Mythological monsters for All Saints' Day
Mythological monsters for All Saints' Day
Updated 03:10am (Mla time) Nov 01, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 1, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I DON'T know why we have to borrow the Halloween and its pumpkins, witches and black cats from the West. After all, we have our own home-grown mythological monsters that in the old days scared-believe it or not, in this modern 2lst century, they still do-millions of youngsters. In fact, the 'aswangs' and 'manananggals' still scare many gullible adults, thanks to the competing televisions newscasts, the so-called "tabloids of the air" that, because of the ratings war, dignify stories of these monsters haunting squatter colonies. That and the frequent stories on TV of "miraculous" appearances of the image of the Virgin Mary, of statues crying bloody tears, of young visionaries, of spiritual healing, and of snakes born as twins of human babies, "idiotize" the Filipino masses.
Thanks to our penchant for imitating other cultures, our own tradition of "pangangaluluwa" during All Saints' Day-when groups of young men and women serenade their neighbors while others steal chicken under the house, all in good fun-is fast being replaced by the westernized "trick or treat" rituals in the exclusive villages. In a few more decades, our own traditions and mythological monsters will be erased.
When I was growing up in Malabon, I and my generation were scared no end of these mythological monsters. Although Malabon is now a city and a part of Metro Manila, it was then a rural town with fishponds, rivers, rice fields, commercial vegetable gardens-and a gullible population. What's more, the elders were good storytellers who scared the youngsters with tales of these and other monsters not only on All Saints' Day but also on moonlit nights.
At that time, we lived in a family compound in the middle of fishponds. Its only connection to the street was a long fishpond dike. Sanciangco Street ran for about a kilometer from Tonsuya (where you got rides to and from Divisoria, across the wooden bridge to barrio Catmon) to Tenejeros on the other end. If you lived in Catmon or Tenejeros, you had to walk the whole kilometer. At night, the stretch through the river and fishponds was very dark; but the people taking that route had nothing to fear about robbers and drug addicts. What they were afraid of were the monsters that they imagined were lurking in the dark.
At the street corner was a street lamp, beside a big tamarind tree at the edge of the pond. At night we would gather under its light to play patintero or batong preso. When we got tired of playing, the storytelling would begin.
The stories became believable because they involved our neighbors, people we knew. There was this woman heavy with child who was victimized by an aswang. We were told that an 'aswang' was a human who took the form of an animal, a big pig or dog, that would go under any house where a pregnant woman lived to eat the baby in the womb! The defense was a buntot-page, the dried barbed tail of a sting ray or the sword of a swordfish; so these weapons were prized by families that had them.
In those days, of course, many pigs and dogs were rooting under houses for food. Mistaken for 'aswangs', they were chased by the menfolk.
Another form of 'aswang' climbed house roofs-which in those days were mostly made of nipa shingles. Atop the house, the aswang would lower a piece of string to the mouth of anybody sleeping there and put him into a deep sleep, never to wake up.
These stories kept us awake most nights or made us sleep on our abdomen because we did not want the strings from the aswangs to reach our lips. Little did we know then that the storytellers were only pulling our legs.
Then there were the 'kapre', a giant that sat on top of a tree smoking a big cigar; the 'tikbalang', half-horse and half-man; and the 'manananggal', a woman whose upper torso separated from the rest of her body and flew off to hunt for victims at night, returning before daylight to attach itself again to the lower half. The way to fight the 'manananggal' was to look for this lower half before daylight, spread salt on it so that the upper half could not reattach to it, and the 'manananggal' itself would die.
The 'tiyanak' misled travelers by imitating the cries of a baby. The traveler followed the baby's cries and before he realized it, he had lost his way and could not find his way back out of the woods or forest. To break the spell, the victim had to take off his or her shirt and put it back on inside out.
The 'dwende' was, of course, the tiny dwarf that lived in mounds of earth and sheltered under toadstools. The 'dwende' should not be mistaken for the 'nuno sa punso', an old dwarf also living in those mounds of earth (actually, termite hills), casting a spell to anybody who stepped on those hills or even just brushed against their invisible selves. In those days, we could not walk over a woodland or a meadow without muttering over and over: "Tabi-tabi po ingkong, di ko po kayo nakikita. (Please may I pass, old man, I cannot see you)."
When my younger brother fell from a santol tree, the old folks said he was pushed by a nuno sa punso because the latter lived in that tree. In fact, whenever somebody got sick, the nuno sa punso was always blamed. Na matanda, they said.
The hardest part of the storytelling sessions was when they were over and it was time to go home through dark paths. The way home for me was through the dark fishpond dike. Where the dike made a dogleg, there was a huge tree where a 'kapre', so the storytellers said, sometimes sat waiting for passersby. I dreaded that tree but there was no other way to go home. So I just closed my eyes and ran past it as fast as I could. It was no small miracle that I never fell into the pond.
