Abstract

This paper adopts a critical approach to the use of historical sources to describe religious aspects of Tagalog life during the sixteenth-century. It highlights a dilemma in relying on Philippine colonial records about religion and spirituality. It shows that among the consequences of colonialism was epistemic violence, which refers to the destruction of the Tagalogs’ knowledge of their pre-colonial religious beliefs and practices through the intentional and unintentional silencing of the indigenous voice in the colonial records. Consequently, historical records represent the colonizer’s, not the native understanding of the pre-colonial religion. For such a reason, the historical records are not entirely reliable. Since the Tagalogs did not have written records about their religious beliefs, no alternative historical sources explain their perspective during the sixteenth-century. Thus, the true characteristics of the pre-colonial Tagalog religion have been lost in time.