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"Nabarang" is an illness attributed to another form of sorcery, performed by the specialist called "mambabarang." The illness is caused by insects called "barang," identified through suspected specimens and descriptions as
Alphitobius laevigatus. The insects look like flies, and are carefully tended to and fed black ginger by the mambabarang in bottle or bamboo tubes. (insert)


Alphitobius laevigatus
(Fabricus) 1781

The much enlarged image at <http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/teneb/a_laevigatus.htm>
describes it as a cosmopolitan "black fungus beetle," 5.0-6.5 mm length. At 5 mm it could be mistaken as a fly, and at that size could be small enough to do its dastardly mission of invading through body portals.


In themselves, the insects are harmless but become dangerous when the mambabarang decides to use them for purposes of sorcery and possession. The mambabarang performs a prayer ritual, whispering to the insects instructions and the name of the intended victim. The barang insects are then set free to seek and enter the through any of portals: the anus, the nose, the ears, or dermal breaks likes wounds and scratches. The illness manifestations will depend on the barang's portal of entry: the anus, hemorrhoids or almoranas; the ears, severe earaches; the nose, epistaxis or balinguyngus.

The affliction is also characterized by the presence of a typical scarring, sugat-sugat, variedly colored from yellow to red to violet and black, usually generalized, but specially affecting the face and arms.

The illness is not amenable to treatments by the traditional physicians. Only another mambabarang or a specialist and counter the barang and its illness.

F. Jocano Locando's Folk Medicine in a Philippine Municipality suggests that the practice may be indigenous to the Bay-Laguna area.

In some parts of rural Quezon, nabarang is recognized as a form of illness induced by kulam or sorcery - an illness manifestating as a protracted intestinal disease, resistant to the ministrations of traditional and alternative healers, and the cause finally revealing itself when the patient dies and flying insects are released from the body cavities or dermal breaks.



Bales  Pasma
Bangungot Rabies
Beke (Mumps) (Suob) Post-Natal Care
Hika (Asthma) Tabang
Nabarang  Usog


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