The Babaylan

In the sixteenth century, the babaylan held an important place in Philippine society. While the term is akin to a spiritual leader, they were much more than that. Both men and women could be babaylan, although a majority of them were women. They were healers, receptacles of knowledge, skilled practitioners in shaanistic traditions, and native philosophers and therapits. They had much political and economic power and influence. They were the manifestation of both female and male power.

Slaughtered during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippnes, the memory of the egalitarian babaylan tradition is faint, but not gone, and ready to be revived.