Weddings in Town and Country
Filipino Brides, Their Weddings and Wedding Suppers--River Trip
to a Rural Wedding--Our Late Arrival Delays the Ceremony Until Next
Morning--The Ball--We Tramp Across the Fields to the Church--After
the Marriage, Feasting and Dancing.
The composure with which a Filipino girl enters matrimony
is astounding. There are no tears, no self-conscious blushes,
none of the charming shyness that encompasses an American girl as
a garment. It is a contradictory state of affairs, I must admit,
for this same American girl is a self-reliant creature, accustomed
to the widest range of action and liberty, while the matter-of-fact,
self-possessed Filipina has been reared to find it impossible to step
across the street without attendance. But the free, liberty-loving
American yields shyly to her captor, while the sedateness of the
prospective matron has already taken possession of the dusky sister.
Filipino marriages, among the upper class, are accompanied
by receptions and feasts like our own, but differ greatly in
the comparatively insignificant part played by the contracting
parties. Whereas, in an American wedding, the whole object of calling
all these people together seems to be a desire to silhouette the
bride and groom against the festive background, one comes away from
a Filipino celebration with a feeling that an excuse was needed
for assembling a multitude and permitting them to enjoy themselves,
and that the bridal pair unselfishly lent themselves to the occasion.
Most weddings take place about half-past six or seven in the evening;
and immediately after the religious ceremony in the church, all the
invited guests adjourn to the home of a relative (usually, but not
necessarily, the nearest kinsman of the bride), where supper is served
and is followed by a ball.
On these occasions, except for the candles on the altar, the church is
unlighted, and in its cavernous darkness the footfalls of a gathering
crowd ring on the stone floor, and the hum of voices rolls up into
the arching gloom of the roof.
There are no pews, but two rows of benches, facing each other, up the
middle length of the edifice, offer seats to the upper-class people,
who seem chiefly interested in preserving the spotlessness of their
gala attire. No attempt at exclusiveness is made, and a horde of
babbling, gesticulating, lower-class natives surges to and fro at
the rear, awaiting the bride.
Presently, to the clangor of half a dozen huge bells, she sweeps in,
accompanied by her _madrina_, or chief witness. They take station
at the back between the baptismal fonts and just in front of the
overhanging choir gallery. Instantly they are hemmed in, mobbed,
by that swarm of _pobres_, some speculating on the motive of the
match and its probable outcome. Meanwhile the bridegroom is smoking a
cigarette at one side, and chatting with a group of bachelor friends
who are faithful to the last.
Just as one begins to wonder how much longer these unfortunate women
can endure the position, the barefooted acolytes shuffle in, bearing
six-foot silver candlesticks, and preceding the padre, who is carrying
his illumination with him--or rather, having it carried in front of
him. The bridegroom throws away his cigarette, and shouldering his way
through the press, takes his position at the side of the bride. The
mob closes in again, not infrequently incommoding the padre, who is
peering at his half-lighted missal. The aristocrats on the benches
pay no attention and continue to guard their _ropa_ and converse on
chance topics.
To one standing on the edge of that wriggling throng with the yellow
flare just lighting the impassive countenances of its chief personages,
and hearing a low monotone, broken only by the clink of metal as gold
pieces fall into the plate, it is difficult to believe that this is
a wedding, just like those pictured and tableau effects that one is
treated to at home.
At last the voice stops, the mob and the smoky candles surge forward
to the altar, where the benediction is said. Another impeded progress
to the rear (everybody gets up without waiting for the bride and
bridegroom to pass), the sorely tried couple step into a waiting
victoria, and we troop after them, getting our felicitations ready.
On arriving at the house we are received by the groom and some female
relative of his, or, perchance, the bride's papa. No opportunity
of formally congratulating the young couple is offered. The bride
retires into an inner room, where she removes her veil, and receives
such of her lady friends as desire to kiss her on both cheeks. But
by and by she comes out, self-possessed and unsmiling, to distribute
the fragments of her artificial orange blossom wreath to her aspiring
girl friends. This is a parallel to the distribution of wedding cake,
which the American girl puts under her pillow and dreams upon.
By this time the orchestra has arrived and is playing triumphantly
under the windows. Though engaged beforehand, it always
accomplishes its appearance with a casual and unpremeditated air. The
musicians are then (per contract) invited to enter, and strike up a
rigadon. Generally, but not always, the most important man present
invites the bride for this dance. But I have known brides to sit it
out, for lack of a partner. The bridegroom chooseth as he listeth;
when American women are present, the fathers of the bride and groom
usually request the honor of leading them out.
After this first dance supper is served. If an important native
official be present, it is a point of etiquette that he take the
bride. Only a few men of high rank sit at the first table, which is
given over to women. The service is not left to servants, but all
male relatives of the family vie with each other in anticipating the
wants of the guests.
It is a feast of solid and satisfying excellence. It begins usually
with vermicelli soup (made from a lard stock) which is more than likely
to have been dished a half-hour and to be stone cold. But Filipinos
are not critical in this regard; and Americans, in view of all that
is coming, may dispense with this one dish.
