BOROKA: The Self-Segmenting Viscera Sucker of Zambales

In Dean Fansler’s 1921 book “Filipino Popular Tales” he theorized that “Boroka, (is) apparently a corruption of the Spanish bruja (“witch”).” As far as I know, the tale he documented called Pedro and the Witch was the first time the boroka had been mentioned in literature in regards to Philippine beliefs and folklore. This certainly isn’t the first time a self-segmenting viscera sucker had been mentioned.  Documentation of this folkloric phenomenon dates back as far as 1589 in Juan de Plasencia’s “Customs of the Tagalogs”.  Similar folkloric beings exist throughout SE Asia – the penanggal in Malaysia, krasue in Thailand and the leyak of Indonesia.  Subsequent documentation would find unique names for this being throughout the entire archipelago:

abat, awok (Waray)
aswang (viscera sucker aspects—Bikol, Tagalog, etc.)
boroka (Iloko)
mansalauan (Cebuano)
mangalok (Cuyonon, Hiligaynon)
iqui (Tagalog)
manananggal (Bikol, Tagalog)
silagan (Catanduanes)
wakwak (viscera sucker aspects—Surigao)

Pedro and the Witch

Narrated by Santiago Dumlao of San Narciso, Zambales

Pedro was the son of a poor man. He lived with his father and mother by the seashore. Early one morning his parents went to look for food, leaving him alone in the house. He staid there all day waiting for them to return. Evening came, but his father and mother did not appear; some misfortune had overtaken them. Pedro felt very hungry, but he could find no food in the house. In the middle of the night he heard some one tapping at the door. Thinking that it was his mother, he arose and went to meet her. When he opened the door, however, he saw that it was not his mother who had rapped, but Boroka,  whom children are very much afraid of. Now, Boroka was a witch. She had wings like a bird, four feet like a horse, but a head like that of a woman. She devoured boys and girls, and was especially fond of their liver. As soon as Pedro opened the door, she seized him and carried him off to her home in the mountains.

Pedro was not afraid of the witch; he was obedient to her, and soon she made him her housekeeper. Whenever she went out at night to look for food, he was sure to have flesh and liver for breakfast the next day. Whenever the witch was away, Pedro used to amuse himself riding on the back of a horse that would often come to see him. It taught him how to ride well, and the two became great friends.

One day when children began to get scarce, and Boroka was unable to find any to eat, she made up her mind to kill Pedro. She left the house and went to invite the other witches, so that they might have a great feast. While she was gone, the horse came and told Pedro of his danger, and advised him what to do. It gave him two handkerchiefs,–one red and the other white. Then Pedro jumped on the horse’s back, and the horse ran away as fast as it could. Not long afterward he noticed that the witches were pursuing them. When they came nearer, Pedro dropped the red handkerchief, which was immediately changed into a large fire. The wings of the witches were all burnt off. However, the witches tried to pursue the horse on foot, for they could run very fast. When they were almost upon him again, Pedro dropped the white handkerchief, which became a wide sea through which the witches could not pass. Pedro was now safe, and he thanked the horse for its great help.

Fansler Notes.

While this story is not much more than a fragment, I have given it because of its interesting connections. The chief elements appear to be three: (1) the kidnapping of the hero by a cannibal witch, (2) the friendly horse, (3) the transformation-flight and the escape of the hero. Clearly much is missing. What becomes of the hero is not stated, except that he escapes from the witches. The story is in the form rather of a fairy-tale than of a Maerchen proper, since it deals primarily with an ogress fond of the flesh of children. On its surface it might be mistaken for a native demon-story told as an exemplum to children not to answer strange knocks at the door at night. But a glance below the surface reveals the fact that the details of the story must have been imported, as they are not indigenous,–Boroka, horse, transformation-flight; and a little search for possible sources reveals the fact that this tale represents the detritus of a literary tradition from Europe.

Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology

Fansler’s folk tale may have been all there was to look at for bookworms and library researchers if it wasn’t for Maximo Ramo’s entry in his 1965 dissertation “The Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology”. “But in the years when the present writer was a boy in Zambales, people went into hysterics every time the boroka, a viscera sucker, was thought to have made its presence felt. There a boroka in a tale “Pedro and the Witch” is reported to have “had wings like a bird . . . but a head like that of a woman,” although the present investigator’s Zambales informants described the boroka as the true viscera sucker in both appearance and habits: physical beauty, ability to detach the lower portion of her body about midnight before she went out on a raid, in the form of a bird returning with the hearts and livers of her victims before dawn, her inability to join the upper portion of her body to the lower if ashes and a mixture of salt and vinegar were sprinkled on the latter, and her being frightened off by calling out these substances when signs of her proximity were evident.”

If nothing else, we can clearly establish that the boroka belongs to the Zambales region.  To my knowledge, there is no mention of it being from any other area.  Even though it shares common traits with other viscera suckers, I always have a strange feeling of the unfamiliar when comparing them.   As The Aswang Project moves forward, we will try harder to facilitate the understanding of the diverse regional Filipino folkloric beliefs by creating less general assignments to major language groups and instead mention the specific regions.  We hope this article on the boroka is a step towards that.

 

SOURCES:
Filipino Popular Tales, Dean Spruill Fansler, American Folk-lore Society, 1921
Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology, Maximo D. Ramos, Phoenix Publishing, 1990

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