This isn't so bizarre in countries where faith is especially strong. In this
and others, they have the 'flagellantes' who whip their backs as a sign of
faith and compassionate (perhaps not so conservative) suffering for their role
model. Not much different than American athletes who emulate others how have
gone before them and suit up with pads and Reeboks to try for that immaculate
reception or Hail Mary touchdown pass ... and, so, for the uninitiated,
>From http://www2.hawaii.edu/~millado/flagellationfolder/flagellation2.html
>>>And there's more before and after this part A<>E<>R <<
{{<Begin>}}
The Origins of Christian Self-Flagellation
Following in the ascetic footsteps of the early Desert Fathers, and sparked by
nascent ecclesiastical emphasis upon the suffering of Christ, religious self-
flagellation originated in the eleventh century among Italian hermits and
monastic reformers, notably Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072). With the rise of
mendicant orders, in particular the Franciscans and Dominicans, the lay Third
Orders of Penance, and ultimately flagellant confraternities in early
thirteenth century Europe, "the discipline", as self-flagellation was known,
spread rapidly until it became "not only a normal feature of monastic life
throughout Latin Christendom but the commonest of all penitential techniques"
(Cohn 1970: 127). Aside from vicarious participation in the passion of Jesus
Christ, who was flagellated (Matthew 27: 26; Mark 15: 15; John 19: 1) on Maundy
Thursday, prior to his crucifixion and death on Good Friday, corporeal
subjugation was intended to catalyse the transition from a life devoted to
gratification of bodily desires to a higher sanctified life in the spirit
(Sabbatucci 1987: 114). As Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) suggested in his The
Imitation of Christ, the triumph of spirit over matter, soul over body, and
eternal over temporal is made possible and manifested through self-discipline
and denial (Zialcita 1986: 61).
Flagellant sects emerged in late medieval Europe in an attempt to expiate the
sins of Christendom and to avert divine retribution in times of crisis, such as
war, famine and plague. As these sects proliferated, a flagellant movement
evolved which began in Perugia in 1260 with penitential processions, then swept
across western Europe despite prohibition by Pope Alexander IV in 1261.
Throughout the next century, flagellant processions waxed in times of hardship
or fear and waned during periods of stability. In 1349, after a particularly
fervent outbreak, a papal bull issued by Clement VI condemned the flagellants
as heretical and forbade processions, which thereafter became increasingly
intermittent but did not disappear. In late sixteenth century France, for
instance, flagellation enjoyed royal patronage under Henry III, while in
Germany in the early seventeenth century, the Jesuit Jacob Gretscher, compiled
a history and vindication of the discipline. However, by the eighteenth
century, if not earlier, religious self-flagellation was in decline throughout
Europe, with the important exception (for the Philippines in particular) of
Spanish penitential confraternities; the latter famously inspired by the
Christocentric preaching of the Dominican friar, Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-
1419), who advocated flagellation as a means to purify the soul. In Spain, it
was not until February 1777 that Charles III censured the processions of the
disciplinantes. Flagellation, it was alleged, had degenerated into a public
spectacle which evoked "instead of edification and repentance, scorn from the
prudent, amusement and uproar from the boys, and amazement, confusion and fear
from the children and women, and even more injurious results, rather than good
example, or the expiation of sins" (cited in Wroth 1991: 18). As elsewhere in
Europe, albeit later, public self-flagellation in Spain slowly abated. Today,
with the exception of certain monastic orders, most famously Opus Dei (Walsh
1989: 111-13), and convents (Campbell-Jones 1979: 87), as well as isolated
brotherhoods or communities in northern Spain, southern Italy (Ferlaino 1990),
Mexico (Brandes 1988: 63-69), New Mexico (Weigle 1976: 159-162), and parts of
Latin America, the practice of Christian self-flagellation is virtually
extinct. Certainly, its decline is beyond dispute. The sole and important
exception to this declivity is the resurgence of self-flagellation in the
Philippines, the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia (see Barker 1996).
Contemporary Self-Flagellation in the Philippines
Before turning to Philippine religious history, specifically the origins of
self-flagellation in the islands, knowledge of certain aspects of contemporary
ritual performance is expedient. Self-flagellation is performed today in
lowland Christian Philippines during Holy Week, on Maundy Thursday and Good
Friday, as a ritual re-enactment of the scourging of Jesus Christ at the
pillar.
Compassionate participation in (damay) and imitation of the passion of Christ
is an important feature of almost all Holy Week rituals in the Philippines.
Aside from self-flagellation, these rites include the pabasa (singing or
chanting of the pasyon, a vernacular text recounting the life and death of
Christ), the sinakulo (passion play), via crucis (way of the cross), visita
iglesia (visiting seven churches on Maundy Thursday evening), siete palabras
(the seven last words of Christ on Good Friday), and the santo entierro
(funeral procession of the dead Christ). As the focus of this ritual activity
indicates, and as Lynch (1956: 663) famously observed, for Filipino men in
particular, the Christ of the Filipinos is pre-eminently a suffering Christ: he
is the beaten, scourged, humiliated, and defeated Christ. To the perennial
despair of the Philippine Catholic Church, outside its pulpits and precincts,
"folk-Catholicism" focuses almost exclusively on the passion and death of the
son of God, as opposed to and at the expense of his resurrection on Easter
Sunday. Consequently, popular religiosity in the Philippines has been
disparagingly labelled "Good Friday Christianity" or "Calvary Catholicism"
(Ebner 1978: 19). The importance of this indigenous spiritual emphasis on Good
Friday will become apparent later, upon the advent of ritual crucifixion.
