Traditional Filipino practices during death in the family... or mga kadu kag waay it sayud

It’s the 9th day after Nanay’s burial. It’s also the end of the 9-day novena for the dead recited for Nanay. We had a small handa in our house – actually leftovers from the food prepared during the burial. My sisters just added a few dishes.

The 9-day novena is a tradition among the Catholics in the Philippines. There are other traditions which are practiced in the rural areas which to my horror and amusement are also practiced by many of my folks as I had experienced during the wake of Nanay.

The wake for Nanay was held in our ancestral house. This is a practice in our place, unlike in urban centers where the wake is held in commercial funeral houses. As soon as the coffin was brought to the house, I was initiated to the old traditions and practices which could be scientifically explained but somehow could be amusing and backward to me.

The coffin was positioned so that the feet of the cadaver point to the house’s main door. This should be the only position according to the guys from the punerarya. They arranged the curtains and the flowers and left. My nieces did the cleaning near and around the coffin as leaves and petals used in the wreaths scatter in the place. And my old aunt (Nanay’s sister) nearly had a heart attack as she shouted ‘Kadu! Kadu! Waay it sayud!’ (kadu is taboo or against cultural or racial practices; waay it sayud is not acceptable) when she saw my nieces sweeping the floor with a broom. Sweeping the floor is forbidden in a wake. According to the old folks, sweeping with a broom will result to another death in the family.

We had some food prepared for the folks who came to pray. My aunt placed small portions of the food on the makeshift altar beside the coffin like some sort of offering. She said, the itang or how the food is called in the vernacular, was for the souls. As there were many people coming and going, she placed the itang inside a room, so the souls would not be disturbed. (Itang is still widely practiced in rural areas. I remembered my grandparents, when they were still alive, placed viand and portions of rice topped with small cones made of banana leaves and filled with salt, in a secluded room. Kids like us didn’t know what for were the food. So, when nobody was looking we sneaked into the room and gobbled on the food. Possibly, the old folks would have been shocked to know that the ‘spirits’ really ate their preparations.)

Cousins came the following day to make palaypay, a temporary roofing extension outside the house to accommodate more guests. They fell some bamboo poles from our farm and a cousin’s truck hauled them to our house. Feeling like an office manager that I am, I instructed them to just extend the beams for the palaypay from our house’s main beams to save on materials and efforts. But they did not heed me as it was kadu. The farm boys made their own posts and put up the beams, making sure that none of the palaypay’s parts touch the main house as it was kadu. They used sukdap – twine from bamboo skin – to tie the beams. The whole palaypay was finished without a nail in place. And all done in the old fashioned bayanihan way. We didn’t pay the guys. They worked because the palaypay had to be done. They just settled for a bottle of whiskey and some cigarettes. Nothing else. And they were also there to help prepare for the food during the burial and to dismantle the palaypay after the burial.

I instructed my cousins not to cut the bamboo poles too short because I was going to use them in my farm after the wake. A neighbor asked me where I was going to use the bamboos. I told her I was going to use the bamboos to mend the floor of my nipa hut. In a stern way, she informed me that bamboos used in the palaypay must not be re-used to mend or build a house. Waay it sayud. The bamboos can only be used for fencing.

The wake was about two and a half weeks as we were still waiting for a brother and two nieces to arrive from abroad. In our place, wakes are long because relatives from far away are expected to come to pay their last respects. Everyday, we took a bath as usual, to the consternation of the other relatives. In the rural areas, the immediate family of the dead, is supposed to take a bath only after the wake. When my friends from the city came, I asked our cook to prepare chicken dishes. My older cousins from Mindanao told me, it was kadu to kill chicken. If ever, I must ask a non-relative to kill and to dress the chicken. He reminded me of what happened to the children of an uncle. ‘They met violent deaths (hilaw nga kamatayon) because they killed chicken and had chicken dishes in their far away house during the wake of our Lola’, my cousin told me.

