Classical Greek thought ties numbers to the philosophy of space in the sense that numbers are spatially quantitative.1 But how Filipinos look on certain numbers reveals a different philosophy. Before we explain that, first let us look at the anthropological data.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL DATA ON NUMBERS
Demetrio's Encyclopedia reveals interesting beliefs and customs regarding numbers.2
Usa, one or the first is connected with auguring luck, with lihi which is to inaugurate something with the proper ceremonies or magical ingredients.3 The first acts of several agricultural practices are connected with the belief that such acts will ensure a good harvest. In the expression, `paglihian ang bag-ong tuig' (to start the New Year right), implies the belief good actions done in the New Year are supposed to endure for the rest of the year. So good deeds done during the first day of a year augur a year of goodness.4 Negatively, bad deeds like being extravagant during the New Year or being lazy will have their consequence during the rest of the year.
The first action then counts much. That is why when a child starts lying on his stomach for the first time, "a book or pen must be passed under his body when returning him to his original position, so that he will become a professional."5 Likewise the first customer should be treated specially in order to have good sales during the day.6
First offerings also have do with religion.7 First crops of the harvest are offered in thanksgiving to the spirits for a fruitful future. "New items should be first worn to church" in order that they will last long.8 On the other hand, last thingslike marriage in the last month of the yearhas to do with bad luck.9
Farmers believe that "first harvest at high tide insures more production."10 This belief seems to connect agricultural practices with cosmic motions.
Duha or two seems to be an unlucky number. In Cebuano Visayan duha-duha (literally to be split between two sides) is to doubt or to suspect.11 Marriage illustrates the point. Two members of the same family are advised not to get married in the same year. Boholanos believe that their luck will be divided if two members of the same family marry at the same time.12 And two marriages between two families are taboo.13 Second marriages are believed to be unhappy.14
The bad luck nature of two applies also outside marriage. To photograph a pair is bad luck.15 Two patients in the same house must be separated lest they die.16 Perhaps this belief came before they understood germs and infectious diseases.
On the brighter side, tenants occupying the second floor are more prosperous than those on the first floor.17
Tulo or three is often associated with the departed. People believe that the soul of the dead visits the relatives on the third day after the burial.18 That is why ashes are spread on the doorsteps.19 During those three days the mourners do not bathe, do not comb their hair, nor sweep the floor.20 The widow must not go out of the house nor even peep outside the window until the third day after the spouse's burial.21 That the number three is a jinx explains perhaps why taking pictures of three persons or those in odd numbers (3, 5, 9) is taboo.22
Some taboos also exist in weddings. Igorot couples are forbidden to go to the field three days after their wedding.23 In several places in the country, couples about to be married should not travel three days before the wedding.24
The beliefs are associated with numbers four, five, and six are not so exciting.25
Pito or seven is significant for the folk medicine practitioners. Many of their prescriptions are connected with number seven or at least odd numbers.26 It takes seven Fridays of Lent for sorcerers to prepare the barang, a witchcraft instrument. Number seven also has connections with death practices. Tiruray mothers offer milk for seven days to their deceased children.27 The Tirurays also maintain a fire for seven days in order to guide home the soul of the dead person and bring unsalted food to the grave on the seventh day.28 That the dead returns to his house on the seventh day (or third day as mentioned above) of the novena is a common belief.29 Seven likewise connotes bad luck, especially for gamblers.30 Breaking a mirror or glass on a Friday means seven years of bad luck.31
Walo or eight does not have much significance except with the beliefs connected with food offered to the souls at 8:00 P.M., the time when the souls are said to come out.32 That is the time the church bells toll.
Siyam or nine is also connected specially with death and the departed. Sleeping in the house of the deceased for nine days allegedly prevents another death.33 For the same reason leftovers should be given away on the ninth day.34 The food placed on the altar on the ninth day is supposedly for the hungry departed souls in their long journey.35 Not cleaning the house nor taking a bath before the ninth day after death insures the members of the family from being scared by the deceased.36 However, not everything is gloomy during the novena or nine days. The nights of the nine days have parlor games and feasting on the last day.37 Then the widow has to visit her husband's grave for nine consecutive Mondays.38 The bereaved members of the family have to wear black clothes for nine months.39
As in many other cultures, Filipinos consider thirteen as an unlucky number, such as Friday the thirteenth.40 That is why a child born on the thirteenth day of the month is not registered under this date.41 Thirteen persons staying in the same house will spell out misfortune.42 However, gamblers consider thirteen as a lucky number.43
Forty has links with death practices. The soul of the departed is supposedly still on the earth for forty days after death, will join the relatives after that period of time, and then ascends to heaven on the fortieth day.44 During those forty days nobody should sing or hum in order not to offend the departed relative.45
COMMENTS
There are two distinct, mentalities regarding numbers in general. For example, the number one for a mathematician ordinarily can stand for anything, such as one man, one day, one tree, or simply one in the abstract sense. But for another mentality, the number one has a meaning of success or of failure, or something important. The first mentality is sometimes called the literal (or non-mystical, non-Pythagorean) school, whereas the latter is called the non-literal (or mystical, Pythagorean) school.46
The Pythagoreans (after Pythagoras, the Ionian Greek born around 570 BC) were among the first to espouse the non-literal mentality. They looked at everything in common from the viewpoint of number. For example, harmony and disharmony in musical tones can be deduced mathematically in terms of the proportions of the notes. The Pythagoreans
saw simply the ultimate single nature (physics) of things in their mathematical structure. There seems little doubt that ... they thought it possible to speak of things as actually made up of "numbers" that were regarded simultaneously as units, geometrical points, and physical atoms.47
One cannot dismiss Pythagoreans as a discarded relic in the history of mathematics. Even today serious mathematicians uphold the non-literal conception of numbers. According to Young:
We also find a revival of the Pythagorean reverence for the whole numbers minus their moral qualities, in the works of certain modern scientists. "In fact, Pascual Jordan, one of the founders of modern quantum mechanics, recently made some elaborate and daring cosmological conjectures on the basis of the fact that certain numerical combinations of fundamental physical constants (such as the speed of light) have the approximate value of 1."
