Philippine Mythology

A Demonized Sweet Girl

Now moving on, were discussing the last significant daughter of Bathala. The youngest, Tala (ta-la).

In Tagalog, Tala literally translates to star. Guess what she's the goddess of. If you said the goddess of stars you're totally correct. What fun.

So yeah, goddess of stars, then obviously her emblem is a star.

So Tala is, yes, kind of sweet. First of all because I'm stereotyping her to be the sweet and innocent youngest child, and second because at night, the lost fishermen and lost hunters would often look at the stars for directions. I'm sure that all countries have this story. Her light would be the their guide to safety, along with Anagolay, the goddess of all things lost, which apparently included people.

She's also said to have been part of creating Tagalog constellations. What do I mean by this you ask? Well, I can't elaborate as much as I'd like to because information like this is completely lost. Apparently, we had our own set and names and backstory of constellations. For example, the Ursa Major would have been called otherwise and would have a completely different name and backstory. Maybe it even looked different, maybe we didn't even have that. There's a chance that a whole new set was seen which isn't included in Western constellations. This was because, you've probably guessed it, colonization! Yipee! So these things are forgotten because both the Spaniards and Americans had their own influential culture, which is evident up till now.

A bit of background (I might have mentioned this, I forgot), the Spaniards were the ones who've introduced the Philippines to Christianity and Jesus Christ. So accordingly, they had to wipe out all other pagan gods like everyone I'm discussing right now, in replacement to their own versions in the bible. Consequently, the story wherein Tala used lit up spheres or glowing orbs to drive the lost men to safety were demonized. IT'S A DAMN GLOWING BALL WHY DID THEY EVEN, GOSH!

Okay, so these glow in the dark tits were called "santelmo" (san-tel-mo) which is probably slang or the Tagalog accent of reading "St. Elmo's fire". Where did they fire part come up, I don't know.

St. Elmo, from the Spaniards Catholic influence, apparently served as an omen of heavenly intervention to the sailors. Most probably the lost ones.

There are two versions of how the people saw these santelmo. First was that it is the spirit of a man who has died near a river, lake, ocean, or during heavy rains. The lost soul appears as a ball of fire and some say  it seeks revenge on those who may have done him wrong, while others claim the soul is seeking peace. It bounces along and rolls away. It changes into a beast with fire in its mouth. Travelers and fishermen follow it at night. They walk and walk till they are tired out. Then they cannot find their way home. They walk into deep mud and thorny bushes. They get dizzy and become insane. They must reverse their clothes to send it away. Then they can find their way home.

Another was that these sprits were the children who died before they were baptized. Now, I mean, you could still see the connection of Tala's sphere balls to the santelmo. It's just that the santelmo are the evil versions, so that the ancient Tagalogs would accept the new faith being introduced to them by the Spaniards. Pagan and Animism was gone and in was Jesus Christ.