January 21, 2025 • 58 mins
In this podcast, we explore the rich tapestry of Filipino folklore, examining how it has been perceived across generations and its relevance in modern society. We delve into the fascinating creatures of folklore and the deeper meanings they represent. Raphy shares her personal experiences growing up in the Philippines until the age of 11, reflecting on how these stories and traditions have shaped her life and perspective.
✨Speaker Bio (Raphy Mendoza)
Raphy Mendoza is the founder of Co-Create, where she offers 1:1 coaching and a community membership to empower artists to prioritise their creative pursuits - with no apology - and be seen and loved for the art that matters to them.
Believing that art, music, dance, and poetry speak to the deepest part of humanity—our spirit—Raphy supports creatives to overcome self-doubt and bring their hidden works into the world. From dusty canvases to forgotten demo files, Raphy ensures that these treasures are shared, enriching us all.
For more on Raphy’s work, visit co-create.space
We Mention:
👉 Raphy discusses the Filipino graphic novel and Netflix series Trese. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/VOdIAzH7Ykg
👉 Photo credits to The Aswang Project.
Additional Insights:
Golgotha, meaning “place of the skull,” is a New Testament reference to the site of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Recommended Books:
📌 Alternative Alamat: Stories Inspired by Philippine Mythology
Edited by Paolo Chikiamco. Contemporary retellings of traditional Filipino myths with a modern perspective.
📌Philippine Folk Literature Series
Edited by Damiana L. Eugenio. A comprehensive collection of myths, legends, epics, and folktales.
📌Philippine Folk Tales
Compiled by Mabel Cook Cole. Traditional stories from Philippine ethnic groups.
📌Filipino Popular Tales
Edited by Dean S. Fansler. A diverse anthology of Filipino folktales.
📌Philippine Myths, Legends, and Folktales
Authored by Maximo D. Ramos. A collection of mythological and folkloric narratives from across the Philippines.
Further Reading:
Explore Filipino folklore through academic resources and collections like Google Books and Wikipedia.
Moonbeam Musings is a podcast that weaves together the magic of myths, traditions, and cultures from around the world. Hosted by Filzie, the show explores topics like folklore, spirituality, and the intersections of history and modern-day practice. Each episode invites listeners on a journey into the unknown, featuring thought-provoking conversations with experts, practitioners, and storytellers who share their unique perspectives and experiences. Whether it's Celtic traditions, Filipino folklore, or the mystical connections between nature and humanity, Moonbeam Musings uncovers the threads that bind us to our roots and to each other.
Connect with me:
Insta: @filzie
YouTube: @moonbeammusings
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Hi everyone, and welcome tomoonbeam musings, where we talk
about all things, myths,mysteries and cultural belief
systems. Today, we have ourguest Rafi Mendoza, who is the
founder of CO create. CO createoffers one to one, coaching and
community membership for artistsand creatives, encouraging
artists to put their art intothe world with no apology and to
(00:29):
be seen for their art. Welcome,Rafi, hi. And today, really
interestingly, we're going to betalking about Filipino folk law,
because originally, you wereborn in the Philippines, and
it's quite interesting how thefolklore affects people on a day
to day basis, but also how itwas ingrained culturally over
the years as well. So thank youfor joining us.
(00:54):
Thank you for having me. I'mreally excited to talk about
this because, yeah, it's one ofthose kind of like strange and
wonderful things about theFilipino culture that I don't
think it's talked about a lot,particularly, I think you know
when we when you first of all,for a while, the Philippines
wasn't even in the on the map.
And like, when I first came tothe UK, I was 11 years old, so
that would have been like, maybe2022, 23 no 2002 or 2003 and and
(01:15):
I would tell people where I wasfrom, and they would be like,
where's that? That's not aplace. And so it's less it's a
bit more known now. And, and Ithink the culture, the Filipino
culture, is becoming known inthe West, largely through food.
And you know, if you look onYouTube, if you type in
(01:38):
Filipino, the next word thatcomes up is cuisine or food or
street food or something, andthat's certainly a big part of
the Filipino culture, and of anyculture. But one thing that
isn't spoken about a lot is theFilipino Folklore. And there's a
couple of, I can't remembertheir names, but there's a
couple of American YouTubers, Ithink, or who have gone to the
(02:01):
Philippines to try and makesense of Filipino Folklore and
how it's seen and experienced byFilipinos who live there, and
they all come away making lesssense of it than the than than
they had before. So, so it's,it's an interesting
conversation. In any case,amazing. Thank you. So let's
(02:24):
start off, if you can provide usan overview of the key themes
and elements found in Latinofolklore,
yeah. I mean, when we sayfolklore, it's a really big is a
really big thing, because we'renot just talking about the
commonly known creatures, whichyou the academics refer to as
(02:46):
the creatures of lowermythology. So that would be like
the kind of, like horror basedcreatures that are often talked
about and is often depicted inFilipino cinema. Then you've got
creatures of the highermythology, which are like the
spirits and the gods in thefairies, and they have a neutral
relationship with human beings,as opposed to the underworld
preacher, who are way moreinteresting, but also way
(03:08):
creepier. And then there's alsothe kind of roots of that, which
is Filipino Phillipa, Filipinoancient history, which is pre
colonial stuff. There's not alot of written history before,
before colonialism, because we,you know, a the places, the
places are, there's anarchipelago. So there's lots of
different islands with lots ofdifferent cultures. But one
(03:29):
thing that kind of did tie themall together, in some way, was
animism, which is a spiritualbelief that everything,
everything that you can see,everything in nature, has
spirits and and and it's thatrelationship in worship of the
spirit that's in everything thatis the key, as opposed to a
deity where there's a God orseveral gods. And from there you
(03:52):
can you can see how the kind ofthe folklore emerges with all
these variants of creatures andand spirits and monsters and and
things that we're going to talkabout, and also how it kind of
blends with Catholicism, whichcame after the Spanish. I call
(04:13):
it an invasion because it was,and they were there for about
500 years, and so, you know,it's a kind of you couldn't get
away with whatever they werebringing part of which was
Catholicism.
Okay, so previously, some of thenames of the the higher
mythology would be the likes ofthe anito and the battler. Is
(04:37):
that the bright pronunciation,no, but you're doing better than
most of Anita is like spirits,but they're also kind of like,
there's like spirits in general,but then you would also have
like, your personal Anita, whichis like your ancestry, the
spirits of your ancestors, okay?
And so you're always walkingaround with this, like, with all
(04:57):
of this behind you and aroundyou, yeah? And people use like
prayer, like other cultureswould use prayer with how would
they? How would you communicatewith these, especially your
ancestors? I mean,it, yeah, it really depends. It
just It depends on whichprovince. It depends on which
part of the Philippines you'retalking about. It depends on
your own ancestry. So, forexample, if you were living in a
(05:18):
COVID, and you're quite separatefrom city of and civilization,
and you would still be livingprimarily in relationship with
nature. You'd be living in hutswith a small village. You might
not necessarily be going to atraditional school. The stuff
comes out the same. That's whatyou eat. You know that. That's
the culture. And within thosevillages, there's often a witch
(05:43):
doctor or a healer. And ifyou're that person, you would
have come from a lineage ofhealers, whether that's by blood
or by apprenticeship. And how,if you were one of if that was
your calling, if that was yourvocation, how you would
communicate with the spiritswould be within the tradition
that you were taught as a layperson. You would be influenced
(06:04):
by the villages witch doctor.
And if you didn't live in avillage, if you lived in Manila,
you might not have arelationship with these spirits
at all. You might be quitewesternized in your thinking,
and you might so and in adifferent tribe, and I certainly
haven't seen most of them, theremay be more of a ritual around
(06:24):
it, and more of a more of aceremony. And maybe the
communication with the spiritsare through talismans that you
carry around with you, or analtar, and there's a ritual
around it, and there may bechant and certain invocations of
spirit, or it could be reallysubtle, where you know there's
just a certain way of being thatyou are when you enter parts of
(06:48):
the forest or parts of the partsof nature and you approach
things with a certain reverence,or you approach herbs and
medicine with a certainreverence. So yeah, it's a
difficult question to answer,because the Philippines isn't
one place, and it's not oneculture, in a way,
(07:08):
if you've got the highmythology, as you mentioned
before, and then I don't knowwhether you want to talk any
more about them, you said they'dput ancestors or anything else
around the sort of the gods, ifyou could,
yeah. I mean, you'd have thegods. I mean, you know, it's, I
don't actually know a hell of alot of the higher mythology,
because the I just had moreexposure to the as well as I was
(07:33):
growing up. But the Bucha willwill be gods, and usually
they're gods of nature and godsof the elements. So I suppose
it's not too dissimilar fromGreek mythology. When you know,
you've got Zeus, the god ofthunder, and you've got, you
know, Dionysus, yeah, exactly,yeah. And, and so I don't think
there's quite as many, or Idon't know if there are the
(07:55):
direct links. And the gods alsooften appear in different animal
shape shifting forms thatthere's like the Bucha now,
which is the Dragon God thateats the moon, which is actually
just the Eclipse and and there'sa lot of kind of academic debate
as to whether that comes fromoriginal Filipino mythology, or
whether that was an influence orChinese or Japanese culture. So
(08:20):
I don't know a great deal aboutI'm certainly not academically
read in all of this. I'm kind ofjust sharing my own experience
of these kind of like conceptsand ideas and creatures and
beliefs that I was exposed as Iwas growing up. Yeah.
Well, let's move on to that,because it is interesting. So
let's talk more about theashwang who pronounced that
correctly as one, that's one,yeah, about, you know, just a
(08:43):
little bit about what they are,and then, and then moving on to
so maybe some examples from yourown life, or what you understood
them to be, or how it may haveinfluenced you.
Yeah. So the word as one itselfis interesting because it refers
to both a particular type of ashape shifting creature, which
(09:04):
is often female in appearance,and it's a monster. These are
not benevolent beings, and itlives, or she lives among
humans, but she's not human, andshe has the power to curse, to
curse people, and she has thepower to shape shift as well and
(09:27):
become, you know, a monstrouscreature that attacks people and
animals. And it's also the wordas well. It's also used as an
umbrella term for a variety ofdifferent creatures as well. So
there's and which one it iswould whether someone's talking
(09:49):
about as well as the individualcreature or as well as an
umbrella term, would also dependon who you're talking to and
where they're from, Philippines.
So for example. Take the tick,I'm going to say it wrong, the
thick valu, yeah, that would bean example. That would be an
example of one man. Girl wouldbe an example of one a Capre
would be an example of one and,and those are like, kind of like
(10:15):
in the China as well. They'reall kind of like Monster, like
creatures. So, for example, youasked about the big violence
that's a like horseman. He showsup as the body of a man, a male
man, and the head of a horse andthe so that would be, in other
(10:36):
cultures, that would be called acento. Yeah,
although a cento is usually thebody and head of a man, the
horse or head of a man, andthen, like the body in the legs
of a horse. So this is inreverse. Wow. Okay, and I don't
know why, why it's certainlyquite less attractive, I would
say. And yeah, it's whatwas the question? No, sorry I
(11:02):
was asking. Yeah, no, I justintervene there. So I'm trying
to kind of make a comparison tounderstand these different these
different creatures. Yeah, thesecreatures are ultimately half
and half of things,and not all of them, not all of
them. But like, okay, so like,let's take them, like, one by
one, and I'll just do like, anoverview of
(11:23):
each Yeah, maybe like, three ofthem, so we can get a feel for
what whatthey are, yeah? So, like, so,
okay, so the tech by Lang is, isa half horse, half human, almost
Central, like, but in reverse.
So you've got the a horse top,the top part of the body is a
horse. You've got a horse'sheads and a man's body. Usually
it's quite muscular, quiteheinous and but like, you know,
(11:44):
quite a very masculine energyand it and there's an argument
about whether he's truly evil orwhether he's more of like a
joker and more of a jester,because one of the things that
he likes to do, particularly tooutsiders of a village or of a
region, is to lead them astray.
