ATI-ATIHAN FESTIVAL

The place was in a frenzy, with people in colorful costumes dancing to the pulsating drumbeats amid shouts of “Hala Bira! Puera Pasma!” and “Viva Senor Santo Nino!” It was a typical Ati-Atihan scene, except that the dancers were not in Kalibo, Aklan, Philippines and it was not the third week of January. Rather, they were in the Hibiscus Ballroom of the Ala Moana Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. The date was February 28, 2004. And the revelers were in the midst of the 2nd annual celebration of the Ati-Atihan festival sponsored by the Aklan Cultural Society of Hawaii.

The celebration provided those in attendance with a glimpse of the Ati-Atihan – considered as the queen of festivals in the Philippines. This spectacle comes every year, on the third week of January, when more than a million revelers from all over the world come down to Kalibo, capital city of Aklan province in the Visayan region, to celebrate with pomp, color and pageantry a story of friendship, hospitality and thanksgiving that dates back to the pre-Spanish period in the Philippines.

The Aklan Cultural Society of Hawaii

Ati-Atihan 2004 was sponsored by the Aklan Cultural Society, one of the unit member organizations of the Congress of Visayan Organizations (COVO). Originally founded as the Aklan Association of Hawaii by the late Ambassador Juan Dionisio, the major purpose of the Aklan Cultural Society of Hawaii is the promotion and preservation of Aklan’s cultural traditions, one of which is the Ati-Atihan. The society has organized the Ati-Atihan dancers, composed of members and non-members and their families, and has participated and won awards in various festivals and parades in Hawaii such as the Filipino Fiesta, the Honolulu Festival, and the Aloha Festival.

In their speeches, Consul General Gregorio and Rep. Jerry Chang, chair of the House Committee on Tourism and Culture, congratulated the Aklan Cultural Society for bringing to Hawaii this unique Philippine tradition and for strengthening the cultural ties between Hawaii and the Philippines.

The celebration was well attended and the food was excellent. The festive atmosphere was enhanced by the colorful Ati-Atihan decorations created by Joe Magno and the beautiful candle-lit glass lamps etched with Ati-Atihan dancers that were prepared by Nicole Dionisio. Emceed by Ms. Bennette Evangelista, the program was well-paced and kept the attendees animated. The dinner entertainments provided by Cecile Paulmino and Mike Yap, with their ballroom dance exhibition, and by Rose Pedronan and Joe Magno, with their dance interpretation of the well-loved Broadway musical, The Phantom of the Opera, were masterfully done. The three major door prizes drawn and awarded were added incentives to those in attendance. And the dance floor was always full.

The highlight of the celebration was the Ati-Atihan Suite which traced the evolution of the festival and was narrated by Jun Colmenares. It was performed by several groups of colorfully costumed individuals – from the “original Atis,” to the Santo Nino-carrying dancers, to the “modern” Mardi Gras-style revelers – all dancing to the beat of the music provided by the Ati-Atihan drummers. The participation by the audience in the revelry provided added excitement and fun to the merrymaking.

Evolution of the Ati-Atihan

What has become the largest and most colorful festival in the Philippines – oftentimes referred to as the Filipino Mardi Gras – has both historical and religious origins.

“The Barter of Panay”
Ati-Atihan means “to be like an Ati.” The Atis were the aboriginal inhabitants of Panay Island, where Aklan is found – they are short, dark-skinned and kinky-haired people. Legend tells us that this celebration had its beginnings sometime in the 13th century with the arrival of a group of Malays from Borneo, headed by their chieftain Datu Puti. They were fleeing from the tyranny of Datu Makatunaw at home and were looking to buy some land where they can stay. They were welcomed by the natives of the place, headed by their King Marikudo and Queen Maniwangtiwang, who offered them the land they needed. In exchange for a solid gold hat or salakot for their king and a necklace for their queen, the Atis decided to give up their lands in the coastal area to the Borneans or Maraynon, as the Atis came to call them, and to move upland. This transaction came to be known in Philippine history as the “Barter of Panay.” Before the Atis left, however, and in appreciation of the hospitality they received, Datu Puti ordered his people to paint and dress themselves like Atis and to hold a feast with their benefactors in celebration of their newly-established friendship.

