Moonbeam Musings
Welcome to Moon Beam Musings! Join us as we delve into the world's greatest mysteries, from ancient pyramids and megaliths to the rich cultural beliefs of people around the world, including the legends of Jack the Ripper. Discover the hidden stories behind our world's most intriguing phenomena and explore the beliefs and practices that inspire them.
Moonbeam Musings
Filipino Folklore
In this podcast, we explore the rich tapestry of Filipino folklore, examining how it has been perceived across generations and its relevance in modern society. We delve into the fascinating creatures of folklore and the deeper meanings they represent. Raphy shares her personal experiences growing up in the Philippines until the age of 11, reflecting on how these stories and traditions have shaped her life and perspective.
✨Speaker Bio (Raphy Mendoza)
Raphy Mendoza is the founder of Co-Create, where she offers 1:1 coaching and a community membership to empower artists to prioritise their creative pursuits - with no apology - and be seen and loved for the art that matters to them.
Believing that art, music, dance, and poetry speak to the deepest part of humanity—our spirit—Raphy supports creatives to overcome self-doubt and bring their hidden works into the world. From dusty canvases to forgotten demo files, Raphy ensures that these treasures are shared, enriching us all.
For more on Raphy’s work, visit co-create.space
We Mention:
👉 Raphy discusses the Filipino graphic novel and Netflix series Trese. Watch it here: https://youtu.be/VOdIAzH7Ykg
👉 Photo credits to The Aswang Project.
Additional Insights:
Golgotha, meaning “place of the skull,” is a New Testament reference to the site of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Recommended Books:
📌 Alternative Alamat: Stories Inspired by Philippine Mythology
Edited by Paolo Chikiamco. Contemporary retellings of traditional Filipino myths with a modern perspective.
📌Philippine Folk Literature Series
Edited by Damiana L. Eugenio. A comprehensive collection of myths, legends, epics, and folktales.
📌Philippine Folk Tales
Compiled by Mabel Cook Cole. Traditional stories from Philippine ethnic groups.
📌Filipino Popular Tales
Edited by Dean S. Fansler. A diverse anthology of Filipino folktales.
📌Philippine Myths, Legends, and Folktales
Authored by Maximo D. Ramos. A collection of mythological and folkloric narratives from across the Philippines.
Further Reading:
Explore Filipino folklore through academic resources and collections like Google Books and Wikipedia.
Moonbeam Musings is a podcast that weaves together the magic of myths, traditions, and cultures from around the world. Hosted by Filzie, the show explores topics like folklore, spirituality, and the intersections of history and modern-day practice. Each episode invites listeners on a journey into the unknown, featuring thought-provoking conversations with experts, practitioners, and storytellers who share their unique perspectives and experiences. Whether it's Celtic traditions, Filipino folklore, or the mystical connections between nature and humanity, Moonbeam Musings uncovers the threads that bind us to our roots and to each other.
Connect with me:
Insta: @filzie
YouTube: @moonbeammusings
Hi everyone, and welcome to moonbeam musings, where we talk about all things, myths, mysteries and cultural belief systems. Today, we have our guest Rafi Mendoza, who is the founder of CO create. CO create offers one to one, coaching and community membership for artists and creatives, encouraging artists to put their art into the world with no apology and to be seen for their art. Welcome, Rafi, hi. And today, really interestingly, we're going to be talking about Filipino folk law, because originally, you were born in the Philippines, and it's quite interesting how the folklore affects people on a day to day basis, but also how it was ingrained culturally over the years as well. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to talk about this because, yeah, it's one of those kind of like strange and wonderful things about the Filipino culture that I don't think it's talked about a lot, particularly, I think you know when we when you first of all, for a while, the Philippines wasn't even in the on the map. And like, when I first came to the UK, I was 11 years old, so that would have been like, maybe 2022, 23 no 2002 or 2003 and and I would tell people where I was from, and they would be like, where's that? That's not a place. And so it's less it's a bit more known now. And, and I think the culture, the Filipino culture, is becoming known in the West, largely through food. And you know, if you look on YouTube, if you type in Filipino, the next word that comes up is cuisine or food or street food or something, and that's certainly a big part of the Filipino culture, and of any culture. But one thing that isn't spoken about a lot is the Filipino Folklore. And there's a couple of, I can't remember their names, but there's a couple of American YouTubers, I think, or who have gone to the Philippines to try and make sense of Filipino Folklore and how it's seen and experienced by Filipinos who live there, and they all come away making less sense of it than the than than they had before. So, so it's, it's an interesting conversation. In any case, amazing. Thank you. So let's start off, if you can provide us an overview of the key themes and elements found in Latino folklore, yeah. I mean, when we say folklore, it's a really big is a really big thing, because we're not just talking about the commonly known creatures, which you the academics refer to as the creatures of lower mythology. So that would be like the kind of, like horror based creatures that are often talked about and is often depicted in Filipino cinema. Then you've got creatures of the higher mythology, which are like the spirits and the gods in the fairies, and they have a neutral relationship with human beings, as opposed to the underworld preacher, who are way more interesting, but also way creepier. And then there's also the kind of roots of that, which is Filipino Phillipa, Filipino ancient history, which is pre colonial stuff. There's not a lot of written history before, before colonialism, because we, you know, a the places, the places are, there's an archipelago. So there's lots of different islands with lots of different cultures. But one thing that kind of did tie them all together, in some way, was animism, which is a spiritual belief that everything, everything that you can see, everything in nature, has spirits and and and it's that relationship in worship of the spirit that's in everything that is the key, as opposed to a deity where there's a God or several gods. And from there you can you can see how the kind of the folklore emerges with all these variants of creatures and and spirits and monsters and and things that we're going to talk about, and also how it kind of blends with Catholicism, which came after the Spanish. I call it an invasion because it was, and they were there for about 500 years, and so, you know, it's a kind of you couldn't get away with whatever they were bringing part of which was Catholicism. Okay, so