.”

“Why, did you leave something behind?”

“Yes, I did. But I think I’ve lost it now.”

“Well, you better get along, son. This place, the whole area. has been ordered evacuated. Nobody lives here anymore.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Nobody.”

Noong unang panahon ay may mag-asawang naninirahan sa Lamut na nangngangalang Cabigat at Bugan. Sila ay masasaya dahil marami silang nakukuhang pagkain at mga hayop. Isang araw lumabas si Cabigat upang mamasyal na karaniwag isinasagawa sa mga kalapit na nayon. Habang sila’y wala, inilabas ng kanyang asawang si Bugan ang kanyang panghabi upang humabi ng isang tapis. Noong dakong hapon, isinampay niya ang natapos na tapis sa silong ng bahay. Sila,y nagbayo ng palay para sa hapunan at agahan.

Sa ambato, naisipan ni Puwek, ang bathala ng bagyo, na mamasyal sa mga kabundukan, burol at lambak. Sinimulan niya ang kanyang paglalakbay sa pamamagitan ng pagdaraan sa ilang nayon hanggang sa makarating siya sa Lamut. Isa itong mapanirang paglalakbay dahil sa lahat ng naraanang mga punongkahoy at pananim ay walang awang nasisisra. Ang panghabi ni Bugan ay
tinangay din at nasira, ata ang palay na kanyang binayo ay kumalat sa lupa. Ang kaawa-awang si Bugan ay umiiyak na napaupo samantalang nagdaraan ang nagngangalit na hangin. Pagkatapos ng bagyo, si Cabigat ay umuwi.

Subalit ano ang kanyang nakita? Nakita niyang ang lahat ng kanyang mga punong namumunga ay nabuwal at ang panghabi at palay ay nakakalat sa lupa. Namamaga rin ang mga mata ni Bugan dahil sa pag-iyak. Walang kibo si Cabigat. Wala siyang masabi kahit isang salita dahil sa ang laman ng kanyang puso ay pulos pagkagalit. Matapos na minsan pang pagmasdan ang naging masamang kapalaran, madamdaming nasabi ni Cabigat na “Bakit, sino ang gumawa ng lahat ng ito?’

Dahan-dahang itinaas ni Bugan ang kanyang ulo at sumagot, “Dumating sa hapong ito si Puwek at walang awing ibinuwal ang lahat n gating mga namumungang puno, sinira ang aking panghabi at ikinalat ang lusong. Sumisisgaw ako sa pagmamakaawa ngunit hindi niya ako pinakinggan.

Tulad ng isang ulol na leon, pumasok sa bahay si Cabigat at kinuha ang kanyang sibat at palakol. Nagbalot siya ng ilang pandikit at nanaog. At saka sinabi sa kanyang asawa, “Bugan dumito ka sa bahay at alagaan ang naiwan nating aria-arian. Susundan ko si Puwek, ang bathalaa ng bagyo. Nais ipaghiganti ang lahat ng paninirang kanyang dinala sa ating masayang tahanan.”

At pagkatapos ay di naghintay ng kasagutan, si Cabigat ay nagsimula sa kanyang mapanganib na paglalakbay.

Madali niyang nasundan ang kanyang kaaway dahil sinundan lamang niya ang mga daang may palatandaan ng paninira . Mahaba ang paglalakbay, ngunit matapang niyang nilakbay ang mga kabundukan hanggang sa wakas ay marating niya ang Ambato. Sa kanyang labis na pagkamangha, natagpuan niyang ang bahay ni Puwek ay isang engkantong lugar. Ito ay malaki at panay bato. Sa ilalim ay may isang tanel na siyang kinaroroonan ng kuwarto ni Puwek.

Walang nabubuhay na bagay sa paligid-ligid ng bato. Pagpapakamatay sa sinuman ang lumapit sa engkantong lugar, ngunit di natakot si Cabigat. Naroroon siya upang maghiganti.

“Anong aking gagawin para siya ay mapatay?” tanong niya sa kanyang sarili. “a, siyanga pala, sasarhan ko ang kanyang pintuan at hahayaan siyang mamatay sa gutom sa sarili niyang kuwarto.”

Sinimulang isagawa ni Cabigat ang kanyang balak. Kinuha niya ang
kanyang palakol at pinutol ang lahat ng malalaking puno sa pintuan. “Ngayon , Puwek, hipan mong mabuti at tingnan ko kung gaano ka kalakas.” Sigaw ni Cabigat.

Nagmamadaling lumabas ang bathala ng bagyo at hinipang lahat ang mga torso. Lumipad silang lahat at sa itaas sa lahat ng direksyon. Muling pumasok si Puwek sa kanyang kuwarto nang walang sinabi kahit na isang salita.

Hindi nawalan ng pag-asa, ang galit na galit na si Cabigat ay naupo upang umisip ng ibang balak para makapaghiganati. Naisip niyang sarhan ang pinto ng mabibigat na mga torso. Kinuha niyang muli ang kanyang palakol at nagnguha ng mga punong yakal. Dinala niya sa bungad ng pinto at itinayo niya ang kanyang pader sa pangalawang pagkakataon. Sa pamamagitan ng dinala niyang pandikit, pinagdikit niya ang mga siwang sa mga torso. At pagkatapos ay buong
lakas siyang sumigaw, “Puwek, hipan mong muli.. Gusto kong subukin ang iyong
lakas.”

