Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 129 - Filipino Folklore and Legends

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

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No one helps more homeowners than Any Hour Services. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Celluminati Podcast Episode 129. As always, I am one of your hosts, Mike Martin, joined by my two co-hosts from the West, the Mangu Cakalam and the Mamba Bering. What the hell did you just say? I want to just let everyone know at home that I don't know what he's talking about and refuse to associate with that nickname. There's a couple people out there who know what I'm referencing right now because we're

pretty popular over in the Philippines, everybody. Is this true? Yeah, we are actually. We have a huge Filipino audience. Is this real? I'll let you know here in a second. But before we do, there's only one place we're more popular, I think. I would say that in this place, we are 100% popular.

I'm going to go Google search something while you do this. And what you can do is you can type into Google, patreon.com slash CelluminatiPod to take you to the very place that I'm talking about where not only can you support this show, keeping us going every week like we have been now for 15 years straight, but also. But also not only do you get that, you get a name on Discord in a special color. You get episodes with no ads at all besides this one and you get bonus content. You get many so you get a monthly art poster and you get freaking merch. The best merch like our merch is so goddamn good.

All the art is very good. The posters, the shirts, metal has it on lock. Like it looks great and you're missing out on that right now because you're not at patreon.com slash CelluminatiPod. And if you are mad that I do this, maybe you've never had something of your own in your life to take care of. You know? Maybe you never had your own.

What? Wow. What? Because I care about this. Not you out there listening to this to just think about it. You know? If you got it. Yeah.

Smoke them if you got them. That's what I'm saying. I agree. You got 20 bucks sitting around. Maybe instead of buying that extra Chipotle burrito for later, slide it on over to the CelluminatiPod, baby. They go great with Chipotle. Oh my God.

I want a burrito. I know. I've been thinking about it all day. I haven't eaten or drank in anything this entire day. I don't know why. I don't know. I realized it. Like as I was talking to Mathis earlier, I'm lean.

I'm hungry. I'm mean. I want you to support me on Patreon. You're primed for this episode. Am I? I don't know. Actually, there's not a lot of food involved. Honestly.

There's a lot of more coffees today. Is that good? That's good. I think you know, that's good if you're like 23. I don't know if five coffees by itself is good at our edge anymore. I drink four coffees right now. I'm crazy. Yeah.

I'm drinking a ninth most popular podcast in the Philippines, by the way. Is that what you said? In the Philippines. More than ninth most popular in the Philippines? Yeah. Yeah. We're number two Croatia. Are we going to have to do it?

What does that mean, general population wise? Did you say that we're number two in Croatia? We're just number we're number nine in the in our in the comedy category over in the Philippines for our specific category. So which is comedy. Right. Yeah, we're very funny. Uh-huh.

In Croatia, we're number two and I'll give you one more message to the Croatians out there. Is this is this out of what is what services this though? Apple podcast specifically. Really? These are the podcast charts. The inventors of the podcast. Right.

The inventors of the podcast. Exactly. Daddy's Pods. Nice. All right. And then I'll give you these. I'll give you two. We're number four in Bulgaria and a number four in Belize.

Are we going to have to do like a world tour? Yeah. We're going to have to do a world tour. I guess. Sounds like, oh, that sounds terrible. I think we might have to go. If you had to patreon.com slash tulumani pod, you can charter a private jet for us to fly to your country.

Yeah, we got we got we're number 52 in Nigeria and we go out there if someone charters us a private jet. I 100% believe that jet is taking us to go be hunted for sport way that we can make content out of that. I'm game. I'm game. That would be a story, man. Welcome to my island, gentlemen.

If we made it out, I don't think I'd have another problem in my life. I think I'd be the number nine most famous person in America at that point. Yeah, we're I will say we're number 16 in the US in our category, so that's not too bad. That's not too bad. More popular in Great Britain, though. Anyway, shout outs to the homies. Yeah.

Shout outs to the homies. Boys, it's a it's a fun episode today. We haven't done one of these in a little while. A fun one. A fun one. Yeah. A lighthearted fun episode. No, no, no.

This is another kind of grab bag cryptid episode. I got a couple of them, but they all come from the Philippines. I got kind of tossed this idea because there was some conversation on our discord about it about people who some of our fans are live over there. And it reminded me of, do you remember Never Ending Nightmares? The game from 2014, that 2D black and white never ending story. No, great movie, though. But no, Never Ending Nightmares, look it up.

It might look familiar to you. But he was making a sequel that was called Devastating or Devastated Dreams, which was based on some Filipino cryptid stuff. And that creeped me the hell out. And I was like, you know what? We should dive into the Philippines a little bit and see what they've got. And they've got a lot. So I only grabbed three, but we can always go back and do more in the in some

point in the future. But tell me if that game looks familiar, because I played that game all the way through and I really loved it. Never Ending Nightmares was a good time. Do you guys know much about the Filipino lore out there? No, I can't say that I can't say that I'm well read on it, but I'm willing to learn. All right. Well, let's start then.

Nice and all right. Right at the very top with the Mankukulam, which is the first. Yeah, that's one of the two of you. That's one of the first thing. These are pretty straightforward. The Bruja, the witches of the Filipino island, the Filipino islands. Filipino witches are the users of black magic and related practices over in the Philippines, which obviously include a variety of different kinds

of people with differing occupations and color cultural connotations depends on the ethnic group that these particular people are associated with and the title that they end up getting. But they all fall under the umbrella term Mankukulam and which is associated with witches. They are completely different from the Western notion of what a witch is normally known as, as each ethnic group has their own definition, like I said, in practices attributed to the witches. The curses, the other magics of witches are often blocked, countered, cured, or lifted by Filipino shamans associated with the indigenous Philippine folk regions.

Filipino witches practice a kind of black magic, specifically malevolent. They are always out to do terrible things to you. Specifically malevolent. Malevolent. I'm here to educate. I'm not here to flower. We're educating you here. They use a malevolent use of sympathetic magic,

which is associated with the indigenous Philippine regions. Witchcraft has been present throughout the Philippines before the Spanish colonization, and today it is said to be centered in Pampanga, Pelalora, Western Samar, and Sorsagon, where many of the country's faith healers reside. And for those listeners out in the Philippines, if I butchered any of those, I apologize. I'm doing my best. I'm confident that you did, but it comes from a place of love.

There's positive intent behind it all, I promise. Witchcraft also exists in many of the hinterlands, especially in Samar and Light, where witchcraft is known and occurs anywhere inside the Philippines. Filipino witches are believed to have powers that cause harm to other people covertly. Healer sorcerers who practice this kind of sorcery usually justify it as a form of criminal punishment. So what end up happening is people will come to them with a problem or a punishment for maybe being stolen from or some other kind of infamilial argument.

