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ASEAN Community
Sikaran, Philippines
Sikaran is a distinct Filipino martial art that involves hand and foot fighting. As Sikaran is a general term for kicking which is also used as the name of the kicking aspects of other Filipino martial arts, this article discusses the distinct art which is specifically practiced in the Baras, Rizal Province, Philippines that focuses almost exclusively in kicking.
Sikaran has its own distinct kicking styles. The signature Biakid kick is executed by pivoting to the back in a complete turn, much like a spinning hook kick or a reverse round house in other martial arts styles and targets the side or back of the head while the practitioner is in mid to punching range.
The degree of effectiveness subscribes to two classifications: “panghilo” (paralyzing blow) and “pamatay” or lethal kick. Obviously the first aimed at less vital parts of the physique, while the target of the second includes the heart, neck, head, groin, and spine, all highly vulnerable parts.
Hello, the ask box was too small and this isn’t really a question. I just wanted to thank you for giving me both those articles. I really appreciate it. I wanted to learn how to sharpen and blacken (or make red) my teeth.
I think it is beautiful and well its been proven to make your teeth LAST LONGER. Those women in the video are much older than my mom and she has been wearing dentures for 20 years now (so has my aunties).
Now here comes a quick question:
Would you know of a way to sharpen my teeth? To the point where i can at least keep 3 quarters of them? I hear the process takes away at least half, I wouldn’t mind if half gets filed down though. Do you think a dentist would do this if I requested it? I live in America. Atlanta, Georgia to be specific.
Do you know any modern ways I can blacken or redden my teeth permanently? Do you think a dentist would do this also? (I always know where I can get gold rings inserted though.)
I really appreciate your blog. Thank you so much for enlightening the Filipino community with these documented histories.
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Mod Note:
I actually don’t know that many ways besides what I mentioned here.
Sharpening the teeth is easy because there are some people who do that and go to the dentist for that. I have heard of people sharpening the teeth in the U.S. and Europe so that you can do.
As for blackening the teeth I’m pretty sure if you asked a dentist if they can blacken or redden your teeth it would be like a horror story to them considering Western ideals of beauty haha.
But as for other methods I’m not really sure. I mean there are others but very similar methods and ingredients used in other parts of Southeast Asia like Vietnam or in Japan where it was also traditionally done, where ingredients would be nail filings and the burning of coconut husks while chewing betel nut to help preserve it. You can actually find betel nut being sold in some Asian grocery stores here in the U.S.
squeegool:
Makaptan
the god of hunger and poverty. He is the supreme god who dwells in the sky and the one who killed the first man with a thunderbolt and visited disease and death on his descendants.
this would be my favorite indio fan art so far. ^^
Kaptan/Makaptan, the King of the Gods, is honestly one of the most contradictory and complicated deities in the Visayan pantheon.
Because on one hand, he is one of the primordial and creator deities, along with the sea Goddess Magwayen, where he is the one who planted the seed that grew into a reed in which the first man and woman, Sikalak and Sikabay were born from.
So basically he is the father and ancestor of the first people.
After being angered by Pandaguan, the youngest child and second son of Sikalak and Sikabay, in which he kills him by striking him with a thunderbolt the he created with Magwayen (according to Loarca it wasn’t just Kaptan but it was also Magwayen) when Pandaguan killed a shark, which was the first death in the world, and he blamed Kaptan and Magwayen for letting the shark die. When he is killed he is sent Sulad however Kaptan along with Magwayen eventually feels pity for Pandaguan and revives him back after 30 days (this part of they myth explains why people don’t come back to life after they die).
So in one hand you see him as a creator deity and someone who can be both angered and sympathetic.
Now on the other spectrum he is seen as the god who brings disease to his descendants as punishment because he has never tasted the delights of food and drinks from earth.
So you have two opposing forces that he is known for, creation and death.
squeegool:
Magwayen - The goddess of the sea who is believed to take the kalag (soul) of the dead in Sulad (land of the dead).
Magwayen is also one of the primordial deities for the Visayans right along with the sky God, Kaptan, who is mentioned in a Visayan creation myth as being one of the first two deities and with Kaptan who she married, she helped to create the first man and woman by planting a seed which grew into a reed where the first man, Sikalak (Si Kalak), and the first woman, Sikabay (Si Kabay) were born from.
She is the goddess who is the one who ferries those who have died in her boat and brings them to the God Sumpoy, God of the Underworld, who then gives the souls to the God Sisiburanen, who takes in all souls, good or bad, and brings them to Mt. Madyaa’s, the home of the gods, where the Visayans living in the coastal regions were believed to live out their afterlife or in a tall mountain in Borneo.
paresatbp:
A dish that had defined the Filipino people
As the Adobo Connection ad would say, Nothing says Filipino food more than adobo. Every Filipino has a fond memory of a meal shared over a plate of their favorite adobo whether it is chicken or pork, savory, sweet or spicy, saucy or dry.
Considered the quintessential Pinoy food, every region in the Philippines has its own adobo. The Bicolanos have adobo sa gata. The Batanguenos have adobong dilaw. The Illonggos have adobong kangkong. There are so many varieties of adobo that it is really a way of cooking rather than one specific dish!
