The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home
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CHAPTER XII 65<br />
CHAPTER XII<br />
All Saints<br />
<strong>The</strong> one thing perhaps that indisputably distinguishes man from the brute creation is the attention which he<br />
pays to those who have passed away and, wonder of wonders! this characteristic seems to be more deeply<br />
rooted in proportion to the lack of civilization. Historians relate that the ancient inhabitants of the Philippines<br />
venerated and deified their ancestors; but now the contrary is true, and the dead have to entrust themselves to<br />
the living. It is also related that the people of New Guinea preserve the bones of their dead in chests and<br />
maintain communication with them. <strong>The</strong> greater part of the peoples of Asia, Africa, and America offer them<br />
the finest products of their kitchens or dishes of what was their favorite food when alive, and give banquets at<br />
which they believe them to be present. <strong>The</strong> Egyptians raised up palaces and the Mussulmans built shrines, but<br />
the masters in these things, those who have most clearly read the human heart, are the people of Dahomey.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se negroes know that man is revengeful, so they consider that nothing will more content the dead than to<br />
sacrifice all his enemies upon his grave, and, as man is curious and may not know how to entertain himself in<br />
the other life, each year they send him a newsletter under the skin of a beheaded slave.<br />
We ourselves differ from all the rest. In spite of the inscriptions on the tombs, hardly any one believes that the<br />
dead rest, and much less, that they rest in peace. <strong>The</strong> most optimistic fancies his forefathers still roasting in<br />
purgatory and, if it turns out that he himself be not completely damned, he will yet be able to associate with<br />
them for many years. If any one would contradict let him visit the churches and cemeteries of the country on<br />
All Saints' day and he will be convinced.<br />
Now that we are in San Diego let us visit its cemetery, which is located in the midst of paddy-fields, there<br />
toward the west--not a city, merely a village of the dead, approached <strong>by</strong> a path dusty in dry weather and<br />
navigable on rainy days. A wooden gate and a fence half of stone and half of bamboo stakes, appear to<br />
separate it from the abode of the living but not from the curate's goats and some of the pigs of the<br />
neighborhood, who come and go making explorations among the tombs and enlivening the solitude with their<br />
presence. In the center of this enclosure rises a large wooden cross set on a stone pedestal. <strong>The</strong> storms have<br />
doubled over the tin plate for the inscription INRI, and the rains have effaced the letters. At the foot of the<br />
cross, as on the real Golgotha, is a confused heap of skulls and bones which the indifferent grave-digger has<br />
thrown from the graves he digs, and there they will probably await, not the resurrection of the dead, but the<br />
coming of the animals to defile them. Round about may be noted signs of recent excavations; here the earth is<br />
sunken, there it forms a low mound. <strong>The</strong>re grow in all their luxuriance the tarambulo to prick the feet with its<br />
spiny berries and the pandakaki to add its odor to that of the cemetery, as if the place did not have smells<br />
enough already. Yet the ground is sprinkled with a few little flowers which, like those skulls, are known only<br />
to their Creator; their petals wear a pale smile and their fragrance is the fragrance of the tombs. <strong>The</strong> grass and<br />
creepers fill up the corners or climb over the walls and niches to cover and beautify the naked ugliness and in<br />
places even penetrate into the fissures made <strong>by</strong> the earthquakes, so as to hide from sight the revered<br />
hollowness of the sepulcher.<br />
At the time we enter, the people have driven the animals away, with the single exception of some old hog, an<br />
animal that is hard to convince, who shows his small eyes and pulling back his head from a great gap in the<br />
fence, sticks up his snout and seems to say to a woman praying near, "Don't eat it all, leave something for me,<br />
won't you?"<br />
Two men are digging a grave near one of the tottering walls. One of them, the grave-digger, works with<br />
indifference, throwing about bones as a gardener does stones and dry branches, while the other, more intent on<br />
his work, is perspiring, smoking, and spitting at every moment.<br />
"Listen," says the latter in Tagalog, "wouldn't it be better for us to dig in some other place? This is too recent."