History Myth / PhilippineMythology

** Curiously, there is no evidence of horses (whether wild or imported) and horse domestication in the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish, and the earliest mentions of these creatures in Spanish colonial records emphasized them being shapeshifters and nature spirits. The part-horse image seems to have evolved later. Then again, before the Spanish or other Europeans came in contact with the archipelago, the people of the Philippines had contact with mainland Asian civilizations that also domesticated horses such as Ming Dynasty China, and some posit the image of a horse-headed humanoid figure may have been brought through Hindu influence as one of Vishnu's avatars looks like that.

** Curiously, there is no evidence of horses (whether wild or imported) and horse domestication in the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish, and the earliest mentions of these creatures in Spanish colonial records emphasized them being shapeshifters and nature spirits. The part-horse image seems to have evolved later. Then again, before the Spanish or other Europeans came in contact with the archipelago, the people of the Philippines had contact with mainland Asian civilizations that also domesticated horses such as Ming Dynasty China, and some posit the image of a half-human horse figure may have been brought through Hindu influence as one of Vishnu's avatars looks like that.

** Curiously, there were no known native horses in the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish, and the earliest mentions of these creatures in Spanish colonial records emphasized them being shapeshifters and nature spirits. The part-horse image seems to have evolved later. Then again, before the Spanish or other Europeans came in contact with the archipelago, the people of the Philippines had contact with mainland Asian civilizations that also domesticated horses such as the Ming Dynasty of China.

* RideTheLightning: In Manobo/Manuvu mythology, the hero Tuwaang can use lightning to quickly travel.
* SolarAndLunar: The Tagalog god and goddess of the sun and moon -- Apolaki and Mayari -- are a brother/sister pair noted for their glowing eyes. The siblings quarreled over their duties, and Apolaki [[EyeScream wounded Mayari in the eye]] before their fight ended and they eventually agreed to share duties, [[JustSoStory which is why the light of the moon is less bright than that of the sun]].

** Curiously, there were no native horses in the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish, and the earliest mentions of these creatures in Spanish colonial records emphasized them being shapeshifters and nature spirits. The part-horse image seems to evolved later.

* DragonsAreDivine: Recently rediscovered myths show a common motif where ''crocodiles'' are seen as Asian dragons, filling the roles of [[NatureSpirit powerful water-spirits,]] if not outright {{Physical God}}s like with East Asian mythology. Of course, being [[NeverSmileAtACrocodile crocodiles,]] they're naturally more fearsome than most Asian dragons: They were held as minor gods because [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking they protected mortals from the OTHER dangerous water-spirits]] lurking in the seas and rivers. It was often thought that being eaten by a crocodile sent someone directly to the positive "heaven-type" afterlife, without the arduous sea-journey needed after most other deaths, and some tribes thought that normal crocodiles needed a HumanSacrifice to LevelUp INTO dragons, as they [[SoulEating needed to eat a human soul.]]

** A recently rediscovered Filipino dragon-type is none other than ''[[NeverSmileAtACrocodile crocodiles.]]'' The closest thing to a pan-Filipino mythos is that crocodiles--especially the gigantic saltwater crocodiles roaming the islands--were routinely seen as 1) powerful {{Nature Spirit}}s or outright {{Physical God}}s (naturally attuned to water), 2) the {{Reincarnation}} of tribal ancestors, and obviously, 3) [[DinosaursAreDragons dragons,]] to the point where the Tagalog word for crocodile (''buwaya'') was frequently used as a synonym for "dragon" in old texts. A Tagalog myth states that a huge magical crocodile/dragon literally called [[AKindOfOne the Buwaya]] acts as a {{Psychopomp}}, by ferrying recently-deceased souls to the afterlife. In a strange blend of Eastern and Western dragon-types, some tribes believed that crocodiles could LevelUp INTO dragons... by means of HumanSacrifice, since [[SoulEating they needed a human soul.]]

** The Tikbalang from Philippine mythology has the body of a man, but with the head and feet of a horse. Its legs are so long that when it sits down, its knees are above its head. Some legends also give it a mane of spikes. They are known for messing with travelers by shapeshifting into someone's relative, but if you find the right one, you can control it and ride it through the sky.