Kaya muling lumabas si Puwek at hinipang palayo ang bakod. Pinagsikapan niyang mabuti, susbalit hindi siya makalabas, Naramdaman niyang nahihirapan siyang huminga.

“Sino kang napakatapang para pumarito sa engkanto kong tahana? Ikaw lamang ang taong nakarating sa bungad ng aking pintuan,” sigaw ng bathala ng bagyo.

“Ako si cabigat ng Lamut. Sinundan kita dahil sinira mo ang aking mga namumungang puno at ang panghabi ng aking asawa, at iyon itinapon ang palay na kanyang binabayo.”

Naramdaman ni Puwek na siya ay lalong hindi makahinga sa loob ng kanyang kuwarto. Kaya nagmakaawa siya kay Cabigat na buksan na ang pinto at nangakong di siya saasaktan.

“Hindi,” galit na sagot ni Cabigat. “Hindi mo kinaawaan ang aking asawa nang siya’y magmakaawa sa iyo. Kaya gusto kong ipaghiganti ang lahat ng mga paninirang iyong ginawa sa aking masayang tahanan.”

Sa loob ng tanel, humina nang humina si Puwek. Pinilit niyang hipan ang bakod ngunit wala siyang magawa. Halos di siya makahinga dahil ang pintuan ay sinarhan. Kaya muli siyang nagmakaawa.

“Cabigat, maawa ka, Iligtas mo ang aking buhay. Kung ako’y iyong ililigtas, ituturo ko sa iyo ang seremonya sa paglilinang ng palay. Magiging higit kang mayaman kaysa noon kung matutuhan mo ang bagay na ito,” sigaw ni Puwek.

Muling sumagot si cabigat, “Hindi. Hindi ko kailangan ang iyong iniaalok. Mayaman ako sa Lamut at alam ko ang seremonya sa paglilinang ng palay.”

Nang ang bathala ng bagyo ay nasa bingit na ng kamatayan, muli siyang nagmakaawa. Ang wika niya’y “ibibigay ko sa iyo ang aking kodla at ituturo ko sa iyo ang kiwil. Isang bagay itong makapangyarihan at magpapayaman sa iyo.”

Dahil sa malaking pagnanais na malaman ang ituturong karunungan, napaniwala si cabigat. Inalis niya ang mga torso at masayang lumabas si Puwek. Pagkatapos ay ngumanga siya ng hitso.

Inilabas ni Puwek ang mahiwagang bato at ipinakita sa kanyang bagong kaibigan. “Mahalaga sa akin ang batong ito, wika niya. “Hindi ako nararapat mawalay ditto, ngunit iniligtas mo ang aking buhay. Ibibigay ko ito sa iyo gaya ng aking pangako.” Pagkatapos ay itinuro niya kay Cabigat ang seremonya. “Sa iyong pag-uwi, huwag mong kalilimutang alayan ako at ang ibang mga bathala ng mga manok at baya, katutubong alak, upang manatili magpakailanman ang kapangyarihan ng iyong kodla..”

“Oo,” wika ni Cabigat , “Gagawin kong lahat ang iyong mga sinabi.”

Kaya tinanggap ni Cabigat ang kodla mula sa nag-aatubiling kamay ni Puwek.

Sa kanyang daraanan, nakakita si Cabigat ng isang pulang ibong umaawit ng isang nagbababalang awit na nangangahulugan ng masamang kapalaran. Nagalit siya at sa pamamagitan ng kanyang daliri ay itinuro ang pulang ibon. Ang tuka ng pulang ibon ay agad nabuksang tulad ng isang pares ng gunting.

Ang kaawa-awang ibon ay di makapagsalita. Pagkatapos ay tumawa si Cabigat. “mabuti, isa na akong makapangyarihang tao ngayon,” wika niya sa kanyang sarili. Ipinagpatuloy ni Cabigat ang kanyang paglalakbay. Sa isang bahagi ng daan nakita niya ang isang kawan ng mga balang na nagliliparan sa kanyang daraanan. Batid niyang isa itong masamang palatandaan para sa isang manlalakbay. Kaya kinuha ni Cabigat ang kanyang sibat at tinungayawan ang kawan ng mga balang. Ang kapangyarihan ng kanyang kodla ay muling nasubok
sa pangalawang pagkakataon. Mula noon at si Cabigat ay lubos na naniwala sa kapangyarihan ng kanyang gantimpala.

Pagdating niya sa kanyang tahanan, tinipon niya ang kanyang mga kamag-anak at kapitbahay. Sa pamamagitan ng mga inihandang alak at mga manok, isinagawa nila ang seremonya ng pagpapasalamat. Hiningi nila ang pagpapala ng mga bathala sa daigdig sa itaas, gitnang daigdig, daididg sa ibaba at kay Puwek na nagkaloob kay Cabigat ng kodla at nagtuaraioa sa kanya ng kiwil.

Ipinagatapat ni Cabigat sa kanila kung paano niya nakamit ang gantimpala. Iginalang ng mga tao ang kanilang pinuno nang higi kaysa noon.