Crawling vegetables or dishes that use them, were also not allowed. Mourners must not be accompanied to outside the house when they leave. Better if mourners just leave without asking permission.

Food prepared for the wake must not be brought to other houses. My sister’s husband believed in this. One time my sister gave puto, which was served to the mourners for breakfast, to her daughter as baon. When her husband learned about this, he was very angry. To appease him, my sister went to the school of her daughter to take back the puto. And she was so guilty, she didn’t dare eat nor bring the puto to their house. Instead she gave it to the tricycle driver. During the wake, a cousin delivered to our house 2 big baskets of newly harvested mangoes as my sister’s share from their farm. She didn’t open the baskets as she was excited to show them to her husband. When her husband came, he was delighted to see their farm produce, but would never take any of the mangoes to their house nor to the house of his kin because the mangoes had already been inside our property (technically just inside our gate and still outside our house). That night, I brought bags of fresh green mangoes to my house in Jaro to the delight of my kids and neighbors. I told them, the mangoes were from my farm.

Pinned to the inside cover of the coffin were ribbons bearing the written names of the kids and grandkids of the dead. I didn’t like it, but it was the practice in our place. At least, the array of names made it appear that my mother really had a family. But the list of names had to be taken down before the coffin is finally closed and entered in the tomb.

Burials are usually held during the weekend so that most everybody can attend. It was therefore hard to get a schedule on a weekend. It was also hard to look for a priest because the local parish priest uses his quota of four masses a day to say scheduled masses in the town and the barangays plus the ubiquitous fiestas. My sisters asked for three priests to concelebrate the mass. My priest-classmate and another priest-friend agreed to say the mass. I telephoned the home for retired priests if anybody would be available to complete the misa de tres. The first retired priest I talked to initially agreed. But when I told him he was one of the three to say the mass, he got ballistic. He reminded me that others can hardly find a priest, and here I was asking three priests to be in the same mass. I asked his forgiveness and hang up. I thought then the priest was too grouchy because he had menopausal fits. In the end, we settled for two priests.

After the mass there was a pictorial. The practice in our place is to take the picture of each set of the families of the children gathered around the coffin. So if the dearly departed had five children, there will be five pictures taken of the five sets of families. And many more for the other relatives, classmates and barkadas who will have their own separate photo ops.

In the case of Nanay, we only had 2 photo ops – one for the immediate family members and another for the siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews.

Then we exited the church for the 1-kilometer walk to the cemetery. It used to be that all the mourners would walk all the way to the cemetery. But not anymore. Only the immediate family and close associates of the dead walk the distance behind the hearse. The others ride in their gleaming cars, passenger jeeps, tricycles, etc. Almost everybody think that 1 kilometer is too far away. And the hot sun has to be avoided.

We served snacks in the cemetery.

After the burial, close friends and relatives pass by our house for more food. We butchered 1 cow and 2 pigs for lunch. And there were still leftovers for dinner. Male relatives were there to dismantle the palaypays. And they brought to their homes more leftover food. Somehow they didn’t think it was kadu.

Cousins stayed until late at night. There was supposed to be a belasyon with games and luwa. But somehow, none of us knew how to start the belasyon. So older cousins just informed us what other practices we had to follow.

Aside from belasyon, another old practice we talked about was the tulod damag. We were told that this was no longer practiced as none of the remaining generation knew how to do it. And nobody seemed to believe in it anyway. But we were told that tulod damag was performed when my father died more that 20 years ago.

In tulod damag, live charcoal were left glowing in the dapog (earthen platform where cooking is done using a sig-ang) from evening to dawn to guide the soul of the dead in its travel to the other world. Early the following morning, two widows would create sounds – one widow used a mortar and pestle and the other would beat a kararaw (woven wide and shallow basket used to clean rice) with a piece of bamboo. What for are these noises, nobody knew.

Our older cousins also told us that the soul is believed to linger on earth for forty days before it finally goes to heaven. They asked us to offer a mass and have another handa on the 40th day after the death of our mother. @