RECUERDOS DE FILIPINAS

Historical Context

The opening to international commerce and the opening of Philippine ports outside
Manila such as that of Iloilo, Cebu, Sual in Pangasinan and Zamboanga, stimulated foreign
demand for Philippine products and encouraged agricultural production in the country. This
resulted in some prosperity to some who actively sought new economic opportunities in the
burgeoning economic activity. As a result, a new class of entrepreneurs and merchants among
the Filipino mestizos and indios have given rise to a clase media or the middle class. In
provinces like Iloilo, this resulted from the textile industry and the succeeding boom in the
sugar industry. Foreign firms, mostly British and Americans, came and engaged in export trade.
Foreign consulates were also established in Manila and vice-consulates in Iloilo and Cebu to
oversee economic activities. Add to this economic transformation is the establishment of
service-oriented facilities which emerged most especially in major port towns in the country. By
the 19th century, the children of the middle class were given higher education not only in Manila
but in Europe as well.
Felix Laureano was born in a prominent
landowning family from Patnongon, Antique on
November 20, 1866. He went to study at the
Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1883. Laureano
participated in his first exposition at the age of
21 during the 1887 Exposicion General de
Filipinas in Madrid where he received an
Honorable mention. His works again received
an Honorable mention at the 1888 Universal
Exposicion de Barcelona, the first international
exposition held in Spain. In December 1892, he
opened his first photographic studio, Gran
Fotografia Colon in Barcelona. He had also studios in Iloilo and British India.Leading
newspapers in Spain such as Ilustracion Espanola y Americana and Ilustracion Artistica
featured Laureano’s
photographs of Manila, Iloilo, Cavite, Batangas and other areas. Photos from Recuerdos were
also reprinted in these papers. His photos gave the Spanish public a glimpse of the Philippines.

The first photographs developed on paper came into use in the Philippines in the late
1850s and 1860s. Aside from the common small 2 x 3 inch portraits, larger views of landscapes
and architecture were made and mounted in decorative leather or cloth albums. These are the
first photographs to clearly show Filipinos and Philippine scenes.
Recuerdos de Filipinas (Memories of the Philippines) was published in Barcelona, Spain
on 1895. The book was dedicated to his good friend, Juan Luna. It depicts, in photographs and
essays ,the daily life and customs of the people and landscapes of the Philippines. In 2014, the
book was translated in English and edited by Felice Noelle Rodriguez under Anvil publishing.

Laureano died in Manila on December 18, 1952.

Excerpts from Recuerdos de Filipinas

Calenderia

Calenderia is a store or booth that sells food, drinks and all the necessities of life. It is a
makeshift pavilion or kiosk made of bamboo with roofing and walls of nipa.

Such is the view that we intend to sketch.

The Calenderia is adjacent to a beautifully constructed house of bamboo and nipa, and
is beside a neighborhood road some distance from a poblacion.

The wall of the house is made of small pieces of bamboo dexterously woven together,
the windows, with points of bamboo interlaced, present an elegant view.

The Calenderia, even if poor and miserable in its exterior, has everything inside. There,
food and drink are served to passing travelers.

It has everything from light tobacco, cigarettes, tobacco in leaf, for chewing buyó,
bongá, mascada, apug, to eat white morisqueta, pusó, inun-on, sinig-ang, liná-gá, pakcio,
guinamos, ugá, tinola, inihao nga manuc, to drink the frothy tuba all you want, nipa liquor,
vino sa lubi, beer and soda water.
Aside from the dishes mentioned, there are tapa sang usá, sang vaca, isda nga
minanticáan, adobo and escabeche done in the style and taste of the country.
Tinola are pieces of chicken cooked in fat with water, ginger, and garnished with pieces
of white gourd. It is an obligatory course at Filipino dinners.

Inihao nga manuc, Pollo

asado. Vino sa lubi, wine from
coco.
Pingan, plate.
Tapa sang usa, sang vaca is cured deer or ox.
 Isda nga minanticaan, fried fish.
The tuba, depending on how long it is fermented with baluc, turns out bitter or delicious.

These mananguetes, Sinto sungui, Vitoy of Antique are famous for judging the
effervescence of the tuba by the baluc, resulting in an exquisite drink.

