Status: The Sorcerers film

The second film, in the Shamans of Siquijor series, on the mamamarang (approximately sorcerers) of Siquijor is currently in the fundraising and post production phase. It is scheduled for release in late 2010.

Help wanted
The project is continually in need of volunteer translators, and proofreaders. This position is unpaid. Volunteers work on a flexible schedule, working at a minimum on one transcript of an hour of video interview footage. The translators help complete the Cebuano (Visayan) to English translation and transcription of the interviews. The proofreaders will proofread and correct these transcripts. Requirements:

* Fluency in both languages

* Extensive experience in speaking, reading, and writing in both the Cebuano and English languages
* MS Word user, intermediate to advanced
* High speed internet access

This would be a fascinating project for students of Philippine studies, people who would like to practice their written Visayan language skills, and/or anyone who would like to learn more about the indigenous culture.

Please click on "comments" to contact us if you are interested in volunteering your proofreading and translation services for the documentary project. Include your full name, email address, your proficiency at the requirements above, and why you are interested in the project. (This information will not be published.) Thank you!

Support the film project

Funds are still needed to complete the film series. (It is scheduled for completion in late 2010.) The film project runs on generous in-kind & monetary donations from various individuals & groups, volunteers, and educational grants from organizations such as Fulbright, Women in Film, and the UT Center for Asian American Studies.

Donations are tax-deductible through our non-profit fiscal sponsor Women and Their Work. Additionally, our sponsors and volunteers will be recognized in the movie credits.

To make a tax-deductible donation, please download the donation instructions & form.

Thank you for your support!

Screenings of The Healers

Selected screenings
University of San Francisco, Worlds in Collision course, March 28, 2007
University of California, Berkeley, "The spiritual and the visionary in art" graduate seminar, Dept. of Art Practice, Berkeley, California, Nov. 29, 2006
City College of San Francisco, Philippine Studies Dept., San Francisco, California, Oct. 31, 2006
Filipino American National Historical Society, National Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 30, 2006
Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, Sept. 19, 2005
Women in Film program, Angelika Film Center, Dallas, Texas, Sept. 13, 2005

Excerpts
"Emme's Island Moments (TV)," KHON2 Fox affiliate, Hawaii, Aug 24, 2006 9-10 pm and Aug. 27 4-5 pm
San Francisco Art Institute, Fulbright presentation, hosted by Carlos Villa, San Francisco, CA, May 1, 2006

Feedback

Thank you for your comments on this blog. Due to the volume of comments, we cannot personally respond to each one. We do encourage: discussion, sharing of stories, and readers to respond to each other's comments on this blog when possible.

Please post your thoughts on the "The Healers" film by clicking on "comments" here:

DVD release of The Healers

Preview trailer

* Click on play button. Video will play after 14 seconds of title card.

I'm pleased to say that the DVD of "Shamans of Siquijor: The Healers" (2004, documentary, 27 minutes) is now available through CreateSpace for national and international orders.

The film, the first of the Shamans of Siquijor series, profiles 3 healers on Siquijor island, Philippines who cure illnesses using herbs, incantations, a magical prayer wheel, & other means. The documentary serves as a short visual introduction and may be used as a companion piece to the in-depth scholarly work on the subject listed in the bibliography. Is folk healing still valuable for social & spiritual life or a dying relic of old traditions?


Order "The Healers" DVD home video
Order "The Healers" DVD for educational & institutional use

* Available for school screenings

Books & other resources

Bibliography

1. Aldecoa-Rodriguez, Caridad, ed. 2000. Negros Oriental and Siquijor Island: “Legends, Beliefs, and Folkways." Dumaguete: Silliman University.

On the healers and sorcerers of Siquijor:

1. Cortes, Julito. 1990. Illness and Healing: A Theologico-Anthropological Study, With a Case Study on Sorcery and Healing Practices in Siquijor, Pars Dissertationis ad Lauream in Facultate S. Theologiae apud Pontificiam Universitatem S. Thomae in Urbe. Unpublished thesis.*
   
2. Rolando F. Mascunana and Evelyn Mascunana. 2004. “The Folk healers - Sorcerers of Siquijor." Quezon City: Rex Book Store.
3. Ushijima, Iwao, & Cynthia Zayas, eds. 1996. “Visayan Life: Visayan Maritime Anthropological Studies.” Quezon City: University of the Philippines.
   Note: Includes article on healers by Prof. Kazutoshi Seki.*

On the healers and sorcerers of the Visayas region:

1. Francia, Luis. 2001. “Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago.” New York: Kaya Press.
   Note: Features a short travelogue on Siquijor.
2. Lieban, Richard. 1967. “Cebuano Sorcery: Malign Magic in the Philippines.” Berkeley: University of California Press. *
   Note: Well-written primer on sorcery & healing in the Visayas region, by a former head of the US NSF.
   

