Origin myths

An account to legazpi in 1567 tells that in the beginning, there is only the sky and the water and
between them was a hawk who struggled to find a place to rest. Angry, the hawk created a conflict to
turn the water against the sky and so an island was formed where the hawk finally rests. Brought by the
current, the hawk found a piece of bamboo along the shore, cracked open, and from there came out a
man and a woman. With the approval of linog (earthquake), the two got married and had many children
who soon fled and been divided (nobles, timawa, slaves).

The panay version tells that the bamboo was produced by the marriage of the Sea and Land breeze
(kaptan and magwayen). The leyte and samar version tells that a man and a woman came from two
young coconuts instead of a bamboo. The highlanders of panay listed two other categories of children
(the ancestors of the blacks and the progenitors of the spaniards).

The visayan origin myth not only described the creation of man and woman but also introduced the
concept of death, theft, concubinage, war, and class and race differences.

Death and burial

A one last desperate rite performed to call back a departed soul was called the paguli. The paguli was
performed using a coconut shell with water placed in the stomach and rotated with chants. In the case
of a datu, some of his slaves are sacrificed in the hope of being accepted in his stead. The sacrifice was
done with violence and in a variety of brutal ways to indicate a conviction that a datu was the ordinary
target for vengeful spirits of men he had vanquished. professional mourners(old women) sang dirges to
emphasize grief and eulogized the qualities of the deceased.

A standard Visayan coffin were called longon, which was made from hardwood sewn from a single trunk
of tree. All datus or prominent persons wanted to be buried in a traditional longon that decorated with
fancy carvings. The corpse was placed in the coffin with all body cavities as well as all their valuables and
wealth. In the case of Poor Visayans, corpse were only burried wrapped in a banana leaf in simple
caskets of wood or bamboo.

On the other hand, Infants or babies were buried in crocks or jars and sometimes in porcelains. A burial
using a what was called "dragon jars" were called Ihalasan. The Visayan gravesites were usually located
in the banks of upstreams, rivers, or the sea coast. Caves were also used for this purpose. A slave called
"dayo" is stationed at a datu's tomb for the rest of his life to guard it against robbers while A slave
called "atubang" were a lifelong personal attendant expected to follow his master to his grave.

There was also a secondary burial which is considered to be the most prestigious, respectful and
affectionate burial. A secondary burial is the reburial of bones exhumed from a primary burial after the
body decomposed.

Mourning
As a sign of grief and mourning, both widows and widowers observed three days of fasting (awut) and
silence during which they neither bathed nor combed. In a death of a datu, the whole community will be
placed under strict mourning interdict called "pumaraw" and the mourning period will only end with the
taking of a human life. The very same requirement is also needed to end the mourning for any case of
death by violence, drowning, or suspected sorcery though if not certain, a wild boar or deer could be
speared instead.

The Afterlife

The departing soul was delivered by boat to saad or sulad. On the other shore, the kalag would be met
by relatives who predeceased him but will only be accepted based on his wealth. If rejected, the soul
remained permanently in sulad unless reprieved by the god pandaki.