From war dance to theater of war moro moro performances in the philippines 2

In Spanish and American colonial writing, the word moro-moro was used in two different contexts - one referred to a "war dance" performed by natives, and the other was a "theater of war

Chapter 2:

The Centrality of the War Dance:

Etymology and History of the Moro-Moro

Off Southern Mindanao, April 1, 1901

As soon as luncheon was over we were escorted to the plaza where brilliant awnings had been spread to protect us from the heat We waited some time for the show to begin, but the natives were gathering in crowds and it was interesting to watch them, as it was probably amusing to them to observe our strange attire and pale faces Finally the Commissioners appeared with a train of gorgeously arrayed Dattos with their slaves… The first number on the programme was a dance by two little Moro girls… When they had finished there were dances by women from the mountains, wearing heavy brass rings on their ankles and bracelets from their wrists to their elbows… After the women, men with spears and shields appeared and a repetition of the Jolo war dance was given Yet the last two dances were quite different from any we had seen, for they were dramatic in character One represented a battle between Moros and Christians As the participants carried long naked swords and sharp spears the fighting was rather a series of poses than dancing However, it was realistic enough to make one glad when the Christians utterly vanquished the Moros and stood, each one triumphant, over the prostrate body of a foe…1

The above account, as observed and recorded by the wife of an American official traveling with the Philippine Commission in 1901, paints a rather puzzling scenario It takes place in Cotabato, which was then a Muslim stronghold and a center of power of the Magindanao Sultanate Two years before, the Philippine Islands was ceded to the United States and the Spanish withdrew from Cotabato, leaving behind an outbreak of violence among the Christian Filipinos, Chinese, and Moros With the Spanish retreat, the “pent-up wrath of the Magindanaos against the Christian colonizers reached a peak of expression” as churches and convents were sacked, the Christian population fled to the hills, and Christian Filipino leaders were

1

Edith Moses Unofficial Letters of an Official's Wife New York: D Appleton and

Company, 1908 pp 105-107

publicly executed.2 The Chinese-Moro mestizo, Datto Piang, with his Chinese and Moro allies, had risen to power, as the Christian Filipino governor was overthrown That a dance drama depicting Christian victory over Muslims was performed in Piang’s Cotabato, and to an audience which included “gorgeously arrayed dattos” at that, defies conventional logic For while dance-dramas depicting Christian victory over Muslims are common features of festivities in Christianized parts of the Philippines, its appearance in a Muslim area where Christians form a small minority

is virtually unthinkable

Equally interesting is the fact that had Mrs Moses asked around for the names

of the war dances she witnessed, she would have found out that both the Muslim

“Jolo war dance”, and the dramatic “battle between Moros and Christians”, which she described as “quite different”, actually shared the same name in colonial writing:

moro-moro

In Spanish and American colonial writing, the word moro-moro was used in

two different contexts - one referred to a "war dance" performed by natives, and the other was a "theater of war", that is a dramatic presentation portraying battles between

Christians and Moros In common usage today, the definition of moro-moro as

"theater" is privileged and the other earlier meaning of "war dance" tends to be forgotten This chapter recovers this earlier meaning to highlight the centrality of the war dance in this theatric genre It is not merely an attempt to investigate the

etymology of the term moro-moro, but rather, it is novel line of inquiry into the genre's nature and history The moro-moro is often associated only as a tradition of

Christianized Filipinos, but in a significant way, it is linked to Muslim war dances

2 Reynaldo Ileto Magindanao 1860-1888: The Career of Satu Utto of Buayan Pasig, Philippines: Anvil

Publishing, 2007 p 110-111

From War Dance to Theater of War

Spanish explorers who visited Mindanao in the latter half of the 19th century

used the word moro-moro as a blanket term to refer to war dances they observed

among different tribes in various parts of the island.3 Spanish priests who continued with their missionary work in Mindanao after the end of Spanish colonial rule in the first decades of the 20th century would write in their reports how they converted Moros, and how the baptism rites would always be accompanied by feasting on a

roasted pig (lechon), and dancing of the moro-moro by the new converts. 4

So how is the moro-moro war dance linked to native theater? Vicente Barrantes, in his 1878 work Guerras Piraticas, relates how in 1750 a celebration was

held in Paniqui in honor of Sultan Ali Mudin's recent conversion to Christianity Barrantes describes in detail a war dance performed by Muslim men who accompanied the Sultan Twelve years later, Barrantes published another book

entitled El Teatro Tagalo, in which he proposes that the dance performed in 1750 was

