Sungka for fortune-telling? How a Filipino game became a tool for divination for this practitioner

Sungka is a familiar Filipino pastime, often played by families during gatherings and occasions. You might be familiar with the drill: dropping shells, stones, marbles, pebbles, or seeds into holes on a long, canoe-shaped board called a sungkaan.

Each player has seven houses on their side of the board, with seven game pieces initially placed in each house. The two larger end compartments, or heads, are left empty at the start.

On the first turn, a player chooses one of the seven houses directly in front of them and takes the pieces from that house, distributing them one by one into the succeeding holes according to the game's rules.

The objective in the traditional game is to collect pieces in one's own head while strategically moving the pieces around the board.

But beyond its place as a traditional count-and-capture game, some practitioners also regard the game as a way of reconnecting with ancestral knowledge.

Sungka as a Tool for Divination

Meet Kimberly Macatangay Pozzi, a certified meditation teacher, Hayahay facilitator, and guide for Akashic self-mastery. Instead of using tarot cards, crystals, or astrology, Kimberly uses sungka for divination, to explore timing and clarity.

“Like many Filipinos, I initially saw sungka as a casual pastime," Kimberly tells GMA News Online on Zoom. "However, watching my great-grandmother play completely on her own, whispering and talking to unseen entities, made me realize it was a portal,” she said. She wasn't playing to win; she was calculating.”

Kimberly said she eventually returned to the practice as an adult after years of exploring meditation and spiritual traditions, spending five years learning meditation in a Buddhist temple and later traveling to learn about different cultures and spiritual traditions.

As part of that research, she sought out a Babaylan mentor, eventually connecting with one, and by then, Kimberly was already researching Filipino precolonial beliefs and asking questions about the soul, spirituality, and how people relate to nature.

“Before the Babaylan, I was already researching about mindfulness, self-awareness, I already have this, parang, researches about the cognitive part of our minds, neuroscience, I would read a lot of things all around how the mind-body works,” Kimberly said.

Kimberly Macatangay Pozzi

Her Babaylan mentor helped her look more deeply into these ideas and reconnect them with her own Filipino roots, including her Ivatan heritage.

“That exact concept na pinag-uusapan namin ng Babaylan is the same concept as my people, Ivatan people, would explain you how to deal with nature,” she said.

Her great-grandmother's way of playing, including her knowledge of pilatun, or a traditional time guide, and her singing of laji, or lyric folk poems, helped shape how she understands sungka today.

In her family's Ivatan tradition, Kimberly said ancestral knowledge around timing was also connected to practical matters such as fishing, sailing, and anticipating weather conditions, including typhoons.

She said elders used knowledge of traditional calendars and environmental signs to help determine when it was favorable or risky to undertake activities such as going out to sea.

Her practice uses the board to look at periods when a person's path may be more favorable or may require greater effort.

It is this idea of timing that sits at the center of Kimberly's sungka readings. Rather than using the board to simply answer what will happen, she uses it to examine when a particular period may be more favorable, when greater effort may be needed, and how a person might prepare for what lies ahead.

How does a sungka reading work?

A reading starts with a question or an aspect of life that a participant wants to explore.

Kimberly enters a meditative state before beginning what she describes as a solo play, moving the shells counterclockwise through the bahay, or houses.

The process involves counting the shells and interpreting the resulting patterns and intervals as indicators of timing.

According to Kimberly, the reading can move from broader periods, such as months, toward more specific dates or times.

Along with sungka, which is primarily to explore timing, she uses Gabaybayin, another tool in her practice, to examine immediate energetic alignments and guidance.

Kimberly said a sungka reading is not intended to function as a fixed prediction.

“It is not a rigid fortune-telling session, but a cosmic weather report that maps out exactly when your energies will flow smoothly and when you will need to fortify your boundaries,” she said.

She said the experience is also highly rhythmic and auditory, with the sound of the shells dropping forming part of the process.

What does the timing mean?

One of the central ideas in Kimberly's practice is that knowing when can be as important as knowing whether something is possible.

Before turning to the sungka board, Kimberly may use Gabaybayin to look at a person's immediate situation, energetic alignment, or the guidance surrounding a particular question.

Conceived by Baylan Batara Gat Baya, Gabaybayin draws from Baybayin, the ancient Filipino script, and uses symbolic casting to provide guidance.

It can be used for yes-or-no questions as well as open-ended ones involving areas such as relationships, money, career, spirituality, and abundance.

Once the Gabaybayin provides this initial guidance, Kimberly turns to sungka to explore the timing.

In this way, the two tools serve different purposes: Gabaybayin looks at the immediate guidance or alignment, while sungka is used to determine when a particular path may be more favorable.

She explained that, in her sungka practice, certain counts are interpreted differently. If a final count goes above 13, she considers it an indication of external support or blessing from the añito, or ancestral spirits.

If the count remains within 13, she interprets the timing as possible but requiring greater human effort, focus, and work.

Kimberly stresses the reading does not determine what a person must do.

“I deeply believe in free will. Life is meant to be explored through our own choices, experiences, and the lessons we learn as we go,” she said. “The board simply highlights when energy and timing are more favorable for those choices.”

She also asks people not to repeatedly seek answers to the same question. Her practice has a 21-day rule, meaning participants should wait at least 21 days before asking the same question again.

For Kimberly, the waiting period allows someone to actually act on the guidance, experience its consequences, and observe how circumstances change.

How to book a sungka reading

Kimberly offers readings through online video calls and prerecorded video readings.

For in-person sessions, she participates in Mystival in Manila, holds sessions weekly at Vocas in Baguio, and accepts appointments at her studio in Santo Tomas Proper, Baguio.

One-on-one contribution rates vary between local and international sessions, starting at P400. Rates and booking information are available through her website and Instagram account, @kim_bituonwisdom.

For Kimberly, approaching sungka with respect means understanding that it is first and foremost part of Filipino cultural heritage, while recognizing that her use of it as an ancestral tool is a contemporary practice rooted in her family experience.

“Approaching sungka with true respect means looking at the board and seeing a bangka, not just a wooden game piece,” she said. “It means recognizing that this practice is deeply rooted in our pre-colonial history and dates back to a time long before organized religions arrived in our islands.” — LA, GMA News