Updated 03:10am (Mla time) Nov 01, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 1, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I DON'T know why we have to borrow the Halloween and its pumpkins, witches and black cats from the West. After all, we have our own home-grown mythological monsters that in the old days scared-believe it or not, in this modern 2lst century, they still do-millions of youngsters. In fact, the 'aswangs' and 'manananggals' still scare many gullible adults, thanks to the competing televisions newscasts, the so-called "tabloids of the air" that, because of the ratings war, dignify stories of these monsters haunting squatter colonies. That and the frequent stories on TV of "miraculous" appearances of the image of the Virgin Mary, of statues crying bloody tears, of young visionaries, of spiritual healing, and of snakes born as twins of human babies, "idiotize" the Filipino masses.
Thanks to our penchant for imitating other cultures, our own tradition of "pangangaluluwa" during All Saints' Day-when groups of young men and women serenade their neighbors while others steal chicken under the house, all in good fun-is fast being replaced by the westernized "trick or treat" rituals in the exclusive villages. In a few more decades, our own traditions and mythological monsters will be erased.
When I was growing up in Malabon, I and my generation were scared no end of these mythological monsters. Although Malabon is now a city and a part of Metro Manila, it was then a rural town with fishponds, rivers, rice fields, commercial vegetable gardens-and a gullible population. What's more, the elders were good storytellers who scared the youngsters with tales of these and other monsters not only on All Saints' Day but also on moonlit nights.
At that time, we lived in a family compound in the middle of fishponds. Its only connection to the street was a long fishpond dike. Sanciangco Street ran for about a kilometer from Tonsuya (where you got rides to and from Divisoria, across the wooden bridge to barrio Catmon) to Tenejeros on the other end. If you lived in Catmon or Tenejeros, you had to walk the whole kilometer. At night, the stretch through the river and fishponds was very dark; but the people taking that route had nothing to fear about robbers and drug addicts. What they were afraid of were the monsters that they imagined were lurking in the dark.
At the street corner was a street lamp, beside a big tamarind tree at the edge of the pond. At night we would gather under its light to play patintero or batong preso. When we got tired of playing, the storytelling would begin.
The stories became believable because they involved our neighbors, people we knew. There was this woman heavy with child who was victimized by an aswang. We were told that an 'aswang' was a human who took the form of an animal, a big pig or dog, that would go under any house where a pregnant woman lived to eat the baby in the womb! The defense was a buntot-page, the dried barbed tail of a sting ray or the sword of a swordfish; so these weapons were prized by families that had them.
In those days, of course, many pigs and dogs were rooting under houses for food. Mistaken for 'aswangs', they were chased by the menfolk.
Another form of 'aswang' climbed house roofs-which in those days were mostly made of nipa shingles. Atop the house, the aswang would lower a piece of string to the mouth of anybody sleeping there and put him into a deep sleep, never to wake up.
These stories kept us awake most nights or made us sleep on our abdomen because we did not want the strings from the aswangs to reach our lips. Little did we know then that the storytellers were only pulling our legs.
Then there were the 'kapre', a giant that sat on top of a tree smoking a big cigar; the 'tikbalang', half-horse and half-man; and the 'manananggal', a woman whose upper torso separated from the rest of her body and flew off to hunt for victims at night, returning before daylight to attach itself again to the lower half. The way to fight the 'manananggal' was to look for this lower half before daylight, spread salt on it so that the upper half could not reattach to it, and the 'manananggal' itself would die.
The 'tiyanak' misled travelers by imitating the cries of a baby. The traveler followed the baby's cries and before he realized it, he had lost his way and could not find his way back out of the woods or forest. To break the spell, the victim had to take off his or her shirt and put it back on inside out.
The 'dwende' was, of course, the tiny dwarf that lived in mounds of earth and sheltered under toadstools. The 'dwende' should not be mistaken for the 'nuno sa punso', an old dwarf also living in those mounds of earth (actually, termite hills), casting a spell to anybody who stepped on those hills or even just brushed against their invisible selves. In those days, we could not walk over a woodland or a meadow without muttering over and over: "Tabi-tabi po ingkong, di ko po kayo nakikita. (Please may I pass, old man, I cannot see you)."
When my younger brother fell from a santol tree, the old folks said he was pushed by a nuno sa punso because the latter lived in that tree. In fact, whenever somebody got sick, the nuno sa punso was always blamed. Na matanda, they said.
The hardest part of the storytelling sessions was when they were over and it was time to go home through dark paths. The way home for me was through the dark fishpond dike. Where the dike made a dogleg, there was a huge tree where a 'kapre', so the storytellers said, sometimes sat waiting for passersby. I dreaded that tree but there was no other way to go home. So I just closed my eyes and ran past it as fast as I could. It was no small miracle that I never fell into the pond.
posted by Dante at 9:55 PM
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