Cebuano Sorcery: Malign Magic in the Philippines

By Richard W. Lieban

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520324381

Richard W. Lieban

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Cebuano Sorcery

Malign Magic in

the Philippines

Cebuano

Sorcery

Malign Magic in the Philippines

Bichard W. Lieban

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley, Los Angeles, London

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

Copyright © 1967, by

The Regents of the University of California

First Paperback Edition 1977

ISBN: 0-520-03420-1

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-10461

Printed in the United States of America

1234567890

To my wife, Ruth

Acknowledgments

T

HE FOLLOWING STUDY is based on two periods of field research in the Philippines. The first, in 1958-1959, took place in Sibulan, a rural municipality in Negros island, while I held a Fulbright grant. The second, in 1962-1963, in Cebu City, was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Assistance was also provided by the Woman’s College Research Council, University of North Carolina. Grateful acknowledgement is made for support from these sources.

Health and medicine in areas where I worked were central concerns in my research, and I am very grateful to the following physicians who helped me: Drs. Jose Agustines, Ramon Arcenas, Jose Bueno, Nestor Canoy, Rolando Cellona, Narciso Cinco, Jr., Hugo Cruel, Jose Enad, Cesar Estalilla, Macrina Leyson, Juan Maderazo, Ptlomeo Medalle, Venerando Pilapil, Jose San Jose, Manuel Segura, and Amanda Valenzuela. I am especially grateful to Dr. Richard Guin to for his help and friendship.

While I conducted research in Sibulan, I was affiliated with Silliman University, and I am particularly indebted to two who were my colleagues there: Timoteo Oración, who gave me important aid during the research; and Agaton Pal, who provided invaluable counsel and other assistance.

vii

My sincere thanks go to the Rev. Rudolf Rahmann and Marcelino Maceda of the University of San Carlos for their assistance while I worked in Cebu City.

I am very grateful to Hubert Blalock for advice on statistical questions and to John Wolff for aid with linguistic problems. Teodoro Fiorendo helped educate me with respect to legal aspects of land tenure in the Philippines, and Mercedes Concepcion kindly helped me with demographic materials.

My sincere appreciation goes to Demetrio Mendoza of the National Museum, Philippines, for identifying plant specimens I collected. Assistance with the identification of plants in the Sibulan area was also provided by Alfredo Reyes, and Angel Alcala helped with the identification of animals, as did Clare Baltazar.

Dedication of this book to my wife is a very inadequate expression of my thanks for all her help during research in the field and preparation of the study for publication.

None of those who assisted me is responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation in this work.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction

1 The Setting

2 Sorcerers

5 Methods of Sorcery

4 Witches

The Medical Background of Sorcery

The Attribution of Illness to Sorcery

7 Sorcery and Cebuano Society

Appendix

Index

Introduction

IN THE COURSE of my research in Negros, one of the Bisayan islands of the Philippines, I collected data on sorcery. Later I compared notes I had taken on barang, the most notorious form of sorcery in the area, with a description of barang in a manuscript dated 1578 and attributed to Diego Lope Pove- dano, an early Spanish encomendero in Negros. There are close resemblances. The first passage below is from my notes recording a description of barang by a Negros informant in 1958. The second is from the Povedano manuscript dated almost 400 years before.

The insect is called barang, and the man who can command the insect is called the mamalarang. These animals enter the body through any open places. This entry is invisible. The animals bite inside … They may bite the liver, stomach, intestines, lungs … The barang is kept in a bamboo tube … (Before sending an insect to attack someone) the sorcerer ties a thread to one of its rear legs. Signs of barang are discharge of blood; also, the stomach may swell and be painful.

And they have another way of killing their enemies who do them harm. In a bamboo tube they put some insects similar to small house flies which have hard skins. They call this barang … And when they receive any serious insult from a person whom they wanted to kill they get one of these insects from the bamboo tube and, tied with their own hair, it is sent to the victim. As soon as it reaches the person it makes its way into the body [of the intended victim] and is induced [by magic] into the entrails. The stomach of the victim swells immensely at high tide, and at low tide it becomes small.1

There is some doubt in Philippine historical circles about the origins of the Povedano manuscript of 1578 (for example, it may have been copied from another manuscript or compiled from various manuscript materials),1 2 although the validity of the data themselves is not necessarily questioned, and they may be quite old. In any event, other historical materials whose authenticity is established attest to the existence of beliefs in sorcery, including barang, in the Bisayan area early in the Spanish colonial period.3

Present beliefs in sorcery in the Philippines are an impressive example of cultural persistence in a context of social and cultural change. Since the days of early Spanish contact, the

Cebuano area of the Philippines, the setting for this study, has been subject to the colonial regimes and cultural influences of two Western nations, Spain and the United States, and today it is part of an independent nation undergoing economic development, with concomitant social changes. In the past four centuries, Cebuanos and other lowland Filipinos, once tribal peoples, have become peasants and town and city dwellers in a nation-state; their economy, principally based on agriculture, has become increasingly commercialized, with a small, but expanding industry; and, pagans at the start of the Spanish period, they subsequently became Christians. Whereas Cebuanos once were completely dependent on folk medicine for diagnosis and treatment of illnesses, including those attributed to sorcery, now increasingly they rely on modern medicine, which does not accept magical explanations of disease. Yet notions about sorcery that could be substantially the same after four centuries of basic changes in other aspects of Cebuano life are still a significant explanation of illness in Cebuano areas.

