welcome to my sari sari store

There were a few yes. Ginger is one and is prevalent in a lot of our myths often associated with gold.

Then there are the anahaw palm leaves that were used by the babaylans in their ritual dances as well as being their symbol seeing as they were buried with it.

The bamboo and coconut obviously which is prevalent in many creation myths such as the Bisayans creation myth where the first man and woman came out from after floating in the sea to land.

Betel nut, though not so much focused on mythology and folklore, it was a sacred plant that was chewed and used in the blackening and reddening of teeth which everyone did prior to the Spaniards and is still being practiced today by those groups who weren’t colonized. This symbolized beauty as it was considered ugly and you were compared to a pig if it was white and besides blackening and redding the teeth they also filed it into pointed teeth and put gold plating which we do have examples of such as the Bolinao skull.

Rice, of course was considered sacred and was used as a major offering as rice, rice cakes, or rice wine like pangasi.

The balete or banyan tree is another which was considered sacred and where the spirits lived.

http://Tagaloglang.com/ -mostly cultural things, but there is basic tagalog on here.

http://www.seasite.niu.edu/tagalog/Tagalog_Homepage99/learning_tagalog_on_this_site.htm - tips, grammar, verbs, lessons, vocabulary and a lot of other stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/user/learntagalog?feature=CBAQwRs%3D - a YouTube channel, it isn’t active anymore, but the videos are still useful.

http://tagalog1.com/Lesson_Index.asp - lots of lessons

https://learningtagalog.com/grammar/ -pronunciation and grammar

http://www.tagalog-dictionary.com/ -Dictionary 

http://wte.dliflc.edu/search.aspx -audio drills (warning though, some of them are about social issues such as drugs and robberies.)

http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/index.htm -information on the language and culture

Apo Anno

One of the most famous and revered mummies of the Philippines and among the Kankanaey people from the Cordillera, Apo Anno is seen as both a revered ancestor and a demigod according to Kankanaey legend.

According to oral tradition, Apo Anno was born from a human father, a hunter named Togtogaka, while his mother was Kuyapon, a Tomongao (mountain spirit) who took on a human form during the time when Apo Anno was conceived. However Kuyapon’s father rejected the child because of his human scent thus he was given to Togtogaka by Kuyapon to raise the child as he wasn’t accepted by his grandfather. Togtogaka took his son and brought him home to his wife whom he couldn’t bear a child with. Both raised the child as their own and thus Anno was seen as a gift to the childless couple by the goddess.

The people of Nabalicong have memories passed down orally throughout the community of the disappearance of Apo Anno’s preserved body. To support their memories documents have also proven the disappearance from somewhere around 1918 to 1920 when the Americans started to erect structures in the Benguet region.

After his disappearance soon after there is evidence of him being shipped to the U.S. where he was put on exhibits. One of those exhibits according to Linda De Leon in her article “The Mummies of Benguet” published in the Philippine Panorama on August 8, 1976, was that Apo Anno was exhibited in a museum in Seattle, Washington sometime in the late 1940’s.

In 1984, Ms. Conception Cortes donated the mummy to the National Museum in Manila. She reported that she purchased the mummy in 1973 and that the mummy belonged to the late Don Antonio Jimenez of Vigan, Ilocos Sur.

Sometime in the 1960’s a letter from a museum in the USA came to Benguet seeking the assistance of the municipal government of Buguias and Kabayan to help in locating the kin of Apo Anno so that his remains may be brought home. However, no action happened with regard to the letter since the expected descendants did not follow up the case due to fear and due to their inability to understand the paper works they had to accomplish.

In 1995, Mr. Sario Copas then councilor of Buguias passed a resolution in the municipal council for the recovery of the Apo Anno. However, the resolution was not heard. It was only in 1998 during a seminar-workshop on the conservation of Benguet mummies held in the Benguet Provincial Capitol that Mr. Copas who became a provincial board member reasserted the return of Apo Anno to Buguias. From there, the staff of National Museum in Manila gave the reassurance that the matter would be discussed with their Director. Mr. Copas filed the petition at the provincial board, and the Provincial Resolution No. 98-527 dated October 28, 1998 was passed and unanimously endorsed by the provincial board, and then approved by then Governor Raul Molintas.

