“Babaylan": the Philippine Healers

Grace Nono. Rome, July 2013

Almost twenty years have passed since I began to frequent the Filipino community in Rome and to get to know their music; it was the pre-social era, I mostly spent my time on a file-sharing site randomly downloading songs from Asia, including many from the Philippines, without understanding a single word, but for me, music has always been more a question of the gut that is not intellectual: what must please me and strike me are the sounds, the melodies, the voices more than the words, so the misunderstanding of the texts have never been a great impediment. This is how I got to know the music of Grace Nono, an artist not too famous among the Filipinos themselves, but with a very warm voice and ethnic melodies.

It so happened that, in July 2013, Grace was a guest in Rome of a dear friend of mine who, knowing my admiration for the singer, invited me to meet her. We spent pleasant hours in the beautiful house of my friend Chato, immersed in her wild garden that seemed to be in a Philippine forest, also taking the opportunity to take some portraits of Grace.

She had brought her latest book along with some music CDs and it was her gift for us. I would then have given her, thanks to Chato who was returning to the Philippines, one of her portraits enlarged and framed with a dedication.

These are the magical encounters that make me thank my passion for Photography every day.

That book has been in my mind for years; I often had the intention to talk about it but there was never the right opportunity.

But looking at my last two posts, it seemed to me that the time had come. What does the story about Cambodia, the Korean Pansori, and Grace Nono's book have in common? The spirits.

The Cambodian story was almost a real ghost story, while, regarding the Korean musical recital, I mentioned Jin Chae-seon, considered the first woman to have performed in Pansori, born in a fishing village from a shaman mother.

 

It is therefore not difficult to imagine what the theme of Grace Nono's book is. Not really the spirits but certainly the link with their beyond-world.

It is entitled: “Song of Babaylan – Living voices, medicines, spiritualities of Philippine ritualist-oralist-healers”, published by the Institute of Spirituality in Asia, in 2013.

A full-bodied tome of nearly 400 pages, full of photographs and lyrics of sacred songs. Therefore it's impossible for me to talk about it in depth, but I will fly as close as a dragonfly on the surface of the water.

Through this work Grace also talks about herself as a woman and as an artist. And from her childhood, you understand how she was predestined not only to art but also to one day write this book.

“Kabunyan” by Jordan Mang-osan, 1998

First of all, who are the Babaylan?

Quoting the anthropologist and scholar of popular traditions Francisco Demetrio, Grace Nono reports the dense nomenclature referring to the different etymologies of the term according to the geographical area to which it refers.

From the bailan or balian in Visaya, Cebu, Bohol, Palawan and Northern Mindanao, babailan in Negros, balyan among the Negritos; also among the Dayak of Borneo the priestesses-shamans are called bailan, while in Kelantan, in Malaysia, they are called belian bomor. The list of nomenclature continues. Tracing the use of the term babaylan from 1700 to the nineteenth century, in dictionaries compiled by the Spaniards, Gace Nono reports among the first definitions that of Father Juan Felix de la Encarnacion in his Eighteenth-century Diccionario bisaya-espanol: “sacerdotisa entre los idolatras”, or the woman who conducts magical rituals among those who worship idols. The fact that the term priest or priestess was used means that it could have been both a male and a female role, although there are those who, like the psychologist and art historian Luciano Santiago, push the idea that the term babaylan comes from the Tagalog “babae lang”, meaning “purely female, only woman”.

However, what unites every definition, in every dialect of the different areas of the Philippines, is the reference to the one who works in contact with the anito (the spirits), celebrates sacrificial rituals to the diwata (divinities) or to the umalagar (the spirits of the ancestors). It is important to note that the terms bailan or balian do not exist in Tagalog, so it's strong the idea that the term babaylan was introduced in the Philippines from Malayo, or some other Indo-Malay language.

