"Bari-Bari," "Gala-Gala," "Tabi-Tabi, Apo.., Puwera Baltik!" -- Local Mythology and Beliefs in Nature Spirits
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(Category: Intangible Cultural Heritage: Social Practices, Rituals, and Festive Events; Oral traditions and expressions; Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe)
Pangasinan's lower mythological figures have been listed down by Dean Alfred Narra of the University of the Philippines-Baguio into categories, taking off from the works of Maximo Ramos, Wayland Hand, and Edgar Samar. Narra came up with the following: alan, palyon; aniani, atros, bambanig, bambao, bantay; baras, bawanen, boroka, bugkalot, dika'y dalin; kantaw, kaybaan, kumaw, manananem, mutya, pasatsat, pugot, silew, talo-talo, ugaw. Many of these creatures are familiar to Bayambangueños.
In Bayambang, whenever someone -- often an infant or a little child -- suffers from mysterious fever, body malaise, nausea, vomiting, and stomach cramps, he or she is said to have been abambanuan (nabati or nausog in Tagalog). These are not the usual fever and dizziness signs and symptoms but more of unexplained ones. It means someone must have greeted the child and has caused the symptoms of bambano or usog.
This mysterious ailment is often cured by gently whipping the person afflicted with leaves of malunggay and guyabano. In cases involving babies, the person causing the usog is sought out and told to wet her fingertips with her saliva and then smear her saliva like a potion on the child's forehead or stomach, making the cross sign. In other cases, the person identified to have caused the usog is traced as to his whereabouts then told to come over and greet the child again like he did the first time. Often, the inexplicably sick one rises up soon after, as though nothing happened.
To avoid bambano or being "abaltikan" or "naamlingan," one should say "Puwera baltik" (“Pwera usog!”) to counteract what Western cultures refer to as the evil eye hex. This expression is loosely translated to "No bad vibes!" or "Don't bring bad luck!" or "Don't jinx it!"/"No jinxing, please!" According to Elvie Agbayani, 69, Pangasinan, housewife, of Brgy. Cacandungan, in former barrio and now nearby town of Bautista, "Puwera baltik" roughly means "Don't greet me." According to Lorenzo Cosgaya's dictionary, "baltik" and "amling" connote sickness in the stomach and ache in the head, respectively.
Many babies are also made to wear a bracelet with alternating red and black beads from Baguio for this purpose. If a baby has not yet been baptized, a tiny red pillow is attached to the clothing using a safety pin, and this supposedly wards off evil spirits, or they have the baby’s forehead marked with a little red cross or simply a red dot.
In Visayas, there is a closely related phenomenon called "buyag." You get "nabuyagan" when someone remarks on your beauty or talent or makes a harmless expression of praise, and then you suddenly get dizzy and convulsive or your stomach suddenly aches. Supposedly, the 'spell' can be broken by counteracting or neutralizing it. For example, when someone says to you, “Ang gwapo mo!” (You're so handsome!), you ought to reply in return, "Purya buyag" or "Pwera buyag!"
This behavior is explained by anthropologists in terms of the Asian belief system of yin-yang energy flow, a belief that if anything disturbs or "short-circuits" this delicate balance between negative versus positive energies (yin, darkness vs yang, light) believed to be maintained by the universe, a correction of some kind is necessary. Thus there is a need to have the baby greeted again, for example, to bring back the balance of energy that was supposedly upset by the strong vibrations of energy coming from the greeter. The greeter causing buyag is said to be someone in possession of a strong energy. Usually, the culprit is an older person or someone who just got back from walking under the sun or doing hard physical activity.
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In almost all parts of the country, there is always talk -- often made in hushed tones -- on a ritual involving blood sacrifice. This is often offered during the construction of a house or a major structure supposedly to ensure it is sturdy when completed.
In Bayambang, truant kids were traditionally scared by being advised not to go with or get near strangers called "kumaw" because they could get kidnapped for this purpose. Allegedly, blood was always needed for the first harvest or in the construction of building or bridge foundations. This belief is supposed to explain the higher rate of kidnapping incidents at the time when buildings or bridges in a given place are constructed.
In Negros, this practice is called padaga (padugo in Tagalog), bloodletting or blood sacrifice. For some, the padaga is looked forward to because there is usually a shared meal after. This is roughly the same as the "pabasa" in Bayambang and the rest of Pangasinan. It often involves sacrificing a chicken for a good harvest as an offering to nature spirits, so these spirits won’t get angry and cause harm because their territory was intruded into. Some "witch doctor" is hired to do the job of cutting up a chicken at the foundation and spilling the spurting blood all over the place, thus the terms pabasa which literally means "to wet (with blood)."
