Beliefs of Early Filipinos About the Origin of Death

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This article is neither a complete nor a far-reaching investigation of the convictions of the early Filipinos concerning passing away, the starting point of death and partnered convictions. For this review is by nature provisional and exploratory. Its motivation is twofold: to assemble as much material regarding the matter of death that are accessible in print or in original copy and afterward to endeavor a preparatory investigation of the themes of these materials. Simply after an adequacy of information and examination has been acquired may one go ahead and put forth broad expressions concerning the convictions and mentalities of the Filipinos of long back regarding the matter of death. It is the expectation of the first author Francisco Demetrio, in this way, that what he has assembled here will blend up the enthusiasm of others.

The First Death

The principal passing, as indicated by the early Bisayan, was the demise of a shark. We summarize a story of Povedano: Sanman and Licpo (or Sagmany and Lirbo), offspring of the principal combine, Silalac and Sibabay-e, concocted the fish coral and with it got a huge shark which they took a ground alive. In any case, the fish passed on. At the point when their predecessors in the sky, Captan and Maguayen known about this, they sent the travel to discover reality. The fly provided details regarding its arrival that it was so. Maguayen, extraordinarily exasperated, heaved a thunderbolt which executed San man and Licpo. This then was the primary human demise. Loarca has a somewhat extraordinary variation.

The sibling and sister (Sanman and Licpo or Sagrnany and Lirbo) likewise had a little girl, called Lupluban, who wedded Pandaguan, a child of the primary combine and had a child called Anoranor. Pandaguan was the first to develop a net for angling adrift; and, the first occasion when he utilized it, he got a shark and conveyed it to shore, supposing it would not bite the dust. In any case, the shark kicked the bucket when brought aground. When he saw this Pandaguan started to grieve and sob over it, whining against the divine beings for having enabled the shark to bite the dust, when nobody had passed on before that time.

It is said that the god Captan, on hearing this, sent flies to find out who the dead one was. In any case, as the flies did not set out to go. Captan sent the weevil, who brought back the news of the shark's demise. The god Captan was disappointed at these obsequies to a fish. He and Maguayen made a thunderbolt, with which they killed Pandaguan; he stayed thirty days in the fiendish locales, toward the finish of which the divine beings took feel sorry for upon him breathed life into him back, and returned him to the world.

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Pavon, then again, gives a still longer form with various other intriguing points of interest included. Above all else, he represents the source of corral angling along these lines which we here condense: Capantaan, spouse of Lupluban, while walking around the seashore one day, saw that various fish was left without a friend in the world in a rough inlet after the tide had fallen. So he chose to make himself a bay or coral out of bamboo sticks. Furthermore, he set the sparrowhawk to watch over it. In any case, every time he came to accumulate in the catch he saw just scales. There was nobody to watch the monitor. So Capantaan in outrage struck the feet of the sparrow sell. From that point forward this winged animal can't stroll ashore, however, should bounce.

The following day, Capantaan had made his significant other to monitor the coral. Feeling hungry, Lupluban begun to cook bibingka (rice cakes) over the fish pen. Be that as it may, the wind was solid and it overwhelmed the round-formed banana leaves she had arranged for covering the cakes. They were scattered over the water where each transformed into a round fish called sapesape. In attempting to recover the leaves that had fallen into the water she utilized a long bamboo post; yet as she discovered this futile, she discarded it, and it transformed into the main eel.

She kept on cooking, and an extensive bit of wood under her feet fell into the ocean, and it turned into a huge pargo (a braize, porgy) which left swimming on its side as pargos do. Frustrated by these wonderful changes, she grabbed the wooden oar with which she had been mixing the rice blend and tossed it to the swimming pargo. After touching water, the oar turned into the fish lenguao (sole, wallow). Ravenous maddened still more, she loosened a bowl swinging from a bit of rope close by, with a specific end goal to recuperate the oar. Groove the rope broke and the bowl hit the water and turned into the primary beam angle, while the rope turned into its tail.

Everything she could do now was sob. However more happened to discourage her. Her jug fell and turned into the main tortoise; the bibingka jostle fell additionally and turned into a shellfish, while the rice was transformed into little fishes. A monkey came up to her and asked why she was sobbing. In any case, Lupluban gave the monkey a clean out on the nose which sent it sprawling to the water, where it was changed into a siren. At long last Capantaan came and advised his better half to go aground and fuel a fire while he went to perceive what the coral had gotten. He was happy to see a vast shark in it. He conveyed it to shore and attempted to make it live under a shade. However, it kicked the bucket.

