Ghosts, Candles, Tradition, All Souls Day

 While watching TV last night, my daughter asked why we don’t put lighted candles at our doorstep. This is tradition. I used to do this but I stopped because things are getting pretty expensive here in RP and wasting few pesos to light candles to remember the dead seemed like a waste.

 I told my daughter that I didn't light candles because lighting a candle to remember relatives that passed away is too external, too showy for my taste (if you have no money, act like a high faluting snob), and they are dead anyway surely they would not be able to appreciate it. If it will make you feel better, I told my daughter, "I will light a bonfire at the front yard so that we will have better illumination than candles. A bongacious way of commemorating our dear departed ones, drives away mosquitoes too."

Do you see the silhouette of a lady? Look again very carefully. It is somewhere above my head. The lady appears to be smiling. 

I don’t know where this tradition came from but it’s obvious that candles give off light; light is used to illuminate a path especially a meandering path. Hence, the sojourner can easily find his or her way home. Filipinos believe that when people die, they just don’t go to heaven or hell or purgatory or the park. They linger here on earth to accomplish some unfinished business or to ask for justice or to simply pissed of their loved ones by making their presence felt. This is called paramdam in Tagalog. Hence, these lighted candles are supposed to guide the departed souls back home. If one does not light candles at their door, drifter souls could enter the house and haunt the residents.

My daughter asked me again, why we don’t visit any grave. We all watched the news and saw the mayhem in cemeteries. Children were getting lost, the elderly having high blood pressure because of the heat, the noise, the mob, the CO2, and the vendors.  People were looking for their loved ones’ graves and not finding them or finding them only to find out that the remains were ejected and a stranger was occupying the niche. Would you exchange that for the comfort of the home? I asked my daughter.

I think the more sane Filipinos visited and cleaned the graves of their loved ones ahead or later than the holiday. This is much better because this avoid all the inconveniences I  mentioned above. Also, they have the privacy, the silence and the intimacy of the moment, so to speak, and this makes it better for them to hear the dead talking back, not literally...hmmm... well, maybe literally.

Here is another view. Do you see it? The silhouette of the lady seemed like smiling! Look above, near my head. There, there, there..did you see it?

My daughter was worried, so to assure her, I told her that my father, her grandfather, was buried in the clan’s cemetery lot. He was interned with the rest of the de la Pazes from Cainta. So, aunties, uncles, cousins and relatives would be cleaning the lot. As far as I could remember, my mother, father and siblings were not really observant of traditions.

Here is the close up of the flame. The image is now forming in your head. Are you seeing it now? The silhouette of a lady.

While I was stoking the fire, I heard a neighbor shouting, “Hoy! Hoy! Why are you stealing the candles!””I went outside and asked, “What’s the matter pare?” “A little boy stole our candles. I was watching TV and when I look outside, I saw a flash. A little boy stole our lighted candles!” He was quite pissed off.

Stealing is a part of the tradition. Not really stealing, but stealing for fun,sort of a prank. Usually people let go of this small prank thinking that lost souls are at it again.

A few decades back, I used to play guitar to accompany the mangangaluluwas.  Mangangaluluwas are people, usually old ladies (or mature ladies to be pc), who go around houses singing songs for the dead, serenading the dead, sort of. The owners of the house are expected to give money or food or something to the singers.   It was a good way of earning a few pesos for a few hours of strumming. Of course during those days, I felt ashamed of being seen with the mangangaluluwas. I was afraid of what others would say. But looking back, I am glad I did it because it was  fun, and I have stories to tell.   

Anyway, according to these ladies, in the provinces, while the ladies were singing for the dead, the men would go under the houses and steal chicken eggs or  the eggs and hen  or the basket containing the egg and the hen. I asked the ladies, "Isn't that wrong?" They answered, with a smile, "Yes, if you're caught."

 The tradition is dying if not, it is already dead.

Did you see it?

1.  If on the first picture you saw a silhouette of a lady, better have your head checked.
2. If on the second picture you think you are already seeing the silhouette of a lady, better have a your eyes checked.
3. If on the third picture you did see the silhouette of a lady , you are one gullible human being
4. If on the fourth picture you did see  the silhouette of a lady, you are no better off than number 3.
5. If you did not see any silhouette of a lady  at all...you have reading comprehension problem.

Enough!