Kaplag: finding the Sto. Niño de Cebu 450 years ago

The pilgrim Sto. Niño de Cebu image.

We saw the pilgrim image of the Sto. Niño de Cebu at the Manila Cathedral on Saturday, 15 August 2015. It arrived from Cebu the day before and stayed at the San Agustin Church in Intramuros, where a mass was celebrated by Antonio Cardinal Tagle, and it was borne on a sinulog procession in the afternoon. It went to Baseco in Tondo for veneration, and from there proceeded to the metropolitan cathedral for an overnight vigil. A fluvial procession on the Pasig River from Intramuros carried the iconic image to Guadalupe Viejo. On Monday, the Sto. Niño de Cebu was welcomed by devotees in the the parish church named in its honor in Biñan City.

This Sto. Niño pilgrimage to Metro Manila and Laguna is part of the 450th Kaplag commemoration this year led by the Augustinian religious order. Kaplag is the Cebuano term for 'finding,' and in this instance, refers to the discovery of the image of the child Jesus by the soldiers of adelantado Miguel de Legazpi in 1565; thus, 450 years ago. That image was given to the wife of the Cebu chief by Ferdinand Magellan 44 years earlier when he arrived there in 1521.

Augustinian Fray Andres de Urdaneta was with the Legazpi expedition. Legazpi had a church immediately constructed to house the image, and had it named [Santissimo] Nombre de Jesus. Urdaneta served as the first priest of that parish.

Thus, the Augustinians are also celebrating their 450 years of religious service in the Philippines. That first church was elevated as a basilica minore 50 years ago; thus, this golden event is also part of the Kaplag celebration,

Let's have the chronicleers of the Magellan and Legazpi expeditions tell us the Sto. Niño story:

From Antonio Pigafetta (c1525), who survived their defeat in Mactan, we learn that after the queen of Cebu and her party of forty women were baptized, she was “shown an image of our Lady, a very beautiful wooden child Jesus, and a cross.”  The queen, named Johanna in her baptism, expressed interest to keep the child Jesus to replace her idols, and Magellan gave it to her on 14 April, 1521  (Blair & Robertson Resume of Documents, 1(2), 1906).

It is believed that this is the same image that soldier Juan Camuz found and showed to Esteban Rodriguez in one of the houses abandoned by the natives upon the arrival of Legazpi (B&R Resume) in Cebu “on the twenty-seventh day of the month of April, day of the glorious martyr St. Vidal, in the year 1565 [which] happened to be also the feast of the resurrection (Medina, 1630).”

The pilgrim Sto. Niño at the Manila Cathedral.

“Your excellency,” Legazpi (1565) wrote the king, “should should know that on the day when we entered this village one of the soldiers went into a large and well-built house of an Indian, where he found an image of the child Jesus (whose most holy name I pray may be universally worshiped). This was kept in its cradle, all gilded, just as it was brought from España; and only the little cross which is generally placed upon the globe in his hand was lacking. This image was well kept in that house, and many flowers were found before it, no one knows for what object or purpose. The soldier bowed before it with all reverence and wonder, and brought the image to the place where the other soldiers were. I pray the holy name of this image which we have found here, to help us and to grant us victory, in order that these lost people who are ignorant of the precious and rich treasure which was in their possession, may come to a knowledge of him. “

In a letter from Sevilla to Miguel Salvador of Valencia (1566), the writer spoke of the Mexican soldiers in the expedition who found  “in a poorly-built house … an image of the child Jesus, such as comes from Flanders, with his veil and the globe in his hand, and in as good condition as if just made.”

Veneration and modern visual capture.

As to the veneration of the Sto. Niño,Jesuit Fr. Pedro Chirino wrote this very early account (1604): “The Indians …held the object [carved image of the holy child Jesus] in great veneration … and had recourse to it in all their necessities—making sacrifices to it after their custom, and anointing it with their oils, as they were accustomed to anoint their idols. … Each year it is borne in solemn procession from the church of St. Augustine to the spot in which it was found, where a chapel has since been erected. The procession takes place upon the same day when the discovery was made -- namely, on the twenty-ninth of April, the feast of the glorious martyr St. Vital, who is patron of the city, and as such that day is kept as a solemn feast in his honor. One of the regidors, appointed each year for this purpose, brings out the banner of the city; he is on that day clad in livery, and invites the public to the festivals. There are bull-fights and other public festivities and rejoicings, with many novel fireworks, such as wheels and sky-rockets, which the Sangleys make the night before; on this occasion they construct things well worth seeing, and which appear well-nigh supernatural.”

The veneration of the child Jesus has metamorphosed into the Sinulog of the third Sunday of January: streetdancing with replica images of the Sto. Niño de Cebu accompanied by jubilant shouting of 'Pit Senyor!'

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Sources:

1. Pigafetta, Antonio. ( c1525).  First Voyage Around the World  [I Primo viaggio intorno al mondo]. Italian text with English translation found in The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803: 1(33):159,161,163. Blair, Emma Helen & Robertson, James Alexander,  Eds. Cleveland, Ohio: The A. H. Clark Company, 1903-09.  Retrieved fromhttp://name.umdl.umich.edu/afk2830.0001.033 
2. Resume of documents found in The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; 1(2):119-121.  Blair, Emma Helen & Robertson, James Alexander,  Eds. Cleveland, Ohio: The A. H. Clark Company, 1903-09.  Retrieved fromhttp://name.umdl.umich.edu/afk2830.0001.002 
3. Legazpi, Miguel Lopez de. (1565). Relation of the voyage to the Philippines [Cebu] found in The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; 1(2):215,216. Blair, Emma Helen & Robertson, James Alexander,  Eds. Cleveland, Ohio: The A. H. Clark Company, 1903-09.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/afk2830.0001.002 
4. Copy of a letter sent from Seuilla to Miguel Saluador of Valencia which narrates the fortunate discovery made by the Mexicans who sailed in the fleet which His Majesty ordered to be built in Mexico with other wonderful things of great advantage for all Christendom worthy of being seen and heard. Printed in Barcelona, By Pau Cortey, 1566 found in The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; 1(2):225,227. Blair, Emma Helen & Robertson, James Alexander,  Eds. Cleveland, Ohio: The A. H. Clark Company, 1903-09.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/afk2830.0001.002 
5. Medina, Juan de, O.S.A. (1630; Manila, 1893). History of the Augustinian order in the Filipinas Islands (to be concluded) found in The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; 1(23):158-159,167. Blair, Emma Helen & Robertson, James Alexander,  Eds. Cleveland, Ohio: The A. H. Clark Company, 1903-09.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/afk2830.0001.002   
6. Chirino, Pedro, S.J. (1604). Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (to be concluded) found in The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803;1(12):179-182. Blair, Emma Helen & Robertson, James Alexander,  Eds. Cleveland, Ohio: The A. H. Clark Company, 1903-09.  Retrieved from http://name.umdl.umich.edu/afk2830.0001.012 

Celebrating with Tondo folks the fiesta of their Sto. Niño

Note:  A slightly different version of this photo essay was published in the 24-30 Jan 2014 issue of the weekly FilAm Star ("The newspaper for Filipinos in mainstream America")."  The blogger is the Special Photo/News Correspondent of the said weekly, which is based in San Francisco, CA.

 

The Sto. Niño de Tondo (center) surrounded by other Child Jesus images in various costumes.

 
January in the year of iconic Roman Catholic folk rituals and traditions opens with two faces:  that of the suffering Nazarene during the fiesta of Quiapo, Manila on the ninth day of the month, and that of the innocent Child Jesus during the Sto. Niño festivals on the third Sunday held in many towns and cities nationwide,  the most popular being the Sinulog (Pit, Senyor!) of Cebu City  and the Ati-Atihan (Hala, Bira!) of Kalibo, both in the Visayas.   The Ati carnival, in fact, did not start as a folk religious festival but more of a commemorative celebration of a popular lore - the barter of Panay between the Bornean datus and the native Atis before the Spaniards arrived. There’s a fourth crowd-drawer, the Dinagyang of Iloilo, but this one is held on the fourth Sunday.

The original Sto. Niño image in residence at the Cebu cathedral reminds that Christianized Philippines will be 500 years old in 2021.  The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) prepared a “nine-year journey for the new evangelization”, which started last year, for the fifth centenary of the conversion of Rajah Humabon, Rajah Kolambu and 400 other Filipinos.    

Devotees carry their own images during the fiesta.

According to Pigafetta , the queen of Cebu, after her baptism as Johanna, was shown the images of Our Lady, the Child Jesus and a cross.  She expressed interest to keep the Child Jesus to replace her idols, and Magellan gave it to her on 14 April 1521.  It is believed that this was the same image that the Mexican soldiers of Legazpi found in one of the abandoned houses when they arrived in Cebu on 27 April 1565.

Replicate copies of that image are in the Kalibo and Iloilo churches, but with regard to the festivals, the Ati-Atihan was the original street dancing celebration centuries before Dinagyang and Sinulog festivals were organized as tourist attractions in 1967 and1981, respectively.

The tricycle procession replaced the fluvial of old.

The proletarian district of Tondo of Manila city also celebrates the feast of their Sto. Niño on the third Sunday (Viva El Sto. Niño!).  

For the first time after so many years, we visited Tondo to witness their fiesta.   We took the Divisoria route, the church being four blocks from Claro M. Recto through Ilaya Street, hemmed on both sides by market stalls.

Procession scenes.

There used to be a fluvial procession at Manila Bay on the eve of the fiesta.  Old timers remember that the image was borne through the streets of the district, accompanied by a dancing crowd to North Harbor where it was mounted on a pagoda.  Fishing boats escorted the pagoda as it sailed along the bay.

Multitude of Child Jesus images during the procession around Tondo.

The fluvial procesion was stopped in 1983. What we witnessed last Sunday was the morning procession of the Sto. Niño de Tondo on a carriage adorned by loaves of bread and flowers, followed by a legion of similar images clad in various costumes mounted on tricycles and other vehicles, or carried by young and old, male and female devotees.  There were two processions through all the barangays of the district, one in the afternoon of the eve of the fiesta, and the other after the early morning mass celebrated by Cardinal Antonio Tagle on the feast day.

Gone too is the street dancing that the late National Artist Nick Joaquin described as being performed by women in pastora hats or dressed like katipuneras in white kamiseta and red saya.  There was dancing called lakbayaw for two hours in front of the church in the morning of Saturday, but it was only for show.

Viva El Sto. Niño!