previously, some of the names of the the higher mythology would be the likes of the anito and the battler. Is that the bright pronunciation, no, but you're doing better than most of Anita is like spirits, but they're also kind of like, there's like spirits in general, but then you would also have like, your personal Anita, which is like your ancestry, the spirits of your ancestors, okay? And so you're always walking around with this, like, with all of this behind you and around you, yeah? And people use like prayer, like other cultures would use prayer with how would they? How would you communicate with these, especially your ancestors? I mean, it, yeah, it really depends. It just It depends on which province. It depends on which part of the Philippines you're talking about. It depends on your own ancestry. So, for example, if you were living in a COVID, and you're quite separate from city of and civilization, and you would still be living primarily in relationship with nature. You'd be living in huts with a small village. You might not necessarily be going to a traditional school. The stuff comes out the same. That's what you eat. You know that. That's the culture. And within those villages, there's often a witch doctor or a healer. And if you're that person, you would have come from a lineage of healers, whether that's by blood or by apprenticeship. And how, if you were one of if that was your calling, if that was your vocation, how you would communicate with the spirits would be within the tradition that you were taught as a lay person. You would be influenced by the villages witch doctor. And if you didn't live in a village, if you lived in Manila, you might not have a relationship with these spirits at all. You might be quite westernized in your thinking, and you might so and in a different tribe, and I certainly haven't seen most of them, there may be more of a ritual around it, and more of a more of a ceremony. And maybe the communication with the spirits are through talismans that you carry around with you, or an altar, and there's a ritual around it, and there may be chant and certain invocations of spirit, or it could be really subtle, where you know there's just a certain way of being that you are when you enter parts of the forest or parts of the parts of nature and you approach things with a certain reverence, or you approach herbs and medicine with a certain reverence. So yeah, it's a difficult question to answer, because the Philippines isn't one place, and it's not one culture, in a way, if you've got the high mythology, as you mentioned before, and then I don't know whether you want to talk any more about them, you said they'd put ancestors or anything else around the sort of the gods, if you could, yeah. I mean, you'd have the gods. I mean, you know, it's, I don't actually know a hell of a lot of the higher mythology, because the I just had more exposure to the as well as I was growing up. But the Bucha will will be gods, and usually they're gods of nature and gods of the elements. So I suppose it's not too dissimilar from Greek mythology. When you know, you've got Zeus, the god of thunder, and you've got, you know, Dionysus, yeah, exactly, yeah. And, and so I don't think there's quite as many, or I don't know if there are the direct links. And the gods also often appear in different animal shape shifting forms that there's like the Bucha now, which is the Dragon God that eats the moon, which is actually just the Eclipse and and there's a lot of kind of academic debate as to whether that comes from original Filipino mythology, or whether that was an influence or Chinese or Japanese culture. So I don't know a great deal about I'm certainly not academically read in all of this. I'm kind of just sharing my own experience of these kind of like concepts and ideas and creatures and beliefs that I was exposed as I was growing up. Yeah. Well, let's move on to that, because it is interesting. So let's talk more about the ashwang who pronounced that correctly as one, that's one, yeah, about, you know, just a little bit about what they are, and then, and then moving on to so maybe some examples from your own life, or what you understood them to be, or how it may have influenced you. Yeah. So the word as one itself is interesting because it refers to both a particular type of a shape shifting creature, which is often female in appearance, and it's a monster. These are not benevolent beings, and it lives, or she lives among humans, but she's not human, and she has the power to curse, to curse people, and she has the power to shape shift as well and become, you know, a monstrous creature that attacks people and animals. And it's also the word as well. It's also used as an umbrella term for a variety of different creatures as well. So there's and which one it is would whether someone's talking about as well as the individual creature or as well as an umbrella term, would also depend on who you're talking to and where they're from, Philippines. So for example. Take the tick, I'm going to say it wrong, the thick valu, yeah, that would be an example. That would be an example of one man. Girl would be an example of one a Capre would be an example of one and, and those are like, kind of like in the China as well. They're all kind of like Monster, like creatures. So, for example, you asked about the big violence that's a like horseman. He shows up as the body of a man, a male man, and the head of a horse and the so that would be, in other cultures, that would be called a cento. Yeah, although a cento is usually the body and head of a man, the horse or head of a man, and then, like the body in the legs of a horse. So this is in reverse. Wow. Okay, and I don't know why, why it's certainly quite less attractive, I would say. And yeah, it's what was the question? No, sorry I was asking. Yeah, no, I just intervene there. So I'm trying to kind of make a comparison to understand these different these different creatures. Yeah, these creatures are ultimately half and half of things, and not all of them, not all of them. But like, okay, so like, let's take them, like, one by one, and I'll just do like, an overview of each Yeah, maybe like, three of them, so we can get a feel for what what they are, yeah? So, like, so, okay, so the tech by Lang is, is a half horse, half human, almost Central, like, but in reverse. So you've got the a horse top, the top part of the body is a horse. You've got a horse's heads and a man's body. Usually it's quite muscular, quite heinous and but like, you know, quite a very masculine energy and it and there's an argument about whether he's truly evil or whether he's more of like a joker and more of a jester, because one of the things that he likes to do, particularly to outsiders of a village or of a region, is to lead them astray. So if you were to go in the forest or into the woods, he will make sure that you get lost and that you go round and round and round in circles. And he said, to be sitting, you know, to be hiding behind trees, watching you and having a good laugh. And one of the myths is, if you if you are lost in the woods, and you suspect that this is the work