Related subjects

1. Dumont, Jean-Paul. 1992. “Visayan Vignettes: Ethnographic Traces of a Philippine Island.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
   Note: Anthropological writing about Siquijorian society
   
2. Huddleston, Peggy. 2002. "Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster." Cambridge: Angel River Press.*
3. Weil, Andrew. 2004. "Health and Healing: From herbal remedies to biotechnology, a survey of alternative healing in the search for optimum health." New York: Houghton Mifflin.*
   Note: Includes a chapter entitled "Shamanism, Mind Cures, and Faith Healing."
   

* recommended

Library
Cebuano Studies Center, Cebu City, Cebu.

Documentary films
1. Brillantes, R. 2004. “Shamans of Siquijor: The Healers.”
2. Brillantes, R. Work-in-progress. “Shamans of Siquijor: The Sorcerers.” (working title)

Thank you

Many thanks for the generosity of the people of Siquijor, friends, everyone who has supported, and continues to support the film project!

Major funding
R. Brillantes
Fulbright Fellowship
John Meyer
Dr. Teresita Bobila
Women in Film/Dallas Project Grant Fund

Grants
Bruton Fellowship
Center for Asian American Studies, Univ. of TX

In-kind Donors
Mireille Fornengo, Dr. Patsy Ontal & family, Jackie Miraflor, Shu-Chun Lee, Bobby Chu, Siquijor Dept. of Tourism, Freebirds of Austin, Texas, REI of Austin, Texas, Loreta Trinidad

Private donors
Lara Stapleton, Sara Stapleton, San Lorenzo de Ruiz CLC group of NJ, Jan & Ron Meyer

Filmmakers
R. Brillantes, Dir. & additional camera
Mireille Fornengo, DP & Camera
Heidi Bollock, Editor
Vanat Sermpol, Asst. Editor
John Meyer, Sound

* Complete credits are listed on the DVD. This is a partial list.

Journey to meet the shamans of Siquijor

I've returned to the US! Many people have asked me about what I've been doing for the past year. Basically, I left on a trip to search for and document the lives of shamanistic sorcerers on the island of Siquijor in the Philippines. The following text is from a lecture given at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, on September 19, 2005, for the Fulbright end-of-grant presentation. It is the story of my search.

* Talk to us! Enter your comments or questions below.
___________________________
The Shamans of Siquijor
by R. Brillantes


Healers film
My interest in making a film about shamanistic healers on Siquijor began while I was a graduate student at UT, when I had surgery. In preparation for surgery, I read books by authors such as Peggy Huddleston, a psychotherapist, who conducted research on the benefits of her pre-surgical program at Harvard Medical School; and Dr. Christiane Northrup, a Dartmouth-trained medical doctor with a holistic approach to medicine.

Moreover, I had been informed by many Filipinos about the island of Siquijor -- famous in the country for its healers as well as sorcerers. I made the subject of my thesis film about the mananambal, shamanistic folk healers, and sought to answer the question: how does shamanistic healing address the physical, spiritual and psychological needs of the patient?

In 2002-2003, I shot a documentary film about the healers. In Dec 2004, I worked from the Philippines, with my editor in the US to finish the film. At the same time, I was in Siquijor starting my Fulbright study.

Watch the movie trailer for Shamans of Siquijor: The Healers


Current project: A film on sorcerers
Despite my initial focus on healing, I became intrigued by what I heard and read about sorcery on Siquijor. My research sources told me that if one heals one also has the knowledge to practice sorcery. There are also sorcerers who do not heal -- they are only hired to kill or cause affliction through magical means.

I returned to the Philippines in 2004 to live on Siquijor for nine months and research the mamamarang (approximately sorcerers), with the support of a Fulbright grant. My objective for this new film was to show how the sorcerer understands his practice, in accordance with his role in the context of rituals and his own life in Siquijorian society. To do this, I intended to collect sorcerers’ oral histories and videotape their rituals, which are usually performed in secret. In preparation, I read books on sorcery, attended Cebuano language lessons, networked with scholars at universities around the Philippines, and revisited research informants from the previous film about folk healers.