So if you were to go in theforest or into the woods, he
will make sure that you get lostand that you go round and round
(12:07):
and round in circles. And hesaid, to be sitting, you know,
to be hiding behind trees,watching you and having a good
laugh. And one of the myths is,if you if you are lost in the
woods, and you suspect that thisis the work of a tech Vala. Is
how to take your shirt off andturn it inside out and put it
back on again, and then you'llbreak the cast, and then you can
come out of the woods. So thisis one of those superstitions
(12:30):
that come along with him. Andone of the other superstitions
is, if you look in the sky, andyou can see that in half of the
sky it's raining heavily, andthen the other half, it's sunny,
which in the Philippines isquite uncommon, but in the UK,
it's like a daily phenomenon.
But if that were to happen, thenit said that the tech talent are
(12:50):
having a wedding party. And sothese are some of the kind of
like the myths and thesuperstitions that come along
with this creature and and thenthere's a debate of whether you
know he's, he's evil, or if heor if he's, if he's just a
joker. There's also a debate onwhether he's a protector or
whether he's a predator. And soit kind of depends on who you
(13:13):
talk to, you know, depending onwhere they come from, which
village they grew up in, andalso who they are personally.
Because within families youhave, you know, you have
variations of all of thesemythologies, which probably
explains why people leave, likeunderstanding less about this
than when they came, becausethere's not one agreed reality
about any of them. No,no, okay, I guess with going
(13:34):
back to that wedding party,that's really interesting. Is it
because it's believed that,because there's a wedding, that
he's made it funny for that partwhere there's a wedding
or No, it's nothing thatlogical, okay? It just is.
That's just, that's just what,okay, get to understand that,
yeah, as far as I understand, Imean, you know, some academic
(13:56):
might have dug into it deeper,but I really don't, I don't
think that's a logic. It's justthat's just what you're told,
and you acceptit. Okay, fair enough.
And should I tell you aboutanother one? Yeah, I do like
these guys. So that's the manis, and she's, I think. So I'll
explain what she is, and I'llexplain why, why she's my
(14:19):
favorite, and what, what I thinkshe represents, which is, by no
means, like, you know whateverybody thinks, but it's kind
of how I see her mythology. Soshe's a woman, often like a
single maiden woman, a youngwoman who's usually quite
beautiful in human form, andenjoying the day, that's what
she is. And at night, she goesinto the woods and her top the
(14:43):
top half of her body and thelower half of her body
separates, and she grows wings,and then her upper half flies
around in the night, and sheenjoys attacking pregnant women
and eating their unwanted. Ginand also the entrails of men.
(15:05):
And then she comes back, shereattaches herself to her lower
half of her body, and then shegoes back to, you know, society,
and becomes a human being in inthe day. And it's said that if
you are in the woods in thenight and you come across the
lower half of her body, youshould put salt on it, and when
she comes back, she won't beable to reattach. And if she's
(15:27):
still separated by the time thatthe sun rises, she'll she'll
burn and disintegrate and die.
So that's the myth around her,and she's also often depicted as
a young woman who's beenheartbroken by a man, and
whether it's through unrequitedlove or being betrayed, usually
the lads are. And what I findinteresting about that part of
(15:49):
the depiction, which in mostmovies and most representations,
it's a minor detail, is to me,she represents like the
collective wrath of womeneverywhere, who you know, who
have experienced not just thebetrayal of, you know, in
romance, but it's just a generalkind of suppression of of female
power. And it through thatsuppression, it becomes kind of
(16:10):
corrupted into this, you know,kind of vengeful being and
vengeful energy that that's twosided on one hand, beautiful
young lady during the day and amonstrous creature in the
evening. And the thing is thatboth, both are true, you know.
And there's one interesting playthat I came across a long time
ago that depicted the story ofof a woman who was betrayed by
(16:33):
by a man she was living in thepoor she was having this quite
simple, primitive life, she fellin love. Which I would, I think,
a Japanese, a Japanese soldierwho was there during the war.
She became pregnant. He betrayedher. He never showed up again.
He actually has a familysomewhere else. The war ended.
He's he left. She gave birth onher own, and was so distraught
(16:55):
and angry and confused and justher, and she ended up eating her
own baby, and then she becamethis creature. And that was the
origin of this, of the man andgirl. And that's fiction, you
know, that's like modern fictionto kind of create an origin
story about how this creaturecame to exist. But I thought
that was an interestinginterpretation of, like, well,
(17:17):
what? Why is it that thiscreature is particularly a
woman, and the symbolism ofbeing being cut in half, really,
so like the yin and the yang andthe, you know, the beauty and
the ugliness, the good and thebad light and the dark and,
yeah, so she's my favorite.
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting,isn't it? Because with a lot of
(17:40):
cultures, when there's a story,it's usually, quite often, it's
got a lesson to it. So I'mlooking at that, and I'm
thinking, what is, what is thelesson? Really,
don't fuck with women. It's thewhat I got. And, you know, I
mean, there is, there is a,probably something, you know
(18:00):
something about about theduality of human being that's in
there. Now, whether that was theoriginal intention of this, it's
so hard to say there's nothing,as far as I know, that's kind of
like written and recorded of thethe history of these things and
and that's why it's, I think,one of the reasons why it's hard
to get the ball of like, wheredid these myths come from, and
(18:23):
and, you know, and what, whatrole do they play, and what were
the lessons that they weretrying to teach? Is that you
can't, it's you can't quiterelate to them in the same way
that you relate to Greekmythology or nordic mythology.
Because in the West, we look atGreek mythology and we take it
for granted that it's a myth,and we take it for granted that,
you know their fables entails,and that there are lessons in
(18:45):
them, and that they aremetaphors for for life, whereas
in the Philippines today, 80% ofthe population believe in the
literal existence of thesecreatures. And so it's very
difficult to look at, okay,well, what lessons are they
teaching? Because so so many ofof the people who are exposed to
(19:08):
this just think they're real,like, there's no lesson in,
like, a tree existing because itjust exists. There's no lesson
in an iPhone, it's just it'sjust a phone, it just exists.
And so these things are relatedto in that way, as opposed to,
like myths and stories. It'slike these are creatures that we
live with in the forest, and youhave to be careful with
them. So for example, if youwere to be a pregnant woman,
(19:31):
would there be something you doto mitigate you
again? In some in some villages,they may they might be rituals
in some families wouldn't leavea pregnant woman to sleep on her
own, you know, there would, shewould always have somebody with
her at night. You know, shewould sleep with, you know, if
not her partner, her mother orher sister and and in fact,
(19:53):
having a female escort is, isusually safer. And so it has,
you know, you kind of. Womenkind of sticking together, and
and families are raised likethat, you know, like the nuclear
family of, you know, there beinga mother in a in a father and a
child, and and the belief thatwe need both mother and father
(20:16):
as role models, not that it'snot true in the Philippines, but
that's just less prevalent. Whatthe child needs is a village,
and you know, a whole colony ofadults who will share its
upbringing, and women definitelyplay a much larger role in that.
And it's all that fathers aren'timportant. But you know, when
it's in a less of a nuclearfamily situation, it becomes
(20:40):
less about mother and father,and it just becomes about
community. About community. Andso the community will protect
the woman, the present womanfrom the Master. Yeah, so. But
speaking of lessons, the lastone I'll talk about. And it's
(21:01):
also one of my favorites, is theNo no. So, which is no no is
like a dwarf, but in my mind, Ikind of see them more like as
many granddads and open so it'slike an anthill, or some kind of
like mud Hill. That's likenaturally occurring and so no no
sapon, so is the dwarf thatlives in these ant hills in in
(21:23):
the forest. And they'regenerally benign creatures, but
very wise. And if you go intothe forest, you have to recite
the chant in some consciousness,you know. And I was told to
recite the chance a chant thatessentially declares your
presence and asks them to pleasestep out of your way, because
(21:46):
you can't see them, they'reinvisible, and you don't want to
hurt them, and you don't want tohurt their homes. So please, you
know, excuse me as I'm passingthrough. And what's interesting
about that is the in the chant,it's left about, it's less about
asking for anything, but it'smore about declaring your
presence, and it's more aboutit's less about asking for
(22:07):
protection, and it's more aboutacknowledging that these
creatures live there, that thisis their home. And personally, I
take that even further. So it'snot just that the forest is
their home and these ant hillsare their literal houses, but
there are also custodians of theforest, which means the
custodians of the earth andtheir spirit and their their
being there and their existenceis to protect the land from
(22:30):
human destruction. And if youwere to not recite this chance
and you accidentally kicked oneof them, or you, you know,
kicked the anthill, or you fellover and destroyed something,
then they have the power to makeyou unbearably unwell. And even
and there have been stories ofpeople becoming unwell, and more
(22:53):
than Western doctors in thePhilippines have not been able
to solve the problem. And thewitch doctor would recommend
something like a like a ritual,or like an apology, like an
offering, going back to theforest to offer some food, to
offer something to this, tothese spirits, and that's the
only thing that would have curedthem. And there are many
stories, you know, demonstratingthat that works now, whether
(23:14):
it's true or not, or if it makesscientific sense, so there's,
there's a kind of more medicalexplanation as to what went on.
It's kind of besides the point.
I think there's something reallybeautiful about acknowledging,
you know that, yeah, likespirits live in the forest, and
we have to respect that. Andthere are people, there are
spirits that are there toprotect, to protect the Earth
from our own unconsciousness ashuman beings. Yeah? So, yeah,
(23:37):
you know. So, what are they evilif they make you I don't know,
but, I mean, if I were one ofthem, I would probably do the
same thing. I'd be pretty pissedoff if somebody came and just
like, kicked my house anddestroyed everything because
they were weren't thinking,yeah, so, so, yeah, that's,
(23:58):
that's three of the ones that Ican talk about. Thank
you. I think that's interesting.
How about the story of MariaMackin? How do you Maria?
Maria is, yeah, it's one of thekind of well known ones, but
it's only well known in thenorth. So that's why, I mean,
(24:19):
like Philippines, this is, likeone place and
and you're originally from yourfamily's originally from Manila.
My family's originally fromManila, but and my family, like,
you know, my direct relatives,they're not big believers in
this. They're, they're a bitlike, probably, they think that
these are mix, but would be, butthey wouldn't necessarily fight
(24:44):
against people who believe thatthese are true, either. So
they've maintained a kind ofmutual position, and I didn't
learn a lot about all of thisfrom my direct relatives, but
rather from my nanny, who camefrom a village called capis,
which is in Visayas. Which isfurther south of Manila, and
it's known to be the the capitalin the headquarters of all the
(25:05):
as well. And so she, shebasically gave me all of my
knowledge about these creatures.
And she didn't, she didn't teachthem to me, like, you know, like
as stories and as kind of, like,fun lessons. They were like,
don't go out because, becausethe marijuana guard will come
and eat you. Or, like, you know,yeah, they were kind of like,
(25:28):
told us, like a cautionary theywere cautionary tools to stop
you from doing dangerous thingsas a child, and because Marilla
is also, like, bereft of forest.
So that's also one of thereasons why most people think
that as one don't really go toManila, because there's nothing
interesting there for them. Justpossibly true. If I were one of
(25:52):
these nature spirits, I wouldnot come to Manila. I wouldn't
come to Manila. Now, anyway,either. So, but yeah, so what
was the question? Somethingabout
I was asking? No, that's good.
It's interesting. Thank you foryour background, because I think
it's important for people tounderstand your perspective. I
mean, you've been for many, manyyears now, but yeah, your
perspective of where you'rebrought up was in a specific
(26:13):
region is probably quiteimportant, because other people
may have a differentperspective. So my question was
around Maria mckilling, yeah. Idon't know whether
you want to tell that story,yeah. So Maria map healing is a
nature spirit, so she was knownas a diwata, which is a very, a
(26:35):
very beautiful being of light,really, like if you listen to
the word in the Filipino kind oflike dialect, you know, it has a
particular energy of being alight being almost like a star.
So she's a nature spirit, andshe's seen as benevolent but
also powerful, and certainly notsomebody that you want to piss
(26:55):
off. And she resides, and isnamed after a volcano called
Mount mahiling, which is inLaguna in the Tagalog region.
