Indigenous Philippine folk religions
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Indigenous Philippine folk religions are the distinct native religions of various ethnic groups in the Philippines, where most follow belief systems in line with animism. These indigenous folk religions include a set of local worship traditions that are devoted to the anito or diwata (and their variables), terms which translate to gods, spirits, and ancestors.
Many narratives within indigenous folk religions are transmitted orally to subsequent generations, but many have also been written down. The Spanish colonizers claimed that the indigenous peoples lacked religious writings, but records indicate otherwise. Accounts, both from Chinese and Spanish sources have explicitly noted the existence of indigenous religious writings. There are also Spanish records of indigenous religious books and scrolls, along with indigenous statues of gods, being burned by colonizers. In some sources, the Spanish claim that no such religious writings exist, whereas the same chronicle records that such books were burned at their own order. These were written on native reeds and leaves using iron points and other local pens, similar to how texts are written on papyrus, and were fashioned either as scrolls or as books. Some were written on bamboo.
0.23% of the population of the Philippines are affiliated with indigenous Philippine folk religions according to the 2020 national census, an increase from the previous 0.19% from the 2010 census.
The profusion of different terms arises from the fact that these indigenous religions mostly flourished in the pre-colonial period, before the Philippines had become a single nation. The various peoples of the Philippines spoke different languages and thus used different terms to describe their religious beliefs. While these beliefs can be treated as separate religions, scholars have noted that they follow a "common structural framework of ideas" which can be studied together. The various Indigenous Philippine religious beliefs are related to the various religions of Oceania and the maritime Southeast Asia, which draw their roots from Austronesian beliefs as those in the Philippines.
The folklore narratives associated with these religious beliefs constitute what is now called Philippine mythology, and is an important aspect of the study of the culture of the Philippines and Filipino psychology.