Peace in Nature and the Golden Age

Many cultures throughout much of the world believe that in a past golden age, animals and humans all lived together in harmony, often in perfect peace. In some cases, such a state of peace is expected to return in the future renewal of the ages.

Such myths of a time of peace in nature are widespread among Bantu peoples in Africa and in the ancient Near East, and extend through India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific all the way to the Americas.

Hesiod wrote of the Golden Age in which all creatures lived in peace, a theme repeated by latter Greek and Roman writers. In Japan, such a revered earlier age is known as natuskashii, and among the Pitjantjara Aborigines of Australia the tjukurpa refers to the perfect dream-time of yore.

In the Pampangan province of the Philippines, Apung Sinukuan, the deity of Mt. Arayat, was said to have reigned at a period before the creation of humans in perfect harmony with animals and plants. Later after the creation of humans, wild animals remained gentle in his mountain domain and were cared for and even bedecked with golden jewelry. Sinukuan had the power to understand and speak with animals, a theme also found in other similar mythologies.

In Rabbinic and Muslim tales of King Solomon, the monarch is said to have the ability to understand animals and particularly birds. Solomon served as a model of the ideal monarch associated with a time of great prosperity that was again a model of the golden messianic age. The ability to communicate with animals is often referred to as the mystical "language of birds" that can only be understood by gifted individuals.

Many commentators have seen the reference to birds as symbolizing angels, enlightened individuals, spirits flying around the divine presence, etc., but we must also consider the natural explanation. Indeed, birds act as messengers themselves in various mythologies.

Among the Cheyenne, the primordial age was one in which humans and animals all lived in peace with each able to communicate with the other. Then, when humans began to hunt animals, great floods and destruction occurred until the "Great Medicine" took pity and saved the world. However, after the floods, humans could no longer talk with the animals except for a chosen few magicians gifted with "supernatural wisdom." In the presence of these savants, the fiercest animals became gentle and approachable.

Among the Malawi, Chewa and Mang'anja of Africa, God originally dwelt with humans and animals in early times when there was peace in nature. It was after humans discovered fire that animals retreated into the woods and humans began hunting them. Seeing the violence and destruction of wildfires, God retreated from the world into heaven and took away humanity's previous immortality.


'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb'

Ancient Near Eastern mythology often associated peace in nature with the far-off land of Paradise. In Mesopotamia, this was the land of Dilmun, the place were humanity could still obtain immortality.

In Dilmun the raven utters no cries, the ittidu-bird utters not the cry of the ittidu-bird. The lion does not kill, the wolf snatches no lamb, unknown is the kid-devouring wild dog.

Vegetarians and animal advocates argue that the Hebrew Bible portrays the Garden of Eden in much the same way with early humans and animals both subsiding on plants and herbs but not shedding blood.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

-- Genesis 1:29-30

To strength this argument, they point to the verses related to Noah and his progeny after the Great Flood in which God permits humans to eat other animals in contradiction to the earlier practice.

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. [emphasis added]

-- Genesis 9:1-4

So after the Flood, humans are given the meat of all things just as before the Flood they were given every "green herb" to consume. The provision that they should not however consume the blood of animals is added, since the life of living beings was found in the blood.

Vegetarian advocates argue that the Great Flood itself was caused largely due to the violation of taboos against shedding blood. They cite for example the Ebionite texts that claim that the fall of humanity came after the intercourse between the Nephilim, a class of angelic being, and human women when humans began lusting after blood and killing animals for meat. In the 2nd century BCE pseudepigraphal Book of Jubilees, a period is described when all creatures began to devour each other in the lead-up to the Great Flood. The episode is obviously drawn from Genesis in the Old Testament.

And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walks on the earth -all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour each other...

-- Book of Jubilees, 5:1-2


And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them...And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

-- Genesis 6:1-7, 13

Punishment by flood in many cultural traditions comes as a result of violence particularly the killing and/or eating of totem animals/plants. Already mentioned is the African tradition of humans losing their immortality and the presence of God because of their disturbance of the ecological peace through wildfires and hunting.

It is worth noting that many Jewish and Jewish Christian ascetic groups like the Essenes, Therapeuts and Ebionites were vegetarians apparently due to the belief that this represented the purest and holiest state of nature.


The return of peace

The Arthavaveda, one of the four holy Vedic books of India, tells of a time when all creatures shall live in peace and harmony.

Supreme Lord, let there be peace in the sky and in the atmosphere, peace in the plant world and in the forests; let the cosmic powers be peaceful; let Brahma be peaceful; let there be undiluted and fulfilling peace everywhere.

In the Arthavaveda we also find the Prithvi Sukta, or Hymn to Earth in which it is stated: "Unslain, unwounded, unsubdued, I have set foot upon the Earth, On earth brown, black, ruddy and every-coloured, on the firm earth that Indra guards from danger. O Prithivī, thy centre and thy navel, all forces that have issued from thy body. Set us amid those forces; breathe upon us. I am the child of Earth, Earth is my Mother."

The unity of all beings, of course, was a dominant theme in the religions of India and helped in the formation of the doctrine of ahimsa or "non-killing" of others.


Jewish and Christian visions of the messianic age also see a return to the peace in nature that prevailed in the Garden of Eden and during the pre-diluvian period. Carnivorous animals will again become vegetarian and live in harmony with humans.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion together ; and a little child shall lead them; the cow and the bear shall feed ; and their young ones lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like an ox.

-- Isaiah 11:6-9


The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.

-- Isaiah 62:25


For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field:

and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.

-- Job 5:23

Taoists believe that the Eight Immortals lived in the Happy Isles in perfect peace with animals and plants. The Immortals were closely associated with birds like the crane, phoenix and raven on whose backs they flew to other lands. Often the Immortals appear confused with birds, and there was the belief that the Immortals themselves grew feathers and wings.

The Taoist ideal was one of harmonious coexistence of all:

Redeem the lives of animals, and abstain from shedding blood. Be careful not to tread upon insects on the road, and set not fire to the forests, lest you should destroy life. Burn a candle in your window to give light to the traveler, and keep a boat to help voyagers across rivers. Do not spread your net on the mountains to catch birds, nor poison the fish and reptiles in the waters. Never destroy paper which is written upon, and enter into no league against your neighbor.

-- Yin Chih Wen ("Book of Secret Blessings")

Taoist prophecy predicts that in a future time when humanity takes to satisfying the appetites of demons with immolated animals, a great cleansing deluge will occur. After the apocalyptic flood, the world shall enter into the blissful state of the Immortals abode, a period known as Taiping "the Great Peace."

Studying myths throughout the globe, we find commonly recurring themes such as the primordial age when humans and animals lived in a state of peace and harmony, often able to communicate with one another. This peace in nature is disturbed, almost always by humanity, through violence and destruction brought about by fire and hunting/slaughtering animals. God, the Great Spirit, nature itself or some similar entity punishes humanity by rendering them mortal, or in the Biblical version shortening the human life span; by withdrawing the divine presence; and by sending a great deluge.

After the punishment, a different antagonistic relationship exists between humans and animals, and between different species of animals. In some cases, certain select individuals from each species have the power to recreate in isolation the earlier peace in nature including the ability of cross-communication. And we find often also that in the future, there will be a new age coming when once again the primordial natural harmony will prevail.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Cesaresco, Countess Evelyn Martinengo. The Place of Animals in Human Thought, Kessinger Publishing, 2004.

Jamieson, Dale. A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, Blackwell Publishing, 2007

Linzey, Andrew and Dorothy Yamamoto. Animals on the Agenda: Questions about Animals for Theology and Ethics, University of Illinois Press, 1998.

Luttikhuizen, Gerard P. Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity, BRILL, 1999.

Walters, Kerry S. and Lisa Portmess. Religious Vegetarianism: From Hesiod to the Dalai Lama, SUNY Press, 2001.

Riddle of faces on Pacific artifacts

Too bad they don't show pictures of the pottery images.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
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Scientists Solve Riddle Of Mysterious Faces On South Pacific Artifacts
Field Museum


The strange faces drawn on the first pottery made in the South Pacific more than 3,000 years ago have always been a mystery to scientists. Now their riddle may have been solved by new research done by two Field Museum scientists to be published in the February 2007 issue of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

John Terrell, Regenstein Curator of Pacific Anthropology at the Field Museum, and Esther M. Schechter, a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Field Museum, have pieced together evidence of several kinds leading to a radically different understanding of the religious life of people in the South Pacific 3,000 years ago.

What archaeologists working in the Pacific call prehistoric "Lapita" pottery has been found at more than 180 different places on tropical islands located in a broad arc of the southwestern Pacific from Papua New Guinea to Samoa.

Experts have long viewed the faces sometimes sketched by ancient potters on this pottery ware as almost certainly human in appearance, and they have considered them to be a sign that Pacific Islanders long ago may have worshiped their ancestors.

John Terrell, Regenstein Curator of Pacific Anthropology at The Field Museum, and Esther M. Schechter, a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at The Field Museum, have pieced together evidence of several kinds leading to a radically different understanding of the religious life of people in the South Pacific 3,000 years ago. Most of these mysterious faces, they report, may represent sea turtles. Furthermore, these ceramic portraits may be showing us ideas held by early Pacific Islanders about the origins of humankind.

Terrell and Schechter say the evidence they have assembled also shows that these religious ideas did not die when people in the Pacific stopped making Lapita pottery about 2,500 years ago. They have not only identified this expressive symbolism on prehistoric pottery excavated several years ago by Terrell and other archaeologists at Aitape on the Sepik Coast of northern New Guinea, but they have also found this type of iconography on wooden bowls and platters collected at present-day villages on this coast that are now safeguarded in The Field Museum's rich anthropological collections.

Terrell and Schechter's discovery suggests that a folktale recorded by others on this coast in the early 1970s--a story about a great sea turtle (the mother of all sea turtles) and the origins long ago of the first island, the first man, and the first woman on earth--might be thousands of years old. This legend may once have been as spiritually important to Pacific Islanders as the Biblical story of Adam and Eve has been in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

"Nothing we had been doing in New Guinea for years had prepared us for this discovery," Terrell explained. "We have now been able to describe for the first time four kinds of prehistoric pottery from the Sepik coast that when considered in series fill the temporal gap between practices and beliefs in Lapita times and the present day.

"A plausible reason for the persistence of this iconography is that it has referenced ideas about the living and the dead, the human and the divine, and the individual and society that remained socially and spiritually profound and worthy of expression long after the demise of Lapita as a distinct ceramic style," Terrell added.

More research needed

Terrell and Schechter acknowledge that more work must be done to pin down their unexpected discovery. Nevertheless, it now looks like they have not only deciphered the ancient "Lapita code" inscribed on pottery vessels in the south Pacific thousands of yeas ago, but by so doing, may have rescued one of the oldest religious beliefs of Pacific Islanders from the brink of oblivion.

"I was skeptical for a long time about connecting these designs with sea turtles," Schechter said, "but then the conservation biologist Regina Woodrom Luna in Hawaii pointed out that some of the designs match the distinctive beach tracks that a Green sea turtle makes when she is coming ashore to lay her eggs.

"Everything made even more sense when we came across the creation story about a great sea turtle and the first man and woman on earth," she added. "This story comes from a village only 75 miles away from where The Field Museum is working on the same coast of Papua New Guinea."

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Article: Dog reverence in Southeast Asia and Pacific

The first dog remains confidently dated in Southeast Asia go back 14,000 years, but the identification is not that firm. Otherwise, clearly-identified and dated remains go back to 9000 BP. In China, the oldest confident dates go back to 9,500 BP.

Maria Isabel Ongpin excavated four successive layers at Lemery, Batangas in the Philippines including a Neolithic level (8000 BCE-4000 BCE) with dog and horse bones.

These are the oldest remains of both animals in Insular Southeast Asia (ISEA) during the present Holocene period. Interestingly, this site is associated with obsidian microliths.

Obsidian sources in ISEA have been elusive and obsidian found at Bukit Tengkorak in southeastern Sabah (Borneo), and dated to the 5th millennium BCE, is believed to come from the far-off New Hebrides in Melanesia. This indicates long distance trade, the same trade that plausibly could account for the horse and dog bones at Lemery.

Recent research has shown that the dingo of Australia is a species of domesticated dog gone wild again. Some think that the dingo was brought to Australia during the Pleistocene although others assert it was the Proto-Austronesians or Austronesians who transferred the canine species. Either way, it indicates the dog's wild ancestors must have been domesticated much earlier than the dingo's arrival. With this in mind, LV Hayes has reconstructed a Proto-Austric word for "dog" in *asu and *atsu.

As the dog and dingo descend from the wolf, it is likely that either the Chinese Wolf, Canis lupus chanco, or the Indian Wolf, Canis lupus pallipes, is involved. Canis lupus chanco, can be found as far south as Yunnan, while the Indian Wolf ranges eastward to West Bengal and Orissa.

It would seem that one of these species being well-adapted to warmer, humid climates would give rise to the dingo. Dingo-like dogs can be found throughout mainland and insular Southeast Asia, as well as Australia, Papua New Guinea and other parts of Oceania.

Sacred Dogs

In the earliest layers at Non Nok Tha in Thailand, radiocarbon dated to 5000 BCE - 4500 BCE, a full dog skeleton is found at the feet of a buried child with pig leg and jaw bones on the child's chest. This indicates a ritual significance to these animals.

Non Nok Tha and Phu Wiang also show evidence of butchering of dogs although it cannot be said whether this involved dog sacrifice.

Later at Ban Chiang, radiocarbon dated to start around 3600 BCE, we also see this continued use of the dog in burials, and at Nong Nor in central Thailand during the third millennium BCE, dog skulls were interred together with humans.

At roughly the same time as Non Nok Tha, male burials of the Dawenkou culture of Shandong in eastern China are also found together with dog remains.

After this period, dog images turn up frequently on bronze weapons of the Dongson culture, and later we find a child-dog burial at Santa Ana, Philippines during the Sung dynasty period.

The limited archaeological evidence, however, masks widespread significance of the dog in the region of Southeast Asia, and spreading into the Pacific. Indeed, there is evidence of a strong circum-Pacific distribution of dog ancestry myths. Such myths for example, are more strongly concentrated on or near the Pacific coast of the Western hemisphere than elsewhere in the Americas.

Dog ancestry

In the Southeast Asia/Pacific region, myths of dog ancestry can be found throughout South China and Indochina, in Burma, among the Nagas of Assam, in the Nicobar and Andaman islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Philippines, Celebes, Hainan, Taiwan, New Guinea and New Zealand.

Dog-man myths are spread out as far as Hawai'i.

Chungshee Hsien Liu asserted that the dog ancestry myths in South China were of "proto-Malay" origin. S.I. Rudenko analyzed these beliefs and linked them with early Austronesian or Proto-Austronesian core myths of a people's descent from a goddess that married a dog.

From these core beliefs, different regional branches developed divergent themes and motifs.

Chinese traditions tell of a "Dog Fief" or "Dog Altar/Tumulus" country known as Quan-feng-kuo somewhere in the ocean off Kuai-chi on China's southeast coast. The earliest mention of Quan-feng-kuo in the Shanhaijing says that is the same as a place known as Dog Jung Country (Quan-jung-kuo) in the region of Shanxi and Shaanxi.

However, in his commentary on the Shanhaijing, Guo Pu says that the authors have confused the sounds of feng and jung, and that the Dog Fief/Altar Country is really somewhere off the Southeastern Sea.

