In this episode about Filipino myths and legends, Carmina and Patch remember Esperidion Arsenio Manuel, who is known as the “Dean of Filipino Anthropology” and the “Father of Philippine Folklore.” Enjoy listening to both well-known and less familiar stories, as well as a modern take on a well-loved classic.
Learn more: Treasury of Stories, Filipino Myths & Folktales, Myths & Legends of the Philippines, Tagalog Deities in Philippine Mythology, The Classic Cast of Characters in Philippine Folklore, Alternative Alamat: An Anthology: Myths and Legends from the Philippines, and Creation Myths from the Philippines.
To support FilTrip, go to the Patreon page here and PayPal page here.
Visit https://filtrip.buzzsprout.com. Drop a note at thefiltrip@gmail.com.
Thanks to FilTrip's sponsor SOLEPACK. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
See https://www.buzzsprout.com/privacy for Privacy Policy.
In this episode about Filipino myths and legends, Carmina and Patch remember Esperidion Arsenio Manuel, who is known as the “Dean of Filipino Anthropology” and the “Father of Philippine Folklore.” Enjoy listening to both well-known and less familiar stories, as well as a modern take on a well-loved classic.
Learn more: Treasury of Stories, Filipino Myths & Folktales, Myths & Legends of the Philippines, Tagalog Deities in Philippine Mythology, The Classic Cast of Characters in Philippine Folklore, Alternative Alamat: An Anthology: Myths and Legends from the Philippines, and Creation Myths from the Philippines.
To support FilTrip, go to the Patreon page here and PayPal page here.
Visit https://filtrip.buzzsprout.com. Drop a note at thefiltrip@gmail.com.
Thanks to FilTrip's sponsor SOLEPACK. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
See https://www.buzzsprout.com/privacy for Privacy Policy.
Welcome to Filtrip, a podcast where we explore everything fun, weird, and in between about the Philippines.
Patch:Today's trip is all about Philippine mythology and Carmina . We're going to talk about legends, folklore, and mythology.
Carmina:I didn't even know that there was a difference between all those. Did you <laugh> ? Did you know that I had to look up definitions?
Patch:<laugh> , I, I knew there was a difference, but I didn't know what they were.
Carmina:According to some dictionaries, a myth is a well-known story that was made up in the past to explain natural events or to justify religious beliefs or social customs. A legend is designed to teach a lesson about a real person in history with a few things dramatically changed for impact. And then there's also the fables, which are stories that are passed down with good lessons to be learned. And they're about animals, plants, or nature that are given human-like characteristics. And of course, there's fairytales, and they're specifically for kids. They have good and evil characters. So I wanna mention one notable Filipino figure who wrote a Filipino myths, because, you know, we were colonized, right? And so many of our precolonial myths and legends were erased, our forgotten. There's a well-respected Filipino historian and academic named Esperon a Manuel, who dedicated his life writing about this topic from the pre-colonial perspective. He documented the stories of our ancestors', attempts to explain where their world began, the origins of the landscape around them, and the deities and spirits that our ancestors worshiped. He also documented myths that took the form of epics and narrate stories of our ancestral heroes against seemingly insurmountable challenges. So I encourage folks to look him up and look up his work. Fortunately, I found one last book in Amazon <laugh> . I'm gonna link it in our show notes, but our listeners should know. I bought the last copy on Amazon
Patch:<laugh> . I mean, we talked about how sad it is that a lot of the resources are almost non-existent to us now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , they're out of print, et cetera. Or someone buys the last copy <laugh> and doesn't want to share
Carmina:<laugh> . Well, you know, I really need to win the lottery already, remember?
Patch:Oh , that's right. That's right.
Carmina:I have a pledge that if I win the lottery, one of the first things that I'm gonna do is really try to put these books back in print.
Patch:But thank goodness for people who do all this research and document all of these things that makes everything about our culture still available to us and future generations.
Carmina:So, Patch, you were talking about origin stories. Of course. We have to start with the apex creator, <laugh> , mythology. <laugh> .