 

Lake Sebu, 2009. Photo by Maria Todi

Grace Nono's work analyzes the babaylan of different ethnolinguistic groups, the experiences, and songs of oral healers, following a path that goes back to the roots and ancestors and at the same time in the depths of the soul where there is the meeting between human and divine, not in the dogmatic and cerebral way of classical religions, but as part of the life of the people who live it, with their myths, proverbs, and oral codes that are handed down from generations. The fear of losing this enormous unwritten heritage prompted Grace to work for seven years on this book, helped by ISA – The Institute of Asian Spirituality, because as Reverend Christian Buenafe, Commissioner General and ISA member in the introduction of the book, healing is what we need in these times of division, fractures and psychic distress, and studying traditional healers helps to understand who we are.

 

This is how Grace opens the book, recounting her childhood, about the fact that she finished this long job shortly after the death of her beloved mother Ramona; and that the writing, following the long study, was the medicine and cure for her for the deep pain of this loss.

She recounts an episode from her childhood, in the city of Bunawan, in Agusan del Sur in northeastern Mindanao, south of the Philippines: it was evening and she was lying sick in bed on the top floor of their house when she heard her father Igmedio call her name from the courtyard below. Except that he was not addressing her, but shouting her name towards the night sky; when later Grace asked him what he was doing, her father replied that he was invoking her soul to come back so that she could heal.

The father, of Ilocano origin, was not a babaylan, but his life was part of that belief system whereby spirits were able to capture souls and babaylans could deal with them to return those souls by healing from disease.

Grace proudly claims the origins of indigenous descent, from her mother, a native of the Camiguin Island, once inhabited by the Proto-Manobo of Mindanao, and from an Ilocan father of Nueva Ecija in central Luzon, from the north to the south of the Philippine. She grew up with a strong Catholic upbringing, forced by her mother to sing from child, but when she expressed her desire to become a priestess, her priest replied that in the Catholic church, women could not become priestesses.

Grace, therefore, enrolled in the High School of Art in Luzon, where she learned the history of the babaylan, filling her 15 years with enthusiasm, so much so that she became the subject of her graduation thesis. After college, instead of becoming a teacher like her mother, she started her career as a singer, initially copying the Western style as a “good educated Filipina”, she writes with irony. But it didn't take long for her to realize how foolish it was to copy a style that wasn't quite right, and it was on a return trip between the mountains of the provinces of Davao and Bukidnon that she came into contact with babaylan and songs she was completely ignorant of their existence.

This led her to graduate from the University of the Philippines with a thesis on oral traditions and to become the symbolic singer of the deep ethnic and mystical traditions of the Philippines.

 

The book collects ten babaylan stories from across the island, with interviews and some of the songs transcribed. Each of these shamans has her own ritual song.

Reading the interviews is absolutely interesting, and it is impossible to account for it in this short piece of mine.

Most of the time they are elderly women, with some slightly younger students who will inherit that oral knowledge that would otherwise be lost.

Like the first babaylan interviewed, andadawak Aragoy Tumapang, an expert in Dawak singing in Tabuk, the capital of the Kalinga region, in the Cordillera of Luzon, in the north of the Philippines. With her is Gammay Ammakiw who is learning the Dawak technique in healing rituals.

As she tells Grace, when she reaches a trance (paramag) during the Dawak's performance, her body begins to lose sensitivity and expands into something greater than herself: “Maybe my arungan (the guardian spirit) enters me, making me bigger and stronger than I really am.”

With this force, they can hoist and throw even huge pigs onto the ground, possessed by a supernatural force that helps them heal sick people.

This is a short excerpt from a Dawak song called “Aragaoy's Owab”:

        “Fuyy! Is it you, aggasang*,
        with your strong powers?
        Be on your way now,
        go far into the mountains
        if it is you that caused
        this child's illness.”

 

Image of a babaylan in Puerto Princesa. Palawan, 2006. Photo by Charles Wadang

Or, going down to the south of the Philippines, in the autonomous Islamic region called Bangsamoro, Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao, with the incredible story of the patutunong Babo Samida expert in Daging singing. This area has always been the stronghold of Islam in the Philippines, ever since they opposed the Spanish colonial government in the 1600s, coalescing with the Maranao, Tausag, and other Islamic groups.

In this context of strong opposition to the predominant import culture, the preservation of the ancient ancestral traditions assumed an added value, also because for decades the dominant religion of Maguindanao was a sort of folk Islam, which however will become more and more orthodox over time, thanks to the influence of the ustadz, the teachers of Islam.

