KURALDAL FESTIVAL Sasmuan’s version of the Obando Fertility Festival

KURALDAL FESTIVAL

The Festival
Sasmuan’s Kuraldal is held during 6th of January, week of the town fiesta, when the people of Pampanga gather in front of the St. Lucy Chapel and dance all night. At 8 pm, the mass ends conducted by the Archbishop, the parish priest, and other priests, and the brass bands signal the start of non-stop dancing until 3 in the morning. So thick the crowd gets that devotees could only sway or jump instead of dance. Other devotees ascend to the stage where the mass is held to pick up the flowers from the boquets, while others rub their handkerchiefs to the statue of St. Lucy. The image is made of wood and made somehow similar to the Buddha statue.

It is said that barren women get pregnant after participating in the festival. Kuraldal is Sasmuan’s version of the Obando Fertility Festival, only the object of the veneration is St. Lucy. Devotees yell “Viva Santa Lucia!”, dancing non-stop for eight hours, bathing in sweat, seemingly in trance.The exhilirating eight-hour dance occurs five days after Sasmuan’s town fiesta, in the street at the front of the chapel of St. Lucy, not far from Sasmuan’s parish church.The crowd of huge number squeeze tightly in narrow streets, moving like the ocean waves until the mass pulls the time to dusk. Choir sings “Santa Lucia”.

The dance, held in honor of the feast of St. Lucy, is an opportunity for hopefuls to pray for their petitions to the patron saint that range from pregnancy to wealth and success. On the 7th of the month, devotees of women in buri hats and floral-designed dress of pink and white, dance from one house to another to ask for donations.

After the final blessings given by the Archbishop, town mayor signals the brass band to play when he wipe the image of St. Lucy and dance afterwards. The wild crowd starts to dance, leap, and shout.

Kapampangans, or Pampanga people, believe that Kuraldal is a reflection of their passion for living and philosophy that all things bound to go well in the end, their joie de vivre.

Wealthy settlers and visitors invest time and money assuring a place to stay, deep in the province of where river flows, as they await for the celebration of the wild feast, and come the night of the dance, people wave palm trees and flowers in the vast sky of moon and stars, dancing their favors to the patron saint.

Origin

In 1698, Gaspar de San Agustin, a Spanish chronicler wrote that an image of St. Lucy was venerated in Sasmuan long ago. It is uncertain if Kuraldal may have originated in the pre-Hispanic Kapampangans and Spanish friars who could not stop the act may have replaced the unknown pagan idol by an image of a Catholic icon, or the practice may have been ritual started by the Augustinians of which over the years, moved out from the church, to the patio, and eventually farther in the streets. The observance of the Kuraldal coincides with the end of the duman season in Sta. Rita, nearby town of Sasmuan, which gives a clue that it may be possible that Kuraldal  is a native’s harvest ritual during the pre-hispanic era.

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