Serpent on Amaya eats moon just before real lunar eclipse

The June 15 total lunar eclipse had the moon first swallowed by darkness then bathed in a fiery red light. Modern science explains this natural wonder but in the world of GMA’s epicserye Amaya, a giant winged sea serpent is to blame.

The Earth casts its shadow over the moon during a total lunar eclipse early Thursday morning. The next one is expected in 30 years. Danny Pata

Science explains that a lunar eclipse happens when the moon in its orbit passes the Earth’s shadow. The shadow’s outer part, the penumbra, blocks some of the sun’s rays from directly reaching the moon’s surface; the shadow’s inner part, the umbra, blocks all of the sun’s rays entirely. Eclipses can only happen during the full moon phase and takes place two to four times a year. Penumbral eclipses comprise about a third of all documented lunar eclipses, and are very hard to detect. When a portion of the moon passes through the umbra, a partial lunar eclipse takes place. But when the entire moon is blocked by the Earth’s umbra — that’s a total lunar eclipse. Thursday’s total eclipse was a central lunar eclipse — where the moon passed through the center of the Earth’s shadow, making it the darkest and rarest type of eclipse. It was also the closest the moon has gotten to the umbra’s center since July 16, 2000. A total lunar eclipse does not plunge the moon in total darkness because the Earth does not totally block the sunlight reflected by the moon. Light from the corona – the sun’s outer atmosphere – is refracted by the earth’s atmosphere, which filters most of the shorter blue light waves, leaving the rich red or deep orange light that illuminates the moon during a total eclipse. Serpent called the ‘bakunawa’ A total lunar eclipse retains an air of mystery that must have seemed downright mystical in earlier times. Folklore sometimes depicts an eclipse as a catastrophic event, where the moon gets devoured by a mythical creature. For the ancient Mayans, it was a jaguar; for the Chinese, a three-legged toad; and for the pre-Hispanic Visayan people of the epicserye Amaya, it was a bakunawa, a gigantic sea serpent. The first recorded use of the word bakunawa was in 1637, by Fr. Alonso de Mentrida. By the time Fr. Ignacio Alcina wrote his Historias de las Islas e Indios de las Bisayas in 1668, the term had become synonymous with the eclipse that the creature purportedly caused. In Amaya, the legend of the bakunawa is told to the young Bagani. The night sky used to have seven moons, until the bakunawa — a giant winged sea-serpent in the spirit world — was entranced by their beauty and ate six. But one moon remains in the night sky because the gods punished the serpent before it could devour the last moon. Despite that, the bakunawa still gets tempted and occasionally attempts to eat the moon. Making noise was the key to driving away the bakunawa. In the Historias, Alcina noted that the Bisayans would strike at the lusong and floors of their houses to get the bakunawa to drop the moon from its clutches. Serpent pregnancy Superstitions regarding pregnancy and lunar eclipses were also rampant in many pre-Hispanic Filipino cultures. A pregnant woman would be warned against viewing the red-hued moon or leaving the house during an eclipse, lest tragedy befall the child she carried in her womb. Traditional beliefs vary, with eclipse-touched children feared to be suffering from a wide range of afflictions, from black-spotted skin to disfiguration, even madness. The circumstances surrounding Amaya’s birth were slightly more fortuitous, the eponymous heroine being fair-skinned but born with a snake-twin — seemingly bringing to fruition the prophesy of a woman warrior with a snake-twin destined to kill the ruling rajah. Amaya’s snake-sibling is thought to be an umalagad, or spirit that escaped the bakunawa’s realm, that would protect and guide its human twin. Though born on the darkest night, Amaya’s journey to becoming a woman-warrior would be the stuff of legend, and soon her exploits will shine brighter than the moon itself. — MRT/VS, GMA News