Philippine History - The Pre Colonial Period
THE DIM CENTURIES prior to Magellan's arrival in 1521 were formerly
unknown to historians. It is only in recent years that history's
frontiers have been explored by both historians and archaeologists. By
means of intensive researchers in ancient Asian records and by new
archaeological discoveries at various sites in the Philippine
prehistory. First Man in the Philippines. According to recent
archaeological findings, man is ancient in the Philippines. He first
came about 2500,000 B.C. during the Ice Age or Middle Pleistocene
Period, by way of the land bridges which linked the archipelago with
Asia. He was a cousin of the "Java Man," "Peking Man," and other
earliest men in Asia. Professor H. Otley Beyer, eminent American
authority on Philippine archaeology and anthropology, called him the
"Dawn Man", for he appeared in the Philippines at the dawn of time..
Brawny and thickly-haired, the "Dawn Man", had no knowledge of
agriculture. He lived by means of gathering wild edible plants, by
fishing, and hunting. It is probable that he reached the Philippines
while hunting. At that time the boars, deer, giant and pygmy elephants,
rhinoceros, and other Pleistocene animals roamed in the country. Fossil
relics of these ancient animals have been found in Pangasinan and
Cagayan Valley. In the course of unrecorded time the "Dawn Man"
vanished, without leaving a trace. Until the present time his skeletal
remains or artifacts have not yet been discovered by archaeologists. So
far the oldest human fossil found in the Philippines is the skull cap
of a "Stone-Age Filipino", about 22,000 years old. This human skull cap
was discovered by Dr. Robert B. Fox, American anthropologist of the
National Museum, inside Tabon Cave Palawan, on May 28, 1962. This human
relic was called the "Tabon Man". The Coming of the Negritos. Ages
after the disappearance of the "Dawn Man", the Negritos from the Asian
mainland peopled the Philippines. They came about 25,000 years ago
walking dry-shod through Malay Peninsula. Borneo, and the land bridges.
Centuries after their arrival, the huge glaciers of ice melted and the
increased volume of water raised the level of the seas and submerged
the land bridges. The Philippines was thus cut off from the Asian
mainland. The Negritos lived permanently in the archipelago and became
the first inhabitants. The Negritos are among the smallest peoples on
earth. They are below five feet in height, with black skin, dark kinky
hair round black eyes, and flat noses. Because of their black color and
short stature, they were called Negritos (little black people) by the
Spanish colonizers. In the Philippines they are known as Aeta, Ati, or
Ita. The Negritos were a primitive people with a culture belonging to
the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic). They wandered in the forests and lived
by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild fruits and roots. Their homes
were temporary sheds made of jungle leaves and branches of trees. They
wore little clothing. They had no community in life, hence they
developed no government, writing, literature, arts, and sciences. They
possessed the crudest kind of religion which was a belief in fetishes.
They made fire by rubbing two dry sticks together to give them warmth.
They had no pottery and never cooked their food. However, they were
among they were among the world's best archers, being skilled in the
use of the bow and arrow. The Indonesians, First Sea-Immigrants. After
the submergence of the land bridges, another Asian people migrated to
the Philippines. They were the maritime Indonesians, who belonged to
the Mongoloid race with Caucasian affinities. They came in boats, being
the first immigrants to reach the Philippines by sea. Unlike the
Negritos, they were a tall people, with height ranging from 5 feet 6
inches to 6 feet 2 inches. It is said that two waves of Indonesia
migration reached the Philippines. The first wave came about 3000 B.C.;
the second wave about 1000 B.C. The Indonesians who came in the first
migratory wave were tall in stature, slender in physique, and light in
complexion. Those in the second migratory wave were shorter in height,
bulkier in body, and darker in color. The Indonesian culture was more
advanced than that of the Negritos it belonged to the New Stone Age
(Neolithic). The Indonesians lived in grass-covered homes with wooden
frames, built above the ground or on top of trees. They practised dry
agriculture and raised upland rice, taro (gabi), and other food crops.
