The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

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