And they will, like most do, place curses over them for like physical harm or poor well-being or loss of their of their monetary assets, etc. As a widespread belief is that Black magic does not work on people who are innocent. So they work as a punishment only from these healer sorcerers. Their targets are usually wrongdoers like thieves, adulterous spouses, or land grabbers. As land, owning land is a huge part of having any sort of like power or wealth in in the Philippines. There are also quote unquote true sorcerers who are said to have hereditary sorcerers powers. Unlike healers, they do not consider the justice of their actions.

The latter type of sorcerers are often conflated with the evil supernatural beings capable of appearing human like Asuang, which we'll talk about later, and Mananangala, which we will not be talking about later specifically because we'd be diving into bigger holes. What does that mean? It just leads deeper and deeper into other other cryptids that are kind of tied to it. The Mangalala is another creature we can come back to another day. Okay, all right. One of the most common kinds of Black magic with their malevolent use is the, like I said,

the ones that cause specifically physical harm. Ideally free or not ideally, but for some of the more extreme witches that does include death, trying to kill somebody like the biggest edge lords. The edgiest of edge lords, which is extreme witchery, which is that murder. Despite the differences in the terminology that's used for the witches, the methods are almost identical across the Philippine islands. This type of sorcery uses beetles, effigies, puppets, a boiling pot, or some other type of representation of the target victim.

These are usually linked by including bodily exuviae like hair or nail clippings. You're looking at like your typical kind of, almost voodoo-esque. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Like I'm no expert in any of this. So forgive my like completely... And I'm only as expert as the internet has made me over the past week. Yeah, forgive my completely ignorant like base level analysis of this, but there is seems to be some sort of global sort of, I don't know, meme.

I don't know what you would call it. Like some sort of meme of the spiritual arts that is like has to do with like taking like like bugs and representations of the like dead animals and mixing them with in the ceremony some type of representation of a person that you want to do something to and then doing that. And I don't know if that's just something that comes from our own brains or like, you know, you're right because like further as we go further here, there's also the way that they perform these particular spells,

whether it be chance or symbols or what have you. There's also parts of Christianity and Muslim rituals that have been kind of blended in to this magic. Yeah, it's like a mixtape kind of. Yeah, very much so. And that's that's very true still with this. You're looking at partially voodoo, some Christian and Muslim looking like rituals. On top of the original kind of witchcraft practice from the indigenous people prior

to Spain's colonization of the Philippines. It's Smith's. We know the minute a tomato is picked, the fresh timer starts. The sooner we get our produce to you, the fresher it is. That's why we've shortened the time from harvest to home for our tasty tomatoes, strawberries and salads. So no matter how you shop, you have more time with your fresh produce. Smith's fresh for everyone.

Choose from a great selection of digital coupons and use them up to five times in one transaction. Check our app for details. Smith's fresh for everyone. The sorcerer then with the with these chants and whatnot, then either harms the effigy to cause corresponding harm to the victim. Again, very similar to what we now what we know as like the layman's voodoo or physically sends objects into the victim's body.

Which can range from insects, stones and pins. Whatever. Yeah, it's a huge problem. I wish they could like, I wonder if you could shove like a nog into one and like get stoned instead of like harm. What if you did all of this and then you're like, that's a different way. That's a different way. I mean, why not just smoke the nog?

The Boston Bean Bruja. I mean, it would be it would be funny to be like at my house and I'm like watching someone on TV and I like smoke them out from my little. Like voodoo type little witchcraft zone. That would be Jesse's live streaming. You got your little Jesse doll when you just start smoking. Feed the doll edibles and Jesse just starts watching him live on camera, melting away. Further, in some other instances, the ingredients of the rituals themselves

determine the effects that happen upon the victim. For example, adding seawater to a boiling pot linked to a victim is said to cause the victim's belly to swell in and ache in time with the tides. So as the tides rise, your stomach swells and you have a massive stomach ache. And as the tide recedes, it all goes away. Maybe maybe I'm maybe that's what happened to me. Maybe that's why you are definitely that's the problem. Because I'll be I'll be, you know, I'll be doing my thing during the day.

And then the tides will go and I, you know, it'll be right after I had, you know, like a nice just, you know, a harmless double cheeseburger with bacon and eggs. And all of a sudden, my belly starts to hurt. I don't know why. Maybe it is the bean boy. Maybe it is, dude. Yeah, you got to you got to hang on. I'm going to pronounce this. A monkey coulomb is is cursed you. Is on my ass. Yeah, that is brutal.

Just up your asshole. There's other things too. With this is but the early or sorry, I jumped ahead there. The earliest documented practice that we have on paper is from the 17th century by Francisco Combs. That's the earliest we have this written down of seeing these practices. Does it have a name? This like belief system or whatever? Again, it's there's a it goes under a bunch of different names.

It's just the umbrella term of like which sort of like ingrained. Yeah, because you have like it's like a bunch of like in D&D terms, I guess like a bunch of subclasses all underneath like this one main class. And they all practice slightly different. You got your blood sorcerers, your sorcerer healers. This is the craziest way of describing it, but it makes sense. Yes. I'm with you. My brain goes unfortunately. This is like I mean, if you're a culture that's depending on this for like your communion with

like otherworldly forces, you know, like I go to when I was young, I went to church. You know what I mean? I bet you there's lots of different ways to use this magic. You know, like that aren't just like getting people stoned from your home while they're on Twitch, you know what I mean? Which honestly, if you guys practice any practices out there, feel free to do that to me, but only the weed part. Like feel free to try and get me stoned from a distance because it plus saved me a lot of money.

That's a slippery slope, man. It's a slippery slope. I'm opening doors, you know, at every sin that invitation. Somebody's going to get you hooked on meth from like their house. Like they're going to get you. But I won't know it's meth, so I'm just going to be going through withdrawals because I'm just like having meth symptoms and I'm very confused the whole time. I feel like I completely understand this.

Yeah, you've got it so far. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, some of these purportedly sorcerous powers may be explained by the use of poisons, but before we get to that, there are other malevolent powers that are much more direct. These include the ability, as I said earlier, to kill another person instantly with a magic spell. The ability to cast curses or the evil eye, which I don't know if you remember from the live show, but my family supposedly has the evil eye curse on us.

We've had it. You said that. I'm not sure what that means exactly. For you or for us. So the evil eye curse, the best I understand it is like misfortune follows your family forever. And like you can kind of undo it or you can wear like a pendant that'll ward it away. It's supposed to be like an open palm. I think the thing with the eye in the middle of the palm is that I think that's it.

Yes. Really? What that's about? Wait, so is that the same? Are you sure? Like, are we talking about the evil eye curse? Again, like a lot of other things transcends just the Philippines. It ekes its way out.

There's other things that are and I think it's just kind of a general. I curse bad fortune upon you. You know what should transcend the Philippines and ekes way over to me? Some of what is that called? Lumpia? Lumpia. You want some Lumpia? Oh my God.