Such expressions as "luck in odd numbers," "lucky seven," "come seven, come eleven," give evidence of the continued influence of the mystical element in numbers. The Pythagorean thesis is represented today by the doctrine that nature must be studied quantitatively. We have reached the present still confronted by conflicting number concepts.48
If the philosophy of numbers has links with the philosophy of space in the sense that numbers are spatially quantitative, the data above shows that Filipinos also tie up numbers with the philosophy of causality.49 For example, the actions of the first day of the year are supposed to have its effect on the rest of the year. This kind of thinking traces itself to causality as based on the synchronistic principle. The synchronistic principle may not work for technical sciences, but, according to Jung, it works better for psychology.50
That is why Jung thinks that numbers play an important role in psychology. He seriously values numerology, just as some people seriously value astrology. Jung says that
the natural numbersviewed from a psychological anglemust certainly be archetypal representations, for we are forced to think about them in certain definite ways. Nobody, for instance, can deny that 2 is the only existing even primary number. In other words, numbers are not concepts consciously invented by men for purposes of calculations. They are spontaneous and autonomous products of the unconsciousas are other archetypal symbols.51
The Aristotelian notions of cause and effect flowed toward the Newtonian view of classical physics in a static universe. However, modern quantum physics has debunked the classical view and holds that the universe is a dynamic web of relationships. In The Tao of Physics, Capra shows that the Eastern mystical philosophies are closer to modern physics than the traditional classical physics of the West.
In modern physics, the universe is experienced as a dynamic, inseparable whole which includes the observer in an essential way. In this experience, the traditional concepts of space and time, of isolated objects, and of cause and effect, lose their meaning. Such an experience, however, is very similar to that of the Eastern mystics. The similarity becomes apparent in quantum and relativity theory, and becomes even stronger in the "quantum-relativistic" models of sub-atomic physics where both these theories combine to produce the most striking parallels to Eastern mysticism.52
The recent interest in biorhythm, bioclocks and biocycles are based on man's harmony with nature. These advocates of harmony with nature think that their stand is better than the principle of mastering in nature. This is not new because the Confucian classic, the I Ching (which is based on harmonizing opposites in the symbol of the Yin and the Yang forces) speaks of such harmony.53 The number concept in the I Ching is also based on the non-literal mentality.
We said in Elements of Filipino Philosophy that the average Filipino wants to have harmony in himself, with his fellow men, with the universe, and with the other world. The Filipino mentality on numbers as seen in his behavior also follows this principle of harmony.
Filipinos follow both the literal and the non-literal aspects of number. The non-literal aspect is more common in the barrios and is connected with religion and the world of the spirits. The literal aspect is connected with business. But sometimes both mentalities cross each other. Businessmen practice or believe in their lucky and unlucky days.
The foregoing has been an attempt to show the Filipino thought on
numbers. We hope that future researchers will pursue further the findings
made.
1. Leonardo N. Mercado, Elements of Filipino Philosophy (Tacloban City: Divine Word University Publications, 1974), p. 121.
2. Francisco R. Demetrio, Encyclopedia of Philippine Folk Beliefs and Customs, vol. 2 (Cagayan de Oro City: Xavier University, 1991). To be cited according to its numbered entries.
3. John U. Wolff, A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, Special Monography Issue of the Philippine Journal of Linguistic (June, 1972), pp. 605-606.
4. D6992.
5. Dl354; see also D6978.
6. D6970-72.
7. D7695-7703.
8. D6986.
9. D7005.
10. D1065.
11. Wolff, Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, pp. 232-233.
12. D6078.
13. D6046.
14. D6032.
15. D1396.
16. D3884.
17. D5282.
18. D7020, 7023, 7024, 7031, 3724.
19. D3720.
20. D3322, 7071, 7025.
21. D7019.
22. D7033, 7034.
23. D7027.
24. D1041, 6340.
25. D7036-7043.
26. Richard Arens, Folk Practices and Beliefs of Leyte and Samar, The Collected Articles of Fr. Richard Arens, SVD, Leyte-Samar Studies, 5 (1971), 1-150.
27. D3352.
28. D3397, 3392.
29. D7044.
30. D7046.
31. D164, 7206.
32. D4470, D7049.
33. D1757.
34. D7050.
35. D7636.
36. D3592.
37. D7055.
38. D7054.
39. D3446.
40. D7060, 7062.
41. D7059.
42. D7065, 7066.
43. D943.
44. D3697, 7071.
45. D1669.
46. Stephen F. Barker, "Number," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, V, 526-530.
47. W.K.C. Guthrie, "Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, VII, 38.
48. Mirriam H. Young, "Numbers in the Western World." The Arithmetic Teacher, 11 (1964), 340.
49. Mercado, Elements of Filipino Philosophy, pp. 131-141.
50. Ibid., pp. 138-39.
51. Carl G. Jung, ed., Mathematics in Western Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 386.
52. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, second edition, revised and updated (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), pp. 70-71.
53. James Legge, trans., I Ching, Book of Changes (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1969).