The Kenniverse is Pinoy: Hallowe'en and the Manananggal

I experienced my first Hallowe'en in the Philippines! And boy, do Filipinos really like exploring the gruesome side of the holiday. I'm discovering that Filipinos are a superstitious bunch. They have many different types of supernatural creatures in their folklore. The main term for the supernatural here is Aswang.

An Aswang (or Asuwang) is a ghoul in Filipino folklore. The myth of the Aswang is popular in the Western Visayan regions such as Capiz, Iloilo and Antique. The trademark or major feature of Aswangs which distinguish them from other Filipino mythological creatures is their propensity to replace stolen cadavers with the trunk of a banana tree carved in the cadaver's likeness. They are also said to like to eat small children. Their favorite body parts are the liver and heart. Aswang, at times, is also a generic term applied to all types of mythological creatures, ghosts, manananggals (see photo below), witches, shapeshifters, lycanths and monsters. Aswang is often interchanged with manananggal, but they are different. There are also characteristics and features that the Aswang also varies from Filipino to Filipino.They usually live near the mountains and they never go in to cities.

I get a sense that some Filipinos really believe in this stuff; more so than Canadians believe in the supernatural. Maybe that's why the Hallowe'en displays are so gruesome - if you believe a gruesome creature walks the streets (or flies the skies) on a daily basis why not put one of your lawn during Hallowe'en right? Here are a few photos I took of the Hallowe'en displays in the village:

Nothing odd about this Hallowe'en display: graveyards are done in Canada too! But it gets little weirder as I walk around the village.

Black ghosts and black pumpkins? A fire all ready for a witch burning? I wonder if that witch in the background is the one about to get toasted?

This witch was down the street from the witch burning house. Pretty spooky face if you ask me!

This poor guy lost most of his body to an unfortunate electricity accident!

This is a manananggal. Manananggals are a type of Filipino vampire. And yes, they live among us! There's apparently one flying around the skies of Quezon City, the city I live in. Manananggals walk around like regular people. They can be male or female. What makes them different from other vampires is they can separate their top half of their body from the bottom half. The top half sprouts bat-like wings allowing it to fly around. So while the top half (waist up) is flying around attacking and killing victims the bottom half just stands there. Rumour has it the only way to kill a manananggal is to approach the defenceless bottom half and rub garlic and salt over the areas where the top half and bottom half join. By doing this the two parts cannot rejoin and the manananggal dies. Maybe I should start walking around with garlic and salt in my pocket in case I come across a half body standing on a street corner.

Manananggal and her bloody alien friend.

I assume this is a manananggal ghost skeleton since it has no bottom half?

I have no idea who these guys are suppose to be. The poor guy in the front had an unfortunate accident with an ax.

Coffins.

Another coffin.

Not all of the displays were horror-based. There's nothing scary about this little guy.

Now I know needles are scary to some people but are they Hallowe'en scary? I suppose they would be if they were as large as this one. This needle is larger than most children.

When Aimee and I went out and bought candy for the kids we grabbed whatever the grocery store was selling. When we came back we were told not only did we not buy enough, but we bought the expensive candy imported from other countries. So we sent the maids out to buy locally made candy and enough to feed the usual number of kids that come to the door. They arrived back home with about 800 pieces of candy for the kids. Add this to the 200 Aimee and I bought and it sounded like A LOT of candy. This candy lasted us only 30 minutes and there were hundreds of other kids still trick or treating. Sorry kids, the candy is all gone!