Where are the Ati in the Ati-Atihan?
Illustration: Selin Çınar
Amongst these (Bisayas) there are also some negroes, the ancient inhabitants of the island of which they had taken possession before the Bisayas. They are somewhat less black and less ugly than those of Guinea, but are smaller and weaker, although as regards to hair and beard they are similar. They are more barbarous and savage than the Bisayas and other Filipinos, for they do not, like them, have houses and fixed settlements. They neither sow nor reap, and they wander through the mountains with their women and children like animals, almost naked. Their sole possessions are the bow and arrow.
-Pedro Chirino, Relación de las Islas Filipinas, 1604; 2d ed., 1890, p. 38.
There is a local legend in my mother’s province of Aklan about the settlement of the island of Panay in the 13th century. The gist of it was that a resplendent golden salakot, a gold necklace, and other luxurious items were offered up to the Ati chieftain in exchange for settlement along the Panay coast by fleeing datus from Borneo. The indigenous Ati community accepted the goods as payment for the coast and retreated to the mountains. The Ati-Atihan festival celebrates this apocryphal event. It is also a festival which is essentially celebrated with blackface.
Some participants cover themselves in soot or black paint to “honour” the Ati, but I’m unsure what the actual current Ati community thinks about all this. Does a fiesta “honouring” your ancestors giving away your native lands for a hat and the fact that it is celebrated in maybe a problematic way, help with the sting of marginalization? Some family members have bristled at my bringing up that painting oneself black to mimic the Ati might not be exactly appropriate.
Upon visiting my mother’s village I would hear jokes about “darker” members of my family having Ati blood. I’m of the understanding that if the Ati people were held in any sort of esteem then having a darker complexion or Ati ancestry would not be marked by derision.
The tale of the Bornean datus has little historical evidence to back it up. It is a fun story to boost tourism during festival season and perhaps it helps rationalize the displacement of the Ati as Malay settlements spread across the islands. There is little to no documentation about the history of what life was like within the islands that would become the Philippines prior to Spanish colonization—it’s all bits and pieces with a heavy dose of romanticized drama, tied together by concocted narratives to help build a sense of nationalism and regional pride.
It’s a celebration of manufactured nostalgia for a past that did not exist.
Who are the Ati?
The Ati of Panay are one of the several aboriginal groups commonly referred to as “Negritos”, an exonym of Spanish origin for the darker-skinned indigenous groups including the Ati, Aeta, Agta, and Dumagat to name a few. Despite my apprehension, it’s also a term that still seems to be commonly utilized in academic works. Within the Philippines, Aeta is generally used as the umbrella term, though it is the name of one particular group from Luzon. Given their dark skin, Afro-textured hair, and diminutive stature (though this is greatly exaggerated) there was an assumption that these indigenous Southeast Asian people were related to ethnic groups in Africa who exhibit a similar phenotype, though genetic evidence has proven that Asian Negrito groups are genetically closest to neighbouring Asian populations, yet distinct.
Accounts about Negrito groups from the Spanish and American colonial periods depict these groups as culturally “primitive” and “backwards”. Here’s a taste from John Foreman, a man who lived and travelled the Philippines on behalf of British manufacturers and after the publishing of his work on the Philippines he was summoned as an advisor to the American Peace Commission in Paris in 1898 (for a critical review of his work see here). His book, The Philippine Islands, published in 1906, is a lengthy and inaccurate tome, oozing with racism masked as scientific and ethnographic fact:
Aetas, or Negritos, numbering 22,000 to 24,000, inhabit the mountain regions of Luzon, Panay, Negros, and some smaller islands. They are dark, some of them being as black as African negroes. Their general appearance resembles that of the Alfoor Papuan of New Guinea. They have curly matted hair, like Astrakhan fur. The men cover only their loins, and the women dress from the waist to the knees. They are a spiritless and cowardly race. They would not deliberately face white men in anything like equal numbers with warlike intentions, although they would perhaps spend a quiverful of arrows from behind a tree at a retreating foe…
...They are of extremely low intellect, and, although some of them have been brought up by civilized families living in the vicinity of the Negrito mountainous country, they offer little encouragement to those who would desire to train them. Even when more or less domesticated, the Negrito cannot be trusted to do anything which requires an effort of judgement. At times his mind seems to wander from all social order, and an apparently overwhelming eagerness to return to his native haunts disconcerts all oneʼs plans for his civilization.
