The heroes most kids know today are the Avengers, plus Batman, Superman, the Hulk. They are almost completely unaware that there are traditional Filipino superheroes—the gods who created the earth and everything in it. The comics creators at least know enough of them to use them occasionally. Sometimes, foreign komikeros even steal characters from us.
The following columns will be devoted to reintroducing Philippine myths to young people. They are from ancient creation stories which I retold with Dr. Arsenio Manuel, also from earlier printed stories, in a book called “The Treasury of Stories.” The book’s rights are Anvil Publishing’s (1995). Copies are still available (call Jo of Anvil 6336206, or visit www.anvilpublishing.com) but the stories are everyone’s.
I feel it’s my duty to pass on what I can even if only as a sample of the pie.
‘THE GIANT CREATORS’ (Ilokos)
By Gilda Cordero-Fernando
Ang-ngalo and his wife Aran lived before the creation of the sky, the sea, the land and man. They were Beings with human form, formidable in proportions and they were the biggest giants in the legend. Ang-ngalo’s head reached the heavens and he could make the distance between Manila and Vigan (61 leagues) in one giant stride. The earth trembled when Ang-ngalo walked. And he could be heard throughout the world when he spoke and laughed.
In the beginning the earth was all plain stretch. With his two hands Ang-ngalo scooped out mounds of soil which became mountains, and the hills were the portions that oozed out from between his fingers. After having created an abyss, he then relieved his bladder, creating the seas and the rivers that ran from it.
Ang-ngalo then spat on his palm. From this came the first man and woman. The giant placed the pair in a piece of bamboo, sealed the ends and cast it into the sea. The tube was tossed on the waves to the Ilokos shore, and the man and the woman emerged from it to populate the earth.
Then Ang-ngalo pasted on a sun and a moon and arranged the stars.
Three daughters
Some legends say Ang-ngalo and Aran first lived across the China Sea. Others say they came from a land near the South Pole inhabited by giants. But all are agreed that they had three daughters, the goddesses of Salt, Rice and Gold who were of normal size. The loins of the lord of creation were girded with an enormous clout of loincloth, which his wife wove out of the rainbow (which is why the rainbow is referred to as bahag hari or clout of the king).
According to one story, the three daughters went swimming in the sea one day and almost drowned. Ang-ngalo heard their cries, took a giant stride to where they were floundering and dipped his enormous loincloth into the water. The sea dried up and the daughters were saved.
In one of their walks around the earth, Ang-ngalo and Aran came upon an immense treasure of pearl in the Sulu sea. They collected the pearls, filling their bags. When they were in what is now known as the Visayan Islands, they quarreled over theses pearls. It was a terrible quarrel over possessions that shook the bowels of the earth. The land broke up into many parts, some of which subsided into the sea. This accounts for the numerous islands in the Visayas.
Ang-ngalo’s footprint could level a mountainside and people often went to him for help when they had to flatten an area for planting. He could be asked to lend a finger or a leg when a bridge was needed to cross rivers or great bodies of water. And he often helped people catch animals for food. Indeed he was a very helpful giant.
Goddess of darkness
One clear morning, from the loftiest cave where he lived in the Ilokos mountains, Ang-ngalo spied, across the sea, a beautiful maiden, the goddess of darkness named Sipnget. She beckoned to him, waving her black handkerchief, and the giant waded across, his footprints on the bottom of the sea becoming the caverns of the ocean.
The beautiful maiden was tired of her dark place in the sky, she told Ang-ngalo. She wanted him to erect for her, on the spot where they stood, a mansion of bricks as white as snow.
Ang-ngalo acceded, but he could not find bricks as white as snow; the only white thing there was salt. He forthwith sought help from Asin, the ruler of the salt kingdom. Ang-ngalo then built hundreds of bamboo bridges across the ocean. Thousands of men were employed in transporting the white salt bricks from one side of the ocean to the other.
The work never ceased. The ocean could never sleep. It became irritable and impatient. In a burst of temper the ocean sent forth big waves to stop the endless toiling. The thousands of brick bearers and their burdens fell into the water and were buried in the ocean’s deep bosom. In time, the salt dissolved and that is why today the sea is salty.
One underground cave in Abra is said to be that of Aran. It is said to be connected by tunnel to another cave somewhere in Cagayan. Still another of Aran’s caves is in the barrio of Marnay, in Sinait, Ilokos Sur, called Balay ni Aran (House of Aran). This cave, according to some who have entered it, is as big as Manila Cathedral, although it has a very narrow opening.
Aran and her three daughters lived there whenever she was not in good terms with her husband. Aran’s cave is said to be inhabited by bats, snakes and evil spirits that guard Aran’s pearl treasure.