Notes On The Philippines PDF

Notes on the Philippines
Piers Kelly
How to use this document

This document is a compilation of direct quotations I have made from texts relevant
to Philippine studies with a strong bias towards my own research interests: language,
the Visayas, ethnography, ritual, millenarian movements etc.
My aim in making it public is a) to make make the documentary basis of my research
transparent; and b) share portions of texts with other researchers (some of the
materials are difficult or impossible to find outside of the archives in which they are
kept.)
The quotations are arranged in chronological order by date of publication. The best
way to navigate them is to do do a CTRL+F search and to use the tags below if
necessary. Many of these tags are meaningful only to me! A list of searchable digital
sources on Philippine studies can be found here:
https://bravenewwords.info/cache/digital-resources-for-philippine-studies/
—P.K.
TAGS
#acculturation #aglipay, #ambiguity, #anthropology of language #antinganting [see

also #mutya] #article: abakano #article: bio of anoy #article: broome #article:
counter-canon #article: dagohoy #article: literature #article: lumina #article: rizal
#article: virgin birth [see also: #definition: indigenous #construction of indigeneity
#second-wave migration theory] #article: vocabulary #article: writing system
#articulation #authenticity #available objectification
#bio of anoy #boholano-eskaya traditions

#chapter: literature, #chapter 4, #chapter 10, #chapter: sounds and shapes,
#chapter: significance, #chapter: introduction, #chd, #check if added #colorums
#commensuration, #construction of indigeneity #contested histories #cosmography
of the marvellous, #cryptolects #cults #cultural expressions
#dance , #definition: indigenous, #definition: visayas #deliberate language change

#destruction myths
#epistemology #eskayan etymology
#faking it in visayan [see also #language learning in other notes document] #female
cult leaders #finish reading #folk etymology [see also Eskaya Bibliography], #folk
literacy, #funny
#genealogy #general vs. particular #globalisation
#hermeneutics #history: language documentation #history of biabas #history of
bohol, #history of loon #history of taytay #house blessing #hypercorrection
#iconicity #ideology: antiquity #imagined communities, #immortality/longevity
#indolence [see also #lost treasure] #invented traditions, #invisibility
#invulnerability
#kitchen spanish
#land policy, #language diversity, #language ideology, #language policy, #language
prestige, #language quantification, #latin #lexical archeology #linguistic
anthropology: methodology, #literacy, #literacy: spanish, #literature, #localised
history #lost treasure [PK: search also #article: literature to update this tag] #lost
tribes of israel
#messianism, #methodology, #methodology: ethnographic history, #methodology:

anthropology #methodology: folklore #methodology: literature #mexican-filipino
encounters #millenarianism #mimicry and rejection, #miracles (food), #mutya
#nakedness and authenticity #narrative intersections #national language #nativism

#old books, #oral history, #origin myths, #orthogaphy
#pamilacan cross #penis mutilation #phonology: allophones, #phonotactics,
#polygamy #polyglossia #popes, #population #postcolonialism #primacy of writing,
#prognostication #progressivism #pulahanes
#reincarnation, #ritual languages, #ritual registers, #route to biabas #rural ilustrados
#sapir-whorf, #second-wave migration theory, #suno, #symmetrical schismogenesis

#syncretism
#the fantastic #tingguianes, #transcendence, #translation
#unintelligibility, #unrepresentability, #urasyun [see also Eskaya bibliography],

#urasyunan (definition)
#visayan dictionaries #visayan literature

#weird, #word play, #writing and language change, #writing system, #written
language
1500–1599
Pigafetta, Antonio. [1525] 1903. Primo viaggio intorno al
mondo. In The Philippine Islands, edited by E. H. Blair and J. A.
Robertson. Cleveland: A.H. Clark. Vol XXXIII.
I saw many kinds of birds, among them one that had no anus; and another, [which]
when the female [39] wishes to lay its eggs, it does so on the back of the male and
there they are hatched. 41
#weird #the fantastic
For a king of diamonds, which is a playing card, they gave me 6 fowls and thought
that they had even cheated me. 41
#funny
They live according to the dictates of nature, and reach an age of one hundred and
twenty-five and one hundred and forty years. 43
#immortality #the fantastic
One day a beautiful young woman came to the flagship, where I was, for no other
purpose than to seek what chance might offer. While there and waiting, she cast her
eyes upon the master’s room, and saw a nail longer than one’s finger. Picking it up
very delightedly and neatly, she thrust it through the lips of her vagina, and bending
down low immediately departed, the captain-general and I having seen that action.
[see long footnote] 49
#weird
Jnanzi q̃ venisse lora de cenare donay molte cose al re q̃ haueua portati scrisse asai
cosse como le ciamanão Quanto Lo re et le alti me vistenno scriuere et li diceua qelle
sue parolle tutti restorono atoniti in questo mezo venne lora de cenare 118
Before the supper hour I gave the king many things which I had brought. I wrote
down the names of many things in their language. When the king and the others saw
me writing, and when I told them their words, they were all astonished. While
engaged in that the supper was announced. 119
#literacy #folk literacy
They [natives of Limasawa] replied that they worshipped nothing, but that they raised
their clasped hands and their face to the sky; and that they called their god “Abba”.
127
[Footnote: cf Morga vol xvi, p 132]
#lost tribes of israel
The males [of Cebu and Mactan], large and small, have their penis pierced from one
side to the other near the head, with a gold or tin bolt as large as a goose quill. In both
ends of the same bolt, some have what resembles a spur, with points upon the ends;
others are like the head of a cart nail. I very often asked many, both old and young, to
see their penis, because I could not credit it. In the middle of the bolt is a hole through
which they urinate. The bolt and the spurs always hold firm. They say that their
women wish it so, and that if they did otherwise they would not have communication
with them. When the men wish to have communication with their women, the latter
themselves take the penis not in the regular way and commence very gently to
introduce it [into their vagina], with the spur on top first, and then the other part.
When it is inside it takes its regular position; and thus the penis always stays inside
until it gets soft, for other-[171]wise they could not pull it out. Those people make use
of that device because they are of a weak nature. 173
#weird
They [natives of Cebu and Mactan] have as many wives as they wish, but one of them
is the principal wife. 173
#polygamy
Rice is cooked there under the fire in bamboos or in wood; and it lasts better than that
cooked in earthen pots. [West North west of Palawan] 207
#boholano-eskaya traditions (Anoy’s miracle of rice from bamboo)
At the end of their blowpipes they fasten a bit of iron like a spear head; […] 211 [PK:
ask Peter Bellwood about this]
They told us that their king [of Brunei] was willing to let us get water and wood, and
to trade at our pleasure. Upon hearing that seven of us entered their prau bearing a
present to their king, which consisted of a green velvet robe made in the Turkish
manner, a violet velvet chair, five brazas of red cloth, a cap, a gilded drinking glass, a
covered glass vase, three writing books of paper, and a gilded writing case. 215
#literacy #chapter 1 [PK: mention gilded writing case, not just paper?]
Trees are also found there [the head of Burne between it and an island called
Cimbonbon] which produce leaves which are alive when they fall, and walk. Those
leaves are quite like those of the mulberry, but are not so long On both sides near the
stem, which is short and pointed, they have two feet. They have no blood, but if one
touches them they run away. I kept one of them for nine days in a box. When I
opened the box, that leaf went round and round it. I believe those leaves live on
nothing but air. 233
At a cape of that island of Butuan and Caleghan, and near a river, are found shaggy
men who are exceedingly great fighters and archers. They use swords one palmo in
length, and eat only raw human hearts with the juice of oranges or lemons. Those
shaggy people are called Benaian. [see footnote] 243
Loarca, Miguel de. [1582] 1903. Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas. In

Blair and Robertson, vol 5, pages 34-187
[...] I shall commence with the island of Çubu and those adjacent to it, the Pintados.
35
#definition: visayas
The entire island [Cebu] contains about three thousand five hundred Indians, living
in different, and for the most part small, villages. 39
#population
On the other side of the island of Matan [Mactan], and farther south, about eight
leagues from the selltement of Çubu, lies the island of Vohol, which is an encomienda
with two thousand Indians. The natives of this island are closely related to the people
of Cebu and are almost one and the same people. 45
#population
The settlements inland amoung the mountains [of Bohol] are small and poor, and are
not yet wholly under subjection. 47
#tingguianes #chapter 1
Leyte is thickly settled, it may have a population of fourteen or fifteen thousand
Indians, ten thousand of whom pay tribute because that has been a people hard to
conquer. 49
#population
Unlike the men of Visaya [...] 83
PK: Note Loarca uses Pintados and Visaya
Very rarely do they [Pintados] become angry when drunk, for their drunkenness
passes off in jests or in sleep. 117
An abominable custom among the men is to bore a hole through the genital organ,
placing within this opening a tin tube, to which they fasten a wheel like that of a spur,
a full palm in circumference. These are made of tin, and some of them weigh more
than half a pound. They use twenty kinds of these wheels; but modesty forbids us to
speak of them. By means of these they have intercourse with their wives. [Fn: Cf. the
descriptions of this custom in Morga’s Philippine Islands [...] and in account of Thomas
Candish’s voyge, in Hakluyt’s Voyages] 177
#penis mutilation
There are two kinds of people in this land [the Pintados islands], who, although of the
same race, differ somewhat in their customs and are almost always on mutually
unfriendly terms. One class includes those who live along the coast, the other class
those who live in the mountains; and if peace seems to reign among them, it is
because they depend upon each other for the necessities of life. The inhabitants of the
mountains cannot live without the fish, salt, and other articles of food, and the jars
and dishes, of other districts; nor, on the other hand, can those of the coast live
without the rice and cotton of the mountaineers. In like manner they have two
different beliefs concerning the beginning of the world; and since these natives are not
acquainted with the art of writing, they preserve their ancient lore through songs,
which they sing in a very pleasing manner – commonly while plying their oars, as they
are island-dwellers. 121
#tingguianes
#literacy
...y ansi tienen dos opiniones, en lo del prinçipio del mundo y por careçer de letras
guardan esto naturales sus antiguedades en los cantares los quales coantan de
ordinario en sus bogas como son ysleños con muy buena graçia 120
#literacy
PK: Origin myths of coastal pintados and tingguianes p 121-127
Then they [tingguianes] relate also the story of the reed; but they say that the kite
pecked the reed, and the aforesaid man and woman came out. 127
#origin myths
The souls of the Yligueynes, who comprise the people of Çubu, Bohol, and Bantay, go
with the god called Sisburanen, to a very high mountain in the island of Burney. 131
The first man [among the Pintados] who waged war, according to their story, was
Panas, the son of that Anoranor, who was grandson of the first human [parents: crossed
out in Ms.] beings. He declared war aganist Mañgaran, on account of an inheritance;
and from that time date the first wars, because the people were divided into tow
factions, and hostility was handed down from ofather to son. They say that Panas was
the first man to use weapons in fighting. 141
#eskayan etymology: panas
When the old man has ended his speech [after the betrothal of a pintado couple], they
take a dish filled with clean, uncooked rice, and an old woman comes and joins the
hands of the pair, and lays them upon the rice. Then, holding their hands thus joined,
she throws the rice over all those who are present at the banquet. 157
#boholano-eskayan customs
They [pintados] divide the year into twelve months, although only seven [sc. eight] of
these have names; they are lunar months, because they are reckoned by moons. The
first month is that in which the Pleiades appear, which they call Ulalen. The second is
called Dagancahuy, the time when the trees are felled in order to sow the land.
Another month they call Daganenan bulan; it comes when the wood of those trees is
collected from the fields. Another is called Elquilin, and is the time when they burn
over the fields. Another month they call Ynabuyan, which comes when the bonanças
blow. Another they call Cavay; it is when they weed their fields. Another they call
[Cabuy: crossed out in MS.] Yrarapun; it is the time when they begin to harvest the
rice. Another they call Manalulsul, in which the harvesting is completed. As for the
remaining months, they pay little attention to them, because in those months there is
no working in the fields. 165
#eskayan etymology: bulan
In all these islands are great numbers of [167] cocoa palms. In some of the nuts are
found stones as large as filbrts, which the natives prize, although thus far it is not
known what efficacy they have. 169
#antinganting
1600–1699
Chirino, Pedro. S.J. [1604] 1969. Relacion de las Islas Filipinas.
Translated by R. Echevarria. Manila: Historical Conservation
Society.
PK: Have read: ch1, 2, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 30, 41, 42, 54 - END
In the island of Panay I saw all the people that were following a funeral, immediately
upon leaving the church after the service, like Jews go straight to the river for a bath,
although they had no knowledge whatever of this obsolete law. 258
The island of Panay, as I have said, is in the province of the Pintados, within the
dioces of Sebú. It has a coastline of a little over 100 leagues and is very pleasant and
fertile, populated by very many Bisayans, who are white people. Among them
however there are also some negroes, ancient inhabitants of the island who occupied it
before the Bisayans did. They are a little less black and ugly than those of Guinea,
smaller and frailer but in the hair and the beard perfectly similar. They are much
more barbarous and wild than the Bisayans and the other Filipinos, for they have no
homes like these, nor any permanent settlement. 261
#definition: indigenous
There is more than one language in the Philippines, and there is no single language
that is spoken throughout the islands[274]. In the island of Manila alone there are six
different tongues, in that of Panay there are two, and in the others only one. 275
#history: language documentation
Of all these languages the one that I have found most satisfying and admirable is
Tagalog, for as I have told the first Bishop and other persons of authority both here
and there I have found in it four qualities from the four finest languages in the world,
namely Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Spanish. From Hebrew, the intricacies and
subtleties; from Greek, the articles, and the distinctions applied not only to common
but also to proper nouns; from Latin, the fullness and elegance; and from Spanish, the
good breeding and courtesy. 275
PK: Frei notes that “This is one of the frequently quoted pasages in discussing the
merits of Tagalog [in connection to the National Language Question]” 2
#national language
It seems extraordinary in this prayer [Ave Maria as translated by Chirino into
Tagalog] that the first word, ABA, signifies greeting, like AVE in Latin. Bucor also is
an unusual word, for it signifies diversity, distinction and singularity or uniqueness.
The article is si Jesus, like TOV [PK: find characters] in the Greek. [...] The other two
languages of the Visayans have none of these refinements, or at least very little, being
as they are coarser and less polished. 276
#lost tribes of Israel #language prestige
But their [Tagalogs] best manners are in their speech for they never address one as
you, nor in the second person singular or plural, but always in the third: the master,
the gentleman, will want this or that. There are many examples to be found of this
form of address in the Sacred Scriptures and in holy books, but especially in the
psalms. Between women particularly, though they be of equal status and average
rank, the form of address is never les than my lord, my lady, and this after every
important word: as I was coming, my lord, up the river, I saw, my lord, etc..., a
pleasant and affectionate use of title and pronoun that is known even in the most
solemn languages, which are the three most sacred, namely Hebrew, Greek and
Latin. 279 [PK: surely Usted is a third person form? Ask Margarita Escobar about this
in relation to early 17th cent Spanish]
#lost tribes of Israel #language prestige
They [the Tagalogs] are punctiliously courteous and affectionate in social intercourse
and are fond of writing to one another with the utmost propriety and most delicate
refinement. 279
#literacy
The Bisayans are more artless and unpolished, as their language is more uncultivated
and coarse. They do not have so many terms expressive of good breeding, as they had
no writing before they adopted that of the Tagalogs many years ago. 279
[Los Bisayas son más rústicos y llanos, como su lengua más bronca, y grosera. No
tienen tantos términos de crianza, como ni tenían letras; pués las tomaron de los
tagalos, bien pocos años há. 45]
#literacy #language prestige
So accustomed are all these islanders to writing and reading that there is scarcely a
man, and much less a woman, who cannot read and write in letters proper to the
island of Manila, very different from those of China, Japan and India [...] 280
[Son tán dados todos esto isleños á escribir y leer, que no hay casi hombre y mucho
menos muger, que no lea y escriba en letras propias de la isla de Manila, diversísimas
de las de China, Japón, y de la India [...] 45]
#literacy
In spite of this [deletion of syllable-final consonants in the writing system] they
understand and make themselves understood wonderfully well and without
ambiguities: the reader easily and skillfully supplies the omitted consonants. They
have taken after us to writing horizontally from left to right, but formerly they used to
write from top to bottom putting the first vertical line on the left hand side (if I
remember well) and continuing towards the right, quite differently from the Chinese
and Japanese who though they write from top to bottom proceed from the right hand
side towards the left.
They wrote on bamboos or on palm leaves, using an iron point for a pen. Now they
write not only their own letters, but ours as well, with a very well cut pen and on
paper like ourselves. They have learned our language and pronunciation and write it
as well as we do, and even better, because they are so clever that they learn anything
very quickly. I have brought home letters written by their hand in a very fine, flowing
script. In Tigbauan I had a small [281] boy in school who in three months, by
copying letters that I received written in good script, learned to write much better
than I, and translated important papers for me most accurately, without errors or
falsehoods. But enough now of languages and letters, and let us return to our business
of souls. 282
#literacy #writing systems
Of What was Done in Manila in the Year of 1596 and 97
As we have mentioned, courses in Latin Grammar and in Moral Theology were
introduced in this college, and as customary both were inaugurated with solemn acts
and learned discourses. 282
#urasyun
The Church [of Saint Anne, dedicated in 1596] itself, just recently completed, looked
so handsome and attractive that no additional beautification would have been
necessary; nevertheless it was well adorned with tapestries and with numerous scrolls
that we had inscribed in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Castilian and the Tagalog language
and had posted up in three tiers along the main nave and distributed in other parts of
the church. 284
#language prestige
[In Manila] Two priests who knew their language [Tagalog] at the time were
therefore not enought to minister to them [for confession], even if they did so
mornings and afternoons. I learned from some of them that they had been coming for
more than ten or even twelve days and still had not been able to come to the feet of
the confessor, because of the multitude of people. 286
On Sundays and holydays (sic), in the afternoon, during the sermons given in their
own language [...] 286
Another one [Indio], who possessed a book of a certain kind of poem which they call
golo, very pernicious because it expresses a deliberate pact with the devil, voluntarily
gave it up for burning, which was done. 289
#urasyun #antinganting
Not for any of these three things [the false belief in the divinity of their idols, of their
priests and priesteses, of their sacrifices and superstitions] – nor for government and
public order – did they make use of their letters, for as we have said they never used
these except to correspond with one another. 296
#literacy
They deal with the creation of the world and the beginning of the human lineage,
with the deluge and, and with glory and grief and other intangible things, telling a
thousand absurd stories and even altering their stories a great deal so that some tell it
in one way and others in another. To show more clearly that these are all falsehoods
and fables, one of them is that the first man and the first woman came out of a
bamboo reed which burst from its grove, and that they thereupon engaged in a
dispute as to the propriety of their marrying one another (due to the obstacle posed by
the first degree of consanguinity, which among them is inviolable, although it was
permitted in this single instance because of the need for propagating the human
species). 297
#origin myths
In memory of their dead they used to keep small idols, some made of stone, others of
wood, others of bone or of ivory, or of crocodile’s tooth, and others of gold, which
they call laruan, meaning idol, image or statue. To these they would have recourse in
their needs and offered their barbarous sacrifices. 298
#antinganting
#suno
Like the Egyptians they also adored animals and birds and, like the Assyrians, the sun
and the moon. 298
#lost tribes of israel [PK: Note that Chirino only suggests comparison rather than
derivation]
In the island of Mindanao between La Caldera and Rio Grande a great promontory
juts out, very tall and rugged. There are always large breakers off these capes, and it is
difficult and dangerous to sail around them: [298] sailing past this one, because of its
great height, they offered arrows which they would shoot with utmost force so that
these might become imbedded in the rock itself, as a sacrifice intended to obtain safe
passage. I saw with my own eyes that after the Spaniards, out of hatred for so perverse
a superstition, had set fire to the place and destroyed the multitude of arrows there, in
less than a year the number of arrows newly stuck there was more than four thousand,
in the positive judgment of all of us who used to pass there. 299
But although they had no temples, they had priests and priestesses, whom the
Tagalogs called Catolonan and the Bisayans Babailan. 300
I had only been told by a certain Spaniard that it was the practice in a part of
Mindanao, towards Dapitan, for one Bisayan woman (for the people of Mindanao are
also Bsiayans) to marry two husbands, and that having several wives was known only
among the Mohammedans, who are settled in Mindanao and in Burney. The fact is
that it is not a general practice in the Philippines to marry several wives, nor is it
common even in those places where it is sometimes practiced. 319
#polygamy
These same customs of marraige and divorce are followed by those who marry two or
three wives, with whom it is not proper to contract marriage on the same day, but
having married one year must elapse before they may marry another, and then
another, as many as they can support, as the Mohammedans do. 321
#polygamy
The people [of Bohol] are in general whiter and handsomer than any of the other
Bisayans. 325
They [Father Juan de Torres and Father Gabriel Sánchez] came in with good
prospects of success [as the first preachers in Bohol] and very much encouraged,
seeing that these people, like Nila of Sebú, their neighbor, did not follow the custom of
marrying many wives [...] 326
#polygamy
Finally, since all these customs derived in part from some glimmer and surmise of
natural reason, and in part (was was more certain) from the blindness and confusion
that the devil grafted within them, these islanders followed rites and usage similar to
those of other ages and nations, being men like them and subject to the same deceit.
330
CONTRA: #lost tribes of israel
From all these places a good number of the better disposed and more capable were
baptized, among them the good old man Catunao (of whom we spoke previously) and
his wife. Between the two of them they had perhaps two hundred and thirty years,
and the woman was not as old as he. 334
#immortality
At His Excellency’s [Father Pedro de Agurto, Bishop of Cebu] request we set up in
our College a school of Latin for his clerics and staff, who were joined by the sons of
some residents. 349
One cannot speak without grief of the many souls on this island and on others nearby
who clamor for our help without our being able to give it. This year some chiefs came
over from one of these islands, pleading almost in tears that for love of God just one of
the priests here should visit them for at least eight days. 355
[...] six of our priests during this Lenten season were kept continually busy by the
Bisayans alone, with hardly any respite night or day. Notwithstanding this, such is the
lack and scarcity of the bread of divine doctrine, for shortage of ministers to distribute
it, that in the very environs of this city many die in their hunger and without
assistance. The Bishop of Sebú and his few clerics do a great deal, and the Fathers of
St. Augustine do even more, yet all of them are not enough fathers for so many
children. 379
“During one visit which we made to the town of Lobo [Loboc], a significant thing
occurred. [Tells of a chief who “kept many cups and small jars full of charms, together
with other instruments for casting lots and divining whether in cases of illness sacrifice
should be offered to the devil] [...] upon arriving at the house the man himself had to
take down and collect all the cups and jars, none of the Indians who were with him
daring in any way to touch the objects lest they die at the touch. [...] But the Father,
allaying their dread and disabusing them of their false forebodings, since he had
touched them and remained alive, made them take the things out into the open and
calling the young men to join him they all spat on them and trampled them (for these
acts, among these people as among all other nations, denote the greatest contempt,
abhorrence and dishonor).” – Father Alonso de Humanes, Superior of Bohol 384
#boholano-eskaya traditions
“Today Our Lord bestowed His neer-failing Mercy on two very venerable old men
[of Bohol], each being more than a hundred years old.” – Father Alonso de Humanes,
Superior of Bohol. 386
#immortality
[late 1600 to the spring of 1601, Father Valerio de Ledesma, Rector of Sebú, to the
Father Vistor regarding Bohol]: Following our success at Loboc [at reducción], we
sought to gather together the Tinguians or mountain-dwellers of Dita and Marabago,
a wild people who had not seen a priest before.
Now, however, they make use of the name given by the mother at birth as surname,
after the Christian name such as Juan or Pedro. On the other hand there are mothers
so Christian and discreet that they no longer want to give names to thier children at
birth, preferring that their name and surname be given to them at Baptism, as we very
often do. 478
#genealogy
I [Father Gabriel Sánchez] write this letter from a town along the beach where only
yesterday two more vil- [480] lages of Tinguianes or mountain-dwellers came down to
us, begging us quite spontaneously that they be allowed to live here and bringing with
them in token of their sincerity up to 40 children to be baptized, as they have been.
481
#definition: indigenous [PK: Note that Chirino only uses the term Tinguianes with
reference to Bohol, from what I gather]
[...] we want to go to them and instruct them, and bring them into established
settlements and baptize them, but because ther have always been only a few priests on
this island we have been unable to help them. 481
Chirino, Pedro. [1604] 1979. Relation of the Philippine Islands.

