Fiesta in Canaman

Certain towns are near but if you do not go back there, they recede into the distance, and become very far.

The fiesta in Canaman has brought me back to the charming town that even academics from as far as the U.S. are well aware of. I met, in fact, an American anthropologist who told me he feels he has been to Canaman already, just by reading the essays about it.

Last Sunday, upon the invitation of Danny Gerona, the historian who happens to be a good friend (or should that be the other way around), I managed to attend my very first fiesta in this charming town. Along the way, I picked up Rudy and Janet Alano. Their place was a few meters from the boundary of Naga.

Travel is always a nice metaphor for memory.

The town of Canaman is described as being 6 km from North to South and 14 km from East to West. Attritions caused by colonial administrations have diminished the size of this town. What we see now is not really the big bustling site of yore, but the remains of a big municipality. The size of the town, however, does not make Canaman small. It is a big town in many ways. Outside of a rich history, documented well by Gerona and those who have persisted to remember its memories, Canaman is perhaps the only town in Bicol studied well in many universities in the U.S. by sociologists and anthropologists.

Fr. Frank Lynch, S.J., did his dissertation based on his fieldwork in this town. And his discussion of the social structure of Philippine society couched in the notion of big people ("dakulang tao") and little people ("sadit na tao) has become a standard reading for many students of social science.

Why do people stand outside the homes during fiesta? I asked my companions as we were traversing the main street of the town. Perhaps, Lynch also saw this phenomenon because one of his essays touched on the social dynamics of the fiesta in Canaman. He was observing how people - farmers and tenants - evacuating to big houses during typhoons came back again during fiestas to help in the celebration.

I wonder if he saw also young men standing in front of homes. Was this part of the rite of passage in this town (as in other towns in Bikol and the Philippines)? Were these young men strutting to attract the young women?

I realized I have forgotten already the fun of fiestas. It is a unique feeling to knock on the door of the home you are visiting. The prime purpose is to partake of the "handa" or the bounty, fiestas being tied to harvest or celebration of a good one. It is also Thanksgiving. Thus the lunch or dinner becomes extended rituals.

Fiesta is also seeing people you have not seen in years. Or, meeting people who know you but you don't know or getting to know people you don't know but who remember you from way back.