Essay About Animism In The Philippines

As the only majority Christian country in Asia, Filipino Roman Catholics today makes up approximately 80 percent of the population. The Spaniards who came to colonize the islands during the 16th century brought Catholicism to the Philippines. (]OCANO) Like many other Southeast Asian communities, most of the Philippines communities practiced animism in pre-colonial times. British anthropologist, Edward Burnett Tylor (1974), said in his book Primitive culture, that such a belief system is a natural development that dates back to prehistoric times. Tylor argues that primitive people experienced in visions, dreams, and hallucination the presence of dead relatives, which made them infer that lifeless bodies were inhabited by souls or anima (Gripaldo). Ultimately, they held the view that non-human entities such as animals, plants, and inanimate objects or phenomena possess a spiritual essence. Therefore, in the process of dissemination of the catholic teachings, the missionaries had to accommodate some of the animistic practices of the natives. At the same time, there was a lack of religious education among the majority of the faithful. All these factors contributed to the

One of the most prominent folk practices in Philippines would be the practice of self-flagellation and crucifixion during Holy Week.

Self-flagellation, an old roman practice consisting whipping one’s self, while wearing crowns of thorns, and often blind-folded, becomes increasingly visible in the streets as the week progresses. This is most prominent in the province around the city of San Fernando. Often they will whip their backs for hours as they parade through the streets to the point of raw, bloody flesh being exposed across their backs.