Tag Archives: Filipinofolklore

Crab Curse

Context:

K is a 21 year-old woman with a mixed heritage. Her mother is Hispanic and her father is Filipino. She grew up for most of her life in California but spent lots of time with her Lolo (grandfather), who told her stories from the Philippines.

The context of this piece is was during a work shift when the shift lead was speaking about an old story they had heard from their mother the night before. K then discussed her own story from her Lolo. I then asked her some details afterwards.

Text:

“OK so this story is when my grandpa told me about in the Philippines about a girl who turned into a fish. She grew up to be very spoiled and arrogant she was obsessed with her looks so she went down to the river one day to admire herself, a crab had come up to compliment her beauty and asked to be her friend but she denied the crab and shoved him away so because of her arrogance and ego he clawed her face and cursed her so as she washed her scratched up face the water turned her skin into scales Every time she let the water touch her skin the skills would come up faster and faster and would not go away. This was the crab’s way of punishing her for being so obsessed with her beauty to the point where she even rejected him and his friendship.”

Me: “So why did your Lolo tell you a story like that? I mean was he trying to scare you?

K: “Well he told me this story because he wanted me to grow up humble, because I had a lot of growing up that my parents or him didn’t get to have. I will say I was scared of crabs for a while but I laugh about it now”

Analysis:

I really enjoyed talking about this story with K. She is one of my coworkers, so it was interesting to see what kind of stories she had. Our cultures are different, so it was interesting to hear about Filipino stories that I had never heard before. It was interesting to see the similarities between folklores from my Mexican culture and hers as I have folktales that were told to serve as didactic lessons to children. I thought the animalistic symbolism in the story was interesting as well as animals are used through folklore to project a specific meaning or lesson.

Tiyanak

Context:

K is a 21 year-old woman with a mixed heritage. Her mother is Hispanic and her father is Filipino. She grew up for most of her life in California but spent lots of time with her Lolo (grandfather), who told her stories from the Philippines.

Context of this piece was in a Filipino restaurant where K started talking about her Filipino heritage. We asked her more questions about her Lolo and what he would tell her as a child.

Text:

K: “Well my Lolo would tell me about Tiyanaks all the time as a kid. He said they were somewhat of an evil spirit. The way they would trick people into coming close to them was to hide their true form and look like a baby. So they would transform into a baby, my Lolo said it was usually a newborn baby not really like a toddler or anything, and that they would cry. They used their cries as a trap to get people to hold and comfort them.

Me: “What would they do once they were held?”

K: “It would go back to looking like it did before and then they would attack the person holding them. That’s why my Lolo always reminded me about them whenever I’d go back to the Philippines to see family. He was always so scared I’d be too nice and pick up a baby like that, even though I always told him I wouldn’t. I was too much of a scaredy cat to ever pick up something like that after all my Lolo had warned me about.”

Analysis:

There are various stories and tales about the origins of tiyanaks. The Mandaya people of Mindanao claim that the tiyanak is the spirit of a child whose mother died before giving birth. It is said that this is why it was “born in the ground”, and now takes the form of a helpless baby seeking comfort. Due to the Spanish colonization of the Philippines in the 16th century, the tiyanak myth was integrated into Catholicism. The tiyanak from the Catholic version were made up supposedly of the souls of infants that died before being baptized. In the modern-day Philippines, the way a tiyanak is thought to be created from aborted fetuses that returned from death to seek revenge on those who deprived them from living a long lasting life. It is also told by people in the Philippines that the reason a Tiyanak becomes an evil spirit is because it cannot go to the afterlife because of not having a name. This is why it is assumed that it takes the form of others as it never had a true sense of identity. This supposedly causes them to be Earth-bound creatures which wander around searching for someone to give them names before attacking them.

Aswangs

Context:

K is a 21 year-old woman with a mixed heritage. Her mother is Hispanic and her father is Filipino. She grew up for most of her life in California but spent lots of time with her Lolo (grandfather), who told her stories from the Philippines.

