The Application of Philippine Mythology in Magical Realism

by:

Gio Romero B. Chao

A THESIS PAPER

Submitted to:

Mrs. Andrea G. Soluta

Silliman University English Department

In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English major in

Creative Writing

March 2016

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ABSTRACT

This study proposed an organic connection between magical realism and Philippine

mythology in two creative works of fiction, using postcolonial criticism. In identifying magical

realism and its characteristics, it is necessary to provide an overview of its history. Key concepts

of Franz Roh, Alejo Carpentier, Angel Flores, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other contributors

will be discussed in Chapter II. Furthermore, this study will provide some examples of Philippine

folk literature and beliefs to build its argument.

This thesis did not propose an exact formula for writing magical realist stories. Instead, it

focused on the importance of mythology in the creation of such stories. The wealth of myth in

Philippine literature provided material for the writer to produce magical realist stories. This study

attempted to examine its application in the author’s creative works.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page i

Abstract ii

Table of Contents iii

Chapter I THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Introduction 1

Statement of the Problem 3

Significance of Study 4

Scope and Delimitation 5

Definition of Terms 6

Chapter II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE, STUDIES AND THEORETICAL

FRAMEWORK

Related Literature

Definition of Magical Realism 7

History and Development of Magical Realism

In the West 10

In the Philippines 21

Characteristics of Magical Realism 30

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Related Studies

Folk Beliefs and Customs 32

Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology 39

Duende 40

Kapre 42

Tikbalang 43

Sirena 43

Mangkukulam 44

Theoretical Approach 46

Chapter III METHODOLOGY 48

Chapter IV PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND APPLICATION OF DATA 51

Chapter V SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 62

References 66

Appendix

A. Pascual 68

B. Siquijor 77

1

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Introduction

Magical realism is a broad term and its definition has changed over the years. The term

generally applies to art, literature, film and television. (Bowers 1) German art critic Franz Roh

first applied the term magical realism to describe the artistic return to objectivity by some Post-

Expressionist painters. In the preface of The Kingdom of this World, Alejo Carpentier argued that

the form, which he called marvellous realism, was uniquely Latin American “by virtue of Latin

America’s history, geography, demography, and politics—not by manifesto” (Bowers 13) and

that European magical realism was pretentious and artificial; while Angel Flores proposed his

version of magical realism had aspects of both Roh’s magical realism and Carpentier’s

marvellous realism. The writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez cited Alejo Carpentier as an inspiration,

although he and Carpentier differed in their writings: Carpentier’s writings were predominantly

realist with magical happenings that inspire awe, whereas Marquez’s writings treated magical

happenings as common occurrences in everyday life. (Bowers 37).

“Garcia Marquez also suggests that cultures and countries differ in what they call ‘real.’

It is here that magical realism serves its most important function, because it facilitates the

inclusion of alternative belief systems. It is no coincidence that magical realism is flourishing in

cultures such as Mexico and Columbia, where European and indigenous cultures have mixed,

with the result that ancient myths are often just beneath the surface.” (Zamora, 2006) The

Philippines, which had had a lengthy Spanish occupation, a brief Japanese occupation, a

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dictatorship— not to mention an ongoing relationship with the United States, may be seen as

fertile ground for magical realism. The National Artist for Literature, Nick Joaquin has been

considered a magical realist by critics for his stories which feature realism and the fantastic.

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Statement of the Problem

This thesis wishes to answer the following problems:

1. What is magical realism?

2. What are the special features or characteristics of magical realism?

3. How do elements in this study’s creative works convey magical realism?

4. What are the sources of mythology used for each story?

5. How is “colonial depersonalization” and “mimicry” expressed in the study’s creative

works?

4

Significance of Study

This study aims to broaden literary discourse for magical realism in the English language

and to impart an understanding and appreciation for Philippine mythology and its practical

application to magical realism. Given the scarcity of literary studies on the topic of magical

realism, new studies are always welcome in the academe. The problem areas of magical realism

range from outdated arguments on behalf of formalism to imprecise methods of criticism on

behalf of postructuralism which argues that similar features in text and context recur in all texts,

that is to say, if text a and text b are the same, then both must come from the same category. The

latter is especially problematic because there are non-magical realist stories that contain magical

realist elements (Bortolussi, 2003).

Above all, it is a personal endeavour on the part of the author to attempt to explain why

truth can sometimes merge with the fantastic and how that relationship can affect the realization

of one’s self and the other which will be discussed in chapters II and III.

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Scope and Delimitation

This study is confined to the Philippine context and focuses on the writings of Lois

Parkinson Zamora, Wendy Faris, Franz Roh, Alejo Carpentier, Angel Flores and Gabriel Garcia

Marquez, Maximo Ramos, Francisco Demetrio Radaza, Bienvenido and Cynthia Lumbera, Homi

K. Bhabha and the testimonials of Paolo Poral and Jaizer Nadal. The study uses excepts from

online videos to further illustrate its points.

The main objective of this study is to provide a critical analysis of the author’s creative

works which demonstrate an organic connection between magical realism and Philippine

mythology. Although the works of Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nick Joaquin will

not be taken up extensively, some of their works will be cited for the purpose of drawing

comparisons.

A basic understanding of postcolonial criticism and an overview of Homi K. Bhabha’s

Interrogating Culture and The Postcolonial and the Postmodern present a sufficient method in

analyzing the author’s works.

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Definition of Terms

Image(ry) – “languages that causes people to imagine pictures in their mind” (“Imagery,” n.d.

Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imagery)

Object(s) – the thing that is represented.

Metaphor – figures of speech used as analogues for ideas.

Folklore – “…any bit of knowledge passed down generation to generation, which describes or

depicts the beliefs and lifestyle of the ancestors of a chosen ethnic group…”

Identity – “the way in which an individual and/or group identifies itself.” (“Key Terms in Post-

Colonial Theory,” n.d para. 14. Retrieved from http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/postcold.htm.)

Self – the figurative self.

Other - “the social and psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another

group. By declaring someone ‘Other,’ persons tend to stress what makes them dissimilar from or

opposite of another, and this carries over into the way they represent others, especially through

stereotypes” (“Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory,” n.d. para. 25. Retrieved from

http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/postcold.htm.)

Mimicry – it is when the dominated culture mimics the dominant culture.

Colonial Depersonalization – Western identity is defined by representation of the other.

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Definition of Magical Realism

Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy Faris define magical realism as a combination of

realism and the fantastic in such a way that magical elements grow organically out of the reality

portrayed. Although the term “magical realism” had existed in art criticism since 1925, it did not

receive much attention in the beginning due to the rise in popularity of New Objectivity and the

failure of magical realism to distinguish itself from other artistic movements at the time. A

simple discussion on aesthetics would not suffice, since the original concept of magical realism

had changed significantly over a period of eight years. Chapter Two will follow a specific

timeline set by Bowers (2004): “The first period is set in Germany in the 1920s, the second

period in Central America in the 1940s and the third period, beginning in 1955 in Latin America,

continues internationally to this day.” The key figures of the magical realist movement (Franz

Roh, Alejo Carpentier and Angel Flores) suggest a shift in emphasis in magical realism which

transitioned from the purely visual to the literary. Above all, it is important for the reader to

understand the relationship or dynamic between objects and the nature of representation, since

magical realism began in the visual medium of Expressionism.

So, what is an object in relation to art? An object is something that an artist can perceive:

a potted plant (Kanoldt’s “Still Life II”), a mandolin in the arms of a gypsy woman (Rousseau’s

“Gypsy Woman”) or even a group of rugby players in a scrum whose outline matches a spider

(Koch’s “Scrum IV”). In realism, objects represent only themselves; they may have symbolic,

psychological or metaphysical values, but they do not function in the same way as objects in

magical realism. Objects in magical realism represent themselves and also “the potential for

some kind of alternative reality” which emerges from the ordinary. “Scrum IV” is an excellent

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example of a magical realist painting: an object (men in a scrum) which inheres to the

marvellous (the outline of a spider). To quote Zamora: “the phases of all art can be distinguished

quite simply by means of the particular objects that artists perceive, among all the objects in the

world, thanks to an act of selection that is already an act of creation.” In Expressionism, there is

a preference for “fantastic, extraterrestrial, remote objects” which are found in the everyday but

investigated with “shocking exoticism.” Expressionist art contains exaggerated representations of

everyday objects to the effect of Cubism. On the subject of magical realism, German art critic

Franz Roh noticed the fantastic representations of objects at the start of the 20 th century which

celebrated the mundane; this new style of painting inherited the techniques of Neo-Classicism

which depicted objects realistically but in new ways that “alienated the current idea of Realism.”

According to Georg Kremer, it is a central challenge to identify the boundaries of magical

realism which pertain to reality and fantasy. In painting, as in fiction, magical realism deals with

themes of isolation and alienation to bring out a sense of uncanny or Unheimlichkeit from the

real. (See Figure 1)

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Figure 1 Pyke Koch, "The Harvest," 1953 (http://www.ing.com/ING-in-Society/Art/Search-in-

Collection/Art-Display-On/The-Harvest.htm)

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Development and History of Magical Realism

In the West

Magical realism was conceived in the Germany, in 1924, by art critic Franz Roh to describe

the new trends in Expressionist art, but it was not until a year later when Roh published his book

Nach Expressionismus Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neusten europäischen Malerei

(Post-expressionism, Magic Realism: Problems of the Most Recent European Painting) that the

term “magical realism” was appropriated in German art criticism. The subjective nature of past

Expressionism, its emphasis on mood and color, and its distortion of reality, was negated by the

second-generation of German Expressionists who proposed a return to “artistic sobriety.” This

new art focused on objectivity and introduced “a new formal concept characterized by

frightening harshness, critical sobriety and a return to precise natural depictions.” Moreover, this

new art negated the tyrannical idealism which prevailed during the fourteen-year life of the

Weimar Republic; its artists, demoralized by Germany’s loss at World War I and the subsequent

revolution, began approaching their subjects with icy cynicism.

The year 1925 marked the death of Expressionism. Critics like Gustav Hartlaub and

Frank Roh engaged in discourse regarding the new trend in Post-Expressionist art which had

grown in prominence since 1921. During Roh’s visit to the Galerie Goltz, he noted that “the

works do not only have a high quality, but present the new European trend in painting in which

we are presently engaged: the trend toward a new objectivism, the rejection of all ... [those]

techniques which many contemporaries in the aftermath of Impressionism are still using.” This

artistic discourse resulted in the creation of two new strains of art criticism: Hartlaub’s Neue

Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity and Roh’s magical realism; from the outset, both Roh’s and

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Hartlaub’s criticisms “denoted the same mode of art that had come into being with demise of

Expressionism and the aftermath of World War I,” although they emphasised different aspects of

this new art.

While Roh’s magical realism initially focused on the stylistic element of painting,

Hartlaub’s New Objectivity delved deeper into its socio-political aspect in which he classified

certain artists as members of the right or left wing. The right wing artists had adopted the

conservative, formal style of Neo-Classicism to expose the eccentricity and chaos of

Expressionism. The left wing artists did not confine themselves to the Classicist style but were

more contemporary in their approach. (See Figure 2) The former tended “slightly towards

sentimentality, idyllic escapism...” or in the more conservative vein “...invoked clear, timeless

Classicism.” The latter, termed Verists, tended towards a more rigid representation of reality.

New Objectivity as a mode of art criticism eclipsed magical realism and garnered more

attention following Hartlaub’s Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition in 1925 which featured artists whose

works “have remained true or returned to a positive, palpable reality” by eliminating “the

impressionistically vague and the expressionistically abstract.” The painters in Hartlaub’s Neue

Sachlichkeit exhibit included Otto Dix, Marx Ernst, Alexander Kanoldt, George Grosz, Georg

Schimpf and eleven others that were also mentioned in Roh’s Nach-Expressionismus, Magischer

Realismus: Probleme der neusten Europaischen Malerei.

Magical realist paintings were produced during the years 1919 to 1923 in Weimar

Germany, in a time of “political fragility.” Following Germany’s defeat in World War I and the

Russian Revolution in the year 1917, groups of artists were formed all over the country. In the

preface of German Expressionism 1919-1925 – The Second Generation, Earl Powell III wrote:

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“Though short-lived, these groups represent an important chapter in the history of modern

German art… instead of ending with the war, the Expressionist period continued well into the

1920s with a vigorous second-generation.”

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Figure 2 George Grosz, "Gray Day," 1921 (http://www.paulgormanis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/George-Grosz-the-gray-day-1921-big.jpg)

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In tracing the origins of magical realism in Germany, it is with great importance that the

history of “political violence” and “extreme economic difficulty” in Weimar, Germany, during

the early 1900’s is addressed as these external forces factor into the creation of magical realist

paintings. According to Roh, “... [magical realists] searched for ‘soberness’ and ‘freedom from

all sentimentality’”. (See Figure 3) These concepts of German Post-Expressionism rallied against

the “…heated color palette, Utopian message and shattering disillusionment…” of

Expressionism.

