109. Carnival Mascot: THE RED DEVIL

Fancy dress costumes and parties were known as early as the 15th centuryt in Italy, where the first masquerade balls were all the rage. These became so popular that similar events were opened to the public, in festivities marked with dances performed in attractive costumes.


Nearby countries adapted these masked balls, but it was the 18th century Victorians who expanded and elaborated the concept of fancy costume parties. The favorite costumes of the day were Harlequins, Jesters, Tarts and Vicars—and the Red Devil.


Red is the color most often associated with the Devil as it is the color of the fires of Hell, and is associated with lust, passion and excess. The Devil is also a symbol for a wild, uncontrollable spirit, chaos and the opposite of socially acceptable behavior, which aptly described the mood and ambiance of the Carnival. Hence, the Red Devil was adapted as one of the mascots of the Manila Carnivals, and the image of the grinning, be-winged red creature was extensively used in merchandising and promotions of the event. Revelers dressed as the Red Devils were seen on parades, or featured atop carrozas, thus perpetuating the mascot’s image.


The Red Devil also made its appearance on Carnival medals, but the skew towards industrial and agricultural progress forced the Organizers to review the Carnival icons; the Red Devil (as well as the Billiken) was eventually replaced with more positive allegorical characters of progress e.g. women holding the rich harvest of the land, idealized Filipinas before expansive rice fields.

108. Carnival Mascot: BILLIKEN

“I am the God of Happiness,
I simply make you smile..
I prove that life’s wroth living
And that everything’s worthwhile
I am the God of Happiness,
My name is Billiken”

In the early part of the 20th century, a Missouri art teacher, Florence Pretz, designed an elfin image with pointed ears, an impish smile and a conehead topped with a stub of hair. She had conceived this charm doll based on a dream, legend say, and in 1908, she acquired a patent for it and the manufacturers who produced the figures gave it a name—Billiken.

The world soon started its love affair with the Billiken. The mysterious chinky-eyed imp was imbued with a new persona—“the God of Things as they Ought To Be”. The Billiken was looked at as a giver of good luck and also as a ”sure cure for the Blues, that Solemn Feeling, the Grouch, the Hoodoo Germ, Hard-Luck Melancholia, the Down and Out Bacillus”.

It was for this reason that the first Manila Carnival of 1908 adopted the Billiken as its mascot. It had also been picked as the mascot of the 1909 Alaskan-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, and its likeness was carved by Eskimos in precious ivory.

The Carnival Billiken made its appearance in local newspaper editorial cartoons, a sort of a welcome official to Carnival visitors. There were also dressed-up Billiken mascots who joined the parades and fascinated the young and old alike. Surprisingly, the Billiken was not reproduced on Carnival medals—unlike the other carnival –the Red Devil.

True to its nature, the Billiken was depicted as a happy figure, always with a wide lucky grin and open arms for all. “As long as I smile at you”, a Billiken poem reminds, “bad luck can’t harm you. Grin and begin to win!”.

Indeed, the Billiken blessed the very first Carnival with great luck—after all the earnings and expenses were totaled, there was a sizable profit of P13,391.30 left. This, aside from countless orders for local products exhibited by the provinces in their booths (Laguna received P15,000 worth of orders from one foreigner alone). Equally valuable was the international goodwill generated by the national event. Well done for “the smiling god of good fortune, the original divinity of optimism”—the Billiken!

100. Badges of Honor: MANILA CARNIVAL MEDALS

The Manila Carnival, being a national event full of sponsored activities, athletic competitions and other contests, warranted the production of medals and trophies that were presented to winners, corporate sponsors, stockholders and members of the media. The medals served many purpose—as a form of ID, as access to special boxes, as tokens of gratitude to donors, or, in the case of the contest winners, as badges of victory and honor. The Carnival years thus encouraged the flowering of medal art , and the prolific output turned out by metal craftsmen are sought after today as commemorative collectibles.

The designs of the medals, made from gold plate, silver, bronze or copper, were aligned with the visual themes of the Carnival. The very first medals for the 1908 Manila Carnival were produced by Schwabb S. & S. Vo. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. It featured two ladies, representing America and the Philippines, in a friendly handshake, with a clown and a child reveler flanking them. The next year, until 1923, the Whitehead Hoag Co. of Newark, New Jersey crafted the Carnival medals. Heacock Company, which employed Filipino metal craftsmen, was also commissioned to make medals as early as 1921 but it was the taller de Crispulo Zamora (b. 1871/ d. 1922) that produced the most number and best-designed medals.

The art of metalcrafting ran in the Zamora family for generations. Before Crispulo, a Taller de Plateria, Escultura y Grabados was operated by one Tomas Zamora in Quiapo, a relative. Crispulo’s father, Mauricio, also ran an engraving shop in the same area, and he trained Crispulo early on by enrolling him at the Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura to study art. At age 21, he married Pelagia, herself an accomplished artist. When his father died, Crispulo inherited the business and cornered the market for military decorations like buttons and insignias for the Philippine revolutionary government. His engraving plant, the biggest in the Philippines, also made religious metalworks, plaques, school medals, presentation cups and trophies.


His works for the Carnival first gained notice at the 1913 edition, where he made a slew of trophies for contest winners and designed the magnificent crowns of the national beauty winners. In the years that followed, Zamora virtually had a monopoly of the medal commissions from the Philippine Carnival Association, and rightfully so because his designs were always striking and imaginative, often melding Art Nouveau, and later Art Deco with Philippine motifs like bamboo, anahaw leaf and Filipina maidens. Soon, even provincial carnival committees were calling on the Zamora workshop to create their own petit fair medals.


Leading artists of the day were also tapped to contribute like future National Artist Fernando Amorsolo, who is credited with styling the 1914, 1922 and 1927 medals of the Carnival. Medals were also enameled to give them color, and they are most valuable when the ribbon and the bar are intact. Some medals featured the Carnival mascots like the Red Devil and the Billiken, while others, harlequins and clowns. Keepsakes like commemorative coins and tokens echoed the same design elements.


In the waning years of the Carnivals, the medals became smaller and thinner but the standard of design quality remained high. Which is why, the Manila Carnival medals are valued today, commanding consistently high prices at local and international auctions. Once badges of honor, Carnival medals continue to be prized today, commemoratives that once marked an important timeline of our colonial history.