pinoy-culture:

bunnycorcorans:

aaronwarnar-deactivated20150722:

[cracks knuckles] [drinks tea viciously]

well, one as rude as you might as well be as stupid, for “filipino mythology” does exist and people like you make me gag. Our stories might not be as well documented as the greeks or the romans or and god damn egyptians, but we have preserved them through oral traditions. We told them to our children before they sleep, we told them to young teens when they would need guidance, we told them throughout centuries and believe me: we are far from forgotten. so, you want some mythology, i’ll give you some god damn mythology:

— list of all our documented and known deities

— list of all of the creatures in their respective ethnic myths (yes we have more than one form of mythology and we take it into high regard when we talk about certain myths

— creation myths that i myself have heard many many times from my grandparents (my grandfather mostly)

— most detailed account of the mythology in the philippines

— another great source for information about filipino mythology

— oh look, yet another detailed explanation of creatures in filipino mythology

— why, would you look at that, yet ANOTHER source of filipino folk tales

anyway, regardless of what you think. filipino mythology is as valid as any other mythology out there and i shall protect it at all costs. normally i would have just deleted such a message but how you had told me of how invalid my culture was, well that angered me. to completely tell me that, i myself was invalid, a statistic. you are no better than the spaniards that arrived at our coasts. oh how they erased out existence from history’s books. let me tell you this, i will not be silenced. i will not be stopped. i will not be merciful. you come back into my ask like this again, i will meet you with a fury that even the gods cannot contain

I will school you, you ignorant imbecile. And to do that, I won’t even comment on the level of ignorance and rudeness evident in that kind of question. Just know that if you cross us again, I will destroy you in all the ways your puny mind cannot even fathom as destruction.

First off - while Keith (vespeir) has provided some links, I understand how most people might see Wikipedia as unreliable/unacademic. The thing is, though, Philippine mythology now is a product of generations and generations of Western brainwashing/colonization. It’s watered down, and basically just Greek/Roman deities translated. But you also have to understand that most of what we know now? It’s propaganda. 

But anyway - there’s been extensive research regarding Philippine myth pre- and post-Western influence, both in the fields of literature and anthropology (most of them being from my university, with notable people being F. Landa Jocano from the UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Department of Anthropology, and Damiana Eugenio, from the UP College of Arts and Letters, Department of English and Comparative Literature.

Both of these people show up when you google them, not only because of their body of work, but because of the citations awarded to them, Jocano with a lifetime citation by the Manila Critics Circle, and Eugenio - dubbed the Mother of Philippine Folklore - with a Centennial Award for Cultural Research).

Just a few of my favorite articles on Philippine myth:

• An editorial on mythology as a cultural mirror
• Mythology as propaganda during the Marcos regime (just hints of it here, as an explanation/caption to an exhibit in the Vargas Museum, with Malakas and Maganda (PHL equivalent to Adam and Eve) replacing Kalak and Kabai (original equivalent to Adam and Eve) as Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos doppelgängers).
•  A very interesting article on the Aswang

There would be more, but I have to go now. I might come back to add links, but articles are available everywhere, I shit you not. There’s also a lot of modern stuff coming out, one being a comprehensive encyclopedia focused on Philippine myth and lore.

And holy crap, I haven’t even touched on the gods! On the diwatas, and the malignos! Maria Makiling, for crying out loud! 

You should thank whatever you believe in that typing this has cooled me off. But I’ll be back, and I swear to all that is holy, if I’m still angry by then, there will be hell. Masusunog ka sa impiyerno, gago, ako mismo magpapadala sa’yo doon. 

*reads* *sips coffee* *inhales* *breathes* 

Ok well as many of you should know by now if you have been following me long enough (if you don’t where have you been?), I am not a Pilipin@ Christian nor am I Pilipin@ Muslim.

I am Pagan.

I am a Polytheist.

I am a Reconstructionist.

And yes, I practice our indigenous beliefs and yes, I believe in our various mythologies from the Philippines. 

And yes, our Gods and Goddesses are real in my eyes as whatever divine being you believe in is and I devout myself to them as you do to yours.

To the anon and to anyone else who dares say that there is no such thing as Pilipin@ mythology, then I speak for all of us who still believe in our Gods and Goddesses. I speak for all the indigenous groups who have kept their indigenous beliefs strong despite almost 400 years of colonization and the continuation today via Western ideology creeping in like vines through our indigenous communities via missionaries abroad and other fellow Pilipin@s who look down at them and consider them “savage”, or “people of the mountains”.

http://pinoy-culture.com/post/99281660811/list-of-deities-in-the-various-pilipin

Do you see that link? Click it. Read it. I have personally written down a list of all the known Gods and Goddesses of the various colonized ethnic groups. These are all based on reading Spanish historical documents on on our ancestors, the earliest dictionaries, and oral lore and is research that I have learned and studied in part of my practice as a Pilipin@ Reconstructionist who believes in the precolonial, indigenous, and ancestral beliefs of our ancestors which for me works as I see the world in the very same animistic way our ancestors did and it has gotten me in touch with them and how the world works.

What did you think we were before the Spaniards and Christianity came? Brainless idiots who were just there? Every group of people that has ever existed on this planet has their own Gods and Goddesses. Every group of people that have ever lived, breathed, seen the joys and destruction that is nature, questioned the night sky, seen the changing of the seasons, seen and experienced life and death, has come up with and looked up to their own mythologies. Some of them are based on some truth that has happened within their peoples own history long ago, and each group of people that have simply lived and questioned what goes on around them and in this big universe have their own mythologies. It is part of human history and Pilipin@s are no exception from that part of human history.

Was there such a thing as Pilipin@ mythology? No, there wasn’t for the simple fact there was no Philippines and no such thing as a Pilipin@ until Spanish colonization. Our people were separated by their own ethnic groups, the kingdoms that existed prior to colonization, and our own banwa, puod, barangay. What about now? There is, based on more modern interpretations and myths on certain deities (Ex: The incorporation of the moon Goddess Mayari and the sun God Apolaki as part of a Tagalog myth when prior to colonization they weren’t worshiped by the Tagalogs but historically by the Sambal and Pangasinan with Mayari also being worshiped by the Aeta and Kapampangan.)

There is also the widespread belief of Mariang Makiling who is a Goddess of Mt. Makiling who is strongly believed to exist even by devout Christians. Though there is no mention of her in historical Spanish documents she exists today through our mythologies that still persists despite colonization and Christianity.

So unless you believe we were just there, minds blank, and we couldn’t do anything with ourselves until the Spaniards arrived and “brought us the light”, then you anon are the only who is stupid here. Because our various mythologies are rich, vibrant, and still very much alive.

Let me just tag anitoanum because I know they will have a comment on this as well as a fellow Pilipin@ Polytheist.