Max Ernst, who was among the painters listed in Neue Sachlichkeit, had been classified

as a left wing artist. His style was profoundly influenced by the Italian Giorgio de Chirico whose

paintings were labelled as the precursor of magical realism. However, de Chirico’s paintings also

inspired the Surrealist movement which was quite popular among artists in France. According to

Irene Guenther:

The arte metafisica (metaphysical art) of de Chirico and Carrà greatly influenced German

artists like Max Ernst, George Grosz, and Anton Räderscheidt. De Chirico exhibited in

Italy for the first time in 1919. Already by the end of that year, Max Ernst had seen

reproductions of the Italian’s works at Galerie Goltz in Munich, which had a copy of the

journal Valori Plastici.

Despite its pictorial origin, Roh’s magical realism entered Latin American literary

criticism in the 1950’s when his essay was translated into Spanish and published by José Ortega

y Gasset’s Revista de Occidente in 1927. From its European formulation, Alejo Carpentier

argued that magical realism was uniquely American in that it ” ...[did] not imply a conscious

assault on conventionally depicted reality but, rather, an amplification of perceived reality

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required by and inherent in Latin American nature and culture.” In two essays published in 1949

and in 1975, Carpentier called this strictly American form of magical realism, lo real

maravilloso americano, which differed in spirit and in practice from European Surrealism.

Carpentier posited that Latin American literature contained a natural affinity between the real

and the imaginary. Carpentier’s essay, which served to preface his first novel, El reino de este

mundo (The Kingdom of this World, 1949), had claimed that the magical and the realistic were

not recent inventions but had existed earlier as facets of Latin American literature which, since

Gasset’s translation of Roh’s 1925 essay, enabled Latin American writers to see critically into

their own works. Carpentier stated:

I saw the possibility of establishing certain synchronisms, American, recurrent, timeless,

relating this to that, yesterday to today. I saw the possibility of bringing to our own

latitudes certain European truths, reversing those who travel against the sun and would

take our truths to a place where, just thirty years ago, there was no capacity to understand

or measure those truths in their real dimensions.

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Figure 3 Alexander Kanoldt, "Still Life II," 1922 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Alexander_Kanoldt_Still_Life_II.jpg)

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Angel Flores has stated that the thematic and geographical approach towards Spanish

American literature typically undermines the stylistic component in all stories written by Spanish

Americans; and that, in relating the novel to history or to ecology, the focus no longer centers on

plot but on the novel’s chronology which the author may not have intended (“novel of Colonial

period” or “novel period of Independence,” and so on). Flores has cited Echeverria, who is

known outside of Latin America as a “Romantic poet,” but whose novel El Matadero (The

Slaughterhouse) was a “precursory masterpiece of Naturalism;” “Romantic”, “Realistic”,

“Naturalistic”, mislabels such as these plagued the novels of Rómulo Gallegos and José Eustasio

Rivera. Moreover, Flores paints Spanish American fiction in the same shade as Carpentier’s lo

real maravilloso americano in that he says: “Romanticism and Realism seem bound together in

one afflatus. ‘Costumbrismo’ [‘local color realism’], flowering constantly in Spain as in Latin

America, reveals over and again the mixture of romantic-realist elements.” This oscillation

between Romanticism and Realism, macho and feminine, the fantastic and the real, Flores posits,

is rooted in the great Spanish tradition of painting and writing which dated years before

Fernando de Rojas, Lope, Quevedo El Greco, Cervantes, Goya, Pérez Galdós were made

conscious of magical realism. The words “ambivalence” and “ambiguity” are used by Flores

throughout his essay to describe the creative tendencies of these artists.

Critics argue that Arturo Uslar-Pietri, a Venetian writer, is responsible for exporting

magical realism to Latin America before Alejo Carpentier. Uslar-Pietri’s short stories in the

1930s were more faithful to Franz Roh’s original idea of magical realism than to Carpentier’s lo

real maravilloso americano. By then Roh had disassociated himself with magical realism and

changed the heading of Nachexpressionismus [sic] with Neue Sachlichkeit in recognition that

magical realism had been eclipsed by Hartlaub’s New Objectivity. Franz Roh departed from

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magical realism in 1958 with his publication of Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst von 1900 bis

zur Gegenwart or German Art in the Twentieth Century which contained a short version of his

list of characteristics of magical realism published in 1925:

Expressionism New Objectivity

1. Ecstatic subjects Sober subjects

2. Suppression of the object The object clarified

3. Rhythmical Representational

4. Extravagant Puristically severe

5. Dynamic Static

6. Loud Quiet

7. Summary Thorough

8. Close-up view Close and far view

9. Monumental Miniature

10. Warm (hot) Cold

11. Thick color texture Thin paint surface

12. Rough Smooth

13. Emphasis on visibility of painting

process

Effacement of the painting process

14. Centrifugal Centripetal

15. Expressive deformation External purification of object

However, it is Alejo Carpentier’s version of magical realism that is most recognizable to

readers of contemporary Latin American fiction. His addition of culture and geography as key

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elements of marvellous realism have outlasted Roh’s concept. Moreover, it is marvellous realism

that Gabriel Garcia Marquez cites as a major influence on his style of writing. The Columbian

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, also known as “Gabo”, is a prominent figure in Latin American

magical realism whose fiction mixed the imaginative and the real. His novel “One Hundred

Years of Solitude” is considered as a masterpiece of magical realism.

The Novel Prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is widely considered as one of the

most significant writers of the twentieth-century. In an article published online in the New York

Times, Salman Rushdie praised Gabo for his massive contribution to the genre; Carlos Fuentes

added that “writers in Latin America can’t use the word ‘solitude’ any more [sic], because they

worry that people will think it’s a reference to Gabo...” Fuentes was Gabo’s contemporary during

the Latin American Boom period; he along with Julio Cortazar, Mario Vargas Llosa helped

shape the great Latin American novel. The novels published during the second half of the

twentieth century were characterized by their modernist nature which developed new means of

expression through narrative and novelistic experimentation. Although these novels are generally

considered “modernist novels,” some of them infringe on postmodernist territory employing

narrative techniques like the reversal of the reader’s expectations through the manipulation of

time and plot.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez did not use magical realism as a means to express “the abundant

mix of cultures that Carpentier saw in Cuba with his European Cuban perspective,” but as a

means to express his own cultural heritage using the oral storytelling techniques of his

grandmother. In other words, Marquez was rarely inspired by external influences but through

actual experience crafted the mythical village of Macondo from his childhood memories of

Columbia which synthesized Carpentier’s marvellous realism.

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Marquez’s literary attitude towards the common man and his relationship with mythic

stories can be traced back to the huge, supposedly haunted house owned by his grandparents, in

Aracataca, where Marquez spent his childhood years. The young Marquez lived in the coastal

region of Columbia which had a vital mix of African and Hispanic cultures. Raymond L.

Williams viewed it as “the perfect physical setting for magical realism,” but the Columbians

viewed it as a distinct and exotic part of the nation. Aracataca became the basis for Marquez’s

creation of Macondo and its characters. According to Bowers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez utilizes

three sources of magical realism in his novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude”: “a confusion of

time scales that suggest mythic time; a mixture of superstition, gossip and exaggeration; and the

shock of the new. The first type of magical realism includes characters who live beyond their

usual lifespan; the second type includes occasions when characters fear their children will be

born with pig tails, as a result of incest, when an entire town becomes insomniac and is saved by

a magic potion by the enigmatic gypsy Melquiades and when it rains continuously for years on

end.” The third source of magic realism comes in the form of Jose Arcadio Buendia’s excitement

over seeing the scientific inventions brought to Macondo by Melquiades. The writings of

Marquez present a vivid sense of nostalgia because of his clear, detailed prose.

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In the Philippines

An examination of Philippine history from pre-colonial times is essential in tracing the

development of Philippine literature and its involvement in Philippine magical realist texts.

1524 was identified as the start of Philippine history. The date was disproved by the

discovery of the Tabon Man in Palawan in 1962 which suggested pre-colonial history dating

50,000 years ago. Co-authors Bienvenido Lumbrera and Cynthia Lumbrera stated:

From accounts by chroniclers writing during the early years of the Spanish conquest, we

learn that the early Filipinos lived in villages frequently found along sea coasts, and river

backs, close to major sources of food and the most convenient transportation routes. They

were fishermen, jungle farmers and hunters, a folk versatile at finding their livelihood

where they could.

The “Beyer Wave Migration Theory,” which proposed that an ethnic migration was

responsible for the physical endowments of the Filipinos, proved problematic. H. Otley Beyer

considered any sort of connection between races, using the stone sites in Novaliches to form the

base of his argument. William Henry Scott, a leading figure in Philippine anthropology,

indicated: “during the next twenty years, [Beyer] assigned every bone and artifact to one of the

waves, and placed the waves [chronically] from primitive to advance.” Being the first of its kind,

“The Beyer Wave Migration Theory” was thereby dismissed after forty years of research in the

field of geology, linguistics, and archaeology due to lack of evidence and misinformation. New

research claimed that the Austronesian race varied in physical appearance even before the

supposed arrival of the Mongoloids 5,000 years ago. Studies on this matter pointed to nutrition

and physical activity which brought about the modern Filipino.

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Language is the result of two “speech communities” meeting one another. Speech

communities undergo a series of linguistic transformations until the mode of communication

results in a common language. The language of the Ilonggo functions as two dialects: Hiligaynon

and Kinaray-a. As a result of that transaction, these communities will use the same word but

differ in meaning. This is evident among Visayan cultures.

For instance, the word karon is both used in the Cebuano dialect of the Visayan language

and the Hiligaynon dialect of the Ilonggo language. In Cebuano, karon means “now,” but in

Ilonggo, karon means “later.” It therefore follows that the phrase “karon na”— na signifying

immediacy— may mean “now” or “later” depending on the speaker.

The early Filipino settlers took refuge in Northern Luzon and in the Negros Islands. It is

for a fact that the Negritos have cultivated the island for hundreds of years. The Negritos are an

ethnic group in the Philippines who occupy most rural areas of the country and are characterized

by their dark skin and bushy hair. Being the earliest settlers, the Negritos are directly responsible

for the beliefs and practices of the Filipinos. Although their body of works are limited, the

Negrito’s ability to journalize an experience is proof of their intelligence. Philippine literature

started with them.

The Negritos wrote on tree barks, bamboos, and palm leaves. They articulated themselves

through poetry, music, dance and storytelling which were preserved years later through

newfound methods of writing and word-of-mouth. Their stories and poems are filled with

images of nature and magic (diwatas, aswang and other phenomena).

The Negritos have succeeded in various aspects of life. Within their structured

communities, they have learned to live by means of hunting and fishing. They are quick to

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master neighboring languages which enables interaction between them and the lowlanders. In A

Primer on the Negrito of the Philippines, Fox writes: “Another characteristic of Negrito life, a

characteristic which strikingly demarcates them from the surrounding Christian lowlanders, is

their inexhaustible knowledge of the plant and animal kingdom.” In other words, the Negritos

worshipped nature. They believed that anitos (spirits) inhabited the forest and performed pagan

rituals as they saw fit. The Negritos were known to act upon the changes in nature: strong wind,

rain and so on. For these reasons, folk literature was invented. Dr Damania Eugenio, a Filipino

folklorist, had divided folk literature into three separate categories:

Folk Narratives

Stories were handed down from generation to generation using primitive methods. The

Negritos mostly engaged in oral literature, though writing was also practiced using leaves, tree

barks and stone slabs. Whether it was to preserve their beliefs or to address other Negritos, the

frequent interaction between Negritos resulted in the creation of the folk narrative.

Folk narratives consisted of origin myths, hero tales, fables, and legends. Ownership of

folk narratives was communal which meant that everyone in the community had the right to tell

the stories in their own way. The individual was permitted to act out or receive the folk narrative

as it were “…expressive of his own beliefs, attitudes, and emotions.” Apart from the baybayin or

badlit as it was known in Visayas, the Negritos utilized a native syllabary exclusive to their

community. The Negrito’s syllabary consisted of three vowels and fourteen consonants.

Plot, setting, and character made up the narrative. The intrusion of fantastic elements had

distinguished folk narratives from other narratives. Fables (“The Monkey Who Became a

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Servant”, “The Monkey Prince”, “The Monkey and the Crocodile”) belonged to folk narrative.

Myths (“The Two Woodcutters and the Elf”) and legends (“Why Dogs Bare Their Teeth”, “The

Origin of Bananas”) fell under the same category. In “A Brief History of Philippine Literature,”

Teofilo Tuazon had stated:

The written literature of the Filipinos is only about four hundred years old, a very short

period to that of many other countries, or when compared to the length of time our

ancestors have lived in these islands. Various causes are responsible for the brevity of its

history; but the chief contributing factor to this unfortunate condition was the destruction

of our written narrative literature.

Only a few of these written narratives survived during the Spanish era. Some were

destroyed during the start of the Spanish occupation.

Folk Speech

Folk speeches are composed of bugtong (riddles) and salawikain (proverbs). Every ethnic

group has its own riddle and proverb that can only be understood in the context of said group.

