Chapter 2: Boy Versus Serpent | Rajah Versus Conquistador
Warning: (anthropologically accurate) gruesome violence
Year 1499
"Some datus are born with an invisible twin," said the baylan.
"You were born with a serpent."
She saw the power of your twin early on. You were in Mactan then. Your father, the old rajah, sent you to stay with datu Lapulapu for a few months. You were there to learn stick and knife fighting from the renowned master.
Later on in life, you learned that more than training in the arts of war, those months spent in the domains of other datus is how alliances are preserved across generations. Lapulapu was your father's atubang before the warrior and his kin conquered the domain that he has since ruled. Not only have you and all your brothers spent many days of your childhood with the feared datu, the old rajah married your oldest sister to him, and Lapulapu’s sister, Pilapil, eventually became your first wife. The bonds between your families are unbreakable.
You were with Kulambô, Sula, Isagani, and Pakoy. All of you received your tulî last year, and now you are considered men, no longer boys.1 Lapulapu was a tough teacher. He seemed to take pleasure in your humiliations. You and the other boys were not only united by the time you spent together, but by your common fear and hatred for the datu.
Despite being the shortest among them, your little crew acknowledge you as their leader. When Kulambô would suggest a prank or an adventure, he would look to you first for approval. When Isagani feared punishment, it was behind you he would stand. You learned to stand straighter, to speak louder, to be more daring than the rest – as if courage could add inches to your stature. The other boys grew like weeds after rain, while you remained stunted like rice in poor soil. This thought gnawed at you, sharper than hunger, more persistent than thirst.
The older boys taunted you openly, calling you "potot" – stunted one – their voices loud and cruel. They laughed when you couldn't reach the targets during training, shoving you aside with casual disdain. They sang in mocking tones as you approached:
may'pa 'matay
mungi, muktot, mga potot
may'pa 'mataaaay!2
The cruel chant became your unwanted shadow, following you through the village. Each time they said it, something coiled tighter inside you. You forced yourself to smile, to act as though their words couldn't touch you, but each taunt buried itself like a thorn beneath your skin. At night, alone with your thoughts, "potot" echoed in your mind, feeding something hungry and patient that lived deep within you.
There was a new boy that summer who shared these months of training with you – Pakoy. Unlike the rest of you, he was a timawa's son, though you didn't know that then. Your father had allowed him to join your circle after seeing his natural quickness during a festival game. At first, the other boys kept their distance from him, but you found in Pakoy something the others lacked – a fearlessness born not of rank but of spirit. Pakoy moved through the world with a lightness that made even Lapulapu's harshest training seem like just another game to be mastered. The two of you became inseparable – racing through the village, sharing stolen mangoes, swimming in the shallows when you could escape your duties. Without the weight of bloodlines between you, friendship flowed as naturally as the tides. You would walk with arms draped over each other's shoulders – kaagbay, as your people say. Even now, the memory of that simple gesture brings warmth to your heart.
One of those nights in Mactan is tattooed in your memory. The five of you pretended to sleep and waited until the old female ulipon charged with taking care of you fell asleep. You then escaped your little hut and made your way to Lapulapu's house. As a kid, that journey through the nighttime village felt like the stories of the great datus and their battles with the monsters of the sea and the mountains. The moon cast long shadows across the ground, transforming familiar daytime scenes into mysterious landscapes. You could hear the distant crash of waves against the shore and the rustling of leaves by the northeast wind3 and the unseen creatures of the night.
Your heart pounded in your chest as you led your companions through the winding paths between huts. As you approached Lapulapu's payag,4 you saw flickering light from inside and heard the rhythmic clanging of gongs and the chanting of the baylan.
As you crept closer to the house, the chanting grew louder, intertwining with the pulsing rhythm of the gongs. Through a gap in the wall, you and your companions peered inside, your young eyes widening at the scene before you.
In the center of the room stood Lapulapu. He was still young, and his face and his torso were not yet covered with tattoos. However, his arms and legs were fully embroidered with records of his victories and those patterns on his seemed to writhe in the flickering torchlight. He stood a full head taller than most men, his shoulders broader than seemed possible for a human. It is said that his kin descended from the giants that sail the big eastern sea. A bright red scarf wound tightly around his forehead, holding back his long, flowing hair. Before him was the halad,5 its eyes wild with fear. The baylan moved in a trance-like dance around it, waving burning herbs that filled the air with pungent smoke.