Good lord I’d like to recite my debate speech about how colonization fucked everything up. 

1) Colonization is the direct cause of colorism in the Philippines. 

It’s all rooted back to how the Spaniards differentiated us by putting us into categories according to skin tone. Lighter Filipinxs got better *house* jobs and darker Filipinxs got the hard outside labor. 

2) It was the genocide of our culture and writing system. 

Baybayin was the lost pre-colonial writing system before Spain. By the time Spain came, they were surprised at how we could read and write. Men and women. 

Know what that means? It was more of an egalitarian society. 

But oh no. We are just savages who lived in the jungle before the white saviors came. 

3) The Philippines has been constantly exploited for over 500 years. 

We’ve been colonized over and over and over again. Taken for our location and our resources. They made us hate our skin, hate our culture, and embrace everything that is white. 

I need to make a longer post about this cause arguments like this really piss me the fuck off cause the more I read up on this topic, the more I realize how much the root cause of racism and colorism stems from colonization. 

And the self-hate is passed down from generation to generation. You will get treated better if you’re light-skinned. Pale is beautiful. Brown is ugly.

This is something we’re told and grow up seeing and it’s all because some fucking white assholes imposed that on us. 

We barely know any of our history cause it was all wiped out and forgotten. They didn’t do shit to help us.

They exploited us. 

When they came, we weren’t allowed to worship our own deities. Anyone found guilty of paganism had their whole villages burned down. The Spanish threw away and burned down anything to do with our animistic religion and previous culture. That’s why we know so little about our pre-colonial history – because it was buried by our colonizers.

5) Colonialism set up poverty in the Philippines. Firstly, Spain and America exploited us for our resources (coffee, sugar, wood, etc.) in their “free trade,” which allowed them to do trade and business without any form of tax; on the other hand, Filipinos were heavily taxed for their trade with their colonists. Secondly, the Philippines was forced into the wars America was involved with because of its status as an American colony – America used us (and still uses us) as a military base, mooched off our natural resources such as wood and rock, and turned us into a battle ground for its wars in Asia. Also, because of our status as a colony, Japan attacked us, burned down entire cities, raped women, tortured and beheaded millions of Filipin@s, threw babies into the air and caught them with bayonets, and tortured us into submission, among others. 

Of course, Spain did a lot of stuff like that in its 333 years of colonization, but the American and Japanese occupations were more recent and, in turn, had a greater effect on our economy. After the wars, the Philippines was left bereft of resources, security, and protection; we were forced to rely on America for our rebuilding. Though we were supposedly given independence, America still controlled the government and used us as puppets.

Colonialism set back Feminism in the Philippines

ok way back before Spain decided to fuck shit up. As OP has stated, the Philippines had an egalitarian society. Women learned and were taught skills just as much as men. Even the reigning nobility in certain parts of the Philippines during that time ruled equally. Kings sought advise from their Queen’s regarding the selling of land. Not to mention inheritance were shared equally regardless of the child’s gender. 

Not to mention way before Spain and America came, Women had the rights to property, be chiefs of their tribes, marry who they want, divorce if they so choose and their children bore their names.

One of the highest positions in the community was mostly given to women as well, the Baybaylan, they were the shamans/healers/religious leaders of a given tribe. Everyone in their community looked up to them and often sought for them in times of illness and drought. Then the Spanish came, they were intimidated by the power/influence the baybaylan had over the “savages” so what they did  was spread awful rumors about the baybaylan and coined the term of calling them Bruha (meaning witch). Also virginity was not a pre-requisite to be a baybaylan most of the time it was married women who were baybaylans. 

