Babaylan Sing Back

Philippine Shamans and Voice, Gender, and Place

Grace Nono

• Publisher: Southeast Asia Program Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781501760105
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Babaylan Sing Back depicts the embodied voices of Native Philippine ritual specialists popularly known as babaylan. These ritual specialists are widely believed to have perished during colonial times, or to survive on the margins in the present-day. They are either persecuted as witches and purveyors of superstition, or valorized as symbols of gender equality and anticolonial resistance.

Drawing on fieldwork in the Philippines and in the Philippine diaspora, Grace Nono's deep engagement with the song and speech of a number of living ritual specialists demonstrates Native historical agency in the 500th year anniversary of the contact between the people of the Philippine Islands and the European colonizers.

1

WHO SINGS?

A Baylan’s Embodied Voice and Its Relations

It is 1989. I am in the mountains at the boundary of Agusan del Sur, Davao del Norte, and Bukidnon. Fresh out of college, where I read books about the babaylan’s demise, I am having an unexpected encounter with a living Native ritual specialist referred to by the Manobo as baylan. Keeping my bewilderment to myself, I come face to face with Laco, a tall, slender man with deep voice and dark eyes, his countenance more recessed than that of the convivial datu (chief) who warmly welcomes the group of literacy teachers I am traveling with.¹ An hour or so later, my companions and I head downhill to the next village where we will spend the evening. I, who, until then, have heard only Western and westernized songs from school, church, radio, and television, listen for the first time to an oral chant by a mother named Baunsoy whose lilting voice moves me deeply.

Traveling back to the lowlands I feel inspired but also confused and angry. Why have voices like Laco’s and Baunsoy’s been hidden from my generation and perhaps from generations past? What conspiracy is it that has been suppressing such voices from rising to our ears? I will spend the next decades finding ways to further listen to the voices of ritual specialists, many of whom are oral singers.

Sixteen years and several ritual specialist encounters later, I find myself at the edge of the back seat of a motorcycle, hugging my seventy-eight-year-old mother in front of me as we move along an old winding logging road toward the innermost parts of our home province, Agusan del Sur.² We try to keep our balance as the driver swerves or obstinately moves forward in response to the challenges posed by the slippery ditches and mud pools. Awaiting us at our destination is an event that many Filipinos like ourselves do not believe happens in the modern age: a panumanan (ritual) officiated by a baylan (Agusan-Manobo ritual specialist). Practices like these are widely thought to have perished during the Spanish and American colonial periods, a notion welcomed by those who see Indigenous pre-Christian and pre-Islamic practices—labeled paganism by the orthodoxies that have tried to eradicate or convert Native populations—as, at best, deficient and, at worst, a road to hell. Such a view is equally embraced by agents of the modern nation who have relegated such practices to the past or to the realm of ignorance and superstition. In contrast to these detractors are those who lament the alleged disappearance of these traditions, particularly the predominantly women priests who led them, who have become idealized as protofeminists and/or as land-based symbols of anticolonial resistance. Both camps generally agree that the woman my mother and I are about to meet either no longer exists or exists without a voice to make a difference.

My mother struggles to remain stable on the seat in front of me. I keep stopping her aged body from tilting as the fragile vehicle bumps and sways. Raised during the middle years of the American colonial period, when Indigenous ways were actively suppressed following campaigns by the Spanish, she, too, grew up unaware of the baylan. It is only a year after this trip when she finds out that there have been mamuhatbuhat ritual specialists among her aunts and uncles in Camiguin, and seven years after her death when the Kamiguin tribe itself, is declared ingidenous.

At sundown, we arrive in barangay Panagangan in the town of La Paz and are warmly welcomed by the baylan’s brother in-law, Jose, and his wife Florencia. Both Jose and Florencia are Agusan-Manobo pastors of the local Free Methodist Church, and my mother’s former students. We have come at their invitation after my inquiry if I may be allowed to listen to a baylan’s voice in ritual to know how ritual participants listen to and understand this voice. Although opposed to baylan practice, pastors Jose and Florencia lend their secular expertise as Agusan-Manobo language experts to my study. I am to rely on them for the transcriptions and translations to kuntoon (modern) Manobo, Visayan (one of Mindanao’s lingua francas), and English of the old Manobo utterances of the baylan and the abyan (the baylan’s spirit companion, helper). Pastor Jose himself was once a baylan before he became a pastor so it was not too long ago when he, himself, sang what was believed to be the voice of his abyan. Also welcoming us upon our arrival is the baylan’s niece, young woman Robilyn.