Patch:We were speaking a little bit before we started recording, but it was very confusing to me because the Philippines with different regions had different versions of the same story, different names of the same beings. Mm-Hmm . But for the Tagalog people, I think you're alluding to Bathala, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> .
Carmina:And from the Bal and Tribe in Southern Menal , he's called Melu .
Patch:According to the Tagalog, he is the supreme being. He emerged from chaos and created the earth, the sky, and the sea. Now, this also has many differences. 'cause some of the stories state that he was already there existing, but also there were two other gods that were in existence together with him. But they kind of weren't socializing with each other <laugh> until one day. Bathahal and Ulilang Kaluluwa sort of found each other.
Carmina:Ulilang Kaluluwa means orphaned soul.
Patch:Yes. One of the versions was they found each other. They started talking. When Bathala basically introduced himself and said, I am the, you know, God of all Ulilang Kaluluwa was like, hold up...
Carmina:<laugh>.
Patch:That's me.
Carmina:<laugh> . Oh my God. And confusion ensues, <laugh> ,
Patch:And you know, anger. And so they fought and Bathala won. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . He emerged victorious. And then he met another God. One of the three was a wing God named Galang Kaluluwa.
Carmina:So roughly in English, it's respectful soul. Why is everybody a soul story ? <laugh> except him.
Patch:<laugh> . Okay. So Galang Kaluluwa and Bathala bonded and they became BFFs. Okay.
Carmina:Okay.
Patch:And so their friendship existing many, many years until Galang Kaluluwa fell ill. And he passed away. Aw . Yeah. But before he did, he told Bathala, Hey, here's what you do. I know you're going to be lonely. You are going to bury me. And this place out of that sprung the first coconut tree.
Carmina:Okay?
Patch:And so out of that coconut tree as well is where the first man and woman came to be. But other legends, we came from bamboo tree. Right?
Carmina:Right. Mal . Correct. I mentioned the God Melu earlier. And right as I said, it's from the Blaan tribe in Southern MIndanao. This tribe lives in Lake Sabu and other places in South Cotabato . And they have a very rich and colorful culture. They weave beautiful fabrics and bead work , and they have indigenous rituals for almost everything. And all of them are based on their creator named Malu , who they believed is the source of everything. So Malu is described as this huge being, like huge in size . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And apparently Malu is obsessed with cleanliness and grooming.
Patch:Thank goodness. <laugh>.
Carmina:Yes. He scrubbed himself so much that he had a lot of skin that he basically sloughed off himself. Oh Lord. And because one day when he looked, he was like, oh my gosh, that's a lot of skin that I swapped off myself. I have to make use of it. Oh , so he created the earth <laugh> . I mean, I'm sure there's more complexity to this story. That's just
Patch:The gist.
Carmina:A summary that I found in one of these books. But I just found it amusing. 'cause number one, I , all I ever knew, because I'm Tagalog , is Bathala. Right? It was a novelty for me to find another creator, like being , that wasn't Bathala.
Patch:A side note that I , it was also interesting to me that in our mythology, god's, they can actually die.
Carmina:Mm-Hmm.<affirmative> , speaking of origin stories, this one was super interesting to me because based on the title, I didn't expect the outcome, especially considering that the origin was listed as Mindel . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . It's called the runaway princesses. So there was a Datu who had three daughters. Their mother died when the youngest was just seven years old. The Datu found a new wife who was unfortunately evil and reduced the status of these three princesses to be her personal slaves. Basically, the one characteristic of this new wife was she had also supernatural powers. And she had an evil plan to take the entire kingdom from the king. And you know, the Datu was always away on a kingdom business. <laugh> . So he would often leave his three daughters. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And it eventually became too much that the three princesses left the palace and escaped on a boat. I should mention the dad who didn't know all this was happening to his daughters. Okay. Because he loved them so much. He probably wouldn't have let that happen if he knew. But the three daughters were so loyal to their father that they didn't want to give him any more problems. So the three princesses left the palace and escaped on a boat on a day that their father was on another kingdom business trip.
