The Naga in Naga

The meaning of the name Naga, our city, has lately changed. For a long time, we have associated the name to the presence of Narra trees, the local name for which is said to be Naga.

The development of scholarship focusing on Southeast Asia and the indigenous communities in the region has brought about a new awareness among researchers from the Philippines. Where before the tendency was to look to the West, i.e. Europe, in learning about themselves, the new post-colonial thinkers, started to examine the world around them, a position that enabled them to focus on things that were then taken for granted. Myths and folklore that were - by theory and by discrimination - considered false stories and indicative of primitive thinking - were started to be sourced as explanations for both the origin and nature of things. Local knowledge started to lose its stigma of being inferior and began to gain currency in terms of authentic wellspring of ideas.

Now the theory of the tree is fading and in its place, like some kind of imperial image, the dragon or snake is the new explanation for the name of this city.

The dragon or snake is called "Naga" in the Southeast Asian myths, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia, two countries that are natural kin to the cultures of the Philippines.

This development in the origin myth of the city is important especially in the light of the coming tercentenary celebration of the belief in the Lady of Peñafrancia, a figure that can be imagined both as deity in the pantheon of Southeast Asian belief systems and an icon of such power and magnitude when viewed in the dominant Marian devotion.

The "Naga" is interesting because it is, as Robert Wessing of Leiden University points out, one of the "symbolic animals in the land between the Waters." These animals serve as "markers of place and transition."

The "Naga" is not easy to categorize: it is described in many stories as an underground being but later in the more articulated tales, it becomes a feathered snake, one that is capable of flight. Whatever it is, the Naga is a powerful creature that possesses the splendor of negative and positive energies. When offended, it can cause flooding; when appeased it is the harbinger of peace and prosperity.