Tagalog is that is known as anational language, but actually
only a very small people speakit in the north, in Manila and
surrounding areas. And that'sworth noting, because that area
(27:18):
the North is where the Spanishhad settled. And with Manila
being an archipelago, there's awell, there's a distinct
Filipino. This the really, theall the different islands really
have its own culture and its ownhistory and its own original
tribes. And so when, when theSpanish came and settled in the
more northern part, that's whereCatholicism was most integrated.
(27:42):
It did filter down to theVisayas region as well. But
interestingly, in Mindanao,which is the Southern, most
southern part of thePhilippines, it's primarily
Muslim. And so the reason that'sinteresting is because Mariama
healing symbolizes protection,nurturance and generosity, and
she's Mother Earth and yet, andher name is, you know, with
(28:03):
Maria and the clothes that she'soften represented in, which is,
like these kind of, like whiteclothing, dresses that's very
reminiscent of the Virgin Mary'sclothes, um, she's, she's often
dressed in white and blue. Andsimilarly, with Marianna killing
it's, it's often white, and onoccasion, more modern
interpretation, she's alsowearing blue. And so we can see
here, and she's also describedas, you know, a beautiful maiden
(28:27):
untouched by human corruption,which has the links with the
Virgin Mary and, you know, theImmaculate Conception and all of
this thing and that kind of likemother energy. And so we can see
how the Filipinos, instead ofrejecting Catholicism or
suppressing it, or negating theexistence of pre colonial
culture, which is this belief innature spirits, we kind of just
(28:48):
blended them, which is quitetypical in Filipino culture. In
as far as philosophicalconflicts go, they're just,
they're just simply dissolve,because you just, you know,
there's just a kind ofundesigning Acceptance of
anything. So, you know, ratherthan, and if you were to ask
somebody, well, animism and allof these creatures, wouldn't
(29:09):
they go against, you know, thebasic principles of Catholicism,
they wouldn't challenge you.
They wouldn't argue with you andsay, No, of course, it doesn't.
They would just say, yeah, it'spossibly conflict, conflicting,
but it's just not a problem,that it's a conflict, you know,
like it doesn't it's not aproblem that there appears to be
too, too opposing truth. Andyeah, so no, it doesn't make
(29:30):
sense, but that it doesn't makesense isn't a problem for us.
Oh, yeah. It's very difficult,isn't it, in the western world
to kind of comprehend that thelogic, I mean, a lot of my
questions are quite logical, andyet it's they can't answer them,
no, well,no, because that's the way the
cultures are kind of accept areally deep grain, acceptance of
(29:51):
these belief systems andmythology and all of
these people, they'll be.
They'll go to church as well.
Religiously, they'll go tochurch every Sunday and also
carry around talismans andrecite these chants as they go
in the woods and protect theirwomen from these creatures and
(30:12):
go to church in their dailylives. Yeah,
wow. Well, it's just difficult,because you know, when you come
from a different culture thatdoesn't make sense. But in that
culture It does, yeah, it'sabout community, and also about
community, yeah? And I thinkthat's
right, if there's, like, onekind of key attribute of the
(30:35):
Filipino culture is that it'svery community centric. Roberto
was, you know, it's like,community is everything,
yeah, so in terms of specificrituals and festivals, are there
any that are still practice thatyou know you want to talk about?
So there's one festival which isquite modern. It's a very modern
(30:58):
interpretation of and not eveninterpretation, but like a
celebration of the culture. AndI think it happened since the
boom, but it's in one of thebiggest cities outside of
Manila, where it's literallylike a parade. The whole city
gets involved, and everybodydresses up in costumes. And, you
know, there's this one, and thenthere's just like a parade,
there's a party, there's music,there's street food. It goes on
(31:20):
for like, 48 hours, non stop,and everyone's dressed in
whatever, as far as they choose.
So it's kind of like this,almost like a westernized
Halloween interpretation of afestival with a Filipino twist.
And so that's a modern thing.
And I think, I think a lot ofpeople, particularly the younger
(31:41):
generation, see it as acelebration and and I think a
lot of the older generation may,may see it as blasphemous,
because it's it could be seen asa disrespect of these, of these
spirits, or of these creatureswho are very powerful, and it's
a risky thing to be dressing upas them.
Okay, so we don't see it as acelebration of of them and in
(32:04):
honor of them. It's not done inhonor of them. It's me. I think
the younger, the youngergeneration and the people who
organize the festival would seeit as that. It's a celebration
of Filipino culture, and it's acelebration of these spirits.
But I think much of that is alsobecause the younger generation
are beginning to see thesecreatures as myths. They're
beginning to see these creaturesas stories that we were told as
(32:25):
children, whereas the oldergeneration still sees sees it
much more as like as itsreality. And so I think we are
having that transition betweenthe generations. And there was
also something that came outquite recently. This doesn't
really answer your questions,but I just came to mind. But
there's a something that cameup, an animation on Netflix
(32:47):
called Tres, and it, if you wantto learn about these creatures,
that's a really good energy wayto watch, because it's an
animation, and it has a kind oflike Japanese anime feel, almost
in the way that it's puttogether, not quite because it
came from, like a series ofgraphic novels written by a
(33:08):
Filipino who, I don't know thedetails, but I think it's
collaboration between somebodywho was living in the
Philippines, a Filipino livingin the Philippines, and the
Phillipa living in the US. Andit came out of a series of
graphic novels, and it wascreated into this, into this,
into an ethics series. Andthat's, you know, I see that as
a celebration of these creaturesand a celebration of this
(33:29):
culture, and a celebration ofour heritage as Filipinos, many
of whom have migrated all overthe world, particularly to the
US. And so that's the spirit inwhich I receive it, and I think
how it was intended. But I canalso imagine people who are of
the older generation, who whostill kind of hold these beliefs
(33:51):
and hold these superstitions andhold these creatures as kind of
pillars of their reality,almost, and their creatures of
their lives and everythingthey've done that they've grown
up may not receive it in thesame way, because, you know,
it's not, this isn't mythologythat we're celebrating. This is
the reality.
Yeah, I understand, understand,yeah. And there's various ways
(34:12):
of holding them, the beliefsystem, boarding them off, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So the various waysof holding office, one, as we're
told, in which are about crazyas to us among themselves. But
you know, so like in the West,we have vampires, and we just
rely on garlic, the what willthey move? But in the
Philippines, depending on whichvillage, which region, which
(34:33):
person, which family you talkto, you can use coins. You can
use rubber types. You can useslippers. You can use ginger.
You can use soy sauce. Itdepends on who you ask, and
there are things that you needto do to you know, rituals that
you can take to protect yourselfand to protect your home. And
the resourcefulness of thematerials that you can use also
(34:53):
speaks of the of the of theFilipino culture as well. And I
suspect that at some point. Waslike one ritual that you would
use. Maybe it was like thecoins, because they were silver
and copper, or something thatwould ward off these creatures.
And for lack of coins, becauseof poverty, you might just like,
choose something else, and thenthat gets translated into
something else, into somethingelse. But the power, the the of
(35:17):
these objects, ability to wardoff the spirits, remains the
same, even though, because,because that's just how it
happens. And so, yeah, say aboutthat. I mean, it really does
depend on who you ask, for sure.
And you mentioned somethingbefore about the senakula,
(35:39):
yeah, the senakulo, which islike, again, we kind of see,
like the Catholic influence inthe culture. The sinako is a,
kind of like a theatricalreenactment of the Passion of
the Christ, the crucifixion thatwe put on, on the streets, in
public, in, you know, in invarious regions during Easter,
(36:01):
and it's, you know, and the thereenactment is quite literal, so
there would be like, almostlike, a parade that mimics how
Jesus was paraded through thestreets in Jerusalem, wherever
it was, and and up until thepoint where he was nailed to the
(36:22):
cross, and all the peoplewatching, and Mary Magdalene
being there, and the other twocriminals that he was crucified,
crucified with in the threecourses, the whole thing is like
reenacted, like life in realtime during Easter. And people
do get literally nailed to thecross. There's like, a specific
way that you do it, you allowyourself to be nailed to the
(36:43):
cross if you were the actorplaying this part, and and
that's very much a Christiancelebration that you know that
has little to do with animism,and yet you can still see how
the ritualization of that andthe literality with which we
take, that those events happenin the way that they did
(37:04):
literally, and that our way ofcelebrating that is in a very
literal way. I think also speaksa little bit to the part of
Filipino culture that kind ofaccepts accepts realities and
accepts stories and acceptsmyths in a very literal way. And
(37:24):
that's literally what happened,you know, in in the same way
that that's one is real, JesusChrist, the Holy Spirit, the
Virgin Mary, were, were real.
Like, you know, there's no kindof um, taking it as symbols.
It's like Jesus Christ, deathwasn't symbolic. He died and
then he ascended and he wentback to God. Yeah, so, and
(37:47):
that's not in conflict at allwith the as well.
Yeah. So, so moving on to sortof how I think we've touched on
it, but how these myths andrealities, for some, influence
(38:11):
daily life. How do you feel yourown daily life was influenced by
Filipino Folklore. You know, inEngland, we have superstitions
like not walking under ladders.
And I will think about it everytime i i do walk under ladders,
every time I go to walk under aladder, I will think of the
superstition. Um, are there kindof daily beliefs that you feel
actually, if you think about it,they're still prevalent in your
(38:32):
life right now?
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting.
It's like when I think aboutlike, for instance, when I was
earlier, when I was talkingabout new lot of console, the
little granddads who live in anthills, you know? And you would
recite, you would recite thischant as you would walk through
the the forest. If I looked atit objectively, yeah, of course,
(38:53):
it's a superstition, right?
Like, How Could there really bethose beings living there? And
you're encouraged to recitethese trance so that you don't
get cursed and you don't becomeill. And that's a superstition.
And yet, at the same time, I do,even in non Filipino forests,
when I walk through the woods,like inside my head,
(39:14):
particularly when it's dark andI can't see where I'm going, I
would recite this superstition,either to myself or out loud,
because on this Tran, because itis a way of acknowledging that
there are spirits in the forest.
And personally, I would say thatthere are spirits in the forest,
and that's a reality for me, notnecessarily the man and girl,
not necessarily, you know, thetekbalan, but you know. And I
(39:35):
don't necessarily worship treesand you know, but they are,
they're alive. The woods arealive. And so, you know, if
things are alive, they havespirit, which I suppose, is the
core of animism and and so torecite this chant is an
acknowledgement in the respectof the beings that live there,
(39:56):
and an acknowledgement that, asa human being. In as human
beings. We don't own anything.
We don't own the earth, and toacknowledge that we're passing
through a shared space ispolite. I can't really think of
a word that like a better word,but it's like, it's just what
(40:18):
you would do. It's just notbeing a dick. Basically, like,
you know, but obviously, like,I'm not saying that everybody
who doesn't do this are beingdicks, but it's like, when you
if I really think about it, whatwere the lessons that I took
from these teachings? What werethe lessons that I took from
these superstitions that I wasgiven as a child? It's like no
respect the spirits of thepoorest
(40:39):
in a way. Do you think it's likebeing more mindful? You know, we
can, we can get in our heads,or, you know, not thinking of
the fairies, not really thinkingabout what we're doing. And in a
way, it's about whatever you'redoing being more mindful,
yeah, and like bringing aconsciousness to what you're
doing, you know, and it's likeyou could, and not that there's
(41:03):
any. There's nothing wrong withgoing for a walk in the forest
and just like being in your ownthoughts and just putting one
foot in front of the other. Andyou know, we will get incredible
benefits just from being in theforest, but while we're there,
getting those benefits, like,Isn't it worth acknowledging
that we're here for a time andthat we're passing through and
maybe there aren't tiny minigranddads living in ant hills
(41:24):
all over the place, and you'renot going to kick them and
they're not going to make youill. But Isn't it worth
acknowledging the spirits thatare there, whether they're going
to make you ill or not, and justsay, Hey, I'm passing through.
