Pintados Kasadyaan Festival of Tacloban City

Pintados Kasadyaan in Tacloban City

The Pintados-Kasadyaan Festival is a merry-making event that lasts a whole month. Its highlights include: the Leyte Kasadyaan Festival of Festivals, the Pintados Festival Ritual Dance Presentation and the “Pagrayhak” Grand Parade.

• History

1668: the Spaniards came to the Visayas and found the islands to be inhabited by heavily tattooed men and women, whom they called Pintados (name of native warriors who were tattooed as marks of courage, either from fighting or from surviving its arduous process). The excessive tattoos on a nativeís body frightened the missionaries but as time passed they eventually learned that the tattoos are a part of the nativesí lives.

1888: The missionaries from Spain brought the Child Jesus image known as “El Capitan” to the island. Spanish missionaries brought the Santo NiÒo image to Leyte where it attracted the natives to embrace the new form of worship, abandoning their ancient nature worship.

1986: Civic-minded businessmen and entrepreneurs based in Tacloban City founded the Pintados Foundation Inc. The foundation began organizing religious cultural activities in honor of SeÒor Santo NiÒo, thus marking the advent of the Pintados Festival in June 29, 1987.
As the advent of modernization came the tradition of tattooing has been replaced but not forgotten, for the festival serves as the reminder of the bravery of the Pintados.

Today the festival is now called the Leyte Pintados-Kasadyaan Festival, also known as the “Festival of Festivals.” (Kasadyaan  means merriment and jollity in Visaya).

• The Festival

The Festival has its own unique flavor, recalling the Pre-Spanish history of the natives, retelling various stories from wars to folk religions. Perhaps the most awaited part of the festival is the native street dance: dancers resembling the pintados fill the streets of the city, adorned with battle gear to mimic the warriors in the Pre-Spanish period, tattooed with brilliant colors. The dance depicts a clear picture of the people who once lived in Leyte. Accompanied by the sounds of native instruments the performers dance their way from the Balayuan Towers and going throughout the city. Awestruck spectators eagerly follow the warriors from the start to the end of the parade. At the end of the festival everyone is guaranteed to have smiles and joyful memories to bring back home.

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