In memory, I have gone once more through a week of silences. The Holy Week of my childhood was a series of rules, the days marked in taboos and the forbidden.
Our grandmother commanded a silence rule, a no-loud laughter rule.. That rule began technically from Monday but became more despotic after the colorful Wednesday procession. That day was also the day when the town became a landscape of loud colors. Red and yellow prepared us for the black.
The "santos" were not to be spared of the abuse of palette. The "San Juan" shimmered in satin. His face upturned, beautiful to the point of effeminacy, displayed both grief and regal air. San Pedro had a bright cape, even as his rooster stole the authority from him. The "Tres Marias" were golden in the late afternoon procession; the "Dolorosa" gentle in the gentlest of blues. The "Magdalena," of course, was the loveliest.
These images from the stories of Christ became figures shrouded in black during the Good Friday. The people followed the example of their garment, and faith became a fervent expression of grief.
We were not allowed to read comics during this week. We were supposed to participate in the graveness of the week.
The town was quiet until the night of Black Saturday when the "flame" was lit again. Even as Christ had already risen, the pall of the week would not lift immediately. People would wait for the dawn of Sunday, when children of varying ages and anxieties had to endure fear of heights just so the Resurrection would be properly enacted.
In Buhi, my grandmother's sister was Santa Maria in the "Tanggal," the town's version of Senaculo. Even in her eighties, Lola Elay, with her round face, still could recite her lines. When egged on to play once more the Mother of God, she would dismiss the request and give us the smile, naughty but full of wisdom. She never got married.
It was through Lola Elay that we developed a love for the "Tanggal" (the name recalling the final scene when Christ is taken down from the Cross). For some reasons, we always managed to catch the spectacle during the Thursdays and Fridays. We somehow missed always the early part, the Fall of the Angels, when the Devils wearing battered black umbrellas chased children who were frightened out of their wits and religion.
But if we missed the Creation of the World and the rise and fall of Lucifer, we never missed the fantastic stories of Judas and Longinus. Apocryphal and appealing, the tales of these two characters were a display of tour de force in acting and physical strength. The man who played Judas could outcry and outscream any one in the ensemble. It did not matter if he was drunk for the Judas of our childhood practically exorcised himself of bad deals and sad decisions.
Strangely enough, in film versions, Judas is always the more interesting person, the more complex. It took a musical (an irreverent medium to many) to give back to Jesus the real complexion of his person. You know that part, when Jesus with all anguish and fear, starts to question and doubt his destiny only to accept the will of the Father. From the Garden of Gethsemane up to that mountain, our faith went with him. Or the rock star who portrayed the Christ with all humility, flaws and all.
In some islands in the Pacific, following the Nativistic or Revivalistic movements present in the community, people had to follow many taboos. In one ethnic community, for example, the rule was to have silence so that the ship bearing their ancestors would finally dock. The rule was to be strictly observed so much so that the men had to tie the mouth of dogs and roosters so they would not bay and crow. The belief was that if they observed these rituals, the cargo ships or phantom ships would arrive. These vessels would be loaded with all material products - electronics, appliances, riches. The rituals are the coping mechanism and response of the communities to their colonial present. The return of the ancestors meant prosperity and the return of the cultures that were taken from them by colonizers.
I never saw silence as an observance of taboo when as child we observed Holy Week. In this island where faith and politics are a surplus, any of these two institutions able to teach us the value of renewal wins. Thus, any religion replenishes and brings us back always the wonder of childhood.