Babaylan
Overview
Babaylan is a Visayan term identifying an indigenous Filipino
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 religious leader, who functions as a healer
Traditional medicine
Traditional medicine comprises unscientific knowledge systems that developed over generations within various societies before the era of modern medicine...

, a shaman, a seer and a community "miracle-worker" (or a combination of any of those). Although the role and function of a babaylan is open to both sexes, most babaylans from the pre-Hispanic era are female.

"The babaylan in Filipino indigenous
Indigenous peoples of Oceania
The indigenous peoples of Oceania are those peoples identified as indigenous peoples, as per the modern global definition of the term.Many of the present-day Pacific Island nations in the Oceania region were originally populated by Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian peoples over the course of...

 tradition is a person who is gifted to heal the spirit and the body; a woman who serves the community through her role as a folk therapist, wisdom-keeper and philosopher; a woman who provides stability to the community’s social structure; a woman who can access the spirit realm and other states of consciousness and traffic easily in and out of these worlds; a woman who has vast knowledge of healing therapies".
 
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