Pinoy Kasi
‘Superstitions’
By Michael Tan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:19:00 08/22/2008
MANILA, Philippines—My jaw dropped when i saw the title of the article in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine: “A shower of superstitions.” As an anthropologist, especially one who teaches the subject, I always emphasize that we should be very careful about using that term “superstition.” Now, here was a title using the term, and the article was ... mine!
My fault, actually. On top of this twice-weekly column, I’ve been asked to contribute to the Sunday magazine twice a month. I enjoy doing the articles, which tend to be on lighter topics than Pinoy Kasi, and shorter (800 words instead of the 1000 for this column). But doing the Sunday articles means an even tighter schedule for writing, and there are times when I just can’t think of a title anymore, and leave this to the editors.
Anyway, I thought I’d grab this chance to tackle “superstitions” itself, as a concept. The Oxford dictionary defines the term as: “unreasoning awe or fear of something unknown, mysterious, or imaginary, especially in connexion with religion ... an irrational religious belief or practice; a tenet, scruple, habit, etc. founded on fear or ignorance. . .”
Anthropologists look at the collective phobias of a society, and how these translate into social practices. But we’re very reluctant to dismiss these fears as “irrational” or attributing them simply to “ignorance” because such judgments would be ethnocentric, meaning based on our own culture, which we presume to be superior to other people’s. We’re quick, for example, to call other people’s religions “superstitious,” not realizing that our own practices might also be viewed by others as strange and irrational.
Rather than using the label “superstition”, anthropologists choose more neutral terms—for example, “cultural riddles”—to refer to beliefs and practices which seem to defy explanation. We do research to show that these riddles aren’t that mysterious at all, that they can be explained through history, environment, social structures.
Sitting on books
I’m going to draw on my article “shower of superstitions” (blush, blush) to show how we go about these cultural riddles. I started out mentioning how in other countries, people find a way to protect their books when it rains. In the Philippines, we do the opposite, taking out the books to protect ourselves from the rain.
We take that practice for granted, but it amuses, sometimes shocks, foreigners. Many societies have a reverential attitude toward books. For example, I grew up being told by Chinese elderly relatives not to sit on books (or newspapers, especially the Philippine Daily Inquirer ... OK, OK, I confess, I added this part) because it was disrespectful—literally, “bastos.” They never told me why you weren’t supposed to sit on published materials, but now, as an anthropologist, I can see that it was a way of inculcating a respect for knowledge and learning, exemplified by the printed word.
Now, all of that can actually seem superstitious, a form of idolatry. We’ll argue that if it rains it’s more important to protect Junior’s “bumbunan” (fontanelle) than saving the book. We don’t realize that our own prevalent belief about rain causing colds is considered a superstition by non-Filipinos and by medical professionals—well, most medical professionals at least. (I’ve seen Filipino doctors using their heavy medical books to protect themselves from the lethal rain.)
“Superstitions” (using quotation marks makes it acceptable to anthropologists) are often based on correlations, which are transformed into an explanation of causes. Through time, Filipinos have noticed how the incidence of colds and other respiratory ailments increases during the rainy season. Somewhere in time, our ancestors began to attribute the ailments to the rain itself, particularly its contact with the head. Many cultures, including our own, view the fontanelle to be weak, maybe because it’s soft in children. The fontanelle of children who become dehydrated from diarrhea will begin to sink, and in some societies, mothers actually try to suck up the fontanelle with their mouths, not realizing that what’s needed is to get the child more fluids.
Our fear of rain comes out of correlating even a shower to a cold. The correlation is correct, but the conclusion of “rains falling on the head cause colds” can be questioned. A biomedical explanation is that rain makes us look for shelter, usually in a place already crowded with other people, increasing the chances that we will come in contact with people who already have colds and catch their virus.
Modern superstitions
Colds and illnesses are always inviting new superstitions, including modern ones. Many of us take mega-doses of vitamin C when we feel a cold is coming; yet, medical studies have never been conclusive about vitamin C’s efficacy for those colds (or, for that matter, many other illnesses which the ads claim vitamin C can prevent). Some people will claim, from personal experiences, that vitamin C works, but does it, really? Are you sure you actually had a cold coming when you took vitamin C? Maybe what you thought was a cold was just your respiratory system protesting Manila’s pollution, and which would have cleared up anyway, even without vitamin C?
Anthropologists do keep an open mind, and medical anthropologists like me will tell physicians and health professionals to keep track of these “superstitions,” sometimes to explain them.
“Superstitions” are powerful because culture is mobilized to propagate them. Every year when the 7th Chinese lunar month comes around, many Chinese will recount stories about freak accidents and even deaths that occurred during that month, as proof that this is indeed a month of hungry, malevolent ghosts roaming the earth and looking for victims. The stories, told around meals and family gatherings, reinforce the belief that indeed, the 7th lunar month is laden with risks. The Chinese side of my brain tells me to be extra careful during the month, but the anthropological part tells me that one day, I should probe into why it’s the 7th lunar month that’s so feared. In China, it’d be the summer, and maybe summers increase risks for certain health problems.
Across cultures, we find this preoccupation with explaining accidents, illnesses, misfortune. We learn about our ancestors’ experiences through culture, and while we might sometimes wonder about how rational those beliefs and practices are, we keep them going, passing them on to another generation, because deep down, we don’t want to take chances. “Walang mawawala,” we say in Filipino—nothing will be lost.
Anthropologists reserve judgment about these practices, but we don’t necessarily accept them either. We’re around as well to challenge some of those traditions, reminding people that sure, sometimes it seems safer to stick to this “nothing lost” philosophy. But nothing lost could also mean nothing gained.
* * *
Email: mtan@inquirer.com.ph
|
