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Babaylan Sing Back: Philippine Shamans and Voice, Gender, and Place
Babaylan Sing Back depicts the embodied voices of Native Philippine ritual specialists popularly known as babaylan. These ritual specialists are widely believed to have perished during colonial times, or to survive on the margins in the present-day. They are either persecuted as witches and purveyors of superstition, or valorized as symbols of gender equality and anticolonial resistance. Drawing on fieldwork in the Philippines and in the Philippine diaspora, Grace Nono's deep engagement with the song and speech of a number of living ritual specialists demonstrates Native historical agency in the 500th year anniversary of the contact between the people of the Philippine Islands and the European colonizers.
- GenresNonfiction
252 pages, Hardcover
Published November 15, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 22, 2022
While more familiar with her music, I was thrilled to read Grace Nono’s latest book. My biggest takeaway is learning that while the framing of the babaylan as a symbol of womanpower has been an inspiring development for many Philippine women, it is of little relevance to many native ritual specialists who are still consigned to the margins, surviving only as valorized symbols and spirits to be embodied by their modern elite sisters.
October 27, 2023
What do you think of when you hear the word "babaylan"? Most people usually fall into two camps: those who think that babaylans are relics of the past, devil-worshippers long eradicated by the holy teachings of the Catholic Church; or those who believe that they were fierce, powerful priestess-warriors who fought colonialism, serving as proof that precolonial Philippines was an egalitarian utopia.
In *Babaylan Sing Back*, Grace Nono, a scholar of Native ritual specialists, presents 3 modern case studies that bring to the forefront the voices of these practitioners. She noticed that discourse on babaylan studies have often centered voices from colonizers, the diaspora, or the privileged lowlanders. In this book, the material of which was 30 years in the making, Nono essentially passes the mic to the practitioners to talk about their lived experiences.
These 3 case studies demonstrate that:
- babaylan practice still exists in the modern day
- babaylan practice is not constrained to poor, backwater places untouched by modernity
- the lived experiences of babaylans defy the stereotype of powerful priestess-warriors
- being a woman ritual spiritualist does not necessarily provide enough power to defy patriarchal norms, either today nor in precolonial times
- individual practitioners employ their own agency in unique ways to continue practicing their Native traditions among a host of foreign and modernized influences
This book provides an illuminating insight on the different rituals practiced by the babaylan, as well as the different problems that babaylans struggle against (due to tradition or colonization or modernity). I really appreciate the author's sympathetic effort to humanize these practitioners, who are often marginalized and silenced. She does not judge whether the spirit helpers of these ritualists are "real" or whether their practice is "rational." She also provides a lot of different perspectives from other scholars to create a nuanced view of ritual specialists, how their traditional practice both empower and complicate their lives and the lives of those in their communities.
In *Babaylan Sing Back*, Grace Nono, a scholar of Native ritual specialists, presents 3 modern case studies that bring to the forefront the voices of these practitioners. She noticed that discourse on babaylan studies have often centered voices from colonizers, the diaspora, or the privileged lowlanders. In this book, the material of which was 30 years in the making, Nono essentially passes the mic to the practitioners to talk about their lived experiences.
These 3 case studies demonstrate that:
- babaylan practice still exists in the modern day
- babaylan practice is not constrained to poor, backwater places untouched by modernity
- the lived experiences of babaylans defy the stereotype of powerful priestess-warriors
- being a woman ritual spiritualist does not necessarily provide enough power to defy patriarchal norms, either today nor in precolonial times
- individual practitioners employ their own agency in unique ways to continue practicing their Native traditions among a host of foreign and modernized influences
This book provides an illuminating insight on the different rituals practiced by the babaylan, as well as the different problems that babaylans struggle against (due to tradition or colonization or modernity). I really appreciate the author's sympathetic effort to humanize these practitioners, who are often marginalized and silenced. She does not judge whether the spirit helpers of these ritualists are "real" or whether their practice is "rational." She also provides a lot of different perspectives from other scholars to create a nuanced view of ritual specialists, how their traditional practice both empower and complicate their lives and the lives of those in their communities.
March 3, 2025
Grace Nono’s decades of research shine a light on the complex humanity of the babaylan and their communities, adding stories, color, and texture to the one-dimensional memes that get shared on social media. (it’s not as simple as “babaylan are empowered women/transgender people who are revered for their spiritual gifts.” Some of the tribes’ relationships with gender and sexuality are not as egalitarian as we imagine, and some of those traditions even predated the arrival of European and American colonizers. Still, Nono argues that the introduction of the wh!te supremacist flavor of patriarchy likely reinforced and aggravated certain social hierarchies. And of course there’s no denying the influence of land grabbing and displacement with the intro of capitalism and private property laws)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews