Because they not only shaped out who are ancestors were and how they saw and explained the world, but they also talk about the genealogies of the people and how they are literally the children of the first deities themselves.

For example the Visayan creation myth. Now the myth slightly varies depending on the two Visayan groups the early Spaniards noted like Miguel de Loarca, who noted that there were two separate groups who all referred themselves as Bisaya. They were the people living along the coasts and those in the mountains and within those two groups there was even a couple of subdivisions you can say of each group.

In Loarca’s writings, he wrote down the creation myths that were told to him by the Visayans and how there was a separate but very similar myth between the Visayans living in the mountains and those along the coasts. The people in the coasts, the Yligueynes, have a creation story where there was originally only two deities, Kaptan and Magwayen, and where they came from no one knows. They married and from a reed that was planted by Kaptan came forth the first man and woman, Sikalak and Sikabay. They both married and had 2 children, Sibo the first son, and Samar, the daughter. They also both married and had a daughter name Lupluban, who Loarca says later on in the same manuscript regarding laws on mourning, war, weaving, etc. that their laws were given to the people by Lupluban herself and her son. Then Lupluban married her uncle, Pandaguan, the third and youngest child and second son of Sikalak and Sikabay. They had a son name Anoranor (who is the son I just mentioned that also gave the laws to the people) who also had a son name Panas, with a woman who Loarca didn’t mention the name of at this point. However Panas was said to be the first person who waged war and used weapons (which of course would be explained as the Visayans were described by many as a “warrior like race”) when he waged war on Mangaran because of an inheritance (there isn’t a mention of the relation of Mangaran and who his parents as far as I know of but I’m assuming he was Panas brother or cousin in regards to inheritance). With Pandaguan you get the explanation why people die and don’t come back and with Lupluban you also get the reason for concubinage and thievery.

Which is really interesting because you have this whole genealogy of the first ancestors of the coastal Visayans and explanations of why and how things happened.

And I typed in Filipinas to see, hoping, documents and manuscripts of the Philippines from the very early days of colonization from the 1500’s to the 1700’s (as the 1700’s people still had some traces of our precolonial cultures, beliefs, and practices).

And omg there are so many.

I can’t.

*grabby hands*

Mhm. Ya. Ok I think I’ll eventually start an online project with volunteers who want to help translate and write in HTML/Text format of the manuscripts.

And one I mean online project I mean making a website with a whole database and collection on manuscripts and texts on the Philippines.

Maybe get volunteers who can submit pictures of artifcacts from musuems like the Golden Tara in Chicago or the gold artifacts in Ayala.

Basically to put it simply an online library on texts and images concerning the Philippines and Filipin@’s.

Actually I would love it if there was an online library for Southeast Asia in general but thats an even bigger project so I’ll stick with the Philippines for now and let that big idea of an online library for Southeast Asia float in my mind and dreams for now.

They are reallyyy interesting and have some info I didn’t know before.

And as a Polytheistic Reconstructionist who is on an ongoing task of gathering new info for my spiritual path in reviving the old pre-Christian beliefs and practices from the Philippines I’m really enjoying this. :D

Wait they got married?!?!

The traditional pre-colonial way too?!?!

AHHHH.

WHY HAVEN’T I BEEN WATCHING THIS SERIES?!

I’M SOOOO FAR BEHIND. D:

When they come out with the dvd’s I’ll most likely watch it because I am wayyyy far behind in this series.

Like really behind.

I really only left off at the part when Rosa dies. And that was like months ago. I skipped around a few episodes to kinda of catch up and see what’s been going on and lurked at the Facebook pages for the series but that’s pretty much it.

But I reallyyyy need to watch the series entirely because the photo’s I see online is driving me crazy.

Same thing with Amaya too because I missed some episodes especially the ones when several characters died and I become lost on how they died.

Btw. Can I just say I’m reallyyy loving what Jen is wearing. What everyone is wearing and the kids.

Can we start making and reviving these traditional clothes to wear please. Because honestly I would wear them for every formal occasion idc.