Kalingas, powerful positions open to all genders, were like the political envoys/decision makers of pre-colonial Philippines. They made pacts with other tribes and if the pact was ever broken, the Kailnga gets to decide the punishment for the offender. 

(well guess what went to shit once Spain came…that’s right everything I just listed.)

(yup no helping here, more like dragging us down to your level Spain)

Basically if anybody would read Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo would understand how Spanish Colonialism affected the Philippines. greed, rape and abuse were rampant during those times. 

America “helping” the Philippines

“Litte-brown Americans” is the word used by most Americans during that time…

America basically bamboozled us when they bought us from Spain. Like literally the Revolutionaries were promised freedom and they were preparing for said independence when they agreed to get help from the Americans. Then the Americans went on and basically said “oh, it’s just for awhile, just till you get on your feet  and build a new government blah blah blah”….and that hold stretched till WWII. 

And when WWII was over and the Japanese were to pay us reparation for all the things they did to us. We demanded a reparation like say around $6,000,000 (not actual amount) but since America needed Japan to rehabilitate quickly the amount was lowered to say $4,000,000 (not actual amount). Which is basically a slap to the face of the Filipinos.

Bell-Trade Act was utter shit. (I studied this act for so long and holy shit was it shit. I mean if you look up the word unfair you would the Bell-Trade Act in big bold letters) 

Not to mention, the American government promised compensation for those Filipinos and Chinese who were in the resistance movement.  They did to some extent but only for those resistance movements in their records. They disregarded the records kept in the Philippine Army. It was only just last year did the American government finally considered the records in the Philippine Army (actual thanks, Obama). Sadly most of the veterans are long gone. Only a handful of them are left. It pains me every single time I see these veterans crying because they witnessed so much and the Americans just basically took them for granted. 

Effects on present times

Colonial mentality is rampant as hell here. Every bloody commercial you see here is 90% how to get whiter skin and straighter hair. (normally, Filipinos have darker tans and wavy/curly hair)

edit: forgot to add sources War Veterans: source, source,

Feminism pre-Spain: source, source, source 

Justiniano Asunción (1816 - 1896) Tipos del Pais 19th Century watercolor on paper 14 1/4” x 9 1/4” each (36 cm x 23 cm) “These costumed figures almost look like the works of Damian Domingo, but they were painted by his prize pupil in the Academia de Dibujo, Justiniano Asuncion y Molo (1816-1896).

In the middle of the 19th century, the indigenous fashions of various peoples in the Philippines and nearby countries were featured in such periodicals as the Manila and Madrid based newspaper, El Oriente, with the caption “Tipos del Pais.”

The early 19th century artist Damian Domingo in collaboration with Rafael Daniel Baboom, a collector of Philippine costumes, also popularized the subject with his watercolor album “Tipos del Pais.”

The fact is, when he became too ill to paint, Damian Domingo passed down to the still adolescent Justiniano the work of painting Tipos del Pais for the travellers’ market. Asucion’s flair for details in the art of miniaturism soon surpassed that of his teacher. In this style, the minutest details are painted as realistically as possible, even if the ground were as small as a thumbnail, as it is in the case of lockets. Every trace of brushwork is concealed. Another proof of Domingo’s influence was that Justiniano did at least three sets of albums of Filipino costumes, called “album de trajes,” which were similar to what Domingo worked on before he died in 1834.

Justiniano Asuncion was a scion of a prolific family, both in an artistic and in a genetic sense, of Sta Cruz, Manila. Three of his brothers were also painters: Antonio (1794-1849), who was called “Fray Angelico Filipino,” Mariano (194-1849), another religious painter who in his old age was the “doyen of Filipino painters” and Ambrosio (1808-1890). The older brothers may have developed their talent under their townmate Faustino Quiotan, and the younger ones under Domingo. Two other brothers, Manuel (1792-1863) and Leoncio (1813-88), were sculptors who learned their profession from anonymous imagen makers.”