of a tech Vala. Is how to take your shirt off and turn it inside out and put it back on again, and then you'll break the cast, and then you can come out of the woods. So this is one of those superstitions that come along with him. And one of the other superstitions is, if you look in the sky, and you can see that in half of the sky it's raining heavily, and then the other half, it's sunny, which in the Philippines is quite uncommon, but in the UK, it's like a daily phenomenon. But if that were to happen, then it said that the tech talent are having a wedding party. And so these are some of the kind of like the myths and the superstitions that come along with this creature and and then there's a debate of whether you know he's, he's evil, or if he or if he's, if he's just a joker. There's also a debate on whether he's a protector or whether he's a predator. And so it kind of depends on who you talk to, you know, depending on where they come from, which village they grew up in, and also who they are personally. Because within families you have, you know, you have variations of all of these mythologies, which probably explains why people leave, like understanding less about this than when they came, because there's not one agreed reality about any of them. No, no, okay, I guess with going back to that wedding party, that's really interesting. Is it because it's believed that, because there's a wedding, that he's made it funny for that part where there's a wedding or No, it's nothing that logical, okay? It just is. That's just, that's just what, okay, get to understand that, yeah, as far as I understand, I mean, you know, some academic might have dug into it deeper, but I really don't, I don't think that's a logic. It's just that's just what you're told, and you accept it. Okay, fair enough. And should I tell you about another one? Yeah, I do like these guys. So that's the man is, and she's, I think. So I'll explain what she is, and I'll explain why, why she's my favorite, and what, what I think she represents, which is, by no means, like, you know what everybody thinks, but it's kind of how I see her mythology. So she's a woman, often like a single maiden woman, a young woman who's usually quite beautiful in human form, and enjoying the day, that's what she is. And at night, she goes into the woods and her top the top half of her body and the lower half of her body separates, and she grows wings, and then her upper half flies around in the night, and she enjoys attacking pregnant women and eating their unwanted. Gin and also the entrails of men. And then she comes back, she reattaches herself to her lower half of her body, and then she goes back to, you know, society, and becomes a human being in in the day. And it's said that if you are in the woods in the night and you come across the lower half of her body, you should put salt on it, and when she comes back, she won't be able to reattach. And if she's still separated by the time that the sun rises, she'll she'll burn and disintegrate and die. So that's the myth around her, and she's also often depicted as a young woman who's been heartbroken by a man, and whether it's through unrequited love or being betrayed, usually the lads are. And what I find interesting about that part of the depiction, which in most movies and most representations, it's a minor detail, is to me, she represents like the collective wrath of women everywhere, who you know, who have experienced not just the betrayal of, you know, in romance, but it's just a general kind of suppression of of female power. And it through that suppression, it becomes kind of corrupted into this, you know, kind of vengeful being and vengeful energy that that's two sided on one hand, beautiful young lady during the day and a monstrous creature in the evening. And the thing is that both, both are true, you know. And there's one interesting play that I came across a long time ago that depicted the story of of a woman who was betrayed by by a man she was living in the poor she was having this quite simple, primitive life, she fell in love. Which I would, I think, a Japanese, a Japanese soldier who was there during the war. She became pregnant. He betrayed her. He never showed up again. He actually has a family somewhere else. The war ended. He's he left. She gave birth on her own, and was so distraught and angry and confused and just her, and she ended up eating her own baby, and then she became this creature. And that was the origin of this, of the man and girl. And that's fiction, you know, that's like modern fiction to kind of create an origin story about how this creature came to exist. But I thought that was an interesting interpretation of, like, well, what? Why is it that this creature is particularly a woman, and the symbolism of being being cut in half, really, so like the yin and the yang and the, you know, the beauty and the ugliness, the good and the bad light and the dark and, yeah, so she's my favorite. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because with a lot of cultures, when there's a story, it's usually, quite often, it's got a lesson to it. So I'm looking at that, and I'm thinking, what is, what is the lesson? Really, don't fuck with women. It's the what I got. And, you know, I mean, there is, there is a, probably something, you know something about about the duality of human being that's in there. Now, whether that was the original intention of this, it's so hard to say there's nothing, as far as I know, that's kind of like written and recorded of the the history of these things and and that's why it's, I think, one of the reasons why it's hard to get the ball of like, where did these myths come from, and and, you know, and what, what role do they play, and what were the lessons that they were trying to teach? Is that you can't, it's you can't quite relate to them in the same way that you relate to Greek mythology or nordic mythology. Because in the West, we look at Greek mythology and we take it for granted that it's a myth, and we take it for granted that, you know their fables entails, and that there are lessons in them, and that they are metaphors for for life, whereas in the Philippines today, 80% of the population believe in the literal existence of these creatures. And so it's very difficult to look at, okay, well, what lessons are they teaching? Because so so many of of the people who are exposed to this just think they're real, like, there's no lesson in, like, a tree existing because it just exists. There's no lesson in an iPhone, it's just it's just a phone, it just exists. And so these things are related to in that way, as opposed to, like myths and stories. It's like these are creatures that we live with in the forest, and you have to be careful with them. So for example, if you were to be a pregnant woman, would there be something you do to mitigate you again? In some in some villages, they may they might be rituals in some families wouldn't leave a pregnant woman to sleep on her own, you know, there would, she would always have somebody with her at night. You know, she would sleep with, you know, if not her partner, her mother or her sister and