The indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagalog people (sometimes referred to as Anitism,[1][2] or, less accurately, using the general term animism) were well documented by Spanish missionaries,[3] mostly in the form of epistolary accounts (relaciones) and entries in various dictionaries compiled by missionary friars.[3]
Archeological and linguistic evidence[2][4][3] indicates that these beliefs date back to the arrival of the Austronesian peoples,[1][5][3] although elements were later syncretistically adapted from Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism[6][3] Many of these indigenous beliefs persist today, in syncretic forms discussed by scholars as Philippine variations of folk Catholicism and Islam.[7]
Unlike early western religions, with their great emphasis on pantheons of deities, religion among the Tagalogs was intimately intertwined with their day-to-day lives, as Almocera points out:
Aside from their own social structure, they believed in an invisible society coexisting with their own. This society, they believed, was inhabited by spirits that included dead ancestors, deities, and lesser gods. Pre-Hispanic Filipinos honored these spirits with rituals and feast days because these supernatural beings were considered able to preside over the whole gamut of life, including birth, sickness, death, courtship, marriage, planting, harvesting, and death. Some of these spirits were considered friendly; others were viewed as tyrannical enemies.[1]
Ancient Tagalogs initially believed that the first deity of the sun and moon was Bathala, as he was a primordial deity and the deity of everything. Later on, the title of deity of the moon was passed on to his favorite daughter, Mayari, while the title of deity of the sun was passed on to his grandson and honorary son, Apolaki. One of his daughters, Tala, was the deity of the stars and was the primary deity of the constellations, while Hanan was the deity of mornings and the new age. The Tagalogs' cosmic beliefs were not exempted from the moon-swallowing serpent myths prevalent throughout the different ethnic peoples of the Philippines. But unlike the moon-swallowing serpent stories of other ethnic peoples, which usually portrayed the serpent as a god, the Tagalog people believed that the serpent which causes eclipses was Laho, a dragon. The dragon, despite being strong, could easily be defeated by Mayari, the reason why the moon's darkness during eclipses diminishes within minutes.[8]
Owing to the limitations of language and of personal religious biases, Spanish chroniclers often recorded different interpretations of Tagalog words relating to worship. The word anito is one of these words which had differing interpreters. Scott[3] notes that missionaries eventually reinterpreted the word to mean "all idols", including the middle eastern gods mentioned in the Bible, whenever they were included in their homilies. As a result, in modern times, the word anito has come to mean the various figurines or "idols" that represent Filipino deities. However, the Tagalog words for such representations was larauan.[3]
In his 1613 dictionary Vocabulario de la lengua tagala, Fray Pedro de San Buenaventura[9]: 361 explains:
More appropriately would it be called an offering because "anito" does not signify any particular thing, such as an idol, but an offering and the prayer they would make to deceased friends and relatives... [or] an offering made to anything they finished, like a boat, house, fishnet, etc., and it was mats, cooked food, gold, and other things.
The unnamed author of the anonymous 1572 Relación de la conquista de la isla de Luzón (translated in Volume 3 of Blair and Robertson),[10] while noted to be particularly hispanocentric and anti-nativist in his views, nevertheless provides a detailed description of the Tagalogs' pag-aanito, which bears many apparent similarities to surviving indigenous practices:
When any chief is ill, he invites his kindred and orders a great meal to be prepared, consisting of fish, meat, and wine. When the guests are all assembled and the feast set forth in a few plates on the ground inside the house, they seat themselves also on the ground to eat. In the midst of the feast (called manganito or baylán in their tongue), they put the idol called Batala and certain aged women who are considered as priestesses, and some aged Indians—neither more nor less. They offer the idol some of the food which they are eating, and call upon him in their tongue, praying to him for the health of the sick man for whom the feast is held. The natives of these islands have no altars nor temples whatever. This manganito, or drunken revel, to give it a better name, usually lasts seven or eight days; and when it is finished they take the idols and put them in the corners of the house, and keep them there without showing them any reverence.
