via Vera Files 08 November 2022: A Philippine festival based on an archaeological discovery – gold funerary masks!
Every May, the town of Oton, Iloilo celebrates its Katagman Festival where high school students are dressed in colorful costumes, with their eyes and noses covered with gold-colored paper.
Katagman is the pre-hispanic name of San Antonio, Oton where the first gold death mask in the country was excavated by the National Museum in 1973. Located between the Iloilo and Batiano rivers, Katagman was a port settlement and its seaport was one of the most important in the 1300s, as part of the flourishing maritime trade in the region.
Source: Oton death mask: Celebrating the afterlife – VERA Files