Send me. There's a place up the street from the office that I'll get. I'll give you a tray of a hundred of them for not that much money. Keep those things in the fridge. It's like, oh, baby. That's all I'm saying. People couldn't see me, but I was eating them while saying ooh, baby. I've seen you do it in real life, too.

I know I like. If I like stuff, I'm like, oh, baby. Yeah, this is one this. This is one area of like culture that I wish I was so much more knowledgeable about is like these sort of like amalgamated sort of witchcrafty religions that kind of go around the world. Like it was so interesting talking to Erdorf about his time when he was doing missionary work. I think in Argentina, right? Can you believe that that was like in our teens when I was 15 years old?

No, Erdorf's episode was in the teens. When I was 15, huh? Back then, back at the beginning when we started the show and I was 15. Yeah, when we started all that time ago. After we found that dead body on the by the railroad tracks. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah.

And Keeper Sutherland hunted me down. He's lost me. I don't know what's happening anymore. I keep forgetting you have no reference for any of these jokes. It's okay. Don't worry about it. What movie are we referencing? Stand by Me, The Body by Stephen King.

Don't worry about it. I've never seen. It's just an enduring classic. Don't worry about it. That's where the evil eye cursed it to me and stopped me from seeing good moves. Have you seen The Princess Bride? Yes, I have seen The Princess Bride. Okay, all right.

Well, you got me there. Yeah, I don't know. The evil eye didn't get you that bad, I guess. No, I didn't get me that. That's true. True. Other than the evil eye, some of the more extreme curses are the ability to abduct a person's soul and the ability to send evil spirits or animal familiars to go possess,

annoy or harm the victim. Animal familiars. Yeah, like cats or we're talking about like, you know, like, like, yeah, I don't know. Like an M bison blue whale. Can you have M bison? Yeah, that would be so good. No, a blue whale would be impressive. That would be it.

I don't know if it's possible. Do they have to be present to make me or familiar? Do we know? Yeah, I would imagine that the way you have to have the animal present with you, you'd have to have the blue whale on hand to send it off. I got my I got my animal familiar by giving him treats for being a good boy for 10 years. I'm not sure. I don't know.

That's accurate. I'm going to get it right now. He's wasting your time on that. He's just very old. As I said, though, some of these curses can be explained away by the use of poisons or sleight of hand. In most cases, however, accusations of this type of black magic are often bore out of paranoia, moral panic, mass hysteria against dislike or mistrusted members of the community,

similar to the way European witch hunts went down. People accused of black magic were often subject to ostracization. Ostracization and, in many cases, straight up violence. This was especially true during the Spanish colonial period. I was just going to ask about that. I was going to say, I bet you this got real shitty for anybody doing this during that time. Oh, yeah. In one instance in the mid 19th century, a Filipino curate ordered the assassination

of 57 people he suspected were sorcerers casting evil spells on his sick mother. Yeah. And so, you know, they were just kind of willy nilly slaughtering people and using that term or in that accusation to just wipe out people that they didn't like. Did they say anything about a teleportation spell? No, not in my research, unfortunately, but that would be real sick. Well, because, you know, remember, I was talking about that guy who was like a guard in like Spanish Philippines and he like teleported to Mexico or whatever he did.

I vaguely remember this. What episode was this specific? That was the one, the same episode with the green kids. Okay. Oh, damn. I don't remember. I don't know what one that was. I do remember that episode.

It was like antiquities, mystiquities. Oh, okay. We'll have to find it. I have to look it up. Now, what happens, you might ask, if you become the victim of such a sorceress attack? Well, fear not. There are things you can do. Sorcerer attacks are most commonly treated with Sumbalik, which means counter spells or

antidotes, which are themselves a form of sorcery and do not usually require interaction with the spirits. They purportedly deflect the effects of the curse and return it back to the caster like a like a counter and smell. When I say like, I'm not playing anymore. I got to go home and they're like, oh. Yep, bingo. You got it.

So if you can counter spells, can you counter a counter spell? Only if you're playing as a Captain Falcon. I don't think you can. I do not think it is part of this religion in which you can because why would anyone ever cast a spell if they're that's like, because you have to know you have to know to count just find somebody who practices the magic to cast the counter. But you didn't say you had to know who cast the spell. You just said you can count the spell and send it back to the caster.

Correct. So you need to find somebody who can cast the counter spell for you. And I'm sure that costs money. And what if they kill you immediately spell or what if they cast a spell where you get super high and you just forget that you need to go do that? Is that the background for your character, Alex? Is my D and D? Yeah, yeah.

And D and D. Yeah, that's what I'm going to say. Yeah, we're going to do it. We're going to do a Chilluminati D and D session for our patrons one day. That's what I meant. And D and D. Yeah, yeah. And D and D where I have my life not together, but in real life, I'm very put together. Yeah, you are. You're way nobody can see it, but you're wearing and you wear it every time a fitted suit.

I'm actually wearing a t-shirt that's with snowflakes and a frosty snowman that's based on myself. Just so you guys know. Is that a SBB shirt? There's Gerard and there's Gerard. But I'm Frosty and I'm from the Rankin' Bass Frosty, the snowman cartoon. So I'm happy birthday. Remember that?

I've seen that one. Yeah. I'm surprised. I got to be honest. I'm surprised you've seen that. In the most extreme cases of counterspelling or Sumbalik, the counterspell can actually kill the person who has sent the curse in the first place. Oh, so they can be reflected and just be like,

final lethal blow. I'm going to focus on learning Sumbalik. Number one, because it sounds sexy as hell. Just rolls off the tongue. So sexy. And second of all, seems like it's better than just trying to kill people with magic. Right? Right.

Other healing rituals against sorcery do not harm the caster, but instead supposedly moves them to pity and thus revoke the curse. So you send like guilt, guilt waves back at them and they're like, you know what? I feel bad. Never mind. And they take the curse off. I'm not sure how well that actually would work, but I don't know. I kind of would hope he maybe killed the caster instead of making him feel guilty.

Well, do you think there's still time then for you? Yeah, I'm sure that there's a way to maybe maybe somebody can cast Sumbalik on me and get rid of the evil eye and bounce it back. Yeah, but you got to pay for that, bro. You can't just be like, maybe your fan out there could do it. No, no, no. Patreon.com. Also, the person who cast the curse is long dead.

Like the person who cursed our family was like from three generations. Well, that'd be hilarious. Then some dude in Rhode Island is going to get zapped straight to hell. No, it was in Italy. It happened. Oh, OK. If one of my great-grandmother moved here. Oh, man.

We're like back in the. OK. All right. Yeah. Yeah. We're about to trace our own. I could not tell you. I am no longer continuing though.

I'm just inventing Chilluminati special after Chilluminati special in my imagination right now. You're just deep diving. You're just deep diving. I want to take Mathis back to Italy and reverse his curse with Filipino magic. That would be great. I would also like to be there for those reasons too. Well, we'll see what happens.

