Appendix D.
Anting-antings constitute the remnants of what was once, what might be called the religion of the peoples of the Philippines. They are most commonly met with in the form of amulets which their possessors carry about with them to ward off dangers of all kinds. There are amulets for protection against fire arms, against sword thrust or bolo slash; against diseases of all parts of the body; amulets against the bursting of fire arms or to prevent them making a noise when discharged by the wearer of the amulet; against snakes and their bites, against lightning; amulets to protect their wearers against the courts of justice and against the authorities when they pursue them for robbery. In a word amulets or anting-anting against everything.
As a rules these amulets consist of small booklets containing prayers composed of Latin and Spanish words mixed with words and abbreviations of the native dialects. Some times they are stones or mineral deposits found in the bodies of animals, or the seed portion of petrified fruits, or even parts of the skeletons of children.
Although one would suppose that such superstitions had long since ceased to exist among the indians of the archipelago such is not the case; and it is more than probable that the majority of the members of the federal party and may be two out of the three native members of the Commission carry their anting-anting carefully guarded in one of their pockets. However their use is most common among native doctors, that is those who have not studied medicine, but who dabble in the art for what they can get out of it, and by tulisanes or armed robbers. They were also much in vogue among the enlightened officers and men of the insurgent ranks, many of whom considered themselves perfectly safe from the bullets of their enemies when they carried in their person an amulet or anting-anting.
The following are samples of pages of one of the booklets found on the person of a wounded tulisan. The first of these two pages contains a prayer against fire-arms, and the second a conglomeration which no one has never been able to decipher.
|
talis misererenobis Amin. Oracion de S. Pablo contra armas de foigo ip. Ntro. y Av. Jesús S. Pablo Ponitom quiter Deus Salucam tuam, Amin. | Prele queno niar en res tom Domi nom nos tom h ✠ a ✠ ✠ ✠ Q ✠ n | |
| h | ✠ | a |
| ✠ | ✠ | ✠ |
| Q | ✠ | n |
Anting-anting is also found in other forms, sometimes merely a strip of paper bearing some inscription, and which receives its virtue from some action performed over it, such as the saying of the mass whilst the paper is on the altar.
A parish priest of a pueblo in a neighboring province once related to me the discovery of one such an anting-anting in his church. He approached the altar to recite the Mass, and upon genuflecting at the centre of the altar noticed that there was something unusual, although small, under the altar cloth. He put his hand under the cloth to see what it was and found there a slip of paper bearing three crosses, thus: