Filipino shamans
[3] The most common native terms for shamans among Austronesian groups in Island Southeast Asia are balian, baylan, or cognates and spelling variants thereof.
[6] However, the linguists Robert Blust and Stephen Trussel have noted that there is no evidence that *balian is a suffixed form, and thus believe that Dempwolff's interpretation is incorrect.
This training includes learning about the rituals, the chants and songs, the sacrifices appropriate for each spirit, oral histories, herbs and healing practices, and magic spells, among others.
People with abyan must regularly offer sacrifices to these spirits, usually consisting of food, alcoholic drinks, ngangà, and blood from a sacrificial animal (usually a chicken or a pig)[note 1] in order to maintain good relations.
Bound spirits that inadvertently "stick" to humans are considered dangerous, and are the causes of spiritual illnesses, ranging from confusion, strange food cravings, lust, to unreasoning anger.
[41] The Katalonas performed public ceremonies for community prosperity, fertility, or seasonable weather as well as private services to diagnose and cure ailments.
In this state of trance, the catalona was called "tarotaro" [literally meaning voices], for it was believed that the ancestral spirits had entered her body and were speaking from inside her.
A person is believed to be composed of at least two souls—the breath of life (ginhawa or hininga, which stays with the living body) and the astral soul (the kalag or kaluluwa, which can travel to the spirit world).
[56][58][60] Spiritual illnesses, on the other hand, are believed to be caused by the separation of the kalag from the ginhawa (referred to as "soul loss" in anthropological literature).
[60] Aside from rituals and herbal medicine, an ubiquitous traditional healing method done by shamans and healers is massage with oils (lana) known as hilot or haplos.
Various paraphernalia and rituals are used to diagnose illnesses, examples include seashells, ginger, quartz or alum crystals (tawas), and chicken entrails.
A key mythological creature used in babaylan geomancy in the Visayas is the bakunawa (or naga), usually depicted as a gigantic serpent or dragon with a looped tail.
When building houses, shamans were also often consulted to determine the most propitious placement of the foundations to avoid the ill luck brought by the bakunawa.
[note 13] Their alleged powers include conjuring fire or water, flight, shape-shifting, invisibility, invulnerability, and the ability to call down disasters.
[71][72][73] Numerous types of shamans use different kinds of items in their work, such as talismans or charms known as agimat or anting-anting, curse deflectors such as buntot pagi, and sacred oil concoctions, among many other objects.
Healer-sorcerers who practice this kind of sorcery usually justify it as a form of criminal punishment, as a widespread belief is that black magic does not work on people who are innocent.
Babaylans were held in such high regard as they were believed to possess powers that can block the dark magic of an evil datu or spirit and heal the sick or wounded.
[2] According to William Henry Scott (Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippines Culture and Society) a Katalonan could be of either sex, or male transvestites (bayoguin), but were usually women from prominent families who were wealthy in their own right.
According to Luciano P. R. Santiago (To Love and to Suffer) as remuneration for their services they received a good part of the offerings of food, wine, clothing, and gold, the quality and quantity of which depended on the social status of the supplicant.
[44] By the late 16th century, Christian symbols and paraphernalia (like rosaries, crucifixes, and holy water) became fetish objects, and Latin prayers and verses became part of the shaman's repertoire of magical chants and spells.
Nature spirits (diwata) during this period were also syncretized with the friars themselves, becoming known as engkanto and being described as having European features, along with a propensity for deceiving, seducing, and playing tricks on people.
The book was utilized by the natives to express a "deliberate pact" with what the Spanish called with prejudice as "the devil", which contextually was an indigenous god and not a demon.
The scholar Beyer also noted of the time when a Spanish priest boasted about burning indigenous religious writings, specifically "more than three hundred scrolls written in the native character".
In 1349, the Chinese Wang Ta-yuan recorded that widows of important leaders in Manila spent the rest of their lives poring over indigenous religious texts.
Chirino also mentioned another male katalona who, together with a group of peers he was leading, was convinced by Jesuit priest Francisco Almerique to convert to Christianity.
[citation needed] Shamans who were assimilated by the church syncretized their roles into mysticism in the Christian context, becoming faith healers and miracle workers.
[24][86] A version of the traditional massage therapy conducted by folk healers also exists, known as agud or agod among the Maranao and Maguindanao people.
During the 17th to 18th centuries, Spanish administrators in the Philippines burned people convicted of homosexual relations at the stake and confiscated their possessions, in accordance with a decree by the president of the Real Audiencia, Pedro Hurtado Desquibel.
In Spanish-controlled areas (especially in the Visayas), entire villages would defy the policies of reducciónes (resettlement) and move deeper into the island interiors at the instigation of their babaylan.
After the Philippines was ceded to the United States after the Spanish–American War, he was initially made "military chief" of La Castellana, Negros Occidental under the American government.