Folk speeches are accountable for the formation of Philippine ethics. In bugtong, the thinking

game relies on two essential components: wit and logic. The speaker tells the riddle. Through a

series of inquiries, the listener guesses the object of the riddle. Here are examples taken from

“Philippine Literature: History and Anthropology”:

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AETA

Wearing a crown but not a queen,

Wearing scales but not a fish.

(Pineapple)

BAGOBO

Guess what it is:

Baby in Maguindanao

Heard as far sa Saysay

When it squalls.

(Gong)

ISNEG

On Iggat’s thigh,

Everything is in a rush.

(Honey in a hive)

SUBANON

Apu’s waist band

That no one might borrow

(Python)

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TAGBANWA

A big house

Surrounded by many windows.

(Fishing net)

The bugtong is an exercise on imagery. Meaning or talinghaga (analogue, metaphor,

figure) arises from a juxtaposition of two unlikely images. The Bagobos have added two new

stanzas to the original structure which stands in contrast to the bugtong’s conventional two-

stanza structure.

This makes the bugtong a unique style where defamiliarization is key. This trait may

have been developed from the needs and beliefs of the pre-colonial communities in the

Philippines. Daily life consisted of looping routines and roundabout labor, and as such

the bugtong served as a way of reminding the community of the richness of their lifestyle.

Folk Songs

Singing is a Filipino pastime. The Negritos enjoy singing as much as the lowlanders. In

ethnic cultures, singing serves both a ritualistic purpose and a secular purpose. On occasion,

these folk songs are accompanied by bamboo guitars, flutes, and crude harps depending on the

tribe. Music is a big part of Negrito life. It is used for courtship among other things. The aliri in

Northern Luzon is a good example. Unlike the harana, in which the male suitor is the one

singing, the aliri requires both man and woman to sing. The difference between aliri and the

newer mode of kundiman is the former’s dynamic lyricism. Both man and woman must retain the

27

last lyric of either partner in a series of melodic exchanges. It is sung until such time that the

woman falls in love with the man. Every song has a specific function in rural communities.

Corazon Canave-Dioquino elaborates:

Vocal genres include epics relating genealogies and exploits of heroes and gods; work

songs related to planting, harvesting, fishing; ritual songs to drive away evil spirits or to

invoke blessings from the good spirits; songs to celebrate festive occasions particularly

marriage, birth, victory at war, or the settling of tribal disputes; mourning songs for the

dead; courting songs; and children's game songs.

The rural peoples shared a sense of aestheticism with the lowlanders as evidenced by the

existence of folk narratives, folk speeches and folk songs in their communities. The syllabary,

which was their most valuable contributions to Philippine culture, fell into misuse among the

Christianized Filipinos, who constituted the majority of the population. The early Filipinos failed

to keep record of their oral lore and, according to Lumbrera, fewer of them could decipher what

has been record. Furthermore, the delicate materials on which they wrote were destroyed by

Spanish missionaries in the course of converting the rural peoples.

The Spanish colonizers maintained control over the general affairs in the Philippines—

from economic to political to military decisions, even after the country was turned over to the

American regime. This accelerated the Americanization of the intellectual Filipino. Through the

Fulbright program, the Spanish system of education was overhauled and patented after the

curriculum of the United States of America which exposed artists to the trending styles of

writing available to the entire Western hemisphere. Furthermore, the Philippine Free Press and

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Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards provided avenues for Filipino artist to showcase their

writings.

Philippine folklore and Christian myths continue to commingle with the predominant

style of writing like Realism, despite the strong presence of Western influences in Filipino

writing. (Cavile 2) An example of this is The Mass of Saint Sylvestre by Nick Joaquin; here, the

protagonist, Mateo the Maestro, witnesses a sacred mass hosted by celestial beings to lengthen

his mortal years but is turned to stone by Saint Sylvestre’s glare. It is written in English, the

language of the colonizer, and “in the mode of realism that is a European import.” (Faris 104-

105)

April Ann Cavile considered National artist Nick Joaquin and Wilfrido Nolledo as writers

of the genre. Cavile claimed that the lack of studies on Philippine magical realism and serious

interest in that field discredits the claims made on behalf of these two artists and by Nick Joaquin

himself who, in his 1996 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee’s lecture, revealed that his stories

contained magical realist elements even before Latin America popularized the term (Joaquin,

1996).

Cavile’s contention is that Nick Joaquin’s early stories antedated the publication of

Carpentier’s lo real maravilloso americano which popularized the form. In a footnote by Cristina

Pontoja-Hidalgo, Dr. Priscelina Legasto claimed that magical realism was introduced around the

late 1970s and 1980s in the political science classes of Professor Ed Garcia, but even assuming

that the Philippine literati had read these texts at the time, Joaquin’s stories were published

during the Commonwealth period, before the Latin American writers were published in

Barcelona and before their works were translated into English. Furthermore, the term “magic

29

realism” was supposedly applied by Nick Joaquin before Carpentier, to describe his new

journalism. Dr. Cesar Ruiz Aquino (Cavile, 2012) stated that Joaquin’s usage of the term magic

realism before the Boom indicated that he wrote unconsciously in that mode.

Solidad Reyes suggested that the mixture of “serious devotion and farce” reflected the

transgressive qualities of Filipino popular culture, its rites, rituals and practices such as

penetencia. This quality is demonstrated in Filipino komiks which resemble the marvellous

realism of Latin America in that the excessive elements of fantastic narrative are naturalized.

However, it is problematic to conclude that early Filipino komiks were written in the mode of

magical realism. The problem is explained by Hidalgo:

This isolation of the literature written in English from other Philippine literatures in our

literary criticism tends to reinforce the notion that it has developed in an altogether

different way, and was subject to different influences...

In addition to that, Hidalgo categorized novels Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe by

Alfred Yuson, Firewalkers by Erwin Castillo, which employed narrative techniques of

modernism and postmodernism and ancient myths and heroic legends in the mode of realism, not

as fantasy but as history, not defined by the colonial master, but by the Filipinos themselves

whose narration of history is accentuated by exaggeration and fabrication. Hidalgo called it

“Pinoy marvellous realism” which is certainly different from the magical realism of Marquez in

that the novel Firewalkers uses the marginalized people under the army of occupation, historical

details with myths and legends to create an alternate account of history.

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Characteristics of Magical Realism

The five characteristics of magical realism listed below were taken from Wendy Faris’ essay

entitled Scheherazade’s Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction.

Irreducible Element

The irreducible element is that which cannot be explained according to the laws of the

universe. Faris states that in the case of magical realism, the magic really does happen. As in the

novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, where the death of Colonel Buendia is telegraphed by a

pool of blood traveling to his mother’s house, the metaphor calls attention to itself. There is a

disruption of the ordinary logic of cause and effect. Faris mentions Grenouille from the novel

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer who is an exceptional perfumer. “Grenouille’s perfuming

abilities and the uncannily entrancing scent he manufactures for himself are magical, but the

mass hysteria that they engender and that tears him literally limb from limb and devours him at

the end of the novel is real, and all-too-familiar as an analogue for the atrocities of persecution

and scapegoating in recent history.”

Presence of Phenomenal World

There are two elements that distinguish magical realism from fantasy: the author’s

attention to sensory detail as a continuation and renewal of the realistic tradition; and the

author’s rendition of magical events as a departure from that tradition. In magical realist stories,

the reader witnesses an idiosyncratic recreation of historical events grounded in historical

realities, oftentimes in alternate versions of historical accounts. Faris explains that the

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combination of mystic truths and historical events are part of mankind’s collective memory “thus

these histories include magic and folk wisdom.”

Unsettling Doubts in the Reader

There are various reasons as to why readers will hesitate between two contradictory

understandings of events. According to Faris, “some readers in some cultures will hesitate less

than others…. The reader’s primary doubt is between understanding an event as a character’s

hallucination or as a miracle.” It follows that for every reader there is different response

depending on the reader’s cultural background and on the story itself, since some stories are

better at easing the reader into the world.

Merging of Two Worlds

In magical realism, the real and the imaginary are constantly interacting. As a result, the

line between these two worlds is blurred and the reader does not experience either world fully. It

is the space in-between fact and fiction that magical realism fully exists.

Disturbance of Time, Space and Identity

Magical realist works aims to reintroduce time, space and identity. In One Hundred Years

of Solitude, there is a room in which “it is always March and always Monday.” Here our sense of

time is disrupted. At the end of Distant Relations, our sense of space is disrupted “when tropical

plants grow over the Paris automobile club’s pool…” because it brings into question why

tropical plants should grow in Paris. Also, in That Voice, where the identity of the voice is never

revealed, the integrity of the narrator is questioned by the reader.

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RELATED STUDIES

Folk Beliefs and Customs

The folk and, generally speaking, peoples who have not yet passed the threshold of what

is known as civilization, seems to have a keener eye, ear and feel for these objective-

subjctive [sic] aspects of human and cosmic life. It seems that sophisticated man loses

much of the ability to thrill at the sight of a star-studded sky, or be transported by the

glory of a rainbow or the sunset, or be frightened at the roar of the thunder and the

lightning flash. Is it when man “grows up” he pays a price for this growth; that he

becomes sometimes impervious to another side of reality... (Radaza 1970, xxviii)

The early Filipinos structured their beliefs in accordance with their respective

communities. Their belief-systems contained practices relating to supernatural entities such as

the diwata and the anito. According to Fernando Blumintritt, the “continual invocation and

adoration of the anitos, the souls or spirits of their ancestors” was basis for the primitive Tagalog

religion. (Hislop 1) Additionally, the term anito, which originally meant “ancestral spirit,” was

recognized throughout the Philippines by its general definition, “spirit.”

Hislop explained that the worship of ancestral spirits among the Filipinos was

significantly influenced by Chinese religion, whereas the worship of mountains, rivers and

forests was incorporated into the Chinese religion by the Chinese emperor, in 1375, during the

height of friendly relations between the Filipinos and the Chinese. Other than that, the Filipino

religion was, as stated by Blumitritt, “sufficiently diverse from Chinese religion...”

Anitos were known to cause illness, misfortune and other times, death. To keep on good

terms with them, the Filipinos held feasts in their honor. As animists, the Filipinos observed

33

slight changes in their environment— “a snake or lizard that ‘spoke to’ somebody descending the

house steps...” or the call of a turtledove with green and white plumages known locally as

limokon, foretold catastrophe. A babaylan or diviner used information gathered from rocks,

rivers and other natural sources to foresee changes in weather and occasionally, to ask the diwata

for answers. The notion of sacred and secular life did not in rural cultures, before the Spanish

advent. “Religion is intermingled in every action in an attempt, by ritualistic observance, to bring

life into conformity with the mysterious world of spirits who infuse matter and events and

determine man’s fate.” (qtd. in Ramos 178)

According to Hislop, Spanish missionaries saw Filipinos as pagans because they

worshiped without temples or organized priesthood, honored no founder, used no scriptures.

Anito-worship was entirely confined to one’s home. Although they had buildings called

simbahan for community worship, the purpose for their construction was due to the people’s

desire to celebrate the festival called pandot which was formerly held in the large house of a

chief. (Hislop 1971, 147-150) Though native priesthood was not well organized as in the

Catholic religion, it was a functioning part of primitive Filipino society. Part of their duty was to

determine which anitos had to be placated and how to do this.

The word diwata did not originate in the Philippines since its origin could be traced back

to India and further down to Greece. The word was most recognized in the southern part of the

Philippines, by the Cebuanos, the Bisayans, the Bataks of Palawan, Manobos, Subanos,

Tinurays, Maguindanaos, Magahats and men of Bukidnon, but there was no fixed definition of

the word. For instance, the diwata were believed by the people of Bukidnon to be men of heaven,

but to the Tinurays, the diwata was a great eight-headed fish.

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Some gods belonged to a genuine pantheon, had specific roles, in connection with birth,

longevity, death, and the afterlife. Others acted as patrons of specific human conditions: The

name of Dalikmata was invoked in the case of eye ailments; the image of the holy child, which

Magellan gifted to Humabon’s wife, was referred to as the “Spaniards’ diwata” and was

supposedly immersed in water, during seasons of drought. (Scott 1994, 79) They also believed

that animals and objects were possessed by spirits; objects were shaped into idols, which they

believed were responsible for giving rain, making rice grow and improving the quality of rice,

and through them the Filipinos prayed for protection in their tribulations; this ancient practice

would reappear in the converted Filipinos as a devotion to the santos. (See Figure 1)

Ancient beliefs and practices persist to this day in Philippine Catholicism as evidenced by

the continued practice of honoring one’s ancestors. Another example is the fisherman who goes

out to sea during All Souls’ Day, expecting a large catch with the help of his ancestors. Even in

converted societies, rather than worshipping the Judaeo-Christian God, rural Filipinos regress to

the pagan attitude of paying respects to the inhabitants of the spirit-world. They are more

inclined to ask something from higher power than to devote their lives to unselfish service.