"without a doubt the origin of the moro-moro, a dance or warlike pantomime" which

has since become "an integral part of Tagalog spectacles".5

Wenceslao Retana, writing in 1909, takes issue with Barrantes' claims, arguing that “the war dance in Tagalog theater is as old as the theater itself” and not

3 The term “Moro-Moro” is used to describe war dances in Joaquin Rajal y Larre’s writing on Davao (1891), Miguel Espina on Jolo (1888), Jose de Lacalle on Zamboanga and Cotabato (1886), and Jose Nieto Aguilar on Mindanao’s History and Geography (1894) It is doubtful, however, if it was the term commonly used by Mindanao natives themselves A Tiruray-Spanish dictionary from 1892 for example, has an entry for a dance that the Tiruray called “Sayau” which was defined in Spanish as “a

war dance commonly called moromoro The 19th century Moro-Maguindanao-Spanish dictionary has

no entry for the word moro even as the Spanish writer Lacalle states in his book that “the

moro-moro is their favorite dance”, in reference to the people of the area

4 Take for example the letters written by Padre Tomas Andueza, on the missionary activities in Iligan,

written on February, 1914 found in Cartas Edificantes de la Provincia de Aragon Año 1914, Numero

1 Manresa: Imprenta y Encuadernacion de San Jose 1915 pp 142-147 Another example is taken from the letters of Padre Tomas Barber, on the missionary activities in Davao in October, 1916 found

in Cartas Edificantes Año 1916 pp 60

5 Vicente Barrantes El Teatro Tagalo Madrid: Tip de Manuel Gines Hernandez, 1890 pp 33-35

some recent incorporation into native theater, as Barrantes claimed.6 To back his

contention, Retana cites a passage from an earlier account, Father Colin's 1663 Labor Evangelica, which describes in detail a "warlike and passionate" dance performed

with such "grace and elegance" that "they have not been judged unworthy to accompany and solemnize Christian feasts" Retana claims that this warlike dance described by Colin has "taken the name moro-moro".7

From Spanish writings by Barrantes, Retana, and Pastells, published missionary letters of the Jesuits, available travel accounts of Mindanao, and early dictionaries produced for Muslim ethnolinguistic groups, we can surmise that for the

Spanish one of the meanings of the moro-moro was a dance, or specifically an

indigenous war dance We also see that its use was not confined to ethno-linguistic groupings but, rather, was a categorical designation that encompassed the various native war dances found in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao From both Barrantes and

Retana we also get the idea that moro-moro war dances became a component part of

Tagalog spectacles

The moro-moro war dances were incorporated into dramatic presentations, in

battle scenes depicting Christian and Moorish kingdoms at war This incorporation of

moro-moro war dances into dramas depicting created a hybridized comedia, localized

to suit native tastes The comedia was a dramatic genre from the Spanish Golden Age which had made its journey to the Philippines in the 1600's and the plays performed

during the first two centuries of colonial rule were penned by the Spaniards in their

language Crossing geographical boundaries, the early comedia retained much of its

6 “tal era el baile clasico por excelencia de los tagalogs” in Wenceslao Retana Noticias

Historico-Bibliograficas: de el Teatro en Filipinas desde sus Origines hasta 1898 Madrid: Libreria General de

V Suarez, 1909 p 53-54

7 The quotation used by Barrantes, however, was an observation made by the Jesuit priest Colin, not of the Tagalogs, but of native dancers in the Visayas in the mid 1600s When Blair and Robertson released an English translation of Colin’s work, it included a footnote from Pablo Pastells, which

mentioned that “the dance here described by the author is that which is called in Filipinas moro-moro”

original form and content When native playwrights began to produce their own

dramas in the vernacular from the mid-eighteenth century, the comedia crossed not

only geographical but also cultural boundaries The dramatic form was thus

appropriated, infused with moro-moro war dances, and soon came to be known as moro-moro theater Not a few Spanish scholars viewed the moro-moro as degenerate and corrupt flawed versions of the original comedia from Spain leading them to

conclude that Filipinos had no legitimate drama of their own to speak of

The moro-moro was found lacking from another angle Even though indigenous

dances had been incorporated into the sphere of approved activities of the Catholic Church, they were seen as remnants of pre-Hispanic practices As Kramer explains,

“for centuries, Spanish writers had scrutinized the indio cultures through the lens of

conversion as vestiges of a pagan past to be collected for ridicule and eradicated for the greater glory of Christendom.” The act of recording customs was used to

“establish authoritative colonial knowledge, indexing native incapacities in concrete, empirical detail.”8 The persistence of native practices is encoded as the inability to learn the lessons in civilization that colonial masters have desperately tried to teach