Have a nice day, you know? So Ican't remember what the original
question was. It was how thishas influenced you. And I think
(41:46):
we can hear, yeah, it'sinfluenced you throughout your
life, and some of the thingsthat you may do, like in the
forest, yeah. And I thinkthere's also something about,
you know, the there's aplayfulness. But all of it, you
know, if you know, if you lookup pictures and depictions of
these creatures, they lookhorrific. But I particularly
like the interpretation of thetech violin being a jester to
(42:07):
just kind of like, make you belost. And maybe that's something
that I kind of like, I, youknow, I have a fondness of,
because I do get lost all thetime, like, five minutes away
from my own house, like I getlost, and you know, this from
experience of being with me inany place, and it's like, and so
I that's a fondness that I havewith that interpretation of,
like, oh yeah, he's just kind ofbehind trees, like having a
(42:29):
laugh while you're lost, and youhave to turn your your T shirt
inside out so that you can findyour way back and and then maybe
some neuroscience to that, youknow, you're kind of
interrupting a pattern. Youknow, you're kind of stopping
what you're doing. You'restopping the search while you're
kind of honing in, and you'relike, seeing through a very
narrow lens, and you just dosomething ridiculous, and then
suddenly you can see,yeah, I relate to that, so my
(42:50):
sense of direction, yeah, thankyou. Yeah. That's great. Um, so
just, just a couple morequestions, really, do you think,
for example, some of theexamples of how it affects day
to day culture, not just foryourself, but other people? In
regards to traveling, we'vementioned about, you know,
(43:11):
pregnant women and beingescorted and what about
traveling at night or buildinghomes? If you've got any
examples. Yeah.
So, like, I mean, the buildinghomes is interesting because,
like, I think there's probably,like, Chinese feng shui
influences in in some of it aswell, which is definitely not a
myth. And if you think it is,you should speak to, like,
(43:33):
airports in the billion dollarindustry, that is because quite
a lot of them employ feng shuimasters and consultants for how
they create, you know, forwealth and for safety and for
all of that stuff. So I can'tspeak much about it, but
definitely not a myth. But forinstance, with building houses,
you're supposed to not buildthem facing west, because the
(43:55):
sun sets in the west, whichsymbolizes death and endings.
And so if you build your housefacing in that direction, you're
inviting that energy into yourhome. Okay? And like I said, I
don't know if that is a FengShui influence, but it sounds
like it could be. And if it is,then it's probably not the
superstition. It's probablyreal. And and then there's also
the, you know, you burying. It'squite common in the another
(44:18):
thing, it's quite common in thePhilippines to build your own
houses. And maybe that'schanging with, you know,
population and modernization,particularly in cities. But you
know, you don't just go aroundbuying houses like you do in the
UK. You'd buy something from theVictorian era, because we don't
have a Victorian area. We werestill living in mud huts in the
Victorian era. And so it's quitecommon to to, like, buy land and
build your houses. And so it'scommon practice to bury coins
(44:41):
and money in the foundations ofthe house to bring in wealth.
And again, I don't know ifthat's a fencing thing, but to
me, that makes sense. You know,it's if not for the the
literality of it, the intentionof offering something, it's like
an investment. You offer like ahandful of coins, and you get
back 10 pounds, and you. Um, andthen, kind of, like, the the
(45:01):
intention behind that ritual issomething that I think makes
sense to a lot of people and andin terms of, like traveling
around, like, I remember mynanny used to always have a
bottle of oil in in her in herbag. It's a specific kind of
oil. I can't remember what itis. Think it's coconut oil or
coconut and something oil and asmall bottle of it in a brown
(45:25):
jar, and to keep in your in yourbag at all times. And if it's if
you buy an s1 who's in humanform, it will explode in your
bag. And so that's how you knowand be careful. And and
talismans as well. And so likemy nanny, she and she gave it,
she gave me, and I wore it allthe time, a little pendant with
(45:48):
the baby Jesus on it. And that'sa talisman against as well,
which, again, shows you the, youknow, the the blending of
Catholicism with this culture.
And it's like, oh, that's becomea talisman. And it's like, you
know, when you know semiprecious stones, baby Jesus,
same thing. Yes, that will work.
(46:09):
And so that was, that was mytalisman. As I was, as I was
growing up, a lot of people usethe Rosary as well. So a lot of
people have a rosary in thehandbag. And I think, you know,
in the West, you know, maybelike in places like Italy, where
it's a very strong religion,like people would carry rosaries
so that they can pray while theywould carry rosaries to protect
us from these, from thesecreatures.
(46:31):
Yeah, you can see,and we use them to pray as well.
But that's kind of like, youknow, like, that's a bonus. So
are there any other rituals orcommunity gatherings that you
might find in maybe southernYeah, so like I said earlier,
(46:52):
like in more provincial areas,where you'd have smaller, more
tight knit villages, and youdon't necessarily have the
modern infrastructures of goingto school and going to work and
having a hospital. That's justnot a thing. You would have a
witch doctor, and you would havekids play together and be looked
(47:12):
after by the community and learnhow to fish or learn how to farm
and learn how to tend to therice fields, you know, so that
that's their world, and it's,it's, it's small. And if
somebody were to get sick, youwould have people in the
community gather around thatperson on their sick bed. And
sometimes people will come atvarious times, they would say
(47:32):
the rosary with you next to yourbed. Or they will, you know,
they will eat around you andoffer up the food before they
eat it to the healing gods andspirits. If there's a witch
doctor, they may, you know,they'll do certain rituals when
they smoke your aura, like acleansing through by using by
burning herbs in not necessarilyincensed, but like certain
(47:55):
herbs, and again, like invokingthe spirits. And sometimes, if
it's a particularly persistentdisease, they would try and
communicate with either theancestors and spirits and find
out who you wronged. And, youknow, and it may be something
that's happened from a reallylong time ago, and you have to,
you know, tell your sister whatyou did and ask for forgiveness.
(48:18):
So it's really about making homein a way and and so all of that
could happen in in varioussettings. And the style of the
witch doctor would also dependon his or her lineage. They
might be more using herbs, orthey might be more channeling
(48:39):
the spirits, and particularlyancestral spirits, and
songs like songs that orchanting, or songs that people
would use around the you knowashwang, or did you have any
kind of nursery rhymes, oranything like that sort of
thing?
(49:00):
I don't remember many nurseminds, no, not, not myself.
Maybe it's not that thereweren't any. I do remember
having a witch doctor, like, Igrew up in Manila, and I would,
my mom would normally first sendme to, like, a proper a proper
doctor, you know, Westerndoctor, a GP type person. And I
remember once I just, like, wasso ill, it was like the flu or
(49:20):
something, and I also hadasthma, and so it was just
persistent, and just went on forweeks, and it wasn't I was
checked for tuberculosis and itwasn't that, and nobody knew
what it was. And so eventuallymy mom conceded and said and
allowed my nanny to consult thewitch doctor, and and she had
asked for what was it? He my Tshirt that I was wearing that
(49:44):
day. And she did. She took it tothe witch doctor, and they did
some cleansing and some readingand and it just said something
about one of my ancestors wascommunicating something. And it
had. Message for my my mum. Idon't know what that was. My
nanny talked to my mum about it.
This is my memory of it. And andthen she, and then he, asked my
(50:08):
nanny to say three rounds of therotary for me next to my bed.
And then I think I was well twodays after that, so I don't I
mean again, it could have justbeen like a natural passing of
the disease. But what I did feelin all of that was looked after,
you know, like my nanny had acertain intention about me
(50:30):
getting better that was veryclear to me as a child, and
which doctor or not.
Yeah, well, that's reallyinteresting. And I'm sure
there's another, there's anotherpodcast to talking about them,
you know, South Americanshamanism. And, yeah, that's
(50:53):
interesting. Just to wrap up. Iguess maybe it'd be good to do a
comparison. I think for me, I ithelped me to learn by comparing,
even though, just as initially,to be able to ascertain kind of
what someone's talking about.
And one of the things that youmentioned was the parallels
between Filipino focal andglobal superstition. So just
(51:15):
maybe taking some of thecreatures that you've mentioned,
and, you know, grouping them orlooking at what they might be
similar to, yeah.
I mean, a lot of these creaturesare certainly like nighttime
creatures, like the COVID, whichI didn't talk about earlier, but
he's depicted as a tall dog manwearing a hat and smokes a cigar
(51:37):
sitting on trees. And there's adebate as to whether he's a
creditor or whether he'sactually protecting the house or
the home or the village. And Idon't know quite what he would
be the equivalent of in westernmythology. And that the tick
Balam, the Horseman is, Isuppose it's a bit like pan, you
know, from the Shakespeare,yeah, the Shakespeare depiction
(52:01):
of pan, because he's quite orthe way I see him, or choose to
see him, is he's quite playful.
But also, like pan, like the Godof sexuality, it's like he has,
like the way that his body isrepresented, the male bodies,
like has, that has that energyabout it, like male virility,
quite how pan would have made itto Filipino ancient history, I
(52:21):
don't know, but maybe we alljust need a cultural idol for
male virility and the chana,which is the spirit of an
aborted baby. It's a bit likeChucky, you know, the 90s or 80s
film of the process. That's theclosest thing that I can, I can
(52:41):
make a parallel to. So, I mean,a lot of these, like threads are
pretty, pretty loose, I wouldsay. And I think the man in the
garden is kind of one of a kind.
She's a bit like harpy, Isuppose. And she's often
depicted with like, a shriekingharpy voice, okay, yep, and
(53:07):
yeah, the tick take is weirdbecause, like, I don't actually
know what it's supposed to looklike, because what I all I
remember is, if you can hear thetick ticking sound like, if you
hear that and it sounds likeit's far away, that means that
she's very close. And if it'svery loud, that means she's far
away. But then if you asksomebody else from a different
region, it would be theopposite. So you're never really
(53:28):
safe from the tick, tick. Andthey go for children,
particularly haughty one. So Ithink maybe that's just one of
the ones that was used to kindof like, get children to behave
and be quiet.
Yeah, I think I have, I had theman in a van.
That makes more sense, though,that's like logical, like,
(53:49):
I left the house on my own whenI was very young. Man in the van
will come and get you, take youaway. Yeah,
and I'm just looking up to seeif there's like, physical
depictions of it, because I justhad this, like invisible noise,
something about, oh, black catscross, and if, yeah, anyway,
(54:13):
that's,that's, we can have a look and
leave a note, and I can findanything, but, yeah, okay, even
the googlingis is contradictory. It's
hilarious. So like it says thatit's another term for the man
and girl. It's not from mymemory. And then another one
that says Tick. Tick is acreature with a form of bird
like human. It's similar to thework, work, which I thought was
(54:35):
exactly the same as each other,and are both winged humans who,
at night, search for victims.
They hunger for flesh and blood,especially to those of feverses
and then, yeah, so there's a lotof sources that say it's similar
to the to it's the same creatureas the man and God. But why? How
(55:00):
I was told that when I wasyounger was it wasn't going to
human, but it was a bright bodywith human face, like a
beautiful human face of a femaleand feathered wings, as opposed
to the man and girl who had,like, bad wings, and it's ugly,
yeah, it had a very long tonguethat it uses to kind of insert
(55:24):
itself into the belly button ofthe present woman to take to eat
the child booth. Obviouslyreminds me that the flying
monkeys invisible like,yeah, a little bit. I mean,
those are a little cuter andless kind of traumatic looking.
(55:49):
Yeah, yeah. So, okay, well, Imean, is there anything else you
wanted to add before we closetoday?
No, I mean, like, just, I havetold you, like, we didn't go
that deep into anything, and ifpeople did want to kind of go
into it a little bit deeper,there's a there's a couple of
(56:11):
very detailed academic styleresearch into this topic. And I
say academic style becausethat's about us as academic as
it could possibly get, Isuppose. And I haven't got the
books only now, but I look, Ilook them up, and then you can
look it up on the on the on onthe thingy at the bottom of the
video. And I would encouragehaving having a look at those
(56:34):
sources, because it's very hardto go into depth with these
things, because there's not onereal answer, because so much of
it is very, very much live livesin the lived reality and the
lived experiences of differentcommunities. And because
conflict is in, conflict isn'tsomething that's kind of like
(56:57):
ironed out in the way that wewould in the West, where you
would like, have a debate, andthen you would like, look at
evidence, and then you would,you know, and you would like,
figure out, like, what's true,or what's most likely true, and
where, where you could trace itfrom the country's origins in in
history. It doesn't reallythat's not what happens people
kind of, we kind of just like,accept that in things and
elements, and then it, it ismalleable, and it changes. And
(57:20):
so there's not one answer. So Isuppose I'm just acknowledging
that a lot of people watchingthis may be leaving the
conversation more confused thanthey were when they came and I'm
sorry about that, but that'swhat happens when you have this
particular conversation.
