Rizal’s Halloween special
When people ask why I never tire of reading, researching, or writing about José Rizal, my answer is simple: he left us with 25 volumes of writings! While he is most often cited for his commentary on the colonial condition, reform, revolution, politics, history, or literature, there is a lot more in his works waiting to be discovered. One can even find enough material in his writings for a Halloween column.
In his student memoirs, “Memorias de un estudiante de Manila,” Rizal recalls his yaya telling him bedtime stories—some of which were surely about ghosts, aswang, and other things that go bump in the night. Later in life, Rizal even amplified a tale of teleportation in his annotated edition of Antonio de Morga’s “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas” (1609). Morga had noted how fast the news of Governor General Gómez Pérez Dasmariñas’ assassination reached Mexico from the Philippines, despite the slow passage of the galleons. In a footnote published in 1890, Rizal added: “Remember the story of the soldier transported by witches to the public square of Mexico City. Morga says that it could not be determined where the news had come from.”
The “story” Rizal refers to concerns a soldier named Gil Pérez, who was allegedly “transported” from Intramuros, Manila, to Mexico City on Oct. 25, 1593. Found walking in a daze in the city center wearing his Manila-issued military uniform, he claimed under questioning that Governor Dasmariñas had been killed by mutinous Chinese rowers during a military expedition. Since no such news had reached Mexico, Pérez was thrown into prison as a madman. He was only released when a galleon from Manila finally arrived, confirming the tragic news he had brought months earlier. Unsurprisingly, this anecdote has long been cited in supernatural literature as the first recorded case of teleportation.
More substantial than that stray footnote in Morga is a study on witchcraft Rizal conducted while in exile in Dapitan. The original manuscript, preserved in the National Library of the Philippines, is catalogued under its Spanish title: “La curacion de los hechizados: Apuntes hechos para el estudio de la medicina Filipina. Escritos expresamente para el Ylmo. Sr. D. Benito Francia, Inspector General, Jefe de Administracion de 2a clase y Superior Honorario” (“The Cure/Treatment of the Bewitched: Notes made for the study of Philippine medicine. Written expressly for the Most Illustrious Señor Don Benito Francia, Inspector General, Chief of Administration of the Second Class and Honorary Superior”).
It is a short six-page manuscript accompanied by four framed illustrations: the first showing a pregnant woman attended by a child acting as a midwife; the second depicting a girl infected with lice scratching her head; the third showing a seated woman pointing at a bald man shouting, “Aa aa! Puga, Puga Ca!”; and the fourth showing a woman doubled up in pain, exclaiming, “Jesus! Aco’y nanlalata. Cung ano po ang naroroon sa loob, asuang yata.” (Jesus! I’m spent. Whatever is inside, it seems like an aswang.)
In the manuscript, Rizal discusses the mangkukulam and the manggagaway, as well as the methods they supposedly use to inflict illness. He then includes this compelling piece of folklore that can be ethnographic:
“In one town of Luzon, called B[iñan?] in the Province of Laguna, they tell the story of a woman who quarreled with a manggagaway over a bag of rice and two mangoes. The following day, the woman fell ill with severe abdominal pain, developing a tumor that resembled the bag of rice and the two mangoes in question.
“The locals immediately seized the manggagaway and tried to compel her to cure the sick woman. However, the woman died within a week amid atrocious pain. The manggagaway, who barely escaped the wrath of the victim’s relatives, was sentenced by the gobernadorcillo to 50 lashes daily. But on the second day of her sentence, she was found hanging from the jail’s window grille by a rope she had made from the lining of her skirt. To die, the unhappy woman had to draw herself up and bend her legs significantly, as the grille was low. The devout remarked, ‘The Devil helped her commit suicide.’”
Rizal, ever the rationalist, was not easily swayed by these tales and sought to investigate further. He noted that the manggagaway was believed to work in two ways: “by producing a fixed organic lesion, and a general condition with psychological disturbances.” While an effigy or doll was typically used—pierced with pins in the areas where pain was targeted—Rizal dismissed Latin incantations and traditional exorcism formulas, suggesting instead that any perceived cures were driven by autosuggestion.
What makes Rizal’s study even more intriguing is that he mentions another, as-yet-unlocated manuscript dedicated to the treatment of mali-mali (or sakit-latar to Malays). Rizal is an endless source for columns, even for Halloween.
—————-
Comments are welcome at [email protected]
Children learn what they live