![]() While I do not disagree with these conclusions broadly speaking, I seek to complicate both of these narratives, arguing that it is too simplistic to view bayogs/asogs as men in women’s clothes who 'appropriate' feminine spiritual power, that their femininity can be equally valid, and the spiritual power of all the shamans is manifest in both 'masculine' and 'feminine' behaviours. ![]() ![]() The historical consensus is that the increasing numbers of men in the role of the babaylan is reflective of the Spanish Catholic intervention and colonisation. What has not been as carefully examined are records of the gender-bending, feminine shamans ( bayog, asog) in seventeenth-century century 'Philippines.' The anthropological consensus surrounding them is that these shamans are subservient to female shamans and that they appropriate femininity, which is seen as the source of shamanistic power. The history of the babaylanes, or shamans, of the Philippines has been fairly well-documented in scholarly and public literature. ![]() Gender Fluidity and Shamanism in the Spanish Philippines Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific ![]()
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