Rituals of Grief
by Rochita Loenen-RuizThey wrap the body in a cloth woven out of horsehair. White lizards adorn the stark black wrappings.
From where she sits, the widow can hear the old priest chanting as he pours rice wine over the body. The soft metallic bass of the gong sounds, and the priest continues with his chants.
She knows the ritual of their tribe: the beating of the gong, the chant, the pouring of the wine, the mixing of the betelnut, the red saliva spit out onto white dust, and the smell of sweat rising as the men sing on.
The widow groans. Grief weighs down on her shoulders. She used to be Bugan Najawitan. When she took on the burden of loss and mourning, she shed her mother's name and became the nameless one. Beside her, the children scuff their toes in the dust.
"Your father," the widow cries. She reaches out her hand and slaps the ground. Beside her the little ones join in. Their hands slap dust, and their voices mingle in the cacophony of an entire village mourning the loss of their chieftain.
For seven days, they mourn the body. On the seventh day, the widow must accompany his body into the caves. They were partners in life. In death, it is her duty to shield the warrior from malignant spirits who would steal away his eternal rest.
In the afternoon air, her voice rises up over the other voices. The sound of her grief and her mourning resound throughout the valley.
"Away," the shaman shouts. He leaps into the air and she watches as he slashes at his own flesh. Blood spatters the ground, and the young men rise up.
"Away," the young men cry out in reply to the old man's shouts. She sees their eyes dilate with mourning madness. Sweat and blood fly in the afternoon heat, and the body is saturated with the smell of their grief.
These are her husband's brothers-in-arms, bound to him by war and by blood. He was their chief, their leader on the battlefield.
"Wigan!"
They shout his name for the last time, scattering the memory of his deeds to the four winds.
In the quiet that follows, she waits for her summons.
She sits on slats of hard bamboo, waiting while they bind up the body and scent it with spices. The walls of her hut are decked with woven panels--one for each year of their married life. There are eight panels in all. The eighth panel is half-finished.
Her mother's hand is gentle on her shoulder. Her mother's touch is tender on her hair.
"You mustn't surrender to grief," her mother says. "If you give in to grief, you will fail."
The widow nods and listens.
"The dreams of the dead are filled with secret things," her mother continues. "You must pray for strength to endure what comes, and you must think of your children."
"I'll do my best," she whispers.
What does she know of war or of fighting? She has always been a healer. But in the end, her healing hands could not draw out the poison in the blood. In the end, her gift failed her. Now, she must go up to the caves and fight shadows that eat the flesh and spoil the spirit.
Outside, the procession of warriors waits.
"It's time," the shaman says.
She turns and embraces her mother. She touches her fingers to the foreheads of her children.
"I'll be back," she whispers.
The youngest one starts to cry. She holds him close and wipes his tears with the palms of her hands.
"Don't cry," she says. "Be strong and lend me your courage."
He sniffs and buries his face in her neck. How much grief can a soul swallow?
For a moment, she wishes she could stay and comfort him, but the procession of men murmurs with impatience.
"It's time," the shaman says again.
With head held high, she turns away from the children, and a place is made for her in the midst of the long line of warriors.
It rains on their way to the caves, and the path on the mountainside has turned to slush.
Her toes grip the slippery loam. She is used to walking up these mountainsides, used to carrying burdens in her arms. During the first two years of their marriage, she carried bundles of rice and hay. On the third year, she carried their firstborn son.
She recalls the joy on her husband's face when she told him she was carrying his child. They'd been so afraid the gods would not give them children. When the second and the third child came, they were so sure of the favor of the gods.
Then came the strife with the lowlanders. Their youngest child was just beginning to walk when the war broke out.
"We are here." The shaman's voice breaks into her memories. She looks up into the dark maw of the cave.
How many have found their rest within these caves? How many widows have stood guard and fought the last battle at their husband's side? Will she be one in a long line of legends? Or will her name be buried in forgetfulness?
They lay the body on a slab of smooth stone inside the cave.
"Send him safely to the afterlife," the shaman says to her. "Dream his death dreams with him, and when the eater of flesh comes, be ready."
One by one, the warriors lay small tokens beside the body. An ax, a machete, a carving of the good spirit, bowls of rice, a crock filled with wine, amulets and charms to guard the warrior spirit and bring him to eternal life.
They touch her shoulder, her elbow, her head.
"Be strong," they whisper.
Then they roll the stone into place, cutting out the light, leaving her alone with the body of her dead and the voices of the spirits.
Sleep is death's sister. That's what the tribe's people say. What visions visit the dead in their sleep? Do the dead dream as the living dream?
Alone in the darkness, the widow wonders if they who walk the world of light see the visions seen by those who wait for the onward journey. What do they know of dreaming?
Dreaming, her mother said, is the spirit's flight from this world. In death, the spirit flies away into a realm the living reach only in a dream.
She waits in the darkness. Perhaps she will not need to fight. Perhaps if she waits long enough, the death dream will come to her as it came to him. She presses her hand to her heart, and feels the hollow tube above it, she hears the rattle of the poison darts, and she wonders if she'll have the courage to do what she must do when the flesh eater comes.
The darkness is seductive and the woman falls into a light sleep. In her sleep, a light radiates from the corpse, and she wanders towards it.
Brightness welcomes her and the vision of the fields rising up like stairways up to wide blue skies. She is a young girl again, and Wigan is beside her.
"Up towards heaven," Wigan says. "That's where those stairways take us, Bugan. As if it wasn't heaven already where we are."
She looks at the bright fields kissed by sunlight. She follows the movement of his arms, spread out as if to embrace the wide expanse of their horizon.
She looks up into his eyes and she smiles.
