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Sunday, July 3, 2016

Superstitions, Beliefs and Customs VIII

About The Aswangs or Witches And Other Mythical Creatures:


Please bear in mind that the witches of the Oriental Asian literature (most particularly Southeast Asia including the Philippines) is different from the witches of the Western culture, tradition and literature.

1. The aswangs are peculiar characters or mythical creatures that can fly.

2. It was said that these creatures possesses power to kill a person by just staring at them or by eating their livers or heart.

3. An aswang can also make a person very sick or ill.

4. If a person has a stomachache, it is believed that his or her liver was eaten by the aswang.

5. The clothes being worn by the child should must be bounded or has a string or dangle of a piece of ginger so that it will not be eaten by the aswang.

6. The aswang can also change the body of a person and replace it with a banana tree while sleeping.

7. It was said that the aswangs can suddenly appear or disappear.

8. People also believed that an aswang cannot carry someone who has some coins or metals in their purse or they carry or bear in their bodies.

9. Other witches or aswangs has the hiwit, the Hiligaynon term for hexes or kulam in Filipino. Some said that if there's someone who died from a swollen big belly it is caused by the hexed doll.

10. It is common that if a person feels some pain in the parts of their body, it is called "pasok". It is said that some of the objects like rock, chopped wood and others are contained in a body in any forms of power. The victim is brought to an albularyo or traditional herb doctor expert in removing the insertion or pasok. Only a few people possessed this kind of ability. The albularyo applied or patched the betel leaves to the sore or painful part of the body. After a few minutes, the applied chewed betel leaf  is removed from the body parts and something from the inside will come out that causes the illness or sickness.

11. In some houses, the people has a bottle of coconut oil which was concocted with different kinds of healing or medicinal herbs. Through this, they can detect or know if a person is an aswang or not. It was said that this concocted coconut oil is boiling if an aswang is within close proximity with it or if the aswang is just near the people who has this oil bottle.

12. This is what the native locals considered. On the third night of full moon, listen to the gecko lizard. Then count one to seven. After it one will go outside the house and will see the aswang.

13. If one will kill the aswang in the form of an animal, you should turn your back to the presumed aswang in front. It is only the shadow of the aswang and the real aswang is on your back.

14. Before the aswang will die, he or she passes to their children or to their favorite child their aswang nature as an inheritance. If the child is willing or consented, a chick will grown in its stomach. He or she will suffer from stomach ache or pain. However if in case he or she doesn't want to be an aswang, he or she should call an albularyo to kill the chick inside its stomach through incantation or chants and other grasses, herbs and shrubs.

15. It was also said that if in the likes or will of the manggagaway, or the evil spirit chanter, black magic sorcerers, that if a person would like to eat their food, their teeth will fall down and if a person is sleeping and is anointed or applied with saliva of the aswang on the ears, it will get infected by their behavior or will also become an aswang.

16. The kamakama, Hiligaynon term for elf and the duwende, local term for dwarf pinch the lips most especially the lips of lovely women.

17. If someone is cleaning in the backyard, don't pile the heap of trash and light the bonfire of trash in the mound of the dwarf  because the dwarf will be very angry. To those who made it, they will get sick.

18. There is also a belief to the deities called tamawo, Hiligaynon term for fairies. It was thought that these creatures dwell in giant woods like lunok (Hiligaynon term for balete tree), bubog and salay.

19. The santermo, or the ghost of the sea sometimes fireball ghost is also scaring the people. Sometimes the santermo capsizes the outriggers. It appears in the form of jumping fire.

20. If a baby cries non stop at night because an aswang or witch or any mythical creature is targetting or watching over the baby, just make a tuob or incense and scrape some shavings out of carabao horns and put into the tuob or incense and put the incense outside the house near the baby and the baby will stop crying.

21. If you have goosebumps or hairs all over your body are rising up starting at dusk, night until early dawn due to an aswang, witch, or mythical creature, just get some chili or cayenne peppers and crush them and combine them with salt and spread them outside all around your house and on the roofs and your fear and goosebumps will fade away.

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