For deserts and delicacies, there are saguing, piňa, atis, chicos, limoncillos, alfajor,
ticoy, poto, cuacoy, calamay-hati and others.

Buyo, betel, is a leaf of a vine, heart-shaped and bitter tasting, mixed with a bit of lime
from sea shells, a little of bonga, and some good quality tobacco leaf that indios Filipinos chew,
turning their saliva into a bright red color instantly. They chew very frequently during the day.
Bongá is the fruit of a giant palm with a narrow trunk. This fruit has the size and shape
of a date. Its seed is used to mix with the buyo in the mascada. It has a taste that is harsh and
abundant in tannic acid.

Mascada is a good tobacco leaf made into a braid with the buyo.
 Apug is lime; it comes from seashells and is used for the buyo.
Pusó is cooked rice wrapped in woven coconut tree leaves. It is one variety of the
morisqueta.
Inun-on, sinig-ang was already explained in the chapter “Bath in the Sea” (Baňo de Mar).
Lina-gá is cooked with beef or pork.
Pákcio is cooked fish or beef whose broth is soured with su-á and various spices.
Su-á is a very sour lime.
Guinamus are small fish flattened, preserved in salt, and served as a side dish.
Uga, dried fish.
Mananguete is the one who plucks the coconut and gathers the tuba by means of a cawit.
Cauit is a bamboo cylinder into which the tuba collected from the coconut tree is emptied.
In these calenderias, sicaualo means that you eat well, and sicapat that you eat well until
you are full.

Sicaualo, ten-fourths or half a real fuerte.

Sicapat, twenty-fourths or one real fuerte.
There are many calenderias along neighborhood roads.

These serve to shelter and extend hospitality to travelers in their journey when night
overtakes them.

Elegant calenderias that are set up in the weekly markets in the towns offer delicious
and spicy kari, a common dish and universal in all the east Indies. It is the favorite dish of the
Europeans when they find themselves in the Far East.
The kari is made of chicken or of prawns.

The chicken is cut up into pieces and fried in a pan with lard. When it turns half golden,
one jar of coconut milk is poured into pan and, as it boils, Kari powder is added.

The powder is extracted from various aromatic and spicy herbs.

One cooks the kari sauce the same way with prawns as with the chicken.

This dish is eaten mixed with a good plate of morisqueta.

It has been forgotten to explain the significance of certain Philippines fruits and pastas,
we will remedy this here at the ends of this chapter.

Sanguing, banana in the archipelago there are more than seventy varieties of bananas.
Pina, pineapple.
 Atis, a fruit of the guanabana family, its rind resembles that of a bit pine nut (pinon) with
bumps, but it is tender and soft, its meat succulent and white with a sweet taste.

Chicos are sapotes from Cuba.

Calamay-hati is a specie of jelly made with rice flour called pilit.

Pilit, sticky rice.

These neighborhood calenderias are, in the end. A refuge for homeless beggars.

******************

Fot. F. Laureano
Baňo de Mar Rambla Centro, 36 y 38 -
Barcelona

Bath in the Sea

 Having talked about baths at home, in the river, it is
sea. now time to speak of baths in the

Pictured on the plate we are describing are bathers

along its banks, situated among
mangroves and under the shade of lush gramineas.

Just as in the peninsula where what we call having fun means spending a day in the
countryside, in the Philippines, one has a good time by spending a day by the sea.

These baths which are taken in the sea result in a day of happiness and diversion.

Reunited with various family friends, numerous youths, baguntaus and dalagas, hearts
overflowing with romance and imaginations charged with joyful illusions, set out happily to
picnic by the sea.

The orchestra plays an indispensable role in these excursions for the sa-ut or sayao.

Dalaga, a maiden.

Sa-ut, sayao, dance.

A broad bamboo raft is prepared by the beach, it has a wooden parquet floor.

This is the raft meant for the dance.

Another, narrower raft, easy to steer with oars and tucon or tiquin is ready to serve in
an expedition to the fishpens.

This one has a kitchen, it carries all the utensils and equipment for cooking. It lacks
nothing which can satisfy the appetites of the most demanding stomachs.