The Dictionary of Philippine folk beliefs and customs by Francisco Demetrio y Radaza

gives insight into man’s motivation for belief. He begins by discussing the word tuo which in

Cebuano means “to believe.” Tuo-tuo, a reduplication of the word tuo, means “to spread

superstition; or to pretend.” The most important of all is the word pagtuo which is defined as

“pagkalawat sa pagkamo kun pagkadiha sa butang”; in English, it means “to accept the

existence or situation of a thing.”

35

Figure 1 Bullit Marquez, "Ritual Atonement," 2012 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/05/christians-in-philippines_n_1405551.html#gallery/218972/6)

36

The act of believing involves not only cognition but also volition; in order to align one’s

mind with that of another, one must first know what he must positively bring his own

mind to concur or agree with it. (Radaza 1970, iv)

Radaza stated that on the basis of his study of definitions, Filipino superstitions ranged

from trivial to unreal. Of the trivial, he mentioned the belief that if a man should hear a knock on

his door, at night, he should wait until his name is called and only then may he say, “Yes, I’m

coming,” because his visitor may be an evil spirit. Of the unreal, he mentioned the belief that at

midnight on Holy Friday the bells of a belfry become soft and that whoever bites off a piece and

swallows it will possess the power to jump the height or the distance of ten feet.

Relative to the terms tuo, tuo-tuo and pagtuo are the terms tilimad-on, panglihi or lihi

and tigal-i or patig-ali. Tilimad-on is defined as “ilhanan sa panahon” or “sign of the times.” It

is a sign from an event (“if an old man dies and simultaneously also a child dies, the soul of the

old man is in a happy state because he is accompanied by the soul of a child.”) or an object (“a

mole under the eye, a rather large ear which is a sign of longevity, the smell of candle burning”)

which may turn out favorable or unfavorable. Panglihi, as described in Dictionary of Philippine

Folk Beliefs and Customs, may relate to the four instances listed below:

1. Ang mabdos nga nihigugma sa bisan unsang butanga ang holma nianang

butanga makita sa lawas sa bata ng mahimugso. Lihi as “a visible mark upon the

baby’s body resembling the object of the mother’s fancy.” The author related this to

the account of a Caucasian missionary who claimed that pregnant women stared at

him during mass in the hope that their children might inherit his blonde hair, long

37

nose, etc. In other words, malihi-an. This, according to him, was precisely how

blonde hair on Filipino children came to be.

2. Mahitungod sa mga buluhaton sa pagtanom sa bisan unsang tanoma sa adlaw sa

mga santos ug sa mga kalag (November 1 and 2). Lihi as “observances for planting

on the feasts of All Saints and All Souls...” This instructs the planter to take 3 strands

of hair, 9 pieces of small hot pepper and 9 pieces of shells and bury them together

with the roots that he may wish to plant; recite “Hail Mary, full of grace.” (Neither

Radaza nor the book’s informant specifies the punishment, if the planter does not

follow these instructions.)

3. Sa Semana-Santa, labi na gayud sa Hueves Santo, Viernes Santos ug Sabado

Santo mao kini’y mga adlaw nga iglilihi, ug angay nga magtrabaho. Lihi as

abstention from heavy physical work during Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and

Holy Saturday as these are “holy days of obligation.”

4. Ang pagdalit sa bag-ong abut sa mga namuyo sa yuta nga dili ingon nato sa

panahon sa unang pagani sa humay o sa mais, ingon man usab ang dili pagkaon

nianang unang abut sa wala mahimo kining pagdalit. Lihi as prohibition from

eating the harvest after the sacrifice has been made.

Radaza stated: “The purpose of the injunction or prohibition (whether this be stated

explicitly or only implicitly) is always the acquisition of some good and/or the avoidance of

some evil.”

There are two types of tigal-i; the first relates to an object used, act or gesture done, with

the intention of achieving a desired end (i.e., placing a cross in the middle of a rice field and

pouring wine or tuba on the ground as offering to the apo before one starts planting); the second

38

relates to the warding or dispelling of evil effects, either through sumpa (ritual) or through

sagang or panagang— an object to ward off evil spirits.

As I have mentioned earlier, the presence of malignant spirits can cause sickness. One

method of curing the sick is “to appease the evil spirits by entertaining them with tuba, tobacco,

one or two cooked eggs, white or black chicken, etc., after verbally supplicating them.” As

panagang, one may place a knife under a child on its first bath to drive away evil spirits, or bathe

only on Good Friday by rubbing vinegar on one’s wrists, ankles and kneecaps in the figure of a

cross to protect oneself from the evil effects of bathing.

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Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology

Myths play a significant role in rural and urban societies in the Philippines: the belief that

rice spoils overnight because it was touched by a kapre; that winning the favor of elves and

duendes may lead to a better harvest; that placing a mermaid’s hair in a bamboo trap will cause

many fish to enter it may sound silly to the “modern sophisticated man.” However, to many

Filipinos, myths are a part of everyday life. Maximo Ramos proposed this structure in his book

to categorize the massive cast of creatures throughout Philippine lower mythology:

1. Demons 5. Ghouls 9. Vampires

2. Dragons 6. Giants 10 Viscera-Suckers

3. Dwarfs 7. Merfolk 11. Werewolves

4. Elves 8. Ogres 12. Witches

The lesser creatures, which I have chosen for my short stories, come from 1, 3, 7 and 12:

specifically, the duende, the kapre, the tikbalang, the sirena and the mangkukulam.

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Duende

As a dwarf, the duendes are small and playful creatures that bring good fortune or bad

luck to whoever they come in contact with. Duendes live in anthills or dirt mounds. They can be

wrathful to humans who disrespect them by pointing, behaving rudely in their presence or

leaving trash near their houses. Any bit of knowledge would tell us that accidentally stepping on

an anthill could cause serious illnesses. Once, a two year-old girl was touched by a duende, and it

left a red mark on her side called kiliti (the dwarf’s tickle). Duendes are known to hide important

things from humans like necklaces and watches until such time that they decide to give it back.

They are easily jealous creatures. The extent of their jealousy ranges from stealing trivial items

to making food fall off the table. The former explains why we can’t find things most of the time

or at all. Duendes are known by many names. Nuno sa Punso (old man in the termite mound) or

Nuno is perhaps the most depicted. These creatures have the appearance of an old man with a

long white beard, having one eye and one nostril. They wear a red cap which renders them

invisible. Duendes show themselves only to those they favor.

One respondent from Iloilo claimed to see a family of duendes when he was about ten

years old. They inhabited the mango tree in his front yard which coincidentally grew on the day

of his birth. One night, as he was sleeping on his bed, a small hand tapped him on the leg. When

he awoke, he saw a duende standing near his bed. The duende invited him to enter the mango

tree in his front yard and he accepted. My respondent then claimed to enter the realm of the

duendes where he was treated as guest. In another story, a well-known restaurant in Iloilo called

“Tatoy’s Manokan” is supposedly inhabited by a clan of duendes whose kubo is located at the

front of the restaurant. (See Figure 2)

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Figure 4 "In front of the duende's hut," January 1, 2016

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Kapre

The kapre is a tree demon, resembling a tall, dark man in a loincloth. This creature can be

found living atop big trees like the balete, santol, tamarind and duhat. They are habitual

smokers, fashioning pipes from legs of banana trees. The scent of their cigars is said to lure

humans into their domain. Once there, the tree demon is free to do whatever. As a demon, he has

the ability to grow and shrink and assume many forms. The kapre’s leg can grow to the size of a

tree; his eyes are the size of two plates. He can misdirect humans, lead them astray and make

familiar ground seem unfamiliar. There are different types of kapre depending on region.

Maximo Ramos elaborates:

Typical of the kapre type, the bawo and ungo of the Eastern Visayas sat in large trees to

“smoke the biggest pipes.” Their Iloko counterpart was more frugal and did not sport a

pipe but made fuller use of the abundance of tobacco in his region, smoking “a roll of

tobacco big as a banana trunk with smoke coming out from it thick as a chimney.” The

Zambales kapre was “most often seen sitting on a large branch and smoking a cigar as

large as a man’s thigh.”

Numerous online sources describe the kapre as a creature who scares children. But then

one source suggests that he is especially fond of children. This complicates the author’s claim

that the kapre is generally neutral. When passing by a large tree, one should always say the

phrase, “tabi tabi po” as a form of respect to the kapre who may be living in the tree.

One respondent from Dumaguete claimed to have been at the center of a strange love

triangle between a ghost-woman and a kapre who occupied a mango tree outside his boarding

house. At night the jealous kapre would appear at his door and shake his bed when he was

43

asleep. Confused, the man left his boarding house and contacted a medium who told him that the

mysterious phenomenon was caused by a jealous kapre who did not approve of the relationship

between him and the ghost-woman who supposedly lived in his room.

Tikbalang

The tikbalang is a demon with the head of a horse and the body of a human. The

tikbalang can be male or female. When it rains and the sun is out, it is believed that two

tikbalangs are being wed. In general, the tikbalang enjoys luring humans into the forest and

abducting attractive men and women from villages. It can take the form of a handsome man or

woman. Male tikbalangs are known to rape women in nearby villages. If a woman is raped by a

male tikbalang and becomes pregnant, her child will become a tikbalang. In a news story

reported by ABS CBN, a woman in Infanta, Quezon claimed that a male tikbalang courted her

when she was thirty years old. (ABS-CBN News. [2014, January 1]. Woman got pregnant by a

‘tikbalang’? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyy7yBc6wxM)

The tikbalang is known to carry a magic charm known as mutya which grants its users

incredible power. One method of obtaining the mutya is to climb on back of a tikbalang and ride

it until it tires. Afterwards, if the man survives, the mutya will be presented to him and he will

have the tikbalang’s loyalty.

Sirena

The Spanish loan-word sirena is the name generally given to Philippine mermaids,

although strictly speaking, the sirens of classical mythology were man-eating monsters

disguised as pretty maidens with enchanting voices.

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The sirena and the European mermaid are essentially similar in that they resemble

beautiful maidens “with the head and upper body of female human and the tail of a fish.” Both of

them live in streams, ponds and lakes. “They are known to fall in love with humans and marry

them.” This is famously depicted in the Disney animated movie, The Little Mermaid.

Mangkukulam

Belief in witches exists in all lands, from earliest times to the present day. The wise

woman and the medicine man of primitive societies, the learned pagan priestess, the

divinities of early religions became through the influence of Christianity or the

modification of folk tradition, the malignant, accursed witches and sorcerers of the

Middle Ages and later folk belief.

The mangkukulam is a witch native to the Iloko, Pampango and Tagalog speaking

cultures as well as others, who uses black magic to inflict curses upon people. The mangkukulam

is not to be confused with the aswang who possesses the powers of transformation. According to

Ramos, there is a good way to tell if person is a mangkukulam: look into their eyes. If the image

is inverted, it means that they practice maleficum or the working of evil— a noticeable feature of

the mangkukulam. Like the tikbalang, the mangkukulam may resemble a male or female human;

“usually sickly-looking and with reddish eyes,” the mangkukulam is particularly active during

what is called the “witching hour” which begins at moonrise or moonset. In describing witches ,

Lynch stated:

[By day witches] ...shun the informal social gatherings held in the neighborhood, such as

the women’s group at the river, come together for washing, bathing and exchanging, or

the men’s usual gathering at some favourite store or barbershop.

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However, it is said that witches are “amiable” to those who befriend him. They do not ask

for advice from ordinary people and perform manual work by themselves. To conceal their

identities, “witches attend mass every day and even receive communion.”

According to Nunez, the mangkukulam can cause “great headaches,” “aches in other parts

of the body,” “boils or internal tumors,” “swellings on the head or in any other place...” with the

use of dolls and pins which she keeps in an abubut or rattan basket. This bears a resemblance to

the voodoo tradition of the Haitian people originating in Africa where the variations of the

voodoo tradition are said to originate; “the services of a witch-doctor in possession of the

necessary anting-anting” (the sagang) is said to cure one who come under the spell of a

mangkukulam.” (Ramos, 1971) The witch-doctor gives his service for free. For some reason, his

charms do not work, if he charges his patients.

As a countermeasure, the witch-doctor must enter the house of a suspected mangkukulam

and threaten to threaten to cut her ears off with a bolo while demanding that she “go through the

needle’s eye” Then the witch confesses her identity, collapses and calls out “I am through it!”

The patient then rises, cured.

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In analyzing the author’s creative works, three sources of mythology were considered:

Indigenous mythology

Indigenous mythology refers to the indigenous peoples’ myths. This study made use of

Philippines mythologies from various ethnic groups; the concept of the tikbalang was lifted from

the myth of the Tagalogs; the concept of tuo was lifted from the Bisayans. Indigenous myths

pertain to belief systems and practices during pre-colonial times. This includes Anitism,

Philippine folk beliefs and customs and creatures of Philippine lower mythology.

