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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Saturday, June 12, 2010

entry arrow7:11 PM | According to Myth, Our World is Just a Rat's Excreta

I have always loved this creation story from Bohol, culled from Fr. Francisco Demetrio's "Creation Myths Among The Early Filipinos" in theAsian Folklore Studies:

In the beginning there was only darkness. Then the heavens covered the earth so that the two together looked like an immense tabo or coconut-shell bowl. Within the bowl a rat was born. It graduaIIy grew in size until it transformed itself into the giant Angngalo, the Bisayan Atlas who carried the heavens on his shoulders. One day, he eased himself, and from his feces and urine were born the islands, lakes and rivers, of the Archipelago. God who saw him thus occupied gave him a kick which sent him to China by way of Mariveles.


I don't know why knowing that we all live in divine excreta fascinates me.

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[1] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich





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