miyako73
07-25-2010, 01:39 PM
A part of the ethnographic novel I've been trying to finish.
According to Grandma:
A gray baby, I was born between dusk and eve— when the day ended and the night began— in my grandparent’s house, in the alcove below the stairs snaking to the attic. The time of my birth, according to my superstitious folks, foreshadowed my end and foretold my fate. Among my people, the very end started at the very beginning, and fate, like an endless journey around a circle, was predictable. Such was the abstruse life we lived.
Six o’clock was the exact time when I slipped out of my mother’s womb. The elders took notice of my rare birth that begged for a special ritual. I came out as the century-old church rang its sonorous bell, which signaled for the Angelus, the evening prayer to the angels and devotional hymn for the Blessed Virgin. People in the streets stopped, bowed their heads, and whispered their atonements.
Those who were at home lit their altars, knelt down, faced their elevated statues of gods and saints, and in unison, recited their supplications. When the bell tolled at six, everyone in our old town was holy. Even rambunctious children, who hid when the sun vanished and sought when the moon emerged, abruptly ended their play and murmured their litany of graces. The same spiritual mystery was repeated every end of the day.
The news of my Angelus birth spread quickly. A grandfather to all newborns, the village seer, an old man who walked with a staff that still had roots and some leaves on it, came by to read my palms and put his holy oil on my forehead and his sacred ash on my soles. My palm lines confused him. He noticed crisscrossing contradictions on my pale hands.
My folks restlessly waited to hear about my future, the seer’s prediction. The seer’s prophetic forecast on a newborn’s life ahead always caused breathless anticipation. Good fortunes were applauded with frenzy and the bad ones were mourned in gloom. The night I was born, the seer did not divulge my mis/fortune. He just looked at my family with dead stares and left without saying a word.
“Ompo Kulas is drunk,” said his sorry child apprentice, who also blessed me by whispering ‘Oremus’, a gibberish Latin-sounding prayer, on both of my ears for good health and lasting happiness. “He had a glass of strong coconut vodka.” Too mature for his age, the child apologized to everyone. He sensed, diffidently, the reason why his master suddenly became mum and tight-lipped. He had been in the same situation before where Ompo Kulas walked out speechless. “I’m pretty sure he’ll come back tomorrow.”
The seer never did. We had never met until he died. I heard from someone that he had been avoiding me for some reason he would not disclose. He had never revealed his prediction about me and my future to anyone, but to his assistant now named Mano Kaloy, who later replaced him as the new village seer. He told me what he knew when he was still Ompo Kulas’ child apprentice. He hid nothing from me.
The news traveled beyond the river and the mountain that isolated our town. There were no bridges and tunnels, yet they knew almost instantly. They said the Dog Star was unusually at its brightest that night. Even the small dipper looked big.
People in remote villages, most of them sweaty and barefoot, also paid a visit on that same night to have a glance at me. They believed that I could give a blessing by just looking into someone’s eyes. To them, my still, straight stare was the radiance of the divine. Since my eyes were still fully shut, they lined, squatted, and waited outside my grandparents’ house. They stayed until I opened my eyes the next morning.
They touched me, begging that I looked into their eyes. Some cried and quivered; they swore they felt my energy. Others kissed my feet; they regarded them as my strength. The rest, abashed and baffled, just could not exactly figure out what they saw—blind faith.
According to Grandma:
A gray baby, I was born between dusk and eve— when the day ended and the night began— in my grandparent’s house, in the alcove below the stairs snaking to the attic. The time of my birth, according to my superstitious folks, foreshadowed my end and foretold my fate. Among my people, the very end started at the very beginning, and fate, like an endless journey around a circle, was predictable. Such was the abstruse life we lived.
Six o’clock was the exact time when I slipped out of my mother’s womb. The elders took notice of my rare birth that begged for a special ritual. I came out as the century-old church rang its sonorous bell, which signaled for the Angelus, the evening prayer to the angels and devotional hymn for the Blessed Virgin. People in the streets stopped, bowed their heads, and whispered their atonements.
Those who were at home lit their altars, knelt down, faced their elevated statues of gods and saints, and in unison, recited their supplications. When the bell tolled at six, everyone in our old town was holy. Even rambunctious children, who hid when the sun vanished and sought when the moon emerged, abruptly ended their play and murmured their litany of graces. The same spiritual mystery was repeated every end of the day.
The news of my Angelus birth spread quickly. A grandfather to all newborns, the village seer, an old man who walked with a staff that still had roots and some leaves on it, came by to read my palms and put his holy oil on my forehead and his sacred ash on my soles. My palm lines confused him. He noticed crisscrossing contradictions on my pale hands.
My folks restlessly waited to hear about my future, the seer’s prediction. The seer’s prophetic forecast on a newborn’s life ahead always caused breathless anticipation. Good fortunes were applauded with frenzy and the bad ones were mourned in gloom. The night I was born, the seer did not divulge my mis/fortune. He just looked at my family with dead stares and left without saying a word.
“Ompo Kulas is drunk,” said his sorry child apprentice, who also blessed me by whispering ‘Oremus’, a gibberish Latin-sounding prayer, on both of my ears for good health and lasting happiness. “He had a glass of strong coconut vodka.” Too mature for his age, the child apologized to everyone. He sensed, diffidently, the reason why his master suddenly became mum and tight-lipped. He had been in the same situation before where Ompo Kulas walked out speechless. “I’m pretty sure he’ll come back tomorrow.”
The seer never did. We had never met until he died. I heard from someone that he had been avoiding me for some reason he would not disclose. He had never revealed his prediction about me and my future to anyone, but to his assistant now named Mano Kaloy, who later replaced him as the new village seer. He told me what he knew when he was still Ompo Kulas’ child apprentice. He hid nothing from me.
The news traveled beyond the river and the mountain that isolated our town. There were no bridges and tunnels, yet they knew almost instantly. They said the Dog Star was unusually at its brightest that night. Even the small dipper looked big.
People in remote villages, most of them sweaty and barefoot, also paid a visit on that same night to have a glance at me. They believed that I could give a blessing by just looking into someone’s eyes. To them, my still, straight stare was the radiance of the divine. Since my eyes were still fully shut, they lined, squatted, and waited outside my grandparents’ house. They stayed until I opened my eyes the next morning.
They touched me, begging that I looked into their eyes. Some cried and quivered; they swore they felt my energy. Others kissed my feet; they regarded them as my strength. The rest, abashed and baffled, just could not exactly figure out what they saw—blind faith.