We Filipinos are endowed all over the world due to our rich heritage, history and culture. These unique features give us the identity of stand and take pride if our precious jewels that our fore father had passed to us.
Due to its being an archipelago, the Philippines is home with thousands of distinct and unique culture that continuously existing up to this days. Within this culture lies our tradition, belief and practices that every person that belongs to that certain culture must obey and practice in order that the culture will keep on existing. And one of this is the burial practices that deals with paying respect to our beloved loved ones who had left us for afterlife.
For the Ilocanos, the dead persons usually professionally embalmed and placed in the coffin. The dead is usually dressed with the National dresses, the Barong Tagalong for the gentlemen and Maria Clara and the Terno are for the ladies. The boy is mourned and prayed for Nine (9) days and night that symbolizes the Nine (9) Holy Mystery of the Rosary. In that period, it is their belief that the coffin’s glass should not be wiped nor cleaned by any member of the family. The carpet of the coffin must not also be swept by the aid of any cleaning material because if it will not be obeyed, bad luck will come or even worst, another member of the family will die. Tang is also served near the coffin for the belief that the soul of the dead person also needs to eat like everybody does.
In the rural areas, the body is brought to the church for the blessing and the body’s final mass. Internment is usually scheduled for 3:00 p.m., to coin with the hour of Christ’s crucifixion. A band precedes the coffin during of the funeral march while the members of the immediate family walk behind the hearse to escort the dead to the cemetery.
But in some urban areas, where the cemeteries or the memorial parks may be some distance away, the funeral procession is replaced by slow-moving motorcade, with the car of the family following the hearse.
The female relatives of the deceased wear black or white band around their upper arm to show their sorrow.
The dead person usually clasps a rosary in his folded hands. Before the coffin is placed into the niche, the coffin is opened for the immediate members of the family to view their loved one for the last time. Sometimes they kiss the coffin’s glass window in farewell. The rosary is broken to prevent another death of the family. It is also a practice that the small children will pass-over the coffin with out touching the coffin’s surface so that the spirit if the dead person will not haunt them. After that, a feast is served for everybody who went to the internment. But before the person must eat he must wash his hand to the boiled water that contains guava leaves. This symbolizes one must wash his sorrow as he deep his hand to the solution and to celebrate that the soul of the person who had passed is now united with God in heaven.
A gulgol is made a day after the internment. It is usually done near the riverbank. It is made to let all the memories of the dead person let go as flow of the water. A nine-day novena is usually prayed for the eternal repose of the deceased. On the fortieth day after the death, a mass is held, followed by a celebration. It is believed that by his time, the soul would have been cleansed in purgatory and reunited with the Lord, just as Christ ascend into heaven forty days after his death.
Meanwhile, on the northern part of the country particularly in Benguet, burial practices are not just as simple as the Ilocanos. It’s a long process that needs to undergo not only to the corpse but also to the bereave family. This process is called mummification. They say that there is no such record about when this practice started but they believed that the persons in there had practice mummification long before the seventeenth century.
According to the elder, mummification begins with the embalmers pouring a solution of salt water into the mouth of the dead person to prevent early decomposition of the internal organs. The corpse is then stripped of clothes and bathed in cold water. Wrapped in the death blanket, the corpse is tied to a chair called the death chair. The chair stands on high stilts. The corpse sits in the chair for a week or so until the body fluids flow out of the swollen body.
In this condition, the corpse is then laid on the floor. Close relatives peel the outer skin off the whole body, which is washed repeatedly with cold water until all the body fluids stop coming out. Covered with the same blanket, the corpse is tied again to the death chair.
The next step is removing the worms that infest the body. When the corpse begins to dry, the juice of boiled and pounded herbs, and guava and patani leaves is applied to the body everyday until it is totally dry. Animal fats and leaves of bisodok and duming are also continuously rubbed on the skin. Then, a fire is built below the death chair, with the regulated heat, to smoke the body up to two years. Tobacco smokes is also blown through the mouth of the dead body because it is believed that tobacco smoke is good preservative.
When the body begins to shrink, its position is change. The corpse is placed in a crouching position with the hands and legs tied to the chest. As the corpse dries, is placed under the sun during the day and smoked during the night.
