Jar Covers that Depict Shamans

It’s common knowledge that the people who lived a long time ago considered the shaman an important part of the community. The shaman could be as powerful as the chieftain and could even be the chieftain himself. So if the shaman died, it was perhaps only fitting for the people to remember or try to immortalize him for his significant role. Apparently, this is what the burial jar people did about 1,500 years ago. In a paper, anthropologist Marcelino Maceda states that some jar covers found in Kulaman Plateau indicate that the bones inside the jars are that of a tribal priest or medicine man.

Maceda presents thirty-five jar covers in the paper, and three of these, though anthropomorphic like most of the others, have uncanny shapes or markings. They are listed below. The first number in each item reflects the number of the artifact as it appears in the paper, and the second number is the field or museum number. (KN stands for Kan-Nitong Cave.) Also included are relevant portions of Maceda’s descriptions of the jar covers.

9. M-C0007 (KN)
[This gable-shaped cover has] two bas-relief anthropomorphic figures. The first figure is a human resembling a flying lizard.

16. KN-16-0188
The . . . anthropomorphic figure assumes a snake-like or lizard-shaped human head. . . . The face is triangular; the ears extend from the top of the head down to the level of the lower part of the jar and are similar to the hood of a cobra. . . . This figure may represent a shaman who could change his face at will or a medicine man whose forte is curing snake bites.

17. M-00018 (KN)
The figure has a pointed head arising from two triangular ears. . . . This anthropomorphic figure is probably that of a shaman who could change from one form to another, i.e., to a lizard or snake.

I like Maceda’s interpretations of the designs of the three jar covers. Shamans fascinate me; several of the short stories I’ve written have shamans in them. I wonder, though, if Maceda is being too imaginative in the case of Jar Cover No. 16. The ears that are “similar to the hood of a cobra” may just be enlarged thyroid glands. Goiter is not uncommon among present-day Dulangan Manobos due to nutritional deficiency in their diet. The case must have been worse among the burial jar people about 1,500 years ago. It’s possible that the jar cover is simply depicting an ordinary tribesman with an ordinary affliction, not a leader with supernatural abilities. We can’t know for sure. For now, we can only speculate. Everyone can be an expert. Further research should be done on the burial jars. The items that have been discovered should be reviewed in light of more recent archaeological findings, and Kulaman Plateau should be explored again for possible burial sites that have not been disturbed yet.

M-C0007 (no. 9 in Maceda’s paper) has a figure of a human being
resembling a lizard, probably indicating that the person
buried in the jar was a shaman or magician.