Nuno sa punso
- Origin
- A Tagalog courtesy toward spirits of mounds, trees and ground, still practised by people who say "tabi tabi po". The earliest written record here is the friar Tomas Ortiz's account of about 1731, a missionary list that frames the custom as superstition.
- How we treat it
- The label covers the living custom of asking the nuno's leave and the beliefs around it. It makes no claim about whether the being exists.
- Routes out
- The living informant's account (USC Digital Folklore Archives, 2017) and Esquire Philippines' history of the phrase come first. The colonial records by Ortiz and Gardner follow as the oldest written traces, read as outsiders' framing.
The nuno sa punso is a tiny old spirit said to live in earth mounds. People still say "tabi tabi po" to ask its leave when they pass, a courtesy on record since about 1731.
The earliest record here comes from the friar Tomas Ortiz, writing around 1731 in a list of Filipino beliefs he framed as superstitions. He wrote that when people passed fields, rivers, streams, large trees or sugar-cane fields, they asked the genii or nonos for leave and safe passage. When they had to cut a tree, or failed to keep the customs the spirits expected, they apologised, saying the father had ordered it and they meant no disrespect.
Fletcher Gardner reported in 1906 that a Tagalog passing a balete tree always said "Tabi, po, Nono", as if asking a superior to let him by. He said the custom was still kept up, though by then it was probably addressed to an anito more than to the tik-balan.
A woman recorded by the USC Digital Folklore Archives in 2017 described the nuno as a kind of duwende living in mounds. On finding a bed of mushrooms, she said, you say tabi tabi po and take care to keep off it, since an angry nuno can curse you with its spit. Mario Alvaro Limos, writing for Esquire Philippines in 2020, explains the phrase as "step aside, sir", and ties it to the belief that spirits dwell underfoot; announcing yourself keeps you from treading on them or offending them.
Wikipedia says permission is asked of the nuno before felling a tree or breaking new ground. It describes the nuno as a tiny old man and sets it apart from the dwende: the dwende is a playful goblin who shows itself to children, while the nuno is quick to anger and punishes anyone who disturbs its mound, for example with a swollen foot. Wikipedia and the other sources here keep the nuno separate from the aswang.
"When they pass certain fields, rivers, creeks, or streamlets, large trees, sugar-cane plantations and other places, they ask permission and good passage from the genii or nonos. When they are obliged to cut any tree, or not to observe the things or ceremonies which they imagine to be pleasing to the genii or nonos, they ask pardon of them, and excuse themselves to those beings by saying, among many other things, that the father commanded them to do it, and that they are not willingly lacking in respect to the genii, or that they do not willingly oppose their will, etc."
- Philippine (Tagalog) Superstitions, Fletcher Gardner, Journal of American Folk-Lore 19(74) (1906), JSTOR Early Journal Content via Internet Archive
- The Curse of the Nuno Sa Punso, USC Digital Folklore Archives (collected 2017)
- Puwera Usog, Tao Po, and Tabi Po: The Curious History of Three Filipino Phrases, Mario Alvaro Limos, Esquire Philippines (2020), via Wayback Machine
- Nuno sa punso, Wikipedia