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In the Philippines, a handful of superstitious beliefs exist that are very famous amongst the natives. These beliefs are typically introduced to them at a very early age through children's books or bedtime stories. It is believed that if natives aren't careful to follow them, a curse will befall them.
An action Filipinos do to counter a negative remark.
A common phrase said out loud when passing through dwellings of spirits, such as cemeteries or haunted grasslands. It is a way to show respect and avoid disturbing spirits and other mythical creatures who live in these areas.
When coming from a wake, a Filipino practice would be not to go home straight away as it is believed that the soul of the dead would follow one back to his/her house. One may stop anywhere one pleases as long as one does not go straight home.
Kapres are described as giants that usually sit atop tall trees smoking cigars.
The Tikbalang is described as a horse with human-like features said to lurk in the mountains and forests.
Tiyanaks are believed to be unborn babies that take on the form of a newborn baby monster in distress to attract people towards them.
Nuno sa punso is described to have dwarf-like features that dwell in mounds.
Aswangs are one of the most feared monsters in the Philippines. They are shape-shifting, flesh-eating monsters that can blend in with the townspeople during the day, but prey on them at night. The manananggal and tiktik commonly prey on pregnant women. These creatures are known for having a long tongue used to suck out the blood of the woman and snatch the fetus in their bellies.
Diwata is a deity or spirit which appears as human beings who live in different parts of nature. They are believed to be beautiful and compassionate creatures, which is why Filipinos often say that they are like diwatas. They are also higher beings who lead their people and give fortune.
A Filipino witch or mangkukulam is a person who casts spells, curses, or black magic on the people they want to take revenge on. This practice involves the use of a voodoo doll and a needle along with their candle-lighting rituals and anything performed on the doll will also be felt by the victim.
Gayuma is considered to be a type of magic meant to charm or attract someone, this usually manifests itself in the form of a love potion.
Albularyo or faith healers are very common in the Philippines, especially in the rural areas. They use herbs as their main healing instrument. Their healing prowess is said to be very powerful as they heal their patients with the use of their bare hands accompanied by various chants, rituals, and prayers.
Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous botanical knowledge. Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure men or conjure women, and root doctors. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include rootwork and conjure. As a syncretic spiritual system, it also incorporates beliefs from Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims, and Spiritualism. Scholars define Hoodoo as a folk religion. It is a syncretic religion between two or more cultural religions, in this case being African indigenous spirituality and Abrahamic religion.
Black magic has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes.
Aswang is an umbrella term for various shape-shifting evil creatures in Filipino folklore, such as vampires, ghouls, witches, viscera suckers, and transforming human-beast hybrids. The aswang is the subject of a wide variety of myths, stories, arts, and films, as it is well known throughout the Philippines. Spanish colonists noted that the aswang was the most feared among the mythical creatures of the Philippines, even in the 16th century. Although with no specific motive other than harming others, their behavior can be interpreted as an inversion of the traditional Filipino's values. The aswang is especially popular in southern parts of Luzon, and some parts of Mindanao and Visayas, especially the Visayan province of Capiz.
Shikigami (式神) is the term for a being from Japanese folklore. According to the Shinto scholar Inoue Nobutaka, it is thought to be some sort of kami, represented by a small ghost. The belief of shikigami originates from Onmyōdō. According to the tradition of Onmyōdō, shikigami is a symbol of onmyōji's power because onmyōji can freely use shikigami with magical powers. It has been associated with "curses" since the 1000s of the Heian period, and was often depicted as a bird or a child in Japanese literature and Emakimono.
Philippine mythology is rooted in the many indigenous Philippine folk religions. Philippine mythology exhibits influence from Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian traditions.
Witchcraft has been present throughout the Philippines even before Spanish colonization, and is associated with indigenous Philippine folk religions. Its practice involves black magic, specifically a malevolent use of sympathetic magic. Today, practices are said to be centered in Siquijor, Cebu, Davao, Talalora, Western Samar, and Sorsogon, where many of the country's faith healers reside. Witchcraft also exists in many of the hinterlands, especially in Samar and Leyte; however, witchcraft is known and occurs anywhere in the country.
Asian witchcraft encompasses various types of witchcraft practices across Asia. In ancient times, magic played a significant role in societies such as ancient Egypt and Babylonia, as evidenced by historical records. In the Middle East, references to magic can be found in the Torah and the Quran, where witchcraft is condemned due to its association with belief in magic, as it is within other Abrahamic religions.
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.
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 Anito or 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.
Pedro Penduko is a Filipino fictional comic book character created by National Artist for Literature Francisco V. Coching. The character, who is styled as a folk hero, debuted in the magazine Liwayway in 1954.
Mythic humanoids are legendary, folkloric, or mythological creatures that are part human, or that resemble humans through appearance or character. Each culture has different mythical creatures that come from many different origins, and many of these creatures are humanoids. They are often able to talk and in many stories they guide the hero on their journey.
The indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagbanwa people includes the religious beliefs, mythology and superstitions that has shaped the Tagbanwa way of life. It shares certain similarities with that of other ethnic groups in the Philippines, such as in the belief in heaven, hell and the human soul.
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.
Religions in pre-colonial Philippines included a variety of faiths, of which the dominant faiths were polytheist indigenous religions practiced by the more than one hundred distinct ethnic groups in the archipelago. Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam were also present in some parts of the islands. Many of the traditions and belief systems from pre-colonial Filipino religions continue to be practiced today through the Indigenous Philippine folk religions, Folk Catholicism, Folk Hinduism, among others.
The Innistrad block is a block of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, consisting of the expansion sets Innistrad, Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored. Innistrad is a "top-down" designed block based on Gothic horror. The set's mechanics and effects take mainly graveyard themes, with a minor focus on tribal themes. The tagline for the set is "Horror Lurks Within". It has 264 cards.
The indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagalog people were well documented by Spanish missionaries, mostly in the form of epistolary accounts (relaciones) and entries in various dictionaries compiled by missionary friars.
Anito, also spelled anitu, refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities in the Indigenous Philippine folk religions from the precolonial age to the present, although the term itself may have other meanings and associations depending on the Filipino ethnic group. It can also refer to carved humanoid figures, the taotao, made of wood, stone, or ivory, that represent these spirits. Anito is also sometimes known as diwata in certain ethnic groups.
Buso is a generic term for demons or evil spirits in the folklore of the Bagobo peoples. They typically prey upon flesh and send diseases to kill unsuspecting humans. Shrines and offerings would be made to the buso in an attempt to deter them from attacking. They are sometimes associated with tebang and burkan, the ghosts of evil souls.