Demetrio, Cordero-Fernando, and Nakpil Zialcita[2] observe that the Luzon Tagalogs and Kapampangans' use of the word anito, instead of the word diwata, which was more predominant in the Visayan regions, indicated that these peoples of Luzon were less influenced by the Hindu and Buddhist beliefs of the Madjapahit empire than the Visayans were.[2] They also observed that the words were used alternately among the peoples in the southernmost portions of Luzon—the Bicol Region, Marinduque, and Mindoro, among others. They suggested that this represented transitional area, the front lines of an increased "Indianized" Madjapahit influence which was making its way north[2] the same way Islam was making its way north from Mindanao.[3]
The highest beings in Anitism are always the primordial deities, led by Bathala. Of these five primordial deities, only Bathala, Amihan, and Aman Sinaya are living deities. The other two, Ulilang Kaluluwa and Galang Kaluluwa, have turned into ashes during the first centuries of the cosmic creation. The next in rank are the deity anitos, whether they live in Kaluwalhatian, Kasamaan, or in the middle world.[11] The third in rank are the anitos sent by Bathala to aid mankind. These anitos usually serve specific communities, and seldom spread their influence from their domain, such as the case of the anito, Makiling. Like mankind, these anitos are sometimes prone to misdeeds but are generally good.[12] The fourth in rank are mankind's anito ancestral spirits (known as kaluluwa,[13] the second and last form of the soul). The last rank includes tao (mankind) which houses the kakambal[13] (literally twin; the first form of soul known as the living soul who wanders when the body is asleep), mga hayop (animals), halaman at puno (plants and trees), lamang lupa (supernatural beings of the land), and lamang dagat (supernatural beings of the waters).[14][15][16]
According to the early Spanish missionaries, the Tagalog people believed in a creator-god named Bathala,[2] whom they referred to both as maylikha (creator; lit. "actor of creation") and maykapal (lord, or almighty; lit. "actor of power"). Loarca and Chirino reported that in some places, this creator god was called Molaiari (Malyari) or Dioata (Diwata).[3] Scott (1989) notes:
Bathala was described as "may kapal sa lahat [maker of everything]," kapal meaning to mould something between the hands like clay or wax.[3]
Most scholars believed that Bathala (Chirino 1595–1602), Badhala (Plasencia 1589), Batala (Loarca 1582), or Bachtala (Boxer Codex 1590) was derived from the Sanskrit word bhattara or bhattaraka[17] meaning noble lord. This term was used commonly by Hindus in Southeast Asia in reference to God.
Bathala is among the five primordial deities in the Tagalog pantheon.[18] It is believed that he lives in an abode called Kaluwalhatian,[11] which is an ancient Tagalog people's version of heaven, known as the sky realms and the court of Bathala.[19] Kaluwalhatian has no room for growing rice and forbids chasing of deer. Bathala resides here with other deities such as Amanikable, god of hunters and turbulent waters;[20] Idiyanale, goddess of labor;[20] Dimangan, god of good harvests; Lakapati, goddess of fertility;[21] Ikapati, goddess of cultivated fields;[21] Mapulon, god of seasons; Mayari, goddess of the moon;[22] Tala, goddess of the stars; Hanan, goddess of morning; Dumakulem, god of mountains; Anitun Tabu, goddess of wind and rain; Anagolay, goddess of lost things; Apolaki, god of the sun;[22] and Diyan Masalanta, goddess of love. Minor deities who live in Kaluwalhatian include Liwayway, a dawn goddess; Tag-ani, a harvest goddess; Kidlat, a lightning god; and Hangin, a wind god.[23] The abode Kaluwalhatian, however, is not to be associated as a place where ancestral spirits go to. The place where good ancestral spirits go to is located below the earth and is called Maca, while the place where evil ancestral spirits go to is called Kasamaan (or Kasanaan),[11] which is also below the earth. Unlike Kasanaan, which is a 'village of grief and affliction', Maca is peaceful and filled with the joyous bounties good ancestral spirits deserve in the afterlife. Maca is ruled jointly by Bathala, who has the prowess to summon and order spirits from Maca (and Kasamaan) if he pleases, and Sitan while Kasamaan is ruled solely by a deity named Sitan, keeper of all souls and master of four evil deities, namely, Manggagaway, causer of diseases; Manisilat, destroyer of families; Mangkukulam, causer of fires; and Hukluban, causer of deaths.[24][25][26]
Francisco Demetrio, Gilda Cordero Fernando, and Fernando Nakpil Zialcita summarize a number of Tagalog beliefs regarding Bathala:
The Tagalogs called their supreme god Bathala Maykapal or Lumikha (The Creator). An enormous being, he could not straighten up due to the lowness of the sky. And the sun burned brightly near him. One day, Bathala got a bolo and pierced one of the sun's eyes so that it could generate just enough heat to sustain life. At last, Bathala was able to straighten up and with his hands pushed the cooler sky to its present level. Bathala is also known as the grand conserver of the universe, the caretaker of things from whom all providence comes, hence the beautiful word 'bahala' or 'mabahala' meaning 'to care'.