And precisely one ustadz is the husband of Babo Samida, and this will place the two of them in constant contrast, where the husband rejects everything that is considered pre-Islamic, but on the other hand, the wife is not absolutely willing to give up to her beliefs that go back in time and are anchored to ancestral beliefs, while remaining in the groove marked by Islam, because as the elderly healer tells us, spirits are creatures of Allah and must be listened to. Thus, while the orthodox Islamic religious community boycott ritual festivals such as dundang, Babo Samida refuses to treat the ustadz who search her out when they fall ill.

As Faisal, a patutunong novice of Babo Samida, says: “Modernity is the other thing that has contributed to the marginalization of our traditions. Because traditions are seen as backward, families have stopped teaching our traditions to the young. Hence, many in this generation no longer understand these things.”

Being a patutunong, a healer, was never her will, says Babo Samida, but Allah's will and she is happy to be able to help heal people, as well as pass on the ancient customs of the people to her.

This is a beautiful Daging invocation dedicated to Abraham.

        “In the name of Allah,
        the Highest, and of Allah's prophet...(with) this boat
        renamentaw that now pushes forward,
        it is my deep and clear desire
        that you will take to
        the vast ocean, all
        illness and heartbreak
        among the prophet's followers.”

 

Maguindanao patutunong Samida Tato, Quezon City, 2005. Photo by Grace Nono

Sapia Mama (center) for whose healing (as well as her grandfather) the dundang ritual was performed. Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao, 2009. Photo by Grace Nono

After Babo Samida, Grace reaches Batangas and the subli matremayo Ka Mila of Catholic tradition, Manobo babaylan Lordina “undin” in Agusan del Sur, and others, each with its own story and songs.

There is also a male presence, as for the Ibalaoi mambunong Henio Estakio, of the Ibaloi ethnic group in Baguio City, in the north of the Philippines.

Obviously, this is a topic that may be of more interest to Filipinos who perhaps ignore this part of their tradition that remains in the shade.

But I believe that it can also be important for each of us.

After all, as Grace Nono wrote, this long work of years was a way of getting to know her soul in depth, and at the same time heal the wound of the loss of her beloved mother.

These songs are addressed directly to the spirits, create an invisible link between them and us, speak to that dark area which – in the belief of these healers – is the cause of our diseases.

Minang Saling in Tagbanua babaylan garb. Aborlan, Palawan, 2006. Photo by Charles Wandag

Cebuano-Visayan sinuog leader/ritualist Estelita “Inday Titang” Diola. Mabolo, Cebu City, 2006. Photo by Grace Nono

I think this is the most important point: do not cut or ignore that dark and mysterious part that resides within us; dialogue with it is the way to avoid falling victim to its aggressions.

As Freud's psychoanalysis taught, which is not that far from shamanic practice, the way to heal our fears and neuroses is precisely to give those fears a name.

The cure passes through singing and speaking.

Call them, talk to them, do not leave them in their dangerous shadow, but pull them out of their lair to be able to remove it, like the spirits blown away by the Filipino babaylan.

Recognizing our wounds is the only way to become a healer of ourselves.

As Grace writes at the end of the book, in the last lines, this path has not been absolutely easy, and twice she fell ill from being in contact with the babaylan, without the doctors of Western medicine being able to cure her. Because the reality of these healers is that of the spirits, and they are not always benevolent: it can be extremely dangerous to interact with them.

It is easy to be fascinated by the magical and spectacular appearance of their rites, but what matters most is “the state of one's heart, mind, and soul. In the end, we all need guidance and encouragement to choose the path of love and compassion.”

 

I close with the splendid prayer of Bishop Kenneth Cragg, with which Grace herself ends her introduction.

“Our first task is approaching

another people

another culture

another religion

is to take off our shoes

for the place we are approaching is holy.

Else we may find ourselves

treading on another's dream.

More seriously still,

we may forget...

that God

was there before our arrival.”

Grace and me

 

*Aggasang, spirit or power bestowed on a person.
*Renamentaw, other name of the boat (biday)

Italian version