** The Manananggal detaches its entire upper body and grows bat wings. The Tagalog people use the same word for vampires (of which there are two sorts, the other kind has a long, proboscis-like tongue), ghouls and witches: "aswang", which is closer to "spook" than anything specific.

** In Bikolano mythology of ''Daragang Magayon'' on how Mt. Mayon was made, the tribal chief of the Rawis is named Makusog ("strong") and his daughter is Magayon ("beautiful").

* WeddingSmashers: In Manobo/Manuvu tale of ''Tuwaang attends a wedding'', the hero Tuwaang goes to a wedding of the Lady of Mo:nawon to the Young Man of Sakadna. Tuwaang unintentional showed up the groom who couldn't afford the last of the savakan (bride-wealth consisting of articles and wrapped food to be paid for by the groom’s kinsmen) by buying them for him and then further shamed the groom when the bride sat next to Tuwaang instead. [[CockFight The groom -the Young Man of Sakadna- decides to challenge Tuwaang]] and, with his 100-man entourage [[TakingTheFightOutside waits for him out in the yard]]. Before Tuwaang goes to fight, the bride -the Lady of Mo:nawon- fixed his [[IdiotHair cowlick]] while Tuwaang's gungutan bird killed 94 of the Young Man of Sakanda's entourage, leaving only six gallants. Tuwaang and his bird fought the six together until only Tuwaang and the Young Man of Sakadna remain. An epic battle ensues with KungShui such as a boulder turning to dust when Tuwaang was thrown hard against it and trees getting bent and toppled. The Young Man of Sakadna then slammed Tuwaang so hard onto the ground that he sank BeneathTheEarth all the way to {{the underworld}} where he met the god of the underworld Tuhawa who told Tuwaang how to beat his foe. Tuwaang surfaces and summons the golden flute in which the Young Man of Sakadna [[SoulJar keeps his life]]. Tuwaang asks his foe to become his vassal in exchange for his life. The groom prefers death. Tuwaang therefore destroys the golden flute, ending his life. Accompanied by the gungutan, Tuwaang takes the bride home to Kuaman, where he rules forever.

* WeddingSmashers: In Manobo/Manuvu tale of ''Tuwaang attends a wedding'', the hero Tuwaang goes to a wedding of the Lady of Mo:nawon to the Young Man of Sakadna. Tuwaang unintentional showed up the groom who couldn't afford the last of the savakan (bride-wealth consisting of articles and wrapped food to be paid for by the groom’s kinsmen) by buying them for him and then further shamed the groom when the bride sat next to Tuwaang instead. [[CockFight The groom -the Young Man of Sakadna- decides to challenge Tuwaang]] and, with his 100-man entourage [[TakingTheFightOutside waits for him out in the yard]]. Before Tuwaang goes to fight, the bride -the Lady of Mo:nawon- fixed his [[IdiotHair cowlick]] while Tuwaang's gungutan bird killed 94 of the Young Man of Sakanda's entourage, leaving only six gallants. Tuwaang and his bird fought the six together until only Tuwaang and the Young Man of Sakadna remain. An epic battle ensues with things such as a boulder turning to dust when Tuwaang was thrown hard against it and trees getting bent and toppled. The Young Man of Sakadna then slammed Tuwaang so hard onto the ground that he sank all the way to the underworld where he met the god of the underworld Tuhawa who told Tuwaang how to beat his foe. Tuwaang surfaces and summons the golden flute in which the Young Man of Sakadna keeps his life. Tuwaang asks his foe to become his vassal in exchange for his life. The groom prefers death. Tuwaang therefore destroys the golden flute, ending his life. Accompanied by the gungutan, Tuwaang takes the bride home to Kuaman, where he rules forever.

** In Bicalono mythology of ''Daragang Magayon'' on how Mt. Mayon was made, the tribal chief of the Rawis is named Makusog ("strong") and his daughter is Magayon ("beautiful").

* MenAreStrongWomenArePretty: The first man and woman according to Tagalog myth are named Malakas ("strong") and Maganda ("beautiful") respectively as they were born fully-formed from split bamboo, after a bird pecked it open.

* ThePhoenix: The Sarimanok, a majestic, rainbow-colored rooster, is prominent in Filipino mythology. Usually appears as a companion to the gods and is said to give good luck to those who capture it. It also played a part in the Filipino creation myth by pecking open the tree that contained the first man and woman.

