That night, we were entertained with traditional Samal dances by a dark-skinned, high-cheekboned woman. She was garbed in black, with a red kerchief around her neck. Her prohibitive and hideous metal nails called sangalays were the culmination of bony knuckles. The sharp sangalays are worn by women dancing the Pangalay. Now it glistened with movements of the fish the woman mimicked as her fingers danced with those eyes! The woman’s eyes pierced through me. Never has a woman been so powerful enough to mesmerize me!
Her eyes were haunting and exhibited the stare of an eagle. She was Econg Jahali or Inda Taas and her extraordinary gaze did not surprise me anymore when I learned that she was a diviner in her 60s and a tobacco merchant. What made her a celebrity was her ability to foretell the future by her mediumship of a local jin, a spirit, who guards Tubig-Mahirya, a sacred spot in Languyan, Tawi-Tawi, a separate island municipality of Tabawan. I cannot tell you her exact age because it’s common among the Moros not to register births and deaths.
I was told that Inda acquired extraordinary powers when her 20-year-old son Binoy died. Coming home from school, he lay down to sleep and never woke up again. He was pronounced dead for unknown reasons. Following Muslim tradition, Binoy was to be buried before sunset of the same day. In her pain and mourning, Inda played the gong and something happened. She broke into a cold sweat and a jin entered her body and took possession of her. He said, "Do not bury him for Binoy will resurrect in three days." And he did! I did not see Binoy for he had migrated to Sabah.
Inda, a female Duwata or shaman of Tabawan, Tawi-Tawi, performs rituals of thanksgiving during fasting, births, weddings, deaths to cleanse and cure illnesses. Curious, we questioned her capabilities. She said, "The best time to approach her for divination rites would be on the 15th moon according to the Muslim lunar calendar, when the jins Putli Jailon, Leo Lahi, Alam, Kutul Dila, Tuko-alam, Silo, Tuam Bojeron, and Maharlika Awon are accessible. All of them were former Tabawan residents who became her guardians in the afterlife."
We witnessed Inda and her jins in a session that morning. As noisy, sun-tanned, blonde children exposed to the sea and sun practically shoved aside the adults who accompanied me inside Inda’s 20 x 20 feet nipa house. Soon her charming, neat home was jampacked.
To begin the rite, Inda first had to be dressed properly. Two female attendants opened the old wooden chest to get Inda’s clothes and remain in her right side. Inda modestly removed her clothes behind a malong, held by her women attendants. She reappeared in a silk malong, V-necked top, a typical Samal outfit called Samra. Inda sat on the center of her curved bed in a lotus position. During the session a man, her third attendant, stood by her left side.
In the mode of answering and foretelling the future, Inda while in a stupor recalled the past enumerating her ancestors as in a tarsila. "First was Washid, then Batu, Kala, Lahid, Medianon, and Jianon," she chanted. She said the Samal tribe that comprised this island came from Johore, Malaysia on a jongayan or boat carried away by a typhoon to Tawi-Tawi. There are some myths and half truth accounts in that arrival story as read in the archival accounts history books that brought Sharif Kabungsuan, the Malaysian royal religious teacher, to Maguindanao and Shariff Awliya to Simumul in 1380. One of the valiant pioneers was Tabawan, who fought the Iraan, the mountain people who inhabited this island. In his memory, the place acquired its name.
In her somber state, Inda has no qualms admitting she is not bothered by those who remind her that her practices are against Islam. She qualifies that divination is part of the folk religion of the Mindanaoans. She is quick to retort that there are other old women of Tabawan who engage in the same practice.
The Samal interpreter broke our spell as he announced there was a male spirit intervening, perhaps the husband of the female spirit inside Inda. Awake and drinking the tonic again, the residue from her lips she wiped on her palm, face and forehead and she rose from her bed. She changed clothes again behind a malong, this time putting on a Samal male outfit of loose black pants and a tight-fitting black top. She was an expert at slipping in and out of various attires. Making whistling sounds our shaman reached for a piece of checkered cloth, folded it on her turban worn by men.
Male spirits know more. "They are mobile, and travel to many places," her male attendant said. Through Inda the male spirit asked, "You are many here, what do you want?" We asked a question simply to please the male spirit. "Yes, there will be success for your children, too." She jerked and wiped her face, the spirits departing. She changed into her former outfit, a tadjung and the V-necked Samra.
A passage in Readings in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach by William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt says, ". . . in the Shamanism of the west, power comes from direct contact with the supernatural, by divine stroke, rather than from inheritance or memorized ritual." The Duwata in Tabawan named Inda from South Ubian, Tawi-Tawi acquired her powers through direct contact with the jins.
This bed of hardwood was an epitaph to her carpenter’s outstanding sense of proportion, a sea-faring Samal. How correctly placed were her three native chests, serving as a headboard with six pillows for its owner to lean on. Behind the chests hung a tadjung in shades of gray and orange attached to the wall of her house from floor to ceiling. To make the color compositions even more attractive she attached a malong of gray and black to serve as canopy hanging from the rattan ceiling and let it fold one fourth over the gray and orange malong. She was truly artistic and feminine. There were several mats which indicated a house that served as home for the others who slept with her. Several pillows lay on the floor, one on top of the other, for anyone to use. Ingenious as she was, I was convinced of her artistry when I saw three stems of orange gladiolas in full bloom which grow in South Ubian’s island proper stuck in between the posts of one of her nipa walls. A striped turban of purple, aqua, burgundy and orange hung nonchalantly over a nail on the wall. My eyes enjoyed the feminine touches. A woman’s aesthetic skill never fades away. Inda had good color sense.
By the side of this wide wooden bed were her divining paraphernalia. Stacked on a one-square meter shelf were tiny stones, a few coconuts, and two bottles of Malaysian perfumes which were protected under a white cloth.
Beside the cabinet were several cans of spray. Flower-scented air deodorant sprays, for the jins’ pleasure were alongside three bottles of gin, two more bottles of perfume and one can of powder.
I opened her wooden and nipa window that was seven feet high and six feet wide and I saw a hundred faces staring at me from the outside. Happy at such a surprise, we all laughed. Laughter, the best medicine, had bridged the gap between Luzon and Mindanao, between Christians and Muslims.