[5] There is a species of tree called baticulin, which is the Litsea obtusata of Villar, and the Olax baticulin of Blanco, belonging to the family Laurineæ. It is extensively used for cabinet making and carving, and is not readily attacked by the white ant. Blanco (pp. 351, 352) describes a wood Millingtonia quadripinnata, which he also calls baticulin, and which is easily worked and extensively used for carving. It is called Ansohan in the Visayas Islands. The latter is probably the wood meant in the text. See Blanco, and Important Philippine Woods, pp. 31–33.
Present beliefs and superstitions in Luzon
[The following we translate from the supplement to the Manila newspaper El Renacimiento, of the date of December 9, 1905, which was called to our attention by James A. LeRoy. It is deserving of a place in this series, as showing what is actually believed at the present time among some of the ignorant Filipinos.]
The mangkukulam
Here, as in Europe, and in almost all parts, the people believe in witches.
The mangkukulam[1] is the male or female witch of Filipinas. To that one is attributed a certain power of witchcraft by the common people which makes him full of terror to many. He has the custom of not looking straight at his interlocutors, I do not know whether it is because he fears the open or searching glance of them or not. He always keeps his eyes lowered, and whenever it is necessary to direct his gaze toward the person with whom he is talking, he does it on all occasions by glancing up sideways, and he has never dared to meet directly the gaze of the others.
It is a general belief that the mangkukulam is almost omnipotent in matters pertaining to doing evil to his neighbor. By the mere wish alone, he can produce sickness in any person who has secured his ill-will. In general, the sicknesses that he usually deals out are most intense headaches, or aches in other parts of the body, boils or internal tumors, swellings on the head or in any other place, such ailments being all inexplicable to the immense majority of the crowd, of the ignorant masses, who do not give credit, understand, or have faith in the power, capacity, or secrets of science.
He who gains the ill-will or enmity of these witches of Filipinas, can rest assured that if he goes out for a walk in the street, when he is about to re-enter his house he will perceive himself to be stricken with some sort of ailment, through the means and influence of the angered mangkukulam, who has already taken it upon himself to make him a present of the illness which suits him best—pains in the stomach, swellings in any part of the body, swellings on the head, deformity in the genital parts, etc., etc.