The perseverance of beliefs in sorcery, as well as witchcraft, is by no means limited to the Philippines. It is a widespread phenomenon in the developing areas of the world. Such beliefs are not mere relics, insignificantly connected with behavior in the present. Others have observed that in societies where these beliefs are still prevalent they have an immediate and basic relevance to people’s attitudes and behavior in a range of situations.4

Although I am interested in Cebuano sorcery beliefs as persisting elements of culture and will discuss the beliefs per se, this study is principally concerned with how these beliefs influence behavior and with factors that increase or diminish such influence. In keeping with this emphasis, I have relied heavily on case studies of behavior in situations where illness was attributed to sorcery. Whenever possible, information about these cases was secured from individuals who sus-

⁴ For example, see John Middleton and E. H. Winter, eds. Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa (New York: Praeger, 1963), p. 1.

pected that they had been victimized by the sorcery, or from persons who admitted they practiced or sponsored the sorcery. (Pseudonyms have been used for such individuals and all others involved in sorcery cases.)

Data on sorcery were gathered as part of a broader study of social and cultural aspects of medicine in the Philippines. Field research was carried out in Sibulan, a rural municipality in Negros island, and in Cebu City. Much of the data on sorcery was collected while I was working with shamanistic folk healers, called mananambal. The majority of putative victims of sorcery were interviewed when they went to mananambal for treatment. In this manner I acquired most of the information recorded in in sorcery cases, often from informants who were strangers before I met them when they came to the mananambal. It would not have been possible to elicit sensitive data of this kind on such a scale outside the milieu of the mananambal. Ordinarily it was difficult in other settings to get information from individuals about their personal involvement in sorcery cases unless they knew me well, and under the circumstances any attempt to obtain reliable data on the incidence of sorcery by means of interviewing a random sample of the population was not feasible. Two characteristics of the situation in which the mananambal treated his patients facilitated my obtaining information from reputed victims of sorcery. First, the informants in question were already identified as sorcery victims in my presence. In other circumstances it would be easy enough for a reluctant informant simply not to tell me he suspected he had been sorcerized. But when he came to the mananambal for help, I was witness to the diagnosis. Second, once rapport was established with mananambal, they vouched for me when informants did not know me and urged them to cooperate in my study. This was very helpful when informants were initially reticent about their cases. There was another way in which contacts with mananambal contributed to research for this study. Since sorcery is a highly disapproved activity in the Philippines, and since those suspected of practicing it may even be physically attacked, the information about malign magic most difficult to obtain is that which reveals the informant as a sorcerer. Several of the 30 mananambal I knew practiced sorcery, however, and it was from them that data on sorcery from the perspective of the sorcerer were secured.

The attribution of an illness to sorcery, whether by a sorcerer or his putative victim, is both a medical and a social interpretation of an event. The cause of the malady is believed to be a magical attack, and the magical attack is ascribed to social conflict. Therefore, the frequency with which Cebuanos perceive sorcery as the cause of illness or death is a function of their medical situation and the state of their social relationships.

This study is addressed to both the medical and social aspects of sorcery. And since the Philippines is a developing society, the effects on sorcery of changes in medicine and social patterns are of major concern. Thus, the influence on Cebuano sorcery of the competition between modern medicine and folk medicine is examined in some depth, as is the problem of the comparative prevalence of sorcery in Cebu City and that in communities less affected by social change.

Sorcery and witchcraft beliefs have been broadly represented in both Western and non-Western traditions. The fact that most people in industrial societies no longer hold these ideas indicates that a decline in their significance is a characteristic of modern development. But as yet we lack adequate knowledge of the roles, relative weight, and interplay of medical and social factors in producing this change. One indication of the complexity of the problem is provided by evidence that the change is by no means necessarily a simple, continuous progression that ensues once a society is exposed to modern knowledge and there are accelerated modifications of its traditional way of life. In fact, a number of observers have noted what may be an increase in the suspected incidence of sorcery and witchcraft in certain non-Western communities or societies as they have become more affected by modern trends.

In attempting to understand better the basic relevance sorcery and witchcraft beliefs have had for human perception —as evidenced by their durability and wide distribution in diverse traditions—and the influence of modern changes on this relevance, researchers have the opportunity to study these beliefs and related behavior firsthand in developing societies where they are still prevalent. The study that follows is a description and analysis of sorcery in a single contemporary ethnolinguistic group, but the findings are germane to the broad cross-cultural problems outlined above.