Maybe it'll happen. You never know. The end, though, in most cases, accusation of this particular type of black magic are often born out of paranoia, like I said earlier. And once the counter spell has been placed or things have run their course, the curse tends to come to an end and when you fucking die or something. Yeah, when you either die or, you know, you become bereft and poor and living a life. That demon shows up and shits in your mouth.

Yeah, man, that picture was great though. Shout out to the Chilluminati subreddit for finding the picture of that dude shitting in Titan Leeds mouth. It's so good. So some other different kind of sect versions of these types of witches, the Monkukulam are specifically the Filipino witch, which literally translates to practitioner of Kulam. Kulam is the type of magic that they use.

There's also the Mambambarang. OK. Yeah. The Mambambarang is the Bessayan version of the sorcerer sorceress who uses insects and spirits to enter the body of any person they hate. The Mambambarang are ordinary human beings with black magic who torture and later kill their victims by infesting their body. All right.

I was going to make a Beach Boys joke, but I decided not to because I don't want to be infested and killed. Mambambambambambarang, yeah, I have a question about it. I have a question about these bugs. Now, you're saying they use bugs to infest people, to get into their bodies and do things. Do we talking about like a bug going into your body physically? Well, they use like the voodoo doll and the bug to put the bug in you.

And then theoretically, you are infested by bugs. Yeah, magically transports and causes you to be infested by that dude in the mummy. Yeah, I guess so. Yes. Yeah. He opens his mouth and then. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess like that. Well, that's like it's a flesh eating beetle that gets inside your body.

I'm just saying, you know, it's not a good time. You're not you're not going to have good time. There. These are particularly different from the Manku Colombs, the latter only inflicts pain or illness, while the Mambambarang use a strand of hair from their chosen victim and tie it to the bugs or worms, which they will use as a medium. When they prick the bug,

the victim immediately experiences the intended effect. The name is derived from the word barang and legends. The Mambambarang keeps his swarm of carnivorous beetles in a bottle or a section of bamboo, carefully feeding them ginger root. They really are carnivorous beetles. Yes. Yes. Like literally directly from the mummy. We're not an agent, but you know, but like, yeah, they're not scarabs.

Right. No. I mean, like over time, they would have traveled to the Philippines, like a natural migration, of course. Just like the Egyptians got to the Grand Canyon. Yeah. Yeah. Got to Arizona or whatever. Yes, exactly.

Bingo. When the practitioner decides to employ his dark art, he performs a prayer ritual wherein he whispers instructions and identifies the victim to the beetles. Like Gandalf. Right. Yes. Yes. He's like, no, it flies off. The destructive insects are then set free as you predicted

and to seek out the victim and gain entry into the body via any bodily orifice, the nose, mouth, ears, anus or dermal breaks such as open wounds or sores. I thought you said anally. And I was like, I did say anally. Oh, really? Anus or dermal breaks. Yeah, I know, not a good time.

The victim will then feel the effects of the invasion of the insect through manifestations, depending on the area of entry. So for instance, the area of entry, they'll feel it. Serious. So if he entered through the anus, you're getting hemorrhoids. If he went through the ear, earache and so on, the resulting illnesses is supposedly resistant to conventional medical treatment

and only reveals its true nature when the victim some comes and flying insects issue forth from bodily cavities, literally like the mummy, literally like the mummy. They just pour out of the holes in your body. I feel like you'd notice immediately when the bug crawled up your asshole. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, you would think, but maybe it's happening

when you're sleeping and maybe the tickle feels good. You don't know. What are you talking about? That's not how it works. A little chocolate star kiss, you know, from a beetle. Oh my God. OK. All right. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. Me too.

Why are you both in? I'm following my. I'm following my this down to the end of this whole dude. Take my hand, Jesse. I will guide you to the promised land. We're all going to crawl into the anus of the accurate of this episode is what we're going to do. That is in reality.

If these bugs are actually entering these people's bodies, what's likely happening though is that the carnivorous beetle would lay eggs in someone it killed and then the eggs would hatch postmortem and devour the flesh after they die. So there is a carnivorous beetle. There is. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There is actually.

Can you see in this area? Yes. A hundred percent. That is a hundred percent true. The final which we're going to talk about on this flag before we move on to the next creature is the Ussican. The Ussican, also known as the Boo-Yagann, is a type of Viscian sorcerer

that can inflict harm through words, also known as Boo-Yag. They can Boo-Yah. OK. They can affect not only people, but also plants, animals and inanimate objects. They cause harm by complimenting someone or something either unwittingly or with malevolent intent.

To protect against this, people carefully avoid accepting compliments from strangers and may say the phrase Puerra Boo-Yag from Spanish Fuera Boo-Yag immediately after giving a compliment or receiving one. Various beliefs hold that Ussican can be recognized by having a dark tongue

or by being born with teeth. Unlike the other types of witches, the power of the Ussican is innate and is not acquired by choice. Nor are they innately malevolent, or in most cases, they are believed to be unaware that they possess this power.

So that's just like, that's the shit end of the stick. If you're one of these, you were born with it, you didn't have a choice, and you could accidentally curse people constantly. You just got magic mouth. You got magic mouth,

and it's by complimenting people. And you can't, you can't compliment people with your magic mouth, dude. You know, Alan Moore, the famous comic book writer, Alan Moore, big bearded man, Alan Moore, he believes that like words and writing is like the magic.

Like it's the closest thing to magic that we have, you know, and I kind of agree. I feel like the power of words, you know, like people talk about chaos magic and like manifesting and like talking about things. And like, I feel like there's something to that. I don't know what it is. I think it might just be like quantum mechanics

or something like that. But I don't know. Here's my belief. Like I agree with you. I think there's something to it, but here's why I think there's something to it. When you're doing rituals or chaos magic or trying to do all these things

to push your life forward, your career forward, what's happening in reality is you're keeping that idea in the back of your mind constantly. Your brain is being primed to always think about further my career, do this, do this, do this.

So when little opportunities pop up, you're more likely to see them instead of pass them by, grab them, try and push for things because you're doing these rituals, but in reality, you're just keeping the idea of moving your life forward as the forefront. So you're taking these actions that you might not normally take

or seeing these things. You're like, oh my God, I got this amazing opportunity. That was likely gonna be there anyway, but you're more aware of it now because you're just looking for it more. You feel power over it. Yeah, you feel it.

And so it works, yes, because you're kind of psychologically conditioning yourself to make it a priority in your life. It's like tarot. It's like, you know, I mean, okay, I'm not gonna start talking. Show me, I can't wait to hear what you have to say. Are you saying regardless of whether you genuinely believe

in the magical power of tarot cards or not, right? Yeah. It's like a personality test that you get to do on yourself and interpret yourself. And it's very like powerful in that way, regardless of whether or not pulling the cards actually makes magic like shoot out of the cards

and like do things in your life. You know what I mean? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it's that idea of just like it's vague enough where you can kind of imprint yourself on whatever it is you pull, but it allows you to, like you said,

think about yourself, break yourself down a bit and really just kind of examine yourself through the medium of a set of cards. Something to create this illusion to allow you to step into that mindset without sitting there and going, all right, time to analyze myself.

