Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 45 views

    WALKING HISTORY by Michael Xiao Chua Gahum: Our Filipino Concept of Power

    Uploaded by

    April Peyra
    1) Ancient Filipinos believed that when people die, their power, prestige, and prowess could be transferred to other people or things through rituals. 2) It was believed that wiping a dead person or object could transfer their power, which helps explain modern traditions like wiping the Black Nazarene statue. 3) Warriors were believed to gain power and honor by beheading enemies and adding their hair to weapons.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    WALKING HISTORY by Michael Xiao Chua Gahum: Our Filipino Concept of Power

    Uploaded by

    April Peyra
    45 views1 page
    1) Ancient Filipinos believed that when people die, their power, prestige, and prowess could be transferred to other people or things through rituals. 2) It was believed that wiping a dead person or object could transfer their power, which helps explain modern traditions like wiping the Black Nazarene statue. 3) Warriors were believed to gain power and honor by beheading enemies and adding their hair to weapons.

    Original Description:

    ertghehrt

    Original Title

    thseth

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    1) Ancient Filipinos believed that when people die, their power, prestige, and prowess could be transferred to other people or things through rituals. 2) It was believed that wiping a dead person or object could transfer their power, which helps explain modern traditions like wiping the Black Nazarene statue. 3) Warriors were believed to gain power and honor by beheading enemies and adding their hair to weapons.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    45 views1 page

    WALKING HISTORY by Michael Xiao Chua Gahum: Our Filipino Concept of Power

    Uploaded by

    April Peyra
    1) Ancient Filipinos believed that when people die, their power, prestige, and prowess could be transferred to other people or things through rituals. 2) It was believed that wiping a dead person or object could transfer their power, which helps explain modern traditions like wiping the Black Nazarene statue. 3) Warriors were believed to gain power and honor by beheading enemies and adding their hair to weapons.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    WALKING HISTORY by Michael Xiao Chua GAHUM: OUR FILIPINO CONCEPT OF POWER We recently commemorated our beloved who

    passed to the next life last Todos los Santos (All Saints Day and All Souls Day) which we call Undas. When I asked Dr. Lars Ubaldo, who studied death practices in Ilocos, he said that it came from the Spanish honras funebres (funeral honors). In some Tagalog provinces, undas is called honras and undras, and in Ilocos, the atang is also called umras. Talking about death, the ancient Filipinos believe that when we die, whatever power, prestige and prowess we have can be transferred to another person or thing. Dr. Ubaldo told me of a ritual in Cordillera, wherein a man who just died is being sat on a sangadi/sangachil (death chair), and as he is being smoked, the last body fluids that are coming out of his body are collected in a plate below to be drank. With this perspective, one now understands why on each Good Friday, when the dead Christ is being lowered from the cross in old churches to become the santo sepulcro or santo entierro, people will clean it. The cloth used to wipe the dead Christ will be distributed as they believed it already have power, anting-anting. Now we can understand that what many Catholic Bishops call as fanaticism every 9 January, of hundreds of thousands of people trying to get near the Black Nazarene and wipe it with hankies on its procession around the streets of Quiapo, is actually the continuation of an ancient practice of transferring the power of the Lord to the people, despite Western Christian influence. Dr. Vicente Villan, one of my mentors, studied the pintados, tattooed bagani warriors from Panay. I learned from him that the ancient warriors from this archipelago, especially the Ilanun mangangayaw warriors, behead their enemies in order for the power of these people to transfer to them. The warrior goes home, adds the hair of the dead to the handle of his kampilan sword and will return with honor, prestige and well-being (ginhawa) to his bayan. In the Visayan language, power is called gahum. In a monograph, Dr. Myfel Joseph Paluga collected the different meanings of the concept: it can refer to the nature of God, Labaw nga Makagagahum (Almighty God, He who had a high power); it can also mean government (kagamhanan, or the powers-that-be) and gamhanan nga tawo means a man who have power or authority. The amulet known in many parts of the Philippines as anting-anting/agimat is also called gahum. Although generally gahum is a positive concept, Dr. Villan said that in Visayan epics like the Labaw Donggon, if a power can destroy order, culture, relationships and communities, it is a bad gahum. Thats why the struggle against state hegemony is now referred by many in the Philippine Left as kontra-gahum. Early Filipinos also believe that the kaluluwa (loosely translated as soul) has an alignment to heaven. If the alignment is straightly vertical, it is a good soulmatuwid na kaluluwa. If its horizontal, it is a bad soulhalang ang kaluluwa. That alignment can be affected by someone with a strong inner gahum and that will make one feel bad. And this is the folk explanation for a kid who suddenly felt sick because his souls alignment was disoriented nausog. We always borrow theoretical concepts from Western scholars when we can also see how colorful and comprehensive our own concepts are. 6 November 2011

    You might also like