In Garcia, Mauro (ed.). Readings in Philippine prehistory. Manila:
Filipiniana Book Guild. PK: translator unknown
I shall speak first concerning the false belief that they hold concerning the divinity of
their idols; second, of their priests and priestesses; third, and last, of their sacrifices and
superstitions. Their art of writing was of no service to them in any one of these three
things, or in matters of government and civilization (of which I shall perhaps later tell
the little that I know); for they never used their writing except to exchange letters, as
we have siad. All their government and religion is founded on tradition, an on custom
introduced by the Devil himself, who spoke to them through their idols and the
ministers of these. They preserve it in songs, which they know by heart and learn
when children, by hearing these sung when they are sailing or tilling their fields, when
they are rejoicing and holding feasts, and especially, when they are mouring their
dead. 251
#urasyun #writing systems
de Morga, Antonio [1609] 1971. Sucesos de las islas Filipinas.
Edited and translated by J. S. Cummins. London: Cambridge
University Press.
In geography books, charts, and sea-rutters, these islands are usually called the great
archipelago of San Lazaro in the Eastern Ocean. Among the most famous of these ae
the island sof Maluco, Celebes, Tendaya, Luzon, Mindanao and Borneo which are
now called the Philippines. 51
[PK: Note inclusion of Maluku and Borneo]
The islands, large and small, comprising this Archipelago are innumerable. Those
which by name and government are the Philippines proper, number about forty large
islands, not including some smaller ones, all contiguous. The best known and chief
islands are called Luzon, Mindoro, Tendaya, Capul, Burias, Mazbate [Masbate],
[245] Marinduque, Leite [Leyte], Camar [Samar], Ybabao, Sebu [Cebu], Panay,
Bohol, Catenduanas [Catanduanes], Calamianes, Mindanao and others of less
renown [fn].
The first island that the Spaniards conquered and settled was Sebu where the
conquest began and was continued to all the surounding islands, the aboriginals of
which are called Viçayas [Bisayans], or by another name ‘Pintados’ [Picts] because
the more prominent men there from their youth tattoo their entire bodies, pricking
them according to a design, then throwing a black indelible powder over the bleeding.
246
[PK: Note, no mention of Maluku and Borneo]
Footnote 2: An eighteenth-century Jesuit satirist noted that the natives, under religious
pressure, had abandoned this practice and that it was the Spaniards who now went
about, so hung with medals and other religious haberdashery as to give the islands the
name of Pintados. 246
In some provinces the weapons used by these people are bows and arrows but in all
the islands generally they use fine medium-sized iron-headed spears [...] 251
There were neither horses, mares nor asses in these islands until the Spaniards had
them brought over from China and New Spain. 255
#eskayan etymology: BRIL [PK: ask Sebastien about French word Brel] #chapter 7
South of here like the islands of Bisayas, otherwise called the Pintados. They are
numerous and thickly populated with natives; the most celebrated of them are Leite
[Leyete], Babao, Çamar [Samar], Bohol, Negros, Sebu, Panay, Cuyo and the
Calamianes. All the natives of these islands, both men and women, are well-featured,
of a good disposition, and of a better nature and more noble bearing than the natives
of the island of Luzon and its vicinity. 266
#definition: indigenous (PK: Compare Chirino’s version where the Visayans are
course and the Tagalogs are noble)
The language of Luzon and of the surrounding islands is very different from that of
the Bisayas; and even in Luzon Island there is not a universal language, for the
Cagayans have one and the Ilocaons another. The Zambales have their own peculiar
tongue; the Pampangans’ is different again from the others. The natives of Manila
province, who are called Tagalogs, have a language of their own, also, which is rich
and fully capable of expressing whatever a person wishes to say elegantly and in many
ways and manners. It is not a difficult language to learn or pronounce.
Throught the islands the natives write very well, using certain characters, almost like
Greek or Arabic, fifteen in number, three of them being vowels equivalent of our five.
The consonants are twelve. All are used with certain dots and commas, and in
combination they express what they wish to write with all the fluency and ease of our
Spanish alphabet.
The manner of writing, once on bamboo, is now on paper, the lines running from
right to left in the Arabic manner. All the natives, women as well as men, write in this
language, and there are very few who do not write well and correctly. 269
#literacy #writing systems
The native buildings and houses throughout these islands are all built alike, as also are
their settlements: they are always on the seashore, between rivers and creeks. [...] A
small number, called Tinguianes, live inland but even they seek out river-side sites and
creeks for their settlements, and for the same reasons. 270
The houses and dwellings of all these natives are generally built upon stakes and piles,
high above the ground. 270
The natives do not live in the lower quarters of their houses, partly because they raise
fowl and cattle there, and partly because of the damp and heat of the earth, and the
numerous huge rats which do great harm, both in the houses and in the sown fields.
270
-See also Alcina’s drawings of houses in trees
The act of drawing up a will consisted merely in making a written or oral statement
before acquaintances. 276
#literacy
The natives of the Pintados Islands, especially the women, are very vicious and
sensual, and their wickedness has devised lewd ways of intercourse between men and
women, one of which they practice from their youth onwards. The men skillfully
make a hole near the head of the penis into which they insert a small serpent’s head of
metal or ivory. They then secure this by passing a small peg of the same material
through the hole so that it may not work loose. With this device they have intercourse
with their wives and for long after copulation they are unable to withdraw. They are
so addicted to this, and find such pleasure in it, that although they shed a great deal of
blood, and receive other injuries, it is a commonpractice among them. These devices
are known as sagras, and there are very few of them left, because after they become
Christians, care is taken to do away with such things and not permit their use. [see
extensive footnote] 278
#weird
At the same time, besides teaching them their catchism the religious also work to
instruct the natives for their material improvement, opening schools to teach the boys
to read and write in Spanish, […] 291
#literacy: spanish
In addition each settlement has its own elected local governor, [293] together with his
alguaziles, known as Vilangos. […] This governor, in addition to the vilangos and the
clerk (in whose presence he makes his decrees, in the written language of the natives of
the province), also has under his control and order the chief men and lords of the
Barangay, as well as those who are not chiefs […] 294
#literacy
The Babuytanes [Babuyanes] consist of many small islands, lying off the head of
Cagayan province. The natives who dwell there live principally by going to Cagayan
in their boats with pigs, hens and other supplies, besides ebony lances which they
trade. The islands are not assigned in encomienda to any Spaniard, nor is any tribute
demanded of the natives there, nor do any Spaniards live among them, for they are
[263] people of less intelligence and culture than the others , so no Christians have
been made there nor have they any persons to administer justice among them. 264
Footnote: ‘Moreover, these islands are so small that, on account of the little profit they
were likely to offer later, they stirred neither the zeal nor the charity of the
missionaries’ (Rizal, 282). In fact, however, the Domincans began the evangelization
of the Babuyan, and more northerly Batan Islands, in 1680: formal decrees to this
effect were made in 1688 but for various reasons the effort failed; other attempts were
made in 1722, and again in mid-century, but not till late in the nineteenth century did
the mission flourish. It is still conducted by Dominican friars. See. Fr J González
Alonso, OP, The Batanes Islands, in Acta Manilana, 11 (Manila, University of Santo
Tomas Research Centre,, June 1966), 1-112
de Morga, Antonio. [1609?] 1979. Relation of the Philippine

Islands and ot their natives, antiquity, customs, and
government. In Garcia, Mauro (ed.). Readings in Philippine
prehistory. Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild. PK: translator
unknown
The first island conquered and colonized by the Spaniards was Sebu. From there the
conquest was started and continued in all the nieghboring islands. Those islands are
inhabited by people, natives of the same islands, called Vicayas; or by another name,
Pintados—for the more prominent of the men, from their youth, tattoo their whole
bodies, by pricking them wherever they are marked and then trowing certain black
powders over the bleeding surface, the figures becoming indelible. 267
#etymology of visayas
Both men and women go naked and without any coverings, [fn: Rizal] and barefoot,
and with many gold chains, earings, and wrought bracelets. 292
#nakedness and authenticity
The language of all the Pintados and Bicayas is one and the same, by which they
understand one another when talking, or when writing with the letters and characters
of their own which they possess. These resemble those of the Arabas. The common
manner of writing among the natives is on leaves of trees, and on bamboo bark. 293
#chapter 1 #writing systems
The natives throughout the island [Luzon] can write excellently with certain
characters, almost like the Greek or Arabic. These characters are fifteeen in all. Three
are vowels, which are used as are our five. The consonants number twelve, and each
and all of them combine with certain dots or commas, and so signify whatever one
wishes to write, as fluently and easily as is done with our Spanish alphabet. The
method of writing was on bamboo, but is now on paper, commencing the lines at the
right and running to the left, in the Arabic fasion. Almost all the natives, both men
and women, write in this language. There are very few who do not write it excellently
and correctly. 294
#writing systems #chapter 1
There were no kings or lords throughout these islands who ruled over them as in the
manner of our kingdoms and provinces; but in every island, and in each province of
it, many chiefs were recognized by the natives themselves. 303
#chapter 4 #chapter 7 #chapter 10
de Morga, Antonio [?]. [1609?] 1979. The manners, customs

and beliefs of the Filipinos of long ago. In Garcia, Mauro (ed.).
Readings in Philippine prehistory. Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild.
PK: translator/date unknown. Find original
Description of the land of the province of Cagayan
They have certain characters that serve them as letters with which they write what
they want. They are very different looking from the rest that we know up to now.
Women commonly know how to write with them and when they write do son the
bark of certain pieces of bamboo, of which there are in the islands. In using these
pieces which are four fingers wide, they do not write with ink but with some stylus that
breaks the surface and bark of the bamboo, to write the letters. They have neither
books nor histories, and they do not write at length except missives and notes to one
another. for this purposes they have letters which total only seventeen. Each letter is a
syllable and with certain points placed to one side or the other of a letter, or above or
below, they compose words and write and say with these whatever they wish. It is very
easy to learn this and any person can do so in two months of studying. They are not so
quick in writing, because they do it very slowly. The same thing is in reading; which is
like when schoolchildren do their spelling. 339.
#writing systems #chapter 1
Colin, Francisco. [1660]1904. Labor Evangélica de los Obreros
de la Compañia de Jesús en las Islas Filipinas. Barcelona:
Heinrich y Compañía.
Conforme al origen, que dimos en el capitulo quarto (sic) a las Naciones Politicas de
estas Islas, es tambien su habilidad, lenguas, y letras: son descendientes de los Malayos
de la tierra firme de Malaca, y assi se les parecen en la capacidad, letras, y lenguas.
La figura, numero, y vso de los caracteres, y letras desta Nacion, claramente se vee,
que es todo tomado de Moros Malayos, y deducido de los Arabes. Las letras vocales
en el numero son tres solamente, y en el vso siruen de cinco, porque la segunda, y
tercera, son indiferentes, e, i, y, o, u, segun lo pide el sentido del vocable, ó razon que
se dize ó escriue. 54
[According to the source, we gave in chapter four, the political nations of these
islands are further characterised by their ability, language, and literacy (letras). They
are descendants of the Malays of the Malaccan mainland, and thus too they appear to
be in their capacity, literacy (letras) and languages.
It can be cleary seen that the form, number, and use of characters, and letters of this
Nation, is taken from the Moorish Malays, and inferred from the Arabic. The vowel
letters are but three in number, and in their use serve for five, because the second, and
third, are neutral, e, i, y, o, u, according to the sense of the word, or its stated or
written justification.] 54
#literacy #writing system
Viniendo agora al otro punto de las lenguas, son ellas muchas; pues en sola esta Isla
de Manila ay seis, conforme al numero de sus Prouincias, ó Naciones Politicas,
Tagala, Pampanga, Camarina (que es la Bissaya) Cagayana, y las de los Ilocos, y
Pangasinanes. Estas son las Politicas: que las de los Negrillos, Zam-[55]bales, y otras
Naciones montarazes, aun no sabemos quantas sean. Las Politicas aunque en rigor
son diferentes, simbolizan tanto entre si, que en breue se entienden, y hablan los de
vna Nacion con los de la otra, al modo que en Italia la Toscana, Lombarda, y
Siciliana: y en España la Castellana, Portuguesa, y Valenciana. Y la causa de
simbolizar tanto estas lenguas entre si, es la misma que en Italia, y España: porque
como alli se originan aquellas de la Romana, assi aqui estas de la Malaya, para cuya
prueba no es menester mas que cotejar los vocablos, y idiotismos, ó modos de hablar
de cada vna de estas lenguas con la Malaya [...] 56
[Coming now to another point concerning languages, is the fact that they are
numerous; for in this island of Manila alone there are six, corresponding to the
number of its provinces, or political nations: Tagalog, Pampanga, Camarines
(Visayan), Cagayana, and those of the Ilocos and Pangasinanes. These are the states,
although we still do not know how many there are amongst the Negrillos, Zambales
and other wild nations. The states, though they are strictly speaking different,
sufficiently resemble one other such that they are soon understood and those of one
nation speak with those of another, just as Tuscan, Lombard and Sicilian in Italy,:
and Castilian, Portuguese, and Valencian in Spain. And the reason these languages
resemble themselves, is the same as that for Italy, and Spain. For just as those
language originate from the Roman tongue, so here do these languages come from
the Malayan, for which proof is not only necessary to compare the words, and idioms,
or modes of speech of each of these languages with Malayan [...] 56]
Y de las dos [Tagalog and Visayan] es sin duda mas cortesana, graue, artificiosa, y
elegante la Tagala; porque participa de quatro calidades, de las quatro mejores
lenguas del mundo, Hebrea, Griega, Latina, y Española. De la Hebrea, demas de la
semejança ya dicha en el vso de sus vocales, y consonantes, tiene la raizes de los
vocablos, y su preñezes, y misterios, y algunas guturales. 56
PK:I think this, and the remainder of the passage is more or less directly plagiarised
from Chirino
#history: language documentation (Spanish era)
#language quantification
#language prestige
En las Naciones no politicas, aunque la gente es menos, las lenguas son mas. Porque
casi cada rio la tiene diferente. Vimos en Mindoro (y lo mismo será en otras partes
mas remotas) concurrir Manguianes, alarbes de lugares bien poco distantes, que no se
entendian vnos a otros. Eran tan barbaros, que nunca auian visto rostro Español. Y lo
que se les embió para atraherles, fueron cacaueles, clauos, agujas, y otras cosas
semejantes. Las vozes de vna harpa, y guitarra, se les dió a entender, que eran vozes
de gente. Aplicandoles vn espejo, se reconocian en ellos, notables efectos, en vnos de
espanto, y en otros de alegria. La falta de policia, y comunicacion, es causa de
multiplicarse las lenguas. Porque como en la primitiua multiplicacion de ellas, que fue
en la torre de Babel, obseruanlos Doctores, que fueron tantas quantas eran las familias
de los descendientes de Noe; assi entre las naciones barbaras, que cada vno viue de
por si sin reconocimiento, ni sujecion a leyes publicas; todo es guerrillas, y dissensiones
entre si; y faltando la comunicacion, se oluida la lengua comun, y cada vno queda con
la suya tan corrompida, que ya no entienden los otros. En algunas partes obseruamos,
que en la boca de vn rio se hablaua vna lengua, y en el nacimiento dél otra. Cosa que
es de grande estoruo para la conuersion, y enseñança de estas gentes. 58
[Despite the lower population in the non political nations, the languages are more
numerous as almost every river has a different one. We saw in Mindoro (and the same
would be the case in other more remote areas), competing brutes (alarbes) of
neighbouring places who did not understand one another. They were so barbaric that
they had never seen a Spanish face. And what was dispatched to attract them were
peanuts, nails, needles and other such things. The sounds (las vozes) of a harp or a
guitar were thought by them to be human voices. By applying a mirror their self
recognition produced noteworthy effects: shock in some, delight in others. The lack of
police and communication is the cause for the multiplication of their languages. For,
as learned men observe, just like the early multiplication of languages that took place
in the tower of Babel, which were as numerous as the families of Noah’s descendants,
so too amongst the barbaric nations in which each man lives for himself with neither
recognition nor respect for public laws, all is brawling and internal dissent. And
lacking communication, the common language is lost, and each is left with his own
language that is so corrupted that it is not understood by the others. In some parts we
observe that one language is spoken at the mouth of a river and another at its source,
which is a great hindrance to the conversion and education of these peoples. 58]
#language prestige #history: language documentation (Spanish era) #language
diversity
Alcina, Ignacio Francisco. [1668] 2002. History of the Bisayan