Drying and smoking are done alternately from two months to one year. At the end of the process, the corpse is placed in the coffin usually made of a hollowed-out trunk of a tree. The coffin can be of various sizes. Decorations markings and drawing of animals or whatever symbols the deceased specified are engrave on the coffin. The corpse is finally buried in the cave of his ancestors, or and other cave chosen by his nearest of kin.
The mumbaki (native priest) decide the day of the burial based on propitious signs during the early evening. Before the corpse is finally buried, native rituals are observed by the town folks. Pigs, carabaos, and cows are butchered, while rice wine (tapuy) is served everyday, until the corpse is buried by the native priest.
Mummification was expensive and took a long time to do. It became a status symbol. The richer the dead man’s family, the costlier the care and maintenance of the mummy.
One’s culture and tradition must not be the basis to judge and degrade the person culture. But it must be the way to get to know him more. And we should take note that we are all Filipinos; the things that you do to others reflects you. Respect is essential. And if this is don’t reign, chaos will automatically take over. It should also be the way to learn how rich our culture is and a vital ground to get to know who we really are.
Monday, September 13, 2010
DOUGHNUT
As far as I know about the history of doughnut, doughnut was made by accident. There was a person before who once tried to bake bread. He put the bread on the oven but then he observed that when he baked the bread, it turn out that the outside of the bread was well baked but in the inside it was not. So he thinks for the possible solutions on how to solve this problem. So he came to a point that he will just made the bread into a ring shape one and luckily he succeeded.
This simple food or bread doesn’t only nourish our body but it teaches us good qualities and lessons of life. If you will asked me what I usually notice about the doughnut in the first glance of it. I would tell to you honestly, the hole of the doughnut. But it doesn’t mean that I’m a judgmental person. But I want to reflect it with our qualities as a Filipino people and as a human in this world.
It is common for us human to criticized people by their wrong doings and negative impressions last in them. That they had made before which they eventually sorry about it. Isnt there is the room for repentance, for sorry. It is easy for us to see all the short comings of that person.
That once a person committed a mistake in life, the mistake lives on as long as these person lives. And worst, the even associate these mistakes that he had committed to his name. it is ussually happening in the community. I usually heared these line.. “ah.. dun ka pupunta, kila Juan na lasengo. Un at un nalang ang lumalabas sa bibig ng tao. Na para bang wala ng nagawang tama ang isang tao.” It is very shameful. Because they remember a certain person by it’s wrong doing.
One perfect example of this is on how we treat our government official. Isn’t it that people often tell the government that it is corrupt, that it is injustice, that it is immoral, that he is doing nothing for the betterment of the Filipino people? We even go to the streets and do rallies against it just to express our emotions. It is easy to tell those things. But is there any time that we asked our selves, is there any basis of what we are saying, is there any proof of these accusations that we accused to the? Nothing is it not?? Any is there any moment in our lives that we asked our selves that how about us, what we can do to our nation.
I was reminded about the famous saying the president of the United States of America- John F. Kennedy. He said, “Ask what you can do to your country, and not you country can do to yourself”. It is easy to critique a person and what he had done. But what if, the person who we are critiquing will asked us to do the same thing; I don’t know if we can do the same.
I think it isn’t innate quality of us human to critique some one or its work. I think it is learned by us with our environment that we lived on. We should bear in mind that as we critique anything or anybody, we should be reminded that we are responsible for our words and actions. That we should consider their feelings.
Critiquing is easy. But had we ever commend a person for his great job.?
We usually use our eyes in seeing most of the time. But in some circimstances, we don’t usually need our hearth in seeing a person. We can also see people with just our hearths alone. Also, try to look the other way around, maybe there is more beatiful qualities that this person that you will discover.
This simple food or bread doesn’t only nourish our body but it teaches us good qualities and lessons of life. If you will asked me what I usually notice about the doughnut in the first glance of it. I would tell to you honestly, the hole of the doughnut. But it doesn’t mean that I’m a judgmental person. But I want to reflect it with our qualities as a Filipino people and as a human in this world.
