Inang Langit

Inang Langit

2015
Metallic Gel Pen on Illustration Board

This work is about the myth of the island of Bohol, in the central Philippines. It was believed the first humans (demigods) resided in the clouds. In that skyworld, was the Tree of Life, and at its roots was a hole. The daughter of the sky god, peeked into the hole to see the ocean world below. As she strained to look about, she fell into the hole.

As she fell to what would have been certain death, birds flew up to cushion her fall and place her on the back of a giant sea turtle, who had witnessed her descent.

Now exiled from the sky world, the animals took pity on her, and tried to scoop soil from the bottom of the ocean to place on the back of the turtle, as to create land for her to live in. Many animals tried, but failed. However, it was the mouse who was finally successful in retrieving earth from the ocean's depths. And when he placed the soil on the turtle's back, the land grew into the island of Bohol, which is shaped like a turtle. The woman, who was pregnant at the time, later gave birth to the first humans on Earth.

An interesting parallel to this story is that of the Sky Woman (Ataensic), of the Iroquois myth. Of which she too fell from a hole in the sky, and was saved by being placed on the back of a large turtle. In the Iroquois version, it was the muskrat that was able to get soil from the ocean bottom. When the earth was placed on the turtle's back, it quickly grew to what is now North America.

If you look closely at the formation of the island of Bohol and America, you can somewhat see how these ancient people could have described both as turtle shaped. This is a testimony to the great knowledge of the ancient Visaya and Iroquois, as how they can map the shape of islands, with such a "primitive" culture. Or does this also signify an ancient connection between the Visaya and Iroquois people?

There is also another version among the Tagalog people, where four daughters of the great sky god, Bathala, fell from the sky. To save them, he used his rainbow colored loin cloth (bahaghari), to slow their descent to the earth. He did not allow them to return the sky, and they were left to populate the world.

I would like to add that this was a very difficult work to do, as it took me almost a year to conceive the final image of the drawing.