people in the Philippine Islands: Evangelization and culture at the
contact period: Historia de las Islas e indios de Bisayas. Part One,
Book 1, Volume 1. Manila: UST Publishing House.
[PK: Spanish trans is even numbered pages, English is facing odd pages. Text is
marred by inane annotations]
The name Bisaya, therefore, if we are to draw it out from its own language, means “a
happy man,” “a man of a fine and pleasant disposition”. This meaning is derived
from certain rootwords: for example, Aya, Saya, or Caya are all one and the same thing
and in compounded forms as Macaya, it means “a person of a fine disposition”;
Mamicaya, “an affable individual or one who has many friends”; Masaya, “a happy
man”; Mimaya “joy”. Bisaya, therefore, would mean “a pleasant and a happy person.”
71
#definition: Visayas #folk etymology #etymology of visayas
They neither knew nor even used the alphabet in the beginnings [...] 73
[...] ni usaron ni supieron en su principio letras [...] 72
#literacy
The Bisayan language is a branch of the Malayan [...] 73
#history: language documentation (Spanish period)
If it is not quite obvious that the Visayan language springs from the Malayan
language, it is more evident as to who brought the Visayan language to these islands.
Countless are the nations, islands and lands which employ this language, beginning
with India extra Gangem as they call it, as far as this archepelago. 73
I have heard other Bisayans say that they came, without doubt from Borneo and they
attempt to prove it by saying that prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, yearly there
would arrive ships loaded with these Borneans, bringing various items to be barted
here [...] 75
Their [Visayans’] hair is black; however, sometimes due to nature’s whim one sees
some red-haired natives of white complexion and with some reddish specks as if they
were Flemish. 99
#funny
Alcina, Ignacio Francisco. [1668] 2005. History of the Bisayan
people in the Philippine Islands: Evangelization and culture at
the contact period: Historia de las Islas e indios de Bisayas.
Part One, Book 3, Volume III. Manila: UST Publishing House.
PK: Have not read in detail from approx p295 onwards. Probably not too much in
the way of language material here but some pretty interesting ethnographic detail
#finish reading
Whether the Malayan language [Alcina describes Visayan as such] [...] is one of the
seventy-two original languages which, according ot the opinion of many learned men,
sprang from Hebrew in the confusion of Babel, I have found no argument to prove or
to deny it. If, as some would have it, the sons of Arfaxad [PK: Arpachshad] and the
grand-children of Sem were the first settlers of India citra Gangem, it would not be
unlikely that they were the ones who gave origin to their descendants when they
spread out over the many, large and widely spread regions which today speak
Malayan.
It cannot be denied that this language has many similarities with the Hebrew and
root-words – as we call them here – which are the basis, as we shall see later, of this
language; almost all, in the style and mode of ancient Hebrew, are monosyllabic,
some of them preserving their original meaning very similar to, if not the same as, the
Hebrew; or resembling it in the somewhat harsh pronunciation, although of a
different meaning, etc. 13
First, it [Visayan] is most abundant in words and modes of speaking both in their
natural and proper as well as in metaphorical way of expression, which is very
frequent and most elegant in this [15] language; scarcely will there be found any other
language among the most universal ones, which may have an advantage over it like
Latin and Greek, so spread over most of the world, and in this regard no other
surpasses this [Bisayan] language. Hence, due to the knowledge that I have of it,
which is very considrable because for more than thirty-six years I have been familiar
with it, I have challenged and still challenge to try with any one who may be well
versed in the other languages that he will not tell me in any language whatsoever,
Latin and Greek included, so many idiomatic expressions, difficult constructions, deep
meanings, to which I will not give him its equivalent in the Visayan language; perhaps
in more meaningful ways. 17
#language prestige
I shall set down some examples so that the richness of the language may be realized
and how it has many more words than our Spanish, which, as they say, has clothed
itself and, like a crow, adorned itself, by almost all the other languages of Europe, and
here in the Indies from those of all. 19
#language prestige
The second [point] is that in addition to its wealth this language is also very expressive
and meaningful, making clearer the meanings of the things and causes than other
languages. 21
#language prestige
In the expression [of Visayan], in words and ugly things, is even greater, as befits a
people much addicted to immoral things, because for those of us who know this
language, when in Latin it seems that everything is said without a feeling of shame, we
are ashamed to repeat it in this language because of the force of the expressiveness of
its meaning. This is a property of expressiveness which a good language must have
for, if words were invented to convey the concepts of the understanding, that tongue
which best expresses them will be of a better quality. Concerning the less noble
portion of a person, I doubt whether there is a language which excels this one; not so
much in the second [area] which is the rational, and which among these people is
poorly expressed. 23
[En la expresión y en palabras y obras feas es aún mayor su viveza, como gente más
apegada a cosas soeces, pues los que sabemos esta lengua, cuando en la latina parace
que se dice todo sin empacho, lo tenemos muy grande en repetirlo en ésta por la
viveza de la significación, muy expresiva propiedad que debe tener la buena lengua,
pues si las palabras se inventaron para declarar los conceptos del entendimiento,
aquella lengua que mejor los declarare, tendrá mejor calidad; y, en lo tocante de la
porción animal menos noble en el hombre, dudo que haya lengua que exceda a ésta;
no tanto en la segunda, que es la racional, que entre esto flaquea mucho ] 22
#language prestige
[...] and in none of its words are to be found many consonants together, which is what
usually causes the difficulty in pronunciation. 23
lo cual todo le falta a esta lengua que pronuncia con toda suavidad sus palabras, sin
hallarse en niguna de ellas junta de muchas consonantes, que es lo que suele causar la
dificultad a la pronunciación [...] 22
#phonotactics
At the end of this chapter I shall give their method of writing and reading whith the
characters that they use to today (and which are) new among the Bisayans; for in their
antiquity they did not know these, nor did they use them until very shortly before they
became Christians, as we shall say later. 31
[[...] en el remate de este capítulo, pondré su modo de escribir y leer con los
caracteres que hoy se usan, nuevos entre los bisayas, pues en su antigüedad no les
supieron ni los usaron hasta muy pocos años que fuesen cristianos, como luego
diremos.] 30
#literacy
These [vowels] are: A, which always has a constant and an invariable pronunciation;
E which they fail to distinguish from the I; instead they so confuse them that many
neither pronounce I clearly, nor the E, but rather as a dipththong of E and I. They
interchange them ans substitute one for the other even when writing in our language
and in the Spanish characters. [This they do] to such an extent that I do not know
whether to this day a native has been found – whether Bisayan or Tagalog, for in this
matter all are the same – who does not confuse and interchange them, even though he
may be well versed in our language and disciplined in our character. 33
#orthogaphy #writing system #phonology: allophones #phonotactics
The same may be said about the O and the U, which they also confuse in their writing
as well as in their pronunciation. 33
#orthogaphy #writing system #phonology: allophones #phonotactics
It was more than five years since I had known this language [poetic register] with
some depth; as often as I heard them speak in a poetic way and did not understand it,
it caused me some considerable dismay, until I finally set myself to studying and
learning its intricacies. This cost me much effort and even some irritation in the
beginning; however, after several months I began to understand some of it; with a
firmer desire to learn and a greater application, I grasped more of it. I should even
state that it cost me more work to learn this metaphorical mode, wich is useful only in
poetry, than to learn this language itself even though it is so extensive. In truth, few
are the European missionaries who understand it even though they do hear it. Rare is
he how knows how to dupli-[41]cate it, especially with the subtlety and facility which
some of them posses with regard to this poetic form; there are some who speak
spontaneously in verse better than in prose. 43
#cryptolects
PK: use of music as cryptolect 45
#cryptolects
Let us bring this chapter to a conclusion with the letters of these Bisayans, or to put it
better, those which they have used for the past several years until now – a skill which
was communicated to them by the Tagalogs who , in turn, had learned it from the
Borneans. These came from the Island of Borneo to Manila, for they had considerable
trade with them; together whith this, they infected the Tagalogs with the evil sect of
Mohammed long before the Spaniards arrived here. 49
[Acabemos este capítulo con los caracteres de estos naturales, o, por mejor decir, de
que usan de pocos años a este parte, enseñanza que se les comunicó de los tagalos, y
esto aprendieron de los burneyes que vinieron de su gran isla de Bornei a la de
Manila, [...]] 48
#literacy
The Tagalogs learned their characters from the Borneans and the Bisayans from the
Tagalogs. This is why they call these letters or characters ‘Moro’ [characters], because
the Moros taught these to them. Although they never came to the Bisayas, or they did
not admit this accursed sect, they learned their letters. Today they are widely used,
and by the women more than by the men. The former read and write them more
fluently than the latter. 49
#literacy
[De esto burneyes aprendieron los tagalos sus caracteres; y de éstos, los bisayas. Y por
ésto les llaman caracteres o letras de “Moro”, pues los moros se las enseñaron; y,
aunque no llegó a los bisayas o no admitieron la maldita secta, aprendieron sus letras
que hoy usan muchos, y las mujeres mucho más que los hombres, que ellas escriben y
leen más correintemente y mejor que ellos.] 48
In addition to the commonly accepted distinction of days and nights, – they did not,
however have [the division] into weeks with its particular names for the days such as
Monday, Tuesday, etc. These they never distinguished until after our arrival, or even
the Sunday. Nowadays, they already make the distinction, as we do, and refer to it as
we do. They did have names for the months and they began calculating the first day
with the phrase gimata sa bulan, which means ‘when the moon begins to open its eyes
[...] 57
#eskayan etymology: bulan
[...] to put it briefly, seldom will these Bisayan natives be found not singing, unless
they are sick or sleeping. 81
#funny
What is really unusual about these instruments [kuriapi, for men “it resembles our
cithern but longer and narrower”, kurlung for women “similar to those small guitars of
reeds which the boys used to make in Spain”] (something perhaps unheard of in any
other nation, at least I have never heard or read about it) is that (sic) as if they speak to
one another: that is as if asking questions and answering (each other) simply with the
strings and sounds of both instruments. This is something incredible here among these
natives, (although they never keep busy with good things). This is rendered in such a
way that without most of those present catching the implication – and this is even
much more so if those who play the instruments have made some previous
arrangement about performing some special provoking sound – they agree on
meeting each other, about falling in love and conversing in an amorous fashion, whith
deeper emotion or sensuality than if they were actually using words. This has been
acknowledged by those who know and practiced it. This is something that might seem
incredible if, among these natives, experience and harmony of these instruments
would not bear witness to it [85] everyday. Would to God that the consequences of
this would not be so intense because then, the many offenses against God would be
avoided, for these do not catch the public attention so readily. 87
#cryptolects
They did not have arithmentic or numbers which may correspond to ours in writing,
although, it is certain they counted by tens as we do. 91
#eskayan etymology #chapter 7 #article: writing systems
What we do not have is one term which they have, that is, buraburaan; this is equivalent
to such a fantastically high number that there is no way of expressing it. They would
first begin foaming at the mouth even before they came close to expressing it. 93
#funny
And I do not wonder, as I opine that in their beginnings they had some knowlege [of
divinity] borrowed, perhaps from the Hebrews. This I have already mentioned;
namely that the latter lived either in Oriental India or in the Great Kingdom of
China, by which these people are surrounded. 217
This One Whom they called Malaun in the region of Ibabao and acknowledged as
supreme, they also called Makapatag, which means ‘he who sets everything in order
and makes everything equal’, a name by which they gave to understand the equality
of the divine justice. However, in their manner of understanding it, as I have traced
the matter, they took it to mean rigorous in punishment and unforgiving toward
anyone. Yet, I have come to conclude that due to this way of thinking, they adopted
this name from the Hebrews who called God ‘Deus ultionum’, as a result of the many
punishments they saw inflicted. 221
Concerning the deluge, even though today they say it in their tongue an (sic) paglunud
sa kalibutan, which means ‘the inundation of the world’, they did not describe it nor
even say anything about it. If there is something they know about it, they have heard
it from the Father preachers. 229
However, the word humalagad is derived from another which means ‘to follow
another’; this, in turn is agar.
Then again, the latter comes from the term alagar, which is a word of Graeco-Hebrew
origin. 245
This is what was told to me by these [individuals] and it agrees with what they relate
in their ancient traditions. About all this they have not the slightest doubt; I too, after
having seen the said child and having listened to all that the mother reported, began
to doubt a little less.
What species of snakes [who are born with male children as familiars] could these be,
what is the efficient cause which produced them in the womb, in what way and by
what means were these preserved within and then outside of the womb; this instinct
for seeking its uterine brother – let us call it so – of following him [as they relate], and
accompanying him in his wars and of all those other circumstances, let the
philosophers discuss its causes. I shall not dare to forward a natural explanation about
these matters. 251
#epistemology
There is also no lack of others [women who by their madness are considered to be
preselected as baylanes] who begin dancing and gyrating in their own fashion, singing
things which the others cannot understand. 269
#cryptolects
1700-1799
de Viana, Francisco Leandro. [1765] 1907. Viana's memorial of
1765: Part I. In The Philippine Islands 1493–1898: Vol. 48.
Cleveland, Ohio: The Arthur H. Clark Company. 197-338
The revolted Indians in the island of Bohol solemnize weddings among themselves,
confer baptism, and perform other functions of the Catholics, for which purpose they
have some persons who perform the duties of the father ministers in the villages and
this mockery, this scorn, this contumely they display for what is most sacred in our
religion. 202
#article: dagohoy
de la Concepcion, Juan. 1792. Historia general de Philipinas:

Conqvistas espiritvales, y temporales de estos Españoles Dominios,
establecimientos, progresos, y decadencias. Vol. 14. Manila: En el
Conv. de Nra. Sra de Loreto del pueblo de Sampaloc.
3 Consultó tambien el Gobernador Romo sobre una orden de este Gobierno
hallada en aquel archivo, sobre destruir a fuego y á sangre montes, lugares, ó pueblos
en que sa halláse un Indio rebelde llamado Dagóhoy de la Isla de Bohól, principal
agente en las muerte sacrílegas y violentas [79] de dos Padres Jesuitas sus Ministros: y
á los sequaces de aquel rebelde, de que aun no se habia tenido noticia en este
goveierno de sí se habian óno reducido, habiéndose publicado en aquellos partidos el
orden superior, y su Indulto; sobre que representó, que el tiempo de su prevencion se
iba cumpliendo, no se atrebia á la execucion, por carecer de soldados de valor y
lealtad; y aunque los rubiese, no era tiempo, respecto á lo abanzado de aquel presidio
á los enemigos; era inconveniente mayor dexarle expuesto á invasiones; sí fuese de el
agrado de su Señoria, podia auxiliarle con veinte y cinco hombres de este campo con
sus armas, los que sustentaria á su costa, y con ellos buscaria al sublevado. Se decretó,
que respeto á que se habian dado providencias antecedentes las que se juzgaron[fn?]
convenir y no haberse dado cuenta de sus resultas, se continuásen las prevenidas,
suspendiendo en interin diferir á lo que consultaba aquel, alcalde mayor.
4 Esta sublevacion de que ya se ha hecho memoria, no se ha referido con
particularidad desde su origen, por ho haber hallado instrumentos que explicásen sus
principios y causas; y deseandono [80] dexar en este asunto incompleta la historia, me
han informado á fondo Padres Recoletos que sucedieron en el Ministerio de Bohól á
los Jesuitas, cuya relacion é informe as así , y conviene con otros noticias que tenia ya
extrajudiciales. ,, Governaba en lo espiritual el partido de Inabangan (sic) el Jesuita
Padre Morales, sugeto de condicion fuerte, de nada indulgente genio, y austere en sus
resoluciones mas de lo que pedian sufrir los Indios de aquel partido, mas belicosos que
los de mas de la Isla, y acaso porque los domáse y humilláse habia puesto á este Padre
su Provincial, continuaba el rigor, y los naturales se presentaron al Rector de la
Residencia, paraque como Vicario Provincial moderáse sus violento Ímpetus, ó le
mudáse á orro (sic) pueblo: esto no podia hacer por estar exceptuado el Padre Morales
en las generales licencias: proseguian los inquietudes, pero no se atrebian á romper
abiertamente los Indios, por que el Padre era de mucho valor, y no vivia desprebenido
á sus intenciones depravadas que amenazaban, nada menos que á su vida. ,,
5 ,,Era anexo de Inabangan el pueblo de Talibon; y en este habia un Indio
remontado y apostata, que ni confesaba ni comulgaba, ni asistia á Misa, ni se le
reconocia accion alguna de Chrístiano, e escándalo era público, y el daño que hacia
en los pueblos inmediatos obligaba ya á que se entendiese en su captura: nadie se
atrebia, porque con la fama de atrebido ninguno era suviciente á ponérsele delante: el
Padre como intrépido, encargó con estrechex al alguacil mayor de aquel pueblo, que
le prendiese: las órdenes de el Padre era executivas, y podia ser problema qual era
menos arriesgado, la prision, ó la infaccion de tal encargo: resolvióse á lo primero;
solicíta al foragido; y hallado, quiso executar la apprehension, y halló en su arrestada
determinacion su desgraciado fin: fué el levantado apóstata el primero en dar dl golpe,
que fue tan furioso, que no dexándole vigor para defenderse, pudo repetir otros que la
quitaron la vida; y el agresor se regiró á los mas espeso de el monte: tenia el muerto
parte poderoso, y era regular quisiesen vengar tan infame muerte; y este temor le
preciso á andar fugitivo: libróle de este gravísin o riesgo la indiscrecion de el Padre
Morales. ,,
6 ,,Teniendo noticia de la tragedia un su [82] hermano por nombre Dagóhoy,
fuè á donde sucedió, recogió el cadever, y le condujo al pueblo; dió noticia al Padre
Ministro, y le dixo, que no habiendo otro remedio le enterrase en la Iglesia: dícese,
que el Padre le pidió al hermano la acostumbrada limosna, escusóse, diciendo que
aquella muerte habia sido por su causa, y era razon que remitiese los derechos:
resistióse el Padre á enterarle en sagrado, diciendo habia muerto descolulagado en
público desafio, y habia incurrido en las penas impuestas á los duelistas: replicó
Dagóhoy, que su hermano no pensaba en matar al foragido, solo fuè á prenderle,
como le habia preceptuado el Padro, que por obedecer sus órdenes habia perdido la
vida; ya era mala correspondencia negarle la sepultura eclesiástica: en estas
controversias estubo el cadever tres dias insepulto, y el Padre mucho mas obstinado en
no dar sepultura al cadever: sucedió lo que era regular, que se pudriese, y se
vermináse, haciéndose su hedor ya insufrible.,,
7 ,, Sintió vivísimamente la temararia resolucion de el Padre, Dagóhoy:
estimuloóle el cariño de hermano, y que no suscitáse á compasion la tragedia en el
que habia sido impulsivo causa; era [83] Indio sobresaliente, Caveza de una porcion
de naturales, y muy respetado de ellos: convocólos á todos; y con facundia rústica pero
patética, les puso á la consideracion la desgracia: que esto le era lo menos sensible; lo
mas si, que el padre Morales causa de el homisidio (sic), se resistiese á enterrarle en
Sagrado; accion inhumana y fiera, que no debia quedar sin satisfaccion tan indecente
agravio: viesen pues y considerásen, qual seria mas acomodadao á tan infando insulto:
respondieronle, propuisese, que le seguirian con el mayor fervor: Juró Dagóhoy
solamente no cesaria ne désistiria en la venganza, hasta que no viese corrompido el
cadaver de el Padre Morales, como habia este consentido la pestilencial putrefacion
en el de su hermano: conspiraron todos sus dependientes en este juramente, y se le
ofrecieron á su execucion muy prontos; tanto inspira el respeto á sus mayores en estos
Indios; sesamparan el pueblo, se acomodan á una vida rústica y cimarrona en los
montes, fortificando sus entradas, haciendolas inacesibles: y declarándose rebeldes á
Dios, al Rey, y á la Patria, empezaron á ser molestos á los vezinos: como tresmil almas
de uno, y otro sexo siguieron [84] el perverso exemplo de su caveza Dagohoy, sumisos
le rinden (?) la obedencia, le reconocen por su Superior absoluto, y aprehende este
despóticamente al mando: tenian los Jesuitas en las inmediaciones una grande y bien
surtida hazienda, ó estancia Llamada San Xavier, en bacas, caravaos, cavallos, y otros
animales domésticos; y de cuya labor en que empleaban á los Indios abundancia, les
facilitó en su retiro la subsistencia; aprovencharonse de todo lo util, y lo inútil padeció
el destrozo: eran las ansias comunes la execucion de el juramento que instaba: eran
muchas y vivas las diligencias para quitar la vida al Padre, de quien estaban tan
extremamente quejosos en vano; por que vivia el Padre muy prevenido, y no daba
lugar su valor y vigilancia á furtivas intrepidezes.,,
8 ,,Mucho medita, y raramente el espiritu de venganza es indiferente en estas
naciones, sea en el mismo que les ofendió, ó en otro de su parcialidad: como no lo
podian lograr en el que los habia agraviado, trataron manifestar su cólera vindicativa
en el padre Ministro de Lagna el padre Lamberti Religioso ajustado y pacífico, que
como nada tenia que temer, no le ocupaban rezelos, y vivia [86] en un total descuido:
ofreció Dagòhoy á un Indio de aquel pueblo un carabao, para que con él ó con su
precio pudiese efectuar su casameinto que tenia contratado, y no podía efectuar por
falta esta circunsancia, si mataba á aquel buen Padre: no se detubo el Indio en el
convenio, y confirmó el contrato, dandole palabra executaria la muerte; en tal un
precio se ajustó la vida de un tan Religioso Ministro, por satisfacer á su codicia, y á la
venganza de Dagohoy: no obstante causóle horror dar la muerte á un inocente;
vacilaba entre diversos afectos; unos que le proponian lo enorme de la accion; otros la
falta de su palabra, como sí esta fuera tan eficaz, que faltar á ella se tuviese por
irremisible: batallando en pensamientos consultó con el que habia de ser su suegro; sì
la palabra en execucion tan horrorosa le obligaba sin dispensacion á cumplirla? sin
títubear le dixo el viejo, que sí, y era obligado á cumplir lo prometido; pues no era de
hombres de bien flatar á lo que una vez ofrecieron.,,
9 ,,Con este malvado sonsejo, quedó muy seron el Indio, como si su resolucion
fuese de lo alto: determinado yq, fué á la casa de el Padre [87] Ministro con un puñal
en la mano: era hora de prima noche en ocasion que el Padre estaba en su quarto
rezando sus devociones, y un muchacho que cuidaba de la puerta; preguntó á este,
¿en donde estaba el padre? y le respondió que rezando en su aposento; entra en él,
hace la demostracion de querer besarle la mano, y al dársela e Padre, atravesó con el
puñal el pecho: fué tan fiero, y acertado el golpe, que cayó muerto con sola la
demostracion de un leve y último suspiro: huyó inmediateamente el homicida; y aun
el muchacho portero horrorizado, no tubo valor para permanecer allá, ni aun para
descubrir la fatal agresion. Á la hora acostumbrada vino de su casa el mayordomo
para disponer la cena al Padre Ministro; hallóle nadando en su propria sangre
difunto: dió parte de la extraña novedad al capitan y Justicia de el pueblo, y todo se
pusó en movimiento al punto: comenzóse á hacer diligencias para descubrir al
agresor, pero como no habia aun leves indicios todo era confusiones: el parricida
caminó toda la noche á coger el asilo de el monte; pero lleno de horror erró los
caminos, y como huyendo de si mismo se halló á la mannana en el mismo pueblo:
estaba [88] el Capitan con los principales deliberando que convenia hacer en tan fatal
lance, quando se les presentó el delinqüente: llevaba un carbon en la mano, y puesto
en presencia de la Justicia, dixo muy turbado y sin ser requerido, que no era él el que
habia muerto al padre, y en prueba de que era así, traia aquel carbon, para hacer en
la palma de la mano una Cruz, sobre cuyo signo juraria, no sér él el que le habia dado
tan violenta muerte: su turbacion y otras demostraciones hicieron conocer, no era
otro el autor de el sacrílego parricidio, héchanle mano, y pónenle á qüestion de
tormento en la llave de una escopeta; cofesó inmediatamente el caso, y su insulto con
todas su circunstancias.,,
10 ,, Con estas diligencias en sumaria dieron parte al Alcalde mayor de Zebu Juez
de el territori; fué este á Bohol, formó proceso, y resultando en él principales culpados
el agresor ye el futuro suegro, fueron asegurados en estrechas prisiones; hicieron
complice al muchacho portero, que no tenia otro indicio que se fuga, y no obstante las
declaraciones de el matador que le escusaban, fué comprehendido en haber dado
entrada, y no [88] haber avisado al padre: fueron los tres llevados á Zebú, y
sentenciados sufrieron el suplicio de horca; el de los dos por tan justificado fué bien
admitido de los Indios; pero el de el muchacho portero sintieron vivamente se huviese
hecho tal execucion en una conocida inocencia; y esta Jucticia intenpestiba agregó
mas gente á Dagóhoy, y se hizo mas formidable.,,
11 ,,No estaba aun satisfecho este rebelde caudillo con la muerte sacrílega de el
Ministro de Hagna; y como el Padre Morales estaba tan sobre tan sobre si, y tenia
partido en el pueblo á su favor, no le era facil conseguir su intento; eran muchas sus
sugestiones en los de Talibon, é Inabangan; logrólas muy á medida de su deseo
depravado un dia, que salió el Padre á avivar á los Indios en el arrastre de un palo de
que queria hacer una embarcacion pegaron fuego a la yerba seca de el campo; el
Padre queriendo huir de el incendio, fué atravesado con una lanza disparada á tiro
hecho y espirò al instante la vida: todos se retiraron y quedó allí expuesto el cadaver á
las inclemencias; fué el caso, que no se pudo recoger hasta tercero o quar[90]to dia,
en que le hallaron corrúmpido y hediondo otros Padres de la misma Isla, que fueron á
ello con buena escolta. Dióse parte al Alcalde mayor de Zebú, que fué con algunos
soldados á Bohol, hiceronse las comunes averguaciones sobre el que habia muerto al
padre Morales, y ho huvo dificultad en descubrirle, pero este huyéndose á Dagóhoy,
se habia puesto en salvo: el Alcalde fervoroso amenzaó á los principales de el pueblo
cortaria á todos la caveza, si no le entregaaban el reo de el Sacrílego homicidio; tuvo
su efecto la comision, por que los principales escribeiron á Dagohoy, explicándole el
peligro en que se hallaban, sí no les entregaba el reo refugiado en su retiro; y en cas de
denegacion les seria preciso tomar, y con el auxilio de el Alcade sacarle con violencia:
Dagóhoy que temia mucho, aun no bien aseguarado en su Superioridad, se
declarasen los paisanos contra él, sacrificó aquel infeliz entregándole á los principales,
para que con su persona diesen al Alalde satisfaction; recivieronle estos, ye le pusieron
en manos de el Alcalde, que hizo de él completa Justicia, poniendo los quartos en
sitios públicos.,,
12 ,,Manteniase Dagóhoy en su retiro [90] exitando á la rebelion general de la
Isla á sus compatriotas; no faltaban quienes por particulares sentimientos se le
arrimasen, y crecia el partido consideráblemente: hiciéronsele algunas entradas;
fiaban el éxito en los restante naturales, que era mucho mayor número, y podia
sofocar el partido de Dagóhoy sin mucho esfuerzo; no querian su destruccion y ruina,
porque en esta rebelion hallaban sus conveniencias; y todos los ataques fueron de
oprobrio á nuestras armas, y solo sirvieron á confirmar la obstinacion de los alzados:
creció mucho mas este rebelde cuerpo, quando de buelta de las armada de Iligan,
Misamis, y Caraga, hallaron sus familias en estado miserable por la exaccion de el
tributo Real, en que habian executado embargos y prisiones, sin reservar á las
mugeres; exasperados mucho con el mal tratamiento, sus socorros devengados en
esperanzas de que se satisfarian, y otras molestias en la falta á sus casas é intereses,
tomaron muchos por propia satisfaccion retirarse al monte con Dagóhoy: gustada la
libertad, y el que nada les falta allí, por tener lo mejor de la Isla y los mas fertil, y que
lo que aquí no pueden adquirir se los llevan los que se conservan [91] en los pueblos
en sugeccion manteniendo con ellos un lucroso comercio, hace la rebelion cada dia
mas obstinada, y mas dificultosa la conquista, que solo haran las armas y tropas bien
prevenidas: se ha intentado reducirlos coninultos: el Illustrísimo Señor Espeleta
quando fué asu Obispado de Zebú, llevó instrucciones de este Gobierno para el
efecto: en su conseqüencia pasó acompañado de el Alcalde mayor y de soldados á
aquella Isla: se puso en Inabangan; á su solicitud baxó de el monte Dagóhoy con
salvoconducto de su Illustrísima en nombre de el Rey, y algunos de los suyos en su
compañia; persuadióles mucho la reduccion el Señor Obispo, ofreciendo partidos
ventajosos y establecimientos á su gusto; explicaron la dificultad en acomodarse á ello,
siendo baxo la dominacion de los Jesuitas, á quienes daban á entender remian todos, y
se resistirian subsistiendo tales Ministros; seles ofreció les darian Clérigos: como les
cogian todas las puertas dieron buenas esperanzas: y estas proposiciones que tubieron
por súplicas, les hicieron mas insolentes.
13 Con ocacion de la expulsion general de los Españoles dominios, de los Jesuitas,
fueron [92] comprehendidos los de estas Islas: introduxeronse con órdenes superiores
en la Isla de Bohol los Padres Recoletos Augustinos; era Vicario Provincial y superior
inmediato de todos los acomodados en sus ministerios pro dicha expulcion el Padre
Difinidor actual de su Provincia Fray Pedro de Santa Barbara, ye se habia hecho
cargo de la administracion de Baclayaon y su partido; este Religioso de conocida
vivacidad, de un zelo á prueba, y de una no vulgar intrepidezez, luego que vió á si ya
á sus dependientes en pacífica posesion de la administracion espiritual de todos los
pueblos reducidos, pensó con seriedad instruirse á fondo de los principios, y progresos
de la rebelion, su estado actual, y la disposicion de aquellos rebeldes ánimos; logró su
eficaz aplicacion sus deseaos;,, y con cartas cariñosas acompañadas de regalillos, y la
conexion de algunos principales de su pueblo, entabló la correspondencia con el
caudillo superior Francisco Dagóhoy, tanto que, se determino sitio para comunicarse
personalmente: pasó el Padre Ministro á las inmediaciones de sus atrincheramientos,
y fué recibido de Dagóhoy con demostraciones de intima confianza; significóle el
Padre el estado de su vida [93] incómoda, el riesgo que en su obstinacion le
amenazaba, si tomando las armas el govierno se empañase en destruirlos; lo que era
muy fácil, pues no podrian resistirse á lo superior de nuestro fuego que incendiaria
con las bombas aun los sitios mas elevados, de que no estarian seguros, aunque se
escondiesen en las nubes; aun este no era el mayor detrimento, era de mas
consideracion el mal estado de sus conciencias, la perdicion eterna de sus almas; pues
viviendo como fieras, morian como brutos; tan distantes de el Reyno de Dios, era
seguro y evidente su condenacion eterna; lo que era preciso reflexásen, sí aun
conserbaban algunos principios de el Christianismo: todo tenia remedio, sí suplicaban
por el perdon muy reconocidos.,,
14 ,,Mostróse Dagóhoy y sus compañeros convencidos, y explicaron sus
sentimientos, él con otros dos principales en particulares escritos, cuya substancia era
decir:,, Dagóhoy se volvia á Dios, y al Rey, pues habia admitido se introduxese con él
el Padre Pedro de Santa Bárbara; y habia hecho bautizar á sus súbditos, casarse, y
confesarse, por lo que él y los suyos pedian perdon al Señor Governador, pues vuelto
á Dios y al Rey, era justo [94] la perdonáse sus delitos; y queria le plantàsen dos
pueblos en los sitios de Capanapog, y Daruanan, que el Padre los ayudáse, por que los
de la Compañia no habian convenido con ellos: orro principal Ignacio Arañez
propuso, que él, y los datos de el recodo de Canligong se volvian á dios, y al Rey, sí
tenia el Señor Governador misericordia de ellos, y perdonáse sus delitos antiguos; y sí
esto se conseguia, suplicaban se les concediese licencia de formar allí un pueblo,
suplicando al Padre Pedro de Santa Bárbara, hiciese las diligencias en goveirno para
consequirlo.,,
15 ,,Pedro Báguio se explicó diciendo, que como homilde hijo con toda
justificacion volvía á Dios y al Rey, habia faltado al trato, por hacer las mismas
diligencias de reconocimiento con sus compañeros, de los que, veinte y cinco casados
habian convenido con él: era mucha gente; pero no confiaba en la multitud, de que se
reduciria á la amistad; pues aun estaba rezelosa. Bernardo Sanóte decia que él y
demas datos de el monte de Tambungan, en que residian por el gran miedo que
tenian á sus Padres antiguos, ya que no habia tal inconveniente, querian volver la
servicio de Dios y de su Magestad, siendo [95] de el agrado de el Señor Governador
perdonarlos, y tener con pasion de ellos, y concederles el formar pueblo en el recodo,
ó ensenada de Guindulman, para cumplir con las obligaciones de christianos, y de
vasallos de el Rey, por lo que suplicaban á su Padre espiritual Padre Pedro, tuviese
misericordia con ellos, y se sirviese hacer las diligencias para que no se perdiesen sus
alinas, y en él solo esperaban los ayudise en sus dificultades,,
16 El Padre Fray Pedro muy contento con estos instrumentos creyó demasiado á
sus expresiones; dispusieronle una deconte Iglesia, y en ella bautizó como ciento
veinte y quatro parvulos de uno y otro sexo de cinco años para abaxo, solemnizó
algunos casamientos, y administró el Sacramento de la Penitencia como á doscientas
(sic) almas; y era muy crecido el número de los que se disponian á limpiar con este
Sacramento sus conciencias; y no menos el de los adultos, que se catequizaban para
recibir dignamente el sagrado Bautismo. Con tan buenas dispocisiones, pareciendole
todo facil al Padre Fray Pedro se presentó en Zebú al Alcalde mayor Don Pedro de
Vargas; en que hizo representacion, que, siendo muchos de los de el cargo [96] de su
administracion, alzado y rebeldes a nuestro Soberano; y que no deponiendo su
rebeldía no eran capaces de Santos Sacramentos, habia procedido con cautela, y
suavidad correspondiente á hombres perdidos por tantos años; habia procurad á costa
de urabajos (?) y fatigas, volviesen á Dios, y á la obediencia á la Magestad, sin orro fin
que la gloría de Dios, provedo de sus almas, y el aumento de vasallos fieles y leales al
Rey: en cuyas diligencias extraordinarias habia conseguido que los mas de los
principales, ya aun el que se habia hecho caveza de los rebeldes, reconociesen su
infidelidad, pidiendo perdon á ambas magestades, y se reduxesen á vida arroglada,
como constaba de sus peticiones adjutas, en las que le constituias (?) medianero, para
consequir fin tan útil, soprehendidos de el miedo y rezelo de sus faciorosos delitos; en
cuya consideracion de arrepentimiento habia usado de la licencia, ó permiso de los
cavezas de los rebeldes, en celebrar el Santo Sacrificio de la Misa, y administrar
Sacramentos á los que habia reconocido mas bien preparados; á que habian
concurrido los cavezas, y mucho número de rebledes con la devocion debida á tan
sagrados Misterios: [97] por los que suplicaba, se sirviese providenciar, parsásen los
presentados documentos con esta su representacion al Superior Govierno, paraque el
muy Illustre Señor Governador determinase lo mas conveniente al servicio de ambas
Magestades. “
17 Admitió la presentacion el Alcalde mayor, y pasó un oficio al Illustrísimo
Señor Obispo de Zebú Don Miguel Lino de Espeleta; para que su sentir sobre estos
pedimentos; y su Illustrísima informó; que no dudaba, fuese la reduccion de los
rebeldes sincera, come el que consiguiesen el perdon de sus delitos de el Señor
Governador de estas Islas, con el que se lograrian tantas perdídas almas; pues varios
pasages, que le habia comunicado el mismo Padre Fray pedro haber tenido con
Dagohoy, y casos que habia visto en ellos mediante sus Apostólicas fatigas, le daban
sobrado motivo para sentir, á que fuese verdadero su reconocimiento de los rebelados;
y aunque su Illustríssima solicitó lo mismo en person el año de sesenta y dos, no habia
podido conseguir mad se Dagóhoy, que el que levantaria Iglesia, para cumplir con las
obligaciones de christianos, pero como le tiraba la vida licenciosa practicada en [98]
tantos años, y el gusto de ser obedecido, esto le hubo de arrastrar hasta la presente,
quedando solo enarbaolados los harigues, que hubieron de serbir para la actual
Iglesia, y con su tibieza, la facilidad burlada.
18 Pidió tambien informe el Alcalde á Don Joseph Velarde que le habia
precedido en el oficio, y fué que,, en todo el tiempo de su govierno en que fue
administrada la Isla de Bohol por los Jesuitas, bien lexos dar señas de reconciliarse el
principal Dagóhoy con sus aliados, se mantubo en su tenaz rebeldia, sin dar esperanza
alguma de su reduccion, y era preciso contener su sobervia con la fuerza de las armas,
manteniendo en la Isla varios destacamentos de tropa; para que no insultasen con
robos y muerte los alzados, á los que en sus pueblos se mantenian quietos y pacificos;
pero que, desde que habian tomado posesion de aquellas doctrinas los Padres
Recoletos, se reconocia en Dagóhoy y sus aliados una mutacion, qual no se habia
experimentado en veinte y cinco que tenian de rebelion; la que constaba por la
determinacion verbal, y escrita de todos los principales en reconciliarse con las
magestades, como [99] prometian, persuadidos de las razones y diligencias de el
Padre Santa Bárbara; pues requerido por Dagóhoy y los de la junta, sobre sus poderes
para tratar aquella reduccion, para lo valido, y respondiendo no tenia otros que los de
Ministro de el Altísimo, q’ quien el Rey Católico habia encomendado la
administracion espiritual, y cuidad de sus almas; considerando su necesidad extrema
se habia internado tan á propia costa en sus montes, para anunciarles el Reyno de
Dios, y persuadirles la obediencia al Rey su Señor natural: lo que oyendo Dagóhoy,
hizo presente al padre la resolucion en que estaban él, y los suyos de conduir un
tratado (?) que les aseguráse su quietud; pero era muy preciso les facilitáse de el
Governador un indulto general, y una complete amnistía de todos sus pasado
defectos; de otro modo seria arriesgar su libertad, y aun las vidas: lo que no dudaba
concederia la Capitan general en vista de las representaciones, y documentos con que
se sinstuuia el expediente; pues habiendo mudado este negocio de sistema, se dignaria
su Señoria condescender con el pretendido indulto, pudiéndose esperar por tan suabe
medio la reduccion de los rebeldes in crecidos gastos de [100] la Real hazienda, y sin
derramiento de sangre; quedando siempre el recurso de proceder contra ellos con el
debido rigor, quando no se verificáse así; y que trataban dolosamente la pacificacion. ''
19 Formalizadas así estad diligencias las remitió el Alcalde mayor á govierno para
la providencia que se sirviese library en este asunto, mientras sudeliberacion, se volvió
á presentar el Padre Santa Barbara al mísmo Alcalde diciendo que,, habiéndose
posesionado de las doctrinas de Bohol le habia admirado, que en casi todos los
pueblos se mantenian piquetes de Soldados, y que averiguado el motivo, era la
seguridad de los Ministros antecedentes, que como tan aborrecidos de los rebeldes, no
estaban seguros en realidad sin alguno guardia: tambien el evitar, que los alzados
comeriesen en los pueblos insultos, muertes, y robos; pero que habia notado, que
desde la posecion de los Padres Recoletos el motivo principal habia cesado, pero el
Segundo existia en su vigor y fuerza; por que habiendo la gente arreglada
ensangrentádose en entradas con los e el monte, regirada la tropa, baxarian los
monteses á satisfacerse de agravios, y á vengar injurias; con todo habia
com[101]puesto con el antecesor retiráse los piquetes de los sitios menos expuestos,
que no se habia executado previniendo inconvenientes; pero ya en la actualidad que
habia conseguido tratar con Dagóhoy, y casi todos los principales de su séquito, bien
que no sin diligencias y fatigas; y estos convenido en su reconciliacion tenian
suplicado, se retiráse la tropa de la Isla, para que ellos pudiesen baxar á los pueblos sin
rezelo: esta diligencia aseguraria se trataba con sinceridad á los azados: y habiendo
exprerimentado la conformidad de ánimos entre los alzados, y pacíficos, dispuestos
unos y otros á perdonarse los agravios recíprocamente, por le que se veia precisado á
hacer esta representacion á favor de los intereses Reales, pidiendo s sirviese el Alcalde
mayor retirar toda la tropa distribuida en los pueblos de Hagna, Loay, Malabohoc,
Malibago, y Loon, pues aunque huviese sido necesaria en otro tiempo, en el actual la
consideraba superflua, sí no se hiciese novedad en los pueblos de Inabangan, y
Talibon; por que en sus próximos montes habia un alzado cavezilla por nombre
Ligaon, y segun informes tenia á su obedeiencia mas de mil tributos, y resistia á la
reduccion por contemplarla engaño[102]sa; y aunque ya tenia notica de que dicho
rebelde estaba mudado, y queria volverse á Dios, y al Rey como los demas; con todo
juzgaba conveniente y necesaria la tropa en quellos pueblos interin no se ajustaba con
aquel principal la reduccion: y aunque en Tagbilaran no consideraba necesaria la
tropa, ni para contener a los alzados, ni para el resguardo de sus naturales; no
obstante era de parecer se quedáse en este pueblo un piquete de doce soldados con sus
cabos para facilitar la cobranza de el Real tributo, que auixliàse (sic) en cas necesario
á los recaudadores. Esto le parecia lo mas conveniente segun el actual sistema de
Bohol; y por lo que cedia en servicio de ambas Magestades pedia en toda forma, que
atento el Alcalde mayor a un negocio de tanta gravedad, diese las providencias que
tuviese por mas útiles. ''
20 Proveyó en vista de lo presentado el Alcalde mayor, se despacháse órden al
cabo comandante de los destacamentos en la Isla de Bohol, para que retiráse á la
Ciudad de Zebu los piquetes, que se hallaban en Loay, Malabohoc, y Loon;
quedando de firme los que existian en Inabangan con siete hombres nombrando pr
cabo á uno de ellos; [103] ellos; en Hagna en la misma conformidad, en Talibon diez,
y en Tagbilaran trece, como así se hizo.
21 El expediente formalizado sobre la reduccion de los rebeldes á este superior
govierno, su Governador el Mariscal Don Joseph Raon admitió las propuestas;
convino en ellas y les concedió en nombre de su Magestad un general indulto, qual
podian desear, si fuesen sínceras sus pretensiones: pubilcóse con la mayor solemnidad
el indulto en Bohol; y sus resultas fueron las que el mismo Padre Santa Bárbara en
carta á su Padre Provincial firmada de él, y de otros siete Ministros de las misma Isla,
explican sentidisimamente casí en esto terminos.
22 ,,En quanto al estado actual de los alzados está y permanece en el mismo que
siempre, de Infidelidad á Dios, y al Rey, y con mayor fundamento; por que de aquel
cuerpo, que mantenia de dos años á esta parte establecido en lo Interior de los montes
en diez y ocho pueblos (segun ellos decian) solo se habian desmenbrado una corra
parte, como quarenta que se empadronaron en Dimiao, onze en Baclayon, y diez y
ocho en Inabangan: un principal llamado Arañez, que se retiró conciento [105]
quarenta y tres tributos á la marina, y sítio de Tumbangan (sic) próximo al de
Guindulman, pidiendo se formase pueblo alli, de que habi dado parte al Alcalde
mayor de Zebu; de el que rezelaba, por saber tenia capitulado con su sangre segun
costumbre, con el caudillo Dagohoy, y otro principal Don Pedro Baguio que
pretendió formar pueblo en Canapog, y no pudiendó formar pueblo en Canapog, y
no pudiendo componerse con Dagohoy se retirò al pueblo de Maasin en la Isla de
Leyte: este corto número era el que se habia desmembrado de el numeroso de
rebeldes; pero eran muchos mas los que se habian unido con ellos, ya de la misma
Isla, ya de otras, especialmente de la de Leyte. ,,
23 ,,Subsistiendo en su infidelidad decian, que Dios tambien estaba en los montes
se podian salvar en ellos sin necesidad de Sacramentos y de Ministros: no creían los
mas, que huviese Infierno; por que ninguno de ellos (decian) no loe habia visto: que
los Padres y Españoles, que dicen le hay, sería para ellos: se ocupaban mucho en la
supersticion, é idolatria; y usban con frequencia de azeites, y raizes pactando con el
Demonio; y á lo que se experimentaban de su partido, como se [105] veia en los que
se habian epadronado en los pueblos, que estaban como insulsos, espantadizos, y con
los ojos sobresaltados, atarantados, y casi inservibles. Sespues que se les intimó el
perdon en nombre de su magestad publicaron ellos bando pena de la vida á los que
dexásen su partido; y este temor les contenia en reducirse, proseguian en su costumbre
de robar ganado y gente, aunque no con la continuacion que antes; y no habia tantas
muertes; y á lo que alcanzaba, no era respeto al indulto intimado, sí el temor de que
les privásen el trato y comercio con los naturales, y advenedizos; que era un pie sobre
que estribaba la rebelion. Esto informaba con sinceridad religiosa, y era el juicio serio
que se podia formar de el estado actual de aquellos alzados, segun el poco trato y
comunicacion que se podia tener con ellos; por que aunque era verdad que despues
que se les promulgo el perdon, le habia abisado Dagohoy pasáse á verle, no se habia
atrevido en vista de el bando mandado publicar por él tan encontra de el publicado
de orden de este Superior Govierno; se rezelaba de su infidelidad; pues no aseguraba
su palabra, y la persona de el Padre con rehenes [106] equivalentes, ó ventajosos. ''
24 Cierto es que la confianza que se coloca en sugeto ínfido se compara
rectamente á un podrido diente, ya á un pie desconcerrado; uno y otro destituyen al
hombre èn coas necesaria, ye en el tiempo de la mayor angustia: reprehéndese la
facilidad en vanas confianzas, y los sugetos en que se colocan aun son mas
despreciables, por que corrompen lo mas noble de el comercio humano: sea en
nuestro cas lo que tuviere lugar; crea aun mas bituperable se dexe por tantos años,
pues cuentan treinta y cinco computado desde el año de quarenta y quatro, esta
rebelion sin castigo; sin sugeccion este perverso exemplo á los de la misma Isla, que en
todo proceden en confianza de tan torpe asilo, á los de las demas que á vista de
inaccion tan desidiosa, cometen muchos insultos, y á qualquiera correccion luego se
descubren inicios de levantamientos, quando su reduccion con las armas, no es
empeño mayor, ni de superiores gastos. 107
#article: dagohoy (see also ref to this in Blair & Robertson. There is another passage
of Historia that deals with Lechuga’s campaign)
[...] creció mucho mas este rebelde [...] this rebel body grew much greater
cuerpo, quando de buelta de las armada when upon the return of the military
de Iligan, Misamis, y Caraga, hallaron sus from Iligan, Misamis, and Caraga, they
familias en estado miserable por la found their families in a miserable state
exaccion de el tributo Real, en que due to the payment of a Royal tribute in
habian executado embargos y prisiones, which embargos and imprisonments were
sin reservar á las mugeres; exasperados exacted without sparing the women;
mucho con el mal tratamiento, sus greatly exasperated by their bad
socorros devengados en esperanzas de treatment, their cries for help yielded to
que se satisfarian, y otras molestias en la hopes for satisfaction, and other troubles
falta á sus casas é intereses, tomaron stemming from the lack of houses and
muchos por propia satisfaccion retirarse other interests, took much [took a toll?]
al monte con Dagóhoy: gustada la for their own satisfaction to retire to the
libertad, y el que nada les falta allí, por mountains with Dagohoy: having tasted
tener lo mejor de la Isla y los mas fertil, y freedom, and the fact that they lacked for
que lo que aquí no pueden adquirir se los nothing there having taken most of the
llevan los que se conservan [91] en los Island and the most fertile part,
pueblos en sugeccion manteniendo con
ellos un lucroso comercio,
15 ,,Pedro Báguio se explicó Pedro Baguio explained himself by saying

diciendo, que como homilde hijo con that as a humble son with all justification
toda justificacion volvía á Dios y al Rey, he returned to God and to the King, he
habia faltado al trato, por hacer las had breached the contract, in order to
mismas diligencias de reconocimiento con make the same notary acknowledgments
sus compañeros, de los que, veinte y cinco with his comrades, of whom twenty-five
casados habian convenido con él: era married men had agreed with him: there
mucha gente; pero no confiaba en la were many people but he did not trust the
multitud, de que se reduciria á la amistad; masses [??} would limit themselves to
pues aun estaba rezelosa. Bernardo friendship. Bernardo Sanóte said that he
Sanóte decia que él y demas datos de el and the rest of the chieftains [datos] of
monte de Tambungan, en que residian the hill of Tambongan – wherein they
por el gran miedo que tenian á sus Padres resided out of a great fear they held
antiguos, ya que no habia tal [towards??] their former Fathers now that
inconveniente, querian volver la servicio there was no longer such a disadvantage,
de Dios y de su Magestad, siendo [95] de they wished to return to the service of
el agrado de el Señor Governador God and to his Majesty, it being in the
perdonarlos, y tener compasion de ellos, y generosity of the Lord Governor to
concederles el formar pueblo en el forgive them, and have compassion for
recodo, ó ensenada de Guindulman, para them, and allow them to set up a town in
cumplir con las obligaciones de the bend or cove of Guindulman, in
christianos, y de vasallos de el Rey, por lo order to fulfil their obligations as
que suplicaban á su Padre espiritual Christians and as vassals of the King, so
Padre Pedro, tuviese misericordia con that they might beg their spiritual Father,
ellos, y se sirviese hacer las diligencias Fr Pedro to have mercy on them and to
para que no se perdiesen sus almas, y en serve him by running errands so that
él solo esperaban los ayudise en sus their souls would not be lost, and he alone
dificultades,, did they hope would help them in their
troubles.
22 ,,En quanto al estado actual de los As regards the present state of the
alzados está y permanece en el mismo insurgents [1792], it is and remains as it
que siempre, de Infidelidad á Dios, y al has always been, in Unfaithfulness to
Rey, y con mayor fundamento; por que God, to the King and with a major base;
de aquel cuerpo, que mantenia de dos because from that body that has held for
años á esta parte establecido en lo two years to that settled part of the
Interior de los montes en diez y ocho Interior of the uplands in eighteen villages
pueblos (segun ellos decian) solo se (by their reckoning) only a short part has
habian desmenbrado una corta parte, been split off, like the forty that registered
como quarenta que se empadronaron en in Dimiao, eleven in Baclayon, and
Dimiao, onze en Baclayon, y diez y ocho eighteen in Inabangan: a chief called
en Inabangan: un principal llamado Arañez, who withdrew [conciento] forty-
Arañez, que se retiró conciento [105] three tributes from the coast [the navy??]
quarenta y tres tributos á la marina, y and from Tambungan, near
sítio de Tumbangan (sic) próximo al de Guindulman, asking to set up a village
Guindulman, pidiendo se formase pueblo there, of which he would give a part to
alli, de que habi dado parte al Alcalde the Mayor of Zebu; one who suspected
mayor de Zebu; de el que rezelaba, por him of having made a blood compact
saber tenia capitulado con su sangre according to the custom, with the
segun costumbre, con el caudillo commander Dagohoy, and the other
Dagohoy, y otro principal Don Pedro chief Don Pedro Baguio who hoped to set
Baguio que pretendió formar pueblo en up a village in Canapog, and not being
Canapog, y no pudiendó formar pueblo able to set up a village in Canapog, and
en Canapog, y no pudiendo componerse not being able to join Dagohoy he retired
con Dagohoy se retirò al pueblo de to the village of Maasin on the Island of
Maasin en la Isla de Leyte: este corto Leyte: this small number was what had
número era el que se habia desmembrado been split off from the numerous rebels;
de el numeroso de rebeldes; pero eran but there were many more who united
muchos mas los que se habian unido con with them on this same Island and on
ellos, ya de la misma Isla, ya de otras, others, especially the island of Leyte.
especialmente de la de Leyte. ,,
23 ,,Subsistiendo en su infidelidad Lingering in their unhappiness, they