and in fact, having a female escort is, is usually safer. And so it has, you know, you kind of. Women kind of sticking together, and and families are raised like that, you know, like the nuclear family of, you know, there being a mother in a in a father and a child, and and the belief that we need both mother and father as role models, not that it's not true in the Philippines, but that's just less prevalent. What the child needs is a village, and you know, a whole colony of adults who will share its upbringing, and women definitely play a much larger role in that. And it's all that fathers aren't important. But you know, when it's in a less of a nuclear family situation, it becomes less about mother and father, and it just becomes about community. About community. And so the community will protect the woman, the present woman from the Master. Yeah, so. But speaking of lessons, the last one I'll talk about. And it's also one of my favorites, is the No no. So, which is no no is like a dwarf, but in my mind, I kind of see them more like as many granddads and open so it's like an anthill, or some kind of like mud Hill. That's like naturally occurring and so no no sapon, so is the dwarf that lives in these ant hills in in the forest. And they're generally benign creatures, but very wise. And if you go into the forest, you have to recite the chant in some consciousness, you know. And I was told to recite the chance a chant that essentially declares your presence and asks them to please step out of your way, because you can't see them, they're invisible, and you don't want to hurt them, and you don't want to hurt their homes. So please, you know, excuse me as I'm passing through. And what's interesting about that is the in the chant, it's left about, it's less about asking for anything, but it's more about declaring your presence, and it's more about it's less about asking for protection, and it's more about acknowledging that these creatures live there, that this is their home. And personally, I take that even further. So it's not just that the forest is their home and these ant hills are their literal houses, but there are also custodians of the forest, which means the custodians of the earth and their spirit and their their being there and their existence is to protect the land from human destruction. And if you were to not recite this chance and you accidentally kicked one of them, or you, you know, kicked the anthill, or you fell over and destroyed something, then they have the power to make you unbearably unwell. And even and there have been stories of people becoming unwell, and more than Western doctors in the Philippines have not been able to solve the problem. And the witch doctor would recommend something like a like a ritual, or like an apology, like an offering, going back to the forest to offer some food, to offer something to this, to these spirits, and that's the only thing that would have cured them. And there are many stories, you know, demonstrating that that works now, whether it's true or not, or if it makes scientific sense, so there's, there's a kind of more medical explanation as to what went on. It's kind of besides the point. I think there's something really beautiful about acknowledging, you know that, yeah, like spirits live in the forest, and we have to respect that. And there are people, there are spirits that are there to protect, to protect the Earth from our own unconsciousness as human beings. Yeah? So, yeah, you know. So, what are they evil if they make you I don't know, but, I mean, if I were one of them, I would probably do the same thing. I'd be pretty pissed off if somebody came and just like, kicked my house and destroyed everything because they were weren't thinking, yeah, so, so, yeah, that's, that's three of the ones that I can talk about. Thank you. I think that's interesting. How about the story of Maria Mackin? How do you Maria? Maria is, yeah, it's one of the kind of well known ones, but it's only well known in the north. So that's why, I mean, like Philippines, this is, like one place and and you're originally from your family's originally from Manila. My family's originally from Manila, but and my family, like, you know, my direct relatives, they're not big believers in this. They're, they're a bit like, probably, they think that these are mix, but would be, but they wouldn't necessarily fight against people who believe that these are true, either. So they've maintained a kind of mutual position, and I didn't learn a lot about all of this from my direct relatives, but rather from my nanny, who came from a village called capis, which is in Visayas. Which is further south of Manila, and it's known to be the the capital in the headquarters of all the as well. And so she, she basically gave me all of my knowledge about these creatures. And she didn't, she didn't teach them to me, like, you know, like as stories and as kind of, like, fun lessons. They were like, don't go out because, because the marijuana guard will come and eat you. Or, like, you know, yeah, they were kind of like, told us, like a cautionary they were cautionary tools to stop you from doing dangerous things as a child, and because Marilla is also, like, bereft of forest. So that's also one of the reasons why most people think that as one don't really go to Manila, because there's nothing interesting there for them. Just possibly true. If I were one of these nature spirits, I would not come to Manila. I wouldn't come to Manila. Now, anyway, either. So, but yeah, so what was the question? Something about I was asking? No, that's good. It's interesting. Thank you for your background, because I think it's important for people to understand your perspective. I mean, you've been for many, many years now, but yeah, your perspective of where you're brought up was in a specific region is probably quite important, because other people may have a different perspective. So my question was around Maria mckilling, yeah. I don't know whether you want to tell that story, yeah. So Maria map healing is a nature spirit, so she was known as a diwata, which is a very, a very beautiful being of light, really, like if you listen to the word in the Filipino kind of like dialect, you know, it has a particular energy of being a light being almost like a star. So she's a nature spirit, and she's seen as benevolent but also powerful, and certainly not somebody that you want to piss off. And she resides, and is named after a volcano called Mount mahiling, which is in Laguna in the Tagalog region. Tagalog is that is known as a national language, but actually only a very small people speak it in the north, in Manila and surrounding areas. And that's worth noting, because that area the North is where the Spanish had settled. And with Manila being an archipelago, there's a well, there's a distinct Filipino. This the really, the all the different islands really have its own culture and its own history and its own original tribes. And so when, when the Spanish came and settled in the more northern part, that's where Catholicism was most integrated. It did filter down to the Visayas region as well. But interestingly, in