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Hello, my dear!

Here I will be sharing with you my reflections and realizations about Mythology and Folklore.

A society's mythology and folklore are always the pillar under which its culture is formed. The tales of a culture can be attributed to most cultural practices and beliefs. These serve as a baseline for moral boundaries and provide fundamental principles for how the people in a community should live. Eventually, learning about mythology provides meaning for our world, culture, and personal views.

Personally, this course will help me become an effective literature teacher in the future. I need this course now and more than ever because this will hone me become a skilled storyteller for the interest of my future students.

Love, Manny

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When I first considered taking a Mythology class, the only thing that came to my mind was Greek Mythology, which is a collection of stories about Ancient Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and rituals. It is, however, more than that. Via an imaginative presentation, we are expected to demonstrate content and concepts of mythology and folklore from various countries in order to gain insights across people's origins, interests, fears, instincts, and needs.

Hence, it's beneficial that this class takes us all over the world, rather than only focusing on Greek mythology.

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It's a lot of fun to bring up superstitious beliefs and other locally existing views in virtual classrooms.

To be honest, I'm intrigued by those stuffs, but I've always scoffed at people who believe in them because I only believe in the Bible. Miss Jei, thankfully, enlightens me on these matters by saying, "It is the danger of a single story."

She added that "when we recount stories from the BIBLE, WE ARE NOT DEFINITIVE AS THEY ARE TRUE OR UNTRUE, these are just stories that people have used in a variety of ways overtime."

One of the examples is declaring "tao po!" when knocking at the door. Nobody seems to understand why Filipinos say "Tao po!" when knocking on a door or gate. It dates back to before the Spanish conquest. Doors back then didn't have peekholes as they do now, so before letting the "knocker" in, one had to make sure it wasn't a wild animal that couldn't talk or describe itself as "tao" (human). Our forefathers also claimed that many dangers awaited them beyond the safety of their houses, so “aswang,” elementals, and evil spirits who, unlike animals, could not tell “Tao po!” to trick the household into allowing them in, were not allowed in. Funny, I've been here for two decades but this is my first time hearing its meaning!

Finally, I realized that 'respect' is much needed as far as superstitious beliefs is concerned.

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Hi, I am up again for another realization!

Today's discussion was really a fruitful one as I was able to encode many concepts or terms relative to Mythology and Folklore inside my mind.

There are eight (8) different types of creation myths presented in class, but I only believe in one of them. It is the Ancestor Stories, in which the world starts with two individuals and all subsequent humans are their descendants. With my deep faith, I believe that we are all descended from Eve and Adan, our great Lord's first two individuals.

Additionally, I was able to differentiate legend from urban legends. Legend has historical data while urban legends have no clear origin and are being passed down through the word of mouth. I am also living my whole life believing that legends are "alamat" in Filipino, but I have been wrong. Alamat is actually Pourquoi Tale which means "why" in French. It explains why something is the way it is.

Every day is indeed a learning day.

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Let's now talk about the Aztec and Incas.

Have you ever heard of floating garden? Well, if not yet, thanks to the Aztecs for making the Chinampas. Chinampas, also known as floating gardens, were defined as artificial islands. The Aztecs mastered the technique of building chinampas, which enabled them to expand their farming and living areas. It's brilliant, right?

Death whistles were used by the Aztecs, too. This one is interesting. They make a howling sound that can stop the listener in their path when lifted to the lips and blown. They emerged uncovered in the possession of a sacrificed 20-year-old man whose skeleton was discovered buried in front of Tlatelolco's Ehecatl (wind) temple.

On the other hand, the Inca state was also a very civilized empire with its millions of citizens as it spanned the distance of Northern Ecuador to Central Chile. A well-designed agricultural and highway infrastructure, as well as a centralized religion and language, all led to the state's unity. They were made by the sun god Inti, who had sent his son Manco Capac to Earth via the middle of three caves in the village of Paccari Tampu, according to some accounts of their origin myths.

Meanwhile, the Incas and Aztecs were easily defeated by Spanish invaders, despite their might. The Spaniards were able to conquer even our own nation, the Philippines; hence, sharing the same fate with the two empires. This just goes to show how powerful these colonizers were at the time. Also, Aztecs and Incas used to have different gods arising from nature. In conjunction with this, our forefathers during the pre-Spanish era were believed to have worshipped various  gods of sun, moon, wind, etc.

It's very historical yet very interesting to know.