"Yes," she says, "this is already heaven."
They join hands and run through the green and gold fields.
"Come," he cries.
And she follows after him, chasing him through fields that turn golden as they pass.
"Here, my heart."
She sees the smile on his face, inhales the male scent of his presence, and gazes in wonder at the harvest dripping from his hands. Everywhere she looks rice kernels drip golden from the stalk, and the mountains resound with the songs of the harvesters who are multitude and joyful.
"What does it mean?" she asks him. "Is this the death dream?"
It is cold inside the cave, and the woman shivers awake. In her head, the songs of her wedding day echo into the darkness. Her back aches from lying on the cold stone floor and she pushes herself to an upright position.
Here in the darkness, shadows arise. She feels their presence in the air. They are here where the smell of grief and death hung heavy in the air.
A noise comes from the back of the cave, and the woman trembles. From somewhere she hears the echo of gongs being played.
Here is no frolic playing.
Gray light filters into the cave as shadows rise up out of the deep. They are darker than the shadows she is already used to seeing.
Something cold and slimy slithers across her foot and she stifles a gasp. She hears the rattle of bowls, and shaking off atrophy with effort, she struggles to her feet. In the dark, she is a shadow among shadows, a woman drunk with grief and with loss. She is no warrior.
Around the dead man's body, the spirits chatter their teeth at one another. She raises her hands to her ears to shut out the noise.
A form coils itself around her husband's body. In the gray light, she can see the huge head weaving to and fro.
Her knees tremble, but her hand when it touches the knife at her waist is steady.
This is her battle. If she fails this task, her husband's name will be erased from the long line of valiant warriors. She will be left to wander the realm of the dead, and her sons will lose their right to stand before the assembly of men.
"Leave his spirit free," she hisses at the serpent.
She watches the huge head sway back and forth, and she imagines great jaws opening wide to swallow the body. In the darkness, the shadow takes on the proportions of a giant, and she shivers as she thinks of how easily the serpent could devour her, too.
She thinks of her children, and her hand reaches for the bamboo shaft.
She has never seen battle, has never harmed a living being in her life; but she will not let the eater of flesh defeat her before her husband's spirit has made its journey up to the haven of warriors.
Oh merciful creator, she prays. Give my eye and hand the steadiness they need.
The first dart leaves her hand. She hears the sound of its passing in the darkness. Outside, the sun bathes the world in sunlight. Here in the grayness of death she must fight for her husband's right to climb the mountain steps into heaven.
Duty and honor, she thinks to herself as she takes aim again. If I fail this duty, who will stand in my place?
She steps closer to the body, and lets the second dart loose.
The serpent's angry hissing tells her she has reached her goal. There is a thrashing sound, and a quick movement like leaves being shoved out of the way.
She runs towards the sound, and now the knife is in her hand. If the dart does not do its work, she must finish what she has begun.
The pots filled with rice wine break, and her foot slips on the wet ground.
She falls and skins her knees, but she does not notice these things. In her hand, the serpent's body is slick with slime and blood, and it coils and twists in her grasp. She strikes with the blade, once, twice, then all is silent.
In death, the serpent shrinks. It is not the fearsome giant she imagined it to be. When she picks up the body, it hangs limp and cold.
She wishes for a fire to burn it in, but there is no flint in the cave, and everything is damp with rice wine. She chooses a pot that is still whole, and places the body of the snake inside.
"Accept this offering," she says to the ancient spirits. "I have defended my husband's rest. Honor your word and give him his place in the haven of warriors."
Time passes in gray light that turns to darkness.
She stands alone in front of her dead, and for the first time since his death, she looks into his face.
"I am no longer afraid," she says. His flesh feels warm to her touch and light radiates from his face.
She lays her hand on his eyes, and his death dream comes to her.
She sees fields heavy with harvest, and children running ahead of her. Her eldest son grows up in leaps and bounds while she holds harvested sheaves in her hands. She watches him turn and become the father he has lost in childhood.
"See," her husband says. "This death is born out of a dream. I died but they are free to grow and harvest the golden years."
There is always this memory, the woman thinks. Memory and the death dream bind her to the spirit of the man who once was.
"Wigan," she whispers.
She touches her lips to the lips of her dead. His skin is cold to the touch and his eyes are closed in eternal rest.
"Sleep," she says. "Your war has been fought, and I will make sure your children live the dream you died for."
In death, the body's flight is effortless. In Bugan's dreams, her husband is an eagle flying away to the top of the highest mountain.
Reality brings back the weight of grief. She is reminded of this life she must live with one step in the death dream and one step in this world she must claim for her children.
In time the beloved body will shrivel and become a shell. It will cease to radiate the sunshine of distant shores, and in time she will forget the body's scent of coconut milk and sampaguita blossoms. Bereft of spirit, the body will shrink. It will allow itself to be measured by these walls, these stones, the pattern of reed melting into mud, the colour of grass, the scent of ripening rice, and the sky of their dreaming.
She waits for the others to return. Waits for the stone to be rolled away from the opening of the cave.
I have done my duty, she says to the body. I have stood guard, and I have taken hold of your death dream.
When the women come up to the caves, they will wrap her in blankets woven from the finest wool. They will take her up out of the darkness, and bathe her in the living river.
Wigan has returned to the great maker, she will say, and Bugan must return to her children.
©Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz is a Filipina writer living in the Netherlands. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Philippine Speculative Fiction volume two, Byzarium, Route Online, Flash Me Magazine, and Reflection's Edge. She is the co-author of Hope Away from Home (OMF Lit Philippines, 2007). At present, she is working on a book about a woman who worked among the tribes for fifty years. She has a new blog at minimalmax.blogspot.com.