According to the Teduray, the world was created by the female deity Minaden, who had a brother named Tulus, also called Meketefu or Sualla. Tulus is the chief of all the good spirits who bestow gifts and favors upon human beings. He goes around with a retinue of messengers called telaki.
The universe according to the Teduray is the abode of the various types of etew or people. There are visible ones, or the ke-ilawan (human beings); and the invisible ones, or the meginalew (spirits). The latter may be seen, but only by those in this world possessing special powers or charisma. It is believed that the spirits live in tribes and perform tasks in the other world.
While good spirits abound in the world, there are also bad spirits who are called busaw. They live mostly in caves and feed on the remoger (soul) of any hapless human being who falls into their trap. At all times, the Teduray, young and old, are aware that the busaw must be avoided, and this can be successfully done if one possesses charms and amulets. With the good spirits, it is always necessary and beneficial to maintain lines of communication. But the ordinary human beings cannot do this, and so the Teduray must rely on the beliyan or religious leader.
The beliyan has the power to see and communicate with the spirits. If a person falls ill, and the spirits need to be supplicated, the beliyan conducts a spiritual tiyawan with them. Human illness, in so far as the Teduray is concerned, is the consequence of an altercation or a misunderstanding between people and unseen spirits. Formal negotiations are needed to restore the person’s health and harmonious relationship with the spirits. In effect, the beliyan, as a mediator between spirits and human beings, is a specially gifted and powerful kefeduwan.
In an account within the late 19th century by Sigayan (the first Christianized Teduray, christened Jose Tenorio) the beliyan was described as a person who could talk directly to Tulus and even share a meal with him. The beliyan would gather people in a tenines, a small house where the shaman stored the ritual rice, and tell them about his or her communication with Tulus. The beliyan would dance with a wooden kris in the right hand, small, jingling bells hanging from the wrist, and a decorated wooden shield held in the other hand. The shaman made the men and women dance, for that was the only way the people could worship Tulus. The beliyan also prepared the ritual offerings to Tulus and played the togo, a small drum, for the supreme being.
The ancient belief in Tulus and other cosmological beings has remained. And so has the belief in the efficacy of charms and omens. These are particularly relevant in hunting activities of the Teduray whose basic talisman is the ungit. This is fashioned from several kinds of mystically powerful leaves and grasses wrapped with cloth and bound with vine lashing. This is handed on from father to son, down the line. The kinds of plants that make up the charm are strictly kept between father and son, as revealing this to just anybody will cause the charm to lose its potency. The hunter carries the ungit on his body and rubs it all over his dog and horse. The ungit is believed efficacious not only in snaring or catching game, but also in attracting women sexually. If so used, however, it loses its power as a hunting charm.
Omens rule the life of hunters, for these presage misfortune. A hunter will not proceed on a hunt if any of these occurs: he hears a person sneeze as he is about to set out; he hears the call of a small house lizard; or he has a bad dream in which he gets wounded, falls or dies. He will also give up the hunt if he sees the animal he intends to catch while he is setting up the trap.
Rituals to establish good relations with the spirits accompany each significant stage of the Teduray agricultural cycle. Four times within the year, all the households belonging to an inged participate in a community ritual feast known as kanduli. Feasting on food, particularly glutinous rice and hard-boiled eggs, and making ritual offerings to the spirits are two characteristics of the celebration. The preparations for the feast are generally done in the major settlement within the inged, which is also the focal point of all activities. In the preparation of the food, a significant ritual act is already performed; the exchange of portions of the glutinous rice among all the families. When it is time to consume the ritual food, a family would then be actually partaking of some of the rice that has come from every other family in the whole neighborhood. The community’s bonding is strengthened through the food exchange. The significance is further underscored by the fact that, in the course of the cultivation cycle, each family in the neighborhood had contributed its labor to each field on which rice was grown. These communal meals thus give ritual expression to their interdependence. (Schlegel 1968: 64–65)
The four kanduli rituals of the agricultural cycle are: mara, or marking festival, which is held on the night of the last full moon before the marking of the swidden sites for the coming cycle; retus kama, or festival of the first corn harvest from a neighborhood swidden; retus farey, or festival of the first rice harvest, which is celebrated on the night following the first harvest from a swidden; and matun tuda, or harvest festival, which is held on the night of the first full moon when the rice harvest from all of the settlement’s swidden has been collected.
The inged families prepare small bamboo tubes filled with glutinous rice, which they will offer to the spirits at the ritual marking of the first swidden site. Men and women of the neighborhood congregate at a clearing and proceed in single line, as gongs are played to where the first swidden for the year will be marked for burning. Arriving at the site, they set up a small platform where they lay down the tubes of glutinous rice. Everyone listens attentively to the omen call of the temugen bird, which is believed to have the power to convey messages between human beings and the spirits. The first ritual marking is meant as a song of respect for the spirits of the forest, seeking permission to begin cutting down the trees.
The owner of the field interprets the omen call. There are bad signs and good signs, depending on the direction of the call. There are four good directions: selat (front), tereneken (45 degrees left), lekas takes (45 degrees right) and rotor (directly overhead). Any other direction is considered bad. The ritual laying of the food and the wait for the omen call is repeated around the four corners of the swidden until a good omen is heard.
(Blogger’s note: This post is the third part of a nine-part series on the Teduray people. Each part is posted every Monday starting October 6, 2014. The text is copied as it appears in Defending the Land: Lumad and Moro People’s Struggle for Ancestral Domain in Mindanao. The book, published by a consortium of non-government organizations, has an “anti-copyright” notice and may thus be freely reproduced.)
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