In this study of sorcery, I have necessarily concentrated on conflict in Philippine society and have not given—to borrow from the title of an article about another society4 —the amiable side of Philippine society its due. Suspicion, hostility, and aggression are qualities found in all human societies. My concern in this study is with the expression of these qualities in relation to sorcery. The fact that these qualities predominate so strongly in descriptions of behavior that follow is due to the nature of the subject matter, and not to the character of Philippine society, which has its full measure of affection and harmony. These comments about amiability in the Philippines are not dependent on what others have observed. They derive from my own experience in a country whose people’s kindness and friendship made this study possible, and made two years spent in the Philippines among the most pleasant in my life.

1 Diego Lope Povedano, The Povedano Manuscript of 1578. The Ancient Legends and Stories of the Indios Jarayas, Jiguesinas, and Ig- neines Which Contain Their Beliefs and Diverse Superstitions. Translated and Annotated by Rebecca P. Ignacio, Philippine Studies Program, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago (1954), pp. 13-14.

2 Fred Eggan, personal communication. A discussion of the authenticity of various manuscripts attributed to Povedano is contained in Fred Eggan and E. D. Hester, The Povedano Manuscript of 1572, Philippine Studies, Vol. 8 (1960), pp. 526-534.

3 For example, in a major early Spanish work Alcina speaks of two groups in the Bisayas who learned from their ancestors how to do evil with herbs and drugs. He said one of the groups was called Barang, meaning fatally bewitched and used exclusively for men; and the other was called Dalongdong, meaning the same and used for women. (Francisco Ignacio Alcina, Natural History of the Location, Fertility, and Character of the Islands and Indians of the Bisayas. Compiled by the Father Francisco Ignacio Alcina of the Society of Jesus After More Than Thirty-Three Years of Ministry In and Among Them. [Dated] 1668. Translated by Paul Lietz. MS. pp. 342-343). De Loarca, describing the Bisayas toward the end of the sixteenth century, wrote, In this land there are sorcerers and witches—although there are also good physicians who cure diseases with medicinal herbs … (Miguel de Loarca, Relation of the Filipinas Islands, in Emma H. Blair and James A. Robertson, eds. The Philippine Islands, Vol. 5 [Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1903], p. 163.)

4 Helen Codere, The Amiable Side of Kwakiutl Life: The Potlatch and the Play Potlatch, American Anthropologist, Vol. 58 (1956), p. 334«

1

The Setting

THE PHILIPPINES, like other nations of Southeast Asia, is a congeries of diverse ethnic groups and of communities that contrast sharply in economic and social development. To take an extreme example, within a relatively short distance in western Luzon, one can go from an expensive Manila suburb, replete with a chic shopping center and other accouterments of contemporary cosmopolitan life, to nearby Zambales province where there are small bands of Negritos who only recently have undergone transition from a hunting and gathering economy to shifting cultivation and who still possess one of the simplest cultures in the world.

Placing the cultural diversity of the Philippines in historical perspective, Kroeber wrote:.. the Philippines furnishes an unusual story to the student of the development of civilization. Layer after layer of culture is recognizable, giving a complete transition from the most primitive condition to full participation in Western civilization."1

Distinctive ethnic groups in the Philippines include Muslim groups of the southern Philippines; the major pagan groups, generally found in more inaccessible upland areas; and scattered pockets of Negritos. Taken together, these groups, along with 12 minor Christian groups and overseas Chinese living in the Philippines, constitute a small part of the Philippine population. More than 85 percent of the population is composed of eight major Christian groups which, although there are linguistic and cultural differences between them, on the whole resemble one another closely. These groups, located in lowland areas, are the Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Samar-Leyte, Bikol, Pampangan, and Pangasinan. Their populations, as well as the combined population of all other peoples in the Philippines, are shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1

LINGUISTIC AND ETHNIC GROUPS OF THE PHILIPPINES: 1960

SOURCE: Based on Census of the Philippines: 1960 Population and Housing, Vol. 2 (Republic of the Philippines, Department of Commerce and Industry, Bureau of the Census, Manila, 1963), p. 15.

The Cebuanos, the largest of these groups, are the subject of this study. They are concentrated in the Bisayan islands of the central Philippines—principally Cebu, Bohol, western Leyte, and eastern Negros—and in northern Mindanao.

The great majority of Cebuanos are peasants, but a number of them live in towns and cities and follow urban occupations. This range of social diversity is exemplified in the two Cebuano communities where research for this study was conducted. One of these communities, Sibulan, is a rural municipality whose population consists for the most part of farming households. The other, Cebu City, is the second largest city of the Philippines.

SIBULAN

Sibulan, population 12,000, is located in the southeastern corner of Negros island, just across a strait from the southern tip of Cebu island, which is plainly visible from Sibulan. The population of the municipality is concentrated in a narrow plain between the sea and