Chapter 1. The Elder Gods

Chapter I: The Various Elder Gods of the Visayan Pantheon

Visayan Mythology contains heavy traces of animism, for the people of that region had a strong belief that everything has a life force, every animal, every plant, even objects such as rocks, metals and forces like wind, fire and sea have living forces controlling them. In order to make an explanation to the curious mind, the folklorists used the stories consisting of Gods that control certain forces of nature. These gods control, protect and govern elements around them, may it be nature or within the boundaries of human morality and consciousness, they believed there are gods that influence their daily lives. Out of these tales, came the first pantheon, consisting of elder gods that roamed the earth at the beginning of time before there was land, and the world was a mass of nothingness, and according to some stories, especially from Negros Island It was Kan-Laon,who was the eldest and created Sky and the Sea from this mass of chaotic energy and is sometimes referred to as the progenitor of the "god race" the deities, in other Visayan versions it was Kaptan who held the world as the ultimate Sky God, the ruler of heaven, and his opposite is Magwayen, the Supreme sea goddess and a prominent figure in Sulad or the Visayan version of the Underworld. They were the alpha, they started s it all as folklorists of old would say, and this chapter contains some of the stories gathered about the first gods that filled the world.