WE SEE this certainly in our languages, which are in constant flux. The Cebuanos today rightly complain about Tagalog imperialism and the attempts to impose Tagalog as a national language. Linguistic research tells us Tagalog actually evolved out of older southern languages, including Cebuano.

Our local languages were dynamic, absorbing new words from each other and from outside. Today our languages have many words borrowed not just from Spanish and English but also from Malay, Javanese, Sanskrit, and Chinese. Words didn’t just float in; they came in the context of different cultures eating together (mami and siomai, noodle soup and steamed pork dumpling), trading (we share numerical terms with Malaysia and also borrowed wholesale from the Spaniards), talking about philosophical and religious issues (dukha or poor is a Buddhist Pali term, guro or teacher is Sanskrit, and the Filipino word for soul, kaluluwa, is probably derived from the Arabic “ruh”). We fell in love, too — sinta is used in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia to refer to a loved one. (Curiously, sayang means both a loved one and what a waste in Indonesia and Malaysia, but only what a waste in the Philippines.) Some of those intercultural exchanges led to, well, babies and families and kinship terms borrowed from the Chinese (for example, ate and kuya) together with the emphasis on filial piety.

In the postwar era, as we began to build a national language, we found Tagalog — the foundation of that language — slowly being enriched by other local languages. For example, we use the Cebuano suroy-suroy, which means to wander around without any specific destination in mind. And as we suroy-suroy around, we might suddenly take a detour to avoid someone we call dugyot, dirty and shabby, the term borrowed from Ilokano.

Let’s return now to our trip to the past. Archaeology and anthropology — the archaeologists dig while the anthropologists interpret what they find — offer other tantalizing glimpses into precolonial culture. Many archaeological sites are actually old graves, which now speak to us through the goods they had, literally allowing the dead to tell us stories. The graves reflect stratified societies — some were buried with gold masks and other jewelry and pots, while others had nothing. The grave goods tell us, too, of an appetite for foreign goods. Graves have yielded Chinese ceramics dating back to the Tang dynasty (7th–10th centuries AD). The quality of many of these ceramics is quite fine, coming from kilns in northern China, telling us that our indio ancestors had accumulated wealth to be able to afford these importations, the wealth almost certainly generated from trade with our neighbors.

The assortment of imported goods is also fascinating. There are the utilitarian plates and bowls (literally, the indios were eating off fine china), as well as a large number of what at first sight would seem like figurines, of flora and fauna, and of humans. Some are charming, like a little boy on a water buffalo; others are, well, quite risqué, as in coupling couples. The Filipino’s love for imported abubut — knick knacks and curios — including pornographic ones, does seem to date back several centuries, but what’s intriguing is that so many of these figurines were actually water drops, originally crafted by the Chinese to hold water, which would be mixed with ink slabs for calligraphy and Chinese painting.

Eventually, the Chinese recognized the potentials of an overseas Southeast Asian market, and ceramics began to come out of Fujian and Canton in huge volumes. These were not as fine as the ceramics from northern China and so could now be afforded by less wealthy indios. Imagine again the impact on local aesthetics as we imported more of these ceramics, some of which were like the stuff you get these days in 168 and Divisoria, mass-produced and cruder versions of the original. Later, the Vietnamese began to produce even cheaper versions, and again, we imported them. Mass production, and imitation, probably democratized these ceramics to some extent, leaving its imprint on today’s Filipino.

THE TERM “syncretism” is used to refer to a mixing of cultural elements; in the Philippines, this is particularly glaring in religion. We embraced Catholicism (and later, Protestantism) but often retaining precolonial “pagan” practices. The result is a cacophonous fusion, bringing together what might even seem to be contradictions. The religious culture of Quiapo yields many examples of this syncretism. On the surface we have devotions to the Black Nazarene, one that is endorsed by no less than a Papal bull dating back to 1650 establishing the Cofradia de Jesus Nazareno, and Pius VII’s granting of indulgences to those who pray before the image. A novena is patterned after the stations of the cross, commemorating Christ’s passion and death to redeem humanity.

But beyond these “authorized” devotions, there is a whole set of beliefs and practices that one might still call folk Catholicism, but which purists might label as “pagan.” Outside the Quiapo church are assorted amulets, many religious medallions with pidgin Latin, mixed with various forms of flora and fauna said to have protective powers. Vendors also sell candles of different colors, each representing a particular kind of wish. All the vendors have a sheet of paper where the purpose of each color of candle is explained, from peach for studies to black for “conscience.” Ask the vendors and they explain “pang konsiyensiya,” a way of getting an adversary to come to his or her senses. For extra insurance, you can buy black candles shaped like people.

The Nazarene devotions are also a mix of animism and Catholicism, with people lining up to rub one of several Nazarene images with their handkerchiefs, hoping they can bring home part of the potency of the image for healing, for good luck, for household harmony and peace. Each year on January 9, this devotion explodes into a frenzy when one of the Nazarene statues is brought out in a procession through Quiapo’s streets. Thousands of people, mostly men, jostle to try to get to the image, to help pull the carroza, or to try to get on it to touch the image. Most will be content to just throw a towel to the ones already on the carroza, who will then rub the towel on the image for them. This devotion, some social scientists suggest, go back to a precolonial concept of the male warrior who must go through trials to gain favor.

It is not just Quiapo’s devotions where we find this syncretism. From the Batanes islands, down to Muslim Mindanao, we find precolonial animist beliefs and practices blending in, or sometimes clashing with, the world religions that came later: Christianity and Islam.