The Chieftest

Mourner

By: Aida Rivera

 Background
• Born in Jolo, Sulu

• Became the editor of the first two issues of Sands and Coral (Literary
magazine of Siliman University)

• Graduated with an AB degree, major in English, cum laude in 1949

• Obtained an M.A. in English Language at the University of. Michigan and

won the prestigious award Jules and Avery Hopwood fiction in 1954

• Taught at the university of Mindanao and Ateneo de Davao University where

she was the Humanities Division chairperson for 11 years

• Founded the first school of Fine Arts in Mindanao now known as the Ford
Academy of the Arts in 1980
 Characters
Narrator (The girl)

Poet (Uncle of the narrator)

Sophie ( The legal wife of the poet)

Esa (The mistress)

 Setting

Wake of his uncle

 Theme
The theme of the story is about love and
innocence including the disloyalty of
people through their loved ones.
 Aunt Sophia, which claims to be the first and “legal wife” in the life of his husband. Based on
the story, the uncle just mistakenly married her and somehow a product of his wrong decision in
life. They don’t have a good relationship because they separated after ten years. I can say that
Aunt Sophia is overly strict to the point the she doesn’t allow his husband to have a drink. She
even punished him by tying him up to a chair just to teach him a lesson. I think this is one of the
reason why they broke up because the uncle feels like he’s being controlled by his wife.

“My aunt always forgave him but one day she had more than she could bear, and when he was
really drunk, she tied him to a chair with a strong rope to teach him a lesson. She never saw him
drunk again, for as soon as he was able to, he walked out the door and never came back.”
 Even they get separated, Aunt Sophia is always showing indirect concern to his
husband by asking her friends and the young girl’s mama about the situation of her
husband’s life. In my own understanding, she does these things because she can’t
accept the fact that she is part of the reason why they broke up.

“The topic of the conversation was always the latest low on Uncle’s state of misery. It
gave Aunt Sophia profound satisfaction to relay the report of friends on the number of
creases on Uncle’s shirt or the appalling decrease in his weight. To her, the fact that
Uncle was getting thinner proved conclusively that he was suffering as a result of the
separation.”
It is also the time when the uncle has another woman named Esa. She described in the story as a young,
accomplished, and a woman of means (which can be the uncle’s ideal wife). Aunt Sophia has the knowledge
that her husband has a new woman already. Because she can’t still accept it, she assumes that Esa ensnared
her husband. The conflict of the story begins when the uncle died, because there’s a lot of revelation
happened. When Aunt Sophia and her husband separated, she decided not to visit him anymore. She never
know that his ex-husband has a Tuberculosis which cause of his death. In the times that the uncle needs
someone to his side, Esa is the one who’s there for him. She takes care of him and even provide financial help
which Aunt Sophia never does.

“Let me ask you. During the war when the poet was hard up do you suppose I deserted him? Whose jewels
do you think we sold when he did not make money… When he was ill, who was it who stayed at his side…
Who took care of him during all those months… and who peddled his books and poems to the publishers so
that he could pay for the hospital and doctor’s bills? Did any of you come to him then? Let me ask you that!
Now that he is dead you want me to leave his side so that you and that vieja can have the honors and have
your picture taken with the president. That’s what you want, isn’t it–to pose with the president….”
“All right,” she blurted, turning about. “All right. You can have him — all that’s left of
him!”

At that moment before she fled, I saw what I had waited to see. The mascara had indeed
run down her cheeks. But somehow it wasn’t funny at all.
 We cannot blame Esa if she’s also there in the funeral because she has a big part in the uncle’s
life. She had never shown negative to the person but all she does are just good things. The only
wrong thing here is that people judge her like a “mistress”, which I think she didn’t deserve.
Without knowing her story, Esa became a victim of discrimination. She is obviously very
emotional, it can be seen through her outfit and the symbol white flower in the shape of dove.
Even though she express pure love and loyalty to the person, she’s still criticized by everyone.
When Esa burst out her emotion, they misinterpret it and judged her as a scandalous woman.
After all the negative words they throw to her, she’s still the one who initiate to leave the funeral
even though it is hurtful. In this story, Esa is the “Chieftest Mourner”. With all the things that she
has done, Esa deserves the right in the death of his love –the poet/uncle.
“It was ingeniously fashioned in the shape of a dove and it bore the inscription “From
the Loyal One.” I looked at Aunt Sophia and didn’t see anything dove-like about her. I
looked at the slight woman in black and knew of a sudden that she was the woman.”
 • Who was the "Loyal One"?

2. What was your reaction to the final scene in the story?

BATAAN
HARVEST

BY: Amador T. Daguio

 l
I have been restless, thinking, There are barriers still for us to
thinking of the dead, if they died conquer, we who have conquered
in vain, if they know us still, we may be conquered in the end by a
as we know them mistake worse than death- by a betrayal
can they share our glory? of them who cannot die a second time.
they cannot feel they never complained when they went to die
their honor is only known to us they do not complain now, and we can
and we honor them to make us feel commit the blunder.
good. they have no way of speaking
to us their silence is too deep. this is what has haunted me in the night
for the dead cannot speak. we must
are they silent because the peace satisfy them. but we are satisfying ourselves.
we are fashioning does not fit them?
or does not fit us?
are they pinning us with the eyeless look
of their skulls to. condemn us for the mess we might still make?
saying: you are not tired of fighting 2
 ll
there is no longer any enemy
but ourselves. we have won this war.
we said at first, not for ourselves
but the world, mankind-individual
man-were we fighting to die?
we had to win. we died and we also won
what then is victory's meaning? is it
a standard to hang over the round table
where representing victors sign a paper?
is it the long, vain look of the mother
to whom a son no longer returns?
is it the flowers or the winds among them
where the vacant wet eyes may rest, remembering the dead?
is it the unreturning reality of mud and hole
and the shriek of the slain and the rattle of the planes?
is it a hand of a forgotten dead holding a gun,
rotting with it somewhere in the long,
immeasurable beaches of the world?
is it the dull slush of the sand to cover him
is it the piled bodies of men?
we have turned our back to all these.
we face each other now. we have no
enemy but ourselves, believe this
we must win- or shall we lose again
that our sons and daughters shall fight
the future for this blood we sacrifice
in advance?
2
1. Amador Daguio mentioned that Filipinos have won the war,
however, what is this war he is referring to in the second line?

2. What is the message being conveyed by the poem Bataan

Harvest?​

3. Based on what you know about the American colonial

period, what could have inspired the author to write this poem?