Bring back our pre-colonial clothing please.

We are currently at 17 deities and counting! (Minus Magayon who is the only fictional deity and 4 others who are based on a modern addition of the Visayn creation story or is a deity that was influenced from the Sto. Nino)

I mean there are some inaccuracies such as Lalahon for example who is just so very, very, very, wrongly depicted because she isn’t even a fire and volcano Goddess or has anything to do with it other than her abode being Mt. Kanlaon that bears her name, but she was a supreme goddess associated with harvest whose other name is Laon (so basically in the show they both have Lalahon and Laon who they depict as two separate deities but are actually the same). Then there is the Santonilyo which is obviously a deity influenced from the Sto. Nino (baby Jesus), and isn’t an indigenous deity. Also the fact Lidagat and Lihangin aren’t actual deities that were worshiped as there are no mentions of them in historical records. Their names first popped up in John Maurice Miller’s 1904 Philippine Folklore Stories through his own addition of the Visayan creation story that was recorded by those of Alcina and Loarca that was told to them by the people particularly the older generations who still had their indigenous knowledge. In his story he adds a “rebellion” of the children of the deities Kaptan and Magwayen, who are reported in accounts of the Visayan creation story, based on the Spanish records of the creation story being a marriage between the sea and land breeze (which in some accounts it was Kaptan and Magwayen). So in this case those two shouldn’t exist along with Liadlaw.

The others are pretty much portrayed more or less accurate enough,with the exception of Magayon, who is already stated to be the only deity the producers created themselves just for the purpose of the show.

However despite some of the inaccuracies in the show regarding the old Visayan deities I actually applaud them for doing all this because being someone who has been Pagan since I was 11 and eventually becoming a Polytheistic Reconstructionist for 2 1/2 years now based on the indigenous beliefs of the Philippines in particular of the Visayas and Tagalog regions, seeing the deities I actually work with and pay my respects to being brought to life makes me smile. The way it also has shown to Filipin@’s that we have our own pantheons, and its not just the Visayans as the Tagalogs, Ilocanos, and Kapampangans for example have their own as well, that we can be proud of. We have all grown up learning and most likely being fascinated by other mythologies and pantheons such as the Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Roman, Celtic, Japanese, etc. but majority of us don’t, or didn’t considering shows like Amaya and Indio that has brought our mythologies to light, know that we even had our very own.

Looking at my tracker on the Pinoy-Culture blog and of phrases and keywords the people search up in search engine sites like Google and Bing I see a lot of people have found the blog by searching up those certain deities like Magwayen or Pandaki for example. I have seen people just within a day look up “animist in Philippines” or things like “precolonial religion Philippines”. Which again makes me smile because people are becoming interested in our mythologies and pantheons which to me is awesome.

Though I will admit that along with the inaccuracies especially with Lalahon/Laon, there are other things that I don’t particularly like in how they portray the deities but *shrug*, I can’t really complain really because this is the first like this where they are actually bringing our old deities to light and into the knowledge of the public through a primetime tv series.

A lot of those Spanish records in the archives are still not researched and evalualated unlike famous ones like records by Morga, Loarca, Legazpi, Pigafetta, Plasencia, Salazar, Chirino, and Alcina. Most of those are also documents that have been translated into English during the U.S. colonial era from the original Spanish written documents and despite being secondary sources where occasionaly there are mistranslations from the original Spanish to English text many Filipin@ historians choose to read from those English documents than the Spanish.

Here is what many people don’t know. Yes a lot of information was lost during World War II. However many are still here, in the archives in the Philippines as well as Spain. Despite colonization under Spain they are not “evil” as how the U.S. tried to make Spain as in the minds of Filipin@’s during the U.S. colonial period.

Yes we were colonized by Spain. Yes there was a lot of injustices toward us by Spain. However Spain kept and wrote many records of the people and islands. Our history is in those records. Our history is in Spanish. Unless we find more documents like the Laguna Copperplate that were written by us prior or during the Spanish rule, our primary sources whether we like it or not are in Spanish and written by them. Most of what we know of our past is by going through those documents.