Patch:<laugh> Quote and unquote business <laugh> .
Carmina:Exactly. Uh, the evil stepmom used her supernatural powers to locate them in her mind. And her plan was to kill the three daughters and then killed the dads . So using her power, she caused a storm that created huge waves in the sea. Then a thunderbolt struck the boat and split the boat in three, separating the three sisters and submerging them. Oh my. The DA returned to the palace unexpectedly. And in my, you know, tela novella mind, <laugh> picturing the scene <laugh> . And when he returned, he saw what the evil stepmom was doing and beheaded her. But unfortunately, because he did that, he had no idea where his daughters went. <laugh>.
Patch:I mean, in hindsight, he could have asked for exactly torture , torture
Carmina:Her first. See , tell the novella mind there was gonna be torture, first
Patch:<laugh>
Carmina:To force her to cough up where the three were. So when the seas calmed down, the princesses floated on the surface, on the pieces of the boat that they were on. And I'm wondering if you can guess where the story is going.
Patch:<laugh>? No , not all .
Carmina:Okay . But they drifted from each other. Oh, okay. So the eldest drifted towards the north. The second eldest managed to stay in place somehow, and the youngest drifted to the south. Mm-Hmm . The next day, fisherman saw that there were three new islands on the sea. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So they named the one to the north Luzon, the one in the middle of Visayas and the Southern one, Mindanao . And that's how we got the name Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao for the major island groups in the Philippines.
Patch:That's fascinating. I haven't heard that one.
Carmina:Yeah, me too. Okay. So that was interesting. Here's another interesting one. And I do remember this from our childhood. The origin of the banana <laugh> .
Patch:Wait, I remember this being sad, right?
Carmina:Perhaps when we were young, we wouldn't have considered it sad. But now that we're adults, I'm like scratching my head. And honestly, I laughed out loud, but
Patch:Okay, <laugh> .
Carmina:So I'm just gonna reduce it to really a synopsis. So basically it , it's a love story. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , a man and a woman meet in this forest regularly. The woman did not know that the man was supernatural. So there was one day when they were holding hands and the man said, oh, I have to go now. 'cause apparently the man had to leave before sundown. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
Patch:Typical.
Carmina:Yes. <laugh> . Uh , and then the woman wouldn't let him go because she loved him so much and would miss him. So she held tightly onto his hand. But unfortunately the sun was going down and the man was basically saying, I really have to go. Okay. <laugh> . He left into the sunset. There was a portion of the story that it, you know, was too late, basically. So he couldn't come back anymore after that because they waited until the very last minute. Right. And when the woman locked down, she realized that she was still holding the man's arm. So basically the man's arm got left behind.
Patch:He turned into a tree.
Carmina:No, he did not turn into a tree. Maybe that's another version. <laugh> . But in this version, Uhhuh <affirmative> , the hand was left behind.
Patch:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> .
Carmina:I mean , how creepy
Patch:Is that ? <laugh> ,
Carmina:The woman buried the hand.
Patch:Oh, okay. Yes, I remember.
Carmina:And then the next day, a tree sprouted, and eventually the first bananas sprouted from the tree. I mean, but bananas aren't just five <laugh>. Yeah. In a bunch. Right? So did this man have more than five fingers?
Patch:<laugh> . Right. And I remember it had also something to do with the plant that started to grow, isn't it? That the banana tree has a very distinct looking , uh, flower.
Carmina:Yeah. Yeah. The heart.
Patch:The heart shape . Heart shape , yeah . Right. And so that was significant because that's obviously the love or the heart of the man or something.
Carmina:Okay. So that's...
Patch:We're doing a great job,
Carmina:<laugh> with a banana <laugh>
Patch:With this , uh, storytelling story.
Carmina:I obviously focused on the hands. <laugh> , I'm sure that part of it was also in it. But
Patch:<laugh> ,
Carmina:I was just so focused. Number one, I was so annoyed that that woman was so clingy.