If you accept that there, youknow not, there's not a logical
explanation for a lot of this,yeah, and he's categorized some
(57:43):
of the creatures and given ussome examples of creatures, and
we've got some examples of whatthey might be like in other
cultures. You know, I thinkthat, I think that's great.
Gives us more of an insight intothe Filipino culture and what
drives it, and where it camefrom, and and how, you know,
it's, it's very interestingbecause how it's kind of
amalgamated with Catholicism andfolklore and they work together
(58:06):
in a way.
Yeah, I think it's a really goodsummary, actually. Yeah, let's
leave it there. Well,thank you so much for your time,
Rafi. I really appreciate it,and I'm sure a lot of people
find this very interesting. SoI'll also put your details of
your website and all the coursesyou're running below in links so
(58:28):
people can contact you if theywant to and they're interested.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thanks for having me. Thank you.
Bye.
Hi everyone, and welcome tomoonbeam musings, where we talk
about all things, myths,mysteries and cultural belief
systems. Today, we have ourguest Rafi Mendoza, who is the
founder of CO create. CO createoffers one to one, coaching and
community membership for artistsand creatives, encouraging
artists to put their art intothe world with no apology and to
(00:29):
be seen for their art. Welcome,Rafi, hi. And today, really
interestingly, we're going to betalking about Filipino folk law,
because originally, you wereborn in the Philippines, and
it's quite interesting how thefolklore affects people on a day
to day basis, but also how itwas ingrained culturally over
the years as well. So thank youfor joining us.
(00:54):
Thank you for having me. I'mreally excited to talk about
this because, yeah, it's one ofthose kind of like strange and
wonderful things about theFilipino culture that I don't
think it's talked about a lot,particularly, I think you know
when we when you first of all,for a while, the Philippines
wasn't even in the on the map.
And like, when I first came tothe UK, I was 11 years old, so
that would have been like, maybe2022, 23 no 2002 or 2003 and and
(01:15):
I would tell people where I wasfrom, and they would be like,
where's that? That's not aplace. And so it's less it's a
bit more known now. And, and Ithink the culture, the Filipino
culture, is becoming known inthe West, largely through food.
And you know, if you look onYouTube, if you type in
(01:38):
Filipino, the next word thatcomes up is cuisine or food or
street food or something, andthat's certainly a big part of
the Filipino culture, and of anyculture. But one thing that
isn't spoken about a lot is theFilipino Folklore. And there's a
couple of, I can't remembertheir names, but there's a
couple of American YouTubers, Ithink, or who have gone to the
(02:01):
Philippines to try and makesense of Filipino Folklore and
how it's seen and experienced byFilipinos who live there, and
they all come away making lesssense of it than the than than
they had before. So, so it's,it's an interesting
conversation. In any case,amazing. Thank you. So let's
(02:24):
start off, if you can provide usan overview of the key themes
and elements found in Latinofolklore,
yeah. I mean, when we sayfolklore, it's a really big is a
really big thing, because we'renot just talking about the
commonly known creatures, whichyou the academics refer to as
(02:46):
the creatures of lowermythology. So that would be like
the kind of, like horror basedcreatures that are often talked
about and is often depicted inFilipino cinema. Then you've got
creatures of the highermythology, which are like the
spirits and the gods in thefairies, and they have a neutral
relationship with human beings,as opposed to the underworld
preacher, who are way moreinteresting, but also way
(03:08):
creepier. And then there's alsothe kind of roots of that, which
is Filipino Phillipa, Filipinoancient history, which is pre
colonial stuff. There's not alot of written history before,
before colonialism, because we,you know, a the places, the
places are, there's anarchipelago. So there's lots of
different islands with lots ofdifferent cultures. But one
(03:29):
thing that kind of did tie themall together, in some way, was
animism, which is a spiritualbelief that everything,
everything that you can see,everything in nature, has
spirits and and and it's thatrelationship in worship of the
spirit that's in everything thatis the key, as opposed to a
deity where there's a God orseveral gods. And from there you
(03:52):
can you can see how the kind ofthe folklore emerges with all
these variants of creatures andand spirits and monsters and and
things that we're going to talkabout, and also how it kind of
blends with Catholicism, whichcame after the Spanish. I call
(04:13):
it an invasion because it was,and they were there for about
500 years, and so, you know,it's a kind of you couldn't get
away with whatever they werebringing part of which was
Catholicism.
Okay, so previously, some of thenames of the the higher
mythology would be the likes ofthe anito and the battler. Is
(04:37):
that the bright pronunciation,no, but you're doing better than
most of Anita is like spirits,but they're also kind of like,
there's like spirits in general,but then you would also have
like, your personal Anita, whichis like your ancestry, the
spirits of your ancestors, okay?
And so you're always walkingaround with this, like, with all
(04:57):
of this behind you and aroundyou, yeah? And people use like
prayer, like other cultureswould use prayer with how would
they? How would you communicatewith these, especially your
ancestors? I mean,it, yeah, it really depends. It
just It depends on whichprovince. It depends on which
part of the Philippines you'retalking about. It depends on
your own ancestry. So, forexample, if you were living in a
(05:18):
COVID, and you're quite separatefrom city of and civilization,
and you would still be livingprimarily in relationship with
nature. You'd be living in hutswith a small village. You might
not necessarily be going to atraditional school. The stuff
comes out the same. That's whatyou eat. You know that. That's
the culture. And within thosevillages, there's often a witch
(05:43):
doctor or a healer. And ifyou're that person, you would
have come from a lineage ofhealers, whether that's by blood
or by apprenticeship. And how,if you were one of if that was
your calling, if that was yourvocation, how you would
communicate with the spiritswould be within the tradition
that you were taught as a layperson. You would be influenced
(06:04):
by the villages witch doctor.
And if you didn't live in avillage, if you lived in Manila,
you might not have arelationship with these spirits
at all. You might be quitewesternized in your thinking,
and you might so and in adifferent tribe, and I certainly
haven't seen most of them, theremay be more of a ritual around
(06:24):
it, and more of a more of aceremony. And maybe the
communication with the spiritsare through talismans that you
carry around with you, or analtar, and there's a ritual
around it, and there may bechant and certain invocations of
spirit, or it could be reallysubtle, where you know there's
just a certain way of being thatyou are when you enter parts of
(06:48):
the forest or parts of the partsof nature and you approach
things with a certain reverence,or you approach herbs and
medicine with a certainreverence. So yeah, it's a
difficult question to answer,because the Philippines isn't
one place, and it's not oneculture, in a way,
(07:08):
if you've got the highmythology, as you mentioned
before, and then I don't knowwhether you want to talk any
more about them, you said they'dput ancestors or anything else
around the sort of the gods, ifyou could,
yeah. I mean, you'd have thegods. I mean, you know, it's, I
don't actually know a hell of alot of the higher mythology,
because the I just had moreexposure to the as well as I was
(07:33):
growing up. But the Bucha willwill be gods, and usually
they're gods of nature and godsof the elements. So I suppose
it's not too dissimilar fromGreek mythology. When you know,
you've got Zeus, the god ofthunder, and you've got, you
know, Dionysus, yeah, exactly,yeah. And, and so I don't think
there's quite as many, or Idon't know if there are the
(07:55):
direct links. And the gods alsooften appear in different animal
shape shifting forms thatthere's like the Bucha now,
which is the Dragon God thateats the moon, which is actually
just the Eclipse and and there'sa lot of kind of academic debate
as to whether that comes fromoriginal Filipino mythology, or
whether that was an influence orChinese or Japanese culture. So
(08:20):
I don't know a great deal aboutI'm certainly not academically
read in all of this. I'm kind ofjust sharing my own experience
of these kind of like conceptsand ideas and creatures and
beliefs that I was exposed as Iwas growing up. Yeah.
Well, let's move on to that,because it is interesting. So
let's talk more about theashwang who pronounced that
correctly as one, that's one,yeah, about, you know, just a
(08:43):
little bit about what they are,and then, and then moving on to
so maybe some examples from yourown life, or what you understood
them to be, or how it may haveinfluenced you.
Yeah. So the word as one itselfis interesting because it refers
to both a particular type of ashape shifting creature, which
(09:04):
is often female in appearance,and it's a monster. These are
not benevolent beings, and itlives, or she lives among
humans, but she's not human, andshe has the power to curse, to
curse people, and she has thepower to shape shift as well and
(09:27):
become, you know, a monstrouscreature that attacks people and
animals. And it's also the wordas well. It's also used as an
umbrella term for a variety ofdifferent creatures as well. So
there's and which one it iswould whether someone's talking
(09:49):
about as well as the individualcreature or as well as an
umbrella term, would also dependon who you're talking to and
where they're from, Philippines.
So for example. Take the tick,I'm going to say it wrong, the
thick valu, yeah, that would bean example. That would be an
example of one man. Girl wouldbe an example of one a Capre
would be an example of one and,and those are like, kind of like
(10:15):
in the China as well. They'reall kind of like Monster, like
creatures. So, for example, youasked about the big violence
that's a like horseman. He showsup as the body of a man, a male
man, and the head of a horse andthe so that would be, in other
(10:36):
cultures, that would be called acento. Yeah,
although a cento is usually thebody and head of a man, the
horse or head of a man, andthen, like the body in the legs
of a horse. So this is inreverse. Wow. Okay, and I don't
know why, why it's certainlyquite less attractive, I would
say. And yeah, it's whatwas the question? No, sorry I
(11:02):
was asking. Yeah, no, I justintervene there. So I'm trying
to kind of make a comparison tounderstand these different these
different creatures. Yeah, thesecreatures are ultimately half
and half of things,and not all of them, not all of
them. But like, okay, so like,let's take them, like, one by
one, and I'll just do like, anoverview of
(11:23):
each Yeah, maybe like, three ofthem, so we can get a feel for
what whatthey are, yeah? So, like, so,
okay, so the tech by Lang is, isa half horse, half human, almost
Central, like, but in reverse.
So you've got the a horse top,the top part of the body is a
horse. You've got a horse'sheads and a man's body. Usually
it's quite muscular, quiteheinous and but like, you know,
(11:44):
quite a very masculine energyand it and there's an argument
about whether he's truly evil orwhether he's more of like a
joker and more of a jester,because one of the things that
he likes to do, particularly tooutsiders of a village or of a
region, is to lead them astray.
So if you were to go in theforest or into the woods, he
will make sure that you get lostand that you go round and round
(12:07):
and round in circles. And hesaid, to be sitting, you know,
to be hiding behind trees,watching you and having a good
laugh. And one of the myths is,if you if you are lost in the
woods, and you suspect that thisis the work of a tech Vala. Is
how to take your shirt off andturn it inside out and put it
back on again, and then you'llbreak the cast, and then you can
come out of the woods. So thisis one of those superstitions
(12:30):
that come along with him. Andone of the other superstitions
is, if you look in the sky, andyou can see that in half of the
sky it's raining heavily, andthen the other half, it's sunny,
which in the Philippines isquite uncommon, but in the UK,
it's like a daily phenomenon.
But if that were to happen, thenit said that the tech talent are
(12:50):
having a wedding party. And sothese are some of the kind of
like the myths and thesuperstitions that come along
with this creature and and thenthere's a debate of whether you
know he's, he's evil, or if heor if he's, if he's just a
joker. There's also a debate onwhether he's a protector or
whether he's a predator. And soit kind of depends on who you
(13:13):
talk to, you know, depending onwhere they come from, which
village they grew up in, andalso who they are personally.
Because within families youhave, you know, you have
variations of all of thesemythologies, which probably
explains why people leave, likeunderstanding less about this
than when they came, becausethere's not one agreed reality
about any of them. No,no, okay, I guess with going
(13:34):
back to that wedding party,that's really interesting. Is it
because it's believed that,because there's a wedding, that
he's made it funny for that partwhere there's a wedding
or No, it's nothing thatlogical, okay? It just is.
