She Serves the Lord': Feminine Power and Catholic Appropriation in the Early Spanish Philippines.

Abstract

This study examines sixteenth and seventeenth century Catholic missionaries in the Philippine Islands appropriating feminine power and social power wielded by indigenous feminine figures to expand Catholic influence and authority. During initial contact, missionaries encountered an island chain dominated by indigenous animism that was headed by the maganito, the animist leaders who were typically female. To supplant this, they used indigenous women and the bayog, maganitos who were assigned the male sex at birth but took on a feminine persona, to act as a spiritual leader and appropriated their social and feminine power to build up the Catholic church and to diminish the influence of animist traditions. The study looks at the role these feminine figures, women and the bayog, played in the Christianization process and the influence they had in their communities. The powers these feminine figures wielded included their status as spiritual figures in their societies, their ability to own and control wealth, their role as owners of slaves, their leverage in marital and sexual relationships, and their influence as upper-class members of society. Through these figures, missionaries converted many indigenous people and encouraged them to remain loyal to the Catholic faith and the Church. While missionaries utilized these feminine figures, these women and bayogs exhibited their own agency and power, playing an essential role in the Christianization process in the Philippines.