Patch:Exactly.
Carmina:In our now feminist brains. Right.
Patch:And we have to analyze what kind of attachment style they have .
Carmina:So I was a little bit, now that I'm older, I'm like, I do not remember being this annoyed with this story when we were younger. Anyway, I have another one. Okay. It's called the Golden Tree from the Igorots. Okay. There was a hardworking couple who were farmers. So the wife became pregnant, but she was still doing farm work during her pregnancy. One day she went to the farm by herself. And unfortunately that was around the time when she was due to give birth. And so she unexpectedly gave birth in the field without anyone helping her. The baby, it was a boy, unfortunately, was delivered dead. Oh . So she didn't have the heart to bring the dead baby home to her husband and decided to bury him in the field. Underneath the field, lived a mouse who traveled underground through tunnels. And on the same day while the mouse was traveling underground, he ran into the dead boy's body. Oh boy. And he was so overcome with sadness that he licked the boy's face. And miraculously the boy started to breathe.
Patch:Oh,
Carmina:The mouse dragged the boy to his mouse home and cared for him.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:The boy grew up and he wanted to see his real parents . So the mouse brought him to his parents' farm. I mean, by now, we know that this mouse is magical <laugh> ,
Patch:Because
Carmina:How could he have raised
Patch:The boy with the help of the other mice? Carmina , obviously.
Carmina:Well there were no other mice in this story.
Patch:<laugh> . Okay.
Carmina:Every day when the parents left, the boy would place a grain of rice in a pot, and it would magically turn into a pot of rice so that when the parents came home, they always had rice to eat. So the parents obviously were puzzled by this. So one day the mom wanted to find out who was doing this and waited and found the boy. And the boy explained what happened. You know, he's the son. And so they reunited as a family. And the mouse allowed the boy to live with his parents from that day forward. However, the mouse though, became very old one day and died. Oh . But before he died, he gave them a seed and he said it would bear many fruits. But he told them not to pick the fruit until it was ripe. And he also warned them that it needed to be kept their family secret forever. The family, although they were puzzled, followed the mouse's instructions. And the first time they harvested the ripe fruit from the tree, as soon as they plucked it, it turned into pure gold.
Patch:Wow.
Carmina:So obviously the family became very rich and they were very good at keeping their secret <laugh> , except for one day
Patch:<laugh> . Mm . When the father , I knew this was coming. Wait, you were about to say the father, huh? Uhhuh . <laugh> . It had to be him. Okay.
Carmina:He got very drunk.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:And spilled the beans about the tree. So of course, everybody found out about it and stormed their farm. But when they got there, they witnessed the tree shrivel up, die and get swallowed by the ground. But it is said that the tree still lives underground and still bears the fruit that turns to gold. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . I was first thinking why this could have come about. But then I remembered from our history that the Spaniards were unable to conquer the Igorots. Remember? Yes. So for those who haven't heard that episode, the IROs are an indigenous people from Northern Philippines, and they live in the CordilleraMountains. By the way, I also learned that the name I is derived from the Spanish term I , which means people of the mountains.
Patch:Mm-Hmm .
Carmina:So the Spaniards were very motivated to conquer the Igorots. Why? Because the gold of the gold in the mountains. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> .
Patch:So this was the legend of basically the gold mines of the mountains. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Okay. So for our last one, we're going to talk about the legend of Mariang Makiling, who I think is one of the most popular one, or at least in our childhood, right? Carmina.
Carmina:Yep. Mariang Makiling is a f airy.
Patch:In Philippine mythology and is associated with Mount Makiling in Laguna in the Philippines. So there's many stories regarding who Mariang Makiling is. I don't, I didn't come across the origin of Mariang Makiling herself, but some of the stories surrounding her ,
Carmina:Uh , I'm thinking that it's kind of like Bathala<laugh>,
Patch:Uhhuh <affirmative> .
Carmina:She just existed.
