Cultural Communities in Visayas: Sseis Grade 4 Sped Immb
Cultural Communities in Visayas: Sseis Grade 4 Sped Immb
Cultural Communities in Visayas: Sseis Grade 4 Sped Immb
The Ati are a Negrito ethnic group in the Visayas, the central portion of the Philippine
archipelago. Their small numbers are principally concentrated in the islands
of Boracay, Panay and Negros. They are genetically related to other Negrito ethnic
groups in the Philippines such as the Aeta of Luzon, the Batak of Palawan, the Agta of
the Sierra Madres, and the Mamanwa of Mindanao.
The Ati are the central attraction in the Ati-atihan festival, a festival named in their
honor. It is said that the festival is held to commemorate the first appearance of
the Roman Catholic Church and the Spaniards in the province of Aklan. According to oral
tradition, the Ati helped the Spaniards conquer the native Visayans and, as a reward, the
tribe was given a statue of the Santo Niño.
In the Dinagyang festival of Iloilo City, also on Panay, performers are also painted to look
supposedly like Ati and are organized into "tribes", called "tribus", to perform dances
with drums, as the Atis are supposed to have done when the Malay arrived and bought
Panay from the Ati. Dinagyang is held to celebrate this purchase as well as the arrival in
Iloilo of the Santo Niño statue. When the statue first arrived in 1967, a tribe from the
Ati-atihan festival was invited to Iloilo to mark the occasion.