Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021. xi, 239 pp. (Maps, B&W photos.) US$23.95, paper. ISBN 9781501760099.
Babaylan are Philippine ritual experts who contact spirits through their singing voice for healing. The attributions healer, spirit medium, shaman, and Native ritual expert are all somehow applicable, yet at the same time not very percipient. The central Philippine term babaylan (also bailan, baylan, baliana, balyana, babalyan) has established itself as an umbrella term in scientific literature, but the diverse manifestations of these indigenous ritual experts cannot be squeezed into one definition. In the colonial past, they were persecuted as agents of evil and superstition; in modern times, they have been valourized as symbols of anti-colonial resistance, of gender pluralism, of women’s power. This valourization owes much to the identity politics of the Philippine middle class and the exoticist imaginary of Western intellectuals. The babaylan construct produced in this process is often marked by archaizing and romanticizing components. As contemporary individuals, however, babaylan have remained largely invisible and continue to lead a marginalized existence to this day. With her excellent book, ethnomusicologist and singer Grace Nono has changed this. The title Babaylan Sing Back is borrowed from activist-scholar bell hook’s book Talking Back, which calls for marginalized people to speak “as an equal to an authority figure” (South End Press, 1989, 5). Nono replaces “talk” with “song,” with the goal of making Native Philippine ritual specialists heard, and as a critique of the appropriation of indigenous traditions by non-Natives. The overarching goal of this book is thus the “decolonization of Native and non-Native social relations, dialogues, and reciprocal learning, in the service of the mutual survival of all” (13).
The reader expecting an activist pamphlet will soon be corrected. The author’s writing shows all the virtues of contemporary anthropology: self-positioning and the ability to reflect, elaborate work with theories, dense ethnography, historical contextualization, and the art of writing lucidly. Ritual experts from three different regions of the Philippines are portrayed: Manobo women baylan from Agusan del Sur (Mindanao), T’boli female ritual experts and Blaan female to male transgender healers from South Cotabato and Sarangani (Mindanao), and two generations of Ifugao ritual specialists living in Luzon and the US. The study is based on participant observation of rituals and interviews of interlocutors, some of whom the author has known for over 20 years.
Three main chapters focus on the following content: chapter 1, “Who Sings? A Baylan’s Embodied Voice and its Relations” connects baylan voices to Manobo history, marked by colonization, missionization, internal colonialism, education, modern medicine, development plans, armed conflict, and the relationship between spirits and people. Of particular value are the insights into Native theories of voice, active listening, and translation.
Chapter 2, “Shifting Voices and Malleable Bodies,” tells the life stories of baylan women. The T’boli epic of the hero Tudbulul, which can be assumed to convey an ideology of women’s oppression, is discussed in detail. Concepts of Philippine and Southeast Asian gender complementarity and women’s power as discussed by feminist scholars, are critically examined along the gender order of the T’boli. Current theories of gender and sexuality are debated through the life history experiences of two Blaan transgender (female to male) ritual experts.
Chapter 3, “Song Travels: Mumbaki Mobility and the Relationality of Place,” focuses on two individuals, Ifugao ritual expert Bruno “Buwaya” Tindogan and his son Mamerto “Lagitan” Tindongan, who commutes between the United States and his ancestral homeland in Banaue (Luzon). Buwaya became familiar with his religious traditions as an assistant to the noted anthropologist Harold Conklin. He was thus committed to new, non-traditional loyalties, which changed his role in the hierarchy of his own society. His son Lagitan migrated to the US and his multiple emplacements challenge the discursive attribution of land-based ritual specialists as authentic. Lagitan’s strategies of continuing his way as a healer are revealed, especially under the conditions of migration. The influence of neo-shamanic teachers, a changing clientele that necessitates the redesign of rituals, contact with North American Natives, communication with local and trans-local spirits, and the use of the smartphone as a storage medium that enables Lagitan’s further spiritual development are described. In her multi-sited ethnography, the author follows her interlocutor to Athens, Ohio, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York, and Banaue and other locations in the Philippines.
The author’s many years of familiarity with her interviewees are evident in each chapter. In this sense, the insights and findings are consistently valid results of a long-term study. Grace Nono offers rich theoretical and empirical material to all those interested in Philippine babaylan, ritual healing, and Southeast Asian shamanism in general. Important aspects of ethnomusicology, ethnomedicine, shamanism, and neo-shamanism are addressed. Communication with spirits in modernity is the overarching theme. Scholars of Philippine studies and Southeast Asian studies will greatly profit from reading this book.
Equal to the scholarly ambitions is the author’s effort to make her interlocutors’ agency recognizable. It is the ability of the embodied voice in song and speech that challenges hegemonic discourses regarding ritual specialists, voice, gender, and place. As Grace Nono points out, “singing back” is not just about describing the world, but changing it (13). As a reader, one hopes for the author and her interlocutors that this wish may become reality.
Peter J. Bräunlein
University of Göttingen, Göttingen