A place at the table for the spirits
I met a real-life babaylan. His name is Batara. He traces his Indigenous roots to the Mamanwa and Manobo communities of Mindanao. A babaylan, or “baylan,” is a healer, teacher, guardian, and spiritual guide—a mediator between the human and spiritual worlds.
Batara explains that a baylan serves his community by helping restore balance and keeping ancestral wisdom alive. He comes from a lineage of traditional healers and baylans. But the title is not simply inherited. Becoming a baylan is a calling that involves years of learning, initiation, and guidance from the abyan, or spirit guides.
Living together in harmony
I asked Batara about the relevance of the baylan today. Apart from being part of who he is, it is especially important to him that younger generations remember and rediscover their Indigenous roots. To remember who we were before colonization and to reconnect with our identity in the middle of our modern lives.
And as most of my conversations go, ours found its way to food. Just as we welcome guests with something to eat or drink, our ancestors made offerings to honor the spirits they believed shared their world. Batara explains that many of our ancestors practiced animism, the belief that everything has a spirit or essence of life.
And he means everything. Trees, rivers, mountains, forests. Even the houses we live in and the structures we build.
According to Batara, everything has a spiritual counterpart. A tree is not simply a tree. A river is more than flowing water. Even a house—with its doors, windows, and stairways—has a spiritual presence of its own.
I found this fascinating. We think of spirits as belonging to another world yet in Batara’s tradition, they are part of ours. The idea is not to worship them, he says, but to respect their presence and live in harmony with them.
In their tradition, the apohan spirits are ancestral spirits, our ninuno. The diwata are deities, while the tagbanwa are nature spirits. (The latter term should not be confused with the Tagbanwa people of Palawan). Then there are also the abyan, spirit guides of the baylan, and the busaw—powerful, untamed spirits that may sometimes be malevolent.
What particularly interested me was learning that even the different parts of our homes have spirits. The doors protect us, the windows are the eyes of the house, and the stairs connect its spaces. Batara says we can acknowledge them with a simple, heartfelt thank you for sheltering and watching over us.
Feeding the spirits
So if these spirits share our homes, how can we live harmoniously with them?
Batara compares making offerings to welcoming a guest into our home. For ancestral spirits, we may prepare food they enjoyed when they were alive. Other offerings may be as simple as cooked rice, a hard-boiled egg, native fruits, or a little rice wine.
I was amused when Batara explained that, whenever possible, we should offer the spirits food they already know. So, ideally, our offerings should be native to our land and familiar to our ancestors.
Place them on a small plate in a quiet corner of the house, or outdoors if you have a garden. Incense may accompany the offering. Batara introduces me to kamangyan, a fragrant tree resin used in Indigenous spiritual practices. Kamangyan lupa is used for prayers, blessings, and honoring the spirits, while kamangyan ginto is used for healing, cleansing, and repelling unwanted spiritual influences.
According to Batara, the smoke from kamangyan lupa allows spirits to receive the spiritual essence of the food, making it a fitting offering to the spirits and deities. He also suggests making offerings at dawn or dusk, when day meets night. Once a month is enough, and the food may be respectfully disposed of before it spoils.
And the simplest offering of all? A little rice wine!
Batara suggests offering the first small pour to the spirit of the house. Place it near the main door, by a window, or in a quiet corner. No elaborate ceremony. Just a little rice wine offered with gratitude and respect.
Cleansing the home
For those who wish to cleanse their homes, Batara uses kamangyan ginto—sometimes combined with salt and dried sambong or oregano. These are burned as incense with the intention of clearing unwanted spiritual influences and restoring harmony.
It is not about driving away every spirit, he explains, but asking anything disturbing the peace of the home to leave.
Batara distinguishes these simple practices from the sacred ceremonies of the baylan—preserved by Indigenous communities for generations. But Batara, too, has adapted to changing times. He shares his knowledge through workshops on Filipino spiritual traditions, including the making of oils and incense.
It is his way of keeping the traditions of our ancestors alive and relevant in today’s world.
I came away from our conversation with a deeper appreciation of our Indigenous traditions—and a lovely reminder that even in the spiritual world, food brings us together.