The islands of the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} in Southeast Asia have gone through a long and tragic history. While in the modern-day they are home to multiple different ethnicities with most of them having been converted by the Abrahamic, Buddhist and Hindu religions, this page deals with the mythologies of the ancient indigenous peoples. However, be warned that plenty of stories aren't for people with the faintest of hearts. Please be sure to check out the pages of the [[Myth/MalaysianMythology Malaysians]] and Myth/{{Vietnamese|Mythology}} to find out more interesting information about the religions and the mythologies of the other Southeast Asian civilizations.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Because traditions and pantheons could differ from one ethnic group to another, let alone from island to island, Filipino mythology has a rich variety of gods, heroes and monsters.

* MixAndMatchCritters: The Tikbalang from Philippine mythology has the body of a man, but with the head and feet of a horse. Its legs are so long that when it sits down, its knees are above its head. Some legends also give it a mane of spikes. They are known for messing with travelers by shapeshifting into someone's relative, but if you find the right one, you can control it and ride it through the sky.

* GenderFlip: The Spanish wanting those of Pampanga to stop worshipping the Kampampangan sun god of war and death Apúng Sinukuan, who lived on Mount Arayat, by rebranding him as a woman named Maria Sinukuan as well as changed his wife Mingan into her husband. It wasn't as impactful as they would have hoped since the TopGod of Kampampangan mythology, Mangachey (Mangacha), is a woman. It did changed reverence of Sinukuan from a male sun god of war and death to a mountain guardian goddess.

* GenderRestrictedAbility: The shamans of the pre-colonial Philippines (today best known as the babaylan, but this is a Visayan term and not universal; various regions and ethnic groups and subgroups had variations like Bikolano "balyan" or altogether different terms like Tagalog "katalonan" and Kinaray-a "maaram" ) were almost exclusively female. Male shamans thus adopted feminine aspects in some way like wearing women's clothing. The sources don't go into much detail and it would be tricky to say the least to read 21st century ideas of gender into them, but today "Babaylan" has been adopted as the name of a Filipino LGBT advocacy organization.

** Before the Spanish, the Tiyanak weren't born from babies who died before they could be baptized (since that would be every baby born before the Spanish came) but of children whose mothers died before they could be born. Nowadays they're sometimes said to be from aborted babies, after the sexual revolution became a hot topic in the 1960s to 1970s admist Catholic disapproval.

* CulturalChopSuey: Centuries of Western colonization thanks to Spain and the US plus centuries of contact with Chinese, Malay (and through them, Indian) and other cultures prior to that have resulted in mythical/legendary/folkloric beings and concepts that in many cases bear some inescapable foreign influence, and it can be hard to uncover the root "native" or "indigenous" element, if such truly applies. For instance, the terms "duwende" , "engkanto", "kapre" and "santilmo" are clearly Spanish-derived (''duende'', ''encanto'', ''cafre'', and ''fuego de Santelmo'' i.e. "St. Elmo's fire") and ''cafre'' itself is from Arabic ''kaffir''. Other terms like "diwata" are Indian-influenced, as diwata is from Sanskrit ''devata'', a variant of ''deva''. The Filipino generic word for spirit is "espiritu", straight from Spanish, though the Tagalog word for soul is "kaluluwa". And so on and so forth.

* SolarAndLunar: The Tagalog god and goddess of the sun and moon -- Apolaki and Mayari -- are a brother/sister pair noted for their glowing eyes. After the death of their father Bathala, the siblings quarreled over who would rule. Apolaki [[EyeScream wounded Mayari in the eye]] before their fight ended and they eventually agreed to share duties, [[JustSoStory which is why the light of the moon is less bright than that of the sun]].

The islands of the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} in Southeast Asia have gone through a long and tragic history. While in the modern-day they are home to multiple different ethnicities with all of them having been converted by the Abrahamic, Buddhist and Hindu religions, this page deals with the mythologies of the ancient indigenous peoples. However, be warned that plenty of stories aren't for people with the faintest of hearts. Please be sure to check out the pages of the [[Myth/MalaysianMythology Malaysians]] and Myth/{{Vietnamese|Mythology}} to find out more interesting information about the religions and the mythologies of the other Southeast Asian civilizations.