B.C. authors are taking back the monsters of Filipino folklore from colonial influences

Tiktiks or Manananggals are aspect of a sub-genre of evil spirits termed Aswang — shapeshifters that morph into vampires, ghouls, viscera suckers or werebeasts. 

De Los Santos defined that in colonial retellings, the Manananggal takes the variety of an attractive female by working day, but as the night falls, she detaches her reduce physique and grows wings, fangs and a stretchy, tubular tongue that sucks embryos out of pregnant gals.

When De Los Santos’ aunt died of cancer, she felt the urge to explore far more of her heritage. 

Which is when she found out that Filipino folktales and monsters carry far more profound meaning beyond remaining utilised to scare small children.

She’s aspect of a increasing motion of authors hoping not only to enlighten equally Filipinos and non-Filipinos about the colonial atrocities dedicated in the state, but also to reclaim these folkloric narratives. 

De Los Santos suggests she identified out that popular portrayals of Aswang bear demonic features concocted by Spanish colonists to guide in evangelizing Indigenous Filipinos into Catholicism. 

“The Catholic affect did give it a layer of sin and hell,” she reported.

IJP Ruiz is yet another Filipino-Canadian fantasy author centered in Vancouver. He suggests deities, spirits and creatures from precolonial Philippine pantheons were virtually wiped from cultural memory on the arrival of the Spanish in 1521, who as an alternative elevated evil portrayals of Aswang.

Sooner or later the Pre-colonial mythologies and religions of Indigenous Filipinos were overtaken by Roman Catholicism during the centuries after Spanish colonization. 

“Irrespective of whether they come to feel it truly is to our gain or not,” Ruiz reported, “[the Spanish] sowed question in our possess deities and built Christian saints take on positive features that were [beforehand] attributed to our possess indigenous deities.” 

Later, when the Americans took more than the Philippines from the Spanish in the late 1800s, they too used Filipino mythology for intimidation practices to subdue uprisings in opposition to the govt, according to University of B.C. professor and author Chris Patterson.

For case in point, Patterson suggests U.S. Air Drive officer Edward Lansdale staged the corpses of Filipino rebels in the streets as if they were killed by Aswang.  

“He [punctured] ‘bite marks’ into their necks to make it glance like Aswang killed them,” Patterson reported.

“1 of the key methods of vilifying [Indigenous Filipino beliefs] was just to categorize it as one thing far more barbaric,” he additional.

“These divisions are continue to with us in the way that we see Indigenous beliefs as mere myths, whereas Christianity is noticed as a great deal far more respectable.”

Check out | How some authors are reclaiming creatures from Filipino folklore:

The Filipino horror genre is composed of ugly mythical creatures recognized as Aswang. But these authors in B.C. are recasting the ghastly mother nature of these monsters by contrasting how the Philippines’ colonizers portrayed them. two:25

Decolonizing Filipino folklore

Patterson, creating beneath his pen identify Kawika Guillermo, released a speculative fiction novel entitled All Flowers Bloom in 2020, in which aspect of the story takes position during the Philippine-American war. In the book, he reframes American beliefs as superstitious.

“Instead than creating about the myths of the Filipino rebels, I tried out to create about the myths of the Christianized American military and to display how those myths actually pushed them to do very violent points in the Philippines.” 

In her creating, De Los Santos wishes to decolonize and reclaim Filipino stories. 

She says it was common for pre-colonial Filipino gals to take on leadership roles in society, significantly as shamans or priestesses. 

“A whole lot of the rebellions and movements in opposition to the Spanish when they initially came were led by gals,” reported De Los Santos.

“So [the Manananggal] might have been a way to demonize some of these leaders as very well.” 

She said the Spanish also utilised Manananggal as a way to law enforcement the sexual agency of gals.

“1 concept displays how the disembodied female detaching from her torso came from anxieties the Spanish had about women’s sexuality.”

In her approaching do the job, Diyosa Mata, De Los Santos uses the Manananggal as an allegorical product alluding to the background of colonialism. She reported she centered this on the concept they were motivated by substantial fruit bats. 

“In the starting of the do the job, my protagonist Mayari rides these large bats just for entertaining,” De Los Santos defined.

“As the story goes on, the Order [an imperialistic theocracy] vilifies her and the bats transform into far more like the Manananggal.”

The creatures— having the variety of a bat-winged female detached from her torso — transform out to glance like Mayari.

De Los Santos to begin with intended to create an escapist story, but she said her exploration prompted her to increase social commentary. 

“I realized that I could not stay away from conversing about what had occurred with the Spanish colonialism and how that continue to impacts us,” she reported.

Ruiz agrees, adding that “locating out [about Indigenous Filipino beliefs] myself authorized me to fill a gap in my possess identity.”

“I continue to would like a third-generation child to have entertaining with it and see them selves,” De Los Santos reported.

“When they get started looking into, they could also understand this background that just isn’t usually taught in our curriculum.” 

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