Lourdes A. Garcia, 72, of Brgy. Mangayao, often advises children not to play outside between 5 pm to 6 pm or they might hit some elemental spirits that they can not see. To appease these unseen spirits, she says something like an orasyon, "Nita'y betang yo" (Here's your portion [food offering]) while throwing away a small portion of the food she is preparing during any occasion calling for the cooking of some festive food.
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There’s also this belief that certain bodies of water (waterfalls, beach) routinely take life (often on a yearly basis) for some reason. They say this is maybe because some offended spirits reside there, and for some reason, a certain type of individual or a random visitor is chosen as victim or scapegoat.
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In building one's house, the owners often place something blessed by a priest at the foundation before the erection of a post. A family may also place some blessed coins on the steps of stairs. These practices reportedly ensure that the house will be sturdy and the family prosperous.
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Throwing away coins during the New Year’s Eve celebration, inaugurations and other celebrations is thought to bring prosperity as well, while the use of firecrackers is thought to drive away demons lurking about. Practices wishing prosperity were apparently inherited from the Chinese and their belief in feng shui. Strictly speaking, these beliefs do not involve earth-bound or nature spirits, but feng shui nonetheless presumes 'bad luck' or 'bad chi' as a result of failure to do things a certain way. For example, some furniture might have been improperly placed and house parts improperly constructed, and this is believed to later cause certain personal family problems. Or certain objects have been missing in some corner (e.g. a little aquarium with a black carp), that is why bad luck couldn't be warded off like it should have been.
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A food offering called atang is placed on the altar of many a Catholic family in honor of their dead during All Saints' Day or All Soul's Day. Notably, this practice is already beyond the rituals officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church, but it is often mistaken as Catholic ritual when it is not.
Perhaps in the same vein, whenever someone cooks something special for an occasion, the cook is reminded to throw away some of the food into the ether or on the ground as an offering, or to appease unseen spirits who might have taken a fancy for the feast being prepared.
Among drinkers of hard liquor, there is this practice in which the first shot is thrown away as an offering "for the devil."
An atang may also be placed on top of an anthill as a peace offering to an offended resident dwarf, when that dwarf is positively identified by a 'faith healer' as having caused a family member to fall ill after the person passed by the anthill without paying respects. For this reason, people new to a place are often told to say, "Tabi-tabi, Apo..." ("May I pass this way, sir, if you don't mind"), or else "Baka manuno siya!" ("He might get hurt in some way by someone unseen!").
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There are cases in which a person also gets ill after she goes to some area of wilderness (katakelan) for the first time and offending a spirit or two there somehow (as when taking a leak without an orasyon or a short by-your-leave type of prayer). In Bayambang, one is supposed to say, "Bari-bari, apo, laki, bai..." or "Banbanooo lalig...!" which is roughly a way of asking permission from spirits to pass by the place unscathed. Someone who falls for the spell is described as "abambanuan."
One of the effects of being abambanuan is being lost elsewhere with no idea how to get back home. The solution, it is believed, is to remove one's clothing and wear it reversed.
This is the reason why the local elderly routinely tell children not to venture into the woods or open field they are not familiar with, lest they unknowingly "hurt spirits that can't be seen."
According to Teresita Y. Dulay, 62, of Brgy. Wawa, and Fely Rodriguez, 65, of Brgy. Bacnono, one must say "Bari-bari...!" to fend off retaliation from elementals after disturbing them in their territory by passing by their place for the first time. They also caution against pouring hot or boiling water in just about anywhere because there is a tendency that you might hurt some elemental spirit that you can’t see. An elemental-filled area is described as one that is "mapalyon" o "mapalpalyon."
"Bari-bari" and "Tabi-tabi" are similar, but the difference seems to be that the former is uttered only when going to an often wooded place for the first time.
There is also a belief that one must say, "Kayo, kayo, kayo!" when throwing away hot water as a warning to unseen spirits to stay away. Without this warning, the unseen spirits might get hurt and retaliate by having someone in the family get mysterious burns that can not be relieved by the usual burn medicine. The person is then said to be apuldakan or got scalded in a mysterious way, and the culprit is said to have been akapuldak or akapasakit na aga nanengneng (has hurt something unseen).
