Wala Lang
We now call them superstition and idols, but the practices and images we now dismiss were once part of our belief system. Ancient Filipinos’ fears and hopes were formed by their surroundings. They lived in settlements along rivers teeming with caimans or in villages surrounded by thick and dark forests. They had neither anti-biotics nor anesthesia. It would have been all these that made our ancestors call on the spirits of their departed elders and the good spirits that provided them the fruits of land, sea, and sky.
AGE OF MYSTICS - The constellation Orion (Google Images)
Ancient Tagalogs knew the creator of everything, a supreme being, as Badhala, the name they also gave to comets. To Bicolanos, Badhala was a good spirit, a kind of guardian angel. Each group came to believe in the good and bad spirits of their place, in explanations for thunder, rainbows, the shape of mountains and lakes, the appearance of balatik (the belt of Orion) and moroporo (the Pleiades), perhaps passed down from mother to curious child.
Spanish friars arrived in the late 1500s to make indios Catholic and recorded the pagan practices and superstitions that they sought to replace. Ferdinand Blumentritt, the Austrian (Czech) scholar friend of Jose Rizal, compiled the findings of some of those early missionaries and collated them with his own research as of the end of the 19th century. Here is a sampling of Blumentritt’s work:
Anito. Among Tagalogs, the souls of ancestors invoked and worshiped on all occasions. There were anitos of homes, cemeteries, mountains, and other places. Those at home were the souls of the owner’s deceased parents and grandparents. Those in cemeteries and mountains were the souls of warriors buried there. Home images were likhâ or idols that had two crocodile fangs set in gold meaning that the soul of the dead had entered a crocodile.
Añgalo. Among pre-Hispanic Ilocanos, he was a giant who created the world on order of the supreme god. He shaped the hills of Luzon, made the ocean salty, lighted the sun, moon, and stars. The thunder was his voice and rainbows were his G-string.
Asuang. A nocturnal demon that takes the form of a dog, cat, bird, or other animal. It targeted abandoned children and solitary pedestrians. With its long black and silk-like flexible tongue, it sucked out the fetus from pregnant women. The evening bird tiktík announced through song that an asuang was near.
The giant’s pre-Hispanic name has been lost and he has been called Bernardo Carpio. He was either trapped between or keeping apart two big rocks in the mountains of Montalban just outside Manila or lies asleep in a cave awaiting the time when he can deliver Tagalogs from oppression. His movements caused earthquakes.
Balatik. The three bright stars that form the “belt” of the constellation Orion, the hunter.
AGE OF MYSTICS - A balete tree in Lazi, Siquijor (Wikipedia Commons)
Baliti or Balete. A tree held as sacred. Newly married couples brought offerings and people burned incense before it. Ash (not necessarily of the incense) was scattered at the door of the house of a person who died in order that the path his soul takes may be traced.
Boñgô or bonggô. A demon of early Bicolanos that wandered in forests at night. It looked like an ugly black man and could throw fire from its eyes.
Diwatà. Among Visayans, deities, whether good or evil, equivalent to anito in Luzon. Among the Tirurays of Cotabato, it was an eight-headed fish living at the center of the sea.
Hokloban or Matandàng Hukluban. Sorcerer or shaman among Tagalogs, an old sage who was respected and whose advice was sought.
Kakap. Among the rural folk of Tayabas, a demon in the form of a thin elusive man-eating and chicken-stealing shadow that slipped through floor cracks.
Mangagauay. Witch doctors who delivered potions and rituals that pretended to cure but did the opposite. To prolong life, they would bind a live snake around the waist of the sick.
Magtatangál or mananangál. A demon that hid its head and innards early and roamed during the night. At dawn it returned and reassembled itself.
Nono or nunò. Literally grandfather, it was the name given to ancestral spirits, to ancestors in general, and to crocodiles. The spirit of a person devoured by a crocodile (they were aplenty in lakes and rivers then) remained in the reptile and was accordingly revered. People brought offerings to be safe from harm. Fishermen would throw their first catch as an offering called panangyatang among Ilocanos. Tagalogs and Pampangos believed in nunò, land spirits in the form of ancients known as nunò or matandâ sa punsó, to whom offerings were made of food without salt.
Tigbalang or tikbalang. A monster described as having the face of a cat with a flat head and a thick beard, and was hairy all over. It is also described as having a head and legs like a horse. A fast runner, its legs were so long that when it squat, its knees projected above the head. They were in forests, lurking in trees.
Tigmamanukin or tigmamanók. A sacred bird (identified as the while-collared kingfisher) whose song was ominous. It was so considered because crocodiles allowed the birds to clean the crocodiles’ teeth.
Yaua or Yawa. A demon of the early Visayans.
Note: This article was based on Ferdinand Blumentritt (Jordan Clark, ed.), Diccionario Mitológico de Filipinas with English Translations (High Banks Entertainment Ltd, 2021).
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