Probably Guo Pu is thinking that another place mentioned in the Shanhaijing, the same location as the Fusang Tree is identifiable with Quan-feng-kuo. It is mentioned that in this area is the mountain Yeh-yao-kiun-ti, upon which the Fusang Tree stood, and also where the corpse of the god She-pi was located. The latter god is described as having a human face, with large dog ears and an animal body. He has two green serpents as ear onraments.

It was here that Di Jun, the father of the Ten Suns, became friends with "two birds" who ruled "two sacrificial mounds" that later became associated with the rites of Di Jun (Shun).

She-pi reminds us of the deity known as Hundun mentioned by Zhuang-zi, the earliest form of the pantheistic deity in China. The name Hundun contains the water radical and refers to something rolling or bobbing about in the water. It is related to the word wonton "dumpling." Zhuang-zi's relation places Hundun in the central, possibly equatorial, ocean where he is visited by the gods of the northern and southern seas. They are said to accidently kill Hundun when attempting to create orifices for the deity, which had no eyes, ears or other openings.

Hundun is a form of the cosmic egg, calabash, gourd, etc. floating on the ocean or connected with a great flood that is found in numerous myths especially in southern Asia and the Pacific.

In latter myths of Pangu, that god is said to spring from the corpse of Hundun, which was shaped like a dog. As noted before, the name Pangu is interchangeable with that of Panhu, the dog ancestor of the southern barbarian peoples in China. The "hu" character in Panhu's name means "gourd," thus strengthening the connection with Hundun, the cosmic gourd/egg/calabash. A seventh-century text says that when Panhu died his family was led to the corpse by the sound of crows, which might allude to the sun birds of Fusang. During the funeral, a piercing ritual is mentioned that recalls the piercing of Hundun by the gods of the northern and southern seas.

We have also seen that the name of the Dongyi leader Fu Hsi of Shandong, has characters indicating the dog-man theme combined with that of "sacrifice" or "sacrificer." This sage instituted the feng or mound/tumulus sacrifice at Mount Tai with Heaven facing to the South in the mound ritual. Here we can see a possible relationship with the feng of Quan-feng-kuo the Dog Altar Country, or the Dog Tumulus Country. Thus, the act of facing toward the south during the feng sacrifce at Mount Tai may equate to facing toward the Dog Feng Country.

Quite notable here is the lei sacrifice of the Qin and Han periods in which dog's flesh and rice are offered in a ritual involving a dismembered Shang-ti. The latter god is now fused with Tien, the god of Heaven always followed by his companion the Dog of Heaven, and in the ritual his dismembered body is regenerated. The dismemberment here recalls the disintegration of Hundun and/or Pangu, bringing about the creation of the world.

It was Di Jun who is said to have originated the lei sacrifice to Shang-ti, which we can connect also with the two sacrificial mounds mentioned by the Shanhaijing as located on the Fusang Tree mountain.

Also with reference to rice, we know that the dog ancestor Panhu was credited with the spread of rice agriculture, and this would agree with the south-to-north movement of rice agriculture from tropical Asia along the eastern coast of China with the Lungshanoid-Dongyi culture.

Although the Lungshanoid did not apparently practice dog burial like the Dawenkou before them, the Shang dynasty returned to this ritual. The oldest royal tomb in China, that of Shang Queen Fu Hao, contains ceremonial dog burials.

Kingdom of Women

The first mention of a kingdom of women in the Southeastern Sea occurs in the Huainanzi. Guo Pu, the Shanhaijing commentator, states that Panhu and his wife swam to a land across the sea and their progeny flourished there. Whenever a male is born in that kingdom, Guo Pu says, it is a dog, and every female is born as a woman.

Here starts a long series of Asian legends about a land of women and dog-men.

The account of the Buddhist monk Hui-Shen, despite its geographical divergence with other texts, states that the land of Fusang was inhabited by women "like those of China," and men with "human bodies, but dog's heads and barking voice."

In the many legends of the Kingdom of Women we often hear that they are impregnated by the wind or by bathing in a well or river. The wind theme brings us back to the name of the East Wind in the Dahuangjing which is "Jun," the same name as the progenitor of the Ten Suns in the Fusang Tree myth.

Pangu of Chinese mythology would equate to the Purusa or Prajapati of Indian belief. In each case we have a primordial deity who dies or is sacrificed and the dismembered body parts become hills, rivers, humans, animals, etc. i.e. the world.

While Pangu is linked with the dog in Chinese tradition, Indians equated Prajapati with the horse. The Asvamedha sacrifice, in which the horse is dismembered, is frequently compared to the cosmic sacrifice and disintegration of Purusa/Prajapati. The horse and horse-headed men/gods in India then are comparable to dogs and dog-headed men/gods in China.

If Pangu/Panhu can be linked with the Fusang Tree and the Ten Suns, then there is another point of comparison as the Vedic horse-headed deities, the Asvins, are the sons of the Sun. The Sun is even said to have taken the form of a horse in begetting the Maga people of Sakadvipa in the Milky Ocean.

The horse form is particularly associated with the East in Indian myth. The submarine horse's head is found in eastern oceans, and Visnu's form in the East is equine:

In Bhadrasva [eastern quarter] Lord Visnu is present in horse-headed form, O brahmin; in Ketumala [western quarter] as a boar, and in Bharata [India] he has the form of a tortoise; as Govinda in fish form Janardana is present among the Kurus [northern quarter].

-- Visnu Purana 2.2.50-1

The oldest sources, the Puranas and Varahamihira place Asvamukhadesa, or the Land of Horse-faced People in the Eastern Quarter, although a few latter sources place the land in the Himalayas or elsewhere.

The Asvamedha horse sacrifice appears to have originated from an earlier water buffalo sacrifice indicated in Harappan and Akkadian seal artifacts, but both may find their source in an earlier dog ritual.

At the beginning of the Asvamedha ceremony, the horse is led into a pond for ritual bathing, and a dog is also brought and forced to swim in the water at which time it is killed. The horse is envisioned in the Vedas as originating in the water or sea, and the swimming dog may allude to the canine's earlier position in the ritual.

A black "four-eyed" dog is used, which reminds us of the four-eyed dogs of Yama. The first horse used in an Asvamedha sacrifice was characterized as 'Yama's horse,' seemingly an allusion to a dog (or a buffalo). The sacrifical dog is also called in the Taitiriya Brahmana, the 'fraternal enemy' indicating some kinship between the dog and horse that eventually resulted in confrontation and the ascendancy of the latter in the brahminized system.

Dog rituals and magic

Chinese ethnologist Ling Shun-sheng found many comparable instances of dog sacrifice in the Pacific and in China.

In ancient Hawai'i, as in ancient China, the dog was associated with the male gender. Dog flesh was generally kapu (taboo) for women in Hawai'i, where it was classified as a male species. In the Dawenkou culture, dogs appear mainly in male burials, just as spindle whorls are associated with female burials.

Ancient Hawaiians often chose a puppy to raise together with a child, both suckled by the mother of the child. If the dog died, the child wore the teeth of the dog to protect against evil, if the child died first, the dog was sacrificed and buried with the child as a protector in the afterlife.

The use of dog teeth as protective (apotropaic) amulets usually worn as necklaces is attested to in numerous Pacific and Southeast Asian cultures. Such necklaces are particularly worn by children to protect against evil, sickness and ghosts.

Dog's teeth also served as a sort of currency and was especially used for bride-price purposes. In the Solomon Islands, for example, dog's teeth were the gold standard with one dog tooth equivalent to five dolphin teeth according to one source.

In the Philippines, a type of sorcerer-priest known as Asuang, Osuang, Aswang, etc. existed in pre-Hispanic times. The name of the sorcerer-priest is apparently derived from the native word asu "dog." Some have suggested it is a contraction of asu-asuan "one with dog characteristics" or "one with a dog-double."