The Spanish Government, in vain, made strenuous efforts to implant civilized habits among this weak-brained race...
...There is something picturesque about a well-formed, healthy Negrita damsel, with jet-black piercing eyes, and her hair in one perfect ball of close curls. The men are not of a handsome type; some of them have a hale, swarthy appearance, but many of them present a sickly, emaciated aspect. A Negrita matron past thirty is perhaps one of the least attractive objects in humanity (pp. 121-122).
William Allan Reed in his 1904 report as part of the Ethnological Survey for the US Department of the Interior, was far more complimentary in his assessment of the Aeta, largely because he had an axe to grind against “Malayans”:
The countenance of the average Negrito is not dull and passive, as might reasonably be expected, but is fairly bright and keen, more so than the average Malayan countenance. The Negrito also has a look of good nature—a look usually lacking in the Malayan. His knowledge of things other than those pertaining to his environment is, of course, extremely limited, but he is possessed of an intellect that is capable of growth under proper conditions. He always manifests the most lively interest in things which he does not understand, and he tries to assign causes for them. (William Allan Reed, Negritos of Zambales, 1904, p. 63).
An article by David P. Barrows published by the American Anthropologist in 1910, titled The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines is preoccupied with the physical attributes of the “normal, pure Negrito type”. Lest we forget how ingrained theories of scientific racism were in academia in the 19th and 20th centuries, no matter how unscientific and laughable they may seem to us now. Barrow states:
He is a scattered survivor of the pygmy negro race, at one time undoubtedly far more important and numerous; brachycephalic, platyrhinian, woolly-headed, and, when unaffected by the higher culture of the surrounding peoples, a pure forest-dwelling savage (American Anthropologist, vol. 12, No. 3, July-Sept, 1910, p. 359).
That’s a taste of the American colonial project in the Philippines for you. Unfortunately, unfavourable and dehumanizing views are still with us in the present day as Aeta groups are marginalized and discriminated against. Aeta communities currently face a loss of culture and ancestral lands due to government policies, deforestation, and the interests of multinational corporations. One recent example is the construction of New Clark City in the province of Tarlac located in Central Luzon which will result in the eviction and displacement of the local Aeta community from their ancestral lands. Many communities are impoverished without adequate access to resources.
Come to think about it, while I did have anthropology professors at the University of the Philippines who did research among specifically the Aeta in Luzon, I don’t recall any special focus on the Aeta or other Negrito groups in class. When it comes to Filipino culture and the plethora of ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines, the various Negrito ethnic groups rarely come to mind despite them being the first inhabitants of what is now the Philippines. I remember them being characterized by my professors as semi-nomadic, backwoods people, who lived in lean-tos and according to one of them, had sexual practices that would be abhorrent in polite Philippine society such as engaging in intercourse out in the open for all to see.
Yet another professor indicated that there was quite a degree of prudery among the Aeta they studied. This professor recounted that some children were playing a game of tag and one of the boys tagged one of the girls by touching her on the back which was apparently forbidden. The children involved were very worried that they would be forced to marry to maintain a sense of “honour” in the wake of this impropriety. Fortunately, it was written off as the accident and there was no forced child marriage. These are of course anecdotes from some of my professors, I cannot attest to them myself. There’s a sort of ugly undercurrent in anthropology which feels more like gawking at marginalized groups than “beneficial” research which also illustrates the question of who gets to study who.
I cannot name one Aeta celebrity or academic. I have had no meaningful interaction with the various Aeta communities. All I have is an origin story from my mother’s province. At university, these indigenous groups were just a sidelined topic of study which seems very reminiscent of how I was taught about the Native peoples/First Nations in social studies and US history as a kid. As if they’re museum pieces of a bygone past for us to gawk at rather than a living people.