In Lapulapu's hand was Kamatayon, the famous dagger, which has since been handed down to you. Its hilt is made of tugas, carved to look like a Bakunawa. You can feel its scales when you hold the knife. Its open mouth emerges from inside the curl of your thumb and forefinger, and from there a wavelike blade starts its undulating ascent toward its tip, forming a grotesquely oversized tongue. That was the first time you saw Kamatayon. The way its curves reflected the flames of the torchlights made it look alive.
You had witnessed the sacred katay before – the ritual slaughter and sacrifice that connects the living to the spirit world. In your father's domain, you had watched as chickens were prepared with careful precision, their throats cut in one clean motion to release their sacred blood. You had seen the katay of pigs during festivals, their squeals silenced as the blade found its mark, their blood collected in bamboo vessels to be offered to the diwata. The baylan had taught you that katay was more than mere killing – it was transformation, a sacred exchange that maintained balance between the realms of diwata and men.
But before that night you had never witnessed the katay of a man.6
With a swift, practiced motion, Lapulapu brought the blade down. As blood spilled onto the earthen floor, Kulambô gasped audibly. The sound was barely a whisper, but in the sudden silence that followed the sacrifice, it was unable to escape the warrior's ear. Lapulapu's head snapped towards your hiding spot, his eyes locking with yours through the gap in the wall.
The other boys panicked and ran back to your hut. Your twin serpent kept you in place. Perhaps it used your hatred for the datu, or perhaps the pride that came with your newly confirmed manhood. That part of your memory has faded a bit. What is clear is how the little boy's fear was overpowered by something greater.
"Come,"7 the datu said while his hand signaled the same command he spoke.
No one was around to see you, but you walked towards the entrance of the house with as much dignity a boy could muster. Your legs were heavy with fear, but you moved them like the man you're already supposed to be.
You walked up the stairs of the main entrance. When you entered, you felt the air transform from the cool sea breeze to something heavier, laden with sweat and the metallic tang of blood. Everyone turned to look at you, their faces serious and intent. Gone were the indulgent smiles of hosts aware whose son you are.
What drew your eye immediately were the sacred images arranged within the payag. Those images, carved from wood, loomed in the flickering torchlight. They were hollow, lacking back parts, their arms splayed open and their feet turned up under them with legs spread wide. Each bore a large face with four huge tusks protruding like those of a wild boar, painted in vibrant colors that seemed to pulse with the dancing flames.
You had seen many sacred images before, but these struck a primal fear within you. Their gaping mouths seemed to hunger, to demand something from the world of the living. What unsettled you most was how their features, though exaggerated and fearsome, reminded you of the Agta slaves your people sometimes sacrificed – small, dark, transformed by the carver's hand into vessels of power. The resemblance was unsettling, as if the boundaries between sacrifice and diwata had blurred, the victim becoming the deity that demanded more victims.
Your terror was at its summit as you reached the datu's side. So you were surprised to see the look on his face. It was a mix of amusement and perhaps pride in you. You and the boys endured a lot of pain under the datu's training, and this was the first time you received a hint of approval from him.
"This is what it costs," he said.
He then ordered the baylan, "Continue, and include the boy."
You realized then that the baylan was the datu's mother, Handuraw. Growing up, you knew her as a gentle woman who made delicious rice cakes.8 That night, she emanated a terrifying power that transformed her. Her familiar features receded beneath painted markings, her hunched frame now straight and commanding. Her eyes, usually warm, had become depthless pools that reflected nothing, as if something ancient looked through them – something that recognized the serpent coiled within you. The motherly figure had vanished, replaced by a vessel between worlds.
Before the halad, she and another baylan spread a piece of cloth upon the ground. Each held a bamboo cup in one hand. Handuraw placed a small piece of cloth on her forehead, while the other woman took up one of the cloths on the ground. They made obeisance to the diwata, then began a rhythmic swaying, their bodies moving in a hypnotic pattern – forward and back, side to side – as they blew their trumpets.
