User:Alternativity/sandbox/Anito (rewrite)

The term Anito is a religeous term that has had several meanings in Philippine Mythology and, historically, in the indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagalog people.

In its original pre-colonial usage, the Tagalogs used it as a term to describe their "act of worship." When Spanish missionaries first arrived on the Island of Luzon in the late 1500s, however, some (although not all) of them used the term to collectively describe the various spirits worshipped by the Tagalog people. They also used the term to specifically refer to various physical objects which were used part of the traditional Tagalog worship liturgies, although the Tagalogs had an indigenous term, "larauan", to describe these objects. Because the active practice of the indigenous Tagalog beliefs mostly ended when the majority of the Tagalogs converted to Roman Catholicism during the Spanish colonial era, the latter usage of the term (an object of worship) has become its dominant modern-language meaning.

Usage

Original Tagalog usage

Because of the limitations of language and of personal religious biases, Spanish chroniclers often recorded different interpretations of Tagalog words relating to worship. The word "anito" is one of these words which had differing interpreters.

Scott notes that missionaries eventually reinterpreted the word to mean "all idols", including the middle eastern gods mentioned in the bible, whenever they were included in their homilies. As a result, in modern times, the word "anito" has come to mean the various figurines or "idols" which represent Filipino deities. However, the Tagalog words for such representations was "larauan".

In his 1613 Dictionary Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala, Fray Pedro de San Buenaventura explains:

More appropriately would it be called an offering because "anito" does not signify any particular thing, such as an idol, but an offering and the prayer they would make to deceased friends and relatives... [or] an offering made to anything they finished, like a boat, house, fishnet, etc., and it was mats, cooked foodk, gold, and other things.

The unnamed author of the anonymous 1572 "Relación de la conquista de la isla de Luzón" (translated in Volume 3 of Blair and Robertson), while noted to be particularly hispanocentric and anti-nativist in his views, nevertheless provides a detailed description of the Tagalogs' pag-aanito, which bears many apparent similarities to surviving indigenous practices:

"When any chief is ill, he invites his kindred and orders a great meal to be prepared, consisting of fish, meat, and wine. When the guests are all assembled and the feast set forth in a few plates on the ground inside the house, they seat themselves also on the ground to eat. In the midst of the feast (called manganito or baylán in their tongue), they put the idol called Batala and certain aged women who are considered as priestesses, and some aged Indians—neither more nor less. They offer the idol some of the food which they are eating, and call upon him in their tongue, praying to him for the health of the sick man for whom the feast is held. The natives of these islands have no altars nor temples whatever. This manganito, or drunken revel, to give it a better name, usually lasts seven or eight days; and when it is finished they take the idols and put them in the corners of the house, and keep them there without showing them any reverence."

Used as a different word for "Larauan"

According to Gilda Cordero Fernando, when the Spanish missionaries started preaching Roman Catholicism in the Philippines, they started to use the word "Anito" to describe the various images which were used part of the traditional Tagalog liturgies. This has become a modern definition of the word, although the original word for these was actually "Larauan."