Masayang namuhay si Cabigat at ang kanyang asawa. Naging higit silang mayaman at higit na minahal ng mga tao, Tinuruan ni Cabigat ng kiwil ang ilan sa kanyang mga tao. Lagi siyang tinatawag upang magsagawa ng seremonya para sa kanila. Mula noon ang Lamut ay naging higit na mapayapa at maunlad sa pamamagitan ng kapangyarihan ng kodla at kiwil.

Sa kasalukuyan, ang mga Ifugao, lalo na ang mga matatanda ay nag-iingat pa ng kodla Natatandaan nilang mabuti sina Bugan at Cabigat para dito. Ang seremonya ng kodla at kiwil at binibigkas sa gayog mga okasyon na matapos ang isang mahabang paglalakabay, kung nag-uuwi sa bahay ng ilan ng bagong karne at sa pakakasakit gaya ng pinaniniwalaan na dala ng masasamang espiritu. Pinaniniwalaan pa rin na ang taong nag-aangkin ng kodla ay ligtas sa alinmang panganib saan mam siya magtungo.

Ang mga Katyaw na leghorn doon ay madaling nasilaw sa balitang bilis at lakas ni Tenoriong Talisain. At madali niyang naging kaibigan ang
pinakamagandang sa mga banyagang manok na si Lolitang Leghorn.

Isang araw ay galit na galit na umuwi si Denang Dumalaga.

“Naku!”ang bulalas ng dumalaga. Ako pala ay sinisiraan ni Tenoriong
Talisain. Ako raw ay naging kasintahan niya…”

“Diyata’t?”ang bulalas din ni Aling Martang Manok.

“At katakot-takot na paninira raw laban sa mga kalahi ang ginagawa ng
Talisaing iyan. Tayo raw ay ikinahihiya niya. Masamang lahi raw tayo…”

Gayon din ang ikinagalit ni Toniong Tandang nang siya’y dumating. Napakasamang manol iyang si Tenoriong Talisain,”ang wika ng tandang.

“Kangina’y nakita ko. Kung lumakad at magslita’y ginagaya ang mga leghorn. Ang balita ko pa’y nagpasuklay ng balahibo upang maging mistulang leghorn na. Nakapanginginig ng laman.”

“Bayaan ninyo siya,”ang wika ni Aling Martang Manok. “Pagsisisihan din
niya ang kanyang ginawang iyan.”

Ilang araw, pagkatapos ay dumating si Toniong Tandang na kasama si
Tenoriong Talisain. Gusut-gusot na ang balahibo ng katyaw. Pilay pa ang isang paa, pasa-pasa ang buong katawan at hindi halos makagulapay.

“Bakit ano ang nangyari?”ang tanungan ng mga kalahing manok.

“Iyan pala ay maluwat nang kinaiinisan ng mga katyaw na Leghorn,”ang
wika ni Toniong Tandang. “Kangina’y nakita ko na lamang na pinagtutulungan ng apat na katyaw na leghorn.”

“Bakit hindi mo pa pinabayaang mapatay?”ang wika ng mga kalahing
manok. “Tayo rin lamang ay ikinahihiya niya at itinatakwil pa…”

“Talaga nga sanag ibig ko nang pabayaan.”ang wik ni Toniong
Tandang.”Ngunit hindi rin ako nakatiis. At talagang namang kung hindi ako sumaklolo’y nasirang Tenoriong Talisain na siya ngayon.”

“Nakita mo na, Tenoriong Talisain!” ang wika ni Aling Martang Manok.

“Iyang kalahi, kahit masamain mo’y talagang hindi makatitiis.

“Huwag kayong lilihis ng landas patungo sa ating lungga, dahil sa may
gawing kaliwa ay may munting kanal,” sabi ni Tatay Langgam.

“Hindi po kami lalayo,” sabi ni Unang Munting Langgam.

Abala sa paghahakot ng mga pagkain ang bawat isa, kung kayat hindi nila napansing ang Bunsong Langgam ay unti-unting humiwalay sa pila.

“Nakakapagod naman ang paghahakot ng pagkain, matagal pa naman
ang tag-ulan ay naghahanda na kami,”sabi sa sarili ng Bunsong Langgam.

“Buti pa’y maghanap ako ng mas masarap na pagkain.”

Walang anu-ano’y nakakita ng isang kendi na malapit na malapit sa kanal na ipinagbabawal na puntahan ng kanyang ama.

“Siguro naman ay hindi ako mahuhulog sa kanal kung dahan-dahan kong kukunin ang kendi.”

Sa kasabikan niyang makuha ang kendi ay hindi niya napansin ang
munting sinulid na kinapatiran ng kanyang paa, kaya nawalan siya ng panimbang at tuloy-tuloy na nahulog sa kanal.

Hind mapakali ang Amang Langgam nang hindi niya makita ang kanyang
Bunsong anak sa pila. Kaya dali-dali siyang umalis upang ito’y hanapin,
hanggang sa siya’y mapadako sa ipinagbabawal na pook. Pagtingin niya sa ibaba ay nakita niyang nakalutang sa tubig ang kanyang bunsong anak. Masakit man sa kalooban ay naibulong niya sa kanyang sarili na: “Iyan ang napapala ng mga anak na matigas ang ulo.”

