Philippine superstitions

Title

Creator

Malay, Armando J.

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XII (No. 2) February 1960

Year

1960

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

Philippine By Armando J. Malay Many primitive customs and ideas, when described to enlightened people by those who have been witnesses to such practices or privy to such concepts, are immediately branded as mere superstitions. Because on the surface they appear to be fantastic, little thought is given to the possibility that, after all, they may be the products of quite sound reasoning. This is not to say that all su perstitions have a sound basis. In the Philippines, as a matter of fact, the majority of superstitions are irrational. But closer examina tion of a few of them will show ^thdt they have a valid basis. Take, for example, one of the rural tests by which a culprit is discovered. In the eastern part of the Philippines, particularly in Quezon province and in the Bicol provinces, when a person misses a property, say a wallet, and he 80 Panorama i February 1960 believes that his companions in the house or one of his immediate neighbors must be the pilferer, he invites all of them and asks them to spit on the ground. The one whose spittle is the thickest is ad judged to be the guilty person. One familiar with tne sp-called lie detector or polygraph of the most advanced police departments in the world will see that this saliva test works on the same principle. A guilty person will ex2_perience some physiological reac tions when confronted with a charge. Among other reactions, his throat will become dry and his saliva will be more viscous. The polygraph records such bodily re actions as heavier breathing, great er perspiration, stronger heart beats, all indicating—so sleuths be lieve—that the individual under the test is hiding something. Of course the results of the polygraph test are not presented in court as an evidence o£ guilt; so far, courts of justice do not give probative value to lie detector tests. But criminal investigators, confronted with a number of sus pects one of whom might be the guilty person, are given a “lead” on which they may work. There * in lies the value of the polygraph in modern criminal investigation. But the spittle test carried out by rural Filipinos becomes a final Judgment and one will readily see tow dangerous to an individual's security the implicit belief in this test can be. Or take another example: the itch-producing trees. Scattered all over the Philippines are trees, one of them known locally as kamandag (meaning poison), which will cause a person’s body to itch if he stays underneath. And the only way by which the hapless victim can rid himself of the terrible itch is to dance a jig. These trees, during their flow ering, period, scatter pollen which irritates the skin of man or beast on which it falls. The pollen is so fine that the rural Filipino does not see it fall. When he goes under the tree in bloom, the in evitable happens. So he dances— he has been told he should do that—and the pollen is shaken off. Thus he is relieved. Medicinal superstitions, at least some of them, are not as irra tional as they appear on the sur face. All over the big island of Luzon, the cure-all in most rural communities for sluggishness, headaches, doldrums, etc. is to have the neck pinched. This is called bantil. Any member of the family may pinch the sufferer’s neck all around. Some first dip their thumb in coconut oil before pinching. Those who submit to this treatment can claim that they feel relieved afterwards, and they put more trust in the bantil than in aspirin or any other pill. The scientific explanation for the cure could be that by pinch ing the neck, the “doctor” also pinches the blood vessels to the head, thereby hastening the flow of the blood and perking up the sufferer. Bodily massages nave the same effect, as does standing on one’s head to cure a cold. Two other medical practiced that come to mind are tne bury ing, up to the neck, in the hot sand on the beach, of a person suffering from rheumatism, and the tying of, a person who has h id a fainting spell to a tree near a colony of red ants. I’m sure that some medical experts would be able to “rationalize” these two ru ral practices. The pagan tribes of the Philip pines are too often branded as backward but in at least one prac tice, connected with burial of their dead, they could show up their more enlightened brothers of the lowlands. Most pagan families abandon their homes or bum it when a member of the family dies, and transfer their hom^s. Panorama 82 They believe that unless they do this, another member will die. Considering that the deceased must have left a lot of germs in the house where he expired, and that sanitary facilities in the pagan areas are nil, one will readily see that abandonment or burning of a house is really a very hygienic practice. This recalls to mind that in the Philippines, during the early days of the American re gime, entire communities were put to the torch to stop the spreaa of cholera and other dreadful epi demics. Of course when a Mangyan or a Manobo abandons or burns his house, sanitation and hygiene are no consideration at all. He simply believes that un less he moves away, his gods will surely take another member of his family, if not himself. As one who has dedicated him self to the compilation of Filipiniana, I cannot help but exult sometimes when I come across a belief or practice which, upon ana lysis, shows a rational basis. Then I say to myself, as a representative of what we like to call the enlight ened class: “Not all fhe sheen is on your side of the glass, man!” —Eighth Pacific Science Congress and the Fourth Far Eastern Pre history Congress. February 1960 83

pages

80+

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