The Asuang are often said to be able to change at will into animals, bats and birds, but most commonly dogs. Although "asuang" among Christianized Filipinos now denotes a type of witch, the early commentators usually describe the Asuang as male sorcerers. Jagor et al. and other sources state that the Asuang are found in Asuang families, probably indicating that the sorcerer-priethood was once hereditary with the priests having the 'blood of the asuang' or the 'blood of the asu.'

These sorcerers were closely connected with the tictic bird, which acted as a spy, helper and friend. The Asuang are also linked with the afterlife where they are said to dwell with the spirits of the ancestors. In some areas, the Asuang were propitiated to protect the ancestral spirits.

Children of Tala

In the Kapampangan legend of Tala as preserved by Mike Pangilinan, the culture hero-god can be seen as the progenitor of the dog-line, as I have suggested using local sources.

Dog messengers of the supreme god are found also in other regional myths. The barking of the dog Kimat in the form of thunder is said to relay the messages of the supreme Tinguian deity Kadaklan to the people. Kadaklan is also said to send Kimat in the form of lightning to strike evildoers.

One myth tells of how Kadaklan sends a spirit, almost certainly Kimat, to a woman for instruction on how to grow the rice plant. This mirrors the legend of Tala bringing rice agriculture to the people after a great flood.

An Igorot myth states that the god Lumauig sends his dog, or his dog and his deer, to bring fire to a boy and girl who have survived the great world flood.

These myths relate to a widespread Southeast Asian theme linking a dog with the great flood and the bringing of rice-planting and other cultural items.

In Bicol to the south of the Pampanga region, a local version of the dueling volcanoes myth pits the deity Gugurang of the Mayon volcano against his brother Asuang, the god of Mount Molinao, in the latter's attempt to steal Gugurang's volcanic fire.

Tala, the son of the rooster of Pinatubo and the serpent of Arayat, marries Mingan, whose name alludes to the newly-discovered rice agriculture, and begets the lineage of the dog -- the asu-asuan.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Related links

Dog as deity, ancestor and royal animal

Deluge, Gourd, Dog Husband

Interpretations of the Dog Husband Theme

Rajasuya , Sunahsepa and the Royal Dog

Single origin for domesticated dog in Southeast Asia and South China

References


Doniger, Wendy. Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism, University of Chicago Press, 1990, p. 15.

Isabel Ongpin, Maria. Bone recoveries from the Obsidian Non Geometric Microlith Cultural Level, Lemery Archaeological Site, Manila: Ateneo de Manila University, 1981.

Liu, Chungshee Hsien. "The Dog-Ancestor Story of the Aboriginal Tribes of Southern China," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 62:361-368, 1932.

Raisor, Michelle Jeanette. Determining the antiquity of dog origins, http://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/1969.1/1214/1/etd-tamu-2003C-ANTH-Raisor-2.pdf, 2004.

Service, Robert F. "Pacific Archaeology: Rock Chemistry Traces Ancient Traders," Science 20 December 1996:Vol. 274. no. 5295, pp. 2012 - 2013.

Glossary: Magnetic Mountain

In the lore of the cosmic mountain and axis mundi we find repeatedly the theme of the "Magnetic Mountain" or the "Magnetic Isles." Other names include "Loadstone Mountain" and the "Great Loadstone."

Myths of the "whirling mountain" like Mount Mandara in the Sea of Milk may be related to the magnetic mountain theme where a whirling motion is also described.

Given the idea of magnetism and a whirling geography, late medieval writers in Europe naturally equated the Magnetic Mountain with the North Pole. However, the early references to this mysterious mountain place it instead in the "Indies."

Pliny mentions a magnetic mountain in this region during the first century. In the second century, Ptolemy identifies the ten magnetic isles of Maniolae in the Gangetic Gulf between Sri Lanka and the Malay Peninsula, where ships built with or carrying iron dare not approach.

Two centuries later we find in the Chinese text Nan Zhou Yi Wu Zhi, the mention of a similar place where only wood joint vessels should venture located in the extreme southern ocean off the coast of Tongking or Cochin-China (Giaochi). Muslim geographers like Kazwini and Idrisi mention the Loadstone Mountain and it is found in the tales of the Arabian Nights. In all cases, the geologic anomaly occurs in the "Far East" rather than in the North.

Roman de Ogier le Danois of the 14th century locates the Great Loadstone in Avalon "not far on this side of the terrestrial paradise, whither were rapt in a flame of fire Enock and Helios." Ogier is shipwrecked there after the iron nails and bolts of his vessel are pulled out by the areas's magnetic forces, and it is there he encounters Morgan le Fay. He also meets the fire-breathing fairy horse Papillon "famed for his skill and wisdom" with whom he returns to France from the Indies.

During the same century, John of Mandeville places the 'Adamant Islands' where ships use wooden pegs rather than iron nails in the eastern kingdom of Prester John.

Esoteric meaning

While the references to magnetic mountains or isles may be only an explanation of the wooden joint ships of the Indian Ocean, the theme often took on deeper meanings.

Arabic literature like the One Thousand and One Nights tell of a brazen/bronze horseman and brazen horse on the black, whirling Magnetic Mountain (The Story of the Third Kalendar). On the chest of the brazen horseman is a tablet of lead with mystical engraved names and talismans. A king is requested to climb the mountain and shoot the rider off the horse with his own lead arrows after which the sea will rise and engulf the mountain. After that the king was told he would be rescued by a man in a boat.

When the king accomplishes the tasks and shoots the brazen rider off his brass horse, the sea rises and swallows the mountain rendering it harmless to passing ships. In the approaching boat is a brazen man with a lead tablet on his chest engraved with names and talismans. The man rescues him and takes him back to his kingdom.

Medieval tales of Virgil the Magician, starting in Norman times, mention both the Magnetic Mountain and the brazen or bronze horse and horseman but in separate legends. Here the brazen horseman points with his brass lance toward the enemies of his kingdom.

Similar legends were told about the brass or bronze horseman mounted on the top of the Palace of the Green Dome of Caliph Mansur, the father of Harun al Rashid. In 1038, Khatib mentions this brass statue magically pointing toward the direction of impending attacks on the Caliphate. A similar brazen horseman was said to be found in Granada, Spain at the Hill of the Albaycin during Moorish rule.

The black mountain of the Arab tales was transferred as the Rupes Nigra in late medieval Europe to the North Pole. Eden also was moved to this location in this school of thinking playing on old legends of northernly or northwesternly journeys to the lush paradisical lands of Hyperborea and Avalon. There, people could frolic au naturel throughout the year. A type of supernatural explanation sometimes based on the magnetism of the Rupes Nigra itself explains the unusual suggested warmth in the polar region.

Taking the concept of the Great Loadstone to new heights, William Gilbert in his 1600 book De Magnete proposed a "magnetic philosophy" that ascribes an animistic spirit in all things to geomagnetism. One of the greatest proponents of this philosophy was Athanasius Kircher. A scientist, orientalist and occultist, Kircher spent years researching subterranean forces including the volcanoes of Etna, Stromboli and Vesuvius. He was even lowered into the crater of the latter volcano to study its dimensions. Kircher's two-volume Mundus Subterraneus was exceptionally highly regarded during his time.

Pinatubo and Magnetism

The Zambales (Sambal) range, where Mt. Pinatubo is found, is home to one of the world's major and best preserved ophiolites. An ophiolite is a geological formation that causes magnetic anomalies creating its own magnetic and gravity fields.

Most ophiolites have been broken into many parts by ocean action, but the Zambales ophiolite is a massive intact formation measuring 150 kilometers long and 40 kilometers wide. This area has long been known for its remarkably pure magnetic iron ores containing 75 to 80 percent metal.