Jose Abreu
Kaibigan

Macario Adriatico
Amaori, C. Amabri and Felipe Malayo

Faustino Aguilar
Sinag-Ina

Emilio Aguinaldo
Magdalo

Virgilio Almario
Rio Alma

Pascual Alvarez
Bagongbuhay

Aurelio Alvero
Magtanggul Asa

Cecilio Apostol
Catulo, Calipso and Calypso

Francisco Arcellana
Franz Arcellana

Pedro de Govantes de Azcarraga
Conde de Albay

Francisco dela Cruz Balagtas
Francisco Baltazar

Asuncion Lopez Bantug (Rizal’s grand niece)
Apo ni Dimas

Jose Ma. Basa
Isaac Fernando delos Rios

Bautista
Ba Basiong

Gen. Vito Belarmino
Blind Veteran

Andres Bonifacio
Agapito Bagumbayan, while his inspiring Katipunan name was Maypagasa

Felipe Calderon
Simoun and Elias (names from Rizal’s novels)

José Corazón de Jesús
Huseng Batute

Jose dela Cruz
Huseng Sisiw

Marcelo H. Del Pilar
Plaridel, Dolores Manapat, Piping Dilat, Siling Labuyo, Kupang, Haitalaga, Patos, Carmelo, D.A. Murgas, L.O. Crame D.M. Calero, Hilario, and M. Dati.

Severino de las Alas
Di-kilala

Epifanio delos Santos
G. Solon

Valeriano Hernandez Peña
Ahas na Tulog, Anong, Damulag, Dating Alba, Isang Dukha, Kalampag and Kintin Kulirat

Severino Reyes
Lola Basyang

Mariano del Rosario
Tito-Tato

Salvador Vivencio del Rosario
X and Juan Tagalo

Domingo Gomez
Romero Franco

Nestor Vicente Madali Gonzalez
N.V.M. Gonzalez

Fernando Ma. Guerrero
Fluvio Gil

Amado Hernandez
Amante Ernani, Herininia de la Riva and Julio Abril

Emilio Jacinto
Dimas-ilaw and his Katipunan name was Pingkian

Nick Joaquin
Quijano de Manila

Jesus Lava
B. Ambrosio Rianzares

Sixto Lopez
Batulaw

Gen. Antonio Luna
Taga-Ilog

Juan Luna
J.B. and Buan (a translation of his surname Luna which means moon)

Apolinario Mabini
Bini and Paralitico

Jose Palma
Ana-haw, Esteban Estebanes and Gan Hantik

Rafael Palma
Hapon and Dapit-Hapon

Jose Maria Panganiban
Jomapa and J.M.P.

Pascual H. Poblete
Anak-Bayan

Mariano Ponce
Naning, Tikbalang, and Kalipulako

Dr. José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda
José Rizal, Dimas-alang (Tagalog for Touch me not), Laong-Laan (which means Ever-prepared), Agnoand Calambeño

Hugo Salazar
Ambut

Moises Salvador
Araw

Jose Turiano Santiago
Tiktik

Lope K. Santos
Anak-Bayan and Doctor Lukas

Juan Crisostomo Soto
Crissot

Luis Taruc
Alipato (which means spark that spreads a fire and one of Rizal’s pet dogs)

Jose Ma. Sison
Amado Guerrero

Dr. Pio Valenzuela
Madlang-Away

Clemente Jose Zulueta
M. Kaun

J. Zulueta
Juan Totoó

THE MORETAS WERE spending St. John’s Day with the children’s grandfather, whose feast day it was. Doña Lupeng awoke feeling faint with the heat, a sound of screaming in her ears. In the dining room the three boys already attired in their holiday suits, were at breakfast, and came crowding around her, talking all at once. “How long you have slept, Mama!” “We thought you were never getting up!” “Do we leave at once, huh? Are we going now?” “Hush, hush I implore you! Now look: your father has a headache, and so have I.

So be quiet this instant—or no one goes to Grandfather.” Though it was only seven by the clock the house was already a furnace, the windows dilating with the harsh light and the air already burning with the immense, intense fever of noon. She found the children’s nurse working in the kitchen. “And why is it you who are preparing breakfast? Where is Amada?” But without waiting for an answer she went to the backdoor and opened it, and the screaming in her ears became wild screaming in the stables across the yard. “Oh my God!” she groaned and, grasping her skirts, hurried across the yard. In the stables Entoy, the driver, apparently deaf to the screams, was hitching the pair of piebald ponies to the coach.

“Not the closed coach, Entoy! The open carriage!” shouted Doña Lupeng as she came up.

“But the dust, señora—“

“I know, but better to be dirty than to be boiled alive. And what ails your wife, eh? Have you been beating her again?”

“Oh no, señora: I have not touched her.”

“Then why is she screaming? Is she ill?” “I do not think so. But how do I know? You can go and see for yourself, señora. She is up there.” When Doña Lupeng entered the room, the big half-naked woman sprawled across the bamboo bed stopped screaming. Doña Lupeng was shocked. “What is this Amada? Why are you still in bed at this hour? And in such a posture! Come, get up at once. You should be ashamed!” But the woman on the bed merely stared. Her sweat-beaded brows contracted, as if in an effort to understand.

