*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 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 These are all based on reading Spanish historical documents on on our ancestors, the earliest dictionaries, and oral lore and is research that I have learned and studied in part of my practice as a Pilipin@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.
snowghoul
titsay
yousharknotpass