That's just, that's just what,okay, get to understand that,
yeah, as far as I understand, Imean, you know, some academic
(13:56):
might have dug into it deeper,but I really don't, I don't
think that's a logic. It's justthat's just what you're told,
and you acceptit. Okay, fair enough.
And should I tell you aboutanother one? Yeah, I do like
these guys. So that's the manis, and she's, I think. So I'll
explain what she is, and I'llexplain why, why she's my
(14:19):
favorite, and what, what I thinkshe represents, which is, by no
means, like, you know whateverybody thinks, but it's kind
of how I see her mythology. Soshe's a woman, often like a
single maiden woman, a youngwoman who's usually quite
beautiful in human form, andenjoying the day, that's what
she is. And at night, she goesinto the woods and her top the
(14:43):
top half of her body and thelower half of her body
separates, and she grows wings,and then her upper half flies
around in the night, and sheenjoys attacking pregnant women
and eating their unwanted. Ginand also the entrails of men.
(15:05):
And then she comes back, shereattaches herself to her lower
half of her body, and then shegoes back to, you know, society,
and becomes a human being in inthe day. And it's said that if
you are in the woods in thenight and you come across the
lower half of her body, youshould put salt on it, and when
she comes back, she won't beable to reattach. And if she's
(15:27):
still separated by the time thatthe sun rises, she'll she'll
burn and disintegrate and die.
So that's the myth around her,and she's also often depicted as
a young woman who's beenheartbroken by a man, and
whether it's through unrequitedlove or being betrayed, usually
the lads are. And what I findinteresting about that part of
(15:49):
the depiction, which in mostmovies and most representations,
it's a minor detail, is to me,she represents like the
collective wrath of womeneverywhere, who you know, who
have experienced not just thebetrayal of, you know, in
romance, but it's just a generalkind of suppression of of female
power. And it through thatsuppression, it becomes kind of
(16:10):
corrupted into this, you know,kind of vengeful being and
vengeful energy that that's twosided on one hand, beautiful
young lady during the day and amonstrous creature in the
evening. And the thing is thatboth, both are true, you know.
And there's one interesting playthat I came across a long time
ago that depicted the story ofof a woman who was betrayed by
(16:33):
by a man she was living in thepoor she was having this quite
simple, primitive life, she fellin love. Which I would, I think,
a Japanese, a Japanese soldierwho was there during the war.
She became pregnant. He betrayedher. He never showed up again.
He actually has a familysomewhere else. The war ended.
He's he left. She gave birth onher own, and was so distraught
(16:55):
and angry and confused and justher, and she ended up eating her
own baby, and then she becamethis creature. And that was the
origin of this, of the man andgirl. And that's fiction, you
know, that's like modern fictionto kind of create an origin
story about how this creaturecame to exist. But I thought
that was an interestinginterpretation of, like, well,
(17:17):
what? Why is it that thiscreature is particularly a
woman, and the symbolism ofbeing being cut in half, really,
so like the yin and the yang andthe, you know, the beauty and
the ugliness, the good and thebad light and the dark and,
yeah, so she's my favorite.
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting,isn't it? Because with a lot of
(17:40):
cultures, when there's a story,it's usually, quite often, it's
got a lesson to it. So I'mlooking at that, and I'm
thinking, what is, what is thelesson? Really,
don't fuck with women. It's thewhat I got. And, you know, I
mean, there is, there is a,probably something, you know
(18:00):
something about about theduality of human being that's in
there. Now, whether that was theoriginal intention of this, it's
so hard to say there's nothing,as far as I know, that's kind of
like written and recorded of thethe history of these things and
and that's why it's, I think,one of the reasons why it's hard
to get the ball of like, wheredid these myths come from, and
(18:23):
and, you know, and what, whatrole do they play, and what were
the lessons that they weretrying to teach? Is that you
can't, it's you can't quiterelate to them in the same way
that you relate to Greekmythology or nordic mythology.
Because in the West, we look atGreek mythology and we take it
for granted that it's a myth,and we take it for granted that,
you know their fables entails,and that there are lessons in
(18:45):
them, and that they aremetaphors for for life, whereas
in the Philippines today, 80% ofthe population believe in the
literal existence of thesecreatures. And so it's very
difficult to look at, okay,well, what lessons are they
teaching? Because so so many ofof the people who are exposed to
(19:08):
this just think they're real,like, there's no lesson in,
like, a tree existing because itjust exists. There's no lesson
in an iPhone, it's just it'sjust a phone, it just exists.
And so these things are relatedto in that way, as opposed to,
like myths and stories. It'slike these are creatures that we
live with in the forest, and youhave to be careful with
them. So for example, if youwere to be a pregnant woman,
(19:31):
would there be something you doto mitigate you
again? In some in some villages,they may they might be rituals
in some families wouldn't leavea pregnant woman to sleep on her
own, you know, there would, shewould always have somebody with
her at night. You know, shewould sleep with, you know, if
not her partner, her mother orher sister and and in fact,
(19:53):
having a female escort is, isusually safer. And so it has,
you know, you kind of. Womenkind of sticking together, and
and families are raised likethat, you know, like the nuclear
family of, you know, there beinga mother in a in a father and a
child, and and the belief thatwe need both mother and father
(20:16):
as role models, not that it'snot true in the Philippines, but
that's just less prevalent. Whatthe child needs is a village,
and you know, a whole colony ofadults who will share its
upbringing, and women definitelyplay a much larger role in that.
And it's all that fathers aren'timportant. But you know, when
it's in a less of a nuclearfamily situation, it becomes
(20:40):
less about mother and father,and it just becomes about
community. About community. Andso the community will protect
the woman, the present womanfrom the Master. Yeah, so. But
speaking of lessons, the lastone I'll talk about. And it's
(21:01):
also one of my favorites, is theNo no. So, which is no no is
like a dwarf, but in my mind, Ikind of see them more like as
many granddads and open so it'slike an anthill, or some kind of
like mud Hill. That's likenaturally occurring and so no no
sapon, so is the dwarf thatlives in these ant hills in in
(21:23):
the forest. And they'regenerally benign creatures, but
very wise. And if you go intothe forest, you have to recite
the chant in some consciousness,you know. And I was told to
recite the chance a chant thatessentially declares your
presence and asks them to pleasestep out of your way, because
(21:46):
you can't see them, they'reinvisible, and you don't want to
hurt them, and you don't want tohurt their homes. So please, you
know, excuse me as I'm passingthrough. And what's interesting
about that is the in the chant,it's left about, it's less about
asking for anything, but it'smore about declaring your
presence, and it's more aboutit's less about asking for
(22:07):
protection, and it's more aboutacknowledging that these
creatures live there, that thisis their home. And personally, I
take that even further. So it'snot just that the forest is
their home and these ant hillsare their literal houses, but
there are also custodians of theforest, which means the
custodians of the earth andtheir spirit and their their
being there and their existenceis to protect the land from
(22:30):
human destruction. And if youwere to not recite this chance
and you accidentally kicked oneof them, or you, you know,
kicked the anthill, or you fellover and destroyed something,
then they have the power to makeyou unbearably unwell. And even
and there have been stories ofpeople becoming unwell, and more
(22:53):
than Western doctors in thePhilippines have not been able
to solve the problem. And thewitch doctor would recommend
something like a like a ritual,or like an apology, like an
offering, going back to theforest to offer some food, to
offer something to this, tothese spirits, and that's the
only thing that would have curedthem. And there are many
stories, you know, demonstratingthat that works now, whether
(23:14):
it's true or not, or if it makesscientific sense, so there's,
there's a kind of more medicalexplanation as to what went on.
It's kind of besides the point.
I think there's something reallybeautiful about acknowledging,
you know that, yeah, likespirits live in the forest, and
we have to respect that. Andthere are people, there are
spirits that are there toprotect, to protect the Earth
from our own unconsciousness ashuman beings. Yeah? So, yeah,
(23:37):
you know. So, what are they evilif they make you I don't know,
but, I mean, if I were one ofthem, I would probably do the
same thing. I'd be pretty pissedoff if somebody came and just
like, kicked my house anddestroyed everything because
they were weren't thinking,yeah, so, so, yeah, that's,
(23:58):
that's three of the ones that Ican talk about. Thank
you. I think that's interesting.
How about the story of MariaMackin? How do you Maria?
Maria is, yeah, it's one of thekind of well known ones, but
it's only well known in thenorth. So that's why, I mean,
(24:19):
like Philippines, this is, likeone place and
and you're originally from yourfamily's originally from Manila.
My family's originally fromManila, but and my family, like,
you know, my direct relatives,they're not big believers in
this. They're, they're a bitlike, probably, they think that
these are mix, but would be, butthey wouldn't necessarily fight
(24:44):
against people who believe thatthese are true, either. So
they've maintained a kind ofmutual position, and I didn't
learn a lot about all of thisfrom my direct relatives, but
rather from my nanny, who camefrom a village called capis,
which is in Visayas. Which isfurther south of Manila, and
it's known to be the the capitalin the headquarters of all the
(25:05):
as well. And so she, shebasically gave me all of my
knowledge about these creatures.
And she didn't, she didn't teachthem to me, like, you know, like
as stories and as kind of, like,fun lessons. They were like,
don't go out because, becausethe marijuana guard will come
and eat you. Or, like, you know,yeah, they were kind of like,
(25:28):
told us, like a cautionary theywere cautionary tools to stop
you from doing dangerous thingsas a child, and because Marilla
is also, like, bereft of forest.
So that's also one of thereasons why most people think
that as one don't really go toManila, because there's nothing
interesting there for them. Justpossibly true. If I were one of
(25:52):
these nature spirits, I wouldnot come to Manila. I wouldn't
come to Manila. Now, anyway,either. So, but yeah, so what
was the question? Somethingabout
I was asking? No, that's good.
It's interesting. Thank you foryour background, because I think
it's important for people tounderstand your perspective. I
mean, you've been for many, manyyears now, but yeah, your
perspective of where you'rebrought up was in a specific
(26:13):
region is probably quiteimportant, because other people
may have a differentperspective. So my question was
around Maria mckilling, yeah. Idon't know whether
you want to tell that story,yeah. So Maria map healing is a
nature spirit, so she was knownas a diwata, which is a very, a
(26:35):
very beautiful being of light,really, like if you listen to
the word in the Filipino kind oflike dialect, you know, it has a
particular energy of being alight being almost like a star.
So she's a nature spirit, andshe's seen as benevolent but
also powerful, and certainly notsomebody that you want to piss
(26:55):
off. And she resides, and isnamed after a volcano called
Mount mahiling, which is inLaguna in the Tagalog region.
Tagalog is that is known as anational language, but actually
only a very small people speakit in the north, in Manila and
surrounding areas. And that'sworth noting, because that area
(27:18):
the North is where the Spanishhad settled. And with Manila
being an archipelago, there's awell, there's a distinct
Filipino. This the really, theall the different islands really
have its own culture and its ownhistory and its own original
tribes. And so when, when theSpanish came and settled in the
more northern part, that's whereCatholicism was most integrated.
(27:42):
It did filter down to theVisayas region as well. But
interestingly, in Mindanao,which is the Southern, most
southern part of thePhilippines, it's primarily
Muslim. And so the reason that'sinteresting is because Mariama
healing symbolizes protection,nurturance and generosity, and
she's Mother Earth and yet, andher name is, you know, with
(28:03):
Maria and the clothes that she'soften represented in, which is,
like these kind of, like whiteclothing, dresses that's very
reminiscent of the Virgin Mary'sclothes, um, she's, she's often
dressed in white and blue. Andsimilarly, with Marianna killing
it's, it's often white, and onoccasion, more modern
interpretation, she's alsowearing blue. And so we can see
here, and she's also describedas, you know, a beautiful maiden
(28:27):
untouched by human corruption,which has the links with the
Virgin Mary and, you know, theImmaculate Conception and all of
this thing and that kind of likemother energy. And so we can see
how the Filipinos, instead ofrejecting Catholicism or
suppressing it, or negating theexistence of pre colonial
culture, which is this belief innature spirits, we kind of just
(28:48):
blended them, which is quitetypical in Filipino culture. In
as far as philosophicalconflicts go, they're just,
they're just simply dissolve,because you just, you know,
there's just a kind ofundesigning Acceptance of
anything. So, you know, ratherthan, and if you were to ask
somebody, well, animism and allof these creatures, wouldn't
(29:09):
they go against, you know, thebasic principles of Catholicism,
they wouldn't challenge you.