Then her face relax her mouth sagged open humorously and, rolling over on her back and spreading out her big soft arms and legs, she began noiselessly quaking with laughter—the mute mirth jerking in her throat; the moist pile of her flesh quivering like brown jelly. Saliva dribbled from the corners of her mouth.

Doña Lupeng blushed, looking around helplessly, and seeing that Entoy had followed and was leaning in the doorway, watching stolidly, she blushed again. The room reeked hotly of intimate odors. She averted her eyes from the laughing woman on the bed, in whose nakedness she seemed so to participate that she was ashamed to look directly at the man in the doorway. “Tell me, Entoy: has she had been to the Tadtarin?” “Yes, señora. Last night.” “But I forbade her to go! And I forbade you to let her go!” “I could do nothing.” “Why, you beat her at the least pretext!” “But now I dare not touch her.” “Oh, and why not?” “It is the day of St. John: the spirit is in her.” “But, man—“ “It is true, señora. The spirit is in her. She is the Tadtarin.

She must do as she pleases. Otherwise, the grain would not grow, the trees would bear no fruit, the rivers would give no fish, and the animals would die.” “Naku, I did no know your wife was so powerful, Entoy.” “At such times she is not my wife: she is the wife of the river, she is the wife of the crocodile, she is the wife of the moon.” “BUT HOW CAN they still believe such things?” demanded Doña Lupeng of her husband as they drove in the open carriage through the pastoral countryside that was the arrabal of Paco in the 1850’s.

Don Paeng darted a sidelong glance at his wife, by which he intimated that the subject was not a proper one for the children, who were sitting opposite, facing their parents. Don Paeng, drowsily stroking his moustaches, his eyes closed against the hot light, merely shrugged. “And you should have seen that Entoy,” continued his wife. “You know how the brute treats her: she cannot say a word but he thrashes her. But this morning he stood as meek as a lamb while she screamed and screamed. He seemed actually in awe of her, do you know—actually afraid of her!” “Oh, look, boys—here comes the St. John!” cried Doña Lupeng, and she sprang up in the swaying carriage, propping one hand on her husband’s shoulder wile the other she held up her silk parasol.

And “Here come the men with their St. John!” cried voices up and down the countryside. People in wet clothes dripping with well-water, ditch-water and river-water came running across the hot woods and fields and meadows, brandishing cans of water, wetting each other uproariously, and shouting San Juan! San Juan! as they ran to meet the procession.

Up the road, stirring a cloud of dust, and gaily bedrenched by the crowds gathered along the wayside, a concourse of young men clad only in soggy trousers were carrying aloft an image of the Precursor. Their teeth flashed white in their laughing faces and their hot bodies glowed crimson as they pranced past, shrouded in fiery dust, singing and shouting and waving their arms: the St. John riding swiftly above the sea of dark heads and glittering in the noon sun—a fine, blonde, heroic St. John: very male, very arrogant: the Lord of Summer indeed; the Lord of Light and Heat—erect and godly virile above the prone and female earth—while the worshippers danced and the dust thickened and the animals reared and roared and the merciless fires came raining down form the skies—the relentlessly upon field and river and town and winding road, and upon the joyous throng of young men against whose uproar a couple of seminarians in muddy cassocks vainly intoned the hymn of the noon god: That we, thy servants, in chorus May praise thee, our tongues restore us… But Doña Lupeng, standing in the stopped carriage, looking very young and elegant in her white frock, under the twirling parasol, stared down on the passing male horde with increasing annoyance.

The insolent man-smell of their bodies rose all about her—wave upon wave of it— enveloping her, assaulting her senses, till she felt faint with it and pressed a handkerchief to her nose. And as she glanced at her husband and saw with what a smug smile he was watching the revelers, her annoyance deepened. When he bade her sit down because all eyes were turned on her, she pretended not to hear; stood up even straighter, as if to defy those rude creatures flaunting their manhood in the sun. And she wondered peevishly what the braggarts were being so cocky about? For this arrogance, this pride, this bluff male health of theirs was (she told herself) founded on the impregnable virtue of generations of good women. The boobies were so sure of themselves because they had always been sure of their wives. “All the sisters being virtuous, all the brothers are brave,” thought Doña Lupeng, with a bitterness that rather surprised her. Women had built it up: this poise of the male. Ah, and women could destroy it, too! She recalled, vindictively, this morning’s scene at the stables: Amada naked and screaming in bed whiled from the doorway her lord and master looked on in meek silence. And was it not the mystery of a woman in her flowers that had restored the tongue of that old Hebrew prophet? “Look, Lupeng, they have all passed now,” Don Paeng was saying, “Do you mean to stand all the way?” She looked around in surprise and hastily sat down. The children tittered, and the carriage started. “Has the heat gone to your head, woman?” asked Don Paeng, smiling. The children burst frankly into laughter.