Aside from the magnetism of the ophiolite and magnetic iron deposits, Zambales also contains large amounts of magnetic lahar deposited after Pinatubo's last eruption. Pinatubo is described, by Imai et al., as an "east-dipping subduction of the Eurasian plate at the Manila Trench." The Zambales Ophiolite acts as its basement rock.

Pinatubo magnetic dacite pumices are divided into strongly magnetic types known as ferromagnetic, and weakly magnetic types known as antiferromagnetic.

Most of the pumice and lithic deposits of Pinatubo have reversed magnetism with respect to the geomagnetic field direction. Some ancient stone deposits, however, have scattered natural remanent magnetization.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Beard, Charles R. Luck and Talismans: A Chapter of Popular Superstition, Kessinger Publishing, 2004.

Bina, M., J. C. Tanguy, V. Hoffmann, M. Prévot, E. L. Listanco, R. Keller, K. Th. Fehr, A. T. Goguitchaïchvili & R. S. Punongbayan. "A detailed magnetic and mineralogical study of self-reversed dacitic pumices from the 1991 Pinatubo eruption (Philippines)," Geophysical Journal International, Volume 138, July 1999, p. 159.

Dimalanta, C.B., Yumul,G.P.,Jr., De Jesus, J.V. and Faustino, D.V., 1999. Magnetic and gravity fields in southern Zambales: Implications on the evolution of the Zambales Ophiolite Complex, Luzon, Philippines. Geol. Soc. Malaysia Bull. 43, 537-543.

Imai,Akira, Eddie L. Listanco, and Toshitsugu Fujii. "Highly Oxidized and Sulfur-Rich Dacitic Magma of Mount Pinatubo: Implication for Metallogenesis of Porphyry Copper Mineralization in the Western Luzon Arc," FIRE and MUD: Eruptions and Lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/contents.html, 1999.

The Kings of Fire and Water

Among the Austronesian-speaking Jarai and Rhade people of the Central Highlands of Vietnam and Cambodia exist the famed Kings of Fire and Water.

The following excerpt gives some information on these regents whom Frazier classifies as "departmental kings of nature."

---

The first mention of these mysterious shamans in any European account was in the 1666 account by Father Giovanni Marini of his travels through Tonkin and Laos.Writing of leaders in Tonkin, he observes that "one counts five princes who are sovereigns and if one wants to include certain people who live in the more remote and wild mountains and who follow two small Roys called the Roy of Water and Roy of Fire, then there would be seven."

Later Marini explains that "the sixth and seventh [sovereigns] are found in the Rumoi, where the savages live, and some of them obey the two little Roys of Fire and Water as I have noted above." 11 It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that additional information about the King of Fire and the King of Water began to appear in European works.Early French visitors in Cambodia became intrigued with stories about the two shamans, so they began inquiring about them.After visiting the ruins of Angkor Wat in 1850 (ten years before Henri Mouhot, who often is credited with "discovering" them), Father C. E. Bouillevaux traveled into northeastern Cambodia, reaching the country of the "Penongs" (a Cambodian term for the mountain people) in September 1851. There he was told that farther north among the Charai (Jarai) there was a man called the King of Fire and Water who did not have any real authority but who nonetheless commanded considerable respect because he was the keeper of a! sword and other objects to which the Jarai attached "une importance superstitieuse." Bouillevaux's informants added that the kings of Cambodia and Cochinchina sent gifts to the King of Fire and Water every three years. 12

Subsequent accounts by French scholars made it clear that there was not one shaman but two, and some associated the sacred saber of the King of Fire with the Prah Khan, the fabled sword possessed by Khmer royalty.In an 1883 publication, Etienne Aymonier reports that according to Norodom, the Cambodian monarch at the time, the Prah Khan was made for King Prah Ket Mealea (who is considered to be a legendary ruler). Norodom added that if it should rust it would be a bad omen for the kingdom. Aymonier also was told that the hilt of the Prah Khan was in the hands of the Sdach Phloeung (King of Fire) and the sheath was held by the Sdach Toeuk (King of Water). The blade of the Prah Khan, however, was in the care of the Baku, the strange Brahmin priests who maintained a Hindu cult in the royal palace and served as guardians of the royal treasure. 13

In his 1888 work, J. Moura reported that the King of Fire had a sacred saber and the King of Water possessed a sacred liana that had been cut centuries before but had remained alive and green.He mentions that the Cambodians and Cham believed that the talismans once belonged to the Khmer and Cham rulers.Expressing the view that these highland figures were "good peasants" without any real political authority who lived by their labor and the gifts of followers, Moura concedes that nonetheless their supernatural powers were unquestioningly acknowledged by the people.

Their reputations, he notes, were widespread throughout southern Indochina.On the occasion of marriages and rituals honoring the spirits, the people would summon the King of Fire.A special place was prepared for him, white cloth was placed on the ground, and his path was strewn with ribbons of cloth. The faithful would press behind him, holding the train of his loincloth and shouting with joy. When the Kings of Fire and Water appeared in public, everyone must bow, for if this homage was not rendered, terrible storms would ensue.

The Jarai, he writes, feared above all the powerful talismans, which also were known throughout the region. Illustrating the fame of the sacred saber, Moura notes that the kings of Siam and Cambodia as well as Pu Kombo, the well-known Cambodian rebel at the time, all had attempted to gain possession of this weapon because it would have enhanced their prestige and guaranteed them success in battle.The spirit in the saber did not permit this, and the Jarai retained ownership of the famous talisman, which they kept wrapped in exquisite silk further protected by cotton cloth. 14

Moura was the first Westerner to give any details about tributary relationships between the Kings of Fire and Water and the Khmer rulers.He writes that until Norodom ascended the throne in 1859, the Khmer sovereigns sent annual gifts consisting of a richly harnessed young male elephant, some brass wire, glassware, iron, cotton cloth, and elegant silk cloth to wrap the sacred saber.These gifts were taken upriver to the governor of Kratie, who was responsible for transmitting them to the highland kings.Moura was unable during his visit to the Cambodian province nearest the highlands to locate anyone who had been in the land of the King of Fire and the King of Water.

The Cambodians expressed fear of the dreaded "forest fever" in the highlands and claimed that there were no routes or means of transport or any authority to whom one might turn in case of trouble.

The Kings of Fire and Water reciprocated by sending "their august Khmer brother" a large loaf of wax bearing the thumbprint of the King of Fire and two large calabashes, one filled with rice and the other with sesame seeds.Sometimes they also sent ivory and rhinoceros horns. Upon arrival in the Khmer capital, these presents were put in the care of the Baku, and Moura notes that when he visited the royal treasure, it still contained one of the rhinoceros horns sent by the Kings of Fire and Water. The wax was used to make candles for ceremonies at the palace.During times of distress such as epidemics, floods, or war, some of the sesame, the rice, or both was cast on the ground to appease the evil spirits.

The relationship between the Cambodian kings and the highland shamans appears to have included a military alliance, with the Kings of Fire and Water responsible for guarding the northeastern approaches to the Khmer kingdom.Moura reports that when King Ang Duong ( 1841 or 1845 to 1859) was warring with the Vietnamese, the Kings of Fire and Water sent him nine elephants to aid in his struggle.They were driven by Jarai mahouts to the capital at Oudong, and there was a celebration to welcome them.When they set out, laden with gifts, for the return journey to the highlands, some of the mahouts fell victim to smallpox and died. The following dry season, the King of Fire sent a request to the Khmer king to have the mahouts' bodies returned to the highlands.

Unfortunately, their remains could not be found, so Ang Duong arranged to have special gifts sent to the King of Fire as compensation.Moura adds that in 1859 Norodom ceased sending the traditional gifts to the Kings of Fire and Water, and only a few years before Moura's arrival in Cambodia some Jarai notables approached the governor of Kratie to inquire why gifts were no longer being sent. Norodom did not respond, so the Jarai returned to the highlands.This event marked the end of these tributary relations.