Patch:Right? She just existed. And some stories say that Bathala actually sent her Uhhuh <affirmative> . Right. She watches over the people. And , and like I said, there are many stories about her. One story depicts her as falling in love with a mortal man. And basically he betrayed her and married someone else.
Carmina:Oh
Patch:Yeah. And this betrayal led her to withdraw from the townspeople. 'cause she used to live with them . She used to help them, but she withdrew from them. And she also withdrew her help. Like there were no fish in the lakes. There were no animals to hunt. She would be seen as a mist around the mountains. There's
Carmina:Another version that I saw involving three suitors. 'cause that one is guaranteed to have drama <laugh>.
Patch:Okay. So tell us about that drama
Carmina:<laugh> . So she had three suitors, and in this version, the Spaniards were already in the Philippines.
Patch:<laugh> . Mm-Hmm.
Carmina:<affirmative> . Because , you know, I guess because these are oral traditions, the retelling would be dependent on which time the retelling happened, right? So,
Patch:Right .
Carmina:The three suitors were a Spanish army officer named Capitan Gaspar, who showered her with gifts from Spain. The second was a Spanish Filipino Mestizo Jose. And the last one is a simple, hardworking Filipino who was a farmer called one . So I guess the time that this is being retold, it was meant to inspire nationalism, right? Because it's a very class driven narrative. So there came a time when all three of them were impatient to hear who she loved. And so she set a time and a date on top of the mountain for all of them to meet. And she would pick her suiter there. It's like the bachelorette, don't you think ? <laugh>. So anyhow, Maria picked one mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And of course, the other two were very angry. And they stormed off because they could not believe that Maria picked a simple Filipino Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . One day the Army headquarters burned . And so Capitan Gaspar and Jose rounded up the Indios. And one of them was one . Now, again, using my telenovela mind, <laugh> , I feel like they staged this fire <laugh> because they couldn't find the culprit. And eventually they pinned it all in one mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Now, of course, everybody knew that one had nothing to do with this, but all the townspeople didn't do anything to prevent one's punishment, which was death by firing squad. Right before the squad opened fire, he screamed Maria Maria. And of course he died. Maria heard one , but he was already dead when she made it down the mountain. So the story goes that Maria chastised the townspeople. This kind of dovetails into your earlier story about her withdrawing help. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And this version, she withdrew her help because the townspeople didn't do anything and let the Spaniards take over the town. So it became this , uh, nationalistic story as well. So she carried one's body up the mountain to Birmingham , and she swore to seek revenge. A few days later, Jose became very sick, and in spite of being treated by best doctors, died a very painful death. And then Capitan Gaspar was sent to a remote village to suppress an uprising. And one day he was found with a machete in his chest. His facial expression apparently showed a slow and painful death, but mysteriously, there was no uprising in the area where he was found. So Mariang Makiling was never seen again, but her voice can be heard whispering one's name in the wind. And today, and even when we were kids, it was always described that the mountain looks like a woman lying on her back.
Patch:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , this story always creeped me out for some reason. I don't know why, but I did wanna mention that her story existed before the Hispanicized version, because Maria obviously comes from a Christian origin, right? So she was named Dayang and Dayang meaning Princess or Noble Lady.
Carmina:But Diang has an origin in Mindanao. So maybe that's the version in Mindanao. All right . So to end, I have another version of the Maria Mariang Makiling story. So I found this book called Alternative Alamat.
Patch:Okay?
Carmina:Yeah. Alamat is a Tagalog word that roughly translated means legend. And this book, Alternative Alamat is a fresh take on Filipino myths and legends. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So here's the Alternative Alamat version of Maria Makiling titled Conquering Makiling. It's a short story. So there's a modern take to it in that Thomas, our main character is a high school transfer student from Manila to Losano, which is the general area where Makiling is, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So it's a typical city boy transplanted to that region. The boy meets Maria
Patch:Is in this version Maria human, or was she a deity as well? Or am I ruining the story?
Carmina:You will find out. Okay.
Patch:<laugh> .
