Anthropologist Analyn Salvador-Amores at the conclusion of her fieldwork in the mountains of northern Luzon, Philippines filmed an encounter with Hawaiian tattoo practitioner Keone Nunes and Butbut tattoo practitioner Whang-ud. The conversations reveal a deep connection with traditional tattooing practice from Polynesia to the Philippines. (20 minutes)
1st International Babaylan Conference - Center for Babaylan Studies
Sonoma State University, Sonoma, California, April 2010.
The Center for Babaylan Studies (CfBS) focuses on Filipino Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices (IKSP) with specific focus on Babaylan discourse and Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology). The mission of CFBS is to connect with resources and to facilitate the relevance, cultivation and promotion of Filipino indigenous wisdom in an age of globalization. (15 minutes)
Premier showing on San Diego’s KCLA – Channel 14 and Cox Cable – Channel 95.This show included an introduction into Apostol's former healing arts clinic and demonstration of the Filipino martial arts.
Executive Producer: Robert Sprowls Producer / Host: Agnes Tate Director: Art Camacho
The Hands of Time, produced by Jeffrey Cohen, is a short overview of more than 90 hours of footage shot in the Philippines over the past 30 years. What started out as two brothers' journey to find help for Gordon Cohen's condition after suffering a paralyzing automobile accident, turned into a collection of encounters with many traditional folk healers, who have shared their knowledge and experience with the Cohen Brothers' quest. Still to be crafted into their story, the amazing footage serves as archival video footage preserving some of the invaluable oral traditions of the Philippine healing arts. (6 minutes)
The Nature of Healing
(Documentary in the making – produced by Jeffrey Cohen.)
Two young brothers from the affluent hills of Marin County California in their search to survive a confrontation with the grim face of crippling tragedy and the simultaneous loss of their father, lose their innocence over the subsequent 20 years yet gain a measure of illumination in their climb back to the light.
The dramatic journey that Jeff and Gordon Cohen have been on since Jan 1978 when Gordon suffered a paralyzing automobile accident and two weeks later their father died which inspired Jeff to take the reins of the tragic situation and seek out the opportunity embodied in the need to find relief and hope for his brother, himself, their family and – as providence would have it – others in need of the same.
Eventually, exhausting the offerings of modern medicine to seek help from an unlikely source in the Philippines…. Ina Facucad, a native female shaman from a primitive yet complex and closed agrarian society practicing a form of healing as old as time is measured in that culture. A people of proud warriors who practiced ancestor worship along with healing arts, cultivated rice in stone terraces with complex gravity irrigation systems while practicing head hunting and animal sacrifice.
This film, which started out as an archival library about the oral traditions of the healing arts in the Philippines, morphed into the chronicling of the reuniting between The Cohen Brothers and Ina Facucad who together had spent ten years 1980-1990 working to make Gordon able to function normally again. In fact the opportunity to go back to the Philippines to continue filming re-started all over again for the initial goal of helping Gordon to be healed and rehabilitated.
As life teaches, we weave and are woven into a web of experiences and therefore interactions with unexpected outcomes. Gordon is yet to be walking though he has become an accomplished practicing doctor of Chinese medicine, author, and authority on native herbs. As for Jeff, he has evolved from a promising musician in the Hendrix era to becoming a renowned pioneer in bridging the gap between indigenous healing arts and the modern medical model.
Grand Prize Winner at the 6th Animazing Shorts for professional category. Created by Entheos IT Animation, Dumaguete.
The Bakunawa (Visayan) is known in other parts of the Philippines as Tambanakaua (Mandaya, Manobo),Laho (Tagalog),Arimaonga (Maranao), and Olimaw (Ilokano). It is a mythical water creature that was believed to swallow the sun and the moon, thus causing a solar or lunar eclipse. Gongs and other noise-producing objects such as pots and pans, and even the clicking of thumbnails were sounded in order to scare the Bakunawa into spitting out the sun or moon. (Apostol: Way of the Ancient Healer, Berkley, 1997).
This is an Ibaloi story from Kabayan, Benguet about three birds agreeing to break a big rock into pieces. The rock is found in Kabayan, and it is where big snakes lived under. Of the three birds, Owak and Seksek were humbled by little Tiktik’s humility and good intentions.
Tiktik and the Apesang Rock is a project of the Municipality of Kabayan, Province of Benguet, Benguet State University Development Communication Society, in cooperation with ResearchMate, and S.E.E.D.S. Inc. Thanks to Marie Balangue.
