By Erika Joy Baliguat | Manawari Digital Production AB LITERATURE 3B
In Bicolano myths, the Bakunawa was a goddess punished for her arrogance and greed for coveting the moon or moons, trying to swallow them all. She was punished to lose her beauty and forever remain into a giant eel dragon-like being that guards the gates to the underworld. Bakunawa fell in love with the lunar god but was neglected. She swore to claim Bulan from the sky. thus making Haliya (Bulan´s sister and protector) her enemy. Every now and then Bakunawa tries to eat the last moon, and that is why it turns red. But the people on earth raise a loud clamor of clanging and clashing metal, screaming and wailing, all to startle him into spitting the moon out.
The goal of this story is to challenge the traditional narrative and provide an alternate perspective on the folk story.
She underestimated the mortals’ capacity to brew malice from purity. They misunderstand. It was not jealousy that moved her—she never longed to swallow the moon out of envy, but each night simply seeking to fulfill her dream of reaching the night’s light goddess that her lips might be graced by her lustrous glow—a radiance too great she knew herself too lowly to ever be worthy of—and yet, the longing grew, nursed by nights of gazing upon brilliance in awestruck wonder. But mere longing would not bring dreams to pass.
And so the Bakunawa willed herself, from a heart whose ebbing tides flow as free as the blue of her lonesome freedom, the blue that knew her from birth, to snatch herself and her lover out of the dream. Every night, with all her might, would she fight against the water’s currents in a desperate attempt to join her weightless lover, albeit unrequited, if only for a moment—a few seconds of an almost escape, almost the realization of dreams, but always only almost.
One sulky night, after another unsuccessful venture, out of curiosity and in an endeavor to distract herself from her moping, the Bakunawa asked the ocean if it knew how the moon retained its light despite millenia of existence. Certainly, from time to time, clouds would conceal her radiance, yet the truth of her light never faltered.
“Well, surely after all this time you knew she got her light from the sun? She’s simply reflecting his light.”
A putrid churning stirred and made its home within the Bakunawa upon hearing the ocean’s reply. How could she have not known? Perhaps the moon had already been in love with the sun—he was the reason for her luminescence, after all. In a fit of jealousy, she began thumping and slamming her body against the ocean floors, causing waves to surge against shores and testing the strength of the mortals’ homes. Before she caused any further destruction, the ocean talked sense into the Bakunawa.
“Stop this foolishness. Don’t you realize, by coveting her of her life source, you’d be asking yourself to be robbed of the water that envelops you?
At this remark, the Bakunawa ceased and grew quiet.
This is hell, thought she—to live forever apart from the light goddess, bearing witness to her beauty yet only from afar, and to know that the only reason she can navigate her way in the dark is because of her. Unlike the celestial beings, the Bakunawa’s life had only just begun; theirs was a life that pre-existed and would outlast her. Surely, ephemeral beings should only be glad to have experienced their light, yet the Bakunawa had yet to learn to accept this truth.
Sources:
image: https://mythicalencyclopedia.com/bakunawa/
“Bicolano Myths : BAKUNAWA.” Bicolano Myths, 27 Nov. 2016, bicolanomythsofgodsandmonsters.blogspot.com/2016/11/bakunawa.html. Accessed 27 Apr. 2024.