My mother and I meet the baylan. Her name is Lordina “Undin” Potenciano. Quietly observant, she seems to be both with us and not with us; present, yet in a world beside ours. Her composure—like those of other ritual specialists I have met—is not projected or displayed. Unlike the outwardly heroic depictions of the babaylan in books, films, television, and the Internet, here is a ritual specialist who gives concentrated care to arranging beads for ritual rather than to arranging blatant political resistance. Undin introduces herself to us through a tod-om (song).³

Mgo uda paliman kad uda

Padongog kad man mayonsad

Pigdangkagan ko hipag dig

Dawdangolan aw dodogi kay

Aman aboy ka nu ti

Limuk pinintu tiajun ni mgo

Uda aw nolinugoy

Aw natinayod on nighibayandug

Tugaman ta no mangoyag no songlitan

Makayogoy on no timpo din aw inggad

Pad ilingon no mga uda inggad

Pad ilingon nu igpanawsangkuab

Ad kakuli insondad ad kapuy-

ajat anoy ad

Maniajun anoy on man manim-

Bang to tugaman ku no pintu

Inggad pad itingon nu igduyagid

Ad kakuli insondad ad kapuyajat

To kona kay no iyan on aw kona

No iyan on narambaja to Ginuo

Nog pamintod to kadigoy to ingodnon

To domyog to yugnabanon no

Tahomon ku nalinugoy

A da man najon-od su inggad

Pad ilingon nu inawa inawa

Kay ogkamiling to inajun ku

No potong no iyananda

Man iyan iyananda man

Ogtabang to dajawag ku no

Potong no iyanda man iyan

Iyan nanda man ogtabang to

Dajawag ku no potong iyan nanda

Man miglimbutung to kahungan ku no

Pintu kagona ku no linimuk

No aboy ka nud dinaan ko

Wada ogkayawangan di wada

Kalinugoy nasimuyag nasimuyag

On pagtini-ajunay noy no inggad

Pad ilingon nu ko kani mig-

timamanwa on to kanoy no kahungan

Migtumbilaan ku inanoy on nasim-

buyag koy on nigbaliwaan on buyan

Nigbayluhan on payagkajun no

Adu ka nu dinaan inawag

To buyan to kanig panimbanag

Silat si panagkajun igkapana-

Wodsawod ku si dadaya kug

Oyogon si yuha kug anugunon

To kagona ku no pintu aw dangat

On to kaway no ogtumbilangan

Su matuod man iyan aw

Kalinimuk nanda kahungan ta

Ko pintu nan da to kagona ta

No kinuyang kid ogmakagtey pang-

Idap buyawan sayapi

Nogkatapnoy na adu ka nu dinaan

d-adka nud mgo iyan

Ko iyan kow on mogpasibu iyan

Kow on mupuangod to kagona

Ku no pintu nakayogob kad

Tukib kad takokos on no limuk

Kabos on no pa-iyak adu ka

Nu dinaan aboy ka nud

Monsanga aw dodogi kay no

Bukyad bangkulis ka ko iyan

Kad mayonsag dig dangkagan no hipag

No dawdongulan no makatapnoy

To kanay no tumbilangan adu

Ka nud dinaan aboy ka

Nud mon sanga sambajon

To Magbabaja adu ka nud

Monsonga su inggad pad ilingon

Nu igduyagid ad kakuli igsondad

Ad to kapuyajat konad no

Aguwantahonon to kanay no kagona

Kanay nogtumbilangan su hintawo

Pad tog pangidap hintawo pad

Togpa makuli man

Naan to wada ti-ajun ta

To wadad on timbang ta no wadad

Mag pangidap wadad mag ogmakanga-a

Maginona nanda mag tumbilang

A to tuyugan no nalindog bayoy

No natangkajang iyan on

Magbayagadan ku ko kani kay

Kani kay abyan ku kani iyan

On man ogpaigu iyan da mag

Ajangatan ku man.

Hear now, my friend.

Now listen carefully.

My brother-in-law [Jose] requested for me, and really

I am requested a lot.

So you,

Lady [Grace], we have

not seen

each other before.

It is a very

rare time, even

as I am

now suffering from too many

difficulties and brought to much hardship.

No matter how

hard I have tried to work

as a woman

I still have a very difficult

time. I am destined for difficulties.

If not for

the Creator who controls

my life, who directs human beings,

who guides humanity,

I thought I would

die. And even

if you say that “this is your way”

this is really the way my life

is. My only

help is my friend,

the spirit.

My ultimate

helper

is my spirit friend. S/he is the

only one who protects me, such

a woman like me

and really

there is no other way except to

be separated from

my husband. Even

if you saw me

at home, in our life

at home, we ha...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Who Sings?
• 2. Shifting Voices and Malleable Bodies
• 3. Song Travels
• Afterword
• Notes
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index