Their mother colored and hung her head. She was beginning to feel ashamed of the thoughts that had filled her mind. They seemed improper—almost obscene—and the discovery of such depths of wickedness in herself appalled her. She moved closer to her husband to share the parasol with him. “And did you see our young cousin Guido?” he asked. “Oh, was he in that crowd?” “A European education does not seem to have spoiled his taste for country pleasures.” “I did not see him.”

“He waved and waved.” “The poor boy. He will feel hurt. But truly, Paeng. I did not see him.” “Well, that is always a woman’s privilege.” BUT WHEN THAT afternoon, at the grandfather’s, the young Guido presented himself, properly attired and brushed and scented, Doña Lupeng was so charming and gracious with him that he was enchanted and gazed after her all afternoon with enamored eyes. This was the time when our young men were all going to Europe and bringing back with them, not the Age of Victoria, but the Age of Byron.

The young Guido knew nothing of Darwin and evolution; he knew everything about Napoleon and the Revolution. When Doña Lupeng expressed surprise at his presence that morning in the St. John’s crowd, he laughed in her face. “But I adore these old fiestas of ours! They are so romantic! Last night, do you know, we walked all the way through the woods, I and some boys, to see the procession of the Tadtarin.” “And was that romantic too?” asked Doña Lupeng. “It was weird. It made my flesh crawl. All those women in such a mystic frenzy! And she who was the Tadtarin last night—she was a figure right out of a flamenco!” “I fear to disenchant you, Guido—but that woman happens to be our cook.” “She is beautiful.” “Our Amada beautiful? But she is old and fat!” “She is beautiful—as that old tree you are leaning on is beautiful,” calmly insisted the young man, mocking her with his eyes. They were out in the buzzing orchard, among the ripe mangoes; Doña Lupeng seated on the grass, her legs tucked beneath her, and the young man sprawled flat on his belly, gazing up at her, his face moist with sweat. The children were chasing dragonflies. The sun stood still in the west. The long day refused to end. From the house came the sudden roaring laughter of the men playing cards. “Beautiful! Romantic! Adorable! Are those the only words you learned in Europe?” cried Doña Lupeng, feeling very annoyed with this young man whose eyes adored her one moment and mocked her the next. “Ah, I also learned to open my eyes over there—to see the holiness and the mystery of what is vulgar.” “And what is so holy and mysterious about—about the Tadtarin, for instance?” “I do not know. I can only feel it. And it frightens me.

Those rituals come to us from the earliest dawn of the world. And the dominant figure is not the male but the female.” “But they are in honor of St. John.” “What has your St. John to do with them? Those women worship a more ancient lord. Why, do you know that no man may join those rites unless he first puts on some article of women’s apparel and—“

“And what did you put on, Guido?” “How sharp you are! Oh, I made such love to a toothless old hag there that she pulled off her stocking for me. And I pulled it on, over my arm, like a glove. How your husband would have despised me!” “But what on earth does it mean?” “I think it is to remind us men that once upon a time you women were supreme and we men were the slaves.”

“But surely there have always been kings?”

“Oh, no. The queen came before the king, and the priestess before the priest, and the moon before the sun.”

“The moon?”

“—who is the Lord of the women.”

“Why?”

“Because the tides of women, like the tides of the sea, are tides of the moon. Because the first blood -But what is the matter, Lupe? Oh, have I offended you?”

“Is this how they talk to decent women in Europe?”

“They do not talk to women, they pray to them—as men did in the dawn of the world.”

“Oh, you are mad! mad!” “Why are you so afraid, Lupe?”

“I afraid? And of whom? My dear boy, you still have your mother’s milk in your mouth. I only wish you to remember that I am a married woman.”

“I remember that you are a woman, yes. A beautiful woman. And why not? Did you turn into some dreadful monster when you married? Did you stop being a woman? Did you stop being beautiful? Then why should my eyes not tell you what you are—just because you are married?”

“Ah, this is too much now!” cried Doña Lupeng, and she rose to her feet.

“Do not go, I implore you! Have pity on me!”

“No more of your comedy, Guido! And besides—where have those children gone to! I must go after them.”

As she lifted her skirts to walk away, the young man, propping up his elbows, dragged himself forward on the ground and solemnly kissed the tips of her shoes. She stared down in sudden horror, transfixed—and he felt her violent shudder. She backed away slowly, still staring; then turned and fled toward the house. ON THE WAY home that evening Don Paeng noticed that his wife was in a mood. They were alone in the carriage: the children were staying overnight at their grandfather’s. The heat had not subsided. It was heat without gradations: that knew no twilights and no dawns; that was still there, after the sun had set; that would be there already, before the sun had risen.

“Has young Guido been annoying you?” asked Don Paeng. “Yes! All afternoon.” “These young men today—what a disgrace they are! I felt embarrassed as a man to see him following you about with those eyes of a whipped dog.” She glanced at him coldly. “And was that all you felt, Paeng? embarrassed—as a man?” “A good husband has constant confidence in the good sense of his wife,” he pronounced grandly, and smiled at her. But she drew away; huddled herself in the other corner. “He kissed my feet,” she told him disdainfully, her eyes on his face. He frowned and made a gesture of distaste. “Do you see? They have the instincts, the style of the canalla! To kiss a woman’s feet, to follow her like a dog, to adore her like a slave –” “Is it so shameful for a man to adore women?” “A gentleman loves and respects Woman. The cads and lunatics—they ‘adore’ the women.” “But maybe we do not want to be loved and respected—but to be adored.” But when they reached home she did not lie down but wandered listlessly through the empty house. When Don Paeng, having bathed and changed, came down from the bedroom, he found her in the dark parlour seated at the harp and plucking out a tune, still in her white frock and shoes.