The extreme case is being "naengkanto," or going home possessed by some earth-bound spirit, the spirit's personality taking over the person's consciousness and individuality. Again, in Bayambang, the reputed antidote or cure is an entire meal or food feast offering called "gaton." The word "gatunan" means to make an offering, usually food and coconut oil prepared a certain way, and the practitioner is called "manag-gaton."
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Adelina C. Legaspi, housewife, 58, of Brgy. Tanolong, has this explanation whenever her son gets sick and she has no idea what the reason is: "Kinarot na aga anengneng (Pinched by an unseen spirit).
An albulario or herbolario (local term for ‘faith healer’ or 'traditional folk healer' using chiefly an assortment of herbs) is often sought out in the healing of unexplained diseases.
Oftentimes, the albulario is a "managtawas" or someone who uses melting candle wax collected into a basin of water to divine whatever illness is troubling a child, the most common patient.
Another reputed antidote, specifically for young children with pilay or sprain that doesn't seem to heal, or those traumatized, is to resort to "tawag" (to call), in which the purported healer 'calls back' the soul of the diseased by saying, "Gala, gala ____ (state name of person)," meaning "Come back, come back ____ (name)." An extended version is "Gala-gala ta wadya'y buloy mo." (Come back, come back, because the one you share your name with is here.). There is the assumption that the soul temporarily left the body of the traumatized that it had to be coaxed and cajoled back to rejoin the mortal body.
A believer in this practice is Basilio C. Papio, farmer, 85, of Brgy. Buenlag 2nd. "When a child is scared or shocked, you must say this so that the fear of the child will go away."
Caridad Labolabo believes in "man-uma-uma," meaning "meditating in spirit" or "talking to a spirit." She explains, "If you have a big tree in your backyard, you must talk to the tree especially if you’re pregnant," presumably to fend off being hurt in some way.
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Locals also believe in the existence of sigsilew -- santelmo (Tagalog) or will-o'-wisp (English) -- a mysterious fireball floating in the air which, once followed by the unsuspecting, leads them somewhere until they get lost. There is the lore, according to Joey Ferrer of Brgy. Magsaysay, that the fire spirit belongs to someone who is keeping guard over a piece of land that he or she had defrauded from others, that is why the sigsilew likes to keep watch along boundaries of a piece of land.
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During wakes, the rosary placed in the deceased’s hands allegedly should be cut, so no one in the family dies next too soon.
Other practices similar to this are the breaking of a plate, butchering of a chicken, and carrying the little kids and passing them over or across the dead/coffin. These are all done right before the interment.
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Finally, there's the use of anting-anting, which often comes in the form of medallions made of pewter or as bullets that are either empty or unused. The use of anting-anting or amulets is supposed to make a person invincible by disempowering any force (a murderer, say) that may cause him harm.
This belief system suggests the strong role of nature in the development of a community's moral and spiritual values, a belief in the power of forces greater than oneself, and a sense of divine presence or mystery.
Some of these practices endure to this day among the elderly, indicating that a number of local folk still believe in the power, or at least existence, of "nature spirits." However, these beliefs are dying among the younger generations owing to changing religions or belief systems and preoccupation with modern technology.
Key Informants:
Elvie Agbayani, 69, Brgy. Cacandungan, Bautista, Pangasinan, housewife
Teresita Y. Dulay, 62, Brgy. Wawa, Bayambang, Pangasinan, caretaker
Basilio C. Papio, 85, Brgy. Buenlag 2nd, farmer
Adelina C. Legaspi, 58, Brgy. Tanolong, housewife
Fely Rodriguez, 65, Brgy. Bacnono
Caridad A. Garcia, 72, Brgy. Bacnono, farmer
Lourdes A. Garcia, 72, Brgy. Mangayao
Original Mappers: Bayambang National High School Senior High students (names missing)
Date Profiled: January 15, 2019
ADVISER: Mr. Christopher Q. Gozum (Contemporary Philippine Arts from the Regions)
Narra, Dean Alfred. 'Sara'y Nampanengneng': Profiles of Pangasinan Lower Mythological Creatures, University of the Philippines-Baguio.
UCLA Liwanag at Dilim (2015). Mga paniniwala ng mga Pinoy.
Hawson F. (2017). Review of PWERA USOG: Salvation by Saliva.
Notes from the Cosgaya Dictionary:
baltic - dar dolor de vientre al que acaba de comer, por quitarse la ropa y dar el viento al vientre (sakit tiyan?)
amling - dolor de cabeza llamado comunmente jaqueca (sakit ulo?)
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