This view is articulated by Antonio Navarro in his book Siluetas y Matices:

Nothing enlivens this sorry lot more than the staging of the moro-moro in

open air!…There they often stray, they have arms for tilling the fields, but…

spend a great deal of time practicing for their parts for the moro-moro, in this

they never fail Like little children, indios need a great number of hours of

play everyday….It takes little to satisfy their needs: thus, they do not work

nor worry about providing for themselves…Their dormant intelligence

renders them incapable of producing anything grand The indio is happy

because he has not grown up, and infancy – unlike serious occupations –

requires much happiness and merrymaking.” 9

Navarro represents the dominant discourse which frames colonial subjects as infantile, indolent, and savage In colonial writing, this characterization explains, and

8 Paul Kramer The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, The United States, and the Philippines

Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press p 64-65

9 Antonio Chápuli Navarro Siluetas y Matices Galería Filipina Madrid: Impr De la Viuda de M

Minuesa de los Ríos, 1894 p 168-169

is simultaneously explained by, the natives’ love for the moro-moro – both the war

dance performed by Moros, and the war dance within theater performed by

Christianized natives Within the framework of a mind/body dichotomy, the moro is appraised as the type of theater that privileged the body more than the mind -

moro-appealing more to the senses than to the intellect - and for this it was shunned by the

"more enlightened" among both the Spanish and native elite

In the late 19th century, Spanish scholars Barrantes and Retana attacked the

moro-moro and used it as proof of the "indio's intellectual ineptness and penchant for lower-order mimicry" Filipino ilustrados Rizal and Isabelo de los Reyes, on the other

hand, staunchly defended the native drama In his recent study on de los Reyes, Resil Mojares provides an account and analysis of the heated debate, explaining how the Filipino intellectuals' characteristic response to Spanish criticism was to engage in two discursive moves: One was to point out the colonizer's deficiency in "world knowledge" (or knowledge of Asian forms of theater), and the second was to point out their deficiency in "local" knowledge"

De los Reyes, for example, argued that the komedya had been indigenized and

was comparable with great literatures of the world He identified certain traits it had

in common with the Mahabharata, for instance He pointed out how the play's kings and princes were portrayed as valiantly as the Manobos of Mindanao, and how the marches could be compared to how Igorots walk, reflecting local customs and local sensibilities, and evoking an experience among its local audiences that foreigners could not access.10

The ilustrados, however, were sensitive to the negative connotations in the

term moro-moro itself De los Reyes proposed that the word comedia be used instead

10 Resil Mojares 2006 Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de los

Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowledge 356-359.

of moro-moro because it was a Tagalog art and not to be confused with the cultural

practices of the Muslims of Mindanao.11 Hermenegildo Cruz, in a study published in

1906, explained that he opted to use the term komedya "out of respect for the many people here who use the name komedya for their moro-moro compositions", even as

he acknowledged that this word may not be suitable, as native drama (moro-moro) may not meet literary standards associated with the comedia.12

In common usage today, the words comedia, komedya, and moro-moro are

used interchangeably to refer to a native dramatic genre in the Philippines Many writings on the subject treat these terms as synonymous with one another However, there are nuances in their meaning that make them interchangeable only in a limited sense On literary grounds, there was a degree of respectability associated with the

term comedia/komedya that is denied moro-moro, in fact the latter was used rather

condescendingly to refer to a "low-brow" form of drama Because of the broader

scope covered by the term comedia, it was not as readily associated with native theater alone, and was thus not used as a pejorative term in the way the moro-moro was Another association triggered by the term moro-moro but not by terms comedia/komedya was the Muslim connection If the opinion of Isabelo de los Reyes

is any indication, the word "Moro" in "moro-moro" evokes an immediate association

with Muslims, and in the context of Philippine history, where Christian and Muslim populations have been at war for centuries, that posed certain problems It is perhaps this Muslim connection that caused a certain degree of ambivalence among scholars

in the usage of the term moro-moro and in current discourse, other terminologies, such as comedia and komedya have come to be favored These terms, though used

11 Mojares Brains of a Nation…, p 336

12 Hermenegildo Cruz 1906 Kung Sino ang Kumatha ng "Florante" (Kasaysayan ng Buhay ni

Francisco Baltazar at Pag-uulat nang Kanyang Karununga't Kadakilaan) Santa Cruz, Manila:

Libreria Manila Filatelico p 179

interchangeably, are not quite the same in meaning and practice, as the succeeding section will show