Tucon, tiquin, is the tip of a bamboo pole, long and strong, which, when impaled on the
sand, serves to push the raft out to sea.

The arrival of the expedition is greeted with shouts of joy by the people of the
welcoming sea.

Having changed into swimming clothes, the retinue board the second raft which sets out
to sea towards the fishpens, in search of fish.

During the voyage, the sounds of the orchestra merge with the happy cries of the young
carried away by diverse and varied amusements.

The swimming enthusiasts jump into the water and swum behind the rafts.

The appetizing sisi pulled out by the baguntaos from their incrustations on wood or
bamboo are opened by the very fine hands of the dalagas, and are instantly consumed.
Sisi is the oyster. The Philippine oysters are smaller but tastier and more succulent than
the European ones.

Oysters are bred in the Malay seas in this way.

 Rafts of bamboo or specially chosen wood are constructed; various clumps of oysters
encrusted onto rocks are collected and inserted into other rocks which are then loaded aboard
to be submerged; divers bury these rafts into the sands near the shore.

At the end of the year or a year and a half, these oyster rafts are extracted and
refloated and they rise bristling with various bivalves, which, when seen all incrusted onto the
nodes of the cauayan or wood, excites the appetites of the “Caligulas” or refined gourmets into
devouring them.

Oysters (bred) on bamboo are superior to those on wood.

Let us repeat that the sisi of the Philippines is small but of exquisite taste.

The raft, at times, arrives at the ponó of the saguing that is left to float on the water as
a lifesaver; thereafter the young men encircle them ready to help at the first sign of
recklessness or of any possible untoward incident.

Punot is a fishpen. These pens are unique and authentic Filipino inventions. In no other
part of the world can this kind of fishing be seen.

This fishing device consists of a snare with ribs of spiky cane or bamboo twigs, lashed
and woven together with bars of wild palm.

This trap, permanently fixed in the sea, extend up to five meters from the shore to a
league and a half into the sea. Its boundary is semicircular, forming a perfect spiral.
There is an opening with a trap in the first semicircle of the spiral, which opens only to
the outside from where the fish enter, eager to devour the bait prepared beforehand.

These pens are fixed, immobile on account of the usoc and the bamboo points.

Usoc is what it is called when it is a tree trunk and tucon when it is a bamboo.
Saguing is banana, and ponó is a trunk.
Above the spiral or the semicircle, its technical name in Bisayan is bunuan, there is a
wooden frill which serves as a platform. Form here the manug-isda (fishermen) with a small
net effortlessly catch big and and small fish that have heedlessly swum into the punót.
Sometimes, water thrown from a bucket by any jovial youngster at the dalagas busy
with the operation of the balbag of the sisis brings about a clamor of mellifluous voices that
charm and amuse.

These diversions offer brilliant prospects which are realized in the sea.

From boarding the raft to getting off it, the event is a series of amusements.

In between baths, food.

Upon arriving at the punót, it is something to observe and hear the chatter coming from
the dalagas and baguntaos.
Each young man persistently struggles to flatter the beautiful dalagas.
 If no fish is caught from one punot, one proceeds to the other punot.

On these occasions, the young ones, instead of giving up a place to the expert and
skillful manug-isda (fishermen), usurp it. Climbing over the wooden grill, handling the nets with
the fishes caught in the bunuan.

The elegant maidens (pollas) in the company of their serious mothers prepare the pots
and the frying pans to cook the fish.

From the net to the fire, the fish are alive and moving.

The fathers, their bodies newly bathed, contemplate with delight and contentment their
daughters and sons in their banter and arguments which add joy to the picnic.

In these supreme moments, fun reigns around the stove; the kitchen is a sight to
behold. The mothers are helpless to restrain their daughters in their culinary pranks. They are
mischievously sent out of the kitchen and affectionately and fondly told to take a bath.

They have already conquered the stoves, these dalagas.

With hair dripping like water and falling unbraided all the way to the toes, some maidens
roast the tuloy, others cook the rice, while others prepare the inun-on ( in Bisaya, sinig-ang in
Tagalog), and still others prepare the quilauin of small fishes. Now some remove the scales of
the bangus (freshwater fish) to roast them. Others put condiments on the succulent sauce of
the lechon that is almost done being roasted at a far end of the raft.

