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Old 14th November 2012, 02:14 PM   #12
migueldiaz
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Now the sincere belief of our animistic forefathers on said tripartite cosmos (and the appurtenant deities) found itself in all things he did. In the illustration below:

a - in ancient potteries, bird and sunburst designs are pretty common themes

b1 - as already mentioned, in Igorot houses, the loft or attic being a representation of the the Upperworld is the place were carved wooden deities and bones of ancestors are kept

b2 & b3 - as was also seen already, bird images are often placed on roofs, while naga designs are placed on the ground level of the house

c - ancient Filipino tattoos also feature a lot of sunbursts and zigzag/diamond design: zigzag and diamond patterns are of course abstractions of the image of the naga or serpent (and valiant warriors were supposed to have been born with a twin snake)

d & e - personal adornments also feature a lot of bird and serpent designs

f & g - ships and shields also use a lot of sunburst/bird and serpent motifs

h - in a Tingguian (northern Luzon) wedding, the male throws rice up into the air as offering to the gods [of the Upperworld], while the female forces rice into the gaps of the bamboo flooring as her offering to the other gods [of the Underworld] -- the symbolism is especially significant, as the sun-bird deity is often regarded as male, while the naga-serpent deity is regarded as female.

In Panay Bukidnon dances, one can also notice a lot of looking up into the heavens on the part of the male dancers, while the women do a lot of stomping on the house's floor or on the ground. The looking upward is according to them a recognition of the gods up there, while the stomping of the floor or ground is an acknowledgement of the gods below.

Certain Lumad dances also involves a lot of stomping on the ground, supposedly to wake up the gods below [of the Underworld], to give them good yield on their crops.

My all-time favorite tourist, Pigafetta (Magallanes' chronicler), also recorded this in Cebu in 1521:
"And when they [the babaylan or women-priestesses] are on that cloth, they make a reverence to the Sun ... and one of them [head babaylan] puts on her forehead a kerchief with two horns which she makes of it ... she calls on the Sun ... the other dances with her, both saying many things to the Sun ... She of the horns continues to speak secretly to the Sun, and the other answers her."
The conclusion of the matter is that the religion and cosmology of a group of people will influence almost everything they do and make.

Next up will be many pics from a Dutch museum I visited, wherein they grouped their archipelagic Southeast Asian artifacts, precisely along the lines being discussed here ...
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