Mindanao, which is the Southern, most southern part of the Philippines, it's primarily Muslim. And so the reason that's interesting is because Mariama healing symbolizes protection, nurturance and generosity, and she's Mother Earth and yet, and her name is, you know, with Maria and the clothes that she's often represented in, which is, like these kind of, like white clothing, dresses that's very reminiscent of the Virgin Mary's clothes, um, she's, she's often dressed in white and blue. And similarly, with Marianna killing it's, it's often white, and on occasion, more modern interpretation, she's also wearing blue. And so we can see here, and she's also described as, you know, a beautiful maiden untouched by human corruption, which has the links with the Virgin Mary and, you know, the Immaculate Conception and all of this thing and that kind of like mother energy. And so we can see how the Filipinos, instead of rejecting Catholicism or suppressing it, or negating the existence of pre colonial culture, which is this belief in nature spirits, we kind of just blended them, which is quite typical in Filipino culture. In as far as philosophical conflicts go, they're just, they're just simply dissolve, because you just, you know, there's just a kind of undesigning Acceptance of anything. So, you know, rather than, and if you were to ask somebody, well, animism and all of these creatures, wouldn't they go against, you know, the basic principles of Catholicism, they wouldn't challenge you. They wouldn't argue with you and say, No, of course, it doesn't. They would just say, yeah, it's possibly conflict, conflicting, but it's just not a problem, that it's a conflict, you know, like it doesn't it's not a problem that there appears to be too, too opposing truth. And yeah, so no, it doesn't make sense, but that it doesn't make sense isn't a problem for us. Oh, yeah. It's very difficult, isn't it, in the western world to kind of comprehend that the logic, I mean, a lot of my questions are quite logical, and yet it's they can't answer them, no, well, no, because that's the way the cultures are kind of accept a really deep grain, acceptance of these belief systems and mythology and all of these people, they'll be. They'll go to church as well. Religiously, they'll go to church every Sunday and also carry around talismans and recite these chants as they go in the woods and protect their women from these creatures and go to church in their daily lives. Yeah, wow. Well, it's just difficult, because you know, when you come from a different culture that doesn't make sense. But in that culture It does, yeah, it's about community, and also about community, yeah? And I think that's right, if there's, like, one kind of key attribute of the Filipino culture is that it's very community centric. Roberto was, you know, it's like, community is everything, yeah, so in terms of specific rituals and festivals, are there any that are still practice that you know you want to talk about? So there's one festival which is quite modern. It's a very modern interpretation of and not even interpretation, but like a celebration of the culture. And I think it happened since the boom, but it's in one of the biggest cities outside of Manila, where it's literally like a parade. The whole city gets involved, and everybody dresses up in costumes. And, you know, there's this one, and then there's just like a parade, there's a party, there's music, there's street food. It goes on for like, 48 hours, non stop, and everyone's dressed in whatever, as far as they choose. So it's kind of like this, almost like a westernized Halloween interpretation of a festival with a Filipino twist. And so that's a modern thing. And I think, I think a lot of people, particularly the younger generation, see it as a celebration and and I think a lot of the older generation may, may see it as blasphemous, because it's it could be seen as a disrespect of these, of these spirits, or of these creatures who are very powerful, and it's a risky thing to be dressing up as them. Okay, so we don't see it as a celebration of of them and in honor of them. It's not done in honor of them. It's me. I think the younger, the younger generation and the people who organize the festival would see it as that. It's a celebration of Filipino culture, and it's a celebration of these spirits. But I think much of that is also because the younger generation are beginning to see these creatures as myths. They're beginning to see these creatures as stories that we were told as children, whereas the older generation still sees sees it much more as like as its reality. And so I think we are having that transition between the generations. And there was also something that came out quite recently. This doesn't really answer your questions, but I just came to mind. But there's a something that came up, an animation on Netflix called Tres, and it, if you want to learn about these creatures, that's a really good energy way to watch, because it's an animation, and it has a kind of like Japanese anime feel, almost in the way that it's put together, not quite because it came from, like a series of graphic novels written by a Filipino who, I don't know the details, but I think it's collaboration between somebody who was living in the Philippines, a Filipino living in the Philippines, and the Phillipa living in the US. And it came out of a series of graphic novels, and it was created into this, into this, into an ethics series. And that's, you know, I see that as a celebration of these creatures and a celebration of this culture, and a celebration of our heritage as Filipinos, many of whom have migrated all over the world, particularly to the US. And so that's the spirit in which I receive it, and I think how it was intended. But I can also imagine people who are of the older generation, who who still kind of hold these beliefs and hold these superstitions and hold these creatures as kind of pillars of their reality, almost, and their creatures of their lives and everything they've done that they've grown up may not receive it in the same way, because, you know, it's not, this isn't mythology that we're celebrating. This is the reality. Yeah, I understand, understand, yeah. And there's various ways of holding them, the belief system, boarding them off, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the various ways of holding office, one, as we're told, in which are about crazy as to us among themselves. But you know, so like in the West, we have vampires, and we just rely on garlic, the what will they move? But in the Philippines, depending on which village, which region, which person, which family you talk to, you can use coins. You can use rubber types. You can use slippers. You can use ginger. You can use soy sauce. It depends on who you ask, and there are things that you need to do to you know, rituals that you can take to protect yourself and to protect your home. And the resourcefulness of the materials that you can use also speaks of the of the of the Filipino culture as well. And I suspect that at some point. Was like one ritual that you would use. Maybe it was like the coins, because