Their clothing was made from beaten bark and decorated with fine
designs. They cooked their food in bamboo tubes, for they knew nothing
of pottery. Their other occupations were hunting and fishing. Their
implements consisted of polished stone axes, adzes, and chisels. For
weapons, they had bows and arrows, spears, shields, and blowguns
(sumpit). They had one domesticated animal - the dog. Exodus of the
Malays to the Pacific World. The seafaring Malays also navigated the
vast stretches of the uncharted Pacific, discovering and colonizing new
islands, as far south as Africa and Madagascar. Their unchronicled and
unsung maritime exploits impressed the British Orientalist A.R. Cowen,
who wrote: "The Malays indeed were the Phoenicians of the East, and
apparently made even longer hauls than the Semitic mariners, their
oceanic elbowroom giving them more scope than the coasts of the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea." The prehistoric Malays were the first
discoveries and colonizers of the Pacific world. Long before the time
of Columbus and Magellan, they were already expert navigators. Although
they had no compass and other nautical devices, they made long voyages,
steering their sailboats by the position of the stars at night and by
the direction of the sea winds by day. Malayan Immigration to the
Philippines. In the course of their exodus to the Pacific world, the
ancient Malays reached the Philippines. They came in three main
migratory waves. The first wave came from 200 B.C. to 100A.D. The
Malays who came in this wave were the headhunting Malays, the ancestors
of the Bontoks, Ilongots, Kalingas, and other headhunting tribes in
northern Luzon. The second wave arrived from 100 A.D. to 13th century.
Those who came in this migratory wave were the alphabet-using Malays,
the ancestors of the Visayans, Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Bicolanos,
Kapampangans, and other Christian Filipinos. The third and last wave
came from the 14th to 16th century A.D. The Muslim Malays were in this
migratory wave and they introduced Islam into the Philippines. The
Malays. Daring and liberty-loving, the Malays belonged to the brown
race. They were medium in height and slender in physique, bur were
hardy and supple. They had brown complexion, with straight black hair,
dark brown eyes, and flat noses. Culturally, the Malays were more
advanced than the Negritos and the Indonesians, for they possessed the
Iron Age culture. They introduced into the Philippines both lowland and
highland methods of rice cultivation, including the system of
irrigation; the domestication of animals (dogs, fowls, and carabaos);
the manufacture of metal tools and weapons; pottery and weaving; and
the Malayan heritage (government, law, religion, writing, arts,
sciences, and customs). They tattooed their bodies and chewed
betelnuts. They wore dresses of woven fabrics and ornamented themselves
with jewels of gold, pearls, beads, glass, and colored stones. Their
weapons consisted of bows and arrows, spears, bolos, daggers, krises
(swords), sumpits (blowguns), shields and armors made of animal hide
and hardwood, and lantakas (bronze cannons). Legends and Hoaxes about
the Malay Settlers. The legends surrounding the settling of the
Philippines by Malay migrants are notably celebrated in the ati-atihan
festival and perpetrated by hoaxers in the fraudulent documents
containing the
Maragtas chronicle and the Code of Kalantiaw. According
to one legend, at around 1250 A.D., ten datus and their families left
the kingdom of Borneo and the cruel reign of sultan Makatunaw to seek
their freedom and new homes across the seas. In Sinugbahan, Panay, they
negotiated the sale of Panay's lowlands from the Negrito dwellers, led
by their Ati king Marikudo and his wife Maniwantiwan. The purchase
price consisted of one gold saduk (native hat) for Marikudo and a long
gold necklace for Maniwantiwan. The sale was sealed by a pact of
friendship between the Atis and the Bornean Malays and a merry party
when the Atis performed their native songs and dances. After the party,
Marikudo and the Atis went to the hills where their descendants still
remain, and the Malay datus settled the lowlands. One of Aklan, Panay's
fascinating festivals to this day is the ati-atihan, a colorful mardi
gras celebrating the legendary purchase of Panay's lowlands. It is held
in Kalibo annually during the feast day of Santo Niņo in January. The
riotous participants, with bodies painted in black and wearing bizarre
masks, sing and dance in the streets, re-enacting the ancient legend of
the welcome held by the Atis for the Malay colonizers. The Maragtas
goes on to describe the formation of a confederation of barangays
("Madya-as") led by one Datu Sumakwel, who passed on a code of laws for
the community. The fictitious story also alleges the expansion of the
Malay datus to other parts of the Visayas and Luzon. Although