decian, que Dios tambien estaba en los would say that God too was in the hills
montes se podian salvar en ellos sin and could save them without recourse to
necesidad de Sacramentos y de Ministros: the Sacrements or the Ministeries: neither
no creían los mas, que huviese Infierno; did they believe any longer that Hell
por que ninguno de ellos (decian) no le existed; since none of them (so they said)
habia visto: que los Padres y Españoles, had ever seen it: that it would be
que dicen le hay, sería para ellos: se something for the Priests and the
ocupaban mucho en la supersticion, é Spaniards, who say that it is there: they
idolatria; y usaban con frequencia de took on a great deal of superstition and
azeites, y raizes pactando con el idolatry, and made frequent use of oils
Demonio; y á lo que se experimentaban and roots, making pacts with the Demon;
de su partido, como se [106] veia en los and with regards to what they had
que se habian empadronado en los experienced of his side, as seen in those
pueblos, que estaban como insulsos, who have registered in the towns, they
espantadizos, y con los ojos sobresaltados, were like dullards, easily frightened with
atarantados, y casi inservibles. startled eyes, dumbfounded and almost
useless
Manuel’s translations:
15 ,,Pedro Báguio se explicó Pedro Baguio explained himself by saying
diciendo, que como homilde hijo con that as a humble son with all justification he
toda justificacion volvía á Dios y al returned to God and to the King, he had
Rey, habia faltado al trato, por hacer breached the contract, in order to make the
las mismas diligencias de same notary acknowledgments with his
reconocimiento con sus compañeros, comrades, of whom twenty-five married
de los que, veinte y cinco casados men had agreed with him: there were many
habian convenido con él: era mucha people but he didn’t believe that the mass
gente; pero no confiaba en la multitud, [of people who had joined him] would limit
de que se reduciria á la amistad; pues themselves to being friendly, as they [the
aun estaba rezelosa. Bernardo Sanóte masses] were distrusting.. Bernardo Sanóte
decia que él y demas datos de el monte said that he and the rest of the chieftains
de Tambungan, en que residian por el [datos] of the hill of Tambongan – wherein
gran miedo que tenian á sus Padres they resided out of a great fear they held
antiguos, ya que no habia tal towards their former Fathers, now that
inconveniente, querian volver la there was no longer such a disadvantage,
servicio de Dios y de su Magestad, they wished to return to the service of God
siendo [95] de el agrado de el Señor and to his Majesty, it being in the
Governador perdonarlos, y tener generosity of the Lord Governor to forgive
compasion de ellos, y concederles el them, and have compassion for them, and
formar pueblo en el recodo, ó ensenada allow them to set up a town in the bend or
de Guindulman, para cumplir con las cove of Guindulman, in order to fulfil their
obligaciones de christianos, y de obligations as Christians and as vassals of
vasallos de el Rey, por lo que the King, for which reason they begged
suplicaban á su Padre espiritual Padre their spiritual Father, Fr Pedro, to have
Pedro, tuviese misericordia con ellos, y mercy on them and to prepare everything
se sirviese hacer las diligencias para que so that they wouldn’t lose their souls; they
no se perdiesen sus almas, y en él solo only expected of him their willingness to
esperaban los ayudise en sus help them in their troubles.
dificultades,,
22 ,,En quanto al estado actual de As regards the present state of the

los alzados está y permanece en el insurgents [1792], it is and remains as it has
mismo que siempre, de Infidelidad á always been, in Unfaithfulness to God, to
Dios, y al Rey, y con mayor the King and with a major base; because
fundamento; por que de aquel cuerpo, from that body that has held for two years
que mantenia de dos años á esta parte to that settled part of the Interior of the
establecido en lo Interior de los montes uplands in eighteen villages (by their
en diez y ocho pueblos (segun ellos reckoning) only a short part has been split
decian) solo se habian desmenbrado off, like the forty that registered in Dimiao,
una corta parte, como quarenta que se eleven in Baclayon, and eighteen in
empadronaron en Dimiao, onze en Inabangan: a chief called Arañez, who
Baclayon, y diez y ocho en Inabangan: withdrew with one hundred and forty-three
un principal llamado Arañez, que se tributes from the coastal area of
retiró conciento [105] quarenta y tres Tambungan, near Guindulman, asking to
tributos á la marina, y sítio de set up a village there, of which he had
Tumbangan (sic) próximo al de communicated to the Mayor of Zebu; one
Guindulman, pidiendo se formase who was distrustful of him since he knew
pueblo alli, de que habi dado parte al that that he had performed a blood
Alcalde mayor de Zebu; de el que compact with the commander Dagohoy,
rezelaba, por saber tenia capitulado according to the custom, and the other
con su sangre segun costumbre, con el chief Don Pedro Baguio who hoped to set
caudillo Dagohoy, y otro principal Don up a village in Canapog, and not being able
Pedro Baguio que pretendió formar to set up a village in Canapog, and not
pueblo en Canapog, y no pudiendó being able to reach an agreement with
formar pueblo en Canapog, y no Dagohoy he retired to the village of Maasin
pudiendo componerse con Dagohoy se on the Island of Leyte: this small number
retirò al pueblo de Maasin en la Isla de was what had been split off from the
Leyte: este corto número era el que se numerous rebels; but there were many
habia desmembrado de el numeroso de more who united with them on this same
rebeldes; pero eran muchos mas los que Island and on others, especially the island of
se habian unido con ellos, ya de la Leyte.
misma Isla, ya de otras, especialmente
de la de Leyte. ,,
1800–1899
Buzeta, Manuel, and Felipe Bravo. 1851. Diccionario geográfico,
estadístico, histórico de las Islas Filipinas. Vol. 1. Madrid: D. José
C. de la Peña.
IDIOMA Los dialectos varian no solo entre las castas sino que cada distrito y aun
cada familia tienen el suyo peculiar. Esta diversidad se esplica por el estado de
barbarie en que viven todos los pueblos la ignorancia y el aislamiento son causas
suficientes para ello. Lo mismo se observa en las tribus sumisas como en la de los
isinayas aunque poseen diccionarios. Sin embargo entre tanta multitud de dialectos se
distinguen particularmente el bisayo el tagalo y el pampango que parecen ser las
lenguas madres por mas completas y perfectas. Quedan muy pocos fragmentos de la
escritura de estas lenguas porque reduciéndose á signos trazados sobre pedazos de la
hoja del banana con una punta de bambú no se ha podido conservar lo poco que
escribieran. Estos escritos se reducian á hojas sueltas espresando los búfalos que
poseian y otros pormenores de interés personal y doméstico. Mucho se ha trahajado
en averiguacion del origen de aquellas lenguas y su relacion con las antiguas unos las
han considerado semejantes al árabe otros han creido ser su carácter mas análogo á la
China y Japona y no pocos encarecedores del hebreo presentan esta lengua como su
originaria. Nosotros no podemos menos de orillar los origenes hebráicos si bien
consideramos que el estremo Oriente hubo de tener una lengua propia progenitora de
todas las demas lenguas inclusa la misma hebrea siendo [64] do todos estos los
resultados del cambio de aquella hecho por la accion tópica y la cultura ó el atraso de
los distintos paises y tiempos. Dicese generalmente que los dialectos filipinos deben su
origen á la lengua malaya y no lo contradiremos si se entiende en esta aquella lengua
primitiva. Diferentes dialectos de los que se hablan en las islas Visayas presentan la
mayor relacion con esta lengua. Se encuentra no obstante que palabras de igual
pronunciacion tienen significado distinto y que otras muy diferentes son de sentidos
análogos. Las voces malayas olo cabeza puti blanco langil cielo mata ojo susu pecho batu
piedra se encuentran en los idiomas tagalo bisayo y en los dialectos cebuano y lutao
otras palabras como lina lengua babi puerco ete solo ofrecen muy pequeña diferencia
en la pronunciacion diciéndose dita babuy ete. La lengua primitiva y propia del pais
ha sido tambien adulterada por los dialectos advenedizos. La lengua espanola ha dado
sus caracteres á los filipinos cultos. La lengua tagala es clara rica elegante metafórica y
poética prestándose mucho á la improvisacion en la que se distingue el genio del pais.
La dificultad de esta lengua se esplica diciendo que para aprenderla se necesita un año
de arte y dos de bahaque esto es de ejecucion y práctica pues se llama haha [PK: baba?]
que el ceñidor ó taparrabo que llevan los indigenas de las montanas. La escritura de
estos pueblos en su estado natural es de derecha á izquierda como todos los orientales
usando diferentes signos cuyo significado se altera por el número de puntos que se
coloca en la parte superior ó inferior de modo que una sola palabra escrita tiene
muchas veces seis ó siete significaciones. Tienen diez y siete caracteres ó signos de los
cuales tres son vocales valiendo por los cinco nuestros pues uno representa la A otro la
y tiene tambien el sonido de y otro equivale á la O y á la U. De aqui nace gran parte
de la diversidad de pronunciaciones tubi permitidme se pronuncia tambien tabe olo se
pronuncia ulu. Las consonantes son catorce y se pronuncian siempre con la A si se
escriben simplemente asi los signos que representan la С M se pronuncian Ça Ma
pero poniendo un punto arriha se pronuncian con la E ó con la I y puesto abajo con
la O ó con la U. La С y la S no se distinguen la D se pronuncia muchas veces R como
en Madali que articulan marali la F se cambia tambien en La С se cambia algunas
veces en M la G en У en la poesia. Esta última letra la G se pronuncia nasal cuando
está eu medio de palabra y acentuada segun se nota en esta palabra manga que indica
el plural. Las silabas Ge Ji se pronuncian muchas veces como guy la como J espanola
la Q como A y la U como la espanola La pronunciacion de la g acentuada como en el
monosilabo щ solo se puede aprender por el uso. Esta palabra no es mas que una
conjuncion eufónica que se coloca entre toda especie de dicciones. Asi se traducirá la
[65]proposicion hermoso cahallo mabuting ñga cavayo en vez de mabwting cavayn
uniendo el adjetivo al sustantivo. La lengua espanola ha introducido con sus
caracteres otras muchas novedades en los pueblos cultos pero ha dejado intacta la
pronunciacion. Estas lenguas tienen sus nombres declinables por seis casos tienen
tambien sus conjugaciones de modo que puede escribirse en las tagala y visaya como
en las europeas. Asi es que se han publicado obras en prosa y en verso entre lias
tratados sagrados poemas tragedias y odas que han sido impresas en Manila. La
pasion ha sido completamente traducida y los indios de aquella y sus atrededores la
cantan durante los cuarenta dias de la cuaresma haciéndolo muchas veces reunidos
acompanándose con una música por cierto no muy agradable. Los idiomas de los
naturales sumisos á los espanoles pueden reducirse al tagalo pampango zombal á los
de Pangasinan Cagayan llocos Camarines ó vicol al Vi sayo Vatonés y el chamorro.
El tagalo y el visayo pueden considerarse como las lenguas madres. Se habla la lengua
tagala que es la mas estendida en las provincias de Tonda Bu lacan Bataan Satangas
Laguna Nueva Ecija Tayabas Cavite Mindoro y Zamboanga. Tambien se habla en
las islas Marianas á donde la llevaron los deportados. Se habla la visaya en todas las
islas visayas pero se diferencia en algunas provincias de modo que los habitantes de
Iloilo no entienden bien á los de Samar no obstante hallarse en frecuentes relaciones.
Por esto se divide la visaya en cuatro dialectos
i. El de la isla de Panay que se habla en Iloilo en las pequeñas islas de Romblon
Tablas y Sebuyan en la parte noroeste de la de los Negros en Zamboanga en las
provincias de Misamis y Caraga
2 El de Capis que se diferencia poco del de Iloilo 5 El Cebúano que muchos
consideran como lengua particular este se habla tambien en la isla de Bohol y en la
parte de la de los Negros que mas se aproxima á la de Cebú. Sus naturales
comprenden fácilmente el de Iloilo 4 El de las islas Calamianes y Paragna en la parte
sumisa á los espanoles este es el resultado dela mezcla de las lenguas tagala y visaya.
Los demas idiomas se hablan solo en las provincias de que toman nombre. La isla de
Mindanao está como la de Luzon dividida en gran número de tribus teniendo todas
ellas sus dialectos particulares que seria imposible detallar no obstante la lengua mas
general es la illana semejante á la malaya. En Luzon los igorrotes tinguianes fugaos
gaddanes ibilaos i letapanes negritos ó itus raza primitiva diseminada en casi todas las
cordilleras ete hablan dialectos que varian hasta por tribus ó rancherias fíC [66]
#history: language documentation (Spanish period) NEW #chapter 1 #writing
systems #lost tribes of israel #phonotactics
Buzeta, Manuel, and Felipe Bravo. 1851. Diccionario geográfico,

estadístico, histórico de las Islas Filipinas. Vol. 2. Madrid: D. José
C. de la Peña.
LOON: pueblo con cura y gobernadorcillo, en la isla de Bohol, adscrita á la prov. y
dióc. de Cebú; SIT. sobre la costa occidental de dicha isla , en una altura ó cerro
donde le combaten todos los vientos; su CLIMA es bastante cálido. Administran este
pueblo los PP. Recoletos ; tiene con su anejo Catarbacan unas 1,897 casas con la
parroquial y de comunidad, que son las mejores; en esta última se halla la cárcel. Hay
también una escuela de primeras letras , cuyo maestro tiene una asignación pagada de
los fondos de comunidad. La igl. es de mediana fábrica, se fundó bajo la advocación
de Nuestra Señora del Cerro, y se halla servida por un cura de la mencionada orden.
El TERM. confina con los de Malabuyoc y Calapa, siendo el terreno fértil, con estensas
llanuras. PROD. arroz, tabaco, algodon y otras varias. IND.: la agrícola , la caza, a
pesca y la fabricación de algunas telas.
El carácter de estos naturales no desmiente el de sus antepasados de la isla, son muy
indómitos, y algunos suelen fugarse con los [168] remontados, que son aquellos indios
que se internan en la isla, habitando los montes y espesuras de los bosques. POBL.
10,765 alm. y en 1845 pagaba 2,088 trib. que ascienden á 20,880 rs. plata,
equivalentes á 52,200 rs. vn. 169
#history of loon
Manual para uso de los párrocos y demas que desempeñan el

sagrado ministerio en Filipinas, añadido y corregido con
mucho esmero: en esta Tercera Edicion: Por Mandato y con
Aprobacion del Excmo. É Ilmo. Sr. D. Fr. Pedro Payo,
Arzobispo Metropolitano de estas Islas. Parte II. 1880. Manila:
Imprenta del Colegio de Santo Tomas, Á Cargo de D. G.
Memije.
[PK: My translation]
De las bendiciones About the blessings
Avertencias generales General warnings
Reglas generales acerca de las bendiciones. General rules about the blessings.
Bendiciones que pueden dar todos los Blessings that can be given by all Priests
Sacerdotes
Bendicion de la muger despues del parto Blessing of a woman after childbirth
Bendicion del agua Blessing of water
Bendicion de candelas fuera del dia de la Blessing of candles outside the day of
Purificacion Purification
Bendicion de casas fuera del dia de Sábado Blessing of houses outside Holy
Santo Saturday
Bendicion de lugar Blessing of a place
Bendicion de casa nueva Blessing of new house
Bendicion del tálamo Blessing of the bridal chamber
Bendicion de nueva nave Blessing of a new ship
Bendicion del cordero pascual Blessing of the Pascal lamb
Bendicion de huevos Blessing of eggs
Bendicion de pan Blessing of bread
Bendicion de frutos nuevos Blessing of new fruit
Bendicion de cualquier comestible Blessing of anything edible
Bendicion de aceite simple Blessing of ordinary oil
Bendicion de la tierra sembrada ó plantada Blessing of sown or planted land
Bendicion de semillas Blessing of seeds
Bendicion del granero, ó de las mieses Blessing of a barn, or harvested crops
segadas
Bendicion de la primera piedra de un Blessing of the foundation stone of a
edificio building
Bendicion de puente nuevo Blessing of a new bridge
Bendicion de fuente Blessing of a spring
Bendicion de pozo Blessing of a well
Bendicion de infante Blessing of infants
Bendicion de niños Blessing of children
Bendicion de caballos y de otros animales Blessing of horses and other animals
Bendicion de animales enfermos Blessing of sick animals
Bendicion del Estandarte procesional Blessing of the processional Banner
Bendicion de la espada Blessing of the sword
Bendicion de la bandera militar Blessing of the military flag
Bendicion de las mortajas Blessing of the shrouds
Bendicion para cualquier cosa, que no Blessing for anything that has no
tuviere fórmula particular particular formula
Bendiciones que corresponden á los Blessings specific to parish priests
Párrocos.
Beddicion de las casas en Sábado Santo Blessing of houses on Holy Saturday
Bendicion para expeler de los campos las Blessing to rid the fields of locusts,
langostas, topos, gusanos, insectos y otros moles, worms, insects and other pests
animales nocivos
Para las aguas infectas For infected water
Otra bendicion deprecatoria contra las Another supplicatory blessing against
ratas, langostas, topos y gusanos rats, locusts, worms and moles
Bendicion comun de los frutos y viñas General blessing of fruits and vines
Bendiciones que corresponden á los Sres. Blessings specific to Bishops, and to
Obispos y á los Sacerdotes que tienen Priests who are granted special powers
facultad especial
Bendicion de los ornamentos Sacerdotales Blessing of Priestly ornaments in
en general general
Bendicion de cada ornamento en particular Blessing of each specific ornament
Bendicion de los manteles ó lienzos del Blessing of tablecloths or sacred altar
sagrado Altar cloths
Bendicion de los corporales Blessing of the corporals [chalice cloths]
Bendicion del tabernáculo ó vaso para Blessing of the tabernacle or receptacle
conservar el Santísimo Sacramento for preserving the Holy Sacrament
Bendicion de la Cruz nueva Blessing of a new Cross
Bendicion de las Imágenes de N. S. Jesu- Blessing of the Image of Our Lord Jesus
cristo, de María Santísima y demas Santos Christ, Holy Mary and other saints
Bendicion de las Imágenes de la Santísima Blessing of the Images of the Holy
Trinidad Trinity
Bendicion de telégrafo Blessing of the telegraph
Bendicion de los caminos de hierro y de sus Blessing of the railroads and their
coches carriages
Rito que debe observar el Sacerdote Rite to be observed by the priest
facultado por el Sr. Obispo para bendecir y empowered by the Bishop to bless and
poner la primera piedra de una Iglesia lay the first stone of a Church
Rito de bendecir nueva Iglesia, ú oratorio Rite for the blessing of a new church, or
público, para que alli se pueda celebrar el of a public oratory, so that the holy
santo sacrificio de la Misa sacrifice of the Mass may be celebrated
there
Rito de reconciliar la Iglesia violada, que Rite to reconcile a desecrated Church,
no estaba consagraba por el Obispo which was not consecrated by the
Bishop
Rito de bendecir nuevo Cementerio por el Rite for the blessing of a new cemetery
Sacerdote delegado por el Obispo by a Priest delegated by the Bishop
Rito de reconciliar un Cementerio violado, Rite for the reconciliation of a
sea contiguo ó separado de la Iglesia desecrated cemetery, be it contiguous
cuando ésta no ha sido violada with or separated from a Church that
has not itself been desecrated
Método de dar Bendicion Pontfícia al Method of giving a Pontifical Blessing
pueblo, y Rito que se debe observar por los to the people, and the Rite that must be
Sacerdotes, á quienes comete la Santa Sede observed by Priests, to those who grant
esta facultad the Holy See this power.
Bendiciones con Indulgencia concedidas Blessings with indulgence granted
por privilegios á los M. RRR. PP. privileges to M. RRR. PP. Regulars
Regulares
Bendicion de las candelas de la cofradia del Blessing of the candles of the
Rosario, ó de buena muerte Confraternity of the Rosary, or a good
death
Bendicion de los Rosarios Blessing of Rosaries
Bendicion del cordon de San Francisco Blessing of the cordon of San Francisco
Bendicion del hábito de San Franciso para Blessing of the habit of San Francisco to
mortaja shroud
Bendicion del escapulario del Cármen Blessing of the scapular of Carmen
Bendicion de la correa de Ntro. Padre San Blessing of the belt Our Father Saint
Agustin Agustine
Bendicion é imposicion del escapulario azul Blessing and imposition of blue scapular
de la inmaculada Concepcion of the Immaculate Conception
Bendicion del cíngulo del Angélico Doctor Blessing of the Angelic Doctor cíngulo
Santo Tomás de Aquino Aquinas
[...] [...]
Decretos interesantes de la S. C. de Ritos Decrees interesting S. C. Rites of
sobre varias materias de este Manual, que several materials of this Handbook,
se dejaron de insertar en sus respectivos which is left to insert in their respective
títulos titles
n.p. N.P.
Otra bendicion deprecatoria contra las ratas, langostas, topos y gusanos
Nota: El Papa Benedicto XIV, en la institucion 47, considerando lo extenso de las
bendiciones anteriores, propone al número 20 la siguinte mas breva y llena de piedad,
de la cual usó algunas veces el Papa Benedicto XIII, para libertar al campo Romano
de la plaga de esto perniciosos animales.
Llegado el Párroco á los campos infestados, y revestido de sobrepelliz y estola morada,
dirá:
Aña. Exúrge, Dómine, ádjuva nos: et líbera nos propter nomen tuum. Salmo Deus,
áuribus nostris audívimus: patres nostri annuntiavérunt nobis. y. Glória Patri, etc.
Sicut erat, etc. y se repite la Aña. Exúrge, Dómine, etc. Exúrge, Dómine, etc.
y. Adjutórium nostrum in nómine Dómini. r). Qui feci cœlum et etrram. y.
Domine, exaudi orationem meam. R). Et clamor meus ad te véniat. y. Dóminus
vobíscum. Et cum spíritu tuo.
OREMUS
Preces nostras, quæsumus Dómini, cleméntèr exáudi:ut qui justè pro peccátis nostri
afflígimur, et hanc múrium (vel locastárum, vel bruchórum, vel vérmium, sive aliorum
animalium) persecutiónem pátimur, pro tui nóminis glória ab ea misericórditèr
liberémur; ut [53] tua poténtia procul expúlsi (vel expúlsæ) nulli nóceant, et campos,
agrósque nostros in tranquillitáte ac quiéte dimíttant, quálenùs ex eis surgéntia et orta
tuæ majestáti desérviant, et nostræ necessitáti subvéniant. Per Christum Dóminum
nostrum. Amen. 54 [more follows]
Trans: Another supplicatory blessing against rats, locusts, moles and worms
Note: Pope Benedict XIV, in institution 47, considering the length of the earlier
blessings proposed for number 20 the following much briefer and more pious one,
which was sometimes used by Pope Benedict XIII, to liberate the Roman countryside
from the plague of these pernicious pests
[PK: See my photographs of this text for more]
#urasyun
Zueco de San Joaquin, Ramon. 1884. Método del Dr Ollendorff

para apprender á leer, hablar y escribir un idioma cualquiera
adaptado al Bisaya. Manila: Amigos del Pais.
[Description: a series of scripted questions and answers of increasing difficulty. A kind
of written immersion/comprehension exercise. There are no remarks on Boholano
dialect despite what is said in Blake]
Rizal, José. [1886] 2008. Noli me tangere. Barcelona: Linkgua