Carmina:So the boy meets Maria, who is apparently an eco activist.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:And he describes her as not really very pretty, because you know, the myths do say that Maria Makiling is very beautiful. Right? But maybe it's because it's told in the modern times, kind of reflects the biases that modern Filipinos have. She was described as dark skinned , has very thick hair, and a wild expression in her eyes. So because he was so mesmerized by Maria, he signs up for this volunteer activity, which is to plant more trees in the Makiling forest reserve, because now in modern times, it's been a victim of deforestation and landslides. So Maria was leading this activity. So on the day of this activity, Maria led a group of other young adults, and Thomas and Maria during the travel showed very unique talents for dealing with nature and fending off wildlife. This one is fascinating patch. She apparently faced off with a snake. Ooh . So this is where the story turns alternative. When the volunteers had to camp for the night, the setting was right. So love blossomed, <laugh> . So this story was building up to this point because there were many things that happened leading up to the encampment that basically evidenced tension, uhhuh, <affirmative> like chemistry between our two main characters. And then a bunch of things happened that we can't mention here because we're a clean podcast. <laugh>
Patch:Are we now. So
Carmina:Read the book for the details. Okay. But it turns very steamy.
Patch:Ooh .
Carmina:And in these scenes, she was described as making full use of the nature around her
Patch:<laugh> . Oh, my Spicy.
Carmina:It's spicy, it's tastefully done. So if people are going there for like graphic, graphic details, they won't find it
Patch:Go elsewhere.
Carmina:The next day when Thomas wakes up, Maria is nowhere to be found, and neither are the other people in the group <laugh> . So he goes home, he never sees Maria again. But what it did do was it sparked this interest in him to, you know, be a longtime nature lover. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So for a year after he signed himself up for all of these experiences and became somewhat of an activist himself. On one of these trips, he had a dream that Maria was giving birth. And the other volunteers that they were with who also disappeared on that trip were with Maria helping her to give birth. And I guess the year is significant because of course it takes 10 months for a baby to form. Right? Right. So the dream apparently was very vivid. She was giving birth, and at the time when a baby was supposed to come out, there was a mist, which is again, associated with Maria Makiling. Right. And she didn't give birth to a person, but to millions of seeds.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:The end <laugh> .
Patch:Oh , through these seeds though, for trees, obviously, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Okay.
Carmina:So that's the Alternative Almat, there were many other stories that were so interesting in that book. Yeah. Uh , many of them involved Maria ing , so she's clearly a favorite.
Patch:Yeah. I mean, she leaves quite an impression. And I don't know why. Out of all the legends that we were told when we were younger, Mariang Makiling really stood out. So apparently it's not just me <laugh>
Carmina:Mm-Hmm.<affirmative> because , you know, she's not a typical, I guess because it's, she's portrayed as not a typical woman in those times. Right? Right . She's powerful in control of her emotions, like picking lovers, <laugh> , all that stuff.
Patch:Right. Unlike the other deities, I guess she wasn't angry all the time, but sometimes, but not like the others. Were very like emotional, like you said. So yeah, that's, that's really interesting that you came across that one. Hmm.
Carmina:Mm-Hmm.<affirmative>
Patch:Well, for me, no Harena . I'm really thankful that there seems to be an interest again in Philippine mythology, our folk tales , legends and myths because we always look to other cultures with interest. And this is a new generation of writers shows, et cetera, that really focus on our culture and our traditions. And that's always refreshing and it's always a good sign. So
Carmina:I hope that our podcast birth birthed many new seeds <laugh> for others to pick up the interest for Philippine mythology.
Patch:And with that, that's our episode. We hope you join us on our next trip,
Carmina:O siya, siya!
Patch:Ingat. Thanks for listening to FilTrip with Carmina and Patch. Support FilTrip through Patreon or PayPal. And follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever all podcasts are downloaded.Thanks to Filtrip's sponsor Solepack, a functional shoe accessory bag. Visit the soulpack .com for more details. Email us at the fieldtrip@gmail.com .