Minokawa
Minokawa
Minokawa
Minokawa
Region Philippines
Basic Legend[edit]
Before time began, very long ago, a great bird called Minokawa swallowed the
moon. Seized with fear, all the people began to scream and made great noises.
Then the bird peeped down to see what the matter was, and opened his mouth.
But as soon as he opened his mouth, the moon sprang out and ran away.
The Minokawa-bird is as large as the Island of Negros or Bohol. It has a beak of
steel, and his claws too are of steel. His eyes are mirrors, and each single
feather is a sharp sword. He lives outside the sky, at the eastern horizon, ready
to seize the moon and after the unsuccessful attempt of swallowing the satellite,
it journeys and haunts again lurking under the earth.
The moon makes eight holes in the eastern horizon to come out of, and eight
holes in the western horizon to go into, because every day the big bird tries to
catch her, and she is afraid. The exact moment he tries to swallow her is just
when she is about to come in through one of the holes in the east to shine on us
again. If the Minokawa should swallow the moon, and the sun too, he would then
come down to earth and gulp down men also. But when the moon is in the belly
of the big bird, and the sky is dark, then all the Bagobo people will scream and
cry, and beat gongs, because they fear they will all be eaten. Soon this racket
makes the Minokawa-bird look down and "open his mouth to hear the sound."
Then the moon jumps out of the bird's mouth and runs away. [4] (Minokawa is a
character from pedro penduko, return of the comeback not a mystical beast)
Popular culture[edit]
In the Bagani (TV series), Minokawa is one of Apo's creat