What's made of wood, stands several feet tall, and can make your breasts grow twice their size?

A rice granary bulol

I first heard about the power of Ifugao figurines through a young guide named Mark. I was hiking through some terraces with a group of tourists within a week of my arrival Banaue. We came upon a small figurine made from native grasses. It had a head made out of a tied knot, and “arms” of loose grass.

I asked Mark what it was. “It’s a guardian for the field,” he said.

“What’s it for?”

“It protects the owner’s property here. Whatever you do, don’t eat the kamote (sweet potato) from here!” he laughed.

“Why?”

“Because those guardians have spells put on them; they can affect your body. One time I took a kamote from a field with one of those guardians on it. My balls got so big! I mean, man, they were down to here!” he holds his hand halfway down his thighs. “So I had to go to a mumbaki. She called the woman in whose field I stole from. The woman had to chew some betel nut and spit on my nuts! Then it finally went away.”

He laughed again and turned around and continued hiking. A few of us looked at each other, not quite sure what to make of his stories. A British couple had spent the last few days with him. The husband shrugged. “Who knows?” he said. “Maybe it’s true.”

I didn’t know what to believe. I know the mind is a powerful thing, and its connection to our bodies is an area much unexplored. But, this seemed a little much.

A few days later, I was on top a jeepney with another Ifugao—this fellow a volunteer with SITMO—the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, a non profit organization. As we drove along through Hapao, a local barangay, I saw several carved figurines standing in the terraces, their arms wide; their faces expressionless but daunting.

“Those are the bulol,” he told me. “They protect the rice terraces. That way no one steals from that person’s land because it’s protected.”

I told the volunteer about Mark’s story. “Does that really happen?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, it happened to my grandmother. She ate from someone’s rice field and her breasts grew down to here,” he said as he indicated halfway down his chest. “She had to go to a baki to have the person come and forgive her before it got better.”

I didn’t say anything—I didn’t know what to think. Instead, I researched a little.

The bulol were commonly seen as incarnations of rice deities. They were used for revenge, to invite wealth and prosperity, or to heal the sick. They were commonly made from nara wood, which represented wealth, happiness, and well-being. Every step in their production required ceremony; from tree selection to arrival at the owners house. A consecrated bulol gets bathed in pig’s blood, has myths recited to it, and has received offerings of wine and rice cakes. A true bulol needed to be consecrated by a mumbaki, though the woven grass figures can be made by any individual. Just to clarify—I say “were” because true bulols are rare these days. Modern Christian beliefs have pretty much wiped out that practice, which is now seen by many as superstitious.

A bulol on an altar--you can see how they carved them to look like the mumbaki in the picture below.

Mumbakis, the Ifugao priests, at a ritual

A few weeks after my first two conversations, I asked Auntie Lourdes about the bulol. As a very pragmatic woman and a Christian, I thought she might have a different perspective.

“Oh yes,” she said, nodding and laughing a little. “I have heard that is true. I don’t know anyone that happened to, but I have heard about it from my grandparents.” I could tell she knew I’d be a little skeptical, but she nodded, certainty in her face.

I don’t know what to believe, but I’m open to the possibility that the bulols might indeed have some special powers—perhaps given them only by people who believe. It’s interesting, because now you can find a bulol just about anywhere—they’re carved out of acacia wood these days and sold for 300 pesos (about six dollars) to tourists. In fact, I’m currently picking out a design for one of my friends who lives in Manila—I don’t know if he’ll even come out here and see the rice terraces before he picks it up. It seems weird—to have these sacred carvings sold as tourist figurines. They’ve lost their power somehow, like so many of the things they once held sacred here.

All pictures from the C.E. Smith Museum of Anthropology. Here’s a link to their website:
http://class.csueastbay.edu/anthropologymuseum/virtmus/Philippines/Crafts/Ifugao_Bulols.htm