Tawak in Asiland: Pre-Hispanic remedy

Until today, in Sibale, there are islanders still whose traditions, for reasons that are unexplained yet, are eradicable.

These traditions, unique as they are, persist, thrive, and continue to command grudging—and whispered—respect not so much because they make sense in a globalized world, but because no modern invention dare to question these traditions merely on account of their antiquity: they ante-date 300 years of Spanish conquest.

Ismael Fabicon, who has made it his life’s calling to bring to the surface and propagate the Banto-anons’ (I am using this collective nomenclature for the peoples of Sibale, Simara, Calatrava, Odiongan and Banton, they being one tribal nation) cultural heritage proffer a reason behind the stubborn refusal of these traditions to fade away, to be forgotten.

He says the Recollects, who were the first Spanish missionaries in Banton, allowed the Banto-anons to retain certain traditions, beliefs and practices to make it easier to convert them to Christianity.

The Banto-anons were animists, the Spaniards found out upon setting foot on the “circular and mountainous” island. They planned and risked their births, marriages and deaths not upon Fate or Chance or some Supreme Deity, but upon the rocks, the stars, the sea and land creatures and the trees that not only enlivened, but rendered, their lives useful and meaningful.

Unfortunately for the Spaniards, the Banto-anons knew their land and their culture better. I strongly suspect they wore their personality with two masks: one for the foreigners—in this case, the Recollects—and one for their daily interaction with their kin and fellow islanders.

Which of the two is the true self of the Banto-anons remains a mystery. Over time, I think, we fused the two masks, thus today, we go to Church on Sundays, but when a family member gets sick, we call on the barrio medicine man to perform the healing ritual of pangupong or bawi.

This was so true to many natives during the Spaniards’ reign. When finally they were subjugated under the policy of bajo de la campana, literally “under the church bells”, for better policing and pastoral care, the natives—ordered to build their houses on a straight path that leads directly to the public square and under the gaze and shadow of the church and convent—every year transferred their houses without prior notice farther and farther away from the poblado so they would be able to practice their animist beliefs, until such time that the Spaniards would discover a pueblo’s population to have been diminished, already gone.

This led the friars to establish the visita, a chapel in the remote sitio of the pueblo—a pursuit strategy to recover lost souls. Notwithstanding the visita, however, the natives continue to worship in their own traditional way their animist gods at night.

That the Sibalenhons of today retain in their consciousness and way of life their ancient faiths, traditions and beliefs demonstrate to a large extent the failure of the Spaniards—with their Cross, Sword, and all—to fully conquer the Asi, which is how we call now the peoples sprung from the Banto-anons.

Tawak, for example, is one such pre-Spanish healing practice that continues in Sibale. Tawak is the traditional remedy for venomous bites—snake, dog, cat, bat, centipede, or scorpion bites.

Today, one who has been bitten by a poisonous snake, for example, is injected with anti-venom, or anti-rabies shot if it’s a dog bite. But anti-venom medication was only recent. Tawak is ancient, and based on the principle of bleeding the body to get out the toxin or poison out of the system.

Modern medical science may have given us laser-guided treatments, antibiotics, or some bitter pills, but the Asi rests his faith in the potent root of the manunggay as pang-tambay or in the tawak 'medicine man', not in some white-garbed doctor with a dangling stethoscope and a prescription pad given-away by a multinational pharmaceutical company!

Tawak is not performed by just anybody. There is a tawak an expert, for the treatment involves some ancient ritual complete with indecipherable incantation. I don’t know what it is, and no one among those I have asked for this article knew either. They said it is a prayer to the ‘lord’ of the culprit that bit the victim. Do snakes have a god or gods? Or a wandering spirit?

Anyway, the tawak technique, as I said, is to extract the poison out of the body. To do the tawak, the ‘medicine man’ uses a hollowed-out carabao horn and a very sharp-edged knife.
He asks the patient or victim to lie on his back and recite his prayer or incantation. With the knife, he makes a small incision on the body part which was bitten (if the bite is fresh) and presses on the open wound the narrow point of the horn. He sucks out the venom by his lips through the horn, which has a tiny hole in it, courtesy of a pin prick. He recites some more prayers. This remains for a few minutes, until he stops and ‘decides’ that the poison, venom, or toxin, has been extracted. The victim gets well. Everybody’s happy.

There are bite-victims who do not show any symptom at once (this is true in dog bites) so they postpone seeing the tawak practitioner. They only call for a tawak treatment when the effects of the poison manifest. In such cases, the tawak practitioner makes the incision in some other parts of the body, not on the bitten part.

Such was the case of Bel, my indefatigable house help. Bel narrates that she was bitten by an amamaga, a giant, black centipede, but did not at once fell ill after she was bitten. Later, however, she complained of dizziness and a faster heartbeat. That’s when her mother called on the tawak ‘medicine man’, who performed the above healing ritual by sucking out the venom through the carabao horn from a small incision on her back. Bel has never been healthy after the tawak ‘operation’!

Doctors may scoff at this remedy, but for every medical practitioner who will say that the first aid to a snake bite is the nearest medical facility, there will be ten Sibalenhons who will swear that is preposterous because the nearest hospital to the island is two hours away on a motorized outrigger. They will say that by the time the victim reaches the hospital, he might have already turned pale-blue, or worse, died.

So, why not call the tawak man? This is what we do in Sibale and, thank good heavens, I think no one in the island has left this world for another on account that he was bitten by a rabies-infected bat, or cat, and that the medicine man who performed a tawak on him was a leech or a quack.

Because of its efficacy, the tawak is a hallowed tradition in Sibale and its practitioners are revered citizens. There is only one of them now, however, and Sibalenhons are wondering if he has an heir apparent.

Warning: the tawak is no remedy for a human bite. Call Dracula’s doctor if this happens.