First thing that I think we need to clear is the relation of the words feast and festival.

According

to the Oxford dictionary, a feast is “a large meal, typically a celebratory one” while a festival is

“a day or period of celebration, typically for religious reasons.” This means that a festival is a

subset of feast. Of course the meaning of the words has been altered by history that sometimes in

practice the two word’s meanings are interchangeable.

Based on Douglas Harpers Online Etymology dictionary, feast may have came from the words

feste (Old French) which means "festival, feast, also festa (Latin), “holidays, feasts.” The term is

said to have been first used around 1200.

What we are seeing today as feast is largely from and/or influenced by our colonizers most

especially Spain. Year round annual celebrations that are primarily religious can be trace back

from our Spanish roots. But in pre-hispanic times or maybe even today there was a different

story of how natives of the Philippines perceived the concept of a feast or feasting.

In the book of Junker (2000) Raiding, Trading, and Feasting she set out to lay details on the

function of feasting among the natives of the Philippines. The records range from

documentations by Spaniards from the 16th to 17th century. The following are inferences from the

texts.

Maintenance of social relations and supremacy. Among the Tausog, Bukidnon, and Bagobo it

was an essential tool for reinforcement of elite alliances. Also it establishesd permanent

“economic inequalities”. It basically defines who is to be at the top and at lower statuses. Chief

and chiefdoms statuses are also preserved by holding such feast.

Life-crisis events. Kin groups normally holds feast on occasions of “birth, …puberty, marriage,

illness or death”. In other interpretation feast are held for gratitude of new life, coming of age
new relation, healing for illnesses or peaceful and swell departure of a dead family member’s

soul.

Occasional events. This includes the construction of chief’s house, chiefly succession, maritime

raids, peace pacts and preparation for a long-period dispatch.

Prestige enhancement. The sponsorship of any feast is a lavish expenditure for the host. This

reflects how much wealth and/or resources somebody among have chiefdoms. Participants whore

partake in the feast are given to be socially in debt to the sponsor which in turn in the future

participants would pay through an act of service like to work in the farm. It works as the popular

concept of utang na loob but in a little more aggravated manner that feast sponsors have a tighter

‘grip of obligation’ vested on the participants of the feast given that they have lower unequal

status compared to the sponsor.

Critical points in annual agricultural cycle. Post-harvest celebrations are held in gratitude of a

bountiful harvest. This is usually accompanied by sacrificial rites for chiefdoms revered

provider.

Sacrifices to ward off evil spirits. There is also a religious side to it. Natives believe that by

sacrificing animals such as pigs evil spirits that may cause diseases, harm to crops and the like

could be driven away.

Political and economic power seems to have been revolving around feasting. But with the

Hispanicization of the Philippines, religious aspects shifted to the foregrounds of feasting and

political and economic power has been, we can say, at the background. It has been resting more

on the concept of a festival than on the general perception of feast describe earlier above.

Christianity or more especially the Roman Catholic calendar of festivities dominated annual or
periodical celebrations. Martires (1968) in one lecture in the series of lecture by the National

Museum said that we “inherited fiesta or feast from Spain and adopted it as part of our way of

life.” But what she might have been speaking of are only festivals. We have our own version of it

as shown above. This conflicting perception may have been because of the imposition by

colonizers of Spanish culture in us and eradication of our own culture.

Zabilka (1963) listed several festivities feted by Filipinos. Some are All Saints’ Day, Christmas,

Santacruzan, The Holy Week, etc. All these and others are done to commemorate saints, Jesus

Christ and other biblical figures on the forefront of Catholicism. Devotees like that of the Fallen

Nazarene believe to acquire healing, prevention of diseases or accidents and good luck by

participating in the celebrations (Martires, 1968). Like every Christian obeying God many of the

feast is done because of their beliefs.

Comparatively the native Filipino’s feasting is more concrete than what had been brought by our

Spanish colonizers. If we would recount chiefs or elites sponsoring a feast, it is done because

sustains or even heightens their prestige, maintains their social ranking and gets a hold of

untapped labor or service sources from participants that are lower in social ranking while

Spanish and Spanish-influenced feasts or more specifically festivals are driven by the thought of

a greater being rewarding them for their work and not only the sponsors are thought to be

rewarded, not like among native Filipinos, but everyone who participates.

References:

Cabotaje, Esther. Food and Philippine Culture. Manila: Centro Escolar university Research and

Development Center, 1976.

Etymonline.com, s.v. “Feast,” http://www.etymonline.com/ (accessed July 20, 2010)

Junker, Laura. Raiding, Trading and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms.

Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000.

Martires, Myrna. Folk Festivals of the Philippines. Lecture, Aspects of Philippine Culture,

National Meseum, February 6, 1968.

Oxforddictionaries.com,s.v. “Feast,” http://oxforddictionaries.com/ (accssed July 20, 2010)

Oxforddictionaries.com,s.v. “Festival,” http://oxforddictionaries.com/ (accssed July 20, 2010)

Zabilka, Gladys. Customs and Culture of the Philippines. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1963.