Christian mythology

Christian mythology refers to the myths associated with the Christian religion. Christian

myths include cosmic myths (the creation of the world), eschatological myths (hell/inferno), hero

myths, etc. According to Carl F. H. Henry, Early Christians refrained from using the word myth,

which was associated with falsehood, to describe their sacred texts. This study analyzed Spanish

Catholicism and its continued effect on Philippine culture.

Myth Based on Popular Culture/Popular Myth

Popular Culture is, for much of the twentieth century, believed to be “anything in

between high culture and folk culture.” High culture challenges tradition and aspires to validate

the individual. On the other hand, folk culture is communal which means that the creator and the

audience belong to same social group and the creator employs the daily experience of that group.

“Neither has extensive influence outside their intrinsic social groups.” (Goff, 2012) Popular

47

culture therefore touches on both aspects of high and folk culture to appeal to a wider

demographic. Myths based on popular culture include movies, television shows, popular books,

etc.

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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This study employed postcolonial criticism to interpret the research found in chapter II.

In proving an organic connection between Philippine mythology and magical realism, this study

analyzed the influences of colonialism during the development of Philippine literature. The

objective of this chapter is to present postcolonial criticism and theories of Homi K. Bhabha on

“colonial depersonalization” and “mimicry”

Postcolonial Criticism

Postcolonial criticism is a study of political discourse which analyzes existing powers of

colonialism/imperialism. It aims to identify the so-called “other” or marginalized people and to

examine cultural relations between Western and “third world” countries— that is, between the

colonizers and the colonized. (Selden, Widdowson & Booker, 2005)

Post-colonial criticism also questions the role of the western literary canon and western

history as dominant forms of knowledge making. The terms "first-world," "second

world," "third world" and "fourth world" nations are critiqued by post-colonial critics

because they reinforce the dominant positions of western cultures populating first world

status. This critique includes the literary canon and histories written from the perspective

of first-world cultures. So, for example, a post-colonial critic might question the works

included in "the canon" because the canon does not contain works by authors outside

western culture. (Brizee, Tompkins, Chernouski & Boyle, 2015)

49

Moreover, postcolonial theorists like Edward Said, Giyatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi

K. Bhabha were concerned with the representation of dominated cultures in literature, although

they posited different arguments on the matter. Through a combination of Poststructuralist,

Marxist strategies, the postcolonial theorists undermined the imperialist subject.

This study is interested in the writings of Homi K. Bhabha. His book Locations of

Culture introduced two concepts. The concepts are “colonial depersonalization” and “mimicry.”

Colonial Depersonalization

Homi K. Bhabha’s analysis of “colonial depersonalization” in relation to Fanon’s Black

Skin, White Masks was employed for the selection and analyses of the author’s creative works.

Using Fanon’s story, Bhabha deduced that the stereotypes of primitivism and degeneracy

Westerners associated with the black man had formed the representative narrative of Western

personhood. (Bhabha, 1994) Furthermore, the black man’s desire is articulated in three processes

of identification: first, in his recognition of the other’s place (self in relation to other); second, in

his desire to occupy his master’s space while also aligning himself with others (role reversal);

third, in his want of independence from a pre-given identity (self-identity). In literature, we have

Friday who becomes “civilized” under the mentorship of Robinson Crusoe. In film, we have

Django Freeman, a black slave whose freedom is bought by a white man and who is given the

opportunity to gun down his white oppressors— ironically, while donning the clothes of his

oppressors.

Mimicry

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Bhabha’s argument hinges on the idea that civilized indigenous populations are products

of repetition, imitation and resemblance. “For Bhabha, mimicry is the effect of the doubling that

takes place when one culture dominates another. Some of those dominated will attempt to mimic

those in the dominant culture.” (Christopher Flynn. [2014, September 6]. Postcolonial Theory.

[Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG1HL8h8aMM) Mimicry is an

expression of the colonizer’s desire for a recognizable other that is “almost the same but not

quite” which in turn gives the colonial subject a partial presence.

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Chapter IV

PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND APPLICATION OF DATA

My two short stories “Pascual” and “Siquijor” will be examined through postcolonial

criticism. Both of these stories combine magical realism and Philippine mythology. “Pascual” is

a coming of age story set in present-day Manila; “Siquijor” is an adventure story set in Siquijor

during the fifteenth century which parodies the discovery of the island by Capitan General

Esteban Rodriguez.

Again, magical realism is a combination of realism and the fantastic in such a way that

magical elements grow organically out of the reality portrayed. My stories aim to reintroduce

real objects in ways which will bring out the uncanny element in reality. Philippine mythology

plays a central role in the narrative mode. The myth helps to situate the reader historically,

geographically, demographically, politically in the Philippines, as in marvelous realism, and

produces a sense of “ambiguity” which is faithful to concept of Angel Flores. “Pascual” and

“Siqujior” are modeled after two short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man

with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” in terms of tone and

narrative structure. I have also attempted to emulate Marquez’s emphasis on confusion of time

scales, superstition, gossip and exaggeration, and the shock of the new.

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Pascual

The story begins with a husband and wife who vainly attempt to have children in spite of

the husband’s impotence. Miguel, the husband, leaves for Bulacan to join the Obando festival in

the hope that afterwards he would be able have a child with his wife, Candida. However, Miguel

does not come home after the Obando and Candida mysteriously becomes pregnant. Left alone

in their apartment, Candida becomes depressed and starts eating trash to stave off her hunger, but

as a result, she becomes even hungrier and turns to kamote (for which she has developed a

monstrous appetite) as an alternative. By the eight month, her landlord, RJ, confronts her at the

gate of their boarding house just as she is about to leave for the market. RJ indirectly tells her

that she is pregnant and that she should not feel ashamed about it. Then he offers to take her to

the hospital for a check-up. This surprises Candida but she nevertheless accepts RJ’s offer for

fear of upsetting him.

The doctor urges her to stay in the hospital as she is too far in her pregnancy and may go

into labor anytime. Some hours later, Candida is rushed into the delivery room where she

conceives a giant kamote. In her confused state, she mistakes the vegetable for a baby boy.

Meanwhile, RJ is asleep in the hallway. It is revealed in a dream that RJ is secretly in love with

Candida. When he wakes up, he realizes that Candida has left the hospital and returned home to

their boarding house with her newborn child which is a kamote. Back home, Candida places the

kamote on the table. It enrages her and she begins to throw Miguel’s things out of the door. In

frustration, she considers hurling the kamote in the street but decides against it and instead buries

the kamote in the soil. Shortly after burying the kamote, Candida hears a cooing in the gravel. So

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she digs out the kamote but then discovers a baby boy crying. She picks the babe up in her arms

and nurses it. The baby boy is given the name Pascual.

Throughout Pascual’s life, he is dealt fantastic stories about his birth and his father.

Candida exaggerates her stories in order to rationalize her son’s mysterious birth and to protect

him from Miguel’s disappearance. Pascual grows up believing in the myths of his mother and

comes to own it as part of his identity. This makes him quite famous in his baranggay as he

proclaims to the street kids that he was once a kamote and that his father is a mountain in

Bulacan. Later on, RJ professes his love for Candida through a text message. The conversation

ends in RJ forcing Candida to love him or he will throw them out of his boarding house. Candida

decides to leave the boarding house with Pascual and they transfer in a smaller room in Caloocan

where life is no doubt harder for them. Pascual quits school to bus tables at a Chinese restaurant

when Candida gets sick from a bacterial infection in her stomach. But, since Pascual’s salary is

not enough to pay for her medicines, her condition worsens and soon she is admitted to the

hospital.

On her deathbed, Candida confesses to lying about Pascual’s father. Pascual insists that

his father is the Mountain Manalmon in Bulacan. Unable to convince him, Candida passes away

and Death enters the room to collect her soul while Pascual weeps at her bedside. The news of

Candida’s passing reaches Miguel in Bulacan. Miguel has entered priesthood many years ago.

As penance, he returns to Manila to visit her wake and conduct mass for free. At the wake he is

approached by a young man who reminds him of himself back in the day. Miguel asks if he is the

son of Candida. The young man says yes and Miguel breaks down in tears. Miguel claims to be

Pascual’s father. Pascual realizes that Miguel is telling the truth but maintains that his father is a

mountain in Bulacan.

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In the end, Pascual takes a bus to Bulacan with his mother’s ashes. He hopes to reunite

his parents by releasing Candida’s ashes on the mountain. He is joined on the bus by Death who

says that he, too, is travelling to Bulacan. Pascual engages the friendly specter in a conversation

which ends with him continuing Candida’s story.

Analysis and Interpretation of Data

The story contains three sources of myth:

Christian myth: the Fertility Dance of Obando mentioned in the story refers to a three-

day festival held in honor of the three patrons of Obando, Bulacan: San Pascual de Baylon “the

patron of devout worshippers who are looking to get married and have baby boys,” Santa Clara

“the patron saint of the childless who want to have baby girls,” and Nuestra Senora de Salambao

“protector of people who work in fishing, the main source of livelihood in Obando.” The ritual

dates back to an ancient fertility dance called Kasilonawan. Childless couples and individuals

who are looking for partners sing Awit Kay Santa Clara and dance the fandango throughout

town. This practice falls under tigal-i since the dance is performed with the intention of

producing a desired outcome. Miguel wants to have a son so he participates in the festival. But

then he ends up staying in Bulacan.

Indigenous myth: the phenomenon of Pascual’s birth relates to the first instance of

panglihi or lihi which is “a visible mark upon the baby’s body resembling the object of the

mother’s fancy.” I chose to exaggerate the myth so that Candida’s hankering for kamote turned

her child into an actual vegetable instead of a baby boy with marks on his body. Candida did not

see it as strange nor did any of the characters in the story. When she got angry, it was not

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because she gave birth to a kamote but because the kamote reminded her of Miguel’s

disappearance.

Myth based on popular culture: the most recognizable depiction of Death is a skeletal

figure carrying a scythe. This is evidenced by television shows like Grim Adventures of Billy and

Mandy, Regular Show and Family Guy, the novel Repo Man by Terry Prachett. In my story,

Death is portrayed as lazy and misanthropic rather than swift and assiduous. I gave him a

personality so he could interact with the characters and a calculator so he could work more

efficiently. I added logic to his character.

Now, how is magic conveyed in the story?

Magic merges with the mundane, objective reality of the fictive world. Ordinary logic is

distorted: Miguel leaves for Bulacan to attend the Obando; Candida gets pregnant months later

and conceives a kamote. Magical realism is not fantasy nor is it escapist fiction; it is imaginative

writing set in realistic context. (Zamora, 2006) The Harry Potter books are not magical realist

novels because while the magic exists in the fictive world, it offsets reality. Hogwarts can only

exist in the literary world while Quezon City exists in the real, non-literary world. In magical

realism, the magical element is received by realistic truths: the all-too familiar quality of doubt

appears when Miguel arrives in Bulacan and does not come home until his wife’s death; the true

identity of Pascual’s father is revealed to him, despite his unwavering conviction. The reader is

aware of the truth, but Pascual’s show of resistance causes unsettling doubts in the reader. Since

magic is an organic element of the realist narrative, the narrator makes no attempt to explain

what has transpired, hence the matter-of-fact tone. At this point the reader may forgo his doubts

or hold on to his disbelief. Moreover, the reader’s certainties are undermined by magical realism.

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He eventually accepts the mixture of magical happenings and factual details not as “either/or”

but as “both at once.” For instance, the reader may accept Death as an eternal character who

exists in and out of time and who possesses a calculator— an artifact of the psychical world—

and the flaw of laziness and misanthropy— which human beings possess.

Mimicry is articulated through Miguel’s character. Marginalization is unconsciously

reinforced by Miguel’s participation in the Fertility Dance of the Obando (formerly believed to

be a ritual dance for fertility, the festival was altered by the colonizer to include saints), and in

his servitude to the church as a priest. His return home is symbolic of the transcultural

transformation he had undergone in Bulacan. He no longer resembles his old self but becomes

“domesticated.” Colonial ambivalence is similarly articulated in the defiance of the other:

Despite all logic and reason, Pascual is born as a kamote. Pascual rejects his true identity in favor

of a fantastic identity (believing his father is a mountain). The latter also criticizes how mythic

storytelling undermines European rationality by presenting two conflicting views: one rational

and one irrational. Here is an excerpt from “Pascual”:

In close proximity, the two looked nearly identical. Pascual resisted the urge to touch

this man’s face. What are the chances of finding out your father is a priest? Not only was

it sickening to Pascual, it also wasn’t a good story to tell his friends who were resolute

Christians.

In another instance, Pascual gives up his otherness to conform to European rationality,

but his otherness continues to overlap:

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Pascual was now thirteen. He had given up his nickname and his stories and focused

solely on work. He paid for a week’s worth of antibiotics. The label specified two 120

gram capsules per day but Candida’s dosage secretly went beyond three capsules. It was

only a matter of time and Pascual knew it more than anyone, but he refused to stop

caring.

Self is therefore created from the other’s resistance to colonial powers. By the end

Pascual gained a deeper understanding of himself because he had experienced withdrawal from

his otherness and criticism from his peers (Candida and Miguel) who tried to rationalize with

him.

