Lingling-o
Knowledge Kapamilya has allowed me to engage and discourse with experts over an aspect where I was lacking in knowledge, Philippine cultural artifacts. While exploring the collections area, I began to notice many things that were in a museum were similar to the things around my house . I was making connections to the things in my life and my brain was on fire. I could start to piece together the stories that each artifact wanted to tell me. It amazed me how much I could learn with my prior knowledge if I just happened to be looking for things to learn.
Looking through that critical lens allowed me to formulate the research questions that I would connect with other lessons and let me view the cultural artifacts from an outside perspective with insights and schema. For example, one item that I found really interesting was the ling-ling-o, a necklace that was made of some type of metal, typically bronze, gold, but also sometimes wood and shells. The material of your lingling-o were a sign of tribal status and social status [1]. Different shapes of the lingling-o are seen but most have a signature c-shape with the opening facing downward.
The lingling-o represents the masculine and feminine energies, the outer section represents the uterus, while the inner section represents the phallus [2]. It is an object that brings balance, luck, fertility, bounty, etc. The lingling-o is an object of plenty. As a superstitious Filipino, I wear mine all the time to bring me luck and good energies because the last time I took it off and opted for a gold chain instead, I had a really bad and draining day.
One funny thing about my personal lingling-o is how I came to choose my lingling-o. I was noticing that I needed some kind of neckwear for a formal event, and I wanted it to be something that I felt was very near and dear to my heart. My grandmother always had eccentric and beautiful neckwear and I always noticed it whenever she would wear anything such. I decided to do the same, I wanted a lingling-o that was different and stood out from the rest. I picked out a fish lingling-o, it has noticeable fins on the sides of the pendant. It was one of those moments where you are in a sea of options and just one catches your eye, almost as if it chose you.
When I showed my mom after it arrived from the Philippines, my mother recognized the shape immediately. She went downstairs to fetch something from her jewelry box and came back with two small lingling-o that were noticeably more worn and tarnished. One was the same fish shape as the one I just received, and the other was a bird. My mother told me that these were given to my sister and I when we were younger by our uncle Tim. The same lingling-o that I was given as a child stood out to me and chose me when I was picking out which lingling-o I wanted.
1. Museo Kordilyera, “Lingling-o,” Museo Kordilyera, 2021, https://museokordilyera.upb.edu.ph/museum-collections/ling-ling-o-2/.
2. Milena Acosta, Bettina Selsor, and KT Hajeian, “The Phillipine Lingling-O,” Natural History Museum, accessed June 5, 2024, https://nhm.org/stories/phillipine-lingling-o.