previously accepted by some historians, including the present authors,
it has become obvious that the Maragtas is only the imaginary creation
of Pedro A. Monteclaro, a Visayan public official and poet, in Iloilo
in 1907. He based it on folk customs and legends, largely transmitted
by oral tradition. The Code of Kalantiaw, a code of laws said to have
been promulgated by Datu Kalantiaw of Aklan in 1433, was also
previously accepted by historians and lawyers. But it has been proven
to be a fraud. The Code of Kalantiaw was contained in a set of
documents sold by Jose E. Marco, a collector and author from Negros
Occidental, to Dr. James E. Robertson, Director of the Philippine
Library and Museum, in 1914. Robertson then published an English
translation of the penal code, and Filipino scholars came to accept the
code as a deliberate hoax. Challenge to the Migration Theory. The
migration theory offered by H. Otley Beyer to explain the early
settlement of the Philippines has been challenged by such scholars as
Robert B. Fox and F. Landa Jocano. According to these scholars,
Philippines prehistory is far too complex to be explained by "waves" of
migration. It seems doubtful that early immigrants came in a fixed
period of time and with a definite destination. Nor can archaeological
and ethnographic data, show that each "wave" of immigrants was really a
distinct racial and cultural group. According to the other viewpoint,
the early Filipinos were not passive recipients of cultures but also
active transmitters and synthethizers of them. For example, comparative
studies of Pacific cultures show that some of the inhabitants of
Micronesia, Polynesia and other Pacific islands came from the
Philippines. Moreover, by the time the Spaniards came to the
Philippines, the early Filipinos had developed a distinctly Filipino,
as opposed to Malayan civilization. Birth of the Filipino People.
Whether one accepts the migration theory or not, it appears that out of
the interracial mixture of the early settlers - indigenous tribes or
Asian latecomers - was born the Filipino people. Prior to the arrival
of the Europeans, the Filipinos had already established a propensity
for intermarriage with the assimilation of multiple races and cultures.
Early Relations with India. The early relations between the Philippines
and the Indian empires of Sri-Vijaya and Majapahit were commercial and
cultural, not political. As a free and independent people, the early
Filipinos carried on trade with Borneo, Celebes, Java, Sumatra, and
other countries of Southeast Asia. And through Sri-Vijaya and
Majapahit, they received India's cultural influences. The early contact
between India and the Philippines was decidedly indirect via Malaysia.
India's Cultural Influences. The impact of Indian civilization on the
Philippines profoundly affected the culture of the Filipinos. The
Brahmanistic elements in ancient Filipino religion and the names of
their gods and mythological heroes were of Indian origin. The term
Bathala (supreme god of the ancient Tagalog) originated from the
Sanskrit Bhattara Guru, meaning "the highest of the gods". The sarong (
skirt ) and potong (turban) of the pre-Spanish Filipinos and the
embroidered shawls of the present-day Muslim Filipino women reveal
Indian influences. The ancient Filipino alphabet originated from India.
About 25% of the words in the Tagalog language are Sanskrit terms.
Among such words are dala (fishnet), asawa (spouse), diwa (thought),
puri (honor), lakambini (princess), and wika (language). Filipino
literature and folklore show the impress of India. The Maranao epic
Darangan is Indian in plot and characterization. The Agusan legend of a
man named Manubo Ango, who was turned into stone, resembles the story
of Ahalya in the Hindu epic Ramayana. The tale of the Ifugao legendary
hero, Balituk, who obtained water from the rock with his arrow, is
similar to Arjuna's adventure in Mahabharata, another Hindu epic. Many
Filipino customs are of Indian origin. Among them are the following:
(1) placing a sampaguita flower garland around the neck of a visitor
upon his arrival and departure as a symbol of hospitality and
friendship; (2) before marriage, a groom gives a dowry to the bride's
parents and renders domestic services to his future in-laws; (3) when
the guests throw rice on the bride and groom after the wedding; and (4)
when a childless couple goes on a pilgrimage to a holy shrine,
believing that the god of shrine will grant their prayer for fertility.
Another Indian influence is seen in the decorative art and metal work
of the early Filipinos, and in their use of brass, bronze, copper, and
tin. The boat-lute, a musical instrument in southern Philippines, is of
Indian origin. Finally, about 5% of the blood in Filipino veins in
Indian. Because of their lineage, the Filipinos possess dignity of
bearing, indifference to pain, and a fatalistic outlook on life.
