Sam A Bernales Jr

This paper gives significance to our own Filipino indigenous philosophy. It gives importance to the Babaylan being the bearer of the knowledge of the kalag (Waray and Visayan term for the "soul"). This ultimately aims to contrast the Cartesian idea of the soul with the Babaylan's concept of the kalag. Formal meaning of Babaylan The term Babaylan comes from the word bali, an Austronesian term, which means "to walk with". This is because the main rituals performed by the Babaylan, are funeral rituals. The term Babaylan underwent sporadic changes from bali to belian to baylan, and later to Baylana, which then became Bayhana (Visayan term for "woman") used to distinguish a woman from Tawhana (Visayan term for "man"). In the Visayan region, for example, when a man knocks on a door and it was opened by a child, that child may inform the adults saying "naay tao" (Visayan term for "there is a man"). On the other hand, if it is a woman, the child may say "naay ba'i" (Visayan term for "there is a woman"). As we can notice, it seems that the word woman is differentiated from Tao (man). This means that Filipinos were as guilty as westerners with regards to gender-bias for the word "man" referring to only the male counterpart of the human species. Material meaning of Babaylan A Babaylan is a diviner of the pre-hispanic Filipino society. They were usually women. Albeit men were not forbidden to become a Babaylan, very few to no man became one since men were reserved to more tedious and dangerous works such as the Lakan or Rajah, Datu, and Maharlika. Male Babaylan is known as "asog', but most of the Babaylan were female. In order to match their god, the male Babaylan would honor the great mother goddess and develops the feminine side to balance his manly side while the female Babaylan equalizes her feminine life