they were silver and copper, or something that would ward off these creatures. And for lack of coins, because of poverty, you might just like, choose something else, and then that gets translated into something else, into something else. But the power, the the of these objects, ability to ward off the spirits, remains the same, even though, because, because that's just how it happens. And so, yeah, say about that. I mean, it really does depend on who you ask, for sure. And you mentioned something before about the senakula, yeah, the senakulo, which is like, again, we kind of see, like the Catholic influence in the culture. The sinako is a, kind of like a theatrical reenactment of the Passion of the Christ, the crucifixion that we put on, on the streets, in public, in, you know, in in various regions during Easter, and it's, you know, and the the reenactment is quite literal, so there would be like, almost like, a parade that mimics how Jesus was paraded through the streets in Jerusalem, wherever it was, and and up until the point where he was nailed to the cross, and all the people watching, and Mary Magdalene being there, and the other two criminals that he was crucified, crucified with in the three courses, the whole thing is like reenacted, like life in real time during Easter. And people do get literally nailed to the cross. There's like, a specific way that you do it, you allow yourself to be nailed to the cross if you were the actor playing this part, and and that's very much a Christian celebration that you know that has little to do with animism, and yet you can still see how the ritualization of that and the literality with which we take, that those events happen in the way that they did literally, and that our way of celebrating that is in a very literal way. I think also speaks a little bit to the part of Filipino culture that kind of accepts accepts realities and accepts stories and accepts myths in a very literal way. And that's literally what happened, you know, in in the same way that that's one is real, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary, were, were real. Like, you know, there's no kind of um, taking it as symbols. It's like Jesus Christ, death wasn't symbolic. He died and then he ascended and he went back to God. Yeah, so, and that's not in conflict at all with the as well. Yeah. So, so moving on to sort of how I think we've touched on it, but how these myths and realities, for some, influence daily life. How do you feel your own daily life was influenced by Filipino Folklore. You know, in England, we have superstitions like not walking under ladders. And I will think about it every time i i do walk under ladders, every time I go to walk under a ladder, I will think of the superstition. Um, are there kind of daily beliefs that you feel actually, if you think about it, they're still prevalent in your life right now? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. It's like when I think about like, for instance, when I was earlier, when I was talking about new lot of console, the little granddads who live in ant hills, you know? And you would recite, you would recite this chant as you would walk through the the forest. If I looked at it objectively, yeah, of course, it's a superstition, right? Like, How Could there really be those beings living there? And you're encouraged to recite these trance so that you don't get cursed and you don't become ill. And that's a superstition. And yet, at the same time, I do, even in non Filipino forests, when I walk through the woods, like inside my head, particularly when it's dark and I can't see where I'm going, I would recite this superstition, either to myself or out loud, because on this Tran, because it is a way of acknowledging that there are spirits in the forest. And personally, I would say that there are spirits in the forest, and that's a reality for me, not necessarily the man and girl, not necessarily, you know, the tekbalan, but you know. And I don't necessarily worship trees and you know, but they are, they're alive. The woods are alive. And so, you know, if things are alive, they have spirit, which I suppose, is the core of animism and and so to recite this chant is an acknowledgement in the respect of the beings that live there, and an acknowledgement that, as a human being. In as human beings. We don't own anything. We don't own the earth, and to acknowledge that we're passing through a shared space is polite. I can't really think of a word that like a better word, but it's like, it's just what you would do. It's just not being a dick. Basically, like, you know, but obviously, like, I'm not saying that everybody who doesn't do this are being dicks, but it's like, when you if I really think about it, what were the lessons that I took from these teachings? What were the lessons that I took from these superstitions that I was given as a child? It's like no respect the spirits of the poorest in a way. Do you think it's like being more mindful? You know, we can, we can get in our heads, or, you know, not thinking of the fairies, not really thinking about what we're doing. And in a way, it's about whatever you're doing being more mindful, yeah, and like bringing a consciousness to what you're doing, you know, and it's like you could, and not that there's any. There's nothing wrong with going for a walk in the forest and just like being in your own thoughts and just putting one foot in front of the other. And you know, we will get incredible benefits just from being in the forest, but while we're there, getting those benefits, like, Isn't it worth acknowledging that we're here for a time and that we're passing through and maybe there aren't tiny mini granddads living in ant hills all over the place, and you're not going to kick them and they're not going to make you ill. But Isn't it worth acknowledging the spirits that are there, whether they're going to make you ill or not, and just say, Hey, I'm passing through. Have a nice day, you know? So I can't remember what the original question was. It was how this has influenced you. And I think we can hear, yeah, it's influenced you throughout your life, and some of the things that you may do, like in the forest, yeah. And I think there's also something about, you know, the there's a playfulness. But all of it, you know, if you know, if you look up pictures and depictions of these creatures, they look horrific. But I particularly like the interpretation of the tech violin being a jester to just kind of like, make you be lost. And maybe that's something that I kind of like, I, you know, I have a fondness of, because I do get lost all the time, like, five minutes away from my own house, like I get lost, and you know, this from experience of being with me in any place, and it's like, and so I that's a fondness that I have with that interpretation of, like, oh yeah, he's just kind of behind trees, like having a laugh while you're lost, and you have to turn your your T shirt inside out so that you can find your way back and and then maybe some neuroscience to that, you know, you're kind of interrupting a pattern. You know, you're kind of stopping what you're