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Definitely Adobo had been a critical part of our daily lives and if you would ask me I’ll include adobo as one of my ulam (viand) at least once a week. Adobo Connection made my obsession with adobo a lot worse but heck! In a very succulent good way!
Their serving is huge! Very filling and in addition to that they have Kanin-All-U-Can, you’ll definitely load up on the carbs but who cares right? When you’re eating the good stuff it’s all worth it, Guilty pleasures as others would say.
Notable People of Filipin@ Ancestry
Preciosa Caballero (aka Anggoran)
Preciosa, also known as ‘Susa’ or Anggoran, her native name, was a 73 year old babaylan, (priestess) and epic chanter from the Barangay, Garangan, in Calinong, Iloilo, Panay who passed away in December of 1993.
She is one of the many epic chanters to be recorded and contributed in the help of preserving epics from Panay. On a journey and mission to record 9 other epics following the Filipin@ folklorist and anthropologist, Dr. Felipe Landa Jocano, Alicia P. Magos from the University of the Philippines in the Visayas, with her research assistant and guide, and with funding from the French government, met Anggoran and from August to November of 1993, Anggoran was recorded when she spoke lines of two epics, Humadapnon sa Tarangban (which is recited for 24 hours) and Derikaryong Pada (recited in 7 hours).
During those months she would sing lines from the epics for 10 minutes at a time and would rest. Due to her old age Alicia Magos gave her plenty of time to chant at her leisure. Anggoran would chant when she felt like it and was inspired to, at times waking up at dawn around 4 in the morning to chant and be recorded.
At the end of November of 1993 she finished recording both the epics, but unfortunately she passed away in December of that year leaving at least 2 other epics she knew about and spoke of to be unrecorded.
Photo Source: The Online Ateneo Philippine Epics and Ballads Archive
| Do some filipinos wear bindis? And how do you say "bindi" in tagalog? |
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celestial-spirit-s |
Do some wear them? Yes.
Is it a part of our culture? No.
Is it right to wear them? No.
The only people who can wear them are those Filipin@’s who are also of Indian descent, whether they have a parent who is Indian or they are ethnically and Filipin@ nationals as there are Indians who live in the Philippines either through modern day or from earlier generations especially if their ancestors arrived and settled in the islands by the trading routes.
Or if they practice Hinduism, which even though Hinduism was present in some islands of the Philippines and we have evidence based on artifacts of our ancestors having influences of Hinduism that was absorbed into our pre-colonial cultures same way it was in other parts of Southeast Asia, majority of Filipin@’s today aren’t Hindu’s. We are predominantly Catholics or Muslims, with some Buddhists and those who practice indigenous beliefs.
If you aren’t a Filipin@ with Indian descent or practice Hinduism, you shouldn’t wear a bindi as that is cultural appropriation. The bindi isn’t traditionally a part of our culture so we have no right to wear it. In pre-colonial times when Hinduism was around in parts of the islands was it possible we did? Perhaps but there is no evidence of it.
The only thing we do have are the dots, mainly they are white, put on above and along our eyebrows which is also found in other parts of Southeast Asia like Indonesia, and India. That we have but what the term for those dots in Tagalog or any of the other Philippine languages is I actually have no clue what they are called.
Native Writing Scripts of the Philippines
The Baybayin Script, NOT Alibata
At the time the early Spaniards arrived in the islands of what is now known as the Philippines they noted that the people were already reading and writing in their own scripts and according to Spanish accounts the Tagalogs have already been writing for at least a century. At the time of the Spaniards this script was spreading throughout the islands and was still in the process of developing even further.
At the arrival of Magellan though the script didn’t seem to have arrived in the Visaya’s in 1521 based on the records of Antonio Pigafetta who mentioned the people were not literate, years after the fall of Magellan, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in 1567 and by this time he noted that they did have a writing script similar to the Malays. A century later the well known Jesuit missionary, Francisco Alcina who kept detailed accounts of the Bisayas from its people, their cultures, dress, and the local flora and fauna, wrote,
The characters of these natives, or, better said, those that have been in use for a few years in these parts, an art which was communicated to them from the Tagalogs, and the latter learned it from the Borneans who came from the great island of Borneo to Manila, with whom they have considerable traffic… From these Borneans the Tagalogs learned their characters, and from them the Visayans, so they call them Moro characters or letters because the Moros taught them… [the Visayans] learned [the Moros’] letters, which many use today, and the women much more than the men, which they write and read more readily than the latter.
Another missionary who was a Jesuit priest, Pedro Chirino, wrote in an entry in 1604
So accustomed are all these islanders to writing and reading that there is scarcely a man, and much less a woman, who cannot read and write in the letters proper to the island of Manila.
According to Antonio de Morga he also noted how literate the people actually were supporting the others on saying,
Throughout the islands the natives write very well using [their letters]… All the natives, women as well as men, write in this language, and there are very few who do not write well and correctly.
So at the time of the Spaniards and toward a century after their arrival the native people already knew how to read and write. So why aren’t their any written records by our ancestors?
