The Amianan Heritage Institute
Our Mission Statement
The mission of The Amianan Heritage Institute is to preserve, explore, and share the cultural knowledge of the Philippines and make its wisdom accessible and meaningful to people from all backgrounds.
About our foundation
The Institute explores the interrelated fundamental sciences and systems of knowledge underlying traditional healing and combat practices, their historical significance, and the cultural contexts from which they emerged. Through research, education, lectures, and cultural consultation, the Institute seeks to foster a deeper understanding of these traditions and their continuing relevance. Its aim is not simply to preserve knowledge from the past, but to bring perspectives from these traditions into dialogue with conventional education and established bodies of knowledge, opening new avenues of inquiry and understanding in culture, history, health and wellness, and the human experience.
02
Virgil Apostol bio
Virgil Mayor Apostol is a researcher, author, educator, and longtime practitioner whose work focuses on the cultural arts and practices of Northwestern Luzon, Philippines. His knowledge of the indigenous science of traditional healing has its roots in his maternal and paternal family lineages of healers, midwives, and bonesetters. For more than four decades, he has expanded upon this foundation through research, documentation, teaching, and practice, exploring the connections among healing and combat traditions, spirituality, folklore, and cultural history.
Teaching since 1997, Apostol has presented his work at universities, medical institutions, and other educational settings. He has also appeared on television, radio, and internet broadcasts in the United States and the Philippines. He is the author of Way of the Ancient Healer: Sacred Teachings from the Philippine Ancestral Traditions (North Atlantic Books, 2010), coauthor of Healing Hands of Hilot (1997), a contributing author to Essays on Ilokano and Amianan Life, Language, and Literature (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2007), and the author of various articles and essays published in periodicals and other media.
As founder and director of The Amianan Heritage Institute, Apostol continues to research, document, teach, and disseminate knowledge drawn from the cultural traditions of Northwestern Luzon.
03
Way of the Ancient Healer
Sacred Teachings from the Philippine Ancestral Traditions