Summary: Just a few years shy of its 800th birthday, the Ati-Atihan Festival on the island of Panay in the centre of the Philippine archipelago pre-dates Spanish colonisation and the arrival of Christianity in the region by over 300 years. While the festival is meant to commemorate the meeting of the island’s two foundational cultures—the indigenous Ati and the Malays who came from today’s Borneo—it is the spirit of the mischievous boy-Christ that regulates its spiritual centre. Known for its Mardi-Gras atmosphere, the historical event celebrated is the partying that ensued after the Ati, the traditional inhabitants of the land, agreed to migrate from the coastal areas to the highlands after their lighter- skinned Malay cousins arrived and offered them a golden crown and an impressive necklace. In honour of the Atis’ generosity, the newcomers are believed to have smeared their faces dark with the soot from pots and cooking utensils, followed by a massive party. The Santa Nino entered the event nearly 350 years later, when the local population converted to Christianity, and since that time his power and playful energy has come to provide the spiritual foundation and healing powers needed to party so hard it hurts. Residents and visitors dance in the streets of the provincial capital of Kalibo from early morning until late at night for days on end, while on the final Sunday, effigies of highly-individuated Santa Nino statues fill the streets both as an act of veneration, but also to play with the dancers and drinkers as the event reaches a final, feverish, sacred pitch.