They wouldn't argue with you andsay, No, of course, it doesn't.
They would just say, yeah, it'spossibly conflict, conflicting,
but it's just not a problem,that it's a conflict, you know,
like it doesn't it's not aproblem that there appears to be
too, too opposing truth. Andyeah, so no, it doesn't make
(29:30):
sense, but that it doesn't makesense isn't a problem for us.
Oh, yeah. It's very difficult,isn't it, in the western world
to kind of comprehend that thelogic, I mean, a lot of my
questions are quite logical, andyet it's they can't answer them,
no, well,no, because that's the way the
cultures are kind of accept areally deep grain, acceptance of
(29:51):
these belief systems andmythology and all of
these people, they'll be.
They'll go to church as well.
Religiously, they'll go tochurch every Sunday and also
carry around talismans andrecite these chants as they go
in the woods and protect theirwomen from these creatures and
(30:12):
go to church in their dailylives. Yeah,
wow. Well, it's just difficult,because you know, when you come
from a different culture thatdoesn't make sense. But in that
culture It does, yeah, it'sabout community, and also about
community, yeah? And I thinkthat's
right, if there's, like, onekind of key attribute of the
(30:35):
Filipino culture is that it'svery community centric. Roberto
was, you know, it's like,community is everything,
yeah, so in terms of specificrituals and festivals, are there
any that are still practice thatyou know you want to talk about?
So there's one festival which isquite modern. It's a very modern
(30:58):
interpretation of and not eveninterpretation, but like a
celebration of the culture. AndI think it happened since the
boom, but it's in one of thebiggest cities outside of
Manila, where it's literallylike a parade. The whole city
gets involved, and everybodydresses up in costumes. And, you
know, there's this one, and thenthere's just like a parade,
there's a party, there's music,there's street food. It goes on
(31:20):
for like, 48 hours, non stop,and everyone's dressed in
whatever, as far as they choose.
So it's kind of like this,almost like a westernized
Halloween interpretation of afestival with a Filipino twist.
And so that's a modern thing.
And I think, I think a lot ofpeople, particularly the younger
(31:41):
generation, see it as acelebration and and I think a
lot of the older generation may,may see it as blasphemous,
because it's it could be seen asa disrespect of these, of these
spirits, or of these creatureswho are very powerful, and it's
a risky thing to be dressing upas them.
Okay, so we don't see it as acelebration of of them and in
(32:04):
honor of them. It's not done inhonor of them. It's me. I think
the younger, the youngergeneration and the people who
organize the festival would seeit as that. It's a celebration
of Filipino culture, and it's acelebration of these spirits.
But I think much of that is alsobecause the younger generation
are beginning to see thesecreatures as myths. They're
beginning to see these creaturesas stories that we were told as
(32:25):
children, whereas the oldergeneration still sees sees it
much more as like as itsreality. And so I think we are
having that transition betweenthe generations. And there was
also something that came outquite recently. This doesn't
really answer your questions,but I just came to mind. But
there's a something that cameup, an animation on Netflix
(32:47):
called Tres, and it, if you wantto learn about these creatures,
that's a really good energy wayto watch, because it's an
animation, and it has a kind oflike Japanese anime feel, almost
in the way that it's puttogether, not quite because it
came from, like a series ofgraphic novels written by a
(33:08):
Filipino who, I don't know thedetails, but I think it's
collaboration between somebodywho was living in the
Philippines, a Filipino livingin the Philippines, and the
Phillipa living in the US. Andit came out of a series of
graphic novels, and it wascreated into this, into this,
into an ethics series. Andthat's, you know, I see that as
a celebration of these creaturesand a celebration of this
(33:29):
culture, and a celebration ofour heritage as Filipinos, many
of whom have migrated all overthe world, particularly to the
US. And so that's the spirit inwhich I receive it, and I think
how it was intended. But I canalso imagine people who are of
the older generation, who whostill kind of hold these beliefs
(33:51):
and hold these superstitions andhold these creatures as kind of
pillars of their reality,almost, and their creatures of
their lives and everythingthey've done that they've grown
up may not receive it in thesame way, because, you know,
it's not, this isn't mythologythat we're celebrating. This is
the reality.
Yeah, I understand, understand,yeah. And there's various ways
(34:12):
of holding them, the beliefsystem, boarding them off, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So the various waysof holding office, one, as we're
told, in which are about crazyas to us among themselves. But
you know, so like in the West,we have vampires, and we just
rely on garlic, the what willthey move? But in the
Philippines, depending on whichvillage, which region, which
(34:33):
person, which family you talkto, you can use coins. You can
use rubber types. You can useslippers. You can use ginger.
You can use soy sauce. Itdepends on who you ask, and
there are things that you needto do to you know, rituals that
you can take to protect yourselfand to protect your home. And
the resourcefulness of thematerials that you can use also
(34:53):
speaks of the of the of theFilipino culture as well. And I
suspect that at some point. Waslike one ritual that you would
use. Maybe it was like thecoins, because they were silver
and copper, or something thatwould ward off these creatures.
And for lack of coins, becauseof poverty, you might just like,
choose something else, and thenthat gets translated into
something else, into somethingelse. But the power, the the of
(35:17):
these objects, ability to wardoff the spirits, remains the
same, even though, because,because that's just how it
happens. And so, yeah, say aboutthat. I mean, it really does
depend on who you ask, for sure.
And you mentioned somethingbefore about the senakula,
(35:39):
yeah, the senakulo, which islike, again, we kind of see,
like the Catholic influence inthe culture. The sinako is a,
kind of like a theatricalreenactment of the Passion of
the Christ, the crucifixion thatwe put on, on the streets, in
public, in, you know, in invarious regions during Easter,
(36:01):
and it's, you know, and the thereenactment is quite literal, so
there would be like, almostlike, a parade that mimics how
Jesus was paraded through thestreets in Jerusalem, wherever
it was, and and up until thepoint where he was nailed to the
(36:22):
cross, and all the peoplewatching, and Mary Magdalene
being there, and the other twocriminals that he was crucified,
crucified with in the threecourses, the whole thing is like
reenacted, like life in realtime during Easter. And people
do get literally nailed to thecross. There's like, a specific
way that you do it, you allowyourself to be nailed to the
(36:43):
cross if you were the actorplaying this part, and and
that's very much a Christiancelebration that you know that
has little to do with animism,and yet you can still see how
the ritualization of that andthe literality with which we
take, that those events happenin the way that they did
(37:04):
literally, and that our way ofcelebrating that is in a very
literal way. I think also speaksa little bit to the part of
Filipino culture that kind ofaccepts accepts realities and
accepts stories and acceptsmyths in a very literal way. And
(37:24):
that's literally what happened,you know, in in the same way
that that's one is real, JesusChrist, the Holy Spirit, the
Virgin Mary, were, were real.
Like, you know, there's no kindof um, taking it as symbols.
It's like Jesus Christ, deathwasn't symbolic. He died and
then he ascended and he wentback to God. Yeah, so, and
(37:47):
that's not in conflict at allwith the as well.
Yeah. So, so moving on to sortof how I think we've touched on
it, but how these myths andrealities, for some, influence
(38:11):
daily life. How do you feel yourown daily life was influenced by
Filipino Folklore. You know, inEngland, we have superstitions
like not walking under ladders.
And I will think about it everytime i i do walk under ladders,
every time I go to walk under aladder, I will think of the
superstition. Um, are there kindof daily beliefs that you feel
actually, if you think about it,they're still prevalent in your
(38:32):
life right now?
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting.
It's like when I think aboutlike, for instance, when I was
earlier, when I was talkingabout new lot of console, the
little granddads who live in anthills, you know? And you would
recite, you would recite thischant as you would walk through
the the forest. If I looked atit objectively, yeah, of course,
(38:53):
it's a superstition, right?
Like, How Could there really bethose beings living there? And
you're encouraged to recitethese trance so that you don't
get cursed and you don't becomeill. And that's a superstition.
And yet, at the same time, I do,even in non Filipino forests,
when I walk through the woods,like inside my head,
(39:14):
particularly when it's dark andI can't see where I'm going, I
would recite this superstition,either to myself or out loud,
because on this Tran, because itis a way of acknowledging that
there are spirits in the forest.
And personally, I would say thatthere are spirits in the forest,
and that's a reality for me, notnecessarily the man and girl,
not necessarily, you know, thetekbalan, but you know. And I
(39:35):
don't necessarily worship treesand you know, but they are,
they're alive. The woods arealive. And so, you know, if
things are alive, they havespirit, which I suppose, is the
core of animism and and so torecite this chant is an
acknowledgement in the respectof the beings that live there,
(39:56):
and an acknowledgement that, asa human being. In as human
beings. We don't own anything.
We don't own the earth, and toacknowledge that we're passing
through a shared space ispolite. I can't really think of
a word that like a better word,but it's like, it's just what
(40:18):
you would do. It's just notbeing a dick. Basically, like,
you know, but obviously, like,I'm not saying that everybody
who doesn't do this are beingdicks, but it's like, when you
if I really think about it, whatwere the lessons that I took
from these teachings? What werethe lessons that I took from
these superstitions that I wasgiven as a child? It's like no
respect the spirits of thepoorest
(40:39):
in a way. Do you think it's likebeing more mindful? You know, we
can, we can get in our heads,or, you know, not thinking of
the fairies, not really thinkingabout what we're doing. And in a
way, it's about whatever you'redoing being more mindful,
yeah, and like bringing aconsciousness to what you're
doing, you know, and it's likeyou could, and not that there's
(41:03):
any. There's nothing wrong withgoing for a walk in the forest
and just like being in your ownthoughts and just putting one
foot in front of the other. Andyou know, we will get incredible
benefits just from being in theforest, but while we're there,
getting those benefits, like,Isn't it worth acknowledging
that we're here for a time andthat we're passing through and
maybe there aren't tiny minigranddads living in ant hills
(41:24):
all over the place, and you'renot going to kick them and
they're not going to make youill. But Isn't it worth
acknowledging the spirits thatare there, whether they're going
to make you ill or not, and justsay, Hey, I'm passing through.
Have a nice day, you know? So Ican't remember what the original
question was. It was how thishas influenced you. And I think
(41:46):
we can hear, yeah, it'sinfluenced you throughout your
life, and some of the thingsthat you may do, like in the
forest, yeah. And I thinkthere's also something about,
you know, the there's aplayfulness. But all of it, you
know, if you know, if you lookup pictures and depictions of
these creatures, they lookhorrific. But I particularly
like the interpretation of thetech violin being a jester to
(42:07):
just kind of like, make you belost. And maybe that's something
that I kind of like, I, youknow, I have a fondness of,
because I do get lost all thetime, like, five minutes away
from my own house, like I getlost, and you know, this from
experience of being with me inany place, and it's like, and so
I that's a fondness that I havewith that interpretation of,
like, oh yeah, he's just kind ofbehind trees, like having a
(42:29):
laugh while you're lost, and youhave to turn your your T shirt
inside out so that you can findyour way back and and then maybe
some neuroscience to that, youknow, you're kind of
interrupting a pattern. Youknow, you're kind of stopping
what you're doing. You'restopping the search while you're
kind of honing in, and you'relike, seeing through a very
narrow lens, and you just dosomething ridiculous, and then
suddenly you can see,yeah, I relate to that, so my
(42:50):
sense of direction, yeah, thankyou. Yeah. That's great. Um, so
just, just a couple morequestions, really, do you think,
for example, some of theexamples of how it affects day
to day culture, not just foryourself, but other people? In
regards to traveling, we'vementioned about, you know,
(43:11):
pregnant women and beingescorted and what about
traveling at night or buildinghomes? If you've got any
examples. Yeah.