Inun-on, sinig-ang is a simple way of cooking that consists of letting the fish boil in a
pot of wtare, the soup of which is made sour by sambag or iba.

Sambag, tamarind.
Iba is a sour fruit from a tree whose leaves are clustered.
Quinilao or quilauin is a fish salad.
Bangus is a freshwater fish that is like no other in Europe of delicate taste, and served
at great feasts.

The dalagas after snatching the lu-ag or sanduc from the hands of their dear and
beloved mothers, do nothing more than to finish what they started.

In the kingdom of Neptune, it is the naiads and the mermaids who prepare and cook the
food of the gods.

Lu-ag, sanduc, kitchen ladles.

The presence of the young fishermen animates and adds to the crowd in the kitchen,
and the fishermen become kitchen helpers and waiters to the beautiful cooks.

The food is served.

 Here in a tubó, bilao is the white rice, on another container is the tasty lechon alreadt
chopped, and on other plates inun-on, the inahao and the quinilao. All around, everyone is
eating happily with enviable appetite.
Even the fathers and mothers lose their seriousness on these outings, remembering with
happiness their days past, interrupting the fun of the youth.

Just before reaching the shore, the group once again takes a bath, unafraid in the least
of the horrors of indigestion.

The custom becomes second nature and conjures up the evils of the functions of the
organism.

Already dressed, they move to the first raft adorned with pennants and under awnings
of beautiful foliage and perfumed flowers, and beckon, yearning for Terpsichore, goddess of
that sumptuous salon rising from Neptune’s domains.

The orchestra launches its melodious airs. The dance begins and does not end until past
midnight.

At nighfall, the raft is illuminated and brightened by Venetian lanterns.

The Filipinos are tireless at dancing.

After the sa-ut, they return to the town or city, happy and amused by by the sound of the
orchestra.

Baths in the sea during summer in Europe are not the custom in the Philippines.

The families on those islands go to the sea to spend a day of fun.

As the well-to-do families of the province of Barcelona have their towers; Reus, the
Masada, the rest of the Peninsula, the villas, the farmhouses for solace and the recreation; all
but a few families in the Philippines who have their punot, their punóng to go to enjoy
themselves on any given day.
These picnics by the sea are held regularly in the months of March, April and May when
the sea is tranquil and calm.

On the 24th of June, the feast of St. John the Baptist is celebrated with grand festivities in
the domains of Neptune.

Countless rafts are dancing, adorned with art and exquisite taste, pass majestically over
waves of the liquid element, to the lilting sounds of various orchestras, since each of these rafts
carries an orchestra or if nor, a band.

Rafts of castles of fire and lights, when lit, give the sea a fantastic appearance, rising
from its waters are reflections of a variety of combinations superior to any dream of the
imagination.

Games (to climb) greased poles, palumbá, draw big bets.

During the day, the waters bristle with the heads of countless bathers.
 On beaches, swarms of happy people amuse
rafts.

themselves by watching the richly adorned The

feast of St. John is the most enjoyable in the

Philippines.
Analysis

Recuerdos de Filipinas is considered to be the first photo book

published by a Filipino in Barcelona on 1895. It contains 37 photographs
and accompanying essays written from the perspective of a Filipino. The
pictures and essays offer a glimpse of areas outside colonial Manila. The
content of which, despite the title, mostly contains about Iloilo and its
nearby areas. It touches on various cultural traditions related to burial,
economic life as well as geographical descriptions of towns and provinces,
among others. Majority of other photographers during those times focused
on the capital city of Manila. The book is a relevant primary source
especially for those who are studying local history.

Photographs are important primary sources in the study of history.

Photographs do not merely illustrate or represent, but also authenticates.
It serves as a “certificate of presence”. Laureano, through his pictures and
essays, vividly captures Iloilo’s development in the 19 th century as well as a
province that benefitted from the economic activity brought about by the
boom of sugar industry and the opening of the Port of Iloilo to
international trade. It also reflects the values and cultures of the time and
helps us understand what life was like in the past.