History Literature / WithoutSeeingTheDawn

* WitchDoctor: Olang Rufo, who diagnoses Carding's fever as caused by the latter's destroying an anthill that was basically home to the local equivalent of TheFairFolk. He instructs that food offerings (including animal sacrifices) be made to appease the spirits, and performs a dance with sharp blades apparently to communicate with them.

* DroitDuSeigneur: Not in the legal sense (though it's doubtful it was ever a legal right per se), but Luis Castro, son of Don Diego the ''haciendero'' (landowner), essentially seducing Lucing, wife of Carding who is one of Don Diego's tenants, does evoke shades of this. Also Carding already has Luis beat anyways in the sense that he's obviously already had sex with Lucing as early as right on their wedding night, several chapters earlier—especially since Luis arrives right after Lucing's first TragicStillbirth!

* DroitDuSeigneur: Not in the legal sense (though it's doubtful it was ever a legal right per se), but Luis Castro, son of Don Diego the ''haciendero'' (landowner), essentially seducing Lucing, wife of Carding who is one of Don Diego's tenants, does evoke shades of this. Also Carding already has Luis beat anyways in the sense that he's obviously already had sex with Lucing right on their wedding night, several chapters earlier—especially since Luis arrives right after Lucing's first TragicStillbirth!

* DroitDuSeigneur: Not in the legal sense (though it's doubtful it was ever a legal right per se), but Luis Castro, son of Don Diego the ''haciendero'' (landowner), essentially seducing Lucing, wife of Carding who is one of Don Diego's tenants, does evoke shades of this. Also Carding already has Luis beat anyways in the sense that he's clearly already had sex with Lucing right on their wedding night, several chapters earlier.

* DroitDuSeigneur: Not in the legal sense (though it's doubtful it was ever a legal right per se), but Luis Castro, son of Don Diego the ''haciendero'' (landowner), essentially seducing Lucing, wife of Carding who is one of Don Diego's tenants, does evoke shades of this.

* CorruptBureaucrat: Señor Marcial Dorado, the overseer (administrator) of Don Diego Castro's ''haciendas''. One day he summons Tatay Juan and essentially takes his family's land away from him, giving it to one of their neighbours.[[note]]Of course, Tatay Juan and his family do not actually or legally ''own'' the land—being an illiterate peasant farmer, he does not have any sort of title or deed to it, and in fact is merely leasing it from Don Diego, the literal and legal landowner, so it's that much easier to take away from Tatay Juan on the slightest pretext. It just came to be identified as "Juan's land" because he (and Carding with him) have farmed it so long themselves and so far without incident—until Carding assaults Luis Castro, implied to be a pretty good excuse for Don Diego to retaliate by re-seizing it.[[/note]] Señor Dorado also orders the transfer of Carding's new ''bahay kubo'' because it's built on arable land, and will incur a crushing rent if it's not moved.

* CorruptBureaucrat: Señor Marcial Dorado, the overseer (administrator) of Don Diego Castro's ''haciendas''. One day he summons Tatay Juan and essentially takes his family's land away from him, giving it to one of their neighbours. Señor Dorado also orders the transfer of Carding's new ''bahay kubo'' because it's built on arable land, and will incur a crushing rent if it's not moved.

* CheerfulFuneral: The ''belacion'' (Filipino-Spanish for "wake") for Lucing's TragicStillbirth first child: there's singing, games, even "dancing because the deceased was a child", per the novel's exact words. She's puzzled why the village seem to be so cheerful, even when relatively upbeat funerals, more akin to "celebration of life" events, are common in traditional (even if Catholic-colonial) Philippine cultures—and her mother points out she's partied at other people's upbeat funerals without considering their families' losses too. Meanwhile, her own husband Carding is puzzled in the ''other'' direction as to why she seems to be making a big deal over a small death, though his mother-in-law nevertheless chides him for that too. And of course, all this only applies in peacetime: the many funerals to follow in the war's wake are appropriately sombre.

* ThTeBeautifulElite: The Spanish mestizo Luis Castro. Especially from Lucing's point of view, he looks every bit like an Iberian prince (she explicitly compares him to TheHero of the ''Ibong Adarna'' play), what with his light skin, relatively fair hair, [[CarpetOfVirility hairy limbs]], and pencil moustache. Still, he's not considered leaps-and-bounds handsomer than, say, Carding, whose own looks are very positively described (he's big, strong, muscular, richly browned from working in the sun, etc.).

* CheerfulFuneral: The ''belacion'' (Filipino-Spanish for "wake") for Lucing's TragicStillbirth first child: there's singing, games, even "dancing because the deceased was a child", per the novel's exact words. She's puzzled why the village seem to be so cheerful, even when relatively upbeat funerals, more akin to "celebration of life" events, are common in traditional (even if Catholic-colonial) Philippine cultures—and her mother points out she's partied at other people's upbeat funerals without considering their families' losses too. Meanwhile, her own husband Carding is puzzled in the ''other'' direction as to why she seems to be making a big deal over a small death, though his mother-in-law nevertheless chides him for it too. And of course, all this only applies in peacetime: the many funerals to follow in the war's wake are appropriately sombre.

* CheerfulFuneral: The ''belacion'' (Filipino-Spanish for "wake") for Lucing's TragicStillbirth first child: there's singing, games, even "dancing because the deceased was a child", per the novel's exact words. She's puzzled why the village seems to be so cheerful, even when relatively upbeat funerals, more akin to "celebration of life" events, are common in traditional (even if Catholic-colonial) Philippine cultures—and her mother points out she's partied at other people's upbeat funerals without considering their families' losses too. Meanwhile, her own husband Carding is puzzled in the ''other'' direction as to why she seems to be making a big deal over a small death, though his mother-in-law nevertheless chides him for it too. And of course, all this only applies in peacetime: the many funerals to follow in the war's wake are appropriately sombre.

* CheerfulFuneral: The ''belacion'' (Filipino-Spanish for "wake") for Lucing's TragicStillbirth first child: there's singing, games, even "dancing because the deceased was a child", per the novel's exact words. She's puzzled why the village seems to be so cheerful, even when relatively upbeat funerals, more akin to "celebration of life" events, are not uncommon in traditional (even if Catholic-colonial) Philippine cultures—and her mother points out she's been to other people's upbeat funerals without considering the loss their families are also going through. Of course, this only applies in peacetime: the many funerals to follow in the war's wake are appropriately sombre.

* ChristianityIsCatholic: Any formal religious rituals depicted are, of course, Catholic, though it's often heavily syncretised with practices left over from the precolonial past, such as the reliance on {{Witch Doctor}}s to cure illnesses believed to be caused by local spirits. A village priest marries Carding and Lucing, and the couple later mourn their TragicStillbirth first child with a typically rural-Catholic wake (which nevertheless allows for the guests to celebrate and hold festivities). They also have their second child baptised with a big and joyful fiesta in Calinog town.