Plaza Miranda and the Quiapo Amulet Trade
On the square outside the church that holds the Black Nazarene, vendors sell rosaries and scapulars from the same tables as herbs, bottled oils, and cast-iron anting-anting engraved with Latin fragments and symbols nobody in the church will explain. Every January 9, millions of people process past those tables. Neither trade has driven out the other in four centuries.
Field Guide Entry
The square
Plaza Miranda fronts the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, in the middle of Manila. The stalls run along the edges and into the surrounding streets: candle sellers, herbolarios with roots and bark and bottled preparations, fortune tellers, and the amulet trade.
Anting-anting
An anting-anting is a charm, usually a medallion of cast metal, carried for protection, strength, invisibility, luck in court, safety from blades. The iconography is Catholic on its face and something else underneath, with Latin phrases, the eye in the triangle, saints' names, and words from prayer books used as words of power.
The tradition runs through Philippine revolutionary history. Fighters against Spain and later against the United States wore them, and the vendors will tell you which of the old figures a given design belongs to.
The two trades
The church has never endorsed the amulet stalls, and the amulet stalls have never needed it. They sit yards apart, and many customers buy from both on the same afternoon: a candle inside, a charm outside, no sense of contradiction reported by anybody involved.
On January 9, the Traslacion carries the Black Nazarene through Manila and millions come to touch the image or the ropes that pull it. The crowd is one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, and it moves straight past the tables.
What you are looking at
Not a survival and not a curiosity. This is a working market in supernatural goods, operating at full scale, in daylight, in the middle of a capital city, next to the country's most attended shrine.
Visiting Information
The square is public, free, and busiest from mid-morning through the afternoon, with Fridays the big devotional day at the basilica and the stalls busiest then. January 9 is the Traslacion, when central Manila closes and the crowd is measured in millions, which is worth either planning around or planning for.
Ask before photographing vendors and their tables, and before photographing anyone praying. Prices for charms are negotiable and vendors will explain what each is for if asked, which is the best part of the visit.
Quiapo is dense, loud, and busy, and it is worth staying alert as you would anywhere unfamiliar, and heading back before dark. The LRT at Carriedo is a short walk, and traffic in this part of Manila makes rail the sensible approach.
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