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Affect and History in Ninotchka Rosca’s
State of War
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the end of their communion, she announces the time left for Maya
as if pronouncing a sentence to death: “Three years, two months,
and a week hence.” The sentence provides closure to Maya’s
feelings of shame.
9
As noted above, the historical novel promoted by Berlant
opens up a past historical moment and a moment in transition to
explore the affective life, which is at once plagued and energized
by crisis in the everyday life. By pivoting the story of the
Villaverde’s female ancestors upon shame and the event of its
transmission among generations, Rosca excavates moments of
colonial history which, while giving voice to the suppressed story
of the matriarch, unveils the ambiguous affective becoming of the
female characters. Due to shame’s self-critiquing potential, we are
moved to act to purge the sense of shame. Shame, therefore, can be
transformative and productive in realigning one’s relation to the
past and to others. The shame of the origin of the Villaverde family
demands improvised living strategies; in the meantime, it stages the
event for the resurgence of the Babaylan interpersonal healing.
wisdom-keeper and philosopher; the one who provides stability to the
community’s social structure; the one who can access the spirit realms and
other states of consciousness and traffic easily in and out of these worlds; a
woman who has vast knowledge of healing therapies” (as cited in Strobel,
2010: 1). In addition to this, a Babaylan is someone who “intercedes for the
community and individuals” and is also someone who “serves” (Strobel,
2010: 2). Any study of the Babaylan must take into consideration the
suppression of the Babaylan’s practice since the onset of European and
American colonialism in the Philippines.
9
It is important to note that Mayang’s positioning as a Babaylan priestess is
enabled by the encounter of the two bodies, it is therefore transient and
temporary. Later Mayang goes on to betray her husband and her
community by falling madly in love with the German chemist Hans
Zangroniz who is recruited by Carlos Lucas to help run the distillery Maya
establishes with him. Hans and Mayang’s affair produces Luis Carols, who
is to become Anna’s father. Hans flees the household of the Villaverdes after
Luis Carols is born; he changes his name to Hansen living in the south and
is to become Eliza’s grandfather. Anna and Eliza thus share a grandfather in
Hans.