Context of this piece was in a Filipino restaurant where K started talking about her Filipino heritage. We asked her more questions about her Lolo and Lola, and what stories  she had heard from them.

Text:

K: “This one creature scared me the most as a kid, I think. It’s just because it was so easy for it to change into anything and well my Lola would always tell the scariest stories to me. Aswangs are shapeshifters, they basically transform into another creature. They aren’t a universal monster type thing you know, but it’s used to name shape-shifting monsters.”

Me: “What kind of monster is a shapeshifting one?

K: “I’m sure there’s more but I can only remember my Lola telling me about two. I remember the vampire and the manananggal”

Me: “What’s the second one? I have no idea how to pronounce it or what it could be”

K: “Its somewhat like a vampire but it eats organs and takes a different shape than a vampire would. My Lola said in its human form it looked like a pale woman with beautiful hair that was so long it almost reached her knees! But it was something way different at night, it would separate itself from the waist up, hide its body, and then grow wings to look for prey……yeah, this one really left me scared”

Analysis:

Aswangs seem to be a part of Filipino folklore and the name itself is used as an umbrella-term for creatures that have the ability to morph into other beings. The aswangs can be labelled into different categories; vampires, weredogs, witches (Kulams), viscera suckers (aka manananggals), and ghouls. Vampires are a common part of western folklore but in contrast to the vampires from western cultures, the vampire aswang consumes blood through their tongues and not through fangs. In addition to sharing similar concepts of folklore with other cultures, the notion of a werewolf exists in Europe but as the Philippines has no indigenous wolf species, the term weredog was created in place. Weredogs are said to be aswangs as they shed their human form in the daytime for an animalistic one at night. In the Filipino folklore, not all witches can be considered aswangs. Only witches that have the capabilities of certain aswangs already can become one. Ghoul aswangs are typically considered humanoids that feast on freshly buried corpses. The viscera suckers, as said in the text, transform into winged creatures that are made up of half of their original body and hunt at night.

You can see more about Aswangs here at,  Ratcliff LK. Filipino Folklore. The Journal of American folklore. 1949;62(245):259-289. doi:10.2307/537202

https://uosc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01USC_INST/273cgt/cdi_crossref_primary_10_2307_537202

Sirenas

Context:

K is a 21 year-old woman with a mixed heritage. She grew up for most of her life in California but spent most of her childhood with her Lolo (grandfather), who told her stories from the Philippines. She learned several stories about Philippine mythology and shares them with friends to preserve her cultural heritage,

The context of this piece was during a game of Loteria when the card of the mermaid came across the deck. She explained the story of sirenas to the participants,

Text:

K: “That looks like the Sirenas my Lolo would tell me about”

Me: “He’d tell you about mermaids?”

K: “He’d call them Sirenas and would always tell me about them since I was so obsessed with Princess Ariel as a kid. He said that they were beautiful creatures that looked like women at first, but they had fish tails! They sang so pretty though. They would sing to fishermen that passed by them in their boats and would lure them to their deaths. My Lolo said they would usually drown them but occasionally they would suffocate them first.

Me: “Would the fisherman just fall into the water once they heard them singing or how would it happen?”

K: “The Sirenas would usually hide behind rocks at the shore and start singing so that the fishermen would crash into the rocks. If they sang while they were in the ocean then the sirenas was hypnotize the fishermen into jumping into the water to join them.”

Analysis:

I found this interview with K really interesting because she told me about a creature I had already heard of yet she told me details I had never heard of before. Sea creatures like mermaids are well-known in western culture as they appear frequently in films and television shows. In the western entertainment industry, mermaids are often depicted as warm, playful creatures that meant no harm. This is the exposure I had as a child so I had positive connotations to mermaids and which is why I was surprised by some of the things discussed in this interview. The introduction to the Filipino counterpart of the western culture’s version of these sea creatures was interesting to learn about. I felt that they were almost similar to sirens as the sirenas used their voice as a weapon to seduce men into their deaths. It was interesting to hear in person how different folklores can transcend through different cultures. It was especially interesting to hear the similarities between the western mermaid and the Filipino sirenas and how they were different as well.