Apertures of the Buwaya: Reinscribing the Crocodile as Ancestor, Guardian, and Public Mirror: Symbolism in Animism and Ancestral Worship
Apertures of the Buwaya: Reinscribing the Crocodile as Ancestor, Guardian, and Public Mirror: Symbolism in Animism and Ancestral Worship Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™ April 12, 2026 This draft proposes a reparative curatorial strategy to rehabilitate the crocodile (buwaya) from sacred ancestor and water‑guardian in Austronesian cosmologies to a plural, decolonized symbol—combining community co‑curation, ritual activation, comparative Austronesian framing, and critical pedagogy to counter its modern political caricature as corruption. (Relevant to Mandaluyong institutions and Philippine cultural workers.) Curatorial Frame Lorenz Lasco’s taxonomy of animistic motifs invites a curatorial posture that treats ornament as epistemic practice: motifs are active mediators of cosmology, law, and social memory. The crocodile in precolonial Philippine worlds functions as ancestor, judge, and guardian of waterways, a role echoed across Austronesia and Polynesia in cognate reptilian and serpent figur...
