I defer to my mistress.
Dagau. The goddess.
I am but the nameless serpent, residing beside the pillars of the earth.
The goings on of the earthworld directly anger her. Dagau only wants peace to reign in the mortal lands and sends earthquakes to remind them how fleeting life is.
She tells me to wrap around the posts of the world, to cause the shaking so well known by those that spill blood.
It is a usually benign motion. While Dagau is the goddess of earthquakes she is not a deity of destruction.
I can feel the rumblings of war in the south, where we are strong.
They call on battle with their new god, rejecting those that came before.
This was not the first time spilled blood abounded. The humans were architects of devastation and murder.
Dagau was not chained to the pillars and she would take the time to travel to many lands foreign to me.
She followed a spirit to a far-off land in the deserts of the Middle Eastern sun.
The wanton slaughter caused her to weep. Dagau had no power in that land and could only watch as humans were butchered for reasons trivial to the goddess.
She did not stay long, the taste of blood in the air like iron on her tongue.
The goddess returned to me and told me of the carnage.
I am apathetic.
Mortals do not interest me. I am content living my life in the realms of the lower world.
But I still serve my goddess.
The slaughter of war is too much for her to bear.
We prepare, but the mortals do as well.
They call it ‘The Big One’.
A cataclysmic event that wouldtopple the very foundations in the lands of the north.
She takes full responsibility for the bloodbath, she tries to keep the earthquakes at bay, but she is fighting her very nature.
Once blood is spilled, the earthquakes follow.
In the past decade wanton butchery reflected the emotions of the humans. Fear proliferated and those tasked to protect became the very thing they fought against.
There were those, garbed in red, that try to warn their people about ‘The Big One’.
But their warnings fall on deaf ears, the very homes they inhabit are impotent against the onslaught.
There were estimates that an immense amount of lives will be lost. The numbers were staggering.
Dagau cries, she does not mean to make me shake the very foundations of the world.
It is the humans.
Always the humans.
The goddess is not just the patron of earthquakes.
Her heart bleeds for the harvest.
The deity’s patience is vast but even she succumbs to rage.
Her curses can be felt within a farmer’s hands.
A goddess of the earth, she can tell the very soil to wither the crops of the offending mortals.
Even those already harvested could not escape her wrath. The reaped crops would disappear from granaries within an instant.
My mistress is multifaceted.
She is mercy.
She is wrath.
She is reaper.
She is vengeance.
I am reminded of this every time mortals cry out to her.
In times before humans traversed the middleworld, they would journey to the realms of the skyworld and lower world.
There was one specific human I remember that dared the goddess to act. He wanted to fell his enemy’s town with her power.
He tasted strange, a bit too gamey for me.
She laughed as I devoured him.
No mortal could tell her what to do.
Not without a great price.
My mistress does not crave power, unlike most gods.
As I said, she is using what might she has to guide mortals who don’t even know her name.
They are so far removed from the life of the crops that they pray for luxury and comfort, taking the food on their plate for granted.
There are still a select few that venerate her, most of her followers were taken by the god of the cross.
But numbers do not matter.
She has taken the humans under her care and she will protect them as best they can.
She wishes that those of the red had more power but at least some mortals are doing something.
The blood.
It always goes back to the blood.
I can already sense ‘The Big One’ will come soon.
And I hope the goddess’ prayers for mortals will be answered.
Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Inspired by the Dagau myths from Raats, Pieter Jan. (1969). A Structural Study of Bagobo Myths and Rites. Cebu City, Philippines: University of San Carlos, p. 20.
Dagau Illustration by Pat Zulueta
IG: @patzulueta_art
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