Mananambal

Mananambal
Title	Mananambal
Description	Folk healer, Medicine man, Sorcerer, Witch
Gender	Male / female
Region	Philippines
Equivalent	Shaman, Albularyo, Mambabarang

The Mananambal is a Filipino practitioner of traditional medicine; a medicine man who is also capable of performing sorcery. The mananambal treats both natural and supernatural maladies.

The appellation mananambal is a derivative of the term for the art of panambal or "traditional folk healing" in the Philippines, a term used most especially in the islands of Siquijor and Bohol in the Visayas. The term is synonymous with the Tagalog word albularyo, a type of folk healer.

The mananambal uses a combination of traditional practice and Christian beliefs. The amalgamation of folk healing and Christian spiritism may have begun at the onset of the Spanish influence in the Philippines – when Magellan converted the Queen of Cebu to Catholicism. The mananambal observed the marked success in exorcism of the Spanish friars and wished for their part to be mediums of the high spirit (the Holy Spirit) that granted the Catholic friars such power.

This link with the Catholic faith is evident in their yearly quest, called pangalap, for materials used as ingredients in the concoctions for their traditional practice. The pangalap begins seven Fridays after Ash Wednesday, prior to the Christian observance of Holy Week. It culminates on Good Friday and Black Saturday. The mananambal also uses orasyones or "magical prayers".

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Wikipedia