The story behind the Ati-atihan Festival began in the early 1700s when a fisherman in Barangay Naile caught a piece of wood that kept returning to his net. He brought it home and discovered it had carved itself into the image of a child. The couple received blessings after placing the wooden child in their altar. When they brought it to the local priest, the townspeople began repenting for their sins by blackening their faces and dressing in rags. This ritual stopped the wooden child from disappearing. The festival now commemorates both the miracle and an old victory over Spanish invaders. It later spread to other towns after a priest witnessed the celebrations in Ibajay.
The story behind the Ati-atihan Festival began in the early 1700s when a fisherman in Barangay Naile caught a piece of wood that kept returning to his net. He brought it home and discovered it had carved itself into the image of a child. The couple received blessings after placing the wooden child in their altar. When they brought it to the local priest, the townspeople began repenting for their sins by blackening their faces and dressing in rags. This ritual stopped the wooden child from disappearing. The festival now commemorates both the miracle and an old victory over Spanish invaders. It later spread to other towns after a priest witnessed the celebrations in Ibajay.
The story behind the Ati-atihan Festival began in the early 1700s when a fisherman in Barangay Naile caught a piece of wood that kept returning to his net. He brought it home and discovered it had carved itself into the image of a child. The couple received blessings after placing the wooden child in their altar. When they brought it to the local priest, the townspeople began repenting for their sins by blackening their faces and dressing in rags. This ritual stopped the wooden child from disappearing. The festival now commemorates both the miracle and an old victory over Spanish invaders. It later spread to other towns after a priest witnessed the celebrations in Ibajay.
The story behind the Ati-atihan Festival began in the early 1700s when a fisherman in Barangay Naile caught a piece of wood that kept returning to his net. He brought it home and discovered it had carved itself into the image of a child. The couple received blessings after placing the wooden child in their altar. When they brought it to the local priest, the townspeople began repenting for their sins by blackening their faces and dressing in rags. This ritual stopped the wooden child from disappearing. The festival now commemorates both the miracle and an old victory over Spanish invaders. It later spread to other towns after a priest witnessed the celebrations in Ibajay.
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The story of miracle behind the Ati-atihan Festival
Filipinos celebrate the Ati-atihan Festival every January. The celebration is
known to be a form of devotion to the Santo Niño. What many Filipinos do not know is that there’s a richer story behind the festival. The story starts with an old couple in Barangay Naile in the early early-1700s. An unnamed fisherman went to catch fish in the river. Instead of catching fish, he caught a piece of wood instead. He kept trying to throw the wood away, but it would return to his net every time. Feeling dismayed over his misfortune, he brought the wood home and put it aside to use as fuel. He went to sleep with his wife but was later roused by a beating sound nearby. They were surprised to find the carving of a child in place of the piece of wood. The couple placed the wooden child in their altar and started receiving blessings like abundant fish harvests. After several weeks the fisherman went to a priest to seek advice. The priest instructed the fisherman to bring the wooden child to the Ibajay Parish. Several days later, the townspeople started to wonder why the piece of wood always disappeared from the parish only to be found back again at the fisherman’s home. They eventually took this as a sign that they needed to repent and seek forgiveness for their sins. As part of their penance, they blackened their faces with coal and dressed in rags. The piece stopped disappearing from the parish after they started doing this ritual. One day, Spaniards from Mindoro tried to invade Ibajay. The townspeople fought back, and dedicated their victory to the statue. To this day, the symbolic battle continues to be commemorated as part of the Ati-atihan Festival in Ibajay. In 1978, Padre Fernando de Legaspi of Malinao got word of the yearly Ibajay celebration. He walked several kilometers to reach the town, witnessed the revelry and decided to duplicate the celebrations when he was assigned in the town of Kalibo. And that was the start of the yearly Ati-atihan festival celebrated in Aklan.