Racism, Colorism, and Anti-Blackness
The US tends to dominate the discourse on race and those within the US seem to be of the mind that the specific historical and cultural conceptions on the construction of race are replicated in other countries and cultures. Despite all the anti-racist activism in the US in an effort to propel the conversation forward, race reductionism, reaffirmation of “race science”, and separatist tendencies are even found in “woke” circles. I thought about discussing the particular and peculiar history of the construction of race within the US, but this is a well-trodden topic and it only serves to make this article more US-centric. The difficulty of the topic is also compounded by limitations in language and nomenclature that is often coined in the US being made to fit in dissimilar context, for example can I use the term “blackface” in reference to what goes on at the Ati-Atihan?
When it comes to the construction of race in today’s discourse, is it merely based on phenotype without considerations to cultural and/or genetic heritage? What if one’s “look” does not match their “race”? Is “Blackness” or “Whiteness” merely on the basis of skin tone or do socio-cultural aspects also exist? Whiteness in the US context for example was never just based on physical appearance and those classified as “white” today would not have necessarily been “white” in the past. What constitutes “Blackness” and does it extend to groups like the Aetas, Melanesians, Indigenous Australian peoples, etc.? I’ve seen many a heated internet discussion and I’m still unclear and full of questions. How is race conceptualized outside the US? Rafael, a professor of Southeast Asian history, seems to characterize the Filipino understanding of race as ambiguous and malleable and Filipino racism lacking the same degree of violence historically seen in the US.
“Anti-Blackness in the Philippines is ingrained in the distaste for dark skin similar to other Asian countries. Skin whitening beauty ads are everywhere. Pale skin is coveted, sexualized due to a mix of traditional and colonial Western beauty standards. ”
Anti-Blackness in the Philippines is ingrained in the distaste for dark skin similar to other Asian countries. Skin whitening beauty ads are everywhere. Pale skin is coveted, sexualized due to a mix of traditional and colonial Western beauty standards. Colourism rests in every comment I receive lauding my skin’s pallor. I’ve routinely come across comments from people stating that dark skin looks “dirty” or how they could never entertain the idea of a relationship with a Black person because that would be tainting to them. I’ve heard derogatory remarks played off as jokes directed at African students by other students and professors. I once had a classmate ask me if the US was a scary place to live because of “all the Black people”... The audacity! How does colourism and/or anti-Blackness affect not only people of African heritage residing in the Philippines but also Aeta communities who already have to deal with offensive ethnographic narratives? Philippine entertainment still seems to think it’s okay for non-Aeta actors to don blackface to portray Aetas instead of casting actual Aeta actors.
I’ve recently come across an article in the Philippine Star about the Ati-Atihan that highlights some of the friction between the Philippine diaspora--particularly in the US-- and those within the Philippines. The article was written as a response to a social media post which accused the festival of appropriating African culture and practising blackface. The article featured reactions from people within the Philippines against what they view as US-centric ideas and Fil-Ams being unaware of actual Philippine history and culture.
As a Fil-Am myself I do think there is a skewed and flattened view of Philippine cultures and history among parts of the diaspora. Certain practices, outfits, “kultura aesthetics” that are labelled “Filipino” in the US are co-opted from marginalized Philippine ethnic groups. These groups may have their own feelings about their traditions appropriated and simply called “Filipino” or “native” thus erasing their particular culture for mainstream consumption by a segment of the diaspora who seek an authentic identity. I’m of the opinion that in the Philippines some people are all too willing to brush aside criticism and commentary on topics like racism because “the Philippines is not the US” and that “Americans are too sensitive.” The Ati-Atihan is celebrated in blackface, or a sort of blackface, and in a way that fantasizes Ati culture--it is a cartoon. But here again, I as a non-Ati person am discussing this topic. The person that condemned the Ati-Atihan and the people who are sticking up for it are all non-Ati. The question of Ati representation is reduced into a battleground to settle the scores between the natives and the diaspora. The community that is vital to this discussion is not privy to this discussion.
