#filipino myth

[inkcurlsandknives]

Working on a new short story. A sapphic retelling of a Filipino myth about dugong. Been dreaming of the Pacific and the sensation of floating on the surf, limbs tangling in seagrass. Kisses under coconut palms, swimming in the moonlight, the sound of the surf a lover's whisper

[jjaydazo]

One of my finals project.

Kapres are mythical creatures that hides up in the tree and and tricks people by giving misdirections.

Their appearance are somewhat bigger than an average human body, very huge, strong body odor,

And they would always smoke from a from a cigar thats big enough for them.

There was also a story about a kapre who falls in love over a gal and watches her grow up from afar.

[belladonnavtamie10]

Along with Mana, I drew this little mage for my finals in my first year. I forgot the term on what she was based on, I do know that there's a term for the magic practitioners in Filipino but I forgot what they're called...

[cheesy-cryptid]

tw // blood, body horror

“Honora…“

“Not now, Benito! We've just uncovered—-“

“No…look!”

🥀🐦‍⬛🧛🍂

Tropical gothic my beloved i am SO back 🩸 decided to make a fake book cover about filipino monster hunters solving mysteries together

[pinoy-culture]

✨️ Myths from Bikol! What were some of the creation stories? Do you know about the deity that causes the rain and lightning?

To read more on these myths and more, I definitely recommend picking up the book. "Philippine Folk Literature: The Myths" by Damiana L. Eugenio. Other books in the series include Anthology, The Epics, The Legends, The Folklore, The Proverbs, and The Riddles.

📚➡️ Grab a copy of The Myths and a few other books in the Philippine Folk Literature series in my shop, hirayabotanicals.com !

If you are from the Philippines, you can get a copy of the book through UP Press through their storefronts on Shopee, Lazada, or contacting UP Press directly.

✨️ Did you know of these myths? What are some myths you do know of?

[ano-po]

I miss Maria Makiling 😞😞😞

When was the last time I thought of her?

I miss living close to her mountain, even if it means there are occasional pythons under the bed. (They don't bite.)

I miss romanticizing the moon, feeling the cold of the night, reading about Philippine mythology that the local accountant with a computer printed out for me.

Being a young admirer of nature, writing on my journal about the little magical experiences I feel, listening to Kitchie Nadal's Buwan, thinking that someday I will be brave enough to venture the mountains alone at night, and if she sees me and offers me a place in her kingdom and never return, then so be it.

I miss Maria Makiling

[briefbestiary]

Smoking giants typically sat up in balete trees. If a kapre falls in love, they will follow said individual for the rest of their life, typically out of sight. Kapre are also said to carry small white stones, smaller than the egg of a quail. Should anyone manage to get ahold of this stone will be able to receive wishes from the kapre.

[relmint]

Hanan, goddess of the morning and dawn. In Tagalog mythology, she is Mayari and Tala's sister. She symbolizes the sign of a new day and age, and people pray to her at the break of dawn.

Tala, goddess of the stars. In Tagalog mythology, she is Mayari and Hanan's sister. She is famous for her help in creating the Tagalog constellations and is known to use divine spheres of light to guide sailors to safety at night. These spheres were soon feared as deadly beings of fire called "santelmos" due to Spanish influence.

[ask19thcentury-doctorgilbert]

Hi!!! I'm not sure how old your blog is, but I've stumbled across it now! I was just reading some of your stuff and I wanted to know: Is 'Devai" the term you're using for the Nation-people? I never know what to call them myself, like how would humans refer to them as, do they know they are their country people, and what not. If Yes, how did you come up with the term 'Devai'? :0

Hello!!

Yes, 'Devai' is the term that I use for nations in my headcanon! It's based on the word 'Diwata'. In pre-colonial filipino tradition, the Diwata are nature spirits who protect the land and sometimes the people who reside within their land too. I thought that it was appropriate, given what nations are supposed to represent!

