Death by nightmare
One of the memorable documents I came across in the Biblioteca de Agustinos Filipinos in Valladolid, Spain, decades ago, was a 17th-century report on single, unmarried men dying in unusual numbers in Manila. I was intrigued. Was this the earliest recorded instance of bangungot?
Reading on, the document turned out to be a dud. It was about a cofradia, or religious brotherhood, that was becoming very rich from the accumulated wealth and property willed to it by generous bachelors. It seems disgruntled relatives brought the cofradia to court to force their rightful or compulsory share of the inheritance, especially since part of the estate had been transmitted to Mexico or Spain. This document reminded me of ”Creatures of Midnight” (1967) by the folklorist Maximo D. Ramos. I bought it in Baguio from the Ato Bookshop, located in a hidden basement along Session Road.
I remember ”Creatures of Midnight” with fondness, and not just for the manananggal in flight over a full moon on the cover. It was a profusely illustrated children’s guide to the classification of various types of aswang used by yayas to scare children into obedience. From it, I learned to distinguish the aswang, duende, tiyanak, tikbalang, mangkukulam, manananggal, mambabarang, and “were-dog” or “were-pig” that inhabit what Ramos, in his more academic works, called “lower Philippine mythology.” My kiddie edition was dog-eared from the step-by-step instructions on how to deal with each aswang using items readily found in the kitchen cupboard: salt, garlic, and pepper. Other pang-contra like a customized whip made from buntot-pagi (stingray tail) were harder to come by.
One of the creatures that frightened me at night was the bangungot, described as a big, fat man (or a witch called batibat in Ilocano) who sat on your chest while you slept. You wake up, struggle, moan, and are found dead in the morning. Bangungot, the Filipino word for “nightmare,” comes from the root words bangon (to rise from sleep) and ungol (to moan). To escape this creature, one must, upon waking, move extremities like their toes to wake up fully from the bad dream. To avoid bangungot, we were told not to go to sleep right after a heavy meal. Someone also said to go slow on patis because, in the 1950s, there were much-publicized mystery deaths in Hawaii of young Filipino males and a handful of other Southeast Asians who also used fish sauce as seasoning.
A Google search generated current medical literature that gives other names for bangungot: SUDS (sudden unexplained death in sleep), SUNDS (sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome), acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis, and Brugada Syndrome. My eyes glazed over the scientific text, but in the footnotes, a pioneering study by Paz Mendoza Guazon is cited: “Algunas notas sobre Bangungut” (Notes on Bangungot), a lecture read on Oct. 15, 1917, at the Colegio Médico-Farmacéutico de Filipinas and published later in the Revista Filipina de Medicina y Farmacia (Vol. VIII, No. 11, November 1917). Her case studies trace the long history of Philippine medical forensics from Paz Mendoza Guazon to Raquel Fortun.
“Case Number 1. A. B., Filipino, 25 years old, single, lawyer from the town of Pandacan, well-developed body. He did not smoke nor drink wine and was fond of walking. On the night of his death, he went to bed fully dressed because he wanted to wake up early to catch the train. At midnight, his guttural sounds (ungol) woke up the other family members. They tried to wake him, raise him, and give him water. They said he seemed to want to speak and answer their questions, but within a few minutes, he was dead. Dr. P. Guazon, who examined him, noted that the corpse became rigid very quickly, the face turned bluish, blood issued from the ears and nose, and his mouth filled with foam.
“Case 2. X., Filipino, from the same town, married, approximately 30 years old, also suffered an attack at around ten o’clock at night. The other residents of the house, who had not yet fallen asleep, managed to wake him up. Upon waking, he was surprised to see Dr. Guazon and to have been so close to the doors of death. He asked for a little basag-basag (rice gruel), and after eating, asked the others to sleep while he quietly fell asleep. At four o’clock the following morning, he had the same attack and died.”
The third victim was described as a mechanic who was “quite corpulent.” He appeared to be sleeping but was found dead. The cause of death was cardiac dilation. His stomach contained undigested morisqueta (rice), and his heart showed fatty degeneration.
The cause of death for the fourth case was “undetermined.” The 31-year-old, well-developed, muscular male weighed 59.05 kilograms and stood 162 centimeters tall. Undigested rice was also found in his stomach. The body was still warm when examined. Histological examination showed fatty degeneration of the myocardium, etc. Perhaps artificial intelligence can help me understand the medical jargon, but the text made me appreciate how a pioneering Filipina doctor searched for a scientific explanation for bangungot, which was then rooted in the realm of fear and superstition.
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Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net
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