Women Spiritual Leaders in Pre-Hispanic Batangas

The spiritual life of the Tagalog people before the coming of Spain was shaped by ritual leaders who acted as mediators between the community and the unseen world. Among them were the catalonan, figures who embodied the intertwining of faith, tradition, and social authority.

A catalonan was a Tagalog ritual specialist—typically a woman — who mediated with ancestral and nature spirits (anito), led ceremonies for healing, agriculture, childbirth, voyages, and death, and preserved ritual knowledge¹. Their role is preserved in the early Spanish accounts, and when examined within the context of Batangas, it offers insight into how women held spiritual and cultural power in the region.

The Jesuit Pedro Chirino, in his Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (1604), described female priestesses as central to ritual life, often leading ceremonies and acting as respected guides of the people².

His observations highlight that these leaders — called babaylan in the Visayas and catalonan among the Tagalogs — were highly esteemed and deeply integrated into everyday life.

The image above is an AI-generated depiction of a pre-Hispanic ritual among locals.

Juan de Plasencia’s Relacion de las Costumbres de los Tagalos (1589) likewise recorded that priestly offices were not limited to men, noting that women frequently presided over ceremonies dedicated to the anito, or ancestral spirits³.

William Henry Scott, in his landmark work “Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society” (1994), further explained that the catalonan occupied a position of prestige because they were custodians of oral tradition and ritual practice⁴. They mediated in moments of crisis — such as illness, death, or poor harvests — performing sacrifices or leading chants to restore balance between the natural and spiritual realms.

In Batangas, where Tagalog communities thrived around fertile plains and lakeshores, such leadership would have been indispensable to agricultural and communal stability.

The centrality of women in these roles reflected a pre-colonial worldview that valued their spiritual authority. Historian Carolyn Brewer notes that this tradition endured well into the colonial period, even as Spanish missionaries sought to suppress female ritual leaders⁵.

Brewer emphasized that women’s presence in sacred roles was not a marginal phenomenon but a core feature of Tagalog society, and by extension, Batangueño communities that shared this heritage.

Though the term catalonan was widespread across Tagalog areas, Batangas provides fertile ground for situating their importance.

Archaeological finds from Calatagan, for instance, include burial goods and ritual ceramics that echo the descriptions of offerings in early texts, suggesting that ritual specialists guided practices surrounding death and remembrance⁶. These practices likely required the leadership of a catalonan, often a woman, to interpret and direct the proper rites.

Thus, the figure of the catalonan stands as testimony to the prominent role of women in pre-Hispanic Batangas.

Far from being confined to domestic life, they presided over ceremonies, mediated between worlds, and anchored communal identity in spiritual tradition. Their memory endures in the written testimonies of early chroniclers, archaeological traces in Batangueño soil, and the living echoes of Filipino respect for the unseen.