On Terminology: The Comedia, Komedya, and Moro-Moro examined

The Comedia was the most popular form of theater of the Golden Age in Spain A textbook definition of the Spanish comedia describes the genre as a full-

length play written in three acts, which were episodic in form and did not follow neoclassical rules, and largely ignored the unities of time, place, and action The

comedia was similar in form to Elizabethan drama, but differed from it in terms of

subject For while Shakespearean drama produced tragedies like King Lear and light

comedies like Twelfth Night, the comedia was not strictly a comedy but in fact a

distinct genre that “liberally combined elements of the serious and the comic in narrating conflicts of love and honor, daring adventures, melodramatic confrontations, and rescues.”13

There were two major types of comedia: The first was called capa y espada

(cape and sword) after the costumes of the nobility being portrayed on stage This

type of comedia featured the adventures of noblemen in romantic quests of love and honor The second type of comedia dealt with the lives of saints, rulers, historical

figures, and heroes from folk myths and legends Called by various names, like

cuerpo, teatro, and ruido, these plays were set in distant periods and places, far removed from contemporary Spain The performances of comedias were preceded by

a prologue, or a monologue, and in between acts, intermissions featured farces or

short sketches called entremeses and sainetes

13 Edwin Wilson and Alvin Goldfarb 2000 Living Theater: A History Boston: McGraw Hill Higher

Education p 214

The komedya as it developed in the Philippines carries over some features of the Spanish comedia on which it is modeled In terms of form, the komedya inherited the three-part structure, the episodic form, the use of verse, the use of loas or prologues before the play, and the performance of entremeses and sainetes in between acts It also bore similar features of the playing space, such as the teatro-corral

layout, and the stage with two permanent doors and two levels.14

Nicanor Tiongson identifies three types of komedya: The first (and rarest) variety dramatizes real events An example of this is the Gran comedia de la toma del pueblo de Corralat y la conquista del cerro (Grand Play on the Capture of the Town

of Corralat and the Taking of the Hill), written in 1637 to celebrate the triumph of Governor-General Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera over the Maguindanao chieftain, Sultan Kudarat The second type deals with religious themes such as the lives of

Saints or episodes in the Bible, a well-known example being the Comedia de la venta

de Joseph (Play on the Sale of Joseph) The third and most popular type mentioned by

Tiongson deals with the conflict of Moors and Christian medieval kingdoms, and chivalric quests for love and honor borrowing plots from the tales of Charlemagne, King Arthur, and other Spanish ballads. 15 The term moro-moro came to be associated with this third type of komedya

The moro-moro we are familiar with today stems from a variant of the komedya that emerged sometime in the eighteenth century This was distinct from the earlier types of komedya introduced by the Spanish not only in terms of thematic

content but more importantly, in terms of orchestration Tiongson notes that by the nineteenth century, a clearly defined set of conventions for this type of drama had emerged These include the use of comic interludes; the sing-song delivery of verses

14 Tiongson, p 2.; A loa is a eulogizing poem recited before a play in honor of the dignitaries present

An entremes

15 Tiongson, 1999…, p 1-3

(which has been described as monotonous and nasal); the marches to martial music marking entrances and exits; the stylized acting; the use of artifices to produce magical effects, the costumes which identify opposing camps; and "most important,

the moro-moro or choreographed fighting, which was now integrated into the battle scenes and became so popular that the term moro-moro became synonymous with komedya especially in the Tagalog areas" Needless to say, dialogues were rendered in

the vernacular, in folk quatrains delivered in a singsong manner

The moro-moro, then, differed from comedia in offering a radically different

sensory experience for the audience, given their choreographic conventions, spectacular fighting scenes, and much lengthier staging which could last for several days And unlike the 1637 play that re-enacted an actual war in Mindanao, these

newer comedias were fanciful portrayals of conquests in faraway kingdoms

In different parts of the Philippines, various local names are used to refer to

this kind of komedya that features choreographed fighting: cumidya or curaldal in Pampanga, linambay in the Visayas, estoke in Nueva Vizcaya, arakyo in Nueva Ecija, hadi-hadi in Waray, bakal-bakal in Pangasinan, kuleleng in Isabela, yawa-yawa in Iligan, moro-moro or coloquio in Catanduanes, and also moro-moro in Ilocos.16

The defining features of the genre the sing-song delivery of dialogue and the choreographed fighting made for invariably long performances full of pageantry

and spectacle The moro-moro scenes or choreographed fights were just so popular

that a performance was liberally injected with a lot of such scenes, and the plot line was often thinly stretched to accommodate many battles The epic length and

pomposity of this type of komedya led a Spanish scholar to describe them as

16 Nicanor Tiongson 1999 Komedya Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press p 6

dramones tagalos or "monstrous dramas in Tagalog".17 This derogatory term, of

course, does not refer to all the three types of komedya but is reserved for the third variety: the blood-and-thunder melodrama most loved by natives, the moro-moro