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At that point he started to groan severely, shouting out and crying and conjuring the god as a result of this mass, for until then he had never observed any passing, nor had there been any demise. Immediately. he listened, it is stated, by Captan and Maguayen. They sent the crow to perceive what was going on. Be that as it may, as the crow saw many flies, it didn't set out to go up to the place, yet griped to Captan and Maguayen of the intensity and impudence of the flies. The last a while later sent the worm, yet it neglected to return, saying that it was a great amusement to eat the substance of the fish. At that point they sent the weevil, and it comes back to maguayen and Captan detailing that it was a fish who dead.

This is trailed by the account of the primary human demise. Capantaan and his better half welcomed their companions to a vast feast at the entombment of the fish. They had ample and rich sustenance, yet an ill bred dark feline started to eat up the nourishment. Immediately Capantaan frightened it away, by hitting it with a stick. The feline circumvented wailing boisterously and went to whine to Maguayen and Captan. At that point, the last in outrage, with a specific end goal to rebuff the transgression of regarding the fish and harming the feline, propelled a thunderbolt from his place. It struck Capantaan and that he passed on. They trust that felines have been the companions of thunderbolts since that time. Seeing the perplexity, Lupluban and her child Angion, together with their different buddies, gotten away in flight.

In these variations, there are two first passings: that of the shark and that of Sanman (Pandaguan or Capantaan); yet it is dependably the demise of the creature which goes before the passing of the man. The flies figure in every one of the three records. In the initial two they are sent to the passing scene, in the third they went unbidden. In the main variation they really checked the demise of the shark; in the second they would not set out to go, even as the crow declined to go in the third variation. In both the second the third it was the weevil who at last went to the scene and got back home to provide details regarding the real demise of the fish.

The third variation other than the specify of the flies, the weevil, and the crow additionally specifies the sending of the worm which neglected to return in the wake of having tasted of the passing shark's substance. In Povedano's rendition it is the offspring of the main combine who got the shark; in the second it is the child of the primary match, Pandaguan, and a grandchild who was his significant other, Lupluban. In the third form, the main fish was gotten by a child of the principal guardians, called Capantaan, and his significant other Lupluban.

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In the principal rendition it is the passing of the shark alone which made Maguayen (no say of Captan by any means) frantic; in the second, it is the "obsequies to a fish" that disappointed the precursors; in the third form the thunderbolt was heaved on two checks: to rebuff the transgression of regarding the fish and harming the feline. The second form incorporates the themes of a 30-day grieve in the fiendish areas and of restoration. It appears that some Christian predisposition against worshipful admiration has been brought into the second and third forms; for example, the expression "disappointed at these obsequies rendered to a fish."

Phorkys, Proteus, Nereus (the "Old Ones of the Sea"), and Poseidon, could change their shapes freely. For they held the way to every single conceivable shape: the seeds for goodness' sake are found in the waters, as indicated by exceptionally antiquated primitive hypothesis. Once more, the voyage to the place that is known for the dead is frequently portrayed in the stories which we should see beneath as crossing a waterway or the ocean. Maybe this, as well, has a criticalness. The dead after all experience a radical transformation of their ontological condition. Life, however staying in place in death, is yet changed: vita mutatur non tollitur. In this manner, it is very apt that the entry from this life to the interesting new presence ought to be typically gotten a handle on by primitive man as an adventure over the waters, the standard second to none of progress and new birth.

Significant, as well, is the connection between the thunderbolt and the primary human passing. Could the dread individuals wherever in the Philippines and in different grounds have for the thunderbolt be additionally somewhat represented by this antiquated conviction that the main human demise was brought on by being struck by lightning? At last these stories additionally allude to an antiquated conviction among Filipinos that felines pull in thunder and lightning. Furthermore, why? Since we are told, the spirit of the lightning is said to be molded like a medium-sized dark feline. In one form Pavort tells how Capantaan and his significant other offered a dinner at the internment of the fish. However, an "impolite dark feline" gobbled up the sustenance.

Angered, Capantaan hit it with a stick. It then hastened away wailing and went to gripe to the god Maguayen. Thus the god was incensed and subsequently discharged the lightning jolt that hit Capantaan. Nearby superstitions still observer to this antiquated confidence in the association between the feline and the lightning. In Balacanas. a barrio in Northern Mindanao, to bathe a cat is said to initiate a storm.

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Source:
Philippine Studies
By: Francisco Demetrio