This relationship was strengthened in the succeeding days when, as a result of strong monsoon rains wiping out hillside crops, the Atis came down to the lowlands to ask for food. The Maraynon who had a good harvest shared their blessings with the Atis. The Atis danced and sang in gratitude for the help they received. Every year since then, the mountain people have come to ritually solicit food through song and dance. The lowlanders got into the spirit of this continuing friendship by daubing their faces with soot and dancing with the Atis. This annual ritual eventually developed into the Ati-Atihan folk festival.

“Viva Senor Santo Nino!”
From a folk celebration, the Ati-Atihan took on a religious character after the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521 and the adoption by many Christianized Filipinos of the Santo Nino as their patron saint following the recovery of the miraculous image in Cebu in the year 1565. The coming of the Santo Nino into the Ati-Atihan fiesta is said to have started with the intervention of the first encomiendero of Aklan, Don Antonio Flores. He made arrangements with Datu Malanga and Datu Madayog to have their then existing native celebration be dedicated to the Santo Nino. With the subsequent adoption by the Aklanons of the Santo Nino as their patron saint, the celebration of the feast of the Santo Nino was made to coincide with the Ati-Atihan festival.

The Spaniards encouraged the Ati-Atihan festival despite its origins as a pagan ritual because, given the remoteness of native settlements and the difficulty of travel, the festival enabled the religious orders to reach out to the natives. The natives would flock to the town center or cabecera, giving the Church an opportunity to indoctrinate them in Christianity. The festival offered religious processions, dances, music, and theatrical presentations to the people. Although it may be “sacred or profane blended together…it is highly doubtful that the natives were aware of the ceremony’s elaborate liturgical symbolism, but they evidently relished the pageantry involved.”

Thus, the original commemoration of a land barter and thanksgiving for the post-monsoon harvest has turned into a feast day for the Santo Nino. And since then, the image of the Santo Nino has become part of the festival, and to the shouts of “Hala Bira!” was added the chant “Viva Senor Santo Nino!”

“Filipino Mardi Gras”
As the years passed, this annual celebration gained national and international stature, and the folk-religious festival began to take on the features of a Filipino Mardi Gras. Colorful costumes – African-, South American- and Pacific-inspired – were donned by dancing groups coming from nearby towns of Kalibo, each group trying to out-do each other in terms of numbers, costume, music, and dance movements.

While body movements vary from individual to individual, dancers generally follow a rhythmic movement with their steps – two small steps to the right, followed by two small steps to the left, done repeatedly with a forward movement. The movements are interspersed with shouts of “Hala Bira! Puera Pasma!”, meaning “Keep Going! No Tiring!”, and “Viva Senor Santo Nino!” The drum beats also generally follow a certain rhythm. However, in recent years, Ati-Atihan groups have adopted certain popular music and dances to go with the typical Ati-Atihan sounds and movements.

Kalibo’s Ati-Atihan has become so popular that similar festivals have cropped up all over the Western and Central Visayas, and even Mindanao. Antique has its Binirayan and Handugan Festivals, while Iloilo has a more lavish and choreographed edition called Dinagyang. Bacolod has also started its Masskara Festival. In Cebu, it comes as Pit Senyor or Sinulog. Cities and towns in northern Mindanao such as Dipolog, Ozamis, Iligan and Cagayan de Oro have developed their own versions of the Sinulog. Today, Ati-Atihan is celebrated in the Aklan towns of Makato, Altavas, and Ibajay, among others, but through the years, Kalibo has been able to establish itself as the center of the Ati-Atihan festival.