In the nineteenth century, the Spanish authorities who regulated theatric

activity distinguished legitimate Spanish comedia from other kinds of comedia, which were subjected to different sets of fees and regulations The various kinds of comedia

performed in nineteenth-century Manila's theater district were differentiated from

each other through the use of racial signifiers: comedia español (Spanish), comedia chinica (Chinese), and comedia tagala (Tagalog)

There was quite a contrast between comedia español and comedia tagala The

former, patronized by the elite and upper classes, were written in Spanish and staged

in the better theaters constructed of strong materials and more opulently decorated

Comedia tagala, in contrast, tended to be staged in poorly constructed theaters made

of nipa and bamboo, which proliferated in the more populous districts of Manila

Comedia chinica, patronized by the Chinese community, was considered by the

Spanish as "heathen", and full of superstitious content, and was a pretext for gambling and other immoral acts, and therefore was the kind of theater subjected to the most regulations and the highest fees.18

The term comedia, then, as used in the Spanish period can refer to vastly

different kinds of plays, from opulent and compact Spanish productions, to makeshift village productions which stretched for days It can refer to plays with historical,

religious, or fantastic themes “Comedia” was even used as a generic term for a play

all types of plays, in fact, including Chinese opera and so was not strictly limited

17 Atayde 21 August 1892 p 306, quoted in Tiongson, p 4

18 Cristina Laconico Buenaventura 1994 The Theater in Manila 1864-1946 Manila: De La Salle

University Press

to the Spanish meaning of a "three-act play in verse" In the vernacular, comedia is spelled komedya, and this term carries the same scope as its Spanish equivalent

The term moro-moro however, has not gained the same currency, nor does it enjoy the same breadth of applicability For while all moro-moro plays can be called comedia/ komedya, not all comedia/ komedya can be called moro-moro To qualify as

a moro-moro, a komedya must have the choreographed fighting, the long drawn-out

battle scenes, and above all must have the moro-moro war dance

The Moro-Moro in the American Colonial Period

When the Americans arrived, they adopted the Spanish usage of the term, and applied it to both the war dances of the Moros in Mindanao and the native theater of the Christians In 1901, five thousand copies of an article entitled “People of the Philippines” were printed for distribution to the US Congress and War Department Secretary of War Elihu Root wrote in the cover letter that the compilation of

“standard works and records” of the Division of Insular Affairs “together with the data contained in the recent report of the Philippine Commission” would “supply the increasing demand for information” on the inhabitants of the newly acquired

Philippines The term moro-moro makes an appearance in the section on the

"Customs of the Moros":

They have a war dance called the moro-moro, which is performed by

their most skillful and agile swordsmen buckler on arm and campilan

in hand to the sound of martial music It simulates a combat, and the

dancers spring sideways, backward, or forward, and cut, thrust, guard,

or feint with surprising dexterity. 19

A few years later, in 1904, the American public was given the opportunity to

witness this dance at the St Louis World’s Fair, where it was one of the attractions at

19 “The People of the Philippines” Letter from the Secretary of War transmitting an article on the People of the Philippines Compiled in the Division of Insular Affairs of the War Department

Document No 218 of the 56 th Congress, 2 nd Session February, 1901 p 64

the Moro village within the Philippine Exposition The Souvenir pamphlet informs us

that the Moros “divert themselves with dancing” and mentions the moro-moro as a

name of their dance.20 (See Illustration 2)

In the early accounts in English, a discussion of the moro-moro among the

Moros in Mindanao is often preceded by paragraphs on gambling (i.e., cockfights,

carabao races, card games), polygamy and slave raiding Descriptions of the moro dances then appear under the heading “The Morals of the Moros”.21 The war dance performed during festivities is linked to gambling, vices, and promiscuity; the vigorous movements of the body are encoded as an expression of the sensuous, wild, and unbridled or immoral nature of the native The displays of masculinity and

20 Souvenir of the Philippine Exposition (Manila [s.n.], 1904), p 63

21 This ordering or “clustering” could be seen in Frederic Sawyer The Inhabitants of the Philippines

London: S Low Marston and Co., 1900 p 369; which reappears in the “People of the Philippines” Document compiled by the Division of Insular Affairs of the Department of War distributed to

Congress in 1901 p 64 ; and Samuel MacClintock’s The Philippines: A Geographic Reader New

York: American Book Company, 1903 p 82

Illustration 2 Moro-Moro War Dance at the 1904 World's Fair or Louisiana Purchase Exposition