Siquijor

The story begins in the 15th century, with a shipwrecked crew composed of a captain, an

admiral, a friar and ninety men who make their way to the island of Siquijor. An unnamed boy

witnesses their arrival on the beach. The boy hides behind a wall of mangroves and arms himself

with a branch. When Almirante Aguirre walks up to the mangroves on the far side of the beach,

the boy mistakes him for a catao and charges at him with the branch. The branch snaps in two.

This alerts Capitan General Rodriguez and he tries to intervene. Aguirre eventually sees the boy

and alerts the men to his discovery. The men crowd behind him. As a peace offering, one of the

men place a wooden ornament at the boy’s feet. Another man presents him with the image of the

child Jesus robed in vermilion. The boy recognizes that the items placed before him are carved

from duhat like the idol he keeps at home. The men try to communicate with him in Castilian,

Catalan and Galician but they are unsuccessful. Fray Santiago performs an impromptu baptismal.

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By some miracle, the boy curses in Spanish and the men all laugh. Afterwards, He is given the

name Felipe. Grateful, the boy named Felipe offers to take them to his village in the mountains.

Capital General Rodriguez accepts and authorizes Felipe to take them to the mountains. They

enter the forest.

Felipe ignores the call of a certain bird. So he comes across an old man sitting on an

anthill. Felipe tells the old man to climb off so they can cross. The old man refuses. Felipe bribes

him with a comfortable chair on which to sit. The old man refuses and says that a chair is useless

to him. Almirante Aguirre approaches the anthill and threatens the old man to climb off. Both the

old man and Almirante Aguirre exchange looks. Then an itch forms all over Aguirre’s back. This

causes Aguirre to run towards the river and nearly drown. The old man redirects his gaze upon

the rest of the men and sends them running towards the river as well.

The men find a great tree on which to rest. Some of the men have jumped into the river to

drown the red ants that crawled up their legs. Fray Santiago, who is a physician, rubs ointment

over Aguirre’s rashes. Felipe tries to find a way out of the forest but he does not remember

which path to take. This leads him to a young girl. The girl tells him that she has been kidnapped

by a tikbalang and taken into the forest against her will. She has escaped. She asks the boy if she

can join him and his friends. The boy accepts.

When they return to the clearing to meet with the Spaniards, the giant tree has

disappeared along with some of the men. Capitan General Rodriguez, Almirante Aguirre, Fray

Santiago and seventy men are all waiting for the boy to return. However, Fidel is too afraid to

ask Capitan General Rodriguez what has happened. So he lies about finding a way out of the

forest. The men are pleased with him.

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Fray Santiago performs his second baptismal on the girl in the hope of replicating his

success with Felipe. But he fails to convert the girl and pronounces her soul eternally damned.

The men think so, too. They allow her to join them anyway for fear that Felipe may abandon

them if they choose to leave her.

By morning, they find a bahay kubo. Felipe raps at the door and an old woman shows up.

He mistakes the old woman for a babaylan and asks her to dispel the curse of the tikbalang. The

old woman says that she is a mangkukulam and that she does not help people. Felipe continues to

inquire. So the mangkukulam tells him to invert his clothes so that curse will be lifted.

One by one they invert their clothes and disappear after running to the end of the forest.

Only Felipe and the unnamed girl remain. Felipe is about to take off his loincloth when the girl

suddenly orders him not to. She tells him that she cannot leave the forest. Then the girl reveals

that she does not love the tikbalang who captured her and that she herself is a tikbalang. She

expresses her attraction towards the boy and promises to make him king as long as he remains in

the forest with her. Felipe thinks about it.

Meanwhile, the men have arrived at the entrance of the Felipe’s village. Before anyone

can ask where Felipe was, raindrops fall on the Capitan General’s cheek. Expressing his love for

the rain, he looks up and sees the sun shining; a phenomenon which signifies the marriage of two

tikbalangs.

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Analysis and Interpretation

There are two sources of myth in this story:

Creatures of Philippine lower mythology: Catao (sirena), nuno sa punso, kapre, tikbalang,

mangkukulam. Almirante Aguirre is mistaken for a catao because of his tough and scaly armor.

The old man sitting on the anthill, alternatively called nuno/nuno sa punso, is a magical dwarf

that causes harm to anyone who destroys his anthill and/or disrespects him. The disappearing

tree is based on the story of a boy who falls asleep beside a giant tree which turns out to be a

kapre’s leg. (Ramos, 1971) The tikbalang shape shifts into a girl. The mangkukulam is a witch

that takes the form of a woman, possesses magical powers and knowledge of the unknown.

Christian mythology: Belief in saints, the baptism of the boy and girl. Capitan General

Rodriguez kisses the scapular of San Nicolas for protection. Fray Santiago baptizes the boy.

Afterwards the boy is named Felipe. The same thing is done to the girl. However, the friar fails

to convert her.

The real and the fantastic are ambiguously represented to facilitate the “merging of two

worlds.” Reality is depicted with awe (the ocean turning gold, Capitan General Rodriguez

claiming that the island is overrun by flying embers, the boy mistaking Almirante Aguirre for a

catao) and fantasy is depicted as commonplace (the boy immediately conversed in Spanish after

his baptism, the occurrence of the supernatural, observance of bad omens i.e the call of a certain

bird). Furthermore, the story is narrated matter-of-factly, despite its perverted logic (when the

unnamed girl did not converse in Spanish after her baptism, the Spaniards take it as a rejection of

their faith). The disruption of space is utilized in the narrative (the tikbalang’s curse prevents the

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crew from exiting the forest) as well as the disruption of identity (the boy embraces the culture of

the other and loses the self)

The story illustrates Bhabha’s theory of “colonial depersonalization” in that the

stereotypes of primitivism and savagery the Spaniards associate with the Filipino forms the

representative narrative of the Spaniard’s personhood. In other words, the Spanish identity or self

is formed from the Filipino identity or other. Furthermore, the story illustrates the three

processes of identification similar to the example given by Bhabha:

(1) The Filipino’s recognition of the other’s place (self in relation to other): “He

recognized they were Spaniards, not catao.”

(2) A desire to occupy his master’s space while also aligning himself with others (role

reversal): Felipe converses with the men of the Trinidad like a natural born Spaniard and

desires to please them, but does not cast off his loincloth and speaks fluent Bisaya to the

old man, the girl and the mangkukulam.

(3) A want of independence from a pre-given identity (self-identity): Felipe’s decision to

stay in the forest instead of leaving with the Spaniards presents resistance/hesitance on

the part of the self to accept the other.

I used the historical accounts of Esteban Rodriguez and Juan Aguirre, who landed on the

island of Siquijor by accident while straying off the Cebu Strait. There was little information

about it online. So I decided to build my story around that small event. Siquijor is an island

teeming with mystic traditions, magical potions, shamans, witches and sorcerers that it is not

hard to imagine duwendes, kapres, tikbalangs, etc. (“The Mystical Island of Siquijor,” 2012)

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Chapter IV

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Magical realism is a combination of the real and the fantastic in such a way that magical

elements grow organically out of the reality portrayed. The term was first coined by Franz Roh

in his book Nach Expressionismus Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neusten europäischen

Malerei (Post-expressionism, Magic Realism: Problems of the Most Recent European Painting)

to describe the new trend of Postructuralist art that emerged during the start of the twentieth

century. Magical realist painters like Pyke Koch were concerned with the ordinary world of

mundane objects and the inherent magic of mundane objects. From its visual origin, Roh’s

concept would see literary application in Alejo Carpentier’s lo maravillosa real americano

(American marvelous realism/marvelous realism). Carpentier posited that Latin American

literature contained a natural affinity between the real and the imaginary by virtue of Latin

American history, geography, demography and politics. The movement, in turn, was criticized

by Angel Flores who stated that the thematic and geographical approach towards Spanish

American literature typically undermined the stylistic component in all stories written by Spanish

Americans. However, both Carpentier and Flores agreed that Realism and Romanticism seemed

bound together in one afflatus that flowed constantly in Latin American. There was no apparent

movement of magical realism in the Philippines. On the other hand, Nick Joaquin had been

synonymous with the production of magical realist stories that were intrinsically Filipino. This

tradition of magical realism extended to a whole generation of Filipino writers such as Wilfrido

Nolledo, Eric Gamalinda, the Alfars, F. Sionil Jose among others.

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As indicated in Anitism: A Survey of Religious Beliefs Native to the Philippines (Hislop,

1970), Filipino folk beliefs and customs, which figured in the stories of Nick Joaquin as well as

the author’s short stories, originated in early religion. Anitism demanded religious worship of

ancestral spirits known as anito. The anito was known to cause good fortune, illness and death.

The Filipinos believed in the anitos and became superstitious to such a degree that irrational

fears such as hearing a certain bird’s call would keep them from performing tasks in the

community. The tendency to believe without imperial evidence is most evident in rural societies

in the Philippines, although Filipinos living in urban societies also experience this cultural

transgression in the form of Christianity. “…Christian observers are alarmed at the extent of

pagan practice among those who are called Christians, to the extent that their true religion may

be considered paganism, with Christianity merely an addition to their paganism rather than a

replacement of it.” (Hislop, 1970) The Dictionary of Philippine folk beliefs and customs by

Francisco Demetrio y Radaza gave insight into man’s motivation for belief. He began by

discussing the word tuo which in Cebuano meant “to believe.” The concept of tuo is closely

related to five terms: tilimad-on (omen), panglihi or lihi (a visible mark on a baby’s body; an

observance of planting; abstention from difficult labor during holy days; prohibition from eating

after a sacrifice), tigal-i (an object used, or gesture done, with the intention of achieving a

desired outcome) and patig-ali (warding or dispelling of evil forces). These terms constitute

Philippine belief-systems.

The three things students of literature should remember about postcolonial criticism:

post-colonial criticism investigates the existing powers between the colonized and the colonizer;

the struggle for ethnic, cultural and political autonomy and the awareness of transcultural

overlapping. (“Key Terms in Post-Colonial Theory,” n.d. para. 3. Retrieved from

64

http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/postcold.htm) Homi K. Bhabha introduced ideas such as “colonial

depersonalization” and “mimicry” which became key terms in postcolonial discourse.

This study proved an organic connection between Philippine mythology and magical

realism using postcolonial criticism. Faris and Zamora stated that magical realist texts drew upon

cultural systems that were no less valid than the cultural systems used by traditional literary

realism; often employing non-Western cultural systems, these so-called magical realist texts

prioritized mystery over empiricism, empathy over technology, tradition over innovation, based

on collective practices that united communities such as myths, legends and rituals. (Faris &

Zamora, 2012) Of the numerous articles written about Philippine history, one proposed that

ethnic migration was responsible for the physical endowments of the Filipinos. Another more

recent study pointed to exercise and nutrition as factors that brought about the modern Filipino.

We learn that the Filipinos were folk capable of finding livelihood wherever they could. One

community frequently engaged with another in an attempt to define a common language—

which might explain why the word “karon” means “now” in Cebuano/Bisaya and “later” in

Ilonggo. It is safe to say that the diversity of Philippine oral literature is a product of multiple

exchanges between speech communities.

There was commonality in the Filipino’s belief-system and that was anitism or the

religious worship of anitos. The anito or ancestral spirit is believed to cause prosperity and other

times sickness and death. Filipinos also animals and objects were possessed by spirits. So they

made idols through which they prayed rain, better harvest, etc. Ancient beliefs and practices are

65

still evident in the modern Filipino’s continued practice of honoring his ancestors and in his

tendency of asking things from higher power, instead of devoting his life to religious service.

Furthermore, these ancient beliefs and practices have persisted in newer generations and still

affect many Filipinos today— which might explain why a Filipino will hesitate before camping

in the forest or say “tabi-tabi” po before passing a large tree. The fantastical landscape of

Philippine literature abounds with stories of witches, love potions, saints coming to life (“Mass

of St. Sylvestre”), outlandish characters (Leon from “The Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café”),

etc. It is easy to argue that the “magic” is part of our national identity— an impulse on the part of

Nick Joaquin who created a bulk of magical realist stories, which he termed magic realism,

antedating that of the Boom period. In conclusion, because Philippine myths, beliefs and customs

remain relevant to the modern Filipino and because magical realism invests on myth, legends

and rituals, it can be said that magical realism and Philippine mythology are organically

connected.

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REFERENCES

Books:

Bowers, M. A. (2004). Magic(al) realism. London: Routledge.

Caville, A. (2012). Magical realism in Philippine literature in English: From early beginnings (1946-1985) to the present times (1996-Present). [Unpublished Masteral thesis]. Silliman University.

Del Castillo, T. Y. (1937). A brief history of Philippine literature. Manila, Philippine islands: Progressive schoolbooks.

English, L. J. (1986). Tagalog-English Dictionary. Manila: Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.

Goff, P. (2012) The Columbia guide to religion in American history. Columbia University Press.

Hawkes, T. (1977). Structuralism & semiotics. London: Methuen.

Lumbera, B. & Lumbera, C. N. (1982). Philippine literature: A history & anthology. Metro Manila, Philippines: National Book Store.

