Talk:Witchcraft in the Philippines

Merger finished

@Obsidian Soul: I finished the merger, I think it's looking quite sleek. What do you think? Glennznl (talk) 22:18, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The practitioners section needs to rearranged/rewritten for consistency. Bolded words should largely be restricted to the lead section when possible. Also not sure where the "Magica baja" comes from, but it sounds dubious/unsourced. Kulam rituals are pre-Hispanic and were found throughout the Philippines, not just the areas where "witch" stories are common today. Other than that, looks fine to me. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 22:48, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Kulam

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Kulam's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "mccoy":

• From Bakunawa: Alfred McCoy (1982). "Baylan : Animist Religion and Philippine Peasant Ideology". Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. 10 (3): 141–194.
• From Philippine shamans: McCoy, Alfred (1982). "Baylan : Animist Religion and Philippine Peasant Ideology". Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. 10 (3): 141–194.
• From Anito: Alfred W. McCoy (1982). "Baylan: animist religion and Philippine peasant ideology". Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. 10 (3): 141–194. JSTOR 29791761.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 03:57, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Philippine witches

I was researching more ways to expand and provide more reliable sources for the article Indigenous Philippine folk religions, when I stumbled upon this article which has a link from the former. It seems this page is about the black magic and their indigenous practitioners in the Philippines. In other words, it's the complete opposite of Philippine shamans. Due to the parallelism involved, it would appear that this page is lacking because its main focus is the practice, rather than the practitioner. If this page is about the practitioner, more data, including the practices aside from kulam, can be added as an expansion to it. The diversity of "witch" in various Filipino languages can also be added as a new section, like the one in Philippine shamans, where various words for "shaman", depending on the ethnic group, are listed down. Also, that would benefit readers, as to show the contrast between Philippine shamans and Philippine witches. With this, I propose to rename this article into "Philippine witches", on the basis that (1) it would be a mode to further expand this article's content, and (2) it would lay down a parallel point of view when contrasted with Philippine shamans, which will benefit all readers. PCommission (talk) 05:59, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@PCommission: If you narrow down the subject of the article to just the practicioners it will be harder to mention any of the rest. What can not be added now in the current state? To me it seems the practicioners section can easily be expanded. I originally merged all related subjects into this article (Barang, Mangkukulam, Mambabarang etc) to create a more sizeable article, because they were all very short and low quality.

Also I am not sure about changing the name from a native name to a generic name. We changed Babaylan to Philippine shamans a few months ago, but I am not sure what the best choice is. Most Filipino's will know these concepts by their native names (funnily enough Babaylan is Visayan) and not generic concept names. On the other hand Wikipedia has rules on most common English language use, and some people might get angry because the article is not named after the word in their language. Glennznl (talk) 06:35, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Glennznl: We will not necessarily narrow it to just the practitioners, but rather, expand it from there. For example, in the Philippine shamans article, while the shamans themselves are the focus, the practices involved are also well-represented, as well as other aspects concerning the shamans.

On the matter of what can't be added in its current state, I think it goes down to the application of the word "kulam". It's a term that does not represent all black magic practices in all Filipino ethnic groups, which are distinct from each other. Applying it to all ethnic groups would be like applying the term Babaylan from the Visayans to the shaman of the Tagalog people or the Ifugao people, which would create a false narrative. Recognizing this, I think the article will be more comprehensive and representative of all Filipino cultures if this page will become a general article for Philippine witches, rather than a page focusing on certain cultural aspects of only a few ethnic groups (mostly in the central regions) in the Philippines.

On the matter of generic name, I think to avoid other people from getting offended as their language was not used as the name of the article, a generic name would actually be a good choice as it would apply better to create consensus that no ethnic word was used against another. Also, in the same manner, the renaming of Babaylan into "Philippine shamans" is, I think, proper as the current name is much suited for the shaman article, as indeed, babaylan is Visayan in nature, and this may lead to a prevention of consensus, especially among non-Visayans, if babaylan was retained. It was a good call.

Lastly, I think "Philippine witches" will still be a far better term than "Kulam" itself to refer to this article as (1) this page is about that which is "present throughout the Philippines", (2) kulam is the not a term present in all ethnic groups in the Philippines, and (3) "Philippine witches" will create consensus that no ethnic word was used against another, avoiding a prevention of consensus. PCommission (talk) 07:28, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@PCommission: Alright. I dislike the word "witches", as it is too western and specifically female (as as far as I know sometimes practicioners could be male or more often transgender), but there is not really an alternative. So "Philippine witches" it is, I guess. Glennznl (talk) 08:19, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@PCommission: The info you moved over mainly repeats what the article already described. When moving stuff you should look at all the pieces and see if it should be divided under certain sections, instead of just copy-pasting a big chunk of text into the article. Glennznl (talk) 10:25, 1 September 2020 (UTC)