And being one of these people, is it something that you need to train for even if you become, it's just like you are it, right? Yep. Yep. That's interesting. All right, that's our first creature,

the Filipino witch, Bruja Mabakabahong. If that's what I think I said it wrong, you know what I was saying, let me try it again. Mangukulam, there it is. Now we're moving on to one of my favorites, the aswang. It's Ram season,

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Come visit a MotorSportsland RV center or MotorSportsland.com today and let MotorSportsland help you get away. The Oswong is an umbrella term for various shapeshifting evil creatures in Filipino folklore, such as vampires, ghouls, viscera suckers, and werebeests

that are usually dogs, cats, or pigs. So this is like their kind of version of like a skin walker type creature. Yeah, you're going to see some similarities certainly. When to go with skin walkery. The third creature we're going to talk about is much closer to the when to go or something along those lines

in Native American lore and lore and such. The Oswong is the subject of a wide variety of myths, stories, arts, and films as it is well known throughout the entirety of the Philippines. Spanish colonists noted that the Oswong was the most feared

among the mythical creatures of the Philippines even in the 16th century. And fun other side note is the devastated Dreams game is about the Oswong or was supposed to be about the Oswong I don't think the game ever got finished. Although with no specific motive

other than harming others their behavior can be interpreted as an inversion of the traditional Filipinos values. The Oswong is especially popular in southern parts of Luzon and some parts of Mindanao and the Visias

especially in the Visian province of Capiz. We're going to talk about the different kinds of Oswong individually here briefly and we're going to start with the vampire. The vampire Oswong disguises itself in the shape of a beautiful woman. It shares its diet of blood with vampires of Western culture.

However, it differs by sucking blood using a proboscis-like tongue rather than sharpened teeth of modern vampires. Damn, it's got like a like a thing that pops out. That's terrible. That's way worse. It's super, super gross.

And all of their like creatures are like body whores. So they can like shut you down. They're not just sipping. They're they're not just sipping. Yeah. Yeah. And these these particular vampires

like other ones out here don't live in like graves or tombs or caskets. These some of them live in the forest far from human communities. But the Oswong can infiltrate human society by means of marrying into a community and either slowly draining their husband of blood.

This is some disgruntled married man bullshit. They're like, yeah, no, my wife is one of them. If you know what I mean. That blood sucking wife of my own. But when she got to get rid of the bitch. Amazing. Amazing. Of course.

Of course. That's exactly what they were. Yeah. No, you can marry into them. Unreal. Yeah. The info. The info is decided by marriage.

My mother is law. Oh, my God. So they marry into the community and either slowly begin draining their husband of blood or else using it strictly as a hideout and leaving at night to raid the other villages, thereby keeping their cover intact. So yeah, they could be living amongst your community.

Nobody the wiser at night when everybody's sleeping. They fly off into the night miles away. If there's any out there who want to get hitched, I would be happy with being your cover story. Right. I'm fine with it. Yeah. You want to be like a weird, like cryptid beard?

Yeah. Like if you know, what would you even be? I wouldn't even be a beard. Great in bed, dude. It wouldn't even be a beard. It would be like, I don't know that I believe that part of it. Imagine what they could do with their proboscis to you though.

No, I don't want to like get proboscis. I'm more interested in the whole like, and that's like, you know, it's kind of hot. She's like, at night I go kill people. And I'm like, no, that's my girl. She'd be murdering people. You spank her ass on the way out if she flies off to murder.

Go get it, baby. Yeah. And she's like, Rob. That's my girl. Oh, I love her so much. Next up is the viscera sucker. The viscera sucker, also known as the mandanangalal, is said to have a diet of internal organs

or the phlegmatic discharge of the sick. Like the vampire asuong, it consumes its food with its tongue, narrow and tubular, but not pointed like the vampire. So it's more of like an elephanty kind of like, like mouth. Like a tube. But it's still, yeah, but it's still gross ass, like long. Like a battle.

What is that movie called? Starship Troopers? Never seen it. What? I was literally about to be like, oh, this all sounds like Starship Troopers. And then I stopped myself because like math has never seen it. And the fact that you confirmed it upsets me even more.

I was going to be like, yeah, it's like the brain sucker in Starship Troopers. And the one guy who was like, oh, and he gets his brain sucked out. No, you have no idea what we're talking about. That's so disappointing. Have you seen Robocop? No, that's a great double feature.

We're going to do that. All right. Next time we're together. Maybe we'll just start doing a little movie monthly movie night. Don't start. Don't make promises. You can't keep math to this.

All right. All right. By day though, the viscera sucker doesn't look like this abhorrent monster. It takes the shape of, you guessed it, an attractive, light-skinned, long-haired woman. By night, it unfurls its long wings and segments itself, leaving behind its body from the waist downward.

It takes great care to hide its lower half, then flies and searches for victims. It is particularly attracted to the fetuses growing inside pregnant women. Viscera suckers are said to live in domiciles deep in the jungle, if not in the trees themselves. But like the vampire Oswong, most infiltrate human communities via marriage.

I mean, there's some kind of weird sexism going on here, right? It's almost like, yeah. It's almost like some sort of sexist thing happening here. It's like some ancient Filipino Rodney Dangerfield guy came and made up this Oswong viscera. It's like the Jungle Cruise joke where they're like, and if you look out the window, if you look out on the

right side, you'll see a small ape-like creature that latches itself onto its parents and bleeds them dry for 18 to 24 years. You know, they're just talking about your kid. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. I do like the fact that they were like, if it's a light-skinned woman, yep.

It's like, oh, all right. That's an interesting little. Equate to hoja white devil. All I'm saying is, you know, if there's any like a non-vampires out there who want to like, you know, I don't know. Would you marry a viscera sucker? Because they remember at night, they don't just fly off.

They drop the lower half of their body segment and fly away to just slurp up grossness, basically. I'd be uncomfortable with that. That means that I'm like responsible for someone's lower half of their body. I'll just uberate my own. I'm just going to find like a nice dark-skinned girl and live my life not being killed by a vampire.

You're going to be the white devil. That's me. You're going to be the viscera sucker. You will be the viscera sucker. That's me, the viscera sucker. Next up in this category is the where creatures. The Philippines has no indigenous wolf population, thus making where dog the more appropriate term overall.

Where dog? Like the previous, yeah, like the previous Oswong, the where dog infiltrates villages and turns into a creature by night right around midnight. The creature is most commonly a dog, but can be a cat or pig. The where dog then kills and eats people, particularly pregnant women on the road in the night and do not let their long hair hang loose.