It is common for us human to criticized people by their wrong doings and negative impressions last in them. That they had made before which they eventually sorry about it. Isnt there is the room for repentance, for sorry. It is easy for us to see all the short comings of that person.
That once a person committed a mistake in life, the mistake lives on as long as these person lives. And worst, the even associate these mistakes that he had committed to his name. it is ussually happening in the community. I usually heared these line.. “ah.. dun ka pupunta, kila Juan na lasengo. Un at un nalang ang lumalabas sa bibig ng tao. Na para bang wala ng nagawang tama ang isang tao.” It is very shameful. Because they remember a certain person by it’s wrong doing.
One perfect example of this is on how we treat our government official. Isn’t it that people often tell the government that it is corrupt, that it is injustice, that it is immoral, that he is doing nothing for the betterment of the Filipino people? We even go to the streets and do rallies against it just to express our emotions. It is easy to tell those things. But is there any time that we asked our selves, is there any basis of what we are saying, is there any proof of these accusations that we accused to the? Nothing is it not?? Any is there any moment in our lives that we asked our selves that how about us, what we can do to our nation.
I was reminded about the famous saying the president of the United States of America- John F. Kennedy. He said, “Ask what you can do to your country, and not you country can do to yourself”. It is easy to critique a person and what he had done. But what if, the person who we are critiquing will asked us to do the same thing; I don’t know if we can do the same.
I think it isn’t innate quality of us human to critique some one or its work. I think it is learned by us with our environment that we lived on. We should bear in mind that as we critique anything or anybody, we should be reminded that we are responsible for our words and actions. That we should consider their feelings.
Critiquing is easy. But had we ever commend a person for his great job.?
We usually use our eyes in seeing most of the time. But in some circimstances, we don’t usually need our hearth in seeing a person. We can also see people with just our hearths alone. Also, try to look the other way around, maybe there is more beatiful qualities that this person that you will discover.
Simple Honesty Is All We Need
Before I proceed, let me define first what’s truth is. The Encarta Dictionary of terms defines truth as the quality, condition, or characteristic of being fair, truthful, and morally upright and synonymous with the words, candor and sincerity
I wrote this simple essay of mine because of a certain person whom I met in text by a friend who gave his number. At first, I was so very reluctant to text him and immediately, he replied my text. And then our friendship starts. He said to me that he is also a Business Administration student from the school I was enrolled with. And he even tells me that he is a homosexual person and I said its okay with me. But later on, he tells the truth that he is not a gay. So we texted each other and befriend. He said also that he is a bullied, he is poor, and he belongs to a conservative and strict religion and so on. I even tell to him if he knows a certain person from the school where he came from and he delightedly said that he knows that person. So I feel very comfortable with him and even told to him that we had a lot of things in common and this friendship will last long.
Within the week, I was so eager to meet him because his course was first offered in the university. And there were a lot of questions that I want to answer by him in regards to his course. And I also want him to see my sketches and also to personally meet him and talk with him in person. Tuesday and Wednesday, we still had connection with each other thru text. But in Thursday and Friday, it was stopped. I did not bother to ask him for that because during those days, the university is busy for the midterm examination so I concluded that he too is busy reviewing his notes.
Until comes Saturday. Exactly one week since we had befriends when he texted me. He asks me if I’m okay and I said yes. From then, we continued to txt again. Our topics are all in the school and other related topics. He even tried to tell me that if he would given the chance to search my name and my picture, he would look for me and when he found me, he will immediately punch me just like what he ad usually do in the school where he came from. Because he said allot of time to me that he is a bully in their university. It was quite pass 10:00 in the evening when he tried to open up things to me and told me the truth of his identity.
He told me that the facts that he said to me are all false. He said that he is a graduate of Business Administration from the private university in our province and he is now currently enrolled in the same university for his non-thesis masteral program. He also told me that he is a Philippine Science High School graduate and a summa cum laude graduate in college. And he had said that all the information about himself that he said is all false.
You may tell to me and ask me why did I wrote this thing and what’s wrong with that? Well, for me, this is not a funny thing. For me, honesty matters. Why, because even from the start that I had texted him, I had always telling the truth about who I am and who I’m not. And here is he, making you believe that all the info’s that he gave to you are all real. He is lying from the very start.