ediciones S.L.
[¿Escribe en jeroglíficos? Y ¿por qué? –preguntó el joven dudando de lo que veía y
oía.
–¡Para que no me puedan leer ahora!
Ibarra se le quedó mirando de hito en hito, pensando si el viejo estaría en efecto loco.
Examinó rápidamente el libro para ver si no mentía y vio muy bien dibujados
animales, flores, pies, manos, brazos, etc.
–Y ¿por qué escribe usted entonces si no quire que le lean? [163]
–Porque no escribo para esta generación, escribo para otras edades. Si esta me
pudiera leer, quemaría mis libros, el trabajo de toda mi vida; en cambio, la
generación que descifre esto caracteres será una generación instruida, me
comprenderá y dirá: «¡No todos dormían en la noche de nuestros abuelos!». El
misterio o estos curiosos caracteres salvarán mi obra de la ignorancia de los hombres,
como el misterio y las extraños ritos han salvado a muchas verdades de las
destructoras clases sacerdotales.
–Y ¿en qué idioma escribe usted? –preguntó Ibarra después de una pausa.
–En el nuestro, en el tagalo.] 164
“You write in heiroglyphics? But why?”, asked the young man, doubting what he has
seeing and hearing.
“So that they cannot read me now!”
Sanchez de la Rosa, Antonio. 1887. Gramatica hispano-visaya, con

algunas lecciones prácticas, intercaladas en el texto, que facilitan á
los niños indigenas de las provincias de Leyte y Samar la
verdadera y genuina expresión de la lengua castellana, compuesta
pore el M.R.P. Fr Antonio Sanchez de la Rosa del seráfico órden
de San Francisco de Asis. Manila: Imprenta Amigos del Pais,
1887.
[Description: two columns with spanish on the left and visayan on the right,
comprehension exercises. Still using Latin categories (despite being for native speakers
of visayan, eg Nominativo, Genetivo, Dativo, Acusativo, Vocativo, Ablativo]
Al Excmo Sr. D Emili Terrero y Perinat, teniente general de los ejercitos espanoles,
caballero de la gran cruz etc....Gobernador capitan general de estas islas, etc.
Consagrábase la heroóica España en engrandecer á la dignidad humana
introduciendo en los territorios conquisatdos y civilizados allende los mares la luz
salvadora de la verdad evangélica, y con ella los principios más sanos y adecuados á la
verdadera [2] civilización y á las necesidades respectivas, estrechando las relaciones,
que la unían con razas inferiores por su decaimiento é ignorancia de las verdádes
eternas, imponiéndole su caballerosidad el respeto y la consideración con que debía
tratarlas y la obligación de ayudarlas á salir del lamentable estado en que vegetaban
arrastrando una existencia indigna de seres racionales, criados por Dios y redimidos
con el precio infinito de la preciosísima sangre de su Unigénito Hijo.
Pronto se reconoció como uno de los medios más importantes á este fin, instuir á los
indios en un idioma que les pusiera en contacto inmediato con los progresos del
mundo sábio, trjera hasta ellos las raudales de la civilización cristiana, y los hiciese
capaces de conocer con alguan exactitud el Evangelio, y de penetrarse de la vivicante
sávia del catolicismo, que tanto ennoblece al alma excitando en ella ideas grandes y
aspriaciones elevadas. Desde aquel instante y guidada únicamente por tan levantados
propósitos, empezó España á extender por sus conquistas el conocimiento de la
lengua castellana con resolución inquebrantable, que no ha podido entibiar nunca la
tenaz resistencia que en el trascurso de los siglos le han opuesto obstáculos
insuperables. 3
--Fr Antonio Sanchez
#language policy: Spanish (new) #chapter 1
El rey de Cebú, que se llamaba Hababár, soberesalió en el afecto á Magallanes, y trabó
conversación con él. Hamabár, tenia un sobrino enfermo, y magallanes le curó, y dió la
no esperada salud. El rey dió muchas gracias al que había curado á su sobrino, y
también suplicó que le enseñase la religión santa. Magallanes mandó á un Padre que
instruyese á Hamabár y sus vasallos, é instruidos ya en las verdades divinas, pidió
Hamabár el bautismo y ochocientas personas más. Aprende, niño, á no olvidar jamás
la religión santa, que recibiste en el bautismo. 24 [PK: a language exercise, with
Visayan trans below]
#chapter 4
An hadi su Sugbu nga guinha Hamabar, nahagugma caopay can Magallanes, ug
nagcarocayacan sa iya. Si Hamabar may usa nga (tild) omancon nga masaquit ngan si
Magallanes nacabolong sa iya ug nacaopay mán. An hadi nagpasalamat sin daco san
nacaopay san iya amancon, ug nquimalooy man nga catuddoan siya san religión nga
santa. Si Magallanes nagsugo sa usa nga Padre nga magtutdo can Hamabár ngan san
iya mga (tilde) nasa sacopan, ug san tatudoan na sira san mga camatuoran nga
diosnon, napabuniag si Hamabár ngan sin ualo pá cagatos nga mga tauo. Pagaram
ca, bata san diri guipahon pacalimot san religión nga santa, nga nacarauat mo san
pagbuniagui sa imo.
#chapter 4
de los Reyes y Florentino, Isabelo. 1889. Las Islas Visayas en la

Epoca de la Conquista. Manila: De Chofré.
Las islas que se encuentran al SE. de Luzón fueron llamadas Visayas, es decir,
pintadas, por los españoles, porque muchos de sus habitantes se pintarrajeaban. 7
Como queda dicho, estas islas se llamaron Visayas (corrupción de Bisayos), porque
algunos de sus habitantes (no todos, como aseveran otros autores modernos) se
tatuaban. 13
Los visayas conservaban la siguiente conseja sobre la creación del Universo.
En un principio no había mas que el cielo y el agua y entre ellos volaba sin cesar un
milano, buscando un punto donde poder posarse; y ho habiéndolo hallado, revolvió el
agua, la cual en encrespadas olas se levantó hacia el cielo. Este, temiendo que el
elemento líquido lo sumergiese, lo cargó de islas para que su peso lo obligase á estar
tranquilo y para que el milano tuviese dónde anidar.
Y estando el milano en la playa, los olas arrojaron á sus pies un trozo de caña
compuesto de dos cañutos; de furor lo abrió á picotazos y de un cañuto salió un varón
y del otro una mujer.
Estos, pues, eran el Adán y la Eva de los visayas primitivos. 17
PK: this story is also in Loarca.
#origin myths #commensuration
Aunque á la llegada de los españoles encontraron en Visayas algunos mahometanos,
éstos no eran naturales de aquellos islas. 41
#eskayan etymology: ara #chapter 7
[The Visayans] Conocían la existencia de un Ser supremo que los de Limasaua
denominaban Abba, y los de otras islas Laon, Dia, ó Sidapa. Este era el verdadero dios,
el creador de todas cosas, bien-hechor, que según los Bisayas, moraba en el monte
Madias de Iloilo, que era su ologan (cielo) 41
#eskayan etymology: ara #chapter 7 #lost tribes of israel
Parece ser que los visayas también conocían una especie de Obispo, lammado Sonat
por los antíguos taglos, superior á los demás ministros [43] de los dinatas. Al menos en
la secta que pretendió en 1673 un visaya, habia Obispo y hasta Papa.
#syncretism #chapter 1
Los visayas eran aficionados á las bebidas, especialmente los principales,
considerándose la embriaguez como cosa digna de loa y propia de personas honradas.
49
#funny
De los antiguos, hubo autor que supusiera que los filipinos nacieron ex putre; otro que
el autor de sus días es el sol; quién que fueron creados por arte de mágicos ó de los
íncubos, en el Orígen de los indios, de dominico P. Fr. Gregorio García, obra citada por
los antíguos, se hallan enumeradas casi todas estas opiniones.
También se creyó antíguamente que los igorrotes, tinguianes, zambales y otros
montese procedieran de Malabar y Coromandel en Dekkan del Indostán. 5
Unos como Geler pretenden encontrar pruebas irrefragables de que los filipinos
somos descendientes de los árabes [...] 57
-Filipinos = papuas de Melanesia
-aetas = raza especial
60
A la raza malaya pertenecen los visayas y otros filipinos que tienen los mismos rasagos
[60] fisonómicos; pero la raza malaya en Filipinas no es pura.
El citado orientalista francés [Montano] divide la raza malaya, que existe en este
Archipiélago en tres sub-razas: la mestiza de negrito, la mestiza de chino, y la mestiza
de indonesiano y árabe. 61
[PK: this goes into much finer detail over next few pages]
A Borneo llegaron los malayos, de Sumatra, país primitivo de los malayos según
creencia común. ¿Pero no pudo también la dirección de las invesiones (sic) malayas
habr sido de Este á Oeste, es decir, de Filipinas á Sumatra? 69
#second-wave migration theory
Efectivamente, en Sumatra está la laguna de Toba, cuyas riberas estan pobladas de
battaks (sic), malayos puros, cuyas facciones, dialecto y costumbres se asemejan
mucho á los de los malayos filipinos, como demostrarémos en su lugar.
Prichard, fundándose en razones filológicas, cree que las emigraciones malayas
partieron de Sumatra.
Los autores llaman tagalos solo á los que pueblan las costas del centro de Luzon; pero
para éstos, tal denominación es comun á todos los malayos filipinos, incluso los
ilocanos, bícoles, visayas etc. [...]
Y á la verdad sería más propia que la de indios (por que no son de la India), indígenas
(por que esta palabra significa naturales y es aplicable á cualquier hijo de vecino), y
filipinos (por que este vocablo no distingue las rosas y se puede dar lo mismo al hijo de
europeos nacido en Filipinas, que á un está de Visayas). 72
El P. San Agustin confirma lo que dice el P. Colin y escribe: “Los visayas tienen sus
letras y caracteres como los de los Malayos, de quienes los aprendieron y como ellos
escriben con unos punzones en cortezas de caña y hojas de palmas; pero nunca se les
halló escritura antigua alguna, ni luz de su orígen y venida á estas Islas”. 92
#writing system
“El orígen indio [de India] de estos alfabetos no se puede ponder en duda” 93
#writing system
[Discussing the comparative method:]
Y efectivamente, no basta que nos fijemos en la terminología, pues en todos los
idiomas no faltan vocablos comunes á otros, lo cual justifica por otra parte la
existencia de una solo lengua matriz, probablemente ya estinguida desde la Torre de
Babel.
Así es que en dialecto visaya no faltan voces hebreas, latinas, francesas, italianas,
alemanas, chinas, etc. 98
Los indígenas son naturalmente corruptores de lenguas é inventores de mil y mil
términos nuevos: el tranvia, por ejemplo, cuando aun no contaba un año en el
Archepiélago, ya estaba filipinizado, dando este nombre los de Manila á la muger
pública. 99
#language documentation: diversity
[...] por ejemplo gamút, en tagalo significa medicamento y en ilocano veneno; kayo, en
tagalo es tela, y en ilocano madera; etc 99
#language documentation: diversity
Rizal, José. [ca. 1884] 1972. Reflections of a Filipino

[Penasamientos de un Filipino]. In Encarnación Alzona
(trans.), Political and historical writings, vol. 7. Manila: National
Historical Institute.
[Fn: A staticstical essay by Rizal entitled Pensamientos de un Filipino. It is unisgned and
without date. In the opintion of the hero’s nephew, Dr. Leoncio López Rizal, it was
written at Madrid between 1883 and 1885. The original is in the Bureau of Public
Libraries]
For what do we need Spanish? To know the beautiful stories and theories of liberty,
progress and justice, and afterwards get to like them? To understand the laws, know
our rights and then find inpractice other laws and other things different from them.
Of what use is the knowledge of Spanish? We can speak to God in all languages ... if it
were Latin I say, well. The curate says that God listens first to the prayers in Latin
before those in tagalog. That’s why Mases are in Latin and the curates live in
abundance and we the Tagalogs are badly off. 11
#urasyun
Rizal, José. [1888] 1972. Ma-Yi. In Encarnación Alzona (trans.),

Political and historical writings, vol. 7. Manila: National
We believe Pu-li-lu to be Bohol, for “people of a cruel disposition” would be to the
Chinese the warlike Boholanos, who even now boast of being brave. 45
#folk etymology #toponyms #chapter 3
Rizal, José. [1889] On travel [Los viajes] La Solidaridad, 15 May.

[PK: Cannot find original text, only a translation online:
http://www.rizalinfo.net/PlaysDetails.asp?TableIndex=12,
Accesed 2 April, 2014]
Just as it is said that man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and
speaks, so also is his life prolonged and renewed as he goes travelling in different
countries.
#article: rizal
Rizal, José. [1889-1890] 1972. The Philippines a century hence
[Filipinas dentro de cien años]. In Encarnación Alzona
(trans.), Political and historical writings, vol. 7. Manila: National
[PK: serialised in La Solidaridad Sept. 1889 to January 1890]
Then began a new era for the Filipinos; little by little they lost their old traditions, the
mementos of their past; they gave up their writing, their songs, their poems, their laws
in order to learn by rote other doctrines whichy they did not understand, another
morality, another aesthetics [130] different from those inspired by their climate and
their manner of thinking. Then they declined, degrading themselves in their own eyes;
they became ashamed of what was their own; they began to admire and praise
whatever was foreign and incomprehensible; their sprit was dismayed and it
surrendered. 131
#colonial mentality
de los Reyes y Florentino, Isabelo. 1889. El folk-lore Filipino.

Manila: De Chofré.
[PK: In the introduction, de los Reyes emphasises the importances of documenting
Filipino folklore in order to reconstruct prehistory, and to inspire patriotism]
En 25 de Marzo de 1884, La Oceanía Española habló por vez primera del asunto en su
artículo de fondo titulado “Folk-Lore de Filipinas,” invitando á sus lectores á aportar
su contingente y para ello les trazó un programa más ó menos completo. 12
D. José Lacalle y Sanchez [...] autor del etnográfico libro Tierras y Razas [...] con el
pseudónimo de Astoll. [...] [13]:
“[...] Y por eso la ciencia antropológica sabe del hombre filipino tanto como de los
habitantes de la luna. Y la etnología, la etnografía, la lingüística y otros ramos del
saber, solo saben... que no saben nada... Y teniendo en cuenta por otra parte, que el
primitivo pueblo filipino no dejó su pasado escrito en papeles ni monumentos, claro
aparece que solo en la tradición, en las práctica supersticiosas, en las costumbres
primitivas que hoy se conservan por muchos, es posible encontrar los materiales
necesarios á la obra histórica que nos ha de proporcionar el útil conocimeinto de
tiempos y cosas que pasaron. —Cuando la locomotora cruce los campos filipinos y
ponga en comunicación todas las provincias, llegarán á éstos los hábitos y costumbres
de los modernos pueblos y desaparecerán, como van desapareciendo de Manila, los
usos propios de este hermoso pais.—[14] Y si antes que esto ocurra, no se han
recogido los materiales existentes, la historia perderá una de sus hojas mas curiosas;
aquella destinada á las regiones levantadas sobre el Océano.—¿Quién se decidcará á
explotar los tesoros de la tradición?—El Folk-Lore podría encargarse de ello. [...]” 15
[PK: Note that Lacalle y Sanchez is worried about folklore disappearing but assumes
stationary and isolated Filipino populations, not exposed to cosmopolitan influences]
#folk literacy #article: grimm
En Ilocos Norte no se conoce al katatao-an. En cambio tienen á los llamados sangkabagí
que son análogos al primero y creo que katatao-an y sangkabagí indican un mismo anito,
lo cual no será extraño porque en Ilocos Norte hay palabras que no se entienden en
Ilocos Súr, como salaysay, kain, buyubuy etc. Hay en Ilocos Norte curanderos que
pretenden ser amigos de los sangkabagí y dicen que por ningún valor se ganan al
parecio de los espresados anitos. Estos se aparecen á media noche y sus escogidos en las
ventanas ó en los agujeros, desde donde les despiertan con voz apenas perceptible y
les haces embarcarse en una barañgayó nove aerostática, parecida á la de los katatao-an,
en la cual viajan por el espacio á la una de la madrugada dando en media hora la
vuelta al rededor del mundo. El vulgo ilocano dice que los sangkabagí se aparecen á
muchos; pero algunos hombres no aceptan su amistad, porque estos anitos prohiben á
sus amigos usar rosarios [30] oir misa, persignarse y cuplir con sus obligaciones
religiosas de cristiano, confesando los sangkabagí que no pueden acercarse á sus
amigos, si estos practican actos piadosos.
Los sangkabagí se vengan de los que desdeñan su amistad, arrastrándoles por el suelo
cuando están dormidos ó llevándoles á otros lugares ó sacándoles el hígado para llenar
el hueco con yerbas. Y cuéntase que los sangkabagí tienen una vista tan perpicaz, que
pueden ver las entrañas de los hombres vivos, al través de la piel. Y otras veces hace
que el anay (tornes monoceros) ó el gorgojo destruyan las ropas, el palay, el maiz y semillas
de la persona que les haya causado algún disgusto. En cambio, entregan á sus amigos
mas estimados, un libro (llamado) de la compañia [fn: Esta preocupación indudablemente
fué añadida por los españoles á las puramente ilocanas. Hay una conseja, según la
cual los Jesuitas poseen libritos milagrosos] y este libro les conducirá con inconcebible
(sic) prontitud á donde quieran aunque sea á lugares muy lejanos, con solo señalar el
sitio á donde deseen trasladarse. 31
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to transport possessor to desired destination
#urasyun
Los ilocanos tienen curanderos supersticiosos, denominados maibangbangon, mango-odon
y amigos de los sangkabagí ; á los llamados mannuma (tauak en tagalo) que dicen haber
nacido en un mismo día que una culebra y por esta sola circunstancia son respetados
y temidso por los reptiles y tienen poder para curar por medio de piedras milagrosas
las mordeduras de las culebras y son obedecidos cuano llaman con un silbido á todos
los reptiles del lugar donde ocurra la desgracia; y además, nosotros los ilocanos
tenemos á los adivinos llamados mamadlés ómannilao. [...] [50]
Hay otras muchas maneras de avergiguar quién es el ladron de las cosas perdidas. Se
escriben separadamente los nombres de los sospechosos en varios papelitos. Estos se
ponen en una olla de agua hirviente; se enciended una vela bendita y se rezan unos
credos. Al final de estas ceremonias, se examinan los papelitos, en los cuales
desaparecerán los nombres escritos, except el del ladron. [fn: Los ilocanos á la llegada
de los primeros españoles tenían escritura propia.]51
#urasyun
XVIII
Crímenes folk-lorísticos.—Anting-anting
Asi se llama en Fiipinas el amuleto, que ora nos libra de peligros, ora nos dá poderes
maravillosos. Es propio de los bandidos, los cuales se sirven de él de buena fé ó acaso
para rodearse de prestígio ante la gente menuda, quien por el anting-anting les teme
casi tanto como á seres sobrenaturales. Hay muchas clases de amuletos: unos
consisten en pieles [67] d fetos humanos, con que los bandidos se cubren el pecho,
creyéndose asi invulnerables; otros son libritos impresos ó manuscritos como p. ej. la
Oración del Testamento que fué hallado en el Santo Sepulcro de N. S. J., de la que un
malhechor me propricionó una copia manuscrita.
Mas adelante hablaremos de otras clases de anting-anging; y aqui nos limitaremos á
copiar alunos párrafos de una correspondencia de Vigan (Ilocos Sur) fechada en 19 de
Julio de 1885 y publicada en La Oceania Espannola, y cumplimos con ello nuestro deber
de folk-lorista, de mentar las relaciones de ciertas causas criminales con el Folk-Lore.
Dice la carta:
<<Hace algún tiempo que una cuadrilla de gente non sancta viene merodeando por
estos alrededores y en algunos pueblos, ya asaltando algunas casas que se hallan en
despoblado, ó á algunos pobres viandantes ó carretoneros que se arriesgan á seguir su
camino de noche; pero de pocos dias á esta parte se han propuesto llmara la
atencioón con algunas fechorias más notables, cuando una muerte en Magsingal y
otro en Sta. María.
Dos veces salió la Guardia civil á perseguirles en los sitios donde se decía que han
sentado sus reales; pero no ha logrado verles el bulto.
Esta partida está capitaneada por un tal Estéban Sales, de quien se cuentan por estos
naturales tantas hazañas bandoléricas, gracias á su anting-anting. Pero el mártes á
media noche unos cuanto s hombres que se cree pertenecían á esta partida, se
apostaron cerca de un puente en el pueblo de Santa María, e intentaron apoderarse
de una cantidad bas- [68]tante considerable que el pueblo de Sta. Lucâ remitâ á esta
cabecera, y eran más de dos mil pesos recaudados por el primer tercio de cédula
personal é impuesto provincial; pero gracias á una precaución del conductor que
pidió en Candon tres guardias para escoltar el carreton en que iba el caudal, no
lograron su objeto, antes bien cayó en manos de los guardias el que hacía de jefe
Fabian Ramos escapado de la cárcel, y los demaás se dieron á precipitada fuga.
Uno de los guardias fué herido en una mano al querer arrebatar un puñal que el
malhechor llevaba, y éste á su vez quedó herido en una oreja. Dicen que llevaba
puesta una cota hecha con pequeñas piezas cuadrilongas de carey y asta de carabao,
unidas por medio de anillitas de alambre, y efectivamente, era un recurso defensivo
que podía librarle de unos cuantos machetazos. Se encontraron también en él dos
objetos, que según persona que los vió, parecian un garbanzo y una abichuela, y eran
anting-anting, con los cuales se creîa invulnerable. De todos modos, es una parehensión
importante.
Parece ser que esas preocupaciones son muchas veces la causa de que esos
desgraciados se entreguen á una vida de peligros, pues creyendo poseer esos dones
maravillosos, se engrien y buscan ocasiones de probar con esas aventuras que son
hombres valerosos.>> 69
#chapter 7: bulto #article: vocabulary: bulto #antinganting #urasyun
Una campana de la iglesia de San Francisco de Manila fué hallada flotando en la
bahia de esta ciudad y todas las órdenes religiosas hicieron grandes exfuerzos para
sacarla á tierra: pero no lo consiguieron por su gran peso á pesar de su pequeñez y
sólo cuando fueron los PP. Menores se dejó llevar con admirable facilidad. Segun la
conseja, esta campana suena, sin tocarla. 72
[A bell of the church of San Francisco de Manila was found floating in the bay of this
city and all the religious orders to great pains to bring it to land, but despite its small
size, the failed to do so due to its great weight, and only when the clergymen of San
Francisco had left would it allow itself to be carried with surprising ease. They say that
this bell sounds without being rung. ]
Si la última letra de un verso es vocal, todos los demás de la misma estrofa deben
terminar en igual letra, advirtiendo que los filipinos suelen confundir la O con la U, y
la E con la I, lo cual obedece á que los dialectos filipinos tenían sólo tres vocales en la
época de la Conquista, y en su antiquísimo alfabeto había una letra que representaba
la E y la I indistintamente, porque entre estas letras no existía diferencia alguna y se
usaban según los gustos de los que hablaban, si eran de poblado ó de campo.
También había un carácter que del mismo modo represetaba la O que la U. 177
#phonotactics
Los Dios-Dios é Diosdiosan, que tambi´n se llaman así, usan amuletos, piedras
maravillosas, yerbas amatorias, y sería cuento de nunca acabar citarlos uno por uno.
Los bandidos sacan también buen partído de la credulidad de los ignorantes,
haciéndose creer invulnerables, gracias á unos talismanes que llevan.
No creo que estos nueovs pseudo-profetas seban llamarse babailans ó katalonans, porque
no son tales. Los que lo fueron, sólo existieron en la época de la conquista y antes de
ella.
Aquellos representaban una verdadera religión con sus dogmas sobre los Dioses, el
alma y otros puntos teológicos ó teogónicos; todos desempeñaban su papel de buena
fé.
Los modernso son unos pillos, que viven y gozan á costa de la ignorancia y credulidad
de los que les rodean; carecen de verdadera religión; meclan las ideas cristianas con
las prácticas y preocupaciones más absurdas de la idolatría, y opino que ni ellos
mismos creen en lo que dicen, porque saben que todos es invención suya.
Los mismos pseudo-profetas ignoran los nombres tradictionales de babailan y katalonan.
Parece ser que un períodico de Iloilo, habiendo leido que los antiguos sacerdotes
visayas se llamban babailanes, fué el primero en aplicar esto nombre á los seguaces de
Bohaue. 266
#chapter 4 #chapter 8 #antinganting
Monografia de Malabon
[282]
[...]
Según datos estadísticos oficiales inéditos que tengo á la vista, el total de niños que
existen en este pueblo, se calcula en 4118 de los cuales 400 saben leer; 450 leer y
escribir, no saben leer ni escribir 3268: hablan el castellano 4 solamente. La
proporción es dolorosa. 291 [PK: Approx 21 percent illiterate in Malabon in 1889]
#folk literacy
Rizal, José. [1890] 1972. On the idolence of the Filipinos [Sobre
la indolencia de los filipinos]. In Encarnación Alzona (trans.),
Political and historical writings, vol. 7. Manila: National
[PK: Published in La Solidaridad, 1890]
#article: rizal
Man is not a brute, he is not a machine. His aim is not merely to produce despite the
claim of some white Christians who wish to make of the colored Christian a kind of
motive power somewhat more intelligent and less costly than steam. His object is to
seek happiness for himself and his fellow men by gollowing the road towards progress
and perfection. 231
In the negotiations for peace between the survivors of Magellan’s expedition and the
chiefs of Paragua after the death of the servant-interpreter Henry, “they availed
themselves of the services of a Moro who had been captured in the island of the King
of Luzón who understood some Castilian,” (Martín Méndez, doc. cit.). 236
Man works for a purpose; remove the purpose and you reduce him to inaction. The
most industrious man in the world will fold his arms the moment he learns that it is
folloy to be so, that his work will be the cause of his trouble, that because of ti he will
be the object of vexations at thome and the greed of the pirates from outside. It seems
that these thought never crossed the minds of those who cry out against the indolence
of the Filipinos. 243
We say the same about gambling. The word sugal (from the Spanish jugar, to gamble),
like kumpisal (confesar, to confess to a priest) indicates that gambling was unknown in the
Philippines before the Spaniards, the Tagalog word laró (from the Spanish barajar)
proves that the introduction of playing-cards was not due to the Chinese, who also
have a kind of playing-cards, because if it were so, it would have taken the Chinese
name. What more? The words tayá (tallar, to bet), paris-paris (Spanish pares, pairs of
cards), politana (napolitana, a winning combination of cards), sapote (to stack the cards),
Kapote (to slam), monte (a card game) etc., all prove the foreign origin of this terrible
plant which only produces vice and has found in the character of the Indio a suibalbe
soil, fertilized by circumstances. 252
We have observed that the peoples who believe most in miracles are the laziest, just as
spoiled children are the most ill-bred. Whether they believe in miracles to lull their
laziness or they are lazy because they believe in miracles, we cannot say; but the fact is
that the Filipinos were much less lazy before the word miracle was introduced into their
language. 253
#whorf
[fn. Fray Miguel Lucio Bustamente, Si Tandang Basiong Macuntat, 1885, a pamphlet
written in Tagalog against educating the Filipinos]
In addition to this, love of peace and the horror many have of accepting the few
administrative posts that fall to the lot of the Filipinos on account of the troubles and
annoyances they bring them, lead to the appointment of the most stupid and
incompetent men to municipal posts—officials who submit to everything, who endure
all the caprices and exactions of the curates and their superiors. And with imbecility in
the lower echelons, and ignorance and giddiness in the upper, with the frequent
changes and endless apprenticeships, with great fear and numerous administrative
obstacles, with a voiceless people that have neither initiative nor cohesian, with
government employees, who nearly all strive to amass a fortune and return to their
country, with peopel who exist with great difficulty from birth, to create prosperity, to
develop agriculture and industry, to establish enterprises and associations, which
prosper with difficulty even in free and well-organised countries, cannot be expect to
happen in the Philippines. 263
Rizal, José. [1893] 1961. Nueva ortografía del lenguaje Tagalog.