First of all, no pregnant women go on the road alone at night. Please, for any reason, regardless of whether or not there's an Oswong out there, pretty please. Yeah, apparently letting your hair loose is a protection against the Oswong. So if you wear your hair loose at night while you're walking, you're supposedly safe. The where dog is said to develop a taste for human flesh

by eating food spat on or licked by another where dog. The same is said of the viscera sucker as well. They'd like mark guys for later. Like a more or less like a hobo code for the post as they walk by the house. Yeah, that's a good one for the where dog population. They're going to love that. The where dog as well is unlike rather unlike the previous Oswong,

the where dog does not infiltrate human communities through marriage, but as a as a traveler of some sort, such as a peddler or a construction laborer. So there's your where dog. Pretty short, so the where dog. So the where dog Oswong is is like immigration fear. I guess. Yeah, I guess like a traveler.

I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of yeah. It's interesting to travel where these workers like come on, bro. Very bizarre. All right. All right. The last one of this particular group are the ghouls. I'm a huge fan of ghouls boys and ghouls boys and ghouls.

I love ghouls. Ghoul Oswong are described as humanoid but generally hidden. Their diet consists of human corpses as they are carrion eaters. Their nails and teeth are sharp and strong to help with the theft and consumption of the corpses. And their diet makes them smell rank and pungent. Nice. They gather in trees near cemeteries to exhume and consume fresh burials.

Oswongs commonly dwell at night in locations such as cemeteries and woods as their powers are significantly or sometimes totally reduced during the daytime. However, despite being described as wild monsters that often live in the wilderness and outskirts of society, Oswongs are also described as creatures that are capable of living within close proximity of or even within the confines of a village leading to several reports of Oswong attacks

within large populated towns and cities. So they can like pull off a human. They can like be a human. Yeah. They can they can look well enough like a human overall. Their ability to adapt and live within the urban and rural environments populated by humans while still maintaining their feral monstrous nature is cited as a feature that distinguishes Oswongs

from most other monsters. Oswongs also generally have a fear of light. Wakes were often bright brightly lit to ensure that Oswong would not come to the funeral to steal or devour a corpse. They also have a disdain for noise, but rare occasions describe Oswongs attending noisy parties. Our swans. They never, they never got wasted and he like blacked out like

why is there a story of an Oswong at a party? I don't know, man. It's just that one time that one Oswong tried to do it like be normal. It just didn't work out for him. He was just like at the end of the party. He was like, I just wanted to be like you. I just wanted it always the way it is. Oswongs are traditionally described as one dimensional monsters

and inherently evil by nature with no explicitly explicable motives beyond harming and devouring other creatures. Their overtly evil behavior may be described as an inversion of traditional Filipino values as we described earlier, and traditional Oswongs have no bias when selecting their prey and will not hesitate to target their own kin and inversion of the traditional Filipino value of strong kinship and family closeness.

Yeah, wow. Oswong. Yeah. Oswongs are described to be unclean and favor raw human meat to contrast the value of cleanliness and the cooked, spiced and flavorful food found in traditional Filipino culture. The Oswongs are also often described to be lewd in behavior with female Oswongs often exposing their genitals

to contrast values of traditional modesty. Huh. Oh, so they just like hanging out then. Yeah, this and everything hang out. That's crazy. But fear not, boys. There are countermeasures that can be taken to stop Oswongs. There are several remedies and countermeasures

to drive away or even slay an Oswong. The different countermeasures often vary depending on the cultural and symbolic significance of each tool, like holy objects, spices, salt, ash, et cetera. The reversal of the latter leading to the house was also said to be a countermeasure against Oswong. The reversal of the latter leading to the house. Let me get through like holy, all the holy objects.

So the way I'm trying to like picture it were better because I worded it poorly. The basically all these things, the reversal of I said one word wrong. The reversal of a ladder, not a ladder, the ladder of like turning her ladder like literally like a house that's off the floor. You're flipping the ladder upside down. You have to reverse it. And apparently that will also be a way to as like a good

countermeasure against an Oswong. I guess they'd just be confused. That's also a lot of stuff like that, right? Like bearing a body in a confusing place, that type of thing. True. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Because Oswongs were believed to be the cause of miscarriages, countermeasures to drive away Oswong, drive Oswong away

and prevent them from prowling during childbirth were also developed. One method is for the husband of the childbearing wife to remain under the house naked while furiously waving around a sword. Sharp sticks or bolos could should be inserted between the bamboos of the house floor to prevent Oswongs from lurking under the house. Additionally, sick people should not stay in houses with holes and are told not to groan in order not to attract the Oswong. How serious? Don't groan.

How serious to be able to take this? Nowadays, I don't know actually how now. That's a great question because a lot of it seems like maybe useful information for keeping other pests, like real pests. Yeah, like just like good ideas. Yeah. In general. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question.

I know we have again a couple of Filipino listeners that are in the discord. If you have answers to this, this would be awesome. I'd love to just like hear some like personal takes on some of these creatures and like what it's like to be in a culture where they maybe are real or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. You can also, boys, make a special anti Oswong oil to stop them from coming. To make this oil, select a particular coconut and then watch it grow.

Pick it at twilight during a full moon when it is wet and gloomy. The breeze should also be chilly. The coconut should be grated and its juice must be squeezed out. Boil the mixture until it becomes oil. Recite secret prayers and throw all the waste into the ocean so that the Oswong cannot trace whoever made the oil. Once complete, the oil should be hung at the door of the house. It will boil when an Oswong is near.

So that'll keep them. Kind of like a garlic or something on a door for vampires along those lines. A little bit more effort involved to make this thing though. I like the idea of a coconut and just waiting. You know, it seems cute like a Pixar movie. Yeah, you can make a nice little ritual out of that every day. There are other methods of detecting Oswong without the use of special oil. Scratching noises heard from the ceiling of a house is often a sign of a nearby Oswong.

Oswongs in disguise can be detected by seeing if your reflection in the creature's eyes is inverted, though that would be extremely hard to figure out. You would have to be really close to their face and really try to like deeply look into their eyes. Additionally, dogs, cats, and pigs with no tails are said to be Oswongs in disguise. During holy masses, Oswongs were also attempt to dodge the blessings. So, you know, if they're getting blessed, they'll be like, moving out the way of the priest dropping their blessings in holy water. I'm sorry, my body, I'm just so...

I'm just not into it today. I got a stomach ache. I'm a little allergic. To kill a witch, Oswong, a bolo knife can be used to strike the middle of the witch's back. If that area is not struck, the witch can lick its wounds to heal its injuries, which is funny, because that's like a vampire, the masquerade thing. That's how vampires hear their wounds. Very weird. What is a bolo knife? That is an excellent question. B-O-L-O knife, uh, bolo...

Isn't it the big, that big, like that's not a knife? Oh yeah, it looks like a machete. That thing just looks like a machete. Oh yeah, it's like a Filipino machete. That thing, yeah, that's what it is. That's going to do a lot of goddamn damage if you stab somebody with that thing. Yeah. Oh my, it looks like a sword almost. It's huge. Yeah, it really is.

