The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 43, 1670-1700: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 43, 1670-1700: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
The ethnological appendix opens with a short account by Tomás Ortiz,
O.S.A., of various superstitions and heathen beliefs and practices
that still exist among the natives, notwithstanding all the efforts
of the religious to stamp them out. Many of them show a strange
mingling of heathenism and Christianity. Their belief in nonos,
primarily, ancestor worship, leads them to ascribe spirits or
souls to everything, somewhat as did the primitive North American
Indian, and they are very careful to propitiate the spirit or nono
of river, field, and wood, etc. The ceremony of tibao, or awaiting
the soul of the deceased, is still practiced by the natives, and
they endeavor by various methods to outwit the fathers. Ashes are
spread in the house where the death occurred and by the tracks made
thereon, they ascertain whether the soul has returned or not. They
have numerous beliefs regarding the tigbalag, the patianac, the
asuang, the last two of which are the enemies of childbirth and
children. Various ridiculous conjurings are performed in order to
scare off those terrible monsters of the imagination. The bongsol are
certain enchantments caused in the body by a sorcerer called ganay,
and in order to drive them away, one must have recourse to another
sorcerer. In any sickness that is deemed natural when it first comes
on, if the cure is not effected as quickly as desired, it is always
referred to enchantment or bongsol, and is exorcised. Bilao is an
elaborate ceremony, in which the rosary plays a conspicuous part,
for the discovery of any thief. The anting-anting is carried by many
of the natives. Both males and females are circumcised. There is a
curious custom of spanning their weapons while reciting the Lord's
Prayer, and if the two operations end at the same time, then one may
kill with impunity. Many heretical beliefs and many false preachers
exist, the proximity of the Mahometans having its effect. Eclipses of
the moon mean that that orb is being swallowed by some awful monster,
and all the people endeavor to scare away that beast with the great
din that they make. Inasmuch as all these beliefs are not universal,
the missionary must exercise great prudence at all times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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