A further point of importance that needs to be raised now, before examining the
historical origins of self-flagellation in the Philippines, is that contrary to
annual reports in the Manila (and international) media, based ultimately on the
historical precedent of medieval Christian self-flagellation and supported by
visceral supposition, religious self-flagellation is not performed in the
Philippines as penance (see Barker 1992). In terms of orthodox Roman, or more
accurately Spanish Catholicism, atonement for sin is not a motivational factor.
Throughout the course of my anthropological fieldwork, conducted in Pampanga
province periodically since 1984, no adult flagellant has ever volunteered
penance as an explanation of ritual performance. Moreover, if I suggested
expiation of sin as a possible rationale, the idea was refuted. Although the
phenomenon of religious self-flagellation has been (deliberately) overlooked by
Filipino social scientists, two indigenous scholars who studied the practice
briefly had similar experiences in the field. In Bulacan province (adjoining
Pampanga), Alfredo Evangelista (1962: 11) reported that: "Not a single vow of
the 30 cases [of self-flagellation that he investigated] was a result of
repentance for sin or sins". Likewise, Fernando Zialcita (1986: 60), observed
that: "Conspicuously absent from adult penitensiya [flagellation] is the sense
of sin Not even in preparation for this ritual, do the flagellants go to
confession. Even the prayers used do not suggest a spirit of contrition."
Despite the ubiquity of penance as an explanation of self-flagellation in the
Philippines, rejection of the theory by ritual protagonists is less surprising
than it might at first appear. When understood in context, in terms of local or
indigenous knowledge, physical atonement is not a convincing explanation of
flagellation. Indigenous eschatology in pre-Christian Philippine society did
not include a vision of hell, nor was fate determined by sin, guilt or
retribution. During evangelisation, as Mulder (1992: 5) says, "ideas that did
not find a root or stem to sustain them were the cluster sin, repentance and
atonement". Confession, for instance, fascinated Tagalogs during the
"contraction" of colonialism, but as Vicente Rafael (1988: 132-5) has astutely
revealed, the discourse of sin was converted into a game of riddles
(bogtongan), while the sacrament of confession was utilised by Filipinos not
only to appropriate the sins of others as offerings to appease or bargain with
Spanish authority figures, but as a prime opportunity to denounce enemies and
boast about personal goodness (cabanalan), rather than admit to idiosyncratic
transgressions of divine law. What emerged during evangelisation, concludes
Rafael (1988: 135), "was confession without 'sin'". Furthermore, there is no
single word for sin in any Philippine language. The Tagalog noun, sala or
kasalanan, to give one example, refers to sin, crime, offence, error,
impropriety, or fault, which embraces everything from petty misdeeds to murder
(Zialcita 1986: 62; 1989: 34). Although the term penitencia (the word alone
with its Latin and Spanish etymology prejudges the issue today) is still widely
used to refer to religious self-flagellation, especially in the Philippine
media, in Pampanga province the indigenous (Kapampangan) term, darame, is
employed, meaning to share suffering, in particular the suffering of Christ in
his passion.
If, as I have suggested, the penitencia is not penitential, what is its raison
d'être? Why is flagellation performed? Self-flagellation is practised in
contemporary Philippines as a contractual sacrifice, based on a vow (panata) to
God, sworn for a fixed period, usually between five and fifteen years, often
during a crisis or time of difficulty, most commonly the illness of close kin.
The link with health or ill-health is pervasive. Aside from the culturally
important task, particularly for adult males, of sharing the suffering of
Christ, the flagellant is also sharing (damay), and thus trying to ease the
pain of a sick relative by offering himself as a sacrifice. Aside from petition
or supplication, a vow may also be pledged as an act of thanksgiving, following
unexpected good fortune or even specific or protracted avoidance of misfortune,
although this is less common. Unusually for religious self-mortification
rituals (see for example Pfaffenberger 1979: 266), the supplicatory vows of
Filipino flagellants are unconditional: a flagellant will always fulfil his
"promise" even if his request is not granted: if a sick relative fails to
recuperate, for instance, or even dies. This is partly because of the
asymmetrical nature of short-term dyadic relationships with the divine (Foster
1963).
Prior to evangelisation, Filipinos seldom pledged religious vows, but when they
did the oath was scrupulously fulfilled (Fernandez 1979: 6). Nowadays, vow-
fulfilment is more important for flagellants than overt ritual efficacy
(whether the sick relative is healed or not, although of course this is
desirable), since the panata acts as an ongoing relationship with the divine, a
spiritual investment for the benefit of the entire family, not just the votary
or his specified beneficiary. The hope is that God will bestow grace on the
family, parents and children alike, and provide protection against harm and
misfortune. As a result, a vow is often hereditary, passed from father to son.
In the event that a flagellant is unable to fulfil his vow, if he goes to work
abroad for instance, a close male relative will assume the burden of
responsibility. Throughout this process, familial ties are strengthened,
particularly in times of crisis, such as acute illness, or if a conflict
between kin is resolved, or a debt of gratitude (utang na loob) repaid
(Zialcita 1986: 61).
{{<End>}}
>
> The 11 staggered into a fenced-in knoll where neighbors
> dressed as Roman centurions awaited with wooden crosses,
> hammers and four-inch (10-centimetre) nails.
A<>E<>R
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