The Ati-Atihan Festival

Dancing with the Santo Niño at the “Filipino Mardi Gras”

Bibliographic Data

ID9376403
AuthorsWilliam Peterson (0000-0002-4928-6535, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume28
Issue2
Pages505-528
Publication date2011-09-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Theatre Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0742-5457 • E-ISSN: 1527-2109
PublisherUniversity of Hawaii Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/atj.2011.0042
OpenAlexW2106897227
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited7

In a country famous for its many festivals, the Ati-Atihan Festival on the island of Panay near the geographic center of the Philippines stands out not only for its devotion to the Santo Niño, or Holy Child, but because of its claim of being the country’s oldest festival. Believed to date from 1212, this festival grafts the veneration of the Santo Niño onto a kind of thanksgiving commemorating the “voluntary” gift of land from the indigenous population to their “brothers” from present-day Borneo. This article traces the “Mardi-Gras-ization” of the festival through an examination of its more extravagant, public, and theatrical elements, while considering what this weeklong event means for its tens of thousands of active participants

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Biology · Ethnology · Geography · Indigenous · Population · Sociology · Veneration · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Demography · History · Philippine History and Culture

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