Pétrus Ky's mention of the court of Hue's sovereignty over the King of Fire and the King of Water is a reference to tributary relations established between the two, probably during the reign of Vo Vuong ( 1738-65). The first recorded exchange of tributary gifts took place in 1751. In the Official Biographies of Dai Nam found in the royal archives at Hue it states that in the thirteenth year of Vo Vuong's rule, Thuy Xá and Hóa Xá (the King of Water and the King of Fire, respectively) sent an emissary bearing tribute. 15 The two upland leaders were rewarded by the emperor, and until the Tay Son Revolt became intense in 1773, tribute was sent regularly. ------------------

Kingdom in the Morning Mist: Mayraena in the Highlands of Vietnam. By Gerald Cannon Hickey - author. Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press. Place of Publication: Philadelphia. Publication Year: 1988. Page Number: 69 - 72.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

The "Manilamen" and New Orleans

Some interesting tidbits given the recent tragic news from New Orleans on the "Manilamen," mariners from the Philippines who worked on the Spanish galleons and settled on the banks of Lake Ponchartrain.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
---

Manilamen: The Filipino Roots in America
Copyright 2002
(Excerpted from The Filipino Americans (1763-Present): Their History,
Culture, and Traditions by Veltisezar Bautista. Bookhaus Publishers.
Hardcover, 8 1/2 x 11, 256 pages, $29.95.

St. Malo House Drawings - From Nestor Palugod Enriquez Collection

About 235 years ago, a settlement was established by Filipino deserters
from Spanish ships at Saint Malo in the bayous of Louisiana, near the
city of New Orleans, Louisiana. The people who settled there were
called Manilamen, who jumped ship during the galleon trade era off New
Orleans, Louisiana, and Acapulco, Mexico, to escape Spanish
brutalities. Known as Tagalas,* they spoke Spanish and a Malay
dialect.** They lived together-governing themselves and living in
peace and harmony-without the world knowing about their swamp
existence.

Thus, they became the roots of Filipinos in America.
It was only after a journalist by the name of Lafcadio Hearn published
an article in 1883 when their marshland existence was exposed to the
American people. It was the first known written article about the
Filipinos in the U.S.A.
(Note: This write-up was adapted from Hearn's article entitled Saint
Malo: A Lacustrine Village in Louisiana, published in the Harper's
Weekly, March 31, 1883.)

The Times-Democrat of New Orleans chartered an Italian lugger-a small
ship lug-rigged on two or three masts-with Hearn and an artist of the
Harper Weekly on board. The journey began from the Spanish fort across
Lake Ponchartrain. After several miles of their trip, Hearn and the
artist saw a change in scenery. There were many kinds of grasses,
everywhere along the long route. As Hearn described it, "The shore
itself sinks, the lowland bristles with rushes and marsh grasses waving
in the wind. A little further on and the water becomes deeply clouded
with sap green-the myriad floating seeds of swamp vegetation. Banks
dwindle away into thin lines; the greenish, yellow of the reeds changes
into misty blue."

Then later, all they could see was the blue sky and blue water. They
passed several miles of unhampered isolation. They found a cemetery in
the swamp where dead light-keepers were believed buried. They passed
Fort Pike and a United States customs house, the eastern part of the
Regolets; later, they reached Lake Borgne.

I. THE DESTINATION

And then the mouth of a bayou-Saint Malo Pass appeared. Afterwards,
they finally reached their destination: Saint Malo! The sight that
first attracted their attention was the dwellings of the Manilamen. The
houses were poised upon supports above the marsh. Then they saw the
wharf, where unusual dwellings were grouped together beside it.
Fishnets were hung everywhere. Almost everything was colored green: the
water, the fungi, the banks, and "every beam and plank and board and
shingle of the houses upon stilts."

Manila-style Houses. Hearn described the houses:

All are built in true Manila style, with immense hat-shaped eaves and
balconies, but in wood; for it had been found that palmetto and woven
cane could not withstand the violence of the climate. Nevertheless, all
of this wood had to be shipped to the bayou from a considerable
distance, for large trees do not grow in the salty swamp.

Below the houses are patches of grass and pools of water and stretches
of gray mud, pitted with the hoof-print of hogs. Sometimes these
hoof-prints are crossed with the tracks of the alligator, and, a pig is
missing. Chickens there are too-sorry-looking creatures; many have
but one leg, others have but one foot: the crabs have bitten them off.
All these domestic creatures of the place live upon fish.

There were about thirteen or fourteen large dwellings standing upon
wooden piles. Considered as the "most picturesque" of these houses
was perhaps that of Padre Carpio, the oldest Manilaman in the village.

Carpio was like a judge in the settlement. All quarrels among the
inhabitants were submitted to him for arbitration and decisions.
Carpio's house consisted of three wooden edifices; the two outer
edifices looked as if they were wings. The wharf was built in front of
the central edifice probably for convenience.

To protect themselves from bites of mosquitoes and other insects, the
dwellers had every window closed with wire netting. During warm
weather, sandflies attacked the fishermen, and, at all times, fleas
attacked them. Reptiles, insects, and other animals abounded in the
swamps.

What Do They Looked Like? Hearn described the dwellers:

Most of them are cinnamon-colored men; a few are glossily yellow, like
that bronze into which a small proportion of gold is worked by the
moulder. Their features are irregular without being actually repulsive;
some have the cheek-bones very prominent, and the eyes of several are
set slightly aslant. The hair is generally intensely black and
straight, but with some individuals it is curly and browner....None of
them appeared tall; the great number were under-sized, but all
well-knit, and supple as fresh-water eels. Their hands and feet were
small: their movements quick and easy, but sailorly likewise, as of men
accustomed to walking upon rocking decks in rough weather.

In the fishing village, there was one white man called the Maestro (the
Tagalog word for teacher) who had been the ship's carpenter. There
was one black man, a Portuguese Negro, who was believed to be a
Brazilian castaway.

The Maestro spoke the Manilamen's dialect (probably Tagalog, the
dialect in Manila). There were times that he acted as a "priest" or
man of God by conferring upon some non-Christian dwellers the sacrament
of the Catholic faith.

According to the Maestro, the Manilamen often sent money to friends in
Manila to help them emigrate. Usually, the Filipino seamen continued to
desert at every chance from Manila galleons when they docked in New
Orleans, Louisiana, or in Acapulco, Mexico. They settled in the
marshlands of Louisiana where no Spaniards could reach them.

Living there, they had their contacts with inhabitants of Louisiana,
particularly with residents of New Orleans, only a few miles away from
the swamplands.

II. THEIR WAY OF LIFE

The Filipino fishermen seldom got sick, although they lived mostly on
raw fish that was seasoned with oil and vinegar. (There was no mention
of rice, even though rice was and still is the staple food of
Filipinos.) There was no liquor found in any of the houses.

Those Manilamen were polite. In fact, every man in the settlement
greeted Hearn and the artist with buenas noches when they met them at
night.

For Men Only. No woman lived in the settlement during Hearn's visit.
The fishermen with families had their wives and children in New Orleans
and in other localities.

There were two occasions in the past, however, during which two women
dwelled in the village. The first woman left after her husband died.
The second woman departed after an attempted murder was made on her
husband.

One night a man attacked her husband, but the woman and her little son
helped subdue the culprit. The villagers tied his hands and feet with
fishlines. Then the man was fastened to a stake driven into the muddy
land. The next day he was dead. The Maestro buried him in the gray mud.
A rude wooden cross was placed on the grave.

No Tax Man, No Policeman. In the settlement, the Manilamen promulgated
their own rules and laws. This was done even though they had no
sheriff, police, or prison. The settlement was never visited by any
Louisiana official, even though it was within the jurisdiction of the
parish of St. Bernard. No tax man ever attempted to go there, either.

