Halloween vs. Undas
My cousin asked me if Americans visit the graves of their dead family members during the holiday we call “Halloween”. When I said we didn’t, he was really surprised by that. October 31st in America is Halloween. But on November 1st in the Philippines marks the day that people all over the archipelago flock by the millions to visit cemeteries and reunite amongst dead loved ones.
“You mean people don’t even visit the cemetery at all?” he said in Bisaya. He thought I was joking. And then I told him that instead of visiting loved ones at the cemetery, the same way that he has done all his life, and the same way generations of Filipinos have done for hundreds of years, Americans take their children, put them in costumes, and walk them around the streets asking strangers for candy.
At that point, he was laughing in disbelief.
Tonight I’d be briefly introduced to a long tradition, albeit one that has evolved over time and place. Older than America and even older than the Philippines, with roots that seem to end (or begin rather) at Aztec civilization. Sent to the Philippines between 1565 and 1821 via trade ships coming from Mexico (alongside another famous Aztec import: chocolate), a hybridization of Catholicism’s “All Saints Day” and the Aztec’s festival presided over by their goddess Mictecacihuatl (pronounced Meek-teka-see-watl), the holiday that most Filipinos today call “Todos los Santos” or “Undas” would simply become another opportunity for them to get together, socialize, and eat.
“When we were younger, undas was more like a fiesta, except that the streets did not have colorful hanging flags. My mother would usually roast chicken and cook other wonderful dishes in her magical kitchen. We would don our best attires, ride in the family car and then, while in the cemetery play hide and seek with cousins around tombs or aratilis trees. Back then, undas was just like a family reunion with our family spending a whole day to eat and chat while waiting for the candles to shrink to their doom.”
Dennis Villegas, Filipino photographer.
I didn’t get to hang out at the cemetery during the day like millions of other Filipinos did, but tonight’s brief visit was a still a treat. I shuddered as my cousin casually mentioned that the bones of those whose cemetery fees weren’t paid by the next of kin were removed from that cement wall of grave boxes right beside us.
I peered into one of those empty tombs, asking myself if that rock was a skull left behind, or if that piece of fabric was actually strands of hair from someone’s lola. But my fears suddenly dissolved when we finally approached the graves of our dead relatives huddled together in their own set of cement grave boxes. My lolo is buried here, the same one who babysat me while my mom had to run errands. And my aunt, the youngest in my mom’s family who died when she was 5 has her own tomb as well. Its small size symbolic of her untimely death.
Ok, to be honest as much as I wanted to be sentimental, I was still afraid. It was dark. And we were in a cemetery. It was time to go home.