“How can you bear those hot clothes, Lupeng? And why the darkness? Order someone to bring light in here.”

“There is no one, they have all gone to see the Tadtarin.”

“A pack of loafers we are feeding!” She had risen and gone to the window. He approached and stood behind her, grasped her elbows and, stooping, kissed the nape of her neck. But she stood still, not responding, and he released her sulkily. She turned around to face him.

“Listen, Paeng. I want to see it, too. The Tadtarin, I mean. I have not seen it since I was a little girl. And tonight is the last night.” “You must be crazy! Only low people go there. And I thought you had a headache?”

He was still sulking. “But I want to go! My head aches worse in the house. For a favor, Paeng.” “I told you: No! go and take those clothes off. But, woman, whatever has got into you!” he strode off to the table, opened the box of cigars, took one, banged the lid shut, bit off an end of the cigar, and glared about for a light. She was still standing by the window and her chin was up. “Very well, if you do want to come, do not come—but I am going.”

“I warn you, Lupe; do not provoke me!” “I will go with Amada. Entoy can take us. You cannot forbid me, Paeng. There is nothing wrong with it. I am not a child.” But standing very straight in her white frock, her eyes shining in the dark and her chin thrust up, she looked so young, so fragile, that his heart was touched. He sighed, smiled ruefully, and shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, the heat ahs touched you in the head, Lupeng. And since you are so set on it—very well, let us go. Come, have the coach ordered!” THE CULT OF the Tadtarin is celebrated on three days: the feast of St. John and the two preceding days. On the first night, a young girl heads the procession; on the second, a mature woman; and on the third, a very old woman who dies and comes to life again. In these processions, as in those of Pakil and Obando, everyone dances. Around the tiny plaza in front of the barrio chapel, quite a stream of carriages was flowing leisurely. The Moretas were constantly being hailed from the other vehicles. The plaza itself and the sidewalks were filled with chattering, strolling, profusely sweating people. More people were crowded on the balconies and windows of the houses. The moon had not yet risen; the black night smoldered; in the windless sky the lightning’s abruptly branching fire seemed the nerves of the tortured air made visible.

“Here they come now!” cried the people on the balconies. And “Here come the women with their St. John!” cried the people on the sidewalks, surging forth on the street. The carriages halted and their occupants descended. The plaza rang with the shouts of people and the neighing of horses—and with another keener sound: a sound as of seawaves steadily rolling nearer. The crowd parted, and up the street came the prancing, screaming, writhing women, their eyes wild, black shawls flying around their shoulders, and their long hair streaming and covered with leaves and flowers. But the Tadtarin, a small old woman with white hair, walked with calm dignity in the midst of the female tumult, a wand in one hand, a bunch of seedling in the other.

Behind her, a group of girls bore aloft a little black image of the Baptist—a crude, primitive, grotesque image, its big-eyed head too big for its puny naked torso, bobbing and swaying above the hysterical female horde and looking at once so comical and so pathetic that Don Paeng, watching with his wife on the sidewalk, was outraged. The image seemed to be crying for help, to be struggling to escape—a St. John indeed in the hands of the Herodias; a doomed captive these witches were subjecting first to their derision; a gross and brutal caricature of his sex. Don Paeng flushed hotly: he felt that all those women had personally insulted him. He turned to his wife, to take her away—but she was watching greedily, taut and breathless, her head thrust forward and her eyes bulging, the teeth bared in the slack mouth, and the sweat gleaning on her face. Don Paeng was horrified. He grasped her arm—but just then a flash of lightning blazed and the screaming women fell silent: the Tadtarin was about to die. The old woman closed her eyes and bowed her head and sank slowly to her knees.

A pallet was brought and set on the ground and she was laid in it and her face covered with a shroud. Her hands still clutched the wand and the seedlings. The women drew away, leaving her in a cleared space. They covered their heads with their black shawls and began wailing softly, unhumanly—a hushed, animal keening.

Overhead the sky was brightening, silver light defined the rooftops. When the moon rose and flooded with hot brilliance the moveless crowded square, the black-shawled women stopped wailing and a girl approached and unshrouded the Tadtarin, who opened her eyes and sat up, her face lifted to the moonlight. She rose to her feet and extended the wand and the seedlings and the women joined in a mighty shout. They pulled off and waved their shawls and whirled and began dancing again—laughing and dancing with such joyous exciting abandon that the people in the square and on the sidewalk, and even those on the balconies, were soon laughing and dancing, too. Girls broke away from their parents and wives from their husbands to join in the orgy.

“Come, let us go now,” said Don Paeng to his wife.

She was shaking with fascination; tears trembled on her lashes; but she nodded meekly and allowed herself to be led away. But suddenly she pulled free from his grasp, darted off, and ran into the crowd of dancing women. She flung her hands to her hair and whirled and her hair came undone. Then, planting her arms akimbo, she began to trip a nimble measure, an indistinctive folk-movement. She tossed her head back and her arched throat bloomed whitely. Her eyes brimmed with moonlight, and her mouth with laughter.

