Following in the ascetic footsteps of the early Desert Fathers, and sparked by nascent ecclesiastical emphasis upon the suffering of Christ, religious self-flagellation originated in the eleventh century among Italian hermits and monastic reformers, notably Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072). With the rise of mendicant orders, in particular the Franciscans and Dominicans, the lay Third Orders of Penance, and ultimately flagellant confraternities in early thirteenth century Europe, "the discipline", as self-flagellation was known, spread rapidly until it became "not only a normal feature of monastic life throughout Latin Christendom but the commonest of all penitential techniques" (Cohn 1970: 127). Aside from vicarious participation in the passion of Jesus Christ, who was flagellated (Matthew 27: 26; Mark 15: 15; John 19: 1) on Maundy Thursday, prior to his crucifixion and death on Good Friday, corporeal subjugation was intended to catalyse the transition from a life devoted to gratification of bodily desires to a higher sanctified life in the spirit (Sabbatucci 1987: 114). As Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) suggested in his The Imitation of Christ, the triumph of spirit over matter, soul over body, and eternal over temporal is made possible and manifested through self-discipline and denial (Zialcita 1986: 61).
Flagellant sects emerged in late medieval Europe in an attempt to expiate the sins of Christendom and to avert divine retribution in times of crisis, such as war, famine and plague. As these sects proliferated, a flagellant movement evolved which began in Perugia in 1260 with penitential processions, then swept across western Europe despite prohibition by Pope Alexander IV in 1261. Throughout the next century, flagellant processions waxed in times of hardship or fear and waned during periods of stability. In 1349, after a particularly fervent outbreak, a papal bull issued by Clement VI condemned the flagellants as heretical and forbade processions, which thereafter became increasingly intermittent but did not disappear. In late sixteenth century France, for instance, flagellation enjoyed royal patronage under Henry III, while in Germany in the early seventeenth century, the Jesuit Jacob Gretscher, compiled a history and vindication of the discipline. However, by the eighteenth century, if not earlier, religious self-flagellation was in decline throughout Europe, with the important exception (for the Philippines in particular) of Spanish penitential confraternities; the latter famously inspired by the Christocentric preaching of the Dominican friar, Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), who advocated flagellation as a means to purify the soul. In Spain, it was not until February 1777 that Charles III censured the processions of the disciplinantes. Flagellation, it was alleged, had degenerated into a public spectacle which evoked "instead of edification and repentance, scorn from the prudent, amusement and uproar from the boys, and amazement, confusion and fear from the children and women, and even more injurious results, rather than good example, or the expiation of sins" (cited in Wroth 1991: 18). As elsewhere in Europe, albeit later, public self-flagellation in Spain slowly abated. Today, with the exception of certain monastic orders, most famously Opus Dei (Walsh 1989: 111-13), and convents (Campbell-Jones 1979: 87), as well as isolated brotherhoods or communities in northern Spain, southern Italy (Ferlaino 1990), Mexico (Brandes 1988: 63-69), New Mexico (Weigle 1976: 159-162), and parts of Latin America, the practice of Christian self-flagellation is virtually extinct. Certainly, its decline is beyond dispute. The sole and important exception to this declivity is the resurgence of self-flagellation in the Philippines, the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia (see Barker 1996).
Before turning to Philippine religious history, specifically the origins of self-flagellation in the islands, knowledge of certain aspects of contemporary ritual performance is expedient. Self-flagellation is performed today in lowland Christian Philippines during Holy Week, on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, as a ritual re-enactment of the scourging of Jesus Christ at the pillar.
Compassionate participation in (damay) and imitation of the passion of Christ is an important feature of almost all Holy Week rituals in the Philippines. Aside from self-flagellation, these rites include the pabasa (singing or chanting of the pasyon, a vernacular text recounting the life and death of Christ), the sinakulo (passion play), via crucis (way of the cross), visita iglesia (visiting seven churches on Maundy Thursday evening), siete palabras (the seven last words of Christ on Good Friday), and the santo entierro (funeral procession of the dead Christ). As the focus of this ritual activity indicates, and as Lynch (1956: 663) famously observed, for Filipino men in particular, the Christ of the Filipinos is pre-eminently a suffering Christ: he is the beaten, scourged, humiliated, and defeated Christ. To the perennial despair of the Philippine Catholic Church, outside its pulpits and precincts, "folk-Catholicism" focuses almost exclusively on the passion and death of the son of God, as opposed to and at the expense of his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Consequently, popular religiosity in the Philippines has been disparagingly labelled "Good Friday Christianity" or "Calvary Catholicism" (Ebner 1978: 19). The importance of this indigenous spiritual emphasis on Good Friday will become apparent later, upon the advent of ritual crucifixion.