Devai (or Devas, singular) is how they refer to each other within the Devai community. Humans have come up with different names for them across the centuries. "Nation" is a relatively recent name for them, which I like to think started to be coined by the masses in the 19th century, particularly in Europe.

As for whether people know them or not, I think that varies greatly depending on the culture and the devas in question themselves. There are Devai who are bonded to communities who are 100% aware of who they are and what they represent. There are some whose identities, by choice or otherwise, are on a strict need-to-know basis. Devai can blend into society easily as they don't appear different from the average human. Really, the only way you'd be able to tell that there's more to them than they seem is if you 1) saw them in a fight, 2) spend a prolonged amount of time around them.

Hope that answered your question!! ^^

[groveyrising]

oh yeah babey...

[maya-chirps]

[ID: a screenshot of a reblog by @/fleurtygurl. It reads: "Omg instant follow! I need more Philippines facts in my life!!! 😭😭😭

If you have any facts about filipino myths? That would be amazing. But also I will literally eat up everything you post!

I'm in desperate need of reconnecting with my roots, but I've been so busy that I haven't had any time to do any extensive research...."

/End ID]

@fleurtygurl Decided to make a whole post based on this because I loooove talking about Filipino mythology and researching more about different mythologies within the country and I also hadn't gone around to looking through the things I want to learn about.

Filipino mythology is a pretty huge umbrella term considering that there are hundreds of cultures in the archipelago that have different beliefs, practices, and traditions and especially before the Spanish colonial period. I won't get too deep into it, but basically if you want to learn about some grander pantheon or some general overarching compendium of beliefs that all precolonial Filipinos believe in, you won't be getting that sine historically, Filipinos were not a unified people, but a bunch of different countries and communities that were placed under one governing body for easy management for the Spanish crown.

With so many Filipino cultures and, by extension, mythologies, the best way with trying to reconnect with your heritage, it might be best to figure out which ethnic group you may have connections too and start researching from there. In my case, for example, I would look up both Tagalog mythology, Bikolano mythology, and Ilokano mythology in order to get a good grasp of the mythology of my roots since I'm mixed Tagalog, Bikolano, and Ilokano, and those three have widely different beliefs and especially with folk religion.

I guess the main issue with this is a lot of sources related to Filipino myths are often difficult to find, are unreliable, or plainly just non-existent. Lots of books are often out of circulation and print, or if they are still in print, they are often only sold by specific retailers and often cost a lot of money. Research papers are locked behind a paywall or are only available through specific e-libraries you can only access if you have an affiliation with a university. Online articles may be unreliable and source places that are hard to fact check. Blogs, honestly including mine to be frank, may parrot wrong information from other websites and articles, with their best feature being the possibility that they may have come from oral sources but those are also very few.

Honestly, I was about to go on a long tangent about discussing at least the Tagalog pantheon and mythology because it had a lot of sources I've seen online, but after hours of research, I've found out that there was also a lot of unreliable sources in terms of information about that so I've decided against rambling on further about it for now.

(I am still going to write about my findings on the Tagalog pantheon later but after what I've found out, I might take some time to look through a lot more primary sources which means colonial era texts and harder to find archived works.)

I will say that a good way to connect with more general Filipino folklore outside of mythology itself is probably consuming media that explores folklore and traditional beliefs. I recommend Trese, a Filipino comic turned series on Netflix if you want to see Filipino cryptids being used in a modern-day story made by Filipinos. There are also other comics that focus on Filipino mythology like The Mythology Class and its sequel The Children of Bathala by Arnold Arre.

There's also series and movies that take inspiration from Filipino folklore and mythology with Dayo: Sa Mundo ng Elementalya (English name Niko: The Journey to Magika) as my go-to suggestion. I had also heard good reviews for Amaya, a series created by GMA 7, but honestly I don't think the series clicked with me.

