Dian Masalanta

Also Known As: also spelled Diyan Masalanta in modern Filipino writing
Region/Culture: Southeast Asia
Mythos: Philippine Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Dian Masalanta is the Tagalog patron of lovers and of the begetting of children, a role given to her in a single line written in 1589.
Role in Mythos: She stands in the friar Juan de Plasencia’s list of Tagalog divinities, named after Badhala and the sky bodies and just before the farming patrons Lacapati and Idianale.
Relation to Humans: Courting couples and people hoping for children are the ones her patronage covers. No prayer, offering or story addressed to her by name has survived.

Rain on palm thatch, and under it the smell of musk and civet. A chief’s house on Luzon has been turned into a place of worship for a few days. Sheds have gone up along both sides to keep the crowd dry. Small lamps burn on the house posts, and one large lamp hangs in the middle, dressed in woven white palm leaf. The drums are taken in turns and do not stop. A priestess sings, the people answer her, and one by one they ask for what they need.

Some of them ask for a happy marriage. Some ask for a safe birth. If any Tagalog power was listening for those two requests in particular, it was Dian Masalanta.

Everything known about her comes from one man. Juan de Plasencia was a Franciscan friar who had worked among the Tagalogs of Luzon since 1578. In 1589 he wrote a short report on their customs and their worship. Partway through it he lists what they revered. Badhala comes first, the maker of all things. Then the sun, the moon at its new phase, and the morning star, Tala. Then comes a single clause. The Tagalogs, he says, had another idol called Dian Masalanta, who was the patron of lovers and of generation. By generation he means the begetting of children. The next clause belongs to Lacapati and Idianale, who looked after tilled land and farming, and the friar does not come back.

That is the whole record. It is one half of one sentence.

So a great deal is missing, and the gaps are worth setting out. Plasencia does not say whether Dian Masalanta was thought of as a woman or a man. Later writers have settled on a goddess, but his word is simply idol. He gives no parents, no husband or wife, no children. He tells no story about her. He names no shrine, no feast day and no offering that was hers alone. He does not say what the name means, and no early source explains it.

Her body is missing too. Plasencia does describe Tagalog idols in general. He calls them lic-ha and says they were images of different shapes. During a feast an image might be rubbed with perfume and draped with a folded cloth and a gold chain or ring. Whether Dian Masalanta had such an image, and what face it wore, he never says. Nobody else who saw one wrote it down either.

What he does describe in detail is the kind of gathering where she would have been called on. It was held in the big house of a chief, since the Tagalogs kept no permanent temples. The whole community came. Goats, fowl and pigs were killed and laid before the idol. A jar of rice was cooked dry, the jar was broken, and the rice was set out whole with betel nut, fried food and fruit around it. The priest or priestess, the catolonan, sang praises in verse. Then the people ate and drank toast after toast. An ordinary feast ran four days. Among the wealthy it could run thirty. The things asked for are listed plainly: health for the sick, a good voyage, a good harvest, victory in war, an easy childbirth, a happy marriage. The last two sit squarely inside her patronage. Plasencia does not say that they were put to her, and it would be a guess to say so.

Nearly four centuries passed before anyone added to this. In 1969 the Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano published an outline of Philippine mythology that set the Tagalog gods into a family. In it Dian Masalanta has a mother, Anagolay, the goddess of lost things. She has a father, Dumakulem, a guardian of mountains. She has a brother, the sun and war god Apolaki. None of this is in Plasencia. It is a modern arrangement, and it should be read as one. Popular retellings since then have gone further. They call her a goddess of love, conception and childbirth, spell her name Diyan, and sometimes tie her to the fertility dance at Obando in Bulacan. No early record makes that link.

Her power, as far as the record goes, is the favour lovers and would-be parents wanted. It matches the two wishes at the end of the friar’s list, the marriage that turns out well and the child that arrives safely. That is a narrow field, but it is one almost every household would have had reason to enter at some point.

Her limits are harder to state, because nobody wrote them down. No account says what she did when she was displeased, what could turn her away, or whether a stronger power could overrule her. The real limit is the paper. A patron once asked for the most private things people want now rests on a few words from a visiting friar, who wrote her name between the morning star and the rice fields and then went on to the next subject.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Dian Masalanta?

Dian Masalanta is a Tagalog deity of the Philippines, recorded as the patron of lovers and of the begetting of children. She is known from a single line in a report written by the Franciscan friar Juan de Plasencia in 1589. Modern writers usually call her a goddess of love and childbirth.

Where does the name Dian Masalanta come from?

The name comes from Juan de Plasencia’s 1589 account of Tagalog worship, which is the only early source to mention it. Plasencia does not explain what the name means, and no other early source does either. Modern Filipino writing often spells it Diyan Masalanta.

Who are the parents of Dian Masalanta?

The 1589 record gives Dian Masalanta no parents at all. A family was supplied in 1969 by the anthropologist F. Landa Jocano, who made her the daughter of Anagolay and Dumakulem and the sister of Apolaki. That family tree is a modern arrangement, not part of the original account.

What did Dian Masalanta look like?

No source describes the appearance of Dian Masalanta. Plasencia calls her an idol and says Tagalog idols were images of various shapes, but he gives no details of hers. He does not even state whether she was female or male.

How was Dian Masalanta worshipped?

No rite specific to Dian Masalanta is recorded. Plasencia describes Tagalog worship in general as a feast in a chief’s house, with lamps, drums, animal offerings and songs led by a catolonan, where people asked for things such as a happy marriage and a safe childbirth. He does not say those requests were made to Dian Masalanta.