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Indigenous Philippine shrines and sacred grounds are places regarded as holy within the indigenous Philippine folk religions. These places usually serve as grounds for communication with the spirit world, especially to the deities and ancestral spirits. In some cases, they also function as safeguards for the caskets of ancestors, as well as statues or other objects depicting divine entities.
Ancient Filipinos and Filipinos who continue to adhere to the indigenous Philippine folk religions generally do not have so-called "temples" of worship under the context known to foreign cultures. [2] [3] [4] However, they do have sacred shrines, which are also called as spirit houses. [2] They can range in size from small roofed platforms, to structures similar to a small house (but with no walls), to shrines that look similar to pagodas, especially in the south where early mosques were also modeled in the same way. [5] These shrines were known in various indigenous terms, which depend on the ethnic group association. [note 1] They can also be used as places to store taotao and caskets of ancestors. Among Bicolanos, taotao were also kept inside sacred caves called moog. [2] [6] [7] [8]
During certain ceremonies, anito are venerated through temporary altars near sacred places. These were called latangan or lantayan in Visayan and dambana or lambana in Tagalog. [note 2] These bamboo or rattan altars are identical in basic construction throughout most of the Philippines. They were either small roof-less platforms or standing poles split at the tip (similar to a tiki torch). They held halved coconut shells, metal plates, or martaban jars as receptacles for offerings. Taotao may sometimes also be placed on these platforms. [2] [6]
Other types of sacred places or objects of worship of diwata include the material manifestation of their realms. The most widely venerated were balete trees (also called nonok, nunuk, nonoc, etc.) and anthills or termite mounds (punso). Other examples include mountains, waterfalls, tree groves, reefs, and caves. [2] [3] [9] [10] [11]
Each ethnic group in the Philippines has their own terms concerning their shrines and sacred grounds, which are diverse in number.
The shrine can be a sacred structure built with different materials, depending on the locality, but the usual shrine structure is made from indigenous wood with nipa roofs. No metal nails are used in its construction. The wood pieces are shaped in a way that each block would stick tightly to each other. At the same time, the wood bonds are strengthened by rattan strips. Majority of these man-made shrine structures (along with the materials assigned to shrine traditions such as statues home to anitos, statues reserved for burial practices in the future, and documents with indigenous writings and calligraphy) [15] were unfortunately destroyed [16] by the Spanish in the 16th century, while transforming the land where the shrine structures were built upon into Catholic cemeteries or locations for Roman Catholic churches. The Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas of 1582 recorded the existence of ancient sacred structures that contained "one hundred or two hundred [idol statues]", which the Spanish all burned down and destroyed. These idols were the statues of departed loved ones, which the natives used to contact the spirits of their deceased ancestor or friend and the deities. [17] Additionally, Amoroso and Abinales (2005) wrote that the Spaniards also ordered native children by force to 'defecate' on the native people's idol statues, in a bid to further mock the natives and their indigenous religions. [18] The purge against shrine structures and all things related to the indigenous Philippine folk religions were continued by the Spanish until the 19th century, leaving no shrine structures left throughout areas subjugated by the Spanish Crown. [19]
In addition, not all shrines are house structures. Some shrines may be traditional non-Western cemeteries (libingan), ancient ruins or old places (sinaunang pook), rivers (ilog), mountains (bundok), mounds (burol), seas (karagatan), caves (yungib), lakes (lawa), forests (gubat) giant trees (malalaking puno) such as balete (one of the three most sacred trees for the Tagalogs, the other two being kawayan or bamboo and buko or coconut tree), and other places known to the natural and spiritual world, except for swamps, which are called buhay na tubig (living waters) [20] and are considered as sacred but dangerous to the Tagalog people in pre-colonial times due to the presence of life-threatening supernatural beings. The presence of these natural shrines is one of the primary reasons why indigenous belief systems continued to exist despite the Spanish-imposed all-out destruction of shrine structures. Due to colonization, majority of the indigenous shrine practices have been lost, fragmented severely, or absorbed into Christian practices, such as the case in pilgrim devotion practices in Mount Makiling, which has Catholic and indigenous practices involved. The unaltered shrine practices of the Filipino ethnic groups are similar to shrine practices in Asia, such as the shrine practices in Japan, Bali, and India. [19]
Most of the remaining sacred places are natural, and not man-made, as majority of the man-made shrines were completely destroyed by the Spanish during a 300-year Catholic-colonial period from the 16th century to the 19th century. However, remnants of man-made shrines have been rediscovered since the middle of the 20th century, such as the Angono Petroglyphs in Rizal which was rediscovered in 1965 and the Limestone tombs of Kamhantik in Quezon province which was rediscovered in 2011. Prominent natural shrines or sacred grounds vary, but the most notable are the mountains and volcanoes. Additionally, mythological shrines and sacred places also abound within the diverse concepts known in the indigenous Philippine folk religions. [22]
Some examples of the many traditional sacred places today are as follow:
Far-right Christian groups are against the revitalization of the indigenous Philippine folk religions since the 16th century. These radical Christian groups view indigenous Filipino religions as 'less than European religions'. However, in recent years, a number of people have reverted to their respective indigenous religions from colonially-imposed Abrahamic ones. [61] Today's practices are notably influenced by modernity, same as all religions in the world, due to an array of inevitable religious dynamisms. [61] Although no expansive shrine structures have yet to be built, natural shrines such as Mount Makiling, Mayon Volcano, Pinatubo Volcano, Mount Pulag, Kanlaon Volcano, Mount Madja-as, Mount Apo, and many others are thoroughly used to preserve the ancient religions. [62] [63] Home altars continue to be one of the abodes of specific sacred objects depicting or attributed to the deities and ancestral spirits. [64] [65] [2] [66]
Albay, officially the Province of Albay, is a province in the Bicol Region of the Philippines, mostly on the southeastern part of the island of Luzon. Its capital is the city of Legazpi, the regional center of the whole Bicol Region, which is located in the southern foothill of Mayon Volcano.
The Bicol Region, commonly shortened to Bicol and designated as Region V, is an administrative region of the Philippines. Also referred to as Bicolandia, it comprises six provinces, four on the Bicol Peninsula : Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, and Sorsogon, and two off the shore: Catanduanes and Masbate.
Camarines Sur, officially the Province of Camarines Sur, is a province in the Philippines located in the Bicol Region on Luzon. Its capital is Pili and the province borders Camarines Norte and Quezon to the northwest, and Albay to the south. To the east lies the island province of Catanduanes across the Maqueda Channel.
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