16th century grooming habits

A. Paulita Roa

WITH the rotating blackouts plaguing our city, the usual comment that I hear around is that people wont mind having no electricity for hours as long as they have a continuous supply of running water. Most of us get anxious when there is a lack of water supply. It goes to show that we, Filipinos, have a great affinity with water. It is perhaps part of our DNA.

Early Spanish chroniclers wrote that the 16th century Filipinos lived near the seacoasts or in the banks of navigable rivers, lakes and streams. What attracted their attention was the personal cleanliness of the people and their frequent bathing. This was exactly the opposite of the Europeans who, at that time, hardly took a bath in their lifetime. It is said that most of them were given baths as infants and that their bodies were washed before burial.

In 1604, Jesuit missionary Pedro Chirino wrote a fine piece about the Filipinos fondness for bathing and it is worth quoting at length:

“From the time these islanders are born, they grow up in the water, so both men and women swim like fish even when young, and cross rivers with no need of bridges. They bathe at any hour without distinction, for pleasure or cleanliness, and not even a woman who just delivered refrains from bathing, nor is there a newborn infant which is not immediately bathe in the river itself or springs of water. And on coming out of the bath, they anoint their hair with sesame oil mixed with civet… they bathe squatting down almost sitting down with water up to their neck, taking the greatest care not to be visible even if there is nobody who could see them. The most common or general hour for bathing is sunset, because as soon as they quit work, then, they go bathe in the river to relax and cool off, and on the way back, take a jar of water for household use. For in each house, they have a water jar at the door and whoever goes up, whether from the household or an outsider, takes water to wash their feet before entering especially in the muddy season. This they do with great facility, rubbing one foot against the other, and the water runs through the house floor which is all bamboo like a very tight grating.”

They use a pumice that is known even today as “bato sa panglugod” for scrubbing the body. After bath, they apply oil and perfume all over their bodies. Their clothes were laundered with citrus not only to take away the stains but because of the fresh scent left in them. In Opol and Molugan, old folks used to have century old trees called the “miaray” whose fruits look like oranges but are very sour. These fruits were used as a kind of laundry soap and yes, it leaves a nice citrusy smell in the clothes.

The 16th century Visayans aside from their frequent baths used a vegetable husk called “silat” for cleaning and polishing their teeth. They scraped the bark of the bobho tree and used the scrapings as an anti-dandruff shampoo. Kulkog and kulikog were terms used to the describe the cleaning of the ears with a feather or a swab. Perfumes were made from sesame oil, civet and flowers and were used liberally by both men and women. The Visayans really took their grooming habits seriously that it was extremely offensive to them if a person would say they had dirt in the ears or atole, under their fingernails or in their private parts. This was a big insult that required revenge.

In the Boxer Codex, a rare 1590 book that contains colorful illustrations of the Filipinos in that period in time. The wealthy Tagalogs and Visayans are featured in their elegant finery with lots of gold jewelry but no footwear! I find this ironic that the early Filipinos who had admirable grooming habits were barefooted all their lives.