[filipinfodump]

Dangkaw

Legend from the Ilokano People of the Philippines

In the olden times, there was a hunter named Dangkaw. He was widely known for his skills of hunting different animals in the forest. No one could equal the number of animals he brought home from a hunt. One day, he went hunting again in the forest. He saw a deer which he shot and killed. When he was going to pick up the deer he had killed, a beautiful woman appeared. This beauty was a fairy of the forest. She was very angry with Dangkaw for his killing the deer. She said that he must be punished. She ruled that he live in the forest, not with his family. Dangkaw had to go home accompanied by the fairy who turned invisible. He explained to his wife what had happened and bid her good-bye. He returned to the forest and the fairy reappeared. She told him that he would stay there forever and that he was going to take care of the animals in the forest. Dangkaw and the fairy got married and they stayed in the forest taking care of the different animals in the forest. The people say that when the hunters go to the mountain or the forest and they hear a shout, they would not catch anything and all the animals would leave. Even to this day, the hunters say that when they hear a shout while hunting, they cannot catch anything. So they say that Dangkaw is still there guarding the animals. From Philippine Folk Literature Series: Vol. III, The Legends (2002), compiled and edited by Damiana L. Eugenio, published by The University of the Philippines Press (shopee, amazon)

[sudeinfantasyland]

THAT TIME I CAME ACROSS THAT COMMENT UNDER THE PIN OF THE ASWANG LEADER FROM THE ANIME ‘TRESE’—

…. human, you’ve been corrupted by TFOTA series— you’re seeing Cardan Greenbriar everywhere… 😭

I added the coloured version too hehehehe!! ;))

Before anybody asks: the woman in red outfit is a Manananggal. 😌 (vampiric creature who can separate upper torso.. & she’s also a viscera sucker hehehe… >;))

I literally don’t know what type of creature the Aswang Leader is, he’s just the leader of the shape shifting evil creatures; that’s what Aswang is the umbrella term for! 🤧

If anybody likes Mythologies & wants something other than the v v well known ones, Trese is great actually, sucks there ain’t no 2nd Season..! 😒 it was a Komik too before it became a “Netflix Anime Series”… 😗🤷🏻‍♀️

…. *cries in the cold dark corner of the room over not having a 2nd season of more Filipino myth n rep*

[belladonnavtamie10]

Our finals during the first semester in our first year was to create characters that are based on Filipino myths or anything Filipino related... Along with the characters, was a mecha. I wasn't a pro when it comes with Mecha based characters but this is what I had and this was the outcome (I wasn't keen in digital drawing during 2020-21 since I only started drawing digitally in said year.) About: Mana is based on a manananggal (a vampiric creature where they can separate their upper body from their their lower half and sprout bat-wings before flying in the dark night in search of food, mainly placentas.) I got her as an idea and decided to draw her as a mecha.

[wordssricochet]

in filipino culture, we have this superstition. that when a person is finding it difficult to sleep at night, it means that someone is thinking of them.

i remember the times when i had the sudden urge to text you at 2 am.

"i can't sleep, are you thinking of me? "

— 070124

[pinoy-culture]

🌙✨️ I recently got asked on Facebook, "How would our pre-colonial ancestors know what a lion was?" They brought up a good point, as lions don't exist in the Philippines. So how was Arimaonga seen as lion like?

Well, while today Arimaonga is seen as a giant playful lion, they originally were a tiger.

Ok, but Ligaya, there are no tigers in the Philippines. True, today there aren't any native species of tigers. However, doesn't mean they didn't exist before. Excavations in Palawan have unearthed bone fragments of a tiger that once roamed the island of Palawan. Whose to say that they didn't also reach the other islands of what is now known as the Philippines?

Further more, we can look to linguistics. Arimaonga derives from the Malay word, "harimau" which means tiger. It's no coincidence as Malay was the lingua franca of maritime Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. Historical records state that our ancestors, especially those who were traders, spoke Malay, as they were able to understand and communicate with those from other islands in maritime SEA.

And that's today's lesson on mythologies from the Philippines. 🇵🇭

__________

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