Definition of a mamamarang
A mamamarang (approximately translated as sorcerer) is a person who is hired to cause affliction or death by magical means, drawing his power from outside of himself. Usually, the power comes from a supernatural sponsor: a saint, enchanted being, or spirit of the dead. The sorcerer is hired to kill or cause his client’s enemy to be sick. My sorcerer/informants report that they charge their clients 6,000 to 30,000 pesos (the average laborer on Siquijor island makes approximately P1000/ five day work week) for each case. Land disputes, adultery, and theft are the most common reasons people employ the services of sorcerers.

Sorcery rituals
When hired, the sorcerer performs rituals to inflict harm. There are many types of sorcery rituals. These rituals hybridize elements of animism and Catholicism, the predominant religion of the Philippines. The most well-known rituals are: 1) barang -- sorcery using insects to invade the bodies of intended victims and cause their stomachs to swell and explode; 2) paktol -- a ritual asking the spirit of the skull of the dead to kill. In other rituals, sorcerers go to an enchanted place such as a balete tree, a spring or a cave to ask the ingkantos or supernatural beings to help them with their magic.

The sorcerer’s rituals are secret and have rarely been filmed. No photographs exist in the major books on sorcery in the Visayas, though they have been described in books. Rituals can include the use of human skulls, poisons, and feces with the intention of killing the client’s enemy. Sorcerers are fearful of identification, retribution, and prosecution by the law. Sorcerers have been jailed, lynched and have had their homes burned to the ground.

The search begins
There are two main challenges I encountered during field research: 1) It took more time than anticipated to gain the trust of the sorcerers; and 2) research assistants hired by me have quit due to fear of the sorcerers' power. For months, I spoke with informants who led me to known sorcerers who refused to admit to me that they practiced sorcery because I was a stranger. I also had difficulties with retaining the first group of research assistants, who also acted as translators. In job interviews, the research assistants initially expressed that they were educated and not superstitious, did not believe in sorcery; and therefore would not mind assisting me with my interviews with sorcerers.

However, interviews with the sorcerers about their magic and many alleged successful assassination cases rekindled deep seeded memories in the minds of the assistants. They started to recall and recount to me stories about relatives or family friends who were affected by sorcery. The first group of assistants quit for fear of sorcery.

Moreover, after coming into contact with the sorcerers, many translators came to the realization that they do not want to help portray their island in a negative light. Many locals are embarrassed about telling outsiders they are from Siquijor because it has a reputation among Filipinos as being the island of mangkukulam or witches.

In one case, during an interview session, one of my research assistants was aggressive and tenacious with her interviewing methods. She pressed a healer/sorcerer couple, the Fuentes* from my previous film The Healers, to show us their sorcery rituals. These rituals include boiling the feces and urine of the intended victim. They became irritated with her and unwilling to cooperate. The Fuentes* responded angrily, “Why don’t we just sorcerize the two of you!” The translator became nervous. To protect us, she told them that we reported to “authorities in Manila,” implying that if we were harmed or missing, they would be blamed and punished. We made a quick exit and that translator never returned to work with me.

To maintain my working relationship with the couple and to appease them, I returned with a liaison and mutual friend, Chris.* Through her, I offered my apologies as well as gifts. The gifts, recommended by Chris, were food items including Milo instant chocolate drink mixes and Kulafu (from the makers of Vino Viagra), a wine mixed with Chinese herbs. These were the elderly couple’s favorite treats and dietary supplements. I explained to the offended couple that the views that upset them were not mine, but those of my translator. Later, I became friends with the couple and their family. In Visayan as well as Philippine culture, the liaison and the gift are necessary in facilitating relationships.

I needed to document sorcery rituals and was running out of time. I was afraid I would only succeed in obtaining interview footage, as other scholars did before me, during my limited grant period. At this point, in order to enter the world of the sorcerer and observe authentic rituals, I considered hiring a sorcerer with the pretense that I wanted to have an enemy killed. My enemy would be a fictitious person in the US. I was afraid I would collect inaccurate data if I simply asked them to re-enact a sorcery ritual without a real purpose.

