Hilot
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Hilot (/HEE-lot/) is an ancient
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
art of healing. It uses manipulation and
massage Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In E ...
to achieve the treatment outcome, although techniques differ from one practitioner to another. It emerged from the shamanic tradition of the ancient Filipinos with healers considering their practice as derived from their calling from visions or from having been born by breech.


Overview

Hilot incorporates supernatural aspects, particularly in cases of practitioners who claim that their ability is given by a supernatural source such as the case of manghihilot who embarks on pilgrimage to a mountain called
Banahaw Mount Banahaw (; also spelled as Banahao and Banájao) is an active complex volcano on Luzon in the Philippines. The three-peaked volcano is located at the boundary of Laguna and Quezon provinces. It is the highest mountain in both provinces an ...
to satisfy the spiritual component of their healing practice. A Hilot practitioner or ''
albularyo Albularyo is a Filipino term for a witch doctor, folk healer or medicine men. They practice folk medicine and use medicinal plants in their trade. Overview Role and functions An albularyo is a "folk doctor" commonly found in the more rural areas ...
'' (herbalist) are usually cheaper alternatives to medical doctors in the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, especially in very deep rural areas. A ''Manghihilot'' employs chiropractic-like manipulation and massage for the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal ailments. They also have been known to reset dislocated and sprained joints such as the knee, ankle, fingers and metacarpal bones. An ''Albularyo'' use herbs in addition to massage. The term ''hilot'' is also applied to traditional
midwive A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...
s, licensed or otherwise (Panday in Meranaw).


Spiritual and physical components

The spiritual component of Hilot treats the relationship between the body's attitude and universal energy. In other words, the goal is to bring the body back to harmony. This focuses on inner change. One way this can be achieved is through the Banahaw Devotional Technique. Tracing its origins to the fifteenth century, this technique requires the performance of ''orations'' and sacrificial rituals to influence the body's spirit. The goal of this is to ask for forgiveness from God. Depending where the manghihilot and their patient are located, the popular location to perform this technique is in the active volcano of Mt. Banahaw, located in
Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...
. Following the Banahaw Devotional Technique is the ''Pagpapahalaga'', or the Valuing Process in which the goal is to direct inner change to outer change with the use of inner understandings. These inner understandings is presented within the following three modules: ''mabuti'' (self-honesty), ''makabubuti'' (sincerity), ''makapagpapabuti'' (consequential goodness). The Banahaw Devotional Technique and Valuing Process are treatments for inner conflicts within the body such as stress which causes the imbalance of the four elements. The physical material component of Hilot is addressed through four modalities and this time focuses on external forces in order to restore balance between the four elements. The bio-chemical modality promotes chemical component changes through the process of breaking down foods, herbs, vitamins, and minerals. The neuro-electrical modality is the use of electricity, in the form of positive and negative ions, to break down material goods in the body. The goal of the third process, electro-magnetic field (EMF), is to cause a change in the neuro-electric field to restore the normal function of the body's cells. The final modality is the bio-mechanical process which is the modality that has chiropractic similarities. This process focuses and manipulates the interaction of bones, tendons, and muscles to restore their normal functions. The direction of treatment among all four modalities is from material components (outer) to the inner components of the body.


Practitioners

Practitioners of ''hilot'' are both the ''manghihilot'' and the ''magpapaanak:''


Manghihilot

The manghihilot ("massager", "folk massage therapist", "folk
chiropractor Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially of the spine. It has esoteric origins and is based on several pseudoscien ...
") uses massaging techniques to treat sprains, fractures, and other similar conditions that affect the skeletal system and the musculatory system, including ligaments. The practice treats illnesses a variety of ways based on its own universal law and natural Law (physical manipulation, herbal remedies, and dietary/life style advice). Manghihilots are either chosen by ''maestros'' or master albularyos, or through apprenticeship. Gender is not a limiting factor since they can be any gender. When chosen, their trainings include a pilgrimage to a sacred mountain to perform the ''oracions'', or words enabling the communication with the spirit world or the ''panawagan''. Similar to the albularyo practice, the hilot is a fusion of spiritual and medicinal practices with physical manipulation and the focus of healing the whole body being the main distinctions between the two practices. Illnesses were referred to as ''pilay'' and were defined by imbalances in the body which are explained by their ''enkanto'', or unseen entities, elements, and manifestations in the body. This practice shares similarities with India's Ayurveda and
Traditional Chinese Medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...
.