The main reason is that though they did know how to read and write it was for personal use only. Our literature was an oral one, meaning stories, events, myths, and records from history were passed orally from one generation to the next. They would be memorized, sung and told by the old to the young. Writing was mainly only used for personal letters and poetry especially between lovers as noted in the Boxer Codex 1590,
They have neither books nor histories nor do they write anything of length but only letters and reminders to one another… [And lovers] carry written charms with them.
Of course with recent finds such as the Laguna Copperplate Inscription which was written in the ancient Indonesian script, the Kawi script, but the language was in a mix of Old Tagalog, Sanskrit, Old Javanese, and Old Malay, we know that at least prior to Baybayin, Kawi was used in everyday writing and has been used in official documents like the recent discovery of the Laguna Copperplate. However besides that document that pushed the Philippines written history back to the year 900 C.E. on April 21 based on the date written in the inscription using the Hindu calendar of the Saka era date of the year Siyaka 822, month of Waisaka, the fourth day of the waning moon, as of today we haven’t found any other documents.
When the Spaniards tried to convert the native people to Catholicism, one of their tools were books written in Baybayin. The earliest book, the Doctrina Christiania en lengua española y tagala, written in Tagalog was printed in 1593. It is the oldest print of Baybayin to date and is also an example of how the Tagalog language was before the Spanish language influenced Tagalog.
The Baybayin script today is often wrongly called and taught as, Alibata. The term Alibata was actually coined in the 20th century by Paul R. Veroza, basing his invented term on the Maguindano script whose arrangement of letters takes after the Arabic script. His basis is unsupported by evidence because Baybayin was never recorded to have arrived in that part of Mindanao and the script has no relations to Arabic at all along with every other scrip in Southeast Asia not being any way related to the Arabic script.
Unfortunately today based on the term being wrongly used in schools and textbooks the invented name has spread through many Filipin@’s who are taught the script in school as a passing topic.
The script is actually an abugida script an alphasyllabary script and is part of the Brahmic family that is throughout the Southeast Asian region and India. Being an abugida script, each letter of the script represents a syllable not a sound, where it has vowel modifying marks known as kudlits, usually dot markings, to signify the change in vowel. Later on during the early Spanish colonial period another mark to cancel the vowel sound was created by the Spaniards through putting a cross next to the syllable which is known as a virama mark. At the time of the Spaniards the script was still developing and the people didn’t have a vowel cancellation mark. With the modern virama mark it has made Baybayin to be written through the traditional method without the virama mark and with the modern method with the virama mark.
Today most people use the traditional way in regards to artwork however in writing they use the modern method often either using the cross marking or in other modern variations such as a curve to make it easier to read and write.
Though the script isn’t used today in everyday use there is a growing interest among the younger generations to learn and write in Baybayin and the other Philippine scripts and is part of the cultural revival movement among Filipin@’s. Many have created artwork with Baybayin as well as in the form of tattoo’s.
Photo Credits: [x], [x], [x], [x], [x]
prudenceocean:
A Filipino artist has painted 35,000 dolphins across the Philippines. AG Sano, an environmental and artist activist undertook these paintings after watching ‘The Cove’ and became so overcome with emotion that he quit his job and dedicated his time to protecting these dolphins by painting one wall at a time.
Sano said of ‘The Cove’:
“I could not sleep after seeing ‘The Cove’ because of the images we saw. I tapped into the emotions flowing the next morning, looked for spare paint, asked a friend if I could paint his wall and he said yes”
Images of Sano’s work were posted on Facebook, and a stranger rang Sano offering his house as a canvas and this is when the campaign was born! Soon invitations flooded in and Sano travelled across the country to paint the images of dolphins, as curiosity grew so did peoples participation.
“Everyone who walked by - whether policeman, businessman, politicians, street cleaners - would stop, watch for a while and then start asking questions. I would explain my advocacy, offer them a paintbrush, and soon they would start helping me”
A year later and this awareness campaign has lead to 35,000 dolphins painted on more than 200 walls with more than 25,000 volunteers. Ric O’Barry made a visit in 2012 and painted a dolphin with Sano, Sano said at the time of O’Barry’s visit:
“Having him here to support the local campaign against captivity with the intention of bringing the issue to the international arena is the most important thing that has happened to our advocacy. Once his brush touches the wall I shall call him our MVP - most valuable painter.”
Sano credits British graffiti-artist Banksy as an influence. Banksy also uses public art as a way of sharing his ideas.
“Painting dolphins on public walls to raise awareness was an instinct based on his influence. To meet one’s hero would be awesome. To paint a dolphin with him in the streets of London would be out of this world!”
The artists’ original idea was to paint one dolphin for each of the 23,000 dolphins killed at Taiji, Japan. However, he was asked by the department of natural resources to create the Philippines’ longest wildlife mural, a project designed to raise awareness for the need to protect the world’s oceans. In May 2012, 1000 volunteers joined Santo to paint a 1075m long ‘Biodiversity Wall of Nature’ in Quezon city, showcasing over 200 species of marine and mammal life in the Philippines.
AG Sano still continues to paint murals wherever requested. However, he now concentrates on ending captivity of dolphins in the Philippines, many of whom are believed to have come from Taiji.