doing. You're stopping the search while you're kind of honing in, and you're like, seeing through a very narrow lens, and you just do something ridiculous, and then suddenly you can see, yeah, I relate to that, so my sense of direction, yeah, thank you. Yeah. That's great. Um, so just, just a couple more questions, really, do you think, for example, some of the examples of how it affects day to day culture, not just for yourself, but other people? In regards to traveling, we've mentioned about, you know, pregnant women and being escorted and what about traveling at night or building homes? If you've got any examples. Yeah. So, like, I mean, the building homes is interesting because, like, I think there's probably, like, Chinese feng shui influences in in some of it as well, which is definitely not a myth. And if you think it is, you should speak to, like, airports in the billion dollar industry, that is because quite a lot of them employ feng shui masters and consultants for how they create, you know, for wealth and for safety and for all of that stuff. So I can't speak much about it, but definitely not a myth. But for instance, with building houses, you're supposed to not build them facing west, because the sun sets in the west, which symbolizes death and endings. And so if you build your house facing in that direction, you're inviting that energy into your home. Okay? And like I said, I don't know if that is a Feng Shui influence, but it sounds like it could be. And if it is, then it's probably not the superstition. It's probably real. And and then there's also the, you know, you burying. It's quite common in the another thing, it's quite common in the Philippines to build your own houses. And maybe that's changing with, you know, population and modernization, particularly in cities. But you know, you don't just go around buying houses like you do in the UK. You'd buy something from the Victorian era, because we don't have a Victorian area. We were still living in mud huts in the Victorian era. And so it's quite common to to, like, buy land and build your houses. And so it's common practice to bury coins and money in the foundations of the house to bring in wealth. And again, I don't know if that's a fencing thing, but to me, that makes sense. You know, it's if not for the the literality of it, the intention of offering something, it's like an investment. You offer like a handful of coins, and you get back 10 pounds, and you. Um, and then, kind of, like, the the intention behind that ritual is something that I think makes sense to a lot of people and and in terms of, like traveling around, like, I remember my nanny used to always have a bottle of oil in in her in her bag. It's a specific kind of oil. I can't remember what it is. Think it's coconut oil or coconut and something oil and a small bottle of it in a brown jar, and to keep in your in your bag at all times. And if it's if you buy an s1 who's in human form, it will explode in your bag. And so that's how you know and be careful. And and talismans as well. And so like my nanny, she and she gave it, she gave me, and I wore it all the time, a little pendant with the baby Jesus on it. And that's a talisman against as well, which, again, shows you the, you know, the the blending of Catholicism with this culture. And it's like, oh, that's become a talisman. And it's like, you know, when you know semi precious stones, baby Jesus, same thing. Yes, that will work. And so that was, that was my talisman. As I was, as I was growing up, a lot of people use the Rosary as well. So a lot of people have a rosary in the handbag. And I think, you know, in the West, you know, maybe like in places like Italy, where it's a very strong religion, like people would carry rosaries so that they can pray while they would carry rosaries to protect us from these, from these creatures. Yeah, you can see, and we use them to pray as well. But that's kind of like, you know, like, that's a bonus. So are there any other rituals or community gatherings that you might find in maybe southern Yeah, so like I said earlier, like in more provincial areas, where you'd have smaller, more tight knit villages, and you don't necessarily have the modern infrastructures of going to school and going to work and having a hospital. That's just not a thing. You would have a witch doctor, and you would have kids play together and be looked after by the community and learn how to fish or learn how to farm and learn how to tend to the rice fields, you know, so that that's their world, and it's, it's, it's small. And if somebody were to get sick, you would have people in the community gather around that person on their sick bed. And sometimes people will come at various times, they would say the rosary with you next to your bed. Or they will, you know, they will eat around you and offer up the food before they eat it to the healing gods and spirits. If there's a witch doctor, they may, you know, they'll do certain rituals when they smoke your aura, like a cleansing through by using by burning herbs in not necessarily incensed, but like certain herbs, and again, like invoking the spirits. And sometimes, if it's a particularly persistent disease, they would try and communicate with either the ancestors and spirits and find out who you wronged. And, you know, and it may be something that's happened from a really long time ago, and you have to, you know, tell your sister what you did and ask for forgiveness. So it's really about making home in a way and and so all of that could happen in in various settings. And the style of the witch doctor would also depend on his or her lineage. They might be more using herbs, or they might be more channeling the spirits, and particularly ancestral spirits, and songs like songs that or chanting, or songs that people would use around the you know ashwang, or did you have any kind of nursery rhymes, or anything like that sort of thing? I don't remember many nurse minds, no, not, not myself. Maybe it's not that there weren't any. I do remember having a witch doctor, like, I grew up in Manila, and I would, my mom would normally first send me to, like, a proper a proper doctor, you know, Western doctor, a GP type person. And I remember once I just, like, was so ill, it was like the flu or something, and I also had asthma, and so it was just persistent, and just went on for weeks, and it wasn't I was checked for tuberculosis and it wasn't that, and nobody knew what it was. And so eventually my mom conceded and said and allowed my nanny to consult the witch doctor, and and she had asked for what was it? He my T shirt that I was wearing that day. And she did. She took it to the witch doctor, and they did some cleansing and some reading and and it just said something about one of my ancestors was communicating something. And it had. Message for my my mum. I don't know what that was. My nanny talked to my mum about it. This is my memory of it. And and then she, and then he, asked my nanny to say three rounds of the rotary for me next to my bed. And then I think I was well two days after that, so I don't I mean again, it could have just been like a natural passing