No one would ever dare touch a tulayhang. We are blessed by our masters with some power over our domain.
Not like those mud crabs we look like. Those idiots don’t even know when they’re being caught to be eaten by the humans. See that one? Just grabbed from the mud, just like their kind always are. I’ve heard that humans throw crabs back into the water, but not regular water.
The water’s so hot it kills them. Not instantly though, there’s enough time to scream. Then the humans eat the muscle and the claws off. Terrible.
The mud crab will come back in pieces, but that’s not the only thing the humans will throw. Oh they throw so many things back into the river some are nice and you can decorate your home with them, but others are just nasty.
Sometimes they smell and taste disgusting and the water just feels different for weeks on end, other times they just pile up what they throw until we’re all living on a gigantic mountain of human trash. Trash, I think that’s what they call the things they don’t want to have anymore, I heard it from some fish.
That’s why we tulayhang threw our lot in with the enkantos. They know what it’s like to have to deal with the humans and so gave us the power to give illness to any human that dares disturb us in our holes.
Now don’t look at me like that! The humans deserve it for aggravating the natural order, always throwing their trash around like it’s not going to bother anyone. I heard that way out in the ocean even the siyokoys are suffocating on their garbage. That’s another word for trash. Humans have so much of it that they need more than one word to describe it.
I guess that’s the lesson. Humans are just terrible beings that we have to watch out for. Never be afraid to use the powers your master gave you to defend yourself, because you never know when the humans will think you’re a mud crab.
Then you’ll be swimming in pieces in the water, wondering why you didn’t listen to the wise old tulayhang.
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Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Inspired by the Tulayhang myths from Central Panay
Tulayhang illustration by Harold Juab
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