Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, demons, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.
In the indigenous religion of the ancient Tagalogs, Bathalà/Maykapál was the transcendent Supreme God, the originator and ruler of the universe. He is commonly known and referred to in the modern era as Bathalà, a term or title which, in earlier times, also applied to lesser beings such as personal tutelary spirits, omen birds, comets, and other heavenly bodies which the early Tagalog people believed predicted events. It was after the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the Philippines in the 16th century that Bathalà /Maykapál came to be identified with the Christian God, hence its synonymy with Diyós. Over the course of the 19th century, the term Bathala was totally replaced by Panginoón (Lord) and Diyós (God). It was no longer used until it was popularized again by Filipinos who learned from chronicles that the Tagalogs' indigenous God was called Bathalà.
Philippine mythology is rooted in the many indigenous Philippine folk religions. Philippine mythology exhibits influence from Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian traditions.
Laon, is a pre-colonial female supreme creator deity in the animist anito beliefs of the Visayan peoples in the Philippines. She is associated with creation, agriculture, the sky, and divine justice. Her domain is usually identified with the volcano Kanlaon of the island of Negros, the highest peak in the Visayas Islands.She is present in the pre-colonial beliefs of the Aklanon, Capiznon, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Karay-a, Suludnon, and Waray people, among others. Her name is variously rendered as Lahon, Lalaon, Lauon, Malaon, Raom, and Laonsina among the different Visayan groups.
Tala, based on Hindu goddess Tara, is the name of the goddess of the morning and evening star in Tagalog mythology. Her origins are varied depending on the region. Golden Tara, the Majapahit-era gold statue of Hindu deity Tara or Tagalog adoption Tala was found in 1918 in Agusan. The legend of Tala has very close parallels to legends among non-Filipino cultures such as the India tribes of Bihar, Savara and Bhuiya, as well as the Indianized Semang.
Filipino shamans, commonly known as babaylan, were shamans of the various ethnic groups of the pre-colonial Philippine islands. These shamans specialized in communicating, appeasing, or harnessing the spirits of the dead and the spirits of nature. They were almost always women or feminized men. They were believed to have spirit guides, by which they could contact and interact with the spirits and deities and the spirit world. Their primary role were as mediums during pag-anito séance rituals. There were also various subtypes of babaylan specializing in the arts of healing and herbalism, divination, and sorcery.
Diwata in Philippine mythology is a gender-neutral umbrella term for fairies, gods, goddesses, nature spirits and nymphs.
Indigenous Philippine folk religions are the distinct native religions of various ethnic groups in the Philippines, where most follow belief systems in line with animism. Generally, these Indigenous folk religions are referred to as Anitism or the more modern and less ethnocentric Dayawism, where a set of local worship traditions are devoted to the anito or diwata, terms which translate to Gods, spirits, and ancestors. Many of the narratives within the indigenous folk religions are orally transmitted to the next generation, but many have traditionally been written down as well. The Spanish colonizers have claimed that the natives did not have religious writings, but records show otherwise. Accounts, both from Chinese and Spanish sources have explicitly noted the existence of indigenous religious writings. There are also Spanish records of indigenous religious books and scrolls, along with indigenous statues of gods, being burned by colonizers. In some sources, the Spanish claim that no such religious writings exist, while within the same chronicle, they record such books being burned on their own order. The writings were written on native reeds and leaves using iron points and other local pens, similar to how things are written on a papyrus, and fashioned either as scrolls or books. Some were written on bamboos. 0.23% of the population of the Philippines are affiliated with the Indigenous Philippine folk religions according to the 2020 national census, an increase from the previous 0.19% from the 2010 census.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in the Philippines are generally accepted in Filipino society, and it has been ranked among the most gay-friendly countries in Asia. It has the second highest social acceptance rate in the Asia-Pacific next to Australia, according to a Pew Research Center survey in 2013. Despite this, some discrimination still persist and LGBT people have limited LGBT-specific rights, leading some activists to characterize LGBT culture in the Philippines as "tolerated, but not accepted." Homosexuals in the Philippines are known as "bakla", though there are other terms to describe them. According to the 2002 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey, 11 percent of sexually active Filipinos between the ages of 15 and 24 have had sex with someone of the same sex. According to Filipino poet and critic Lilia Quindoza Santiago, Filipino culture may have a more flexible concept of gender. Kasarian is defined in less binary terms than the English word; kasarian means "kind, species, or genus".
Bernardo Carpio is a legendary figure in Philippine mythology who is said to be the cause of earthquakes. There are numerous versions of this tale. Some versions say Bernardo Carpio is a giant, as supported by the enormous footsteps he has reputedly left behind in the mountains of Montalban. Others say he was the size of an ordinary man. Accounts of the stories have pre-colonial origins, but the name of the hero was Hispanized during the Spanish colonization. The original name of the hero has been lost in time. All versions of the story agree that Bernardo Carpio had a strength that was similar to that of many strong men-heroes in Asian epics, such as Lam-ang.
A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of one feature of a storm, they will be called after that attribute, such as a rain god or a lightning/thunder god. This singular attribute might then be emphasized more than the generic, all-encompassing term "storm god", though with thunder/lightning gods, the two terms seem interchangeable. They feature commonly in polytheistic religions, especially in Proto-Indo-European ones.
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.
Tagalog religion mainly consists of Tagalog Austronesian religious elements, supplemented with other elements later obtained from Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Islam. It was contemporaneously referred to by Spanish priests as tagalismo. It is also referred to by some as anitism, after the Tagalog term "anito" meaning "god" or "deity".
Anito, or anitu In Philippine mythology, refers to ancestor spirits, spirits of the dead, evil spirits and the wooden idols that represent or house them. In contrast, within the context of folk religion, Anito encompasses a broader meaning. It refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities venerated in Indigenous Philippine folk religions from the precolonial era to the present. The specific interpretation of the term varies depending on the ethnic group.
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