I was reminded by e very simple yet a very valuable quotation that I read about honesty some where in the magazine, which goes this way, “ALWAS TELL THE TRUTH, AND YOU WON’T BE SORRY OF THE THINGS THAT YOU HAD SAID LAST”. Tell the truth, and the truth will find its way to find you. I always asked also this question to my self, “Why does other people are hard up in telling the truth?” “What’s wrong with truth; will these causes their life if they will tell the truth?” Certainly, I don’t think so.
With what he had made to him, I don’t know tomorrow if I would text him the way we texted each other, because there’s now the burden in your heart that what if he is not telling the truth again and making me believed again of his false information. I’m afraid what would come next that he will tell to me. And until when he will tell more lies to me? And in what point will I be able to decipher which is the real ones.
Sometimes, it’s not always the face validity of a person that person that we should look at to but also in the content validity. If he is honest or not; if he is good or not; and most specially, if he could be better that you are.
Most of the times, it’s not the nature that greatly contributes our life; but the nurture. The upbringing of the child also matters
I wrote this simple essay of mine because of a certain person whom I met in text by a friend who gave his number. At first, I was so very reluctant to text him and immediately, he replied my text. And then our friendship starts. He said to me that he is also a Business Administration student from the school I was enrolled with. And he even tells me that he is a homosexual person and I said its okay with me. But later on, he tells the truth that he is not a gay. So we texted each other and befriend. He said also that he is a bullied, he is poor, and he belongs to a conservative and strict religion and so on. I even tell to him if he knows a certain person from the school where he came from and he delightedly said that he knows that person. So I feel very comfortable with him and even told to him that we had a lot of things in common and this friendship will last long.
Within the week, I was so eager to meet him because his course was first offered in the university. And there were a lot of questions that I want to answer by him in regards to his course. And I also want him to see my sketches and also to personally meet him and talk with him in person. Tuesday and Wednesday, we still had connection with each other thru text. But in Thursday and Friday, it was stopped. I did not bother to ask him for that because during those days, the university is busy for the midterm examination so I concluded that he too is busy reviewing his notes.
Until comes Saturday. Exactly one week since we had befriends when he texted me. He asks me if I’m okay and I said yes. From then, we continued to txt again. Our topics are all in the school and other related topics. He even tried to tell me that if he would given the chance to search my name and my picture, he would look for me and when he found me, he will immediately punch me just like what he ad usually do in the school where he came from. Because he said allot of time to me that he is a bully in their university. It was quite pass 10:00 in the evening when he tried to open up things to me and told me the truth of his identity.
He told me that the facts that he said to me are all false. He said that he is a graduate of Business Administration from the private university in our province and he is now currently enrolled in the same university for his non-thesis masteral program. He also told me that he is a Philippine Science High School graduate and a summa cum laude graduate in college. And he had said that all the information about himself that he said is all false.
You may tell to me and ask me why did I wrote this thing and what’s wrong with that? Well, for me, this is not a funny thing. For me, honesty matters. Why, because even from the start that I had texted him, I had always telling the truth about who I am and who I’m not. And here is he, making you believe that all the info’s that he gave to you are all real. He is lying from the very start.
I was reminded by e very simple yet a very valuable quotation that I read about honesty some where in the magazine, which goes this way, “ALWAS TELL THE TRUTH, AND YOU WON’T BE SORRY OF THE THINGS THAT YOU HAD SAID LAST”. Tell the truth, and the truth will find its way to find you. I always asked also this question to my self, “Why does other people are hard up in telling the truth?” “What’s wrong with truth; will these causes their life if they will tell the truth?” Certainly, I don’t think so.
With what he had made to him, I don’t know tomorrow if I would text him the way we texted each other, because there’s now the burden in your heart that what if he is not telling the truth again and making me believed again of his false information. I’m afraid what would come next that he will tell to me. And until when he will tell more lies to me? And in what point will I be able to decipher which is the real ones.
Sometimes, it’s not always the face validity of a person that person that we should look at to but also in the content validity. If he is honest or not; if he is good or not; and most specially, if he could be better that you are.
Most of the times, it’s not the nature that greatly contributes our life; but the nurture. The upbringing of the child also matters
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