Lévi-Strauss, C., Jacobson, C., & Schoepf, B. G. (1963). Structural anthropology. New York: Basic Books.

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1979). Myth and meaning. New York: Schocken Books.

Noval-Morales, D. Y. & Monan, J. (1979). A primer on the Negritos of the Philippines. Manila: Philippine Business for Social Progress.

Scott, W. H. (1994). Barangay: Sixteenth-century Philippine culture and society. Quezon City, Manila, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Ramos, M. D. (1971). Creatures of Philippine lower mythology. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.

White, C.F.H. (1976). God, revelation and authority. Crossway Books.

Zamora, L. P. & Faris, W. B. (1995). Magical realism: Theory, history, community. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Online Sources:

Claude Levi-Strauss & Structuralism. (n.d.). Retrieved, from http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/courses/phi4804/levistrauss1.htm

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De Viana, A. V. (2011). The Philippines: A Story of a nation. Retrieved, from http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/15372/301.The Philippines A story of a Nation.PDF?sequence=1

Mascunana, R. V., & Mascunana, E. F. (2004). The folk healers-sorcerers of Siquijor. Manila, Philippines: Rex Book Store.

Philippine mythical creatures: The “Kapre” smoking monster. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://philippinemythicalcreatures.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-kapre-smoking-monster.html

New realism. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/New Realism

The Kapre. (2008). Retrieved, from http://web.archive.org/web/20080729223038/http://www.geocities.com/gcalla1/kapre.htm

Rushdie, S. (2014). Magic in service of truth. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/books/review/gabriel-garcia-marquezs-work-was-rooted-in-the-real.html?_r=0

The writer's toolbox - ask the w riter - Gotham Writers Workshop. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/ask-writer/what-is-magical-realism-how-is-it-different-than-fantasy

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APPENDIX

Reunited at Mount Manalmon

In the beginning, when the young Candida wedded Miguel de Lima whose impotence

was known throughout the baranggay, she didn’t expect years later to give birth to a five pound

kamote, or that she would have to endure a small house, an empty stomach, and a husband who

would one day disappear.

They lived in Quezon City, in a small room on the second floor of a boarding house

which had a commanding view of the slums. Candida would look to the shanties and believe that

if a sheet of canvas could pass for an actual roof, anything was possible. That if she tried hard

enough, she could ignore the exposed wiring and the padlocked emergency exit and the stink of

the estero.

Miguel had heard of this “pleasant and affordable residence” through the neighborhood

grapevine, three days before they got married in the municipyo. The room came with a stand fan

and a metal bed frame with missing screws. The rent was P1,000 a month which was a small

encouragement for living in the Slum Mecca of Quezon City. Candida just kept quiet and walked

up and down the stairs with her head down as if she were counting penances. The boarding house

was owned by a man named RJ. He was the sort of person who set deadlines for himself and said

things like “as soon as possible” but hardly accomplished anything on time. RJ’s Lodging House

was a testament to his inadequacy.

Meanwhile, without warning, Miguel boarded a bus to Bulacan. He planned to join the

Obando, if only to ask the saints for a child, preferably male, tisoy, someone to inherit many of

his good qualities.

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When Miguel left for Bulacan, the severity of his absence weakened Candida’s body little

by little. After the sixth month of Miguel’s absence, Candida stopped hoping to receive a letter.

But she still went to the post office to disturb the pissy dwarf of a clerk whom she had grown to

like.

Candida neglected to eat regularly for so long that hunger had created a vacuum in her

stomach. She derived a momentary satisfaction from chewing trash, but afterwards she felt even

hungrier. To satisfy her monstrous appetite, Candida ate dirt-cheap kamote. Vivian, to whom

Candida owed two mountains of debt, showed her sympathy in the form of kamote. One random

day in the eight month of Miguel’s absence, as Candida made her way to Vivian’s, someone with

wild hair ran after her. To her surprise, she found it was RJ.

“How far along are you?” he asked.

Candida shielded her tummy with a bayong.

“Don’t need to hide it,” he said. “Let me take you to the doctor.”

With his chin down, he looked through each one of his keys, and retrieved the one for his

Yamaha motorcycle. RJ smiled through his yellow fangs that still held evidence of the beef tapa

he had eaten for breakfast.

Stepping into the doctor’s office, Candida felt as though her whole life would be shown

on the ultrasound machine. The doctor gave his most reassuring smile.

“It’s best for you to stay in one of our rooms,” he said. “This far into the pregnancy… the

baby might come out anytime.”

True enough. Some hours later, Candida conceived a five-pound kamote. The doctor

stood there quietly, so Candida squinted at the figure in the light, and believed that she had given

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birth to a boy. She didn’t need to lift her head to prove it. She knew with motherly intuition that

the child was healthy, and so she allowed herself to sleep.

RJ was dozing off in the lobby. He had gotten used to sleeping on a stool outside his

boarding house since it used to be the house of a man he was working for. He mumbled curses

in his sleep which was oddly directed at the fact that he hadn’t kissed anyone other than an old

hag named Suzy O’Hara who had kissed him wet on the lips because she thought he was a

charming young boy. He had pushed the old hag aside and consciously dreamed of Candida. At

some point he arrived at a lucid state. He narrowed his thoughts to two things: a bed and a breath

mint.

RJ sailed on the sea of love, despite not knowing how to swim. He imagined sitting idly

in a bangka. If the bangka drowned, he drowned. If the bangka survived, then he’d float along

and live to see the sunset. He woke up and soon realized that Candida was no longer in the

hospital.

***

Back home, Candida placed the five-pound kamote on the table. She placed the kamote in a soft

quill blanket surrounded by many pillows.

She allowed herself to hate it, that ugly thing that denied her sleep and pained her body.

More often than not, the kamote served to injure her womanhood.

She opened the window, and out went Miguel’s spare maleta, polo shirts, maong pants,

underwear, the pots and pans, the plastic hangers, the iron, the basin which contained yesterday’s

laundry; her muscles tensing with anger, she picked up the kamote on the table with the intention

of hurling it towards an unsuspecting tambay. Instead, she stepped outside and buried it. No

longer would she be reminded of grief. She would begin anew. If she wanted to, she could get a

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gig as a singer in Lester’s Beer Garden. She could get on stage and rip out her vocal chords and

make everyone happy…

“I’d giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive my oooooool to habbbb jas one more night with you!!”

Then it happened. Soon after patting down the dirt and swearing never to return to this

place again, Candida heard a cooing from deep within the gravel. She dug out the kamote but

instead discovered a baby. She dropped down, and nursed the little angel in her arms. It didn’t

matter whose baby it was. It began to rain and yet Candida moved just slightly from her original

position. Their lives were now tethered by an invisible strand that connected mother and son.

***

Paz was what she called him, a shortened version of the name Pascual. Paz, whose name had

been derived from a certain artista, grew up hearing about his father: the Mountain Manalmon.

Indeed, Paz’s father was a mountain, or at least that’s what his mother would say. “You were

born in the soil of Manalmon,” Candida would tell him, giving not the slightest indication of a

lie. “When I plucked you out, you fitted right into the palm of my hand!” Paz talked about the

myth of Mountain Manalmon to his friends who outright believed him. Word got around.

When Paz turned eleven, he amassed a crowd of tambays who all thought he was Rico

Yan’s younger cousin. They were dazzled by his eloquence and the curtains of long black hair

which parted in the middle of his forehead. The name Pascual echoed in the slums of Project 2.

In the basketball courts of Pineda, a hundred errant kids gathered to listen to him tell his story.

They weren’t the only living beings in Quezon City. The of Life still persisted at a galloping

pace and Death, that being, charged through the city… or strolled through the city like an old

man with a camera. Running around as an eternal being could get quite repetitive. It wouldn’t be

surprising if Death took a calculator with Him on these occasions, just to brighten the day.

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That year, RJ proposed to Candida with a text message. The message read: “Luv u B3h”

(RJ also flirted with the upper and lowercase letters). She asked what he meant by that. “I love

you,” he said. He smiled brightly. Candida began to frown. If it didn’t work out with Miguel, it

didn’t work out with anyone. That was her line of thinking. Besides, she was twenty-nine, and he

was thirty-seven. She could barely remember the funky Coca-Cola commercials of the seventies.

Candida didn’t want to ruin the moment by saying something stupid and so did RJ. The air was

heavy with a dense coagulated silence.

They stood motionless for what seemed like eons. Death was on His way to Lester’s Beer

Garden when He saw these two standing around. He scratched His sides and went away

disappointed and bored. Time hadn’t reduced RJ’s longing for Candida nor did it teach him the

value of taking a loss with grace. No. In the outskirts of Binondo, where tambays drew blood, RJ

grew up not knowing what grace was. He wouldn’t be defeated. Not by some punk who went to

Bulacan.

“Do I not love you enough?” he asked in the tone of a haggler.

Candida shook her head.

“It’s not that,” she said.

“Then what is it?”

“I am still married to Miguel. I cannot fall in love with you.”

“But it has been ten years! Where is your Miguel? Huh?” he paused a little. “Well, I am

here. If I have to grovel, I will do it.”

“I do not love you the same way!”

Overcome by anger, RJ responded with the worst possible thing he could say: “Marry

me, or I shall force you out of the boarding house.”

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Much has changed, indeed.

***

Candida became very ill. She and Paz had moved to another boarding house in Caloocan. Unlike

Project 2, Caloocan was terribly cramped.

Everything was sold here, as in Baclaran: wallets, slippers, headsets, etc. People were

distrustful of each other since many of them had encountered a snatcher once or twice in their

lives. It was here that Candida cultivated a bacterial infection in her stomach caused by dirty

water. By then Paz was already twelve. He quit school to bus tables in a Chinese restaurant

called Blue Dragon, in Ong Pin. He worked tirelessly from seven to seven. He was paid in food:

a day’s worth of siopao, dim sun, and fried rice. Sometimes, if his boss felt extra generous, Paz

was able to bring home a piece of roast chicken but never a promised salary of five hundred

pesos. The infection in Candida’s stomach persisted, and by the following year she was brought

to the hospital.

Pascual was now thirteen. He had given up his nickname and his stories and focused

solely on work. He paid for a week’s worth of antibiotics. The label specified two 120 gram

capsules per day but Candida’s dosage secretly went beyond three capsules. It was only a matter

of time and Pascual knew it more than anyone, but he refused to stop caring.

On the day of her death, Candida asked to be sat upright, with her back leaning against a

pillow. She squeezed the boy’s hand. “Listen,” she began. “I may die here… so shut up and let

me talk…” Pascual allowed her to speak. “I was in love once, with a man named Miguel.” This

hadn’t been the first time Pascual had heard the name mentioned but for some reason it startled

him. He felt jealous. Candida squeezed the boy’s hand a second time. “Miguel is your father,”

she said unapologetically. Pascual feigned his disinterest in the subject. “You must understand,”

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Candida panicked. “I was nineteen.” Pascual balled his fits. “How do I say this?” she tried again.

“He never came back.” Blood was now coming out of the boy’s hand, her long nails were biting

into his skin. “My father is the Mountain Manalmon!!” he shouted. “He lives in Bulacan and I’m

going to see him!!” Nothing was said back. Tears were welling up in Pascual’s eyes. He kept his

head down and cried. Death had added one count to his eternal calculator.

Pascual stayed up for days in a small chapel illuminated by two torches in a corner. The

guestbook had four signatures, one belonging to a minister, two belonging to a Batman and

Robin whose real names had been crossed out. It’s possible that they’ve crossed it out

themselves after paying a visit and noticing the lack of pancit bihon on the table. Another person

had thought to leave his cell phone number on the guestbook to attract future text mates, while at

the very bottom there appeared Miguel De Lima’s signature.

Time had lashed Miguel’s face with wrinkles. His sagging jowl, uneven skin tone, and

receding hairline were indications of age and of the many years of servitude to the Church.

Anyone could see that he was from the church because he wore a white Roman collar. Miguel

recited Hail Mary ten times. Then he prayed over the urn. “Excuse me, Father,” Pascual called.

Miguel turned around and saw a splitting image of himself as a thirteen-year-old boy with

shallow fangs and wild tufts of hair.

“Are you conducting mass?” Pascual inquired, “I have nothing worthwhile to offer you

but please help yourself to some juice.”

The conversation faded into a long, meditative silence. Miguel examined the young man

who stood before him, and noted each of their similarities.

Then he said to the boy, “Are you Candida’s son?”

The boy responded, “Yes, I am.”

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Miguel broke into tears.

“My son!!” he blurted out.

“Yes, Father?” Pascual answered, turning his eyes up politely in the way children did

before kissing the priest’s hand.

“I am Miguel…”

The utterance of Miguel’s name sent a chill down Pascual’s spine and his eyes lit up.

“Forgive me, father” he said, “for a moment I thought you said your name was Miguel.”

The priest, embarrassed at having cried in front of the young man, shook his bald head.

“I am Miguel, your father,” Miguel spoke in beatific clarity.