Don Paeng ran after her, shouting her name, but she laughed and shook her head and darted deeper into the dense maze of procession, which was moving again, towards the chapel. He followed her, shouting; she eluded him, laughing—and through the thick of the female horde they lost and found and lost each other again—she, dancing and he pursuing—till, carried along by the tide, they were both swallowed up into the hot, packed, turbulent darkness of the chapel. Inside poured the entire procession, and Don Paeng, finding himself trapped tight among milling female bodies, struggled with sudden panic to fight his way out. Angry voices rose all about him in the stifling darkness. “Hoy you are crushing my feet!” “And let go of my shawl, my shawl!” “Stop pushing, shameless one, or I kick you!” “Let me pass, let me pass, you harlots!” cried Don Paeng. “Abah, it is a man!” “How dare he come in here?” “Break his head!” “Throw the animal out!” ”Throw him out! Throw him out!” shrieked the voices, and Don Paeng found himself surrounded by a swarm of gleaming eyes. Terror possessed him and he struck out savagely with both fists, with all his strength—but they closed in as savagely: solid walls of flesh that crushed upon him and pinned his arms helpless, while unseen hands struck and struck his face, and ravaged his hair and clothes, and clawed at his flesh, as—kicked and buffeted, his eyes blind and his torn mouth salty with blood—he was pushed down, down to his knees, and half-shoved, half-dragged to the doorway and rolled out to the street. He picked himself up at once and walked away with a dignity that forbade the crowd gathered outside to laugh or to pity. Entoy came running to meet him. “But what has happened to you, Don Paeng?”

“Nothing. Where is the coach?” “Just over there, sir. But you are wounded in the face!” “No, these are only scratches. Go and get the señora. We are going home.” When she entered the coach and saw his bruised face and torn clothing, she smiled coolly. “What a sight you are, man! What have you done with yourself?” And when he did not answer: “Why, have they pulled out his tongue too?” she wondered aloud. AND WHEN THEY are home and stood facing each other in the bedroom, she was still as lighthearted. “What are you going to do, Rafael?” “I am going to give you a whipping.” “But why?” “Because you have behaved tonight like a lewd woman.” “How I behaved tonight is what I am. If you call that lewd, then I was always a lewd woman and a whipping will not change me—though you whipped me till I died.” “I want this madness to die in you.” “No, you want me to pay for your bruises.” He flushed darkly. “How can you say that, Lupe?” “Because it is true. You have been whipped by the women and now you think to avenge yourself by whipping me.” His shoulders sagged and his face dulled. “If you can think that of me –” “You could think me a lewd woman!” “Oh, how do I know what to think of you? I was sure I knew you as I knew myself. But now you are as distant and strange to me as a female Turk in Africa.”

“Yet you would dare whip me –” “Because I love you, because I respect you.” “And because if you ceased to respect me you would cease to respect yourself?” “Ah, I did not say that!” “Then why not say it? It is true. And you want to say it, you want to say it!” But he struggled against her power. “Why should I want to?” he demanded peevishly.

“Because, either you must say it—or you must whip me,” she taunted. Her eyes were upon him and the shameful fear that had unmanned him in the dark chapel possessed him again. His legs had turned to water; it was a monstrous agony to remain standing. But she was waiting for him to speak, forcing him to speak. “No, I cannot whip you!” he confessed miserably. “Then say it! Say it!” she cried, pounding her clenched fists together. “Why suffer and suffer? And in the end you would only submit.” But he still struggled stubbornly. “Is it not enough that you have me helpless? Is it not enough that I feel what you want me feel?” But she shook her head furiously. “Until you have said to me, there can be no peace between us.” He was exhausted at last; he sank heavily to his knees, breathing hard and streaming with sweat, his fine body curiously diminished now in its ravaged apparel. “I adore you, Lupe,” he said tonelessly. She strained forward avidly, “What? What did you say?” she screamed. And he, in his dead voice: “That I adore you. That I adore you. That I worship you. That the air you breathe and the ground you tread is so holy to me. That I am your dog, your slave…” But it was still not enough.

Her fists were still clenched, and she cried: “Then come, crawl on the floor, and kiss my feet!” Without moment’s hesitation, he sprawled down flat and, working his arms and legs, gaspingly clawed his way across the floor, like a great agonized lizard, the woman steadily backing away as he approached, her eyes watching him avidly, her nostrils dilating, till behind her loomed the open window, the huge glittering moon, the rapid flashes of lightning. she stopped, panting, and leaned against the sill. He lay exhausted at her feet, his face flat on the floor. She raised her skirts and contemptuously thrust out a naked foot. He lifted his dripping face and touched his bruised lips to her toes; lifted his hands and grasped the white foot and kiss it savagely – kissed the step, the sole, the frail ankle – while she bit her lips and clutched in pain at the whole windowsill her body and her loose hair streaming out the window – streaming fluid and black in the white night where the huge moon glowed like a sun and the dry air flamed into lightning and the pure heat burned with the immense intense fever of noon.