of the disease. But what I did feel in all of that was looked after, you know, like my nanny had a certain intention about me getting better that was very clear to me as a child, and which doctor or not. Yeah, well, that's really interesting. And I'm sure there's another, there's another podcast to talking about them, you know, South American shamanism. And, yeah, that's interesting. Just to wrap up. I guess maybe it'd be good to do a comparison. I think for me, I it helped me to learn by comparing, even though, just as initially, to be able to ascertain kind of what someone's talking about. And one of the things that you mentioned was the parallels between Filipino focal and global superstition. So just maybe taking some of the creatures that you've mentioned, and, you know, grouping them or looking at what they might be similar to, yeah. I mean, a lot of these creatures are certainly like nighttime creatures, like the COVID, which I didn't talk about earlier, but he's depicted as a tall dog man wearing a hat and smokes a cigar sitting on trees. And there's a debate as to whether he's a creditor or whether he's actually protecting the house or the home or the village. And I don't know quite what he would be the equivalent of in western mythology. And that the tick Balam, the Horseman is, I suppose it's a bit like pan, you know, from the Shakespeare, yeah, the Shakespeare depiction of pan, because he's quite or the way I see him, or choose to see him, is he's quite playful. But also, like pan, like the God of sexuality, it's like he has, like the way that his body is represented, the male bodies, like has, that has that energy about it, like male virility, quite how pan would have made it to Filipino ancient history, I don't know, but maybe we all just need a cultural idol for male virility and the chana, which is the spirit of an aborted baby. It's a bit like Chucky, you know, the 90s or 80s film of the process. That's the closest thing that I can, I can make a parallel to. So, I mean, a lot of these, like threads are pretty, pretty loose, I would say. And I think the man in the garden is kind of one of a kind. She's a bit like harpy, I suppose. And she's often depicted with like, a shrieking harpy voice, okay, yep, and yeah, the tick take is weird because, like, I don't actually know what it's supposed to look like, because what I all I remember is, if you can hear the tick ticking sound like, if you hear that and it sounds like it's far away, that means that she's very close. And if it's very loud, that means she's far away. But then if you ask somebody else from a different region, it would be the opposite. So you're never really safe from the tick, tick. And they go for children, particularly haughty one. So I think maybe that's just one of the ones that was used to kind of like, get children to behave and be quiet. Yeah, I think I have, I had the man in a van. That makes more sense, though, that's like logical, like, I left the house on my own when I was very young. Man in the van will come and get you, take you away. Yeah, and I'm just looking up to see if there's like, physical depictions of it, because I just had this, like invisible noise, something about, oh, black cats cross, and if, yeah, anyway, that's, that's, we can have a look and leave a note, and I can find anything, but, yeah, okay, even the googling is is contradictory. It's hilarious. So like it says that it's another term for the man and girl. It's not from my memory. And then another one that says Tick. Tick is a creature with a form of bird like human. It's similar to the work, work, which I thought was exactly the same as each other, and are both winged humans who, at night, search for victims. They hunger for flesh and blood, especially to those of feverses and then, yeah, so there's a lot of sources that say it's similar to the to it's the same creature as the man and God. But why? How I was told that when I was younger was it wasn't going to human, but it was a bright body with human face, like a beautiful human face of a female and feathered wings, as opposed to the man and girl who had, like, bad wings, and it's ugly, yeah, it had a very long tongue that it uses to kind of insert itself into the belly button of the present woman to take to eat the child booth. Obviously reminds me that the flying monkeys invisible like, yeah, a little bit. I mean, those are a little cuter and less kind of traumatic looking. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, well, I mean, is there anything else you wanted to add before we close today? No, I mean, like, just, I have told you, like, we didn't go that deep into anything, and if people did want to kind of go into it a little bit deeper, there's a there's a couple of very detailed academic style research into this topic. And I say academic style because that's about us as academic as it could possibly get, I suppose. And I haven't got the books only now, but I look, I look them up, and then you can look it up on the on the on on the thingy at the bottom of the video. And I would encourage having having a look at those sources, because it's very hard to go into depth with these things, because there's not one real answer, because so much of it is very, very much live lives in the lived reality and the lived experiences of different communities. And because conflict is in, conflict isn't something that's kind of like ironed out in the way that we would in the West, where you would like, have a debate, and then you would like, look at evidence, and then you would, you know, and you would like, figure out, like, what's true, or what's most likely true, and where, where you could trace it from the country's origins in in history. It doesn't really that's not what happens people kind of, we kind of just like, accept that in things and elements, and then it, it is malleable, and it changes. And so there's not one answer. So I suppose I'm just acknowledging that a lot of people watching this may be leaving the conversation more confused than they were when they came and I'm sorry about that, but that's what happens when you have this particular conversation. If you accept that there, you know not, there's not a logical explanation for a lot of this, yeah, and he's categorized some of the creatures and given us some examples of creatures, and we've got some examples of what they might be like in other cultures. You know, I think that, I think that's great. Gives us more of an insight into the Filipino culture and what drives it, and where it came from, and and how, you know, it's, it's very interesting because how it's kind of amalgamated with Catholicism and folklore and they work together in a way. Yeah, I think it's a really good summary, actually. Yeah, let's leave it there. Well, thank you so much for your time, Rafi. I really appreciate it, and I'm sure a lot of people find this very interesting. So I'll also put your details of your website and all the courses you're running below in links so people can contact you if they want to and they're interested. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Bye.
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