This cover photo from an early 1960s issue of the Chronicle Magazine, the Sunday magazine of the Manila Chronicle, shows how the Moriones
Masks looked like in those years. The men who served as morions were the local
farmers and fisher folks.
In a study, “The Bloodless Head of Longinus: Political Interventions and the Decapitation of the Moriones Tradition in Marinduque” by
William Peterson, Monash University, Melbourne Australia, Petrson wrote:
“These latter folk generally donned homemade outfits that
today would be regarded as “folkloric”. But from the 1960s on, morion demographics
changed as those from the larger towns found cause to sign up as morions, and
brought into practice financial resources which enabled them to outfit themselves
in relatively expensive costuming – expensive masks and accompanying headgear,
pricey costumes complete with the cape, breastplate, leggings, sandals, accoutrements
such as shields, manacles, and swords. The morion masks and costuming from an
earlier time, pieced together from whatever was immediately available – which are
still possible to find in Marinduque’s smaller towns, such as Mogpog – have mostly
now been substituted with their more “Hollywoodised” counterparts.”
