Tigmamanukan

In some Philippine creation myths, the tigmamanukan bird was sent by Bathala to crack open the primordial bamboo whence the first man and woman came out.

Before Christianisation, as documented by Spanish accounts early into the colonisation, the word tigmamanukan was attributed widely for "any bird, lizard or snake that crossed one's path as an omen".

were translated in several early Spanish-Tagalog dictionaries (e.g. De los Santos, 1703) as a term for shamans who practiced divination or augury (i.e. augurs; Sp.

[2] It was also said that if a hunter caught a tigmamanukan in a trap, they would cut its beak and release it, saying "Kita ay iwawala, kung ako'y mey kakaunan, lalabay ka."

")[3] In at least one telling of the Filipino creation myth, the Tigmamanukan was responsible for opening the bamboo from which emerged the first man, Malakas, and first woman, Maganda.

Juan de Plasencia, Customs of the Tagalogs (1589)[12] "The Tagalos adored a blue bird, as large as a thrush, and called it Bathala, which was among them a term of divinity."

Francisco Colin, Labor Evangelica (1663)[1] "The Tagálogs adored now Tigmamanoquìn, which was a blue bird of the size of a turtledove..." Fr.

In Mindanao, a dove called a Limokon was similarly believed by the Mandaya, Bagobo, and Manobo to be an omen bird.