After you slay an Oswong with a bolo knife, the bolo must be planted under the ground. Firearms are not advised for killing Oswongs, and it is useless to stab and slash at an Oswong while it is in the form of an animal. Magic prayers can be used to make the Oswong vulnerable while it is in this helpless state. Its body must be cut into pieces, which is kind of like a troll in like D&D. If the Oswong is cut into two pieces, each piece must be separated and taken to opposite riverbanks.

So that's how you like cut up a dead Oswong witch and get rid of its body after you've stabbed it. You have to really do some work on that thing. Which again, makes me wonder how many... I hope that's not being practiced today. Like I'd be curious if like that would be being practiced today. I doubt it's like a common thing. I mean, we're, you know, the age of information.

I mean, you know what I mean? But I mean, like at the same time, I have heard of the Oswong. Like I hadn't heard of the witches by name, but the Oswong I have heard of. We can get into a little bit of the origins of where the origins and influences of this thing are because of the archipelagic geography of the Philippines, the primarily oral mode of inheriting and imparting narratives from the past for preservation or didactic purposes. Stories about the Oswong have evolved and adapted according to the locality in question,

which again, at the very beginning of this episode, we talked about how it really depends on where you are. It's like Darwin's finches. Yeah. Yeah, it's very exactly. It's all that kind of thing. It's crazy. The Oswong was born out of Philippine folklore with stories of this terrifying creature dating back to at least the 16th century when Spanish explorers created the first written record of the monsters.

The explorers noted that all of the monsters in their folklore, the Oswong was the most feared by the native people. One of the most famous origins of the term Oswong came from the Oswong tradition in the Bikol region during the 16th century. Bikolanos believed in the god named Gugarang, who was the good god that acted as the beneficent of the region, the defender and guardian of their homes, and the protector against the evil of the god Oswang.

The god Oswang, however, was the evil god and rival who attempted to always cause harm to Gugarang and found pleasure in doing so. Gugarang was always praised by Bikolanos, and Oswang shunned and cursed. However, in another story, Gugarang is portrayed as a fire-wielding god who, if displeased with the humans, would cause Mount Mayan to erupt. Oswong had no control over the people and became jealous of Gugarang's power. As Oswong begged for Gugarang's fire,

Gugarang felt that Oswong was only trying to have fire to win the favor of the people, and the two began to argue for centuries. But Oswong was able to steal fire by turning himself invisible and hiding the fire in a coconut shell. However, Oswong was unable to control the power and caused the entire world to catch flames. Gugarang followed the flames which led him to Oswong and took the fire back. He called the gods to help him put out the fire with rain

and take revenge on Oswong by making thunder and lightning to strike the mountains. The act brought upon all the evils and destruction in the land which the people had never forgotten Oswong for. There's a little bit of a little taste of where the Oswong kind of come from and originate. You know what else is pretty crazy to me about the Oswong too, especially the werewolf-y one? Is that you're saying this thing has been around since the 1500s? Yeah, earlier than that.

That's just when the Spanish people came and like wrote it down. But it's crazy that in a place where there are no wolves, that the legend of a werewolf somehow has like made it into that like culture as well is pretty crazy. Summer is back and so are the deals at Larry H. Miller Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram Sandy. Whether you're hitting the open road or tackling projects closer to home, we've got the perfect vehicle for you. Right now, get rates as low as 2.9% for 72 months on a 2023 Ram 1500 Big Horn.

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But yeah, it's shapeshifters and all that other shit. It's pretty interesting that we all have a similar guy. Yeah, yes, 100%. It's wild. The way you described the two of them fighting for centuries or whatever, for some reason in my head, the thing that popped up was those two dudes who was like, Wicked Witch of the East, bro. Came out in a bubble. Some reason I imagine it's the two of them.

That's good. It reminded me of Dark Souls when I was reading it the first time. I was like, we all have our mental image of this. Yours is just more developed. I was going to say it reminds me of the Encyclopedia, which is what I read. All right, we're moving on to the third and final creature I cultivated for this particular episode, a creature by the name of Teak Belong. The Teak Belong, also known as the Teak, the Teak Belong, Teak Belong,

Teak Belong, Teak Bolong. My brain is like smoothing out. The last one was what? Werehorse. Werehorse. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Sore. Say no more. Yeah. This is a creature of Philippine folklore said to lurk in the mountains or rainforests of the Philippines. It is a tall, bony humanoid creature with the head and hooves of a horse and disproportionately long limbs to the point that its knees reach above its head when it squats down. In some versions, it is a transformation of an aborted fetus sent to earth from limbo itself. If you look up pictures of this thing, there's so many different pictures like Google images it.

It's T-I-K-B-A-L-A-N-G. There's some hilarious looking pictures of this thing. There was one that just like made me die. Let's see if I can find it again. Oh, it looks like Beta Ray Bill, like straight up. Yes, it really does. Oh, man. But also there's some really like unnecessarily sexy versions of this thing, which I guess I'm not surprised about.

People just want to fuck horses. It's we can't get away from it. This one's just like a six pack regular man, even normal manhands, but a horse. And they're like, it's a teak belong. No, it's not. That's like more centaur. There's one that has like a Facebook link that looks dope. He's like got long ass arms and legs.

And he's like, yeah, I love that guy. Oh, the one that's like that one. Yeah, he's like sitting, but he's standing. Yeah, that guy looks great. That's that's a better interpretation of one for sure. That's like a closer. So yeah, like basically like the form of the teak belong can be traced back to something around four thousand years ago with roots in Hinduism, which explain how the influence

evolved in the mysterious half horse creature we now know today. Ancient people in the Philippines believed in animism. They believe that the world had its consciousness and that stone trees, mountains, water, animals, sun, and even the moon had a hidden power known as the spirit or the idol. This power could be good or harm the spirit, but it was believed to control some aspects of life. In 1589, during the earliest days of the Spanish occupation, Father Juan de Placencia documented the long term teak belong awareness of indigenous peoples.

Hinduism from its origins in India spread to Southeast Asia in about 200 CE, as Indian cultural influence spread throughout the region through trade routes. Teak belong may have originated from Hayagriva, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. The worship of Hayagriva was recorded in 2000 BCE. The images for flying birds, the teak, the teak belong and Serena are straight out of him. Hindu imagery, which are all creature people, creatures like kind of an amalgamation. Why is the Wikipedia picture so weird for the teak belong? Oh, it looks like a child's drawing.