In Elmer Wolfenden (ed.). A re-statment of Tagalog grammar.
Manila: Summer Institute of Linguistics and Institute of
National Language.
#article: rizal
[Fn: Obra escrita en Dapitan en 1893 y publicada en el No. 11. correspondiente al 13
de Diciembre de 1901, y sucesivos, de la revista hebdomadaria Escolar “La Albora”.
There are indications that the wordinf of the title could have been ‘Nueva Ortografía
de la Lengua Tagala’.]
[PK: sketch grammar with multiple comparisons with Spanish, English, Latin and
German. Working with European categories. New categories were not introduced
until Bloomfield. Some of his example comparisons demonstrate a poor analysis of
European languages, eg, failing to recognise the French du as a suppletive
combination of de and le.He identifies allophones]
Rizal, José. [n.d.] 1972. The people of the Indian archipelago. In

Encarnación Alzona (trans.), Political and historical writings, vol.
7. Manila: National Historical Institute. 364-371
[Fn: This was first published ina Manila weekly called The Independent on 4 May 1918,
pp. 20, 21. It is apparently a rough draft or notes taken by Rizal from the books cited
by him. In his correspondence with Ferdinand Blumentritt, Rizal mentioned he was
studying the origins of the Malay race and was buying books on the subject]
To give a gneral survey of the ethnogrpahy of the Malay peoples is in more ways than
one a difficult task. Until now little that is accurate has been found about the
relationship between the peoples of the Indian archipelago. Hardly do we know by
name many of the peoples that inhabit it, especially those of the interior of the larger
and smaller islands, little visited by Europeans. Finally, the old as well as the new
traffic between the peoples of the coast has produced such varied mixtures that easily
disconcerts the judgment concerning their ethnographic relations, whether with
reference to the physical or to the language, more so when at the same time are seen
great difference in culture within the same tribe. 364
#chapter 1
Rizal, José. [n.d.] 1972. Notes on Melanesia, Malaysia and
Polynesia. In Encarnación Alzona (trans.), Political and historical
writings, vol. 7. Manila: National Historical Institute. 364-371
Everywhere can be found the phenomenon of a greater number of common words
among peoples who live close to each other than among those which are distantly
separated whether they are related or only come in contact with one another in their
shifting commerce. At any rate, it should not be deduced from this any reason against
their relationship through a common origin. But the objection to the point of view of
Crawford is that he relies exlcusively on linguistic reasons, without himself being a
linguist. It is a universally admitted truth, and often expressed by philologists in
Germany at least, that it is not enough to forma judgment on the relationship of
languages by the mere inventory of words that oud alike or in a way are similar
together with some knowledge of the grammatcial construction of the same. For this it
is necessary befhorehand to ahve an exact analysis of phonetics and of all the material
that forms the language from the grammatical and etymological point of view. 377
#article: rizal
Retana, Wenceslao Emilio. 1894. Supersticiones de los indios

filipinos: un libro de aniterías Madrid: Imprenta de la Viuda de
M. Minuesa de los Ríos.
Á combatir las aniterías, palabra que, en los más de los casos, equivale á brujerías. Á
combatir las aniterías han ido enderezados bastantes escritos de frailes celosos del
prestigio de nuestra Religión, á par que amantes del bien-estar de aquellos naturales;
por-[xviii] que éstos, por su sencillez, su credulidad, sus anchas tragaderas y, sobre
todo, su apego á la tradición, han conservado, durante muchos años, de sus antiguas
barbaries ciertas reminiscencias, á modo de levadura; y [xix] esta es la fecha en que
todovía creen en brujos, duendes, viejos fantásticos, etc., no todos, claro está, pero sí
una buena parte, á pesar del incessante desvelo de los religiosos, que uno y otro día les
predican; los cuales brujos, duendes, viejos, etc., no son sino, como queda indicado,
derivaciones más ó menos bastardeadas de los antiguos anitos y ficciones. xx
Es muy ordinario en los indios el traer consigo varias cosas para consequir efectos
marabi-[xxvi]llosos. Vg. zedulas escriptos, Oraciones, viziadas ó misturadas con
palabras ordenadas á su mal intento, yervas, raizes, cascaras, pelos, pellejos, hueso
piedras, &c. Para efecto de no poder ser vencidos de no poder ser muertos, ó cogidos
de la justicia, de consequir riquezas, mugeres y otras cosas. Son tambien moy in-
[xxxvii]clinados acreer [sic] agueros, y dias de aciago, sobre que suelen tener varios
quadernos moescritos, que se les debian quemar. xxxviii
Es de [xli] advertir, sin embargo, que en cierto modo existen precedentes; pero á fe que
tales precedentes no creo que tengan la menor relación con los LIBROS DE
ANITERÍAS filipinos. Ello es que allá por el siglo XVI, aquí en España se publicaron
algunos devocionarios cuyas oraciones – por hallarse un tanto adulteradas, ó mejor,
inficionadas de un cierto espíritu supersticioso – tendrían alguna analogía con las que
se contienen en los antin-antines, si de estos á aquellos devocionarios no mediara la
diferencia que existe entre un fanatismo mal entendido y una superstición derivada de
bárbaras reminiscencias idolátricas. Los Tribunales competentes persiguieron los
devocionarios, y estos son hoy de extraorinaria rareza; se les considera como joyas de
inestimable valor bibliográfico. En cunato á los antin-antines de Filipinas, aparte de que
ni en el fondo ni en la forma tienen seme-[xlii]janza, no es creíble que sean un remedo
bastardeado de los devocionarios aludidos: primero, porque de éstos tal vez no fuese
ninguno á las antiguas Islas del Poniente; y segundo, porque basta hojear un anting-
anting para comprender que éstos son cosa del exclusivo ingenio de los indios: aquellos
naturales á raiz de la Conquista, cuando tenían la mitad de la conciencia cristiana y la
otra mitad, á ratos por lo menos, pendiente de la spreocupaciones heredadas,
quisieron aprovechar lo mejor de unas y otras creencias religiosas, y de tal mescolanza
provineiron los primeros libros: rezar á San Agustin, á San Pablo, etc., etc., pensarían,
es cosa útil y de gran provecho; pero al propio tiempo no estará de más rezar al
caimán, á cualquier anito... por lo que pueda ocurrir. La forma en que vemos escrita
la palabra Jesucristo : Xpto, hoy de todo punto en desuso, es entre otras buena prueba
de que el LIBRO que publico es una copia de otro más viejo, el que á su vez sería
copia también... Esta serie de copias ha traído á la [xliii] larga una serie progresiva de
equivocaciones, y de aquí el latín bárbaro, el castellano bárbero y aun el mismo
pangasinán adulterado que resplandece en el maravilloso amuleto. Creo que las cifras
cabalisticas, signos, y demás garabatos que ilustran el texto no significan nada; ni
siquiera debemos considerarlos como remedo del antiguo abracadabra español; á mi
juicio los primitivos autores de esta suerte de libros pusieron tales ilustraciones para
deslumbrar á los legos en la materia, ó quizás para engañarles, que todo puede ser, y
es, en efecto, pues así el amuleto sirve para los verdaderamente supersticiosos, como
para los truhanes que, á la manera que algunos mediquillos, explotan la buena fe de
los indios del montón. De sobra comprenderán los curanderos que sus oraciones no
hace milagros; mas por lo que respecta á los sistemáticamente crédulos, ¡éstos si que
conceden virtudes estupendas á cualquier anting-anting! Vaya en ejemplo. Érase un
mestizo, cao de Infantería, que dueño de un amuleto [xliv] escrito, juraba y perjuraba
que ninguna bala le penetraba en el cuerpo. Algún oficial lo supo y trató de disuadirle;
pero el cabo, terne que terne, en cuanto tuvo ocasión se disparó un tiro de fusil en una
de sus propias pantorrillas,... ¡y el pobre quedó cojo! Pues, cofo y todo, á pesar de
haberse pasado meses enteros sufriendo horriblemente, aun seguía jurando y
perjurando que, si se hizo daño, fue porque no había rezado la oración con el debido
fervor... xlv
El original se halla escrito en papel azul finísimo, del llamdo comercial; la letra es
bastarda; parece ser trabajo hecho entre los años 1845 y 1855. Consta de 52 hojas de
texto más 10 en blanco. Está bastante manoseado. La letra varía de tamaño, así como
varía el número de lineas de las páginas. Yo doy la copia á plana y renglón; y el tamaño
de las hojas, es el mismo que tienen las cuadrículas que limitan las reproducciones por
mí hechas con el mayor esmero. xlvi
Augustinian Recollects, records, 1898

Fr Felix Guillen de San Jose Agustino Recoleto Cura Parroco de Loon certifio:
Que en el Archivo de este Ministerio existe un Libro Titulado de "Cosas Notables" en
cuya primera foya se encuentra su autorizacion en la forma siguinte:
Sirva este libro que consta de los fojas pr escribir en el por esta banda las cosas
notables y sucesos que llaman la [...]
Terminada ya esta grandiosa obra y siendo que este pueblo [Loon] no tenia Escuelas
en donde se pudiese dar á los niños de ambos sexos una instruccion religiosa moral y
politica cualera conveniente y se ncesitaba principio la constuccion de las dos
hermosas Escuelas que hoy se admiran á los dos lados de la plaza delante de la Igelsia,
todas ellas de piedra con bonitos arcos en la planta y en en [sic] planta superior
cuisten[?] los niños y niñas á sus respectivas Escuelas con suma holguera por les muy
espaciosas. 3
Todo el furor satánico que alentaba al fanatismo de los ciegos sectatarios de Mahoma
no era suficiente para apagar el divino fuego que de ardi en el corazon de estos
Religiosos que no temian esponer sus vidas para salvar la temporal y eterna de sus
nuevos feligreses y queridos boholanos. 5
#funny
All the satanic fury that spurred the fanaticism of the blind sectarians of Mohammed
was not enough to snuff out the holy fire that burned in the hearts of these clergymen
who feared not the expungement of their own lives to save the temporal and eternal
lives of their new parishioners and beloved Boholanos. (Felix Guillen 1898)
1900–1909
Sawyer, Frederic H. 1900. The Inhabitants of the Philippines.
London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company.
In Bohol, Leyte, and Samar there are no heathen savages.
It may be said that the heathen in these islands would have died out before now but
that they are reinforced continually by remontados, or fugitives from justice, also by
people whose inclination for a savage life, or whose love of rapine renders the
humdrum life of their village insupportable to them. 296
#history of bohol #definition: indigenous #chapter 1 [PK: add footnote to the effect
that it is uncertain whether sawyer is referring to Bohol, Leyte and Samar or the
Philippines at large]
RPC 1900 [1900], vol. 1.

It is evident that the fitness of any people to maintain a popular form of government
must be closely dependent upon the prevalence of knowledge and enlightenment
among the mases. It is, therefore, of great importance that a clear understanding of
the state of educational workin in the Philippines should be reached, especially as
there is much popular misapprehension on this subject. 17
It is further and persistently charged that the instruction in Spanish was in very many
cases purely imaginary, because the local friars, who were formerly ex officio school
inspectors, not only prohibited it, but took active measures to enforce their dictum.
This was especially true in [31] those towns where, on account of their remote
situation, the provincial governor rarely intervened. We have been informed that in
such regions even adults who had by one means or another acquired some knowledge
of Spanish found it to their interest to confine themselves to the use of their native
dialect. 32
It is further true that a small number have learned to read and write Spanish
mechanically, with little or no knowledge of the words which they form or pronounce.
33
#folk literacy
The young Filipinos display a considerable aptitude for learning new tongues, and it is
believed that if this policy is followed out, English can within a short time be made the
official language of the archipelago. The commission strongly recommend that it be
done. 34
Among the many preposterous statements which have appeared concerning the
Philippines, perhaps the most ridiculous is that the percentage of illiteracy among the
civilized natives is lower than among the inhabitants of Massachussetts. 37
#folk literacy
Instruction in the English language should be introduced as speedily as practicable
into the primary schools. 41
To be eligible to the office of justice of the peace it is necessary that the person be for
two years at least preceding the election a resident of the town; that he be more than
23 years old; that he know how to speak, read, and write the Spanish language; that
he possess one or two academic titles; [etc] […] 59
In the Visayan Islands […] no civil government was established by the Spaniards […]
64
The system [of local governance?] will necessitate a small body of American officials
of great ability and integrity, and of much patience and tact in dealing with other
races; and (what will be still more difficult to find at the outset) they should know the
country, have experience in dealing with the natives, and speak in addition to Spanish
the language of the locality over which their jurisdiction extends. 98
Aguinaldo’s influence over the Tagalogs might, indeed, have been utilized had he not
made war upon their liberators; 101
First, it is impossible, even approximately, to fix a time for the withdrawal of
American sovereignty over the archipelago, as no one can foresee when the diverse
peoples of the Philippine Islands may be molded together into a nationality capable of
exercising all the functions of independent self-government. 103
With a view to facilitating the discharge of their official duties as well as to promoting
mutual understanding, sympathy, and good feeling between Americans and Filipinos,
the commission holds it essential that the American members of the regular Philippine
civil service should be required to learn the language of the people (Tagalog, Ilocano,
Visayan, Vicol, etc.) among whom they live, and that facility in the use of such
vernacular be a condition of all promotion. This requirement should be extended to
the town and county commissioners or supervisors if they are not as a class brought
under the provisions of the civil-service regulations. The more an American official
has to do with natives the greater the need and the more imperative the duty of
learning their language. By no other means can the two peoples be so speedily
brought to understand and appreciate one another. Of course this recommendation is
not inconsistent with another recommendation made by the commision—i.e., that
English should be taught in the schools of the archipelago to the utmost extent
feasible. 114
The only railroad in the Philippines is the line from Manila to Dagupan, a distance of
about 120 miles. 127
#chapter 7
Many Visayans of this island [Panay] are opposed to the Tagalogs, however, and it is
not believed that the latter can make a formidable resistance. In Samar, Leyte, and
Masbate the Tagalog invaders are numerically few and are disliked by the natives of
thse islands, whom they have oppressed. We were assured that 200 men would suffice
to restore order in Mindoro. Bohol was asking for troups. 179
They [the civil government of Negros] believed themselves capable of managing their
own affairs, but asked for a battalian of troops to hold in check the Babaylanes, a half-
religious, half-anarchistic sect inhabiting the central mountain range, who for a
number of years have plun-[179]dered and burned the plantations of the Spaniards.
180
[PK: what follows is an example of how the civil government failed to perform and
the Americans had to take over. The lesson is held up as applicable to other parts of
the country. All this under ‘The Lesson Taught by Negros’.]
In spite of the general use of the Spanish language by the educated classes and the
considerable similarity of economic and social conditions prevalent in Luzon and the
Visayan Islands, the masses of the people are without a common speech and they lack
the sentiment of nationality. The Filipinos are not a nation, but a variegated
assemblage of different tribes and peoples, and their loyalty is still of the tribal type.
182
ART. 93. The use of the languages spoken in the Philippines is optional. It can only
be regulated by the law, and solely as to the acts of public authority and judicial
affairs. For the purpose of thse acts shall be used at present the Castillian language.
200
RPC 1900 [1900], vol. 2.

As for the island of Samar, you might send four or five. I have nothing to do with it,
but, as for the islands of Leyte and Bohol, I should advise that no gunboat be sent, for
the people would immediately take to the mountains, and a great many would die.
They have nothing to eat; they are dying of hunger, and I wish to take right down
there and sell at the regular rate, on my own account, an amount of rice. I would like
a pass for this purpose from General Otis, so that if a gunboat should overtake the
ship I was in I could continue on by showing my pass, and I could also use it to come
back. 150
In saying culture I do not mean the simple knowledge to read and write, for there are
perhaps 75 per cent of the population of the Philippines who know how to read and
write mechanically, that is, they know how to make the letters only, without knowing
how to read. They read, they make letters to write and to read, but only mechanically
they can do it; they don’t understand the material that they are reading. The
explanation of this is to be found in the existence of the two parties when the question
arose about the teaching of Spanish. The party of friars was headed by Gianca—and
if a more eloquent witness is desired, one of them by the name of Miguel Lucio, a
Franciscan friar, wrote a book in Tagalo, in which he maintained that it would not be
advisable for the Filipinos to understand Spanish. 261
#literacy #article: broome [see also Hau and Tinto 2003] #folk literacy
By such historic testimony it can be explained why instruction was not more diffused
in the Philippines. Now for actual ocurrences: The school-teachers who instruct their
pupils well and in Spanish are all enemies of the priests and friars. 261
In case a school-teacher in the province wished to teach his scholars Spanish, and to
teach them well, the parish priest immediately became his enemy; he would denounce
him to the governor as a filibusterer or an enemy to the government; and as the
Spanish preist was the ruler of the governor one word from him was enough to make
it necessary for the schoolmaster to leave. And as the priest was the local inspector of
the schoolmaster and the school he could do as he liked with the schoolmaster. I do
not say that all the schoolmasters are incompetent, but I will say that all of them do
not speak Spanish, and some of them but very little, and the friars do not wish them to
teach it; and, in spite of all the acts and provisions that have been made for the
teaching of Spanish, as a matter of fact it is not taught, because the friars are the ones
in power. 262
#chapter 1
The opossition [to the diffusion of Spanish] was by the party I have spoken of before,
headed by Father Guincia. I have the proofs of this, one of which is the speeches
made by the party headed by Father Guincia, and another proof is the book written
by a priest, Miguel Lucio. Now I will go on and give you some concrete examples.
The principles of the opposition of the friars are as follows: In the first place, the friar
being the inspector of local instucution, a single word from him was sufficient motive
for the governor to cause a schoolmaster to lose his position. It is evident that when
the matter of instruction is in the hands of the priests they can do as they like, and
when they were oppposed to the speaking of Spanish, Spanish was not taught. I have
known of cases in which the schoolmaster, because he wished to do his duty, has been
put in jail. 262
Q. Did they teach Latin and Greek?—Yes, sir. 279
In the island of Bohol we only run to Ubay. That is a cattle port, and has been
supplying the meat to the troops lately. Those are all the ports that we have open at
the present moment. 292
Q. Would each one of these islands have to have a government of its own?—A. All
except possibly Bohol and Masbate, which might be attached to one of the other
Visayan Islands, although Masbate is nearer to Luzon than it is to, say, Cebu or
Panay. […] Bohol is rather a poor island. 358
Q. Do they speak Spanish?—A. A certain number speak Spanish in all of the
important towns. In Iloiolo, Cebu, and Manila, for instance, the majority of the
population speaks Spanish, most of them very poorly and incorrectly. When you go
out into the provinces and the smaller towns you will not find more than trhee or four
or half a dozen who speak Spanish, sometimes not that many. 358
#chapter 9
Q. Do you think that the difference in dialects would cause difficulty in administering
the government?—A. No, sir; I do not think so. If we will use Spanish for a time as the
official language, later substituting English as the official language, all papers can be
translated into the language of the province or locality to which they are sent. 358
There was a serious event occurred here in the time of General Weyler, when the
priest wished a schoolmistress to come to church with the children; he did not allow
her to answer him in Spanish, but in Tagalog. I know this schoolmistress, and cases of
this nature have existed in all the Philippines. 406
#chapter 1
Q. Were the natives in the small towns who were able to speak Spanish ever punished
or threatened for using that instead of their native language? —A. Yes, sir; they were.
They ridiculed the native when he spoke Spanish, and if the Filipino continued
speaking Spanish [406] and showed that he had a little civilization, in spite of their
ridicule—and ridicule is a most serious thing to a Filipino—they persecuted him even
to death. 407
#chapter 1
On account of the education in fanaticism which they have received, they regard life
as a transitory state, and they are indifferent to death. 411
[at San Juan de Letran:]
First term , one year: Spanish and Latin grammar, Christian doctrine, sacred history.
Second term, one year: Spanish and Latin grammar (second course), instruction in
general geogrpahy [etc]
Third term, one year: Latin analysis and translation, rudiments of the Greek
language, and Christian morality [etc]
[PK: no more latin in following years]
459
RPC 1900, vol. 3, 403

‘In place of F [the Filipinos] used a P and thus they wrote fuego instead of puego (sic).
Y took the place of LL, and they said Yuvia instead of Lluvia. They used a similar
method in writing other words, supplying the sounds for which they had no characters
with similar sounds, a defect which they retain until to-day, for a similar misuse of
consonants is to be heard amongst the Indians’ (RPC 1900, vol. 3, 403).
#phonotactics
RPC 1901, vol. 3.