A further point of importance that needs to be raised now, before examining the historical origins of self-flagellation in the Philippines, is that contrary to annual reports in the Manila (and international) media, based ultimately on the historical precedent of medieval Christian self-flagellation and supported by visceral supposition, religious self-flagellation is not performed in the Philippines as penance (see Barker 1992). In terms of orthodox Roman, or more accurately Spanish Catholicism, atonement for sin is not a motivational factor. Throughout the course of my anthropological fieldwork, conducted in Pampanga province periodically since 1984, no adult flagellant has ever volunteered penance as an explanation of ritual performance. Moreover, if I suggested expiation of sin as a possible rationale, the idea was refuted. Although the phenomenon of religious self-flagellation has been (deliberately) overlooked by Filipino social scientists, two indigenous scholars who studied the practice briefly had similar experiences in the field. In Bulacan province (adjoining Pampanga), Alfredo Evangelista (1962: 11) reported that: "Not a single vow of the 30 cases [of self-flagellation that he investigated] was a result of repentance for sin or sins". Likewise, Fernando Zialcita (1986: 60), observed that: "Conspicuously absent from adult penitensiya [flagellation] is the sense of sin Not even in preparation for this ritual, do the flagellants go to confession. Even the prayers used do not suggest a spirit of contrition."
Despite the ubiquity of penance as an explanation of self-flagellation in the Philippines, rejection of the theory by ritual protagonists is less surprising than it might at first appear. When understood in context, in terms of local or indigenous knowledge, physical atonement is not a convincing explanation of flagellation. Indigenous eschatology in pre-Christian Philippine society did not include a vision of hell, nor was fate determined by sin, guilt or retribution. During evangelisation, as Mulder (1992: 5) says, "ideas that did not find a root or stem to sustain them were the cluster sin, repentance and atonement". Confession, for instance, fascinated Tagalogs during the "contraction" of colonialism, but as Vicente Rafael (1988: 132-5) has astutely revealed, the discourse of sin was converted into a game of riddles (bogtongan), while the sacrament of confession was utilised by Filipinos not only to appropriate the sins of others as offerings to appease or bargain with Spanish authority figures, but as a prime opportunity to denounce enemies and boast about personal goodness (cabanalan), rather than admit to idiosyncratic transgressions of divine law. What emerged during evangelisation, concludes Rafael (1988: 135), "was confession without 'sin'". Furthermore, there is no single word for sin in any Philippine language. The Tagalog noun, sala or kasalanan, to give one example, refers to sin, crime, offence, error, impropriety, or fault, which embraces everything from petty misdeeds to murder (Zialcita 1986: 62; 1989: 34). Although the term penitencia (the word alone with its Latin and Spanish etymology prejudges the issue today) is still widely used to refer to religious self-flagellation, especially in the Philippine media, in Pampanga province the indigenous (Kapampangan) term, darame, is employed, meaning to share suffering, in particular the suffering of Christ in his passion.
If, as I have suggested, the penitencia is not penitential, what is its raison d'être? Why is flagellation performed? Self-flagellation is practised in contemporary Philippines as a contractual sacrifice, based on a vow (panata) to God, sworn for a fixed period, usually between five and fifteen years, often during a crisis or time of difficulty, most commonly the illness of close kin. The link with health or ill-health is pervasive. Aside from the culturally important task, particularly for adult males, of sharing the suffering of Christ, the flagellant is also sharing (damay), and thus trying to ease the pain of a sick relative by offering himself as a sacrifice. Aside from petition or supplication, a vow may also be pledged as an act of thanksgiving, following unexpected good fortune or even specific or protracted avoidance of misfortune, although this is less common. Unusually for religious self-mortification rituals (see for example Pfaffenberger 1979: 266), the supplicatory vows of Filipino flagellants are unconditional: a flagellant will always fulfil his "promise" even if his request is not granted: if a sick relative fails to recuperate, for instance, or even dies. This is partly because of the asymmetrical nature of short-term dyadic relationships with the divine (Foster 1963).
Prior to evangelisation, Filipinos seldom pledged religious vows, but when they did the oath was scrupulously fulfilled (Fernandez 1979: 6). Nowadays, vow-fulfilment is more important for flagellants than overt ritual efficacy (whether the sick relative is healed or not, although of course this is desirable), since the panata acts as an ongoing relationship with the divine, a spiritual investment for the benefit of the entire family, not just the votary or his specified beneficiary. The hope is that God will bestow grace on the family, parents and children alike, and provide protection against harm and misfortune. As a result, a vow is often hereditary, passed from father to son. In the event that a flagellant is unable to fulfil his vow, if he goes to work abroad for instance, a close male relative will assume the burden of responsibility. Throughout this process, familial ties are strengthened, particularly in times of crisis, such as acute illness, or if a conflict between kin is resolved, or a debt of gratitude (utang na loob) repaid (Zialcita 1986: 61).