Doesn't it? Yeah, literally looks like a kid's like so bizarre. Looks like a child's drawing. It's so good. That was someone's art that you are walking. That's true. Just look at it. It looks like Napoleon Dynamite drew it. Influence on religion was also prevalent with the concept of a multi-layered world, heaven and hell. According to the Hindu purinus, there are 14 worlds in the universe, the seven upper and seven lower, the upper worlds being Bha, Bhaava, Swa, Maha, John on Tapa,

and Satyam and the seven nether worlds are Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Rasatala, Talatala, Mahatala, and Padatala. The region Noah's Buhu is the earth where we dwell. An association with teak belong began around the 1860 discovery of the statue of Cambodia during the 10th century. It portrayed the demons that Vadavamuka, the more radical version of the avatar of Vishnu, eventually Buddhism changed the image to Hayagriva into small horses, heads floating in a crown of fire. In China, provided the old image of Hayagriva face with horses, one of the keepers of the demon of the inferno, and the same thing probably happened to the teak belong as the Filipinos adopted it in

their beliefs after exacting culture through trade. 900 years before the Spaniards arrived, Chinese merchants settled in the Philippines and used horses. The evolution of the teak belong probably started right around then. I can't imagine seeing a horse for the first time, not knowing this creature exists and seeing this insanely huge thing just show up. Yeah, I'm sure you're right, it shattered people's brains. The idea of the teak belong evolved over time, telling the journey of the Filipino consciousness through colonialism and globalism as there were no horses in the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish. The earliest mentions of these mythological creatures did not specify horse or animal morphology,

i.e. for Placentia's 16th century account. Instead, in the pre-colonial period, they were represented as ghosts and spirits of the forest associated with the terms malto and bibbit. Some entries describe them in early Spanish dictionaries as fantasma de montes, which means phantoms of the mountains or wilds, linking them strongly as nature spirits. So you can kind of see slowly how the horses kind of eked their way into their culture and slowly built their own lore over time as the hundreds and hundreds of years passed. And then one finally evolved to draw a picture of himself to put on Wikipedia. Bingo, and that's the one that we knew today. That was his. It was the first known picture of a teak belong. Individual teak belongs

even today among superstitious Filipinos are thought to inhabit trees as guardians, sometimes depicted as if the very soul of the trees themselves. Specific trees in nature in general and pre-colonial Filipinos were considered sacred, often used as shrines, especially large ficus trees. An offensive expression, teak belong commandan, you are a wild beast, was used by early Tagalogs to signify one of uncouth and uncivilized. Later on, as horses were brought from China and Japan through the Spanish colonial government, accounts of them appearing horse-like slowly became the norm. So you can already see the beginning of the name of them. Teak belong instead of teak belong. G instead of K. Right. Teak belongs or teak bowl and scare travelers,

lead them astray and play tricks on them, such as making them return to an arbitrary path, no matter how far they go out or turn. This is counteracted by wearing one's shirt inside out. So if you wear your shirt inside out, you're good. Not very smart, these guys. No, they're not intelligent. But yeah, hey, it's a simple solution. That is incredibly simple. Another countermeasure is to ask permission out loud to pass by or not to produce too much noise while in the woods in order not to offend or disturb the teak belong. So simply stay quiet, ask for permission, and they won't lead you astray.

I know it doesn't. It doesn't. They seem very polite and kind of lame and boring overall. Isn't there like a Mexican version of this thing, too? Or like a Spanish version, like maybe? There is. So when looking up a lot of these things, another, there's a lot of Spanish-ish folklore that is in the Philippines for obvious reasons. And like, remember when we talked about the Duende, the known who fed dirt? That's a huge one in the Philippines as well. The Duende is a massive cryptid that exists out there for whatever you want, folklore, whatever you want to call it. So yeah, they wouldn't be surprised me. The teak belong, the one with the G, is a ghost which assumes a variety of forms and sometimes confers a similar gift upon a certain

favored individual. A superstition popular with the Tagalogs of Rizal province is that teak belongs are benevolent guardians of elemental kingdoms. They are usually found standing at the foot of large trees looking around for anyone who dares to bestow malignancy on their kingdom's territory. A common saying has it that rain from a clear sky means, quote, May Kinakasal Natik Belong, or a teak belong is getting married. So if it's raining, a teak belong is getting hitched, everybody. Congratulations to that teak belong. This was potentially connected with a similar Spanish proverb that claimed a witch was getting married when there was rain on a sunny day. Although many cultures have such sayings in

which a trickster figure gets married, fox weddings, bears, weddings, monkeys, birthdays, etc. In some versions, the teak belong can also transform itself into human form or turn invisible to humans. They like to lead travelers astray, as we said before, and this is one of the easiest ways to do so. Teak belong is generally associated with dark, sparsely populated foliage overgrown areas with legends variously identifying their abode as some as being beneath bridges in bamboo clumps or banana groves and a top column pang, which or balai, which are just different types of trees. However, the last bit I want to tell about telling you guys about is you might be thinking, well, this thing seems lame. What if I told you you could tame one of these

things? Would I have you then? You can, in fact, supposedly maybe tame a teak belong. By one account, a teak belong has a mane of sharp spines, with the three thickest of these being of particular importance. A person who obtains one of these spines can use them as an ending or talisman to keep the teak belong as his servant. The teak belong must first be subdued, however, by leaping onto it and tying it with a specially prepared cord. The would-be tamer must then hang on while the creature flies through the air, fighting madly to dislodge its unwelcome rider until it is exhausted and acknowledges its own defeat. Or you can look on his mane and you will see three golden hairs. And if you pluck three of them before he or she eats you,

the teak belong will serve you until you die. Those are the ways you contain a teak belong. It's that easy. Pluck its three golden hairs or ride it until it says I give up. Just like a regular horse. Yeah, just like a regular horse. And that, my gentle friends, is a teak belong. And I think we're going to leave Filipino folklore, cryptids and legends. Loved it for today. A nice little brisk jaunt through some creepy creatures. And we'll definitely come back to the Philippines in the future because you guys got some cool ass folklore and a lot of it and some such such an interesting such an interesting culture, such an interesting and they even have they even have their own version of the white lady ghost out there.

Who doesn't? How we honest to God, like that's how I feel like it's like everybody has the white lady ghost. But that's it for today, boys. We've got I don't want to tease it too much, but we do have a guest along the ways of when we've been having to shuffle some dates around. But look forward to the return of a special guest who may or may not impart her knowledge on some more gnomes in the future. A return of the gnome prophecy. All right. I was excited. I thought it was going to get like a good guest, but like whatever. I got a couple of guests in the books, too. I just got to finish the episodes. I thought we're going to get a good guess. Not those trash guys.

Dude, we talked out with Crandor. Come on. Any better than that. There's no one more famous on the earth than Crandor. Exactly. Exactly. That's it for today, though, guys. We've got a little mini so to go record just some fun stuff to talk about in the mini so I'm excited for this one because it's the it's the anniversary today or this week, rather, of one of the most famous conspiracies in the world. And we'll talk about that a little bit on the mini. Oh, yes, indeed. Thank you guys so much for watching. Head over to the patreon.com slash Luminati pod, jump on in, support the show,

get your mini so and we'll see you next week. Bye, everybody. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night, enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside and after a few moments, I hear my wife go, holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dash back outside. She's looking up the sky in the hall. I look up too and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky. So you