The dance intensified as they circled the halad, their movements becoming more urgent. They spoke in voices that seemed not their own – Handuraw addressing the diwata directly while the other woman answered. Your eyes were drawn to the ritual daggers they now brandished, catching the torchlight as they swayed. The blades moved in precise patterns through the air, tracing invisible symbols that seemed to hang in the smoke-thick space.
Tubâ was presented to Handuraw. She danced with it, lifting it skyward before sprinkling it upon the halad. Then came Kamatayon – Lapulapu offered it to her with reverence. She took it with practiced hands, shaking it while continuing the swaying dance that had not ceased since the ritual began. After several feints, she thrust it through the halad with sudden force.
As blood spilled onto the earthen floor, the baylan dipped her cup in it. What followed burned into your memory – how she moved among the gathering, marking the foreheads of the men with blood, the crimson thumbprint a covenant between flesh and spirit. You were the last to be marked. The blood was still warm when it dripped from your forehead down to your lips and chin.
You never got to find out what that sacrifice was for. Lapulapu usually leaves healing sacrifices to the baylan, so it is unlikely that it was for that. It could not have been for ensuring the success of a slave-raiding mission, since sacrifices for this purpose are done on the shore, so that the offerings can be the first waves that the war boats break. It must have been a sagang, protection from vengeance of the spirit of someone he had slain.
In any case, this was not the incident that showed the baylan your twin, but what it led to the day after.
That morning, you told the boys everything that happened. Well, not everything. It was then that you started keeping secrets between you and your twin. You did not tell them what Lapulapu told you.
That boy knew what he wanted, and after that fateful night, he knew what it would cost. The boy simply wanted to grow taller, to stand eye-to-eye with Lapulapu instead of looking up at him like the children of the Agta must do with your people. You had heard the whispers that blood offerings could make a boy sprout like bamboo after rain. You wanted to never hear "potot" again, to silence the laughter that followed you like ghosts.
Lapulapu and the other datus were out for a hunt that day, so you did not have stick fighting training. The boys decided to also go into the wilderness and do their own little hunt for spiders. You told them that you needed to rest after last night. You lied. You were full of energy, ready to carry out your plan, or the plan suggested by your twin.
Your neighbor's dog gave birth to seven puppies just before you arrived in Mactan. As soon as the voices of the boys were beyond your hearing, you went to the puppies. You petted the mother. You like dogs and you have been giving her left overs. You played with her offspring everyday. She trusted you, and she did not seem to mind that you took one of them with you.
You went back to your hut with the offering. It was then that you had to imprison the boy in a box inside of you.
It was the ulipon that found you out. You must have been a terrifying sight for her. A kid covered in blood, tears streaming down his cheeks, muscles tensed, holding his little knife. The offering on the floor surrounded by its sacred liquid.
Her scream alerted the entire village. They brought you to the baylan, Handuraw, the same one who led the sacrifice the previous night, but now looking again like a harmless datu's mother.
The dog's owner eventually found out. You remember her words as she complained to the baylan, "These Sugboanons think they can do whatever they want!" You sensed that her frustration had deeper roots than that day's incident. She must have met your older half-brothers during their own stay there in Mactan. "This kid is a monster and should not be allowed among our children!"
The baylan calmed her down and probably gave her a pig or a few chickens in exchange for the puppy you took from her. The baylan wouldn't disallow kids from her village just because they are beyond good and evil. After, she raised one herself. This was when she told you about your twin.
The dog's owner was a close kin of Lapulapu and the wife of one of the village's datus. Yet, her mind was like that of a slave.
You speak the language of the Agta since the slave that took care of you in your early years was one of them. When you were very young, your elders were amused by how you pronounced some words like an Agta.
You found this ability useful later on as rajah. The previous rulers of the port of Sugbo treated all the Agta in the mountains merely as sources of slaves. You were the first to protect some of Agta groups and trade with them. They brought you rare animals and plants from the wilderness in exchange for rice and necklaces.
You learned about their customs. You once noticed a good hunter among them. You encouraged him to increase his yield, just as you do when you notice men of ability9 among your people. He replied that he does not want to be ostracized among his tribe. This is why they don't have datus. They cut down anyone among them who acts like they are better than the others.
You concluded that this must be the reason why the Agta were all defeated and displaced by the people of the balanghay in all the islands that they landed on. This must also be why they never grow taller beyond the shoulders of a Bisayâ.
You have noticed how slaves among the Bisayâ also think like the Agta. This is why they remain slaves. Even among the timawa and the datu, there are those who think like slaves – like that dog owner. You don't know if some of the Agta are born with a serpent. If this were the case, they would get rid of that child in their terror, like that fearful woman.
Your people dominate these islands because of women like Handuraw. They understand that men like you and her son Lapulapu can bring great harm to their village, but with the right upbringing and the proper offerings, you can be weapons to protect your people, extend your dominion, and bring wealth to your kin. This is why she took you under her wing and taught you how to deal with the invisible forces of this world.
Everyone starts learning the way of the knife with hand fighting. Next, with the same fluid movements, you are taught to fight with sticks. Only after the sticks become like limbs to you are you taught to fight with knives, the same movements bringing you closer and closer to the power over life and death.
It was the same with sacrifice. Your first attempt was clumsy and messy. But Handuraw saw your gift and as you grew up and learned the arts of war and combat in your visits to Mactan, you also learned from her the arts of wielding the powers of the cosmos. You started with fowl. Once you learned to properly release the sacred liquid from feathered creatures, you moved on to pigs. Even before you received your first tattoo, she allowed you to offer a slave. It was an old Agta offered for the cure of a dying datu. By then, the boy had already been imprisoned in boxes within boxes deep within you. His voice was imperceptible as you looked straight into the eyes of the offering before releasing the cost of the datu's cure.
Through the years that followed, you and the serpent reached an understanding. What began as wild hunger, you learned to channel through ritual and purpose. Handuraw guided your hand, teaching you to feed your twin properly – not through random violence, but through calculated sacrifice that built your power. "The serpent craves more than blood," she told you before your father's death. "It hungers for true power – the kind that makes men follow you willingly, that ensures your name outlives your flesh." With her help, your unseen hand patiently ended the lives of all the datus who mocked you in your youth. Her words became your compass as you rose from the shadow of your half-brothers and to eventually become the rajah.
You learned to see what others could not – the invisible chains of desire and fear binding all men. This sight let you offer each exactly what they craved most, whether glory or gold or protection. Even your wives found themselves willingly entangled in your coils, never suspecting it was the serpent that taught you to taste ambition beneath perfume, to see hunger behind lowered eyes. The boy still whispers from his prison during the darkest nights, asking if the sacrifices will ever be enough. You never answer him. Instead, you stroke Kamatayon's hilt, remembering Handuraw's final lesson: "The serpent is neither good nor evil. It simply is. Those who fear it call it evil. Those who harness it call it power." And power, you have learned, is the only truth that matters in this world of men.
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Tulî (circumcision) is a significant rite of passage for boys in the Philippines, marking their transition into manhood. In pre-colonial Visayan society, circumcision was typically performed as part of warrior initiation rituals, often in a communal setting under the supervision of elders or warriors. It was not only a physical transformation but also a social one, symbolizing readiness for adult responsibilities, including warfare and leadership. The practice continues in the Philippines today, albeit with medical procedures replacing traditional methods in many areas.
Better off dead, disabled ones and shorties, better off dead.
Amihan.
A payag is a traditional Visayan stilt house, typically made of bamboo and nipa palm. Raised above the ground to protect against flooding and pests, the payag is a simple yet functional structure, often consisting of a single room with woven bamboo walls and a thatched roof. Still common today among rural communities in the Philippines, it reflects the region’s adaptation to its tropical climate and reliance on locally available materials.
Halad is a Visayan term meaning offering or sacrifice, often given in a religious or ritual context. In precolonial Visayas, halad could refer to offerings made to ancestors, spirits, or deities, including food, livestock, or even human sacrifices in certain rites.
For a quick overview of ritual human sacrifice in precolonial Visayas, see Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society by William Henry Scott (1994). For a comprehensive study of ritual sacrifice across the Philippines, consult Narciso C. Tan’s Púgot: Head Taking, Ritual Cannibalism, and Human Sacrifice in the Philippines (Vibal Foundation, 2021). For the role of ritual sacrifice in the political economy of Philippine chiefdoms, refer to Laura Lee Junker’s Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms (1999). For the role of ritual sacrifice in the politics of premodern kingships, see On Kings by David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins (2017).
Marika.
Puto maya.
Maynglaki.