FROM Jose Rizal’s retelling of a Luzon Wundermärchen: “In my town, there is preserved a legend, the legend of Mariang Makiling. She was a maiden who inhabited the beautiful mountain which separates the provinces of Laguna and Tayabas… According to eyewitnesses, she was a young girl, tall, well-shaped, with large black eyes, long and abundant hair. Her color was a clear and light brown, the ‘Kayumangging-Kaligatan,’ as the Tagalogs say; her hands and feet, small and exquisite; and the expression of her face, always grave and serious. She was a fantastic creature, half nymph, half sylph, born of the rays of the moon of the Philippines, in the mystery of its august forests and to the lullaby of the murmurs of the neighboring lake. According to general belief, and contrary to the reputation of nymphs and goddesses, Mariang Makiling is always preserved as a virgin, slender and mysterious as the spirit of the mountain.
‘Haunting, enigmatic, relevant. This folktale invites all of us to imagine more ways to respond to our zeitgeist.’
“Her favorite walk, as they say, was after a storm; at that time, she went surveying the fields, and whenever she passed, she restored life, order, and calm; the trees straightened their bent trunks; the rivers were locked in their channels and the tracks of the unchained elements were obliterated.
“When the poor rustics of the slopes of Makiling needed clothing or jewels for the solemnities of life, she loaned them upon the condition of returning them and of giving, in addition, a white hen that had not hitherto laid eggs, a pullet, as they say. Mariang Makiling was very charitable and had a kind heart.
“But Mariang Makiling was not always bountiful and agreeable with the hunters; she was also revengeful, although her vengeance was never cruel. The maiden always preserved the tender heart of a woman.
“But it is now many years that her presence has not been noted on Makiling. Her vaporous silhouette now does not go through the deep valleys nor crosses the waterfalls in the serene moonlit nights; now one is not permitted to hear the melancholy accent of her mysterious harp; and now lovers are married without receiving from her jewels or gifts; Mariang Makiling has disappeared, or at least avoids friendly contact with men.
“Some put the blame for this on the natives of a certain village who not only refused to give the customary white hen but also did not return the gifts loaned to them; clear it is that they reject such accusation and say that Mariang Makiling is offended because the Dominican friars seek to despoil them of their property by appropriating half of the mountain.” [La Solidaridad, 23 November 1890, Arnold H. Warren translation]
Haunting, enigmatic, relevant. This folktale invites all of us to imagine more ways to respond to our zeitgeist. Yes, Rizal’s hiking locale was integral to his love of the Fatherland (“her cultivated fields, her Makiling, all her simple and picturesque beauty,” 01 May 1882) and, yes, Mariang Makiling’s home was Miguel Malvar’s and Paciano Rizal’s joint combat command during the Wars of Independence against Spanish Colonialism and against American Imperialism, and in the Global Anti-Fascist War, the Makiling Avengers, II Army Corps, Marking’s Fil-Americans.
In our 21st century, Mount Makiling is “not an active volcano” (according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology) and Mount Makiling Forest Reserve is an ASEAN Heritage Park located 14°8 north and 121°12 east. [https://makiling.center]
In our 21st century: “The synonymity of diwata to the female sex, or in this case the engkantada, helps locate the poem in the many variations of an old Filipino legend found in thousands of folklores. This poem is perhaps a variant of the rich ensemble of tales that goes by several names like Mariang Makiling, Mariang Sinukuan, and Maria Cacao (Mojares, 2002). All versions have a female protagonist who by some tragic event, leave their abode. The motherly features of the engkantada mirror the view of women in Philippine society; that they are essential to the growth and living of a nation, or in the case of the poem, the lives of people living in the mountain slopes.” [Lakan Uhay Dorado Alegre, University of the Philippines, “Puruyanan: The Waray Concept of Home in Selected Poems of Victor N. Sugbo,” The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities in Hawaii 2023 Official Conference Proceedings]
In our 21st century, we can connect Mariang Makiling with the other healers and heroines of Earth: “Makiling: Mt. Makiling’s faith healer is put to the test!” (Full Episode 2) January 9, 2024; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Xbh4ZO2FM
- “If English people knew what an Indian famine is — worse than a battlefield, worse even than a retreat, and this famine too, in its second year–there is not an English man, woman or child who would not give out of their abundance or out of their economy.” [Florence Nightingale, Letter to the lord mayor of London, 19 August 1877]
- “Working men suffer from the helplessness of working women. They must compete in the same offices and factories with women who are unable to protect themselves with proper laws. They must compete with women who work in unsanitary rooms called homes, work by dim lamps in the night, rocking a cradle with one foot. It is in the interest of all workers to end this stupid, one-sided, one-power arrangement and have suffrage for all.” [Helen Keller, “Why Men Need Woman Suffrage,” New York Call, October 17, 1913]
“Pity thy unconfined, Clear spirit, whose enfranchised eyes, Use not their grosser sense? Ah, no! thy bright intelligence, Hath its own Paradise, A realm wherein to hear and see, Things hidden from our kind. Not thou, not thou–’t is we, Are deaf, are dumb, are blind!” [Edmund Clarence Stedman, “Helen Keller,” 1888]