Harvard ethnobotanist Dr. Wade Davis hired sorcerers during his quest for the zombie potion in Haiti, as reported in his book “The Serpent and the Rainbow.” My anthropologist/advisor Dr. Brian Stross added via email: anthropologist “Jean Johnson did that with Mazatecs in Mexico, with some success.” I planned to visit a few known sorcerers to negotiate a reasonable price for a sorcery package deal, to have my (fictitious, unbeknownst to them) enemy killed through sorcery. The deal would include: allowing me to film secret rituals, maintaining the anonymity of the sorcerer and allowing me interview him afterward. I never did put the plan into action as circumstances changed.

Gaining access to the world of the sorcerer
The liaison, go-between plays a crucial role in delicate negotiations in rural Visayan life, especially when the negotiations are between an outsider, such as myself, and a sorcerer. Additionally, a Silliman University (SU) anthropology professor, informed Dr. Pulido (president of SU) that I would never be able to film the secret rituals of the sorcerers. However, my fortune changed for the better when I asked for help from a go-between, Chris, a local politician.

Chris introduced me to a friend, a barangay captain (head of a village), from a mountain village. The captain introduced me to his childhood friend Nemo,* a sorcerer. Nemo was a farmer, sorcerer, and barangay tanod (or village peacekeeper). Most sorcerers on the island of Siquijor subsist as fishermen and farmers who have little power politically or socially; their power is in the supernatural realm.

After many months of difficulty, I was finally able to interview a sorcerer and film a sorcery ritual. This lead to other introductions to sorcerers. I became optimistic about the research. I hired assistants from Dumaguete, a major city on a neighboring island, who: 1) were not from Siquijor, 2) were not raised with the same cultural conditioning as natives of Siquijor, and 3) reported that they were not afraid of the sorcerers. In addition, I offered to buy the film crew amulets to protect them from harm.

Aside from using the cultural acceptable means of gift giving and networking through political connections to advance the study, I also found that sorcerers were cooperating with me because they perceived my film as a commercial to attract potential foreign clients. Each of the sorcerers said that they preferred clients from outside of the island. In this way, they preserve the peace within their villages by preventing retribution and conflict within their home villages.

Types of interviews & footage gathered
Extensive oral histories were collected mainly from four sorcerers. I spoke with each sorcerer about subjects including: his esoteric practices, apprenticeships, community perception of his practice, and his multiple role as farmer or fisherman, sorcerer, Christian, and sometimes village official. One of the most significant findings is that most of the sorcerers I interviewed see their role as an instrument of justice in Philippine society by helping to punish or eliminate criminals. Their interviews revealed that they viewed themselves as problem solvers.

I also conducted interviews with family members and young apprentices of sorcerers. Since I was unable to interview sorcery clients, I conducted on-street interviews with random Siquihodnons to gain a sense of cultural presuppositions or motives for why residents would resort to hiring a sorcerer, versus consulting with a lawyer, priest, therapist or other types of problem solvers.

To put the practice of the sorcerer in the context of his socio-economic environment, I filmed: major Siquijor town centers, landscapes from their villages, their daily activities, and religious activities during Easter Week. Most significantly, I was able to record rarely seen sorcery rituals, which took place in caves, a cemetery, and a church in a mountain village. In these rituals, called angyaw, a sorcerer goes to an enchanted place where he practices malign magic and communicates with a supernatural being who assists him.

[Show raw footage of short video clips: interview with sorcerer couple, and a sorcery ritual.]

Raw footage sample: A cave ritual



Over the next year, the footage will be compiled, translated and sorted to be made into an hour-long documentary about the sorcerers and their lives, featuring rarely seen sorcery rituals.

Epilogue
At the beginning of this Sept, my husband and I were ending our almost ten month stay at our hut in Siquijor. During that last week, I followed the sorcerer couple into a Church and then into a cemetery, where they performed attack rituals. That ended my longest stay in a rural area.

I’m currently experiencing culture shock being in Manila. Every morning at my hotel in Makati, I wake up to a view of the high rises. Now, I’m here at Ateneo and I’m happy to be here, alive and well.

Thank you to instructor Isabel Kenny and her class for hosting this screening and presentation. I’d also like to thank the following people, who are present here tonight:
- Dr. Cunanan, Executive Director of PAEF, the Philippine American Educational Foundation, the administrator of the Fulbright grant in the Philippines
- Ms. Tolentino of PAEF
- J Meyer, technical advisor & sound recordist on the film project

Thank you for coming.

_____________
* Names changed to protect identities

Talk to us! Enter your comments or questions below.

Research headquarters

Siquijor island, Philippines

Makati skyline, Metro Manila

Makati, the business district of the capital city area of the Philippines, a world away from rural Siquijor