Indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagalog people

The indigenous religious beliefs of the Tagalog people (sometimes referred to as Anitism, or, less accurately, using the general term animism) were well documented by Spanish missionaries, mostly in the form of epistolary accounts (relaciones) and entries in various dictionaries compiled by missionary friars.

Archeological and linguistic evidence indicates that these beliefs date back to the arrival of the Austronesian peoples, although elements were later syncretistically adapted from Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism Many of these indigenous beliefs persist today, in syncretic forms discussed by scholars as Philippine variations of folk Catholicism and Islam.