By Jaime C. Laya

National Artist Nick Joaquin may have been the first to bring the Tadtarin to general attention. His celebrated short story, The Summer Solstice was set in the 1850s and centers on a celebration of the women of Paco, Manila.

The cult of the Tadtarin is celebrated on three days: the feast of St. John and the two preceding days. On the first night, a young girl heads the procession; on the second, a mature woman; and on the third, a very old woman who dies and comes to life again.

The crowd parted, and up the street came the prancing, screaming, writhing women, their eyes wild, black shawls flying around their shoulders, and their long hair streaming and covered with leaves and flowers. But the Tadtarin, a small old woman with white hair, walked with calm dignity in the midst of the female tumult, a wand in one hand, a bunch of seedlings in the other. Behind her, a group of girls bore aloft a little black image of the Baptist - a crude, primitive, grotesque image, its big-eyed head too big for its puny naked torso, bobbing and swaying above the hysterical female horde . . . the screaming women fell silent: the Tadtarin was about to die.

The old woman closed her eyes and bowed her head and sank slowly to her knees. A pallet was brought and set on the ground and she was laid in it and her face covered with a shroud. Her hands still clutched the wand and the seedlings. The women drew away, leaving her in a cleared space. They covered their heads with their black shawls and began wailing softly, unhumanly...

. . . When the moon rose and flooded with hot brilliance the moveless crowded square, the black-shawled women stopped wailing and a girl approached and unshrouded the Tadtarin, who opened her eyes and sat up, her face lifted to the moonlight. She rose to her feet and extended the wand and the seedlings and the women joined in a mighty shout. They pulled off and waved their shawls and whirled and began dancing again — laughing and dancing with such joyous exciting abandon that the people in the square and on the sidewalks, and even those on the balconies, were soon laughing and dancing, too. Girls broke away from their parents and wives from their husbands to join in the orgy.

The all women procession then moves on to a chapel, where the ritual ends.

Choreographer Alice Reyes found inspiration in the legend and created Amada, a celebrated Ballet Philippines number described as follows:

In the Philippines, Spanish Catholicism was absorbed and mixed with local pagan rites and rituals. One of the more primitive ones was that of the "Tadtarin" which was practiced once a year during the Summer Solstice at the Feast of Saint John. It was a Dionysian festival where women reigned supreme for three days and the men who participated could do so by wearing some female garb as a symbol of subservience.

I haven't found any definitive reference confirming cross-dressed male participated in the Tadtarin, although history books do say that among ancient Filipinos, spiritual leaders (babaylan) included men dressed as women. The usual presumption is that the latter were gays, although a male supremacist friend insists that Spanish explorers jumped to the wrong conclusion in much the same way that a fascinated indio may have decided that the Spanish gold embroidered priestly robes were scintillating ball gowns.

Warming up to the topic, my friend points out that women were topless then and wore a tapis while men ordinarily wore g-strings or bahag. It is likely, he concludes, that ceremonial occasions required 16th century males to throw on a blanket or a sarong, no great shakes among Khmer, Burmese or Malay warriors whose wardrobes, to this day, are heavy on sarong, Q.E.D.

If truth be told, the Philippines is a nation of strong women. Directly or behind the scenes, they run business empires, government, haciendas, etc. while commanding an army of househelp and keeping an eye on potentially errant husbands. They hold purse strings. Wives feared by husbands, mothers by grown sons, grandmothers by all. Why rub it in with a festival of woman triumphant?

Anyway, modern day feminists appear to consider the Tadtarin as symbol of militant, conquering, and triumphant womanhood. Modern day gays also cite babaylans and Tadtarin as evidence that gayness enjoyed higher regard in those days. Possibilities are great and Andy Cristobal Cruz confides that bidding over movie rights of The Summer Solstice is brutal.

It turns out (surprise!) that Tadtarin is alive and well. Not on June 21 (the summer solstice) or on June 24 (the feast of St. John), but on two other separate occasions. The first is close to the winter solstice, on the second Sunday of December at the Paco parish church. The second is on the second Sunday of November at the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Penafrancia on the way to Pandacan. With tropical days being much the same length, Filipinos never did fuss about solstices.