During busy fishing seasons, the settlement usually had about a hundred
men. In case of disputes, the problem was usually submitted to the
oldest man in the settlement, Padre Carpio. Usually, Padre Carpio's
decisions were final; no one contested them. If a man refused a verdict
or became a problem, he was jailed within a "fish-car." Naturally,
due to hunger and the harsh weather conditions, coupled sometimes with
rising tides, he would usually change his mind and obey any rule or
decision. Even if the settlers were all Catholics, a priest rarely went
to the village.

No Furniture. There was no furniture in any of the dwellings: no table,
no chair, and no bed. What could be considered as mattresses were
filled with what Hearn called "dry Spanish-beard." These were laid
upon "tiers" of shelves faced against the walls. The fishermen
slept at night "among barrels of flour and folded sails and smoked
fish."

Art Treasures. What could be considered art treasures preserved at the
village were a circus poster and two photographs placed in the
Maestro's sea-chest. One was a photo of a robust young woman with
"creole eyes" and a bearded Frenchman. They were the wife and
father of the Maestro, the ship's carpenter.

Saint Malo-New Orleans Connection. The swamp dwellers had contacts with
the city of New Orleans as it was in New Orleans where some of their
families lived. It was also the headquarters of an association they
formed, La Union Philipina. Furthermore, when a fisherman died, he was
usually buried temporarily under the reeds in the village. A wooden
cross was planted on his grave. Later, the bones were transported to
New Orleans by other "luggers" where they were permanently buried.

At the Restaurant They Eat. There was a restaurant in the locality of
Lake Borgne. Formerly owned by a Manilaman and his wife, but owned by
some Chinese during Hearn's visit, the eatery was mostly patronized
by Spanish West Indian sailors. Even businessmen of New Orleans
frequented it. The cost of food was cheap and the menu was printed in
English and Spanish.

Father and Son. A half-breed Malay, Valentine, was considered as the
most intelligent among the fishermen. Educated in New Orleans,
Valentine left his job in the city to be with his father, Thomas de los
Santos, in the settlement. His father, married to a white woman, had
two children, Valentine and a daughter named Winnie. Valentine became
the best "pirogue oarsman" among the swamp dwellers.

Latin Names for Men and Boats. Some Latin names (many of which are
still today's Filipino names with different spellings) of the swamp
dwellers were Marcellino, Francesco, Serafino, Florenzo, Victorio,
Paosto, Hilario, Marcetto, Manrico, and Maravilla. Some had names of
martyrs. Boats were also named after men and women.

"Let's Play Monte." It was at Hilario's casa (house) where
dwellers entertained themselves at night after a hard fishing day's
work. They played monte or a species of Spanish keno. The games were
played with a cantador (the caller) who would sing out the numbers.
Such singings were accompanied by "the annunciation with some rude
poetry characteristics of fisher life or Catholic faith:"

Paraja de uno;
Dos picquetes de rivero-

a pair of one (1); the two stakes to which the fish-car is fastened.

Farewell, Manilamen! After Hearn and his group said goodbye, they
departed. Hearn described his farewell:

Somebody fired a farewell shot as we reached the mouth of the bayou;
there was a waving of picturesque hands and hats; and far in our wake
an alligator splashed, his scaly body, making for the whispering line
of reeds upon the opposite bank.

III. MANY YEARS AFTER

In 1988, Marina Espina, then a librarian in the University of New
Orleans, published a book entitled Filipinos in Louisiana (A. F.
Laborde & Sons, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1988). Included in the book's
front matter is an excerpt from Larry Bartlett (Dixie, July 31, 1977):

The year was 1763, and the schooner had unloaded its cargo at the
Spanish provincial capital of New Orleans. Then its crew of Filipino
sailors jumped ship and fled into the nearby cypress swamp....

1763 was thus recognized by the Filipino American National Historical
Society (FANHS) as the year that the Manilamen arrived and settled in
the marshlands of Louisiana. In fact, in 1988, it marked the 225th
anniversary of the first Filipino settlement in Louisiana. The
association that was organized in 1982 by Frederic and Dorothy Cordova
has branches in different parts of the country.

Espina published her book after an extensive research on the first
Manilamen who settled in the United States.

According to Espina's findings, every year, during those early years
of American history, some of the Filipino sailors jumped ship off
Acapulco, Mexico. Afterwards, many of them migrated to the bayous of
Louisiana and other gulf ports. Since they spoke Spanish, others
married Mexicans, and they assimilated easily with the population
there.

Saint Malo, Etc. According to Espina's accounts, Saint Malo was only
one of the Filipino settlements. The other settlements were the Manila
Village on Barataria Bay in the Mississippi Delta by the Gulf of
Mexico; Alombro Canal and Camp Dewey in Plaquemines Parish; and Leon
Rojas, Bayou Cholas, and Bassa Bassa in Jefferson Parish, all in
Louisiana. The oldest of these settlements was Saint Malo. But Manila
Village on Barataria Bay was considered as the largest and the most
popular of them all. Houses were built on stilts on a fifty-acre
marshland.

Because there were no Filipino women, the Manilamen courted and married
Cajun women, Indians, and others. Some of them enrolled their children
in schools in New Orleans.

Filipinos in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. According to oral
history passed from generation to generation and later cited by
Filipino historians, Filipinos took part in the Battle of New Orleans
in 1815 as part of the War of 1812. Those were the men who signed up
with the famed French buccaneer, Jean Baptiste Lafitte to join the army
of Major-General Andrew Jackson.

On January 8, 1815, a British army numbering about 8,000 men prepared
to capture New Orleans, Louisiana. Under the command of Major-General
Sir Edward M. Pakenham, the British soldiers were pitted against the
American army composed of only 1,500 under the command of Major-General
Jackson. The American Army consisted of "regular army troops, state
militia, western sharpshooters, two regiments and pirates from the
Delta Swamps." (Could the Manilamen have been mistakenly identified
as pirates having come from the swamps?)

The British moved directly into New Orleans. The English soldiers
attacked the American entrenchments. The Americans had fortified their
positions behind the earthworks and the barricades of cotton. The
battle lasted only half an hour. The British suffered 2,000 casualties,
with 289 killed. On the other hand, the Americans had only 71
casualties with 31 killed.

Actually, the battle was meaningless. It occurred before news of the
Treaty of Ghent arrived on December 24, 1814, ending the so-called 1812
War.

The Filipinos participation in the war, however, was not recognized in
American history.

Here's an excerpt from the book The Baratarians and the Battle of New
Orleans by Jane Lucas de Grumond. ((Louisiana State University Press,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.)

Cochrane (Admiral Cochrane of the invading British fleet) had sent two
officers in a boat to reconnoiter the area below New Orleans via Bayou
Bienvenu. They were disguised as fishermen and some of the Spanish
fishermen were their guides. They reached the bayou and ascended to the
village of the fishermen.

Perhaps the fishermen had something to do with the situation. They were
accustomed to fish in Lake Borgne and then to take their fish in
pirogues to the canals of De Laronde's and Villere's plantation...

In the above quote, the author mentioned "Spanish fishermen" and
the fact that they were used to fishing in Lake Borgne. The only known
fishermen in the Lake Borgne area, who spoke Spanish, were the
Manilamen. Could there be other Spanish fishermen in the area? Or could
they be the Filipinos who were not known as Filipinos but might be
known as Spaniards because they spoke Spanish? Could some of the
Filipinos from the fishing village have been signed by Lafitte to join
the American soldiers? It is indeed a great possibility.

Shrimp Drying. It was at the Manila Village that they started their
shrimp-drying industry. The Filipinos built platforms for drying shrimp
in an area southeast of New Orleans in the early 1800s. The Manilamen
were considered to have introduced in the state and in America the
drying of shrimps. The Saint Malo settlement was destroyed by a strong
hurricane in 1915 and the Manila Village was washed away by Hurricane
Betsy in 1965.