Then follow meats innumerable, each with its own garnish, but without
separate vegetables. There is goat's flesh stewed with garbanzos,
onions, potatoes, and peppers; chicken minced with garlic, and green
peas; chicken boned and made to look and taste like breaded cutlet;
boiled ham; a fat capon, boned, stuffed, and seasoned with garlic,
his erstwhile proud head rolling in scarified humility; breaded pork
chops; roast pork, with unlimited crackling; cold turkey; baked duck,
and several kinds of fish.
There are no salads, but plenty of relishes, including the canned
red peppers of Spain; olives, pickles, cheese, and green mango
pickles. At intervals along the table are alluring glass dishes,
filled with crystallized fruits.
After this come the sweets. There is no cake, as we know it, but
meringues (French kisses), baked custard coated with caramel sauce,
which they call _flaon_; a kind of cocoanut macaroon, the little
gelatinous seeds of the nipa palm, boiled in sugar syrup, and half
a dozen kinds of preserves and candied fruits. Tinto accompanies the
supper, and possibly champagne.
As two or three hundred people are served on such an occasion, the
intermission for supper is a long one, and dancing is not resumed
till half-past nine or ten o'clock. It may then continue till
midnight or dawn, just as the actions of a few important guests may
determine. Filipinos are very quick to follow a lead; and if, owing
perhaps to a concurrence of events which may be perfectly foreign to
the occasion, a number of prominent people leave early, the rest soon
take flight.
In one of the later years of my stay my good fortune led me to
witness a wedding of another type, which differed from the class I
have described as the simple rural gathering at home differs from the
exotic atmosphere of a fashionable reception. It was just after my
return from vacation that one morning a group of my pupils burst in,
accompanying a middle-aged Filipina who hesitatingly made known her
errand. Her niece, who lived some five or six miles up the river,
was to be married that night, and a large number of people from town
were going up. Could I accompany them, and would I act as one of the
three _madrinas_ for the occasion? As the bride was of an insurrecto
family, whose name was familiar through bygone military acquaintances,
I snapped at an opportunity to view the insurrecto upon his own
(pacified) hearth, and after consuming a hasty lunch and packing a
valise, I set out for the river bank where we were to rendezvous.
Our craft, a catamaran made by securing three barotos side by
side and flooring them with bamboo, was the centre of great public
excitement. It had a walk dutrigged at each side for the men who were
to punt, or pole us up the river. It was roofed with a framework
of bamboo, which was covered with palm, leaves and wreathed in
_bonoc-bonoc_ vines, and from this green bower were suspended the
fruits of the season.--bananas, the scarlet _sagin-sagin_, and even
succulent ears of sweet corn.
Cane stools were provided for a few, but many of the young people sat
flat on the floor. When we were embarked, to the number of about forty,
the barotos were so deep in the water that the swirling current was
within an inch of their gunwales. A tilt to one side or a wave in
the river would have sunk us.
The baggage and a few supernumerary young men and a mandolin orchestra
were loaded into an enormous baroto, and ten sturdy brown backs bent
forward as the boatmen pushed with all their strength against the great
bamboo poles, which looked as if they would snap under the strain.
The river was swollen with three days' tropical downpour and running
out resistlessly in the teeth of a high tide. As we slipped out of the
shallow water at the bank, the current caught us and hurled us fifty
feet down stream. The baroto left apparently for the port, which was
four miles away. Our valiant punters were useless against the river;
but amid a hubbub in which every man, woman, and babe aboard, except
one American man and myself, appeared to be giving orders, we got
back to the bank and shipped an additional crew. This consumed time,
because the spectators, who had seen what work it was going to be,
were coy of enlisting. But at last we got away, eight men to a side,
and the water perceptibly nearer the gunwales, and with infinite labor
we succeeded in poling around a bend and leaving the town behind us.
But there we stuck again in a swift reach, and there were time and
opportunity to marvel at the impenetrable green and silence of the nipa
swamps. The banks--or rather limits of the current--were thickets of
water grass six feet high, its roots sunk in ooze. Here and there a
rise of ground betrayed itself in a few cocoanuts, the ragged fans of
tall bouri palms, or a plume-like clump of bamboo and the hospitable
shade of a magnificent mango tree.
The atmosphere was close and muggy, and now and then a shower pattered
down on us. Suddenly, through the strange desolation of this alien
landscape, the familiar thump of guitars and mandolins assailed the
stillness. The music carried me back to half-forgotten experiences--red
sunsets between the cathedral bluffs of the Mississippi, and sad-eyed
negroes twanging the strings on the forward deck of a nosing steamboat;
crisp July afternoons on the Straits of Mackinac when the wind swept
in from froth-capped blue Huron, and the little excursion steamer
from St. Ignace rollicked her way homeward to the cottage-crowned
heights of the island.