The December Tadtarin is held during the Paco fiesta of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, when dancing women join the procession. Paco-bred GSIS President Federico "Ding" Pascual reminisces that in his youth, participants danced to Santa Clara, pinung-pino, kami po ay bigyan mo ng asawang labing walo . . . which happens to the identical music of the celebrated procession of Obando in Bulacan. The lyrics beg St. Claire for 18 husbands, more or less consistent with the theory that the procession is a transformed pre-Hispanic fertility rite.

However, with the old ladies who now take part, current practice is a far cry from the prancing, screaming, writhing, hysterical female horde orgying away and the abjectly crushed men of Nick Joaquin. Today's women now dance in the Tadtarin in prayerful supplication for a child or spouse or in fulfillment of a vow or panata. The spirit of militant and victorious womanhood, regretfully, fails to surface in the waltzy melody of Santa Clara . . . On the other hand, as the lyrics do imply an unsinkable merry widow who tries and tries again, further research could be fruitful.

Nick Joaquin's story describes the Paco Tadtarin as a three-day affair dedicated to San Juan Bautista, with daily themes identical to those of modern day Obando. The three-day fiesta of the latter successively honors a trio of saints — Nuestra Señora de Salambao, Sta. Clara, and San Pascual Baylon. The first day is dedicated to San Pascual Baylon, to whom lovelorn suitors pray for a wife. The second day is in honor of the Virgin of Salambao, patroness of childless couples. The third day is for Sta. Clara, who is believed to listen to requests for a fiance. At the procession for the three saints, devotees pray and sway, skip and hop in accordance with traditional steps, preceding the images' carrozas.

The theory is that during pre-Spanish times, couples would converge from afar to offer sacrifices to a renowned priestess in petition for a child. The early Spanish friars were quick to redirect the petitioning to the Catholic pantheon of saints and possibly to tone down any wildness in the ancient rituals. The practice caught on and one will recall how Rizal's heroine, Maria Clara, was born nine months after her long childless mother danced at Obando. (The powerful input of the ever ready Padre Damaso was kept confidential.) It is also interesting that Paco and Obando were within Franciscan territory and that both San Pascual and Sta. Clara are also venerated at Paco's Peñafrancia church.

A well-known linguist points out that tadtarin means chop up (as in mince) in Tagalog and that the December Tadtarin could well be in reference to King Herod's massacre of the innocents. On the other hand, The Summer Solstice explanation could also be true. Holy Week Pabasa participants are perfectly aware that Herod's wife, the sneaky Herodias, saw to it that the prize for daughter Salome's alluring dance was St. John's head on a serving dish. The latter obviously squares with the female supremacy theory and for good measure, also a definitely deplorable male view of womanhood, i.e., tempting but sneaky.

Held throughout the Spanish and American regimes, the Tadtarin ceased during World War II but was revived in 1985, the brainchild of then city councilor Susano "Jun" Gonzales Jr. when the image of Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia was canonically crowned at the Luneta.

Nowadays, the Peñafrancia Tadtarin is held in a general atmosphere of revelry. The Virgin's image, an old painting of Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia, is borne on the shoulders of carousing parishioners on its andas or decorated platform. Now more Dionysian than ever, menfolk, beer and gin bottles in hand, tipsily stagger with the image through crowds of gaily dressed celebrators. De rigueur attire of late has been Hawaiian.

There could still be a twitter of badings and a swagger of tibos in the crowd, but no doubt about it — the Peñafrancia Tadtarin has turned macho.

NCCA Chairman Jaime C. Laya is an avid art collector apart from being an educator. Dr. Laya dabbles in writing when he is not busy.

Michael Van D. Yonzon, who worked on the illustration, is a director at Toonworks. He is the 13th among 14 children of noted artist Hugo C. Yonzon Jr. "Mike" is the family "Kenkoy" says wife Carol Ulob, a trait inherited by daughters Charmaine and Juliene.