The interior of the island is mountainous. The coasts are low and sandy, and as a
general rule do not offer security to ships, although there are some good ports or bays,
which will not, however admit ships of much draft. 95
Visaya is spoken, although there are so many local modifications that it has been
called Boholano or Bohol-Visayan. 95
#chapter 3
The soil is not very fertile, but with good care produces considerable quantites of rice,
coffee, [etc] 96
The towns of the interior communicate with one another by means of paths. All of the
others are united by cart roads suitable for carriages. 96
During low tide one can pass on foot from one island to the other in the southeastern
part of the channel. [ie Panglao to mainland] 96
The coast is unprotected, [96] and has no place where boats may anchor. 97
General Origin of the Indians
What were they, and whence did they originate? A certain combination of
relationship and affinity in language, usages, and customs, as well as in physiognomy,
leads to the belief that they were derived from the Malayan race, which is that of the
Indian native to the islands situated between Ceylon and this archipelago. 336
It is, indeed, a cause of no small wonder to find in these regions so many people with
different languages that the same tongue is hardly spoken on two islands. In Luzon
each province has its special dialect, which is not understood except by its inhabitants.
The Tagalogs and Pampangos speak different tongues. The Pangasinans, Ilocanos,
and Cagayans have in their respective territories their special languages. The people
of Camarines are distinct from all the others. The Visayans, although almost all of
them speak one language, nevertheless vary it so much in the different provinces that
it seems like a distinct tongue in each. The native of Bohol does not pronounce certain
letters. The native of Cebu has his special way of speaking, which is distinct from that
of the native of Samar and Leyte, whose dialect is richer, more complicated, and has a
greater abundance of words, which are, furthermore, pronounced more rapidly than
in the regions above referred to; and this without mentioning the island of Mindanao,
where, on account of words derived from the Moro dialect, the difference is perhaps
greater than in any other island. 336
On the other hand, Fr. M. Zuñiga defended on various grounds [fn], and, singularly
enough, on account of the agreement between the dialects, the theory that these
Indians came from tropical America. Other authors find the immediate origin of all or
some of the Philippine peoples in different islands or lands of Oceania. 337
It seems to be clear, when one attempts to determine the origin of the races, that the
tribe or nation from which the Tagalogs came enjoyed from the beginning, or at the
time of establishing itself in the archipelago, a higher degree of culture than the other
Philippine peoples which did not have a system of writing or, at all events, had a more
rudimentary one, and accepted the Tagalog, abandoning their own, which would not
have occurred had not the latter been more useful. 400
#definition: indigenous #article: virgin birth
As for the ancient characters, Father Totanez wrote in 1745 that “It is rare to find an
Indian who knows how to read them, and extremely rare that one knows how to write
them.” 404
#chapter 1
The Malay may have been at first a mixture of Sanskrit and of the language or dialect
of the Samangos, Dayacos, and other blacks of the mountains of Malacca, which
mixture may have been brought about after the immigration of the Indians [ie of
India] to Java and Sumatra, for the latter island is close to the former, and is
encountered before reaching Java when one comes from India. Said immigration,
according to Javanese annals, took place seventy-eight years B.S. 407
#article: virgin birth
It has been shown then that, with the exception of the Negrito, the primary languge of
the Philippine Archipelago was but one, and that derived from the Malay. 411
This conclusion is deduced from the ancient alphabets, the common roots, and the
analogy in grammatical construction, and is in perfect accord with the conclusion
reached in the chapter on ethnogeny.
As these languages are closely related to the Malay which is spoken from Madagascar
and Aden throughout Malaysia to the confines of the Indian Ocean, the Philippine
peoples also, with the exception of the Negritos, were derived in great measure at a
more or less remote time from the Malayan stem. 412
RPC 1901 [1901] [Report of the United States Philippine

Commission to the Secretary of War for the period from
December 1, 1900, to October 15, 1901. Division of Insular
affairs, War Department, December, 1901.]
These islands have just suffered from an epidemic of rinderpest, which in some
provinces has destroyed more than 90 per cent of the cattle, reducing former cattle
owners to poverty and preventing agriculturists from tilling the soil. In several
provinces actual starvation has resulted and the insular government has been
compelled to inaugurate public works or to directly contribute food in order to succor
the hungry. 56
RPC 1900–1903 [1904]. [Reports of the Philippine Commision,

the civil governor and the heads of executive departments of
the civil government of the Philippine Islands: 1900–1903.
1904. Washington: Bureau of Insular Affairs, War
Department.]
Report of the civil governor, 1902
Taft, 10 November 1902: As this report has not yet been forwarded, it seems proper
to me to add a short statement concerning a movement [Aglipayan] that may have an
important bearing upon future conditions, and which may, perhaps, add much to the
labor of maintaining peace and order in the archipelago. 319
#aglipay
Report of the civil governor, 1903
Whatever may happen during the first few months of the coming of the American
bishops, it is certain that the spirit of the American Catholic church is so different
from that of the Spanish church from a political standpoint, that the inflence of the
Spanish friars will gradually wane and that of the American bishops become
controlling. The purchase of the friars’ land, the division of the proceeds, the
application of a large part thereof for the benefit of the Philippine church, the
establishment of the American hierarchy here, and the gradual withdrawal of the
Spanish friars, all will bring about what we so much desire—the Americanizing of the
Roman Catholic church in the Philippines. 504
#aglipay
Kayme, Sargent. 1901. Anting-anting stories: And other strange

tales of the Filipinos. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company.
#antinganting #urasyun
[PK: In the Michigan Library version, the word ‘pseud.’ is handwritten next to
Sargent Kayme’s name. The stories are fictional and not apparently derived in any
way from regional folklore. The introduction by ‘The Editor’ makes this claim: “That
the truly remarkable stories written by Sargent Kayme do not exaggerate the realities
of this strange life can be easily seen by any one who has read the letters from press
correspondents, our soldiers, or the more formal books of travel.” (pvi). It’s a curious
and unapologetically racist collection of stories in which white people, especially
Americans, triumph in the face of cruel, superstitious and hysterical savages]
Strangest, perhaps, of all these possibilities for fiction is the anting-anting, at once a
mysterious power to protect its possessor and the outward symbol of the protection.
No more curious fetich can be found in the history of folk-lore. A button, a coin, a bit
of paper with unintelligible words scribbled upon it, a bone, a stone, a garment,
anything, almost—often a thing of no intrinsic value—its owner has been known to
walk up to the muzzle of a loaded musket or rush upon the point of a bayonet with a
confidence so sublime as to silence ridicule and to command admiration if not respect.
vi
The anting-anting of Captain Von Tollig
[PK: Summary: Tagalog and American forces are at war on an island. Dead Tagalog
soldiers are lined up outside the church awaiting burial in the morning. At night a
Tagalog soldier approaches the bodies and rifles through the clothing of one of them
and removes an object. He is discovered, chased and apprehended. The following day
he is brought before Captain Von Tollig, searched and the object is found – “a little
leather-bound book not more than two inches square” with words in an unfamiliar
language. The captain finds a well educated lieutenant to try to translate the book
suspecting that it may have contained messages from one enemy leader to another.
The lieutenant says that he thinks the paper is too old to be dispatches and that the
words seem to be “bad Latin”. He takes it away to study it. In the meantime the thief
explains that the book is a powerful anting-anting that failed to protect its owner
because the Americans attacked on the night of a full moon, the only time the charm
loses its power. The thief is returned to prison. The lieutenant arrives with a
translation of the charm, which turns out to be a message from a dying Spaniard
wishing to explain the whereabouts of his buried gold. The end of the message reads”
“Where three islands lie out at sea in a line with a promontory like a buffalo’s head, I
sunk the gold deep in the sands, at the foot of the cliff, and dug a rude cross in the
rock above it. Some day I hope a white man guided by this, will find the treasure
and—”. The lieutenant commented that ,“The book was evidently intended to be
looked upon as a mystic talisman, probably that the natives on this account might be
sure to take good care of it.” Captain Von Tollig fails to return the book to the thief as
he originally promised. Some time later, during patrols on the island he finds the
promontory shaped like a buffalo’s head. However, that night the Tagalogs attack the
garrison, kill Captain Von Tollig and recover the book. They make the attack because
it is full moon, with the implication that the charm would be useless to the
Americans.]
#lost treasure
[PK: UP TO PAGE 214]
Pardo de Tavera, TH. 1901. Etimología de los nombres de razas

de filipinas. Manila: Estabecimiento Tipográfico de Modesto
Reyes y C.a.
Despues de la fábula de las mil y quinientas islas que componen el Archipièlago
Filipino, viene la de las «centenares de razas que en babilónica confusion pueblan las
islas,» como dice un autor lírico geográfico que escribió sobre este pais. Haciendo
omision de las rocas, peñas, islotes insignificantes, muchos sin vejetación, otros con
solo una especie de aves y algunos insectos como fauna, y la mayoría sin un ser
humano que le habite, quedan, como islas habitadas y que solo cuentan, al tratarse de
Filipinas, unas cuantas desde la de Luzon, que es la mayor, hasta la de Cagayancillo,
que es una de las más diminutas. Asi ocurre con las famosas «razas», nombre
pomposo cuyo significado se ha confundido aplicándolo á agrupaciones políticas que
en nada se diferencian unas de otras. [4]
Los estudios etnográficos más recientes han demostrado que las razas que habitan
nuestro archipiélago son tres, á saber: Negritos, Indonesianos y Malayos. Pero de estas
razas resultan no sólo varios mestizajes sino una gran variedad de tribus
caracterizadas principalmente por las lenguas ó, mejor dicho, dialectos filipinos que
hablan. Si nos fundáramos en razones lingüísticas para dar nombres á las diferentes
agrupaciones de hombres, el numero de las llamadas razas filipinas, con ser bastante
crecido, no llegaría sin embargo á la cifra que hoy alcanza y que el profesor
Blumentritt ha tenido la paciente labor de reunir en un folleto por orden alfabetico,
publicado en español, con el título de «Las razas del archipiélago filipino.» 5
Brown, Arthur Judson. 1903. The new era in the Philippines.

Nashville and Dallas: Fleming H. Revell.
Meantime, Aglipay has become a conspicuous figure. He has made himself personally
popular by his affability and democratic manners. He freely associates with
Protestants. He urges the people to send their children to the American public
schools. He strongly supports the Amer-[145]ican Government. He demands the
expulsion of the friars. 146
#aglipay
United States Bureau of the Census. 1905. Census of the

Philippine Islands, taken under the direction of the Philippine
commission in the year 1903, in four volumes.Volume 3: Mortality,
defective classes, education, families, and dwellings. Washington:
Government Printing Office.
One of the vital questions affecting the Filipinos is that of education.
The Spanish appear to have established a most excellent and comprehend
sive system, if measured by the school laws, but it apparently failed to
satisfy the natives or attain the objects contemplated by the Spaniards. 575
#chapter 1
The establishment of schools of primary instruction in the municipalities of the
Philippine Islands, and of a normal school in Manila for the education of
schoolmasters for such schools, was not authorized until December 20, 1863. Before
that date public schools were hardly known in the Philippines, and instruction was
confined solely to the children of parents able to pay for it.
This should not be surprising, since, before the nineteenth century, education in Spain
and other parts of Europe was limited to the children of wealthy parents; and the
Philippines, as a Spanish colony, could not have more advantages in this respect than
the mother country, nor could it be expected that Spain would evince more interest in
educating her colonists than her own sons. The first thing observed is that popular
education was completely abandoned during Spanish domination, and that political
privileges controlled the educational system which was established by the Spanish
colonial government in these islands. 576
#chapter 1
Before entering upon a detailed examination of primary instruction in the Philippines
during Spanish domination, we will give what is said thereon by Mr. Robert L.
Packard in Volume 1 of the Report of the Commissioner of Education of the United
States for 1897-98:
As to primary instruction it has been shown that the Philippine islanders could read and write
their own language when the Spaniards arrived. According to a table in the book of Alfred
Marche (Lucon et Palaouan. Six années de voyages aux Philippines, Paris, 1887), there are five
alphabets in use in the archipelago. All travelers state that there are schools in every village,
which are under the control of the priests. Good observers have noticed the aptitude of the
natives for instruction. Thus, Mallat states that the children began very early to make their
letters in the sand or on leaves. Some of them, he goes on to say ( he was writing in 1842),
become [576]distinguished calligraphers, and can imitate all kinds of writing, drawing, and
printed characters. He relates a story of a missal which was copied by an “Indian” and sent to
the King of Spain. It was so well done that it, was impossible to distinguish it from the original.
They copy maps also with great exactness. It follows that instruction among the Indians was
far from being backward when compared with that of the lower classes in Europe. Nearly all
the Tagals can read and write. However, the sciences, properly so called, have made little
progress among the Philippine islanders. A few of the mestizos have a slight tincture of them,
and those of the Indians who have taken orders know Latin. The best educated are without
doubt those who, having studied at the University of Santo Tomás, have become lawyers.
Among them can be found advocates worthy to be compared with the most celebrated in
Spain. As to literature, there is aTagal grammar and a dictionary, and a combined grammar of
the Tagal, Bicol, Visayan, and Isinay languages. These are all published by the monks at the
Santo Tomás press. There are several public printing offices at Manila. The literary works
proper consist mostly of poems and tragedies in Tagal. The former are sometimes on very
grave subjects, such as the Passion, and the tragedies are very long. There are also short poems
and songs, of which both words and music are national, and the Indians can write the music
with wonderful ability. [...]
Semper, writing in 1869, says of education among the natives, “The Christian Spaniard has
not been able to exert much more influence of a spiritual than of a political nature upon the
character of the natives. Popular education was formerly, and is now, entirely in the hands of
the priests. Excepting the professors of common and Roman law all the chairs of the University
of Santo Tomás of Manila are in the hands of the priests, who naturally arrange not only the
theological lectures, but those upon metaphysics, physics, and logic, as well, according to the
principles of the Catholic Church. In the provinces every village has its public schools in which
instruction is obligatory; but, besides reading and writing, only Christian doctrine and church
music are taught. This instruction, moreover, is by no means generally given in Spanish; at
least, the general introduction of Spanish is still so recent that it will be long before the Spanish
officials will be able to converse, even with their subordinates, in Spanish. On the east coast of
Mindanao, one of the oldest and most settled provinces, the native dialect was exclusively used
until forty or fifty years ago, and the priests used the old Malay alphabet until the beginning of
the century, even in their official business. The number of natives—the Spaniards call them
‘Indians’—who can read and write is tolerably large; but, owing to the total unreliability of all
statistics on the subject, nothing accurate can be stated. In 1863 the Government attempted to
make an enumeration of the population, and, incidentally, to note the number of those who
could read and write. The fact that the result was never published seems to confirm the opinion
that an unsatisfactory condition of things was found.” 577
#folk literacy #writing systems #chapter 1 [PK: consider when baybayin

disappeared]
[Royal proclamation that established the education system in the Philippines. Madrid,
December 20, 1863:]
[...]
ART 16. Natives who do not know how to speak, read, and write the Spanish
language fifteen years after the establishment of a school in the respective town shall
not be eligible for the office of petty governor, or lieutenant of the same, or to form a
part of the principalia, unless they should enjoy such right by virtue of a special life
grant. [...]
ART 17. Five years after the publication of this decree no Filipino not having the said
qualifications, duly proved before the chief of the province, shall be permitted to hold
salaried Government positions in the archipelago. 581
#chapter 1
This entire plan of public instruction lived in the minds of Spanish legislators, but was
never put into practice. 582
#chapter 1
Regulations for schools and teachers of primary instruction of natives of the Philippine
archipelago
[...]
ART. 3 The teachers shall take special care that their pupils have practical exercises
in speaking the spanish language. As soon as they understand it sufficiently,
explanations shall be made in said langauge and they shall be forbidden to
communicate with each other in their own language during class hours. 583
#chapter 1
ART 4. [...] Paper, writing exercises, ink, and pens shall be issued free of charge to all
children.
584
ART. 7 Christian doctrine shall be taught according to the catechism in use approved
by the ecclesiastical authorities. The spelling book designated by the superior civil
governor, the catechism of Astete, and the catechism of Fleury shall be used for
reading. For writing there shall be used the examples of Spanish characters of
Iturzaeta. 584
#chapter 9
[Table:] Primary schools in the Philippine Islands: 1866
[...]
Total
Number of inhabitants, 4,411,261
Number attending school, boys: 135, 098
Possible number of schools for boys: 841
Possible number of schools for girls: 833
[Total schools: 1674]
Number attending school, girls: 95,260
[Total attending school: 230,358]
Bohol
Number of inhabitangs: 192,734
Number attending school, boys: 15,736
Number attending school, girls: 17, 948
Possible number of schools for boys: 31
Possible number of schools for girls: 31
[...]
As is seen, this table is incomplete and does not give even an approximate idea of the
progress of education in the provinces. It does not show the average age of the
children attending school, the literate and illiterate population, or the number of
inhabitants with higher [591] education. Data of this character appear for the first
time in this census report. 592
#chapter 8 #chapter 9 #folk literacy
Number of schools of each class in the Philippine Islands: 1892.
Total
Both sexes: 2,137
Boys: 1,087
Girls: 1,050
Bohol
Both sexes: 91
Boys: 46
Girls: 45
592
#chapter 8 #chapter 9 #folk literacy
What were the causes of this lamentable state of affairs? We shall see. The religious
orders, which, as has already been observed, were placed in full control of public
instruction, did not find it convenient for them that the people should emerge from a
state of ignorance; they, therefore, did not adopt all the measures necessary to develop
a complete plan of instruction, such as was observed, and which practically resulted,
because, when the popular masses became educated, they would, as an immediate
consequence, protest and rebel against that power which was the principal object in
the way of their progress and civilization. All the laws, decrees, circulars, etc., which
wore issued for the purpose of encouraging arid strengthening the education of the
people were dead letters, because the parish priests scattered throughout the country,
making use of their influence, privileges, and governmental powers, tenaciously and
constantly opposed the education of the popular masses.
The Spanish Government was really anxious that all Filipinos should speak the
Spanish language, as it is understood that the use of a common language is the
manner of forming a national spirit and sentiment, the only thing that can preserve
and unite in constant friendship people of different races. Nevertheless, the monastic
orders were always decidedly opposed to the Spanish language being spoken in
Philippine territory, because their interests would have been greatly injured if such
language had become general throughout the archipelago, as from that time they
would have ceased to be the intermediaries between the people and the authorities
and would no longer be required by either, which would reduce their great influence
with both parties. Thus was this country governed for several centuries, due to the
difference of language which existed between the colonists and colonizers. As a
consequence of all this the Spanish language did not become general, and due to the
diversity of dialects in the country and the lack of books in these dialects, education
went along a hard and difficult path. Some officials of the Spanish Government
assisted the friars in this work.
A decree of the general government issued October 6,1885, provided for a
competition to be followed by prizes for the best grammars written in
Visayan,Cebuano, Ilocano, Bicol, Pangasinan,and Pampango, [594] there being one
already in Tagálog. Naturally these grammars, which were written in different dialects
and taught in the public schools, made it more difficult (and that was the object) for
the Spanish language to become general. Matters reached such a stage that teachers
were punished and threatened with deportation, and some were actually deported, for
teaching Spanish.
#chapter 1 [PK: Note propagandistic elements]
[Translated from Reisen in den Philippinen, F. Jagor 1873:]
It is true that the teacher is required to teach Spanish to his pupils, but he himself does not
understand it, and furthermore the officials themselves do not know the native languages. This
system of affairs can not be changed by the parisli priests, nor do they desire to do so, as it
contributes to the increase of their influence. Indians who have been in the service of
Europeans are the only ones who speak Spanish. They are first taught a kind of religious
prayer book in the native language, and later Christian doctrines. An average of one-half of
the children between 7 and 10 years of age attend the schools. They learn to read and some
learn to write, but they soon forget.
595
Such young people as understood the condition of intellectual and moral
backwardness to which it was desired to relegate them, and in which they had been
submerged for so long a period, protested many times and at others rebelled [595]
against that power which smothered them in ignorance until, finally, tired of
suffering—the national sentiment being aroused before that humiliating spectacle—in
1896 they openly rebelled against a government which permitted “one state within
another state.” Then the nation of the United States of America, actuated by a desire
to protect an oppressed people, interfered in the contest, causing Spanish colonial
power to disappear in a short time, and thus fulfilling the prophecies of Doctor Jägor
and of the Filipino martyr, Dr. José Rizal. 596
#chapter 1 [PK: Spanish education policy as a cause of revolution]
Many of the military commanders devoted a great deal of wisely directed energy to
the educational work, and the success of the school system is in considerable measure
due to their wise and earnest efforts. The standards of American civilization were set
before the natives at an early date. They were astounded that in the midst of war the
American Army displayed such genuine interest in the affairs of education. The
schools were everywhere received with interest, the bitterness engendered by war
softened, and the foundations laid for the more systematic work wich followed under
civil rule. 641
#chapter 1 [PK: Education reform as tool of pacification]
[from the report of Dr David P. Barrows, General Superintendent of the Bureau of
Education, to the secretary of public instruction, under date of September 30, 1903:]
[...]
The question has been frequently raised whether the Filipino languages were sufficiently
related to fuse into one common tongue, and the Bureau of Education has received its most
vigorous criticism in the United States because of its alleged attempt to supplant and destroy
what might, in the opinion of absentee critics, become a national and characteristic speech.
Such criticism could only proceed [647] from a profound ignorance of the nature of these
languages and the people who speak them. All of those dialects belong to one common
Malayan stock. Their grammatical structure is the same. The sentence in each one of them is
built up in the same way. The striking use of affixes and suffixes, which gives the speech its
character, is common to them all. There are, moreover, words and expressions identical to
them all. A hundred common words could readily be selected which scarcely vary from one
language to another. But the fact still remanís that, while similar in grammatical structure,
these languages are very different in vocabulary— so different that members of any two
different tribes brought together are unable to converse or at first even make themselves
understood for the simplest steps of intercourse. The similarity in structure makes it very easy
for a Filipino of one tribe to learn the language of another. But it is true that these languages
have preserved their distinctions for more than three hundred years of European rule and in
the face of a common religion and in spite of considerable migration and mixture between the
different tribes. This is true where different populations bordered one another as elsewhere, nor
has there arisen any indication that these languages were fusing. The Filipino adheres to his
native dialect in its purity, and when he converses with a Filipino of another