DIVINE WORD MISSION SEMINARY Maverick Jann Mendoza Esteban 29 January 2014 Cultural Anthropology Rev. Dr. Edgar Javier, SVD, PhD, SThL, DMiss “USO PA BA ANG HARANA” Harana: A Fleeting Tradition of the Filipinos “No man is an island,” as the saying goes. Man, by nature, long for companion. People need one another in order for them to grow and develop. There is that need to be loved and to be appreciated for his personal emotional satisfaction. Thus, human beings will try to secure a good and personal relationship with others. They seek for objects of commitment. “To be uncommitted to anyone or to anything is one of the saddest things that can happen to a person.” 1 Normally, humans are directed to have a more personal relationship with the opposite sex. “It is the others who give me my identity and shape the meaning of my life.” 2 Man desires to have a personal attachment to the woman he loves, and vice versa. It is through this desire that he will get moving in order to win the hand of his beloved. This initial action of a man to win his loved one’s heart is called courtship or courting. Courtship is the action done by the man in order to woo someone so dear to him. It is the process of getting to know each other. Diversity of cultures gives us a wide variety of different ways on how to court a woman. In the Philippines, one of the best highlights of a traditional Filipino courtship is by serenading the girl, which is called harana in the local language. Courtship gets more fascinating with music. Harana is serenading a woman at night lit by the moon in order to attract her. Haran is not like the notion of people today it is about a man’s announcement of love but, it is “more about the simple desire to introduce himself to a woman in a gentlemanly fashion.” 3 On a special evening, the suitor gathers a few of his friends, and perhaps a haranista, someone who has a good grasp on the art of traditional Filipino courtship, and goes to the house where the woman lives. He and his companions offer a few songs to the woman. The woman, on the other hand, shows her positive reaction by opening the lights and glancing by the window. But, if the woman does did not appreciate the harana, the suitor and his companions were greeted by the parents’ frown, or even at certain time by the arinola (portable urinal) and it’s content. If the suitor is 1 Vitaliano Gorospe, Filipino Search for Meaning (Manila: Ateneo De Manila University Press, ----), 191. 2 Ibid., 88. 3 Florante Aguilar, “Different Stages of Harana (Serenading),” http://florante.org/blog/2010/10/28/the- different-stages-of-harana-serenading/ (accessed January 27, 2014).