(End of excerpt from The Filipino Americans (1763-Present): Their
History, Culture, and Traditions by Veltisezar Bautista. Illustrations
drawn many years ago are included in the book. For more info about the
book, click here.

The Black Banners of the East

Although the imagery is more stylized than earlier descriptions of the fiery, smoking mountains of Eden and the Sinai, the basic ideas are still present. The sea of glass/crystal mingled with fire, for example, is reminiscent of the great quantities of volcanic glass such as obsidian produced by eruptions.

However, the localization is never quite complete. The great 'war in heaven' is still placed in the mount of Eden, the cosmic site of the original conflict. It was here that Tala, the Morning Star, descended to earth. The motif linking the stars with the cycle of conflict occurs in many traditions including those of the Hebrews and Zoroastrians.

It is said that from the east and from the quarters of Hind or China (he will appear) and as appears from the religion, the sign at his birth will be the falling of the stars.

The Persian Rivayats of Hormazyar Framarz and others

The Muslims also naturally incorporated these ideas into their prophetic views of the latter days.

The Black Banners will come to you from the East, their hearts are like iron. Whosoever hears about them let them go crawling -- even over ice!

Hadith of Thawban

The predicted "Army coming from the East" is led by a man called Mansur. Generally the location of the "East" is obscure although it is indicated that he shall approach Mecca from the direction of Transoxania (Uzbekistan and parts of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan). Some modern fundamentalists believe that Osama bin Laden is none other than the Mansur who will lead his troops from Afghanistan in a great world battle. These armies carrying black banners come to the aid of al-Mahdi, the future messianic king.

In certain Hadiths, al-Mahdi and some of his companions are described as "Masters of the Dwellers of Paradise."

We are the children of Abd Al Muttalib, the Masters of the Dwellers of Paradise myself, Hamza, Ali, Jafar, Al Hasan, Al Hussain and Al Mahdi

Anas

Although the Muslim version appears to localize things more in Central Asia, we still have ideas similar to those in the Jewish and Christian traditions. For example, the water that seems to be at the same time fire, and the paradise that appears as hell, but in this case associated with al-Dajjal the Antichrist:

The anti-Christ will appear and with him will be both water and fire. That which people perceive to be water will be fire that burns and that which people perceive to be fire will be cool and sweet water. If any among you encounters him, you should jump into that which you perceive to be fire because it is sweet and palatable water.

Hadith of Ribi

I shall tell you something about the anti-Christ that no Prophet has told his people -- he is one-eyed and will have with him what appears to be Paradise and Hell. That which he calls Paradise will be Hell, and that which he calls Hell is Paradise.

Abu Hurayrah

Among the Ismailis, the Hidden Imam is stationed in the "Green Isle" where the Tree of Paradise and the Spring of Life are found. The Hidden Imam in this tradition returns as al-Mahdi. Paradise is viewed often as an archipelago of five linked islands although the location is obscure. In latter times, it was said to be in the "intermediate East" a location sometimes earthly, sometimes otherworldly of the pre-heavenly abode of the departed.

Muslim views of the apocalypse thus hold much in common with those found in the religions that preceded it in the region.

Ideas of a great end-times battle in various traditions are also found in prophecies which give some rather specific details including chronological dates. We will examine how these timings appear to correlate with the epoch of the ancient eruptions suggested here as initiating the great cycle of conflict.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala

The Dueling Dual Volcanoes

The following translation of a Kapampangan legend by Michael Panglinan will help us unravel the socio-political situation of the Nusantao that developed. I have added a few translations of notes.


"The history of the Kapampangan opened with the great war in heaven. They were siblings (I don't know if they are brothers or brothers and sisters...but they were siblings) Aldau (the Sun) and Bulan (the Moon) were fighting for control of the earth.

From the heavens they descended on the banks of the great river, from which they pulled out two bamboo poles each. In the ensuing battle, Aldau, the sun had struck the light out of one of Bulan's eyes and its brightness dimmed. Aldau was victorious and Bulan surrendered. Magnanimous, Aldau lifted his capatad up and divided his rule between himself and Bulan. He even let Bulan sit on the throne first. Thus Bulan ruled by bengi (night) and Aldau ruled by aldau (day).

They settled on the two sacred mountains of the great river bank plains. On earth, Aldau chose as his abode Alaya, the center, the navel of the world. Thus the words 'paralaya' meaning going towards Alaya, the home, the base, the navel, and 'padauba' which means to go away from the center, or to go down to the flatlands. Paralaya also came to mean east since it is the abode of the sun.

On earth, Aldau came to be called by man as Apung Sukû meaning antiquity or even summit or zenith. Bulan, on the one hand settled on the source of eight rivers, Pinatubu, from which man derived its food and livelihood as the rivers became not only a source of fish, but was also the watering hole of game and fowl.

Man favoured Bulan with the name Apung Mallari, to whom all things were possible. He was said to be more approachable than the distant Apung Sukû.

Apung Sukû, the Sun, had for his children: Munag Sumalâ (Dawn) who was betrothed to Manalastas (the rooster), Abac, Ugtu (known also as Lakandanup who devoured shadows at noon), and Gatpanapun (the prince who knows only pleasure).

Apung Mallari had two daughters. The most beautiful was Sisilim (sunset) who was devoted to her uncle Apung Sukû by welcoming him in the western skies with songs of the cicadas at sunset. The other daughter was Kapitangan.

All things went well with their reign over man on earth till the rains came. The rains did not stop. The eight Rivers of Pinatubu overflowed. Man's possesssion were washed away and the fowls, game and fish went to seek calmer waters or went deep into the mountains. Man hungered. Man despaired. Finally man called upon Apung Sukû for help.

Apung Sukû then sent his grandson Tala (the planet Venus), son of the red serpent Munag Sumalâ and the bird Manalastas, to be born as a man.

Deep in the forest of Mount Alaya, an old manalaksan (wood cutter) went to the pool of Sapang Tacûi to quench his thirst. There in the middle of the pool, a tucal flower blossomed. in the midst of it was a healthy baby crying. The old manalaksan took pity and took the child to his old wife mangkukuran (potter). There the child began to speak and walk. The couple bowed low to the ground and paid homage to the god child.

Soon the child grew up to become a strong bayani. Riding on his friend Damulag, the guardian against the storm, Tala descended the mountain chewing on a sugarcane. On the slopes of the mountain he fell in love with a woman called Mingan. Together they made love. As they did so, Tala took some of his seeds and placed them in Mingan's hand. "Plant them on the flooded ground," he said. Mingan was doubtful at first since nothing grew on the flooded soil save for lumut or algae.

Immediately after Mingan planted the sacred seeds, a curious green looking plant sprouted from the ground. These were the first palai, rice plants. Tala showed her how to cook nasi, from the unhusked seeds of the palai plant. Soon Mingan's tribe was able to conquer all the flooded plains and convert them to fertile rice fields. Tala went back to the sky.

Soon, man forgot about the goodness of Apung Mallari before the floods. They endlessly praised Apung Sukû for sending them his grandson Tala. In anger and jealousy, Apung Mallari threw a huge boulder to the perfect summit of Apung Sukû's abode, Bunduc Alaya. The earth trembled. But worse was Apung Sukû's anger at the insult. From that day on, Apung Mallari was cursed. He was to be called as Punsalang (the source of enmity, the enemy).

Apung Sukû took all the huge boulders of the great river bank plains and threw them all at Bunduk Pinatubu. Apung Mallari, now Punsalang, saw his abode crumble. Seeing her father lose miserably, Sisilim decided to stop her uncle the sun but she too was struck and she fell dead. Seeing this, Punsalang shouted in anguish and surrendered to his brother Apung Sukû. From then on, Apung Sukû was Apung Sinukuan (to whom everyone surrendered)."

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento