LAST HALLOWEEN I joined my twin grandkids here in New Jersey in their very first "trick-or-treat" experience. Their mom held them so they would not lose their shoes & bunny tails, their dad led the way to the rooms that were open for such kiddie event during Halloween, and I was the official photographer.
Compared to the bigger kids in the 25-storey condo, the twins' tiny hands could only grab enough candies, chocolates and lollipops to cover the bottom of their plastic-pumpkin containers. But they were happy....
And all the while I was also happy remembering.
Foremost among the flashbacks that played in my mind was how, as a kid, I also used to go house to house with my cousins in my grandparents' barrio during Undas.
That was in Palabotan when it was not yet a barangay and was still a sitio (smaller than a barrio) and was more popularly called I-iyo.
Of course, we didn't use the words Halloween and Undas then. The former was only used in school, in much the same manner that we pupils had next to zero knowledge on what "All Saints Day" and "All Souls Day" were all about.
In fairness, days before those days, we young ones were herded by our teachers to the kampusanto to pull cogon grass and other weeds growing on the sides of tombs -- and on the side, the more naughty among us boys would pick up a bone fragment -- sometimes a skull with some teeth still grinning -- from an antique and open tomb and then use it to show off their bravery or to scare our giggling classmate girls.
I recall I never heard the word undas uttered in my little community then. Nor did I ever hear the Isinay translation Pistan si Natoy of the Tagalog Araw ng mga Patay.
Instead, we used the Ilokano Panagkakararua or simply Kararua.
Yes, we also sang or rather half-shouted Halloween songs then. I remember the English version went like this:
I am glad when it's Halloween // when it's said that ghosts can be seen // tan-tan-tan-tan-tan-tan-ta-tan // then we'll eat some sweet guinatan!"
Sorry I forgot the words of the third stanza. But here's the Filipino (then called Pilipino or simply Tagalog) version:
Kaluluwa'y dumaratal (dumaratal) // sa tapat ng durungawan (durungawan) // kampanilya'y tinatangtang (tinatangtang) // ginigising ang maybahay (maybahay). Kung kami po'y lilimusan (lilimusan) // dali-dali nyo pong bigyan (nyo pong bigyan) // baka kami'y mapagsarhan (mapagsarhan) // ng pinto ng kalangitan (kalangitan)!
Note the words in parentheses. They are sang by those in the "second voice" or in this case the back-up "tsuwariwariwap" singers that were the chorus singing style in those days.
Of course, Dupax being then half populated by Ilocanos (including the faculty of the Dupax Central Elementary School), there is also an Iloko/Ilokano version of the Pangaluluwa song:
Naragsak ti agkararua (agkararua) // kunada nga adda al-alia (al-alia) // agrararagtayo ngarud (tayo ngarud) // satayto mangan ti kankanen (kankanen)!
The tsuwariwariwap words of this Ilokano version would often be changed depending on the seriousness or lack of it of the singers and the singing venue. Thus, agkararua would become "agkarawa" (grope other person's private parts), al-alia would become "ar-aria" (meaning the carolers be on the alert with their pranks), tayo ngarud would be "tay sarukod", and kankanen would be "dudumen" (pinipig in Tagalog) or "kankanun" (the genuine Iloko pronunciation of the word where the letter E sounds like muffled U).
...
UNLIKE IN the USA, there was no need to make any trick-threats during Halloween when I was young. This, even as there were anecdotes of chicken gone missing or a ladder moved somewhere (especially if the house-owners were known for being "naimut" (stingy) and would not give even a single tupig no matter how good the singers' voices were or how well-meaning and well-behaved the kararua visitors were.
I digress, but my coconut remembers a song reserved for houses whose residents do not even wake up to say sorry they were not able to make kankanen. It went like this:
Bulbulong ti appatut // kararuayo nga naim-imot // umulog ti makarurod // ta pak-olak iti sarukod! (Literal translation: Leaves of the achuete // your stingy souls // come down whoever is annoyed // and I'll hit his head with a walking cane!)
Fortunately for me, I never encountered "selfish" houses in my boyhood barrio. In fact, there were even occasions my group didn't need to sing Halloween songs. We would just approach the mother/s of the house and give the perfunctory greeting "Kararuayo, apo!" (literally Kaluluwa po nyo!). In turn they would say something like "Ay, tay apoko ni Baket Feliza dayta!" (Oh, that's the grandkid of old woman Feliza!) After which they would hand us generous samples of the kankanen (Tagalog kakanin) they prepared for All Saints & All Souls.
Yes, being an apo to my grandmother, who was the only mammaltot or hilot (barefoot midwife) in the village at the time, was a good passport. Thus, after going the rounds of the then barely 30 houses in the barrio, I would go home with my pasiking full of my share.
I wonder how, unlike today, the tupig, baduya and linapet that we collected then were able to last many days. I recall they would still be delicious snacks when a week later I would do my chores of splitting firewood, shooing away chickens from raiding the peanuts being dried in the yard, etc. -- or when my friends and I went gallivanting with our carabaos and slingshots in the hills and later in the river.
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