The missionaries who observed the Tagalog peoples in the 1500s noted, however that the Tagalogs did not include Bathala in their daily acts of worship (pag-a-anito). Buenaventura noted in his Vocabulario de la lengua tagala (published in 1693) that the Tagalogs believed Bathala was too mighty and distant to be bothered with the concerns of mortal man, and so the Tagalogs focused their acts of appeasement to the immediate spirits that they believed had control over their day-to-day life.[7]
As Bathala was considered a "distant" entity, the Tagalog people focused their attention more on "lesser" deities and powers,[2] which could be more easily influenced than Bathala.[7] Because the Tagalogs did not have a collective word to describe all these spirits together, Spanish missionaries eventually decided to call them "anito," since they were the subject of the Tagalog's act of pag-aanito (worship). The term, anito, has three meanings. The first is deity (gods and goddesses) including Bathala and the lower deities living and not living in Kaluwalhatian. The second is non-ancestral spirits, the beings sent by Bathala along with the deities to aid mankind in everyday life. These non-ancestral spirit anitos can be formless or possess forms of various beings. The last is ancestral spirits, the souls of human beings who have passed on. These ancestral spirit anitos can also be summoned by Bathala to aid their relatives and descendants in special cases, usually through dreams or flickers of light. According to Scott, a careful search of sources from the 1500s reveals that there was no single word in Tagalog for the other deities to whom Bathala was superior: when necessary, Spanish lexicographers referred to them all as anito.[3] Other accounts and early dictionaries describe them as intermediaries ("Bathala's agents"), and the dictionaries used the word "abogado" (advocate) when defining their realms. These sources also show, however, that in practice, they were addressed directly: "in actual prayers, they were petitioned directly, not as intermediaries." Scott cites the example of a farmer's prayer to Lakapati, where a child would be held over a field, and the farmer would pray: "Lakapati, pakanin mo yaring alipin mo; huwag mong gutumin [Lakapati feed this thy slave; let him not hunger]"[9]: 361 Demetrio, Fernando and Zialcita, in their 1991 reader The Soul Book, categorize these spirits broadly into "ancestor spirits" and "non-ancestor spirits", but then further sub-categorize them into "ancestor spirits", "nature spirits", and "guardian spirits".[2]
Deities living with humans, and not in Kaluwalhatian, Maca, or Kasamaan are also known in the Tagalog pantheon as anitos's:
Anitos sent by Bathala to aid mankind, aside from the deities, are also called as anitos. These include Makiling, anito of Mount Makiling, and other community-based anitos. Ancestral spirits are also referred as anitos. These ancestral spirit anitos can be called upon by his or her descendants, relatives, friends, or stern followers in aid of a task. However, the approval of Bathala is needed first so that the ancestral spirit may be allowed to leave Maca and aid a person through dreams or apparitions. Popular ancestral spirits that are called upon are katalonans, datus, lakans, expert craftsmen, and brave warriors who have passed away and are believed to have journeyed to Maca successfully.[28][21] Aside from the anitos, there are also beings lower than them. These beings are diverse in forms and are considered as monsters (example is the aswang) and/or guardians (example is the tikbalang) that roam the world along with mankind. These beings usually reside within the confines of nature, but when disturbed, can inflicts severe damages to man and even cause death.
Ancient Tagalogs initially believed that the first deity of the sun and moon was Bathala, as he is a primordial deity and the deity of everything. Later on, the title of deity of the moon was passed on to his favorite daughter, Mayari, while the title of deity of the sun was passed on to his grandson and honorary son, Apolaki. One of his daughters, Tala is the deity of the stars and is the primary deity of the constellations, while Hanan was the deity of mornings and the new age. The Tagalog cosmic beliefs is not exempted from the moon-swallowing serpent myths prevalent throughout the different ethnic peoples of the Philippines. But unlike the moon-swallowing serpent stories of other ethnic peoples, which usually portrays the serpent as a god, the Tagalog people believe that the serpent which causes eclipses is a monster dragon, called Laho, instead. The dragon, despite being strong, can easily be defeated by Mayari, the reason why the moon's darkness during eclipses diminishes within minutes.
The Tagalogs also gave names for variou