Halloween, Filipino-style, was not about costumes
Around this time of the year, majority of the world will observe Halloween by costuming, watching horror flicks, trick or treating and putting up eerie décor. Even here in Dubai, my social media feed has been taken over by one Halloween party after another. There’s kids’ activities at the malls which makes for a good environment because hey, it’s not every day you see vampires going shopping.
Manila had similar celebrations. When I was a kid, I dressed up as a vampire — complete with fake fangs for the school Halloween party. My parents ‘imposed’ the costume on my younger self who instead wanted to be Darth Vader. I remember standing under the Monday sun at the school grounds as my classmates and I sung the national anthem.
After the anthem, there was a parade around the streets near the school. Led by one of our teachers (who didn’t wear a costume), we were a bunch of horror film stereotypes going around the street in broad daylight to the amusement of our parents. If there was an award for the most somber vampire in existence, I would take the cake. After the parade, we were taken to our respective rooms where I sat in a class that would give The Addams Family a run for their money.
Being a metropolitan kid, my initial idea of celebrating Halloween involved costumes and candy. This was also what I saw at home on the TV — which has since been plagued with Halloween specials. In one of the children’s shows, a group of kids knocked on multiple doors saying “trick or treat!” to whoever answered the door. It had some semblance to caroling during Christmas. The essentials were there: show up at a random porch, greet, get something in return. The only exception was that in December, you had to sing songs, in November, you had to don a costume to get some treats. Things were different in the countryside though.
Countryside was Cavite, an area a little over an hour away from the city. Here I was introduced by my cousins to a tradition which involved caroling – in November that is.
Unlike the almost dilapidated concrete landscape of Manila, Cavite was dotted with patches of green. If in Manila, I’d see houses every five seconds, in Cavite, it would sometimes be an hour before I spotted one. Sites along the road included fruit shacks behind unending shrubbery.
My parents took my brother and I there to visit my paternal grandfather’s grave. Since I was a toddler, we would visit Cavite every November. The day would usually involve attending church on the first of November and then visiting grandpa’s grave just behind the church. During one of these trips, I was introduced to the custom of ‘soul-collecting’ or in Filipino — nangangaluluwa.
My cousins in Cavite let me in on it. It was simple: go around houses, sing them this one song and wait as they handed you loose change. The night before our traditional, go-to-church/visit grandpa jaunt, my cousins took me along one of these ‘adventures’.
I was taught the song by Nina, one of my many cousins. She and her brother Neil were the ones that asked me to tag along and my parents entrusted them with my person. “The song is simple,” I remember her saying. I think it went like: “Kaluluwa’y dumaratan, sa tapat ng... kalangitan”
The lyrics of the song tell the story of a ‘soul’ on a journey. But before he gets on his way, he makes a stopover to ask people for any form of help they could give him on his trip. In the larger scheme of things, it was akin to a play where we me and my cousins were cast as the ‘soul’ as we knocked on households for some help as we continue our excursion.
Unlike Christmas, where there’s a multitude of songs to shuffle around with, ‘soul-collecting’ had just that one song — at least that’s what my young mind remembers.
Unlike trick or treating, there are no costumes involved. Though my cousins stressed that we must wear black because its ‘appropriate’. So, we would don our darkest garb and go to the neighbours asking for alms.
In the countryside, everyone knew each other. So, when we knocked on doors, we were almost always handed some coins. Some of the more affluent homes around the town even handed out imported candies. Sometimes, if the house happened to be that of a family friend, we wouldn’t just get coins or candies, we — the ‘souls’ — would be asked to come in and join them for dinner.
Towards the end of night, us cousins huddled at a closed storefront where we counted our spoils and split it evenly. For my efforts and youth (I was 10 when I first started), I was given a 50-peso cut (less than Dh5). In my mind, 50 pesos can (and was always) spent on an entire day at the local arcade.
The last time I went soul-collecting, I was 13 that October evening. Children knocking on doors with the rest of us have since disappeared. And I just mean, have grown-up.
As a kid in Manila, I remember one Halloween in school, led by one of our teachers (who didn’t wear a costume), we were a bunch of horror film stereotypes going around the street in broad daylight, to the amusement of our parents. But the real deal was the song. The deal was this: go around houses, sing them this one song and wait as they handed you loose change