Ligligan Parul: Pampanga’s Giant Lanterns as Political and Cultural Thought

Abstract

This ethnographic piece establishes a political-cultural vista of lantern makers and the thought processes going into the craft. It presents the premise that Pampanga’s long history of the practice and selfless development of the Parul craft is reflective of Kapampangan ethnicity, history, and medium for political-cultural thought. It begins with an inquiry into how the giant lantern is expressive of the traits of the Kapampangan; language informs this study’s interpretation of the Kapampangan-ness of the lantern. Secondly, it explores the prospect of the giant lantern displaying metaphors for political-cultural expression and storytelling.
The research is set on a Geertzian-flavored symbolic & interpretive anthropological framework where understanding another culture is perennially an activity of interpretation; this involves determining explications behind cultural acts through situating events in a particular cultural actor’s motives, values, and intentions.