That was how the rich and the influential expressed their faith, a far cry from that of the Cimarrones, who, without realizing it, had been dispossessed of their own icon.

Even in recent years, several attempts have been made to do away with the boisterous, unruly, crass, sweating mob of the bogadores, or voyadores – the last of the fragments that still remain to remind one and all that the icon was initially the “Ina” of the Cimarrones.

With the advent of technology and science, unruly behavior during procession has become something intolerable.  For human beings, faith should be expressed not by unruly behavior but by the heart, it is said.

That might be true – but truer is to say that what makes the traslacion and the sakay in September truly Bicolano and undoubtedly exciting is the voyadores who have become an endangered species. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [ Back ]