So, like, I mean, the buildinghomes is interesting because,
like, I think there's probably,like, Chinese feng shui
influences in in some of it aswell, which is definitely not a
myth. And if you think it is,you should speak to, like,
(43:33):
airports in the billion dollarindustry, that is because quite
a lot of them employ feng shuimasters and consultants for how
they create, you know, forwealth and for safety and for
all of that stuff. So I can'tspeak much about it, but
definitely not a myth. But forinstance, with building houses,
you're supposed to not buildthem facing west, because the
(43:55):
sun sets in the west, whichsymbolizes death and endings.
And so if you build your housefacing in that direction, you're
inviting that energy into yourhome. Okay? And like I said, I
don't know if that is a FengShui influence, but it sounds
like it could be. And if it is,then it's probably not the
superstition. It's probablyreal. And and then there's also
the, you know, you burying. It'squite common in the another
(44:18):
thing, it's quite common in thePhilippines to build your own
houses. And maybe that'schanging with, you know,
population and modernization,particularly in cities. But you
know, you don't just go aroundbuying houses like you do in the
UK. You'd buy something from theVictorian era, because we don't
have a Victorian area. We werestill living in mud huts in the
Victorian era. And so it's quitecommon to to, like, buy land and
build your houses. And so it'scommon practice to bury coins
(44:41):
and money in the foundations ofthe house to bring in wealth.
And again, I don't know ifthat's a fencing thing, but to
me, that makes sense. You know,it's if not for the the
literality of it, the intentionof offering something, it's like
an investment. You offer like ahandful of coins, and you get
back 10 pounds, and you. Um, andthen, kind of, like, the the
(45:01):
intention behind that ritual issomething that I think makes
sense to a lot of people and andin terms of, like traveling
around, like, I remember mynanny used to always have a
bottle of oil in in her in herbag. It's a specific kind of
oil. I can't remember what itis. Think it's coconut oil or
coconut and something oil and asmall bottle of it in a brown
(45:25):
jar, and to keep in your in yourbag at all times. And if it's if
you buy an s1 who's in humanform, it will explode in your
bag. And so that's how you knowand be careful. And and
talismans as well. And so likemy nanny, she and she gave it,
she gave me, and I wore it allthe time, a little pendant with
(45:48):
the baby Jesus on it. And that'sa talisman against as well,
which, again, shows you the, youknow, the the blending of
Catholicism with this culture.
And it's like, oh, that's becomea talisman. And it's like, you
know, when you know semiprecious stones, baby Jesus,
same thing. Yes, that will work.
(46:09):
And so that was, that was mytalisman. As I was, as I was
growing up, a lot of people usethe Rosary as well. So a lot of
people have a rosary in thehandbag. And I think, you know,
in the West, you know, maybelike in places like Italy, where
it's a very strong religion,like people would carry rosaries
so that they can pray while theywould carry rosaries to protect
us from these, from thesecreatures.
(46:31):
Yeah, you can see,and we use them to pray as well.
But that's kind of like, youknow, like, that's a bonus. So
are there any other rituals orcommunity gatherings that you
might find in maybe southernYeah, so like I said earlier,
(46:52):
like in more provincial areas,where you'd have smaller, more
tight knit villages, and youdon't necessarily have the
modern infrastructures of goingto school and going to work and
having a hospital. That's justnot a thing. You would have a
witch doctor, and you would havekids play together and be looked
(47:12):
after by the community and learnhow to fish or learn how to farm
and learn how to tend to therice fields, you know, so that
that's their world, and it's,it's, it's small. And if
somebody were to get sick, youwould have people in the
community gather around thatperson on their sick bed. And
sometimes people will come atvarious times, they would say
(47:32):
the rosary with you next to yourbed. Or they will, you know,
they will eat around you andoffer up the food before they
eat it to the healing gods andspirits. If there's a witch
doctor, they may, you know,they'll do certain rituals when
they smoke your aura, like acleansing through by using by
burning herbs in not necessarilyincensed, but like certain
(47:55):
herbs, and again, like invokingthe spirits. And sometimes, if
it's a particularly persistentdisease, they would try and
communicate with either theancestors and spirits and find
out who you wronged. And, youknow, and it may be something
that's happened from a reallylong time ago, and you have to,
you know, tell your sister whatyou did and ask for forgiveness.
(48:18):
So it's really about making homein a way and and so all of that
could happen in in varioussettings. And the style of the
witch doctor would also dependon his or her lineage. They
might be more using herbs, orthey might be more channeling
(48:39):
the spirits, and particularlyancestral spirits, and
songs like songs that orchanting, or songs that people
would use around the you knowashwang, or did you have any
kind of nursery rhymes, oranything like that sort of
thing?
(49:00):
I don't remember many nurseminds, no, not, not myself.
Maybe it's not that thereweren't any. I do remember
having a witch doctor, like, Igrew up in Manila, and I would,
my mom would normally first sendme to, like, a proper a proper
doctor, you know, Westerndoctor, a GP type person. And I
remember once I just, like, wasso ill, it was like the flu or
(49:20):
something, and I also hadasthma, and so it was just
persistent, and just went on forweeks, and it wasn't I was
checked for tuberculosis and itwasn't that, and nobody knew
what it was. And so eventuallymy mom conceded and said and
allowed my nanny to consult thewitch doctor, and and she had
asked for what was it? He my Tshirt that I was wearing that
(49:44):
day. And she did. She took it tothe witch doctor, and they did
some cleansing and some readingand and it just said something
about one of my ancestors wascommunicating something. And it
had. Message for my my mum. Idon't know what that was. My
nanny talked to my mum about it.
This is my memory of it. And andthen she, and then he, asked my
(50:08):
nanny to say three rounds of therotary for me next to my bed.
And then I think I was well twodays after that, so I don't I
mean again, it could have justbeen like a natural passing of
the disease. But what I did feelin all of that was looked after,
you know, like my nanny had acertain intention about me
(50:30):
getting better that was veryclear to me as a child, and
which doctor or not.
Yeah, well, that's reallyinteresting. And I'm sure
there's another, there's anotherpodcast to talking about them,
you know, South Americanshamanism. And, yeah, that's
(50:53):
interesting. Just to wrap up. Iguess maybe it'd be good to do a
comparison. I think for me, I ithelped me to learn by comparing,
even though, just as initially,to be able to ascertain kind of
what someone's talking about.
And one of the things that youmentioned was the parallels
between Filipino focal andglobal superstition. So just
(51:15):
maybe taking some of thecreatures that you've mentioned,
and, you know, grouping them orlooking at what they might be
similar to, yeah.
I mean, a lot of these creaturesare certainly like nighttime
creatures, like the COVID, whichI didn't talk about earlier, but
he's depicted as a tall dog manwearing a hat and smokes a cigar
(51:37):
sitting on trees. And there's adebate as to whether he's a
creditor or whether he'sactually protecting the house or
the home or the village. And Idon't know quite what he would
be the equivalent of in westernmythology. And that the tick
Balam, the Horseman is, Isuppose it's a bit like pan, you
know, from the Shakespeare,yeah, the Shakespeare depiction
(52:01):
of pan, because he's quite orthe way I see him, or choose to
see him, is he's quite playful.
But also, like pan, like the Godof sexuality, it's like he has,
like the way that his body isrepresented, the male bodies,
like has, that has that energyabout it, like male virility,
quite how pan would have made itto Filipino ancient history, I
(52:21):
don't know, but maybe we alljust need a cultural idol for
male virility and the chana,which is the spirit of an
aborted baby. It's a bit likeChucky, you know, the 90s or 80s
film of the process. That's theclosest thing that I can, I can
(52:41):
make a parallel to. So, I mean,a lot of these, like threads are
pretty, pretty loose, I wouldsay. And I think the man in the
garden is kind of one of a kind.
She's a bit like harpy, Isuppose. And she's often
depicted with like, a shriekingharpy voice, okay, yep, and
(53:07):
yeah, the tick take is weirdbecause, like, I don't actually
know what it's supposed to looklike, because what I all I
remember is, if you can hear thetick ticking sound like, if you
hear that and it sounds likeit's far away, that means that
she's very close. And if it'svery loud, that means she's far
away. But then if you asksomebody else from a different
region, it would be theopposite. So you're never really
(53:28):
safe from the tick, tick. Andthey go for children,
particularly haughty one. So Ithink maybe that's just one of
the ones that was used to kindof like, get children to behave
and be quiet.
Yeah, I think I have, I had theman in a van.
That makes more sense, though,that's like logical, like,
(53:49):
I left the house on my own whenI was very young. Man in the van
will come and get you, take youaway. Yeah,
and I'm just looking up to seeif there's like, physical
depictions of it, because I justhad this, like invisible noise,
something about, oh, black catscross, and if, yeah, anyway,
(54:13):
that's,that's, we can have a look and
leave a note, and I can findanything, but, yeah, okay, even
the googlingis is contradictory. It's
hilarious. So like it says thatit's another term for the man
and girl. It's not from mymemory. And then another one
that says Tick. Tick is acreature with a form of bird
like human. It's similar to thework, work, which I thought was
(54:35):
exactly the same as each other,and are both winged humans who,
at night, search for victims.
They hunger for flesh and blood,especially to those of feverses
and then, yeah, so there's a lotof sources that say it's similar
to the to it's the same creatureas the man and God. But why? How
(55:00):
I was told that when I wasyounger was it wasn't going to
human, but it was a bright bodywith human face, like a
beautiful human face of a femaleand feathered wings, as opposed
to the man and girl who had,like, bad wings, and it's ugly,
yeah, it had a very long tonguethat it uses to kind of insert
(55:24):
itself into the belly button ofthe present woman to take to eat
the child booth. Obviouslyreminds me that the flying
monkeys invisible like,yeah, a little bit. I mean,
those are a little cuter andless kind of traumatic looking.
(55:49):
Yeah, yeah. So, okay, well, Imean, is there anything else you
wanted to add before we closetoday?
No, I mean, like, just, I havetold you, like, we didn't go
that deep into anything, and ifpeople did want to kind of go
into it a little bit deeper,there's a there's a couple of
(56:11):
very detailed academic styleresearch into this topic. And I
say academic style becausethat's about us as academic as
it could possibly get, Isuppose. And I haven't got the
books only now, but I look, Ilook them up, and then you can
look it up on the on the on onthe thingy at the bottom of the
video. And I would encouragehaving having a look at those
(56:34):
sources, because it's very hardto go into depth with these
things, because there's not onereal answer, because so much of
it is very, very much live livesin the lived reality and the
lived experiences of differentcommunities. And because
conflict is in, conflict isn'tsomething that's kind of like
(56:57):
ironed out in the way that wewould in the West, where you
would like, have a debate, andthen you would like, look at
evidence, and then you would,you know, and you would like,
figure out, like, what's true,or what's most likely true, and
where, where you could trace itfrom the country's origins in in
history. It doesn't reallythat's not what happens people
kind of, we kind of just like,accept that in things and
elements, and then it, it ismalleable, and it changes. And
(57:20):
so there's not one answer. So Isuppose I'm just acknowledging
that a lot of people watchingthis may be leaving the
conversation more confused thanthey were when they came and I'm
sorry about that, but that'swhat happens when you have this
particular conversation.
If you accept that there, youknow not, there's not a logical
explanation for a lot of this,yeah, and he's categorized some
(57:43):
of the creatures and given ussome examples of creatures, and
we've got some examples of whatthey might be like in other
cultures. You know, I thinkthat, I think that's great.
Gives us more of an insight intothe Filipino culture and what
drives it, and where it camefrom, and and how, you know,
it's, it's very interestingbecause how it's kind of
amalgamated with Catholicism andfolklore and they work together
(58:06):
in a way.
Yeah, I think it's a really goodsummary, actually. Yeah, let's
leave it there. Well,thank you so much for your time,
Rafi. I really appreciate it,and I'm sure a lot of people
find this very interesting. SoI'll also put your details of
your website and all the coursesyou're running below in links so
(58:28):
people can contact you if theywant to and they're interested.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thanks for having me. Thank you.
Bye.
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