Anito
The ancestor and nature spirits of pre-colonial Philippine religion, and the carved figures that honoured them.
Also: anitu, diwata, bulul
Anito is a Tagalog word, used across Philippine languages, for ancestral spirits and the carved images that stood for them. Diwata, from Sanskrit, is used for deities of nature in the Visayas. Before Spanish colonisation in the sixteenth century, communities made offerings to spirits of forests, rice fields and the dead, led by priestesses and priests who in Visayan communities were called babaylan. Spanish missionaries banned the images, called them demonic, and destroyed many. Anito beliefs continued in folk Catholicism, such as in rites for the dead and in the respect owed to old trees. The Ifugao bulul, a rice-granary figure, is a surviving example. The word is also in use today among Filipino groups reviving older ways.