“My father is the Mountain Manalmon,” Pascual said in a tone that matched the

roughness of granite, “I’m going to meet him soon and I’ll bring my mother’s ashes with

me.”

Miguel took the boy’s hand in his.

“I know this is hard to believe, my son,” Miguel begged with clerical tenderness, “but I

am your father. I am Miguel de Lima. Ten years ago, I married your mother, Candida…

please, let me make it up to you... what’s your name?”

The boy took his hand away. From that angle, Pascual did notice similarities between the

two of them and wondered if he’d ever look like this strange, fat man in the future.

“We can go home to Quezon City,” Miguel said, “I’ll go back to stealing cell phones if I

need to.”

In close proximity, the two looked nearly identical. Pascual resisted the urge to touch

this man’s face. What are the chances of finding out your father is a priest? Not only was it

sickening to Pascual, it also wasn’t a good story to tell his friends who were resolute Christians.

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“No,” Pascual said sharply without stuttering.

The man lowered his eyes in disappointment. “Please, tell me your name…” he said.

Nothing was said back.

***

Pascual boarded the bus to Bulacan. During the two-hour bus ride, he imagined his hike to the

summit of Mt Manalmon, in San Miguel. Then he imagined looking down at the Maldum River

and standing in view of the Sierra Madre. Tears came to his eyes.

“Why are you crying?” said the man in a pitch-black coat who sat beside him. The man

held an odd-looking calculator in his crow hands. Was he an accountant? The boy

thought. The man handed him a tissue.

“Thank you,” the boy said, smiling.

“You’re going on a tour?” the man inquired.

“Oh, yes. And you?” The boy was a little distracted.

“No… I’ve gone on too many tours…” he said, looking up from his strict calculations.

“I’m actually visiting someone.”

“Me, too,” the boy perked up.

“Who are you visiting?” the man asked.

“My dad,” the boy said.

“Didn’t you say you were going on a tour?”

The two looked at each other.

“It’s a funny story…” Pascual said.

Night fell as the boy began to tell the man about his mother and the Mountain Manalmon

and how he used to be a kamote.

77

Siquijor

After two days of threading without a sail towards the island, the Trinidad finally ran

aground. Capitan General Esteban Rodriguez, Almirante Juan Aguirre and Fray Domingo

Santiago, along with ninety men, climbed out of the wreckage and fell gently into the blue palm

of the ocean. The roaring surf slid back into the ocean’s palm, gathered the mass of barnacles

and weeds then released them upon the shore.

Nobody witnessed the Spaniards’ arrival on the island except for a boy with orange hair

and skin as dark as mud. His pursuit of fireflies had led him out of his village in the mountains

and into the wetlands where mangroves sprouted. He did not go further than the mangroves to

catch fireflies when he noticed a change in the water. A rolling wave brought to his feet a

splendor of color which gilded the blueness of the entire ocean. By accident the boy cut his leg

on a root while trying to find a sharp branch, which he could use to defend himself, should he

encounter a bathing catao. Although he himself had not seen a catao, the thought of one coming

ashore was enough to make him nervous. He resolved to slice open its tail, should it come out

and make itself visible to him.

Despite the terrible storm that had knocked the Trinidad off course, Capitan General

Rodriguez kissed the scapular of San Nicolas on his chest so that his patron would continue to

guide him. Then he asked Almirante Aguirre to lead his men. Meanwhile, Fray Santiago flapped

his arms like a flightless bird and demanded help from the marineros for whom he had reserved

his lengthy sermon on goodness, stating that he was an old friar who could not swim and must be

taken to dry land. He was also a physician, a member of the academia sent to promote

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Christianity by the king of Spain himself. Why anyone would leave him to drown was beyond

him. Overcome by guilt, the marineros swam back to pull him out of the water. When they

assembled around him, however, they were confronted by the weight of his black frock,

expanding like a net to trap small fishes and crabs.

Under the command of Almirante Aguirre the marineros carried tokens from the ship like

two chairs, an image of the child Jesus robed in vermilion and a case of vino as well as the

remainder of their provisions which they carried individually. Everything they owned was

unquestionably valuable that if something fell into the ocean— a Spanish real for instance— a

marinero would go out of his way to find it. Capitan General Rodriguez was walking to the

beach when he saw an outline of trees on the mountainside illuminated by flying embers, which

were no more than fireflies, rising up into the soot-colored sky and forming the constellations.

“Isla del Fuego!” exclaimed Capitan General Rodriguez.

The men who carried their perishables to shore must have had the impression that the

island was hellishly humid because of the fireflies on the mountainside which the Capitan

General mistook for flying embers. Capitan General Rodriguez was known to have a lofty

imagination.

When Juan Aguirre walked up to the mangroves on the far side of the beach, a boy

charged at him with a branch that shattered into a million pieces across his steel breastplate.

Pushed back a few steps, Aguirre’s quickly loosened the cover of his saber. The shriek of

Aguirre’s saber alerted Capitan General Rodriguez who was more than familiar with the sound

of blades unsheathing. Rodriguez then saw Aguirre pointing his saber at his own shadow. He

was not about to call his attention when he realized that Aguirre was standing still and his

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shadow was moving backwards. “Oye!” he shouted. Almirante Aguirre drew an invisible line

between him and his attacker with his sword. Capitan General Rodriguez shouted once more and

the men looked to the far side of the beach. Fray Domingo came to his senses. “Gracias a Dios,”

he said, lying on the shore like a starfish.

The boy became more and more convinced that under a full moon a catao’s skin was

tougher than five stalks of bamboo put together. Aguirre eventually saw the boy. The boy might

be the same age as Aguirre’s younger brother who was living in Spain, but the orange hair and

ragged, soiled loincloth like the one he had seen on a particular Indian slave really disturbed him.

Aguirre called upon the men to alert them to his discovery. A crowd amassed behind him,

pointing fingers and talking amongst themselves. The boy froze in panic.

One of the marineros came forth and placed a wooden ornament at the boy’s feet and

another presented the image of the child Jesus robed in vermillion. There was a curious shimmer

in the boy’s eye as he came closer to inspect them. These idols were carved from duhat like the

idol the boy kept in his house. They had red, indigo and several colors he could not yet name

painted on them.

The Spaniards tried to communicate with him, but he did not understand Castilian or

Catalan or Galician or even the language of the deaf. Losing patience, Fray Santiago threw holy

water at him and recited the Lord’s Prayer. It was at that moment that the boy began to speak. He

did not learn their language like a stuttering child, but he spoke with the fluency of a natural born

Spaniard. “Que putas pasa!” the boy yelled at the splash of water. He recognized they were

Spaniards, not catao. The men all laughed and called him Felipe. Almirante Aguirre was even a

little delighted, brushing the bits of wood off his chest. In return, the boy offered to show them

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his village in the mountains. Capitan General Rodriguez thought about it. Then he ordered the

men to line up and authorized Felipe to lead them into the mountains. Aguirre went to the back

of the line. They entered the forest late that evening.

On a full moon, the leaves of the guava tree took on a shade of green that existed only in

dreams. The crew heard the skidding of some wild animal, the crushing of leaves and the rush of

water from a nearby river. Felipe did not stop even after hearing the cry of a certain bird— which

would normally prevent him from going deeper into the forest, had he not been baptized earlier

that night. He kept on moving until he spotted an enormous anthill with a very old man sitting on

top of it. The old man wore a red cap on his head and no shoes. “Tatang” the boy said rudely,

“pahawa diri.” The old man let out a peal of laughter that made the hairs inside his nose stick

out. “Ngano man?” he asked in a child’s voice. “Muagi mi,” the boy said. The old man flared his

nostrils. “Pangita ug lain nga agianan.” His voice still sounded silly, though. “Paagia me karon

hatagan ka namo og bangko,” the boy said. “Unsay pulos sa silya ug naa man koy puntod?” the

old man joked.

Almirante Aguirre crouched beside the anthill and shooed the old man away. The old

man glared up at him. Aguirre glared back. Then an itch started behind Aguirre’s neck and

crawled down in-between his shoulder blades. Aguirre ran towards the river and almost drowned

from the weight of his clothes. Afterwards, the old man directed his gaze upon the Spaniards

who stared at him with mute stupor. They retreated to the river as well. All throughout the forest

the old man could be heard laughing. Hii-hii-hii…

***

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The men squatted at the foot of a giant tree. Some of them jumped into the river to drown the red

ants that crawled up their legs. Mosquitoes were forming and laying eggs in the nearby puddles.

When Capitan General Rodriguez clapped his shoulder, he found three dead mosquitoes in his

hand. Fray Santiago was rubbing Chinese ointment on the bright red tomato that was Almirante

Aguirre— a man reduced to an oversized rash. Felipe was trying to remember a way out of the

forest. He used to have a clear memory of the forest and its branching pathways. Now the way to

his village was foreign to him— as foreign perhaps as the image of the child Jesus when he first

saw it.

Felipe went deeper into the forest, hoping to revive his memory, when a strange girl

darted into view. She was running away from someone— or something. “Unsay nahitabo?” the

boy asked. “Gidakop ko sa tikbalang og gidala ko sa lasang. Pero naka escapo ko,” she said,

gasping. “Gipangita ra gihapon ka niya?” he asked. “Wala ko kabalo… Pero nasalaag ko.” The

soft rise of her breasts was visible in the moonlight. “Akong kauban nasalaag pod,” he said.

“Puwede mo uban ko ninyo?” she asked him. Tension built up inside of Felipe, his throat slightly

parched. “Sige.”

When they arrived at the clearing to meet with the Spaniards, the tree had disappeared—

and so did some of the men. An enormous cavity was what remained of the giant tree. Capitan

General Rodriguez, Almirante Aguirre, Fray Santiago and fifty men were all waiting for Felipe

to return. Felipe was too afraid to ask Capitan General Rodriguez what had happened while he

was away. So he lied about finding a way out of the forest. And the men were relieved.

Fray Santiago performed his second baptism on the girl. He threw water at her and

recited the Lord’s Prayer. “Padre nuestro, que estas en el cielo. Santificado sea tu nombre…”

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The girl had known a language that was spoken everywhere, in every village. She spoke

naturally in the same way birds, trees, rivers spoke. She spoke and was understood. So, when the

girl heard such fluent nonsense, she retorted with “Unsa?” Bemused, the friar repeated his

inquiry, “Va a ser bautizados?” “Wala ko kasabot,” the girl said, wiping the holy water from her

hair. Fray Santiago tried again and again. Every time he tried the girl would appear confused.

When the friar had finally run out of holy water, he pronounced her soul damned. The marineros

shared his sentiments, but they let her join them, out of concern for Felipe who promised to take

them out of the forest.

By morning, they discovered a bahay kubo which stood on a clearing. Hens pecked under

the silong and wild pigs milled about. Felipe ascended the steps and rapped at the door. The girl

followed. A white-haired woman came to the door. “Baybaylan, tabangi me ug saka sa bukid,”

Felipe said. “Diha ka nasipyat. Usa ko ka mangkukulam. Dili ko tigbangan sa mga tao.” The

woman averted her eyes. But then Felipe continued to inquire. “Gisumpa me sa tikbalang nga

masaag me sa lasang.” “Sulayi ug bali ang inyong sanina aron mawala kini na sumpa,” she said.

Almirante Aguirre was the first to invert his clothes. He walked to the end of the forest

and disappeared. Capitan General Rodriguez, along with fifty of his men, had disappeared the

same way before Domingo Santiago was convinced to commit his first sin against the Lord by

disrobing in front of a young girl. Afterwards, he, too, disappeared from sight. Felipe turned the

other way so as not to shame himself in front of the girl. She did not take her eyes off of him.

“Ayaw sa hukasa imong sanina,” the girl said, “naa koy isulti nimo…” The boy stopped just

before the ankle and awkwardly slipped on his loincloth. “Unsa man?” he said. “Gibayaan nako

ang tikbalang na ganahan mo minyo nako kay wa ko nagugma niya,” she said. “Unya unsa may

labot nako ana?” The boy sounded a little embarrassed. She must have seen him while he was

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taking off his loincloth. “Ganahan ko matigtanan nimo pero dili ko kahawa sa lasang.” “Nganong

dili?” he asked. “Ang lasang ang akong kinabuhi, konektado ko ni ini.” “Unsa imo pasabot?”

There was a long pause… “Usa ko ka tikbalang.”

At that instant the boy felt the enormity of the forest in the wind’s breath, in the earth’s

roll, in the echoing grotto, in the crushing ocean, in the faint song of men. “Kuyugi ko ug puyo

sa lasang. Himuon tikaw ug hari,” said the tikbalang. The boy turned around and considered it.

***

Sometime later, on the craggy shoulders of the island, which is now known as Mt. Bandilaan,

Capitan General Esteban Rodriguez, Almirante Juan Aguirre, Fray Domingo Santiago, along

with fifty men, communed at the entrance of Felipe’s village. Just before anyone could ask

where Felipe was, raindrops fell on Esteban Rodriguez’s pale cheek. Oh, heavenly rain, he

thought. When he looked up, however, he saw the sun.