Now like I mentioned above, the sad thing is that many historians for some reason or another don’t want to look into and read those Spanish documents, they would rather read them through the eyes and filters of American historians. They would rather read the English translations of the Spanish records, the few that have been translated and looked at, and get our history from them rather the primary sources themselves. (As you can see in the case of Indio and Amaya with some things you can see in both series where the historians used refrences from the Blair and Robertson English translations of several documents, instead of the actual Spanish sources)

In the Philippines National Archives there are still a whole lot of records, maps, and documents that have yet to be looked at. Again there are at least 13 million documents in the archives. 13 million. And that’s just documents during the more than 300 years of Spanish colonial rule. There is plenty of more afterwards but since I am more focused during the pre-colonial and early days of the Spanish colonial period toward from the late 1500’s to 1800’s I’m focusing on that time period of history.

As someone who is this close to wanting to become a historian herself, it would be a privilege to read, go through, and study those documents and primary sources and bring them to light. It’s probably the only reason I actually want to learn Spanish now just for that purpose because again whether we like it or not our primary sources of history is written in Spanish, not English or any of the languages in the Philippines minus maybe a few.

What? And I missed that?

And apparently from what I’m hearing they fucked up?

Um.

What episode is this? The latest one? I’m behind in like two episodes so which one?

Like what?

*Goes to watch.*

Then I’ll make a critical review of the portrayals.

Because apparently.

The tikbalang was just…what?

Ya. Ok. Time to watch.

And I just stopped half way through several paragraphs because honestly I’m just not in the right mood to get into that whole debate.

All I will say is though all these confusing labels that has pretty much messed us up identity wise?

Invented by colonialism. That is all.

Did you know the Philippines was all labeled as either a part of Polynesia, Oceania, Pacific Islands, then Southeast Asia at one point during the events of over almost 400 years of colonialism? And y’all wonder why we have so many “identities”.

And if a white person or another Asian person who is not Filipin@, or hell anyone who just isn’t Filipin@ tells you, that you are using the wrong terminology to label and identify yourself as, whether it be, no you aren’t Asian you are Pacific Islander, or no you are Hispanic, I say fuck every one of them.

The only people who have the right to identify you is you. The only people who have the right to identify us is us.

I identify as Filipin@-American of Tagalog and Akeanon ethnicity. I identify as being Southeast Asian. I identify as being Austronesian.

That is it.

I don’t identify as Hispanic. I don’t identify as a Pacific Islander. I don’t identify as Malay.

And don’t tell me how I or any one of my people on how to identify ourselves “correctly” and that we are fuckin wrong.

Currently making GIF’s! ~

I’m finding my new hobby right now haha. But ya, sneak preview on what I’ll be posting this week. For those who have followed me and Pinoy-Culture for a long time now you should know what series this is.

But if you don’t here is the post on it.

I’m having so much fun doing these my god someone help.

I pretty much know how the chapters is going to go and came up with a title for the book. *nods head*

Time to bring out some cookies and lots of coffee for the night.

Here is a bit of what will be in the book.

·         Tattoo’s

·         Ethnic Groups and Languages

·         Clothing

·         Goldwork

·         Music

·         Rites of Passage

·         Literature

·         The Bakla, Bayoguin, Asog, etc.

·         Dances

·         Baybayin and other scripts.

·         History (Pre-colonial)

·         History (Spain)

·         History (U.S.)

·        The colonial mentality among many Filipin@’s today.

·        The importance of the preservation of our heritage and cultures.

There’s a lot more other content but that’s just a bit of it. When will I finish writing it? Most likely the end of the year or sometime next year. I’m trying to get my hands on scans of old photos, pages from documents, and illustrations depicting certain things for a visual aid to certain descriptions as well for those of you, like me, who like visual stimulation as well in books.

akopito:

Hinilawod is an epic poem written by the early inhabitants of a place called Sulod in central Panay Visayas, Philippines. The Term “Hinilawod” means Tales From The Mouth of The Halawod River”.