Magpapaanak

The magpapaanak, the other "hilot", is the folk "
midwife A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...
" who does prenatal visits and check-ups to pregnant mothers. Normally a woman, she delivers babies during childbirth and often performs the ritual called the ''suob'' (a form of "aroma therapy" performed while placed under a cloak).


Traditional Chinese Medicine similarities

The geopolitical position of the Philippines as either being the gateway to either enter or exit Southeast Asia has allowed the exchanging of medical knowledge between immigrants, whether they are colonial predecessors or neighboring countries. The
Chinese diaspora Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, re ...
(see also: Chinese mestizos) showed one exchange. The trade between China and the Philippines was recorded as early as the eighth century and enhanced in the sixteenth century. The activity of trade during the sixteenth century was especially active because of the Manila-Acapulco Galleons. The methods used by manghihilots is similar to the Chinese acupuncture study of the ''Yellow Emperor's Body'', the idea that the body through fluids of energy known as a ''yin and yang'', in
Traditional Chinese Medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...
(TCM). Native Filipino medicine uses the four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) to diagnose conditions while TCM views the conditions of the body through the Five Element Theory: fire, earth, wind, metal, water, and wood. Another similarity is the diagnosis of imbalance caused by ''engkantos'', or the unseen entities within the body. For instance, the manghihilot may describe a person who is having trouble breathing air by calling that trouble ''engkanto sa hangin'' meaning air entity. This person's actual condition may be asthma according to Western medicine. In TCM, this imbalance may be explained by the imbalance set between yin and yang (the force of yin may be dominating the body and vice versa).   Other similar approaches to diagnosing include herbs (not necessarily accompanied by the blessing of it shown in the Albularyo practice), taking patient history, facial diagnosis, and tongue diagnosis. Current research on the Hilot shows that it is not clear as to whether or not the Chinese medicine had a direct influence on the Hilot or the Hilot had an influence on TCM because it is not clear whether these Hilot methods were a coincidence of similarities or borrowed from Traditional Chinese Medicine since the people coming from Southern China were primarily involved in commerce. It is also not clear which Indigenous practices originated from Ayurveda. It is not known whether these merchants had medical knowledge.


Present day

The sophistication of the practice has evolved over time and is still being practiced, primarily in rural areas of the Philippines. The challenges of incorporating traditional/alternative medicine into the Philippine national health care system shows the competition against Western medicine because of the stigma of superstition and the lack of scholarly evidence to prove alternative medicine effective. There are organizations advocating for the fusion of both western medicine and alternative medicine out of the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Act (TAMA) passed in 1997 to make healthcare accessible in rural areas. The Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care (PITAHC) is one of the advocacy groups formed from TAMA and one of their objectives is to: "Encourage scientific research on and develop traditional and alternative health care systems that have direct impact on public health care". With this objective, the organization advocates for the continuation and legitimization of hilot. The ancient practice of the hilot has become a debate in public health policy in the Philippines.


See also

*
Albularyo Albularyo is a Filipino term for a witch doctor, folk healer or medicine men. They practice folk medicine and use medicinal plants in their trade. Overview Role and functions An albularyo is a "folk doctor" commonly found in the more rural areas ...
, a traditional Filipino herbalist *
Kulam Filipino witches are the users of black magic and related practices from the Philippines. They include a variety of different kinds of people with differing occupations and cultural connotations which depend on the ethnic group they are associat ...
, traditional Filipino witchcraft *
History of medicine in the Philippines The history of medicine in the Philippines discusses the folk medicinal practices and the medical applications used in Philippine society from the prehistoric times before the Spaniards were able to set a firm foothold on the islands of the Philipp ...
*
Philippine shamans Filipino shamans, commonly known as (also ''Balian'' or , among many other names), were shamans of the various ethnic groups of the pre-colonial Philippine islands. These shamans specialized in communicating, appeasing, or harnessing the spi ...
*
Folk medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...


References


Further reading

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External links

* {{Massage types Southeast Asian traditional medicine Philippine traditions Healthcare in the Philippines Tagalog words and phrases Traditional healthcare occupations Austronesian spirituality