All that we have been able to learn has been handed down from family members from the older generation to the newer generation in tradition, and is preserved in their customs; and in some songs that they retain in their memory and repeat when they go on the sea, sung to the time of their rowing, and in their merrymakings, feasts, and funerals, and even in their work, when many of them work together. In those songs are recounted the fabulous genealogies and vain deeds of their Diwata. Among their Diwata is one who is the chief and superior to all the others, the Visayans call him Laon, which denotes “antiquity.”

They adored animals and birds; and the sun and moon. They also attributed to the rainbow its kind of divinity. There was no old tree to which they did not attribute divine honors, and it was a sacrilege to think of cutting it under any consideration. Even the very rocks, crags, reefs, and points along the seashore and rivers were adored, and an offering made to them on passing, by stopping there and placing the offering upon the rock or reef. When sailing to the island of Panay, one saw on the point called Nasso, near Potol, a rock upon which were dishes and other pieces of crockery-ware, which were offered to it by those who went on the sea.

They also adored private taotao (ancestor spirits and possibly other spirits represent or house them), which each one inherited from his ancestors. The Visayans called them Diwata. In memory of their ancestors they kept certain very small and made taotao of stone, wood, gold, or ivory, called licha or laravan. Among their Diwata they reckoned also all those who perished by the sword, or who were devoured by crocodiles, as well as those killed by lightning. They thought that the souls of such immediately ascended to the blest abode by means of the rainbow, called by them Balangaw. Generally, whoever could succeed in it attributed divinity to his aged father at his death.

VISAYAS ★

Laon: the supreme Diwata and creator, residing in Mount Kanlaon.

Makaptan: Diwata of the earth; they consider him a bad Diwata, because he sends disease and death among them.

Magwayen: Diwata that carries them to inferno.

Sidapa: Diwata who lives in the sacred Mount Madja-as; determines the day of a person's death by marking every newborn's lifespan on a very tall tree on Madja-as.

Pandaki: Diwata who is given ritual offerings so that a soul of the deceased will not be taken by the Gods responsible for torment in the afterlife.

• Simuran: tormentor Diwata.

• Siginarugan: tormentor Diwata.

• Sumpoy: Diwata who takes them away, before they go to inferno.

• Sisiburanen: Diwata who keeps them all, when they go to inferno.

• Balangaw: the rainbow.

• Inaginid: war Diwata.

• Makanduk: war Diwata.