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Under the Catholic Veil: Myths of Filipino Monsters and the Collective Unconscious of Filipinos

Website design By BotEap.comWhen the Spanish came to the pre-colonial kingdoms of the Philippines, they brought their horses, their religion, and way of life. The Spanish entered the country in the group of islands between the two largest northern and southern islands: the Visayan Islands. It was here that European influence inflicted the first culture shock before it spread to the rest of the country in the 16th century. Perhaps that is why certain monster myths persist more in this region to this day. It is here that stories of horse-headed monsters and flying vampire creatures abound. The nature of these monsters reveals the repressed fears of a people stripped of their past. Carl Jung once said that “… tAll mythology could be taken as a kind of projection of the collective unconscious. “A people projects the collective currents of its history through the myths it perpetuates. Two mythical creatures shed light on the impact of colonization on the Philippine psyche.

Website design By BotEap.comTea Tikbalang, the horse-headed giant

Website design By BotEap.comTea tikbalangs they are creatures that are normally seen at the entrance of the woods. They were said to be around 10 feet tall, with the head of a horse and the body of a very hairy man. Old legends warn that tikbalangs raped women who later give birth tikbalangs. Other than that, they are said to divert travelers, giving them illusory visions of tall gilded buildings. When a victim is in the spell of a tikbalang, his only defense is to wear the shirt inside out. Some believe that the tikbalang It was a creation of the Spanish to discourage night wandering. The names are not of Spanish origin, unlike the padlocks reminiscent of European fairy tales. To this day, locals in that region report seeing these creatures at night. The nature of the tikbalang seems to have a symbolic meaning. Horses were foreign to the Filipinos before the arrival of the Spanish. In the mind of a Filipino, a horse represents a Spaniard. Hairy and tall is also what distinguishes the European man from the Filipino. It seems that the Philippine collective unconscious produced a creature that symbolically laments the violation of its nation. Since the arrival of the Spanish, their land became a place to breed this foreign seed for their people. Tea tikbalangs Confuse travelers on their way home with illusory promises of wealth and progress, only that the victim does not come near their home. The only way to find your way back is to use the “backwards” self. The myth of tikbalangs emerged seems to call on the Philippine psyche to become aware of the dangers of being raped by the influence of high horsemen.

Website design By BotEap.comTea Manananggal Vampires

Website design By BotEap.comPerhaps more persistent than the tikbalang is he manananggal. This creature was a normal person before the passing of a mysterious white rock by the mother, who is supposed to swallow the next in line. Still looking like a normal person during the day; at night, the manananggal he wanders through the woods in search of a secluded place to lay his lower body. The top comes off the waste. Gigantic bat wings grow on the upper part of the torso. Then he would roam the skies looking for homes of pregnant women. Tea manananggal feeds fetuses at night while the mother sleeps soundly in bed using her tongue in the form of a thread that can pierce a small hole in the ceiling. The tongue reaches the belly of a pregnant woman and sucks the blood from the fetus. It is believed that to kill a manananggal, you have to look for the lower part of the body and put salt on it, preventing the upper half from joining again. When it dawns before manananggal clings to its lower half, the morning light will burn it to death. This most malevolent creature seems to signify Filipinos’ unacknowledged fears that it has parted with its roots. The word manananggal literally means, “one that removes.“The demonic quality is voluntarily swallowed by the parents who pass it on orally, symbolizing that it is through word of mouth that cultural vampirism is perpetuated. While the unconscious, represented by the lower half of the body, remains rooted in the earth; the upper half, the conscious, terrorizes the mind and feeds on the future generation of Filipinos who will not be born. By purifying the source, the darkness can no longer connect the roots of the earth. It is isolating the part of the culture that feeds on future Filipinos, they can expose the monster for what it is: an infection of the mind that separates them from their heritage.

Website design By BotEap.comWhile Spain’s legacy is now an integral part of Philippine life with more than 70% of its inhabitants actively practicing Catholicism, the mutilation of the Philippine heritage resonates to this day in the area of ​​the country that felt it most, Visayan. Islands. Most Filipinos embrace Catholicism fully and continue to make it part of their culture centuries after the Spanish left the country. But a part of the Filipino collective unconscious is searching for its forgotten identity. There, lurking beneath the fervent recitation of the rosary during the day and the nightmarish stories of tikbalangs Y manananggals at night, it is a town that unconsciously regrets the history it has lost.

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