Forgotten stories
Cutting to Turkey, the country where I currently reside, racism and anti-Blackness do exist despite locals asserting otherwise. While cooped up due to COVID-19, I attended some online lectures about the African diaspora in Turkey and talks where Black individuals both Turkish and non-Turkish discussed their experiences with racism in Turkey. From these important, yet often side-lined discussions, one can tease out the Turkish construction of race and it was not as equitable as my language immersion instructors like to portray. (Granted, the day one instructor pointed out to the class that I had “slant eyes” did indicate they were full of it. I had to put up with that shit since kindergarten. When does it end?!)
One day on the metro I found myself commiserating with a woman from Somalia and a woman from South Africa about the overt racism and sexual harassment we’ve all encountered in Istanbul. There was a Turkish man trying to speak to one of the women and somehow I ended up as the translator, a feat given my poor Turkish. He kept showing us a photo of an Ethiopian woman he met for some reason and seemed to assume all African people must know each other. Thankfully, his stop soon came. They relayed previous incidents of men on public transport trying to solicit them for sex and harassing them with little to no rescue from people nearby. Both told me how it felt being Black women who wore hijab saying that Turkish women didn’t like them wearing the veil and often assuming that they weren’t Muslims. In my discussions with other foreign women that reside in Istanbul, it does seem that some women are more frequent targets of sexual harassment due to sexualized racial stereotypes.
“Now, Turkey does not have the same kind of preoccupation with race that the US does. But ask an Arab, or an Armenian, or a Kurd if there’s racism in Turkey and you will find that it is just as toxic. ”
Now, Turkey does not have the same kind of preoccupation with race that the US does. But ask an Arab, or an Armenian, or a Kurd if there’s racism in Turkey and you will find that it is just as toxic. While there may be different conceptions about ethnicity and race here, manifestations of anti-Blackness are very reminiscent of what I’ve seen in the US from fetishized Black bodies to mammy caricatures to racist troupes being played off as “harmless fun.” How are Afro-Turks or other Turks of African descent viewed by their compatriots?
What I gleaned from conversations surrounding race in Turkey and commentary about racism back in the US, led me to wonder about the marginalization of Aeta groups in the Philippines. There are other marginalized indigenous groups in the Philippines that garner more support and airtime than others, why is that? Is anti-Blackness part of it? I don’t know.
There’s a history where even those most unseemly things about our countries and cultures rest upon. While exploring some of the exhibits for the 15th Istanbul Biennial, I was very taken with Fred Wilson’s Afro Kismet exhibition. It investigated African presence in Turkey during the Ottoman period. A presence that is not often acknowledged. I came across a piece that consisted of a figure of an African woman’s head and an African man’s head facing each other, mounted on a wall with a text that read: “Arap Değil” or “Not Arab”. A phrase which rejects the folkloric tradition in Turkey to refer to people with sub-Saharan features as “Arab” that asserted an existence that was often erased.
So much history of certain groups is relegated to the margins. A footnote in the grand historical narrative. The nostalgia for a nation’s glorious past and a yearning for its return, leaves out bits often considered inconvenient. It homogenizes history. It whitewashes it for the majority, making it palatable and desirable. When thinking of the grandeur of the Ottoman Empire does the mind ever wander to the plight of enslaved peoples who helped to build it? Wilson’s work speaks against ignorance of historical truth which stretches to the ignorance of a living community tied to that history.
Aside from a festival marked by blackface, the Ati and other Negrito groups are virtually non-existent in the greater Philippine cultural landscape. Their existence is relegated to a spectacle as performed by those who have displaced them. It’s “white girls wearing war bonnets at Coachella” energy. These peoples exist outside of ethnographic texts and museum artefacts, but unfortunately for some people that is their only semblance of interaction with these communities. In writing this I sought out input from a member of, if not the Ati community, the larger Aeta/Negrito community, and yet even though my maternal family is from Panay, even though I have contacts within the Philippine anthropology community I could not get ahold of anyone from this community for their opinions and experiences and I’ve had to go off second-hand sources.
It is these very marginalized voices that are needed in the larger discourse. It is marginalized histories that need to be taught to destabilize the palatable national stories that have aided in relegating people to the sidelines of history. The US as a dominant cultural force has helped open up discussions about racism and anti-Blackness, other countries have to come to terms with their particular histories regarding these uncomfortable subjects in a way that is relevant to their marginalized groups with input from them.