THE STORY:

When the goddess of the eastern sky Alunsina (also known as Laun Sina, “The Unmarried One”) reached maidenhood, the king of the gods, Kaptan, decreed that she should marry. All the unmarried gods of the different domains of the universe tried to win her hand to no avail. She chose to marry a mortal, Datu Paubari, the mighty ruler of Halawod.

Read More

Like seriously.

I’m looking at this whole thing and having grabby hands but sadly there isn’t an English translation of the whole book (at least I know of) so I am in need of a translator.

So yes. Who speaks fluent Spanish and wants to help translate this long ass list?

119 pages of it.

*grin*

By the way the book is called Diccionario Mitologico de Filipinas by Fernando Blumentritt.

Which of course all depend on the ethnic group and language but the term Anito is found everywhere in the Philippines.

Now from what I read in Virgil Apostol’s book, Way of the Ancient Healer: Sacred Teachings from the Philippine Ancestral Traditions, the root words for “anito” is the Proto-Austronesian word “ani” which means “spirit”, “soul”, and the Malay word “to” or “toh”, meaning “resident of the head”. And in many Austronesian beliefs there is a belief of the spirit residing in the head thus in the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia you see headhunting traditions of cutting off the heads of your enemies because that’s where the soul was believed to be in.

Now we have the word Anito. And “ani” is a the root word for spirit in many of the Austronesian languages right? Now Virgil Apostol describes the second part of Anito, “to” as deriving from a Malay root word. But what if it isn’t? Or hell maybe it is but it can mean something else in particular with the people of the Philippines?

Well in the Philippines, many languages, in particular the Visaya’s and Mindanao, the word and root words for belief or to believe is “túo”.

Pagtúo in Cebuano (and a few other Visayan langauges) means “to believe”, “religion”.

Tu-o in Akeanon means to worship.

Tuo-tuo means superstition.

Pagtuo in Hiligaynon  means belief, doctrine

So what if Anito can also mean “The belief in the spirit/s”?

Now I’m just seeing this through a Visayan PoV and I am in no way a linguist familiar with all the root words and languages throughout the Philippines, but still I find that interesting considering Anito can also be spelled as Anituo, Anitou, though Anito is the most common spelling.

Now why do I bring this up?

Well Anito is the name for the collective indigenous beliefs of the Philippines considering it’s a term found throughout the archipelago meaning pretty much the same thing in involving the spirits and ancestors and in some ethnic groups anito also includes the deities, but for the most part the term Anito refers to spirits and ancestors with Diwata referring specifically to the deities. But regardless of the variant usage between the ethnic groups, Anito is a term found everywhere.

Now, considering I am a Polytheistic Reconstructionist following and practicing the indigenous beliefs of the Philippines, in particular of the Visaya’s and Tagalog regions, the name of this Recon path is Anito (as a few others have also choosen to refer to as their path)

Now, based on what I said above, for me at the very least, Anito can also mean “The belief in the spirit/s, ancestors”.

Of course, for those who are more knowledgeable in Filipin@ languages than I am and would like to correct me, or maybe add in your own thoughts, feel free to do so.

Ah sorry for answering this a couple days late but yes you mean this one? The book is called Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino -/ American Postcolonial Psychology by E.J.R. David.

There is another book prior to this that is the original but it’s not being printed anymore and this newer edition is pretty much the same book as the original however what’s new is that it has new commentaries from various scholars and leaders from the Filipino community.

You can buy the book here.

And I think the book doesn’t have to just be read by Filipino’s either, it can be a good read for anyone who is decolonizing and trying to get rid of colonial mentality, internal oppression, and pretty mush it is a book on decolonization and what colonization has done to the minds of those who were colonized that has shaped them psychological wise.

The author who is Filipino himself is a psychologist whose main studies are of colonial mentality and internalized oppression with not just Filipino’s but other groups of people that have been colonized, which his site is dedicated to all that.

http://www.colonialmentality.com/

So ya I highly recommend it.