I shut my eyes and tried to "make believe" that they would open on
far-off, familiar scenes. Nothing could have been more weird and
incongruous than the American air with this alien soil and people. It
was "Hiawatha," and to the inspiring strains of "Let the women do
the work, let the men take it easy," our forgotten baroto swept into
sight in the easy water under the opposite bank. We made a herculean
effort, inspired by envy, and got away. Space forbids me to enumerate
the hairbreadth escapes of that journey. We put men ashore when the
banks permitted and were towed like a canal boat. Once we were swept
into mid-stream, where the poles were useless on account of the great
depth, and had to drift back till the water shoaled again. In late
afternoon we took on a supply of sugar cane, and chewed affably all
the rest of the way.
At first I had been nervous, but my native friends were quite
unconcerned. So remembering that Heaven protects the insane and the
imbecile, and regarding them as the former and myself as the latter,
I ceased to speculate on the probabilities of another incarnation.
We consumed six hours in a journey normally accomplished in two, and
night overtook us in a labyrinth of water lanes above whose forested
swamps the outlines of a stern old church were magnified in the
gloom. One by one the stars sprang mysteriously into view in the soft
void overhead, and somehow--marvellously--we found our destination. A
group of friends and servants flared their torches on the bank, and we
dragged our stiffened limbs to them. It was too dark to see where we
were going, until we stumbled almost into a lighted doorway and found
the company awaiting us. Owing to the delay in our arrival, the wedding
was deferred till the next morning, but the ball was about to open.
Food was given us, and after a freshening up and a change of raiment
we joined the reunion, which was in full swing. The prospective
husband and wife were enjoying their usual state of effacement, but
I discovered them finally. I talked with the insurrecto and found
him a man of ability.
I left the ball, exhausted, at one o'clock, but those indefatigable
people kept it up all night. I awoke at dawn to find the floor
occupied by about twenty yawning maidens who were merely resting,
for there was no time for a nap. We dressed in the cool dawn breeze
and went out in time to see the morning mists rise from a broad oval
of rice and maize fields, and hang themselves in ever-changing folds
on the sides of the purple mountains beyond.
But for the character of the vegetation that rimmed the arable land,
and the bare green shoulders of the hills, streaked here and there
with pink clayey ravines, it might have been a peaceful sunrise in
middle America. The homelike atmosphere was accentuated by the roofs
of a town and by a church spire, still silvered with mist, half a mile
away. We tramped across the fields to our objective point. As madrina,
I walked with the bride, but conversation did not thrive because she
spoke little Spanish, and I less Visayan.
Carabaos sniffed at us as we passed, and people crowded their windows
to look. We crossed a slough upon a bridge of quaint and ancient
architecture on the thither side of which were a grassy plaza and
the stern lines of the church. The wedding bells broke forth in a
furious joy and flung their notes to the distant hill flanks, which
in turn flung them back to the blue, sparkling sea.
The church was tiled in black and white marble, and inhabited by
a lusty family of goats. Their innate perversity and an apparent
curiosity led them to resent exclusion; but after a lively pursuit
they were ejected, and the bride and I sat on a bench to rest. The
bridegroom took a last smoke, and the strangers deciphered obituary
notices on the mural tombstones.
The padre came along finally, smelling of a matutinal appetizer,
and they distributed pillows and candles to the _madrinas_ and
_padrinos_. As evidence of change of heart in the late insurrecto,
the pillows were some of red, some of white, and some of blue cloth.
It was over at last, when I was stiff with kneeling and had ornamented
myself with much candle grease. I went up to congratulate the bride,
but felt that the handshake was not coming off properly. Finally I
discovered that I was resisting an effort on her part to bring my
hand to her lips. So I succumbed and submitted to the distinction,
and she then proceeded to salute the other madrinas.
There was nothing coy or sentimental about that bride. She needed
no support, moral or other. Sweet sixteen, "plump as a partridge,"
she gathered up her white silk skirt with its blue ribbons and struck
out for home. Her husband made no attempt to follow her. She beat
us all home by a quarter of a mile. When we arrived, she had changed
her gown and was supervising breakfast preparations.
I was tired, and when a native sled drawn by a carabao came along,
was glad enough to seat myself on its flat bottom, together with one or
two wearied maidens, and be drawn back in slow dignity. We intercepted
a boy with roasting ears, and the wedding guests sat about, nibbling
like rodents while we waited breakfast.
After that meal dancing began again and continued until dinner. Once
the floor was cleared, and the bridal pair danced one waltz
together. They did not glance once at each other, and seemed bored.
Dinner was another feast, and afterwards we sought our state barge and
the perils of the return journey. The newly married couple came down to
see us off, still bearing themselves with a preoccupied and listless
air. The orchestra remained until the next day, and we threaded the
water lanes in quiet, emerging at last on the full-breasted river. The
home journey consumed only three hours, and was comparatively
uneventful. The wife of the Presidente gathered her family about her
and artlessly searched their raven pates for inhabitants which pay
no taxes, and most of the young people drooped with weariness. We
rounded the bend at five o'clock; and thankful I was to put foot on
_terra firma_ once more. I was tired, but glad that I had gone.