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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following is a list of gods, goddesses, deities, and many other divine, semi-divine, and important figures from classical Philippine mythology and indigenous Philippine folk religions collectively referred to as Anito, whose expansive stories span from a hundred years ago to presumably thousands of years from modern times.
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The list does not include creatures; for these, see list of Philippine mythological creatures.
The mythological figures, including deities (anitos and diwatas), heroes, and other important figures, in Anitism vary among the many ethnic groups in the Philippines. Each ethnic group has their own distinct pantheon of deities. Some deities of ethnic groups have similar names or associations, but remain distinct from one another.[1] The diversity in these important figures is exhibited in many cases, of which a prime example is the Ifugao pantheon, where in a single pantheon, deities alone are calculated to number at least 1,500. There are over a hundred distinct pantheons in the Philippines.[2]
Some ethnic groups have pantheons ruled by a supreme deity (or deities), while others revere ancestor spirits and/or the spirits of the natural world, where there is a chief deity but consider no deity supreme among their divinities.[3] Each ethnic group has their own general term used to refer to all deities or a sub-set of deities, of which the most widespread term among the ethnic groups in the country is anito.[4] The term itself can be further divided into ninuno (ancestral spirits) and diwata (gods, goddesses, and deities), although in many cases, the meaning of the terms differ depending on their ethnic association.[5][6][7]
The following figures continue to exist and prevail among the collective memory and culture of Filipinos today, especially among adherents to the native and sacred Filipino religions, despite centuries of persecution beginning with the introduction of non-native Islam and colonial Christianity which sought to abolish all native faiths in the archipelago beginning in the late 14th century, and intensified during the middle of the 16th century to the late 20th century. This contact between native and foreign faiths later accumulated more stories, which also became part of both faiths, with some alterations. Deity, spirit, and hero figures continue to be viewed as important and existing among native faiths and the general Filipino culture. These perceptions of existence towards gods, goddesses, deities, and spirits in the sacred native Filipino religions, are the same as how Christians perceive the existence of their God and the same way Muslims perceive the existence of their Allah.[8][9][10] There have been proposals to revitalize the indigenous Philippine folk religions and make them the national religion of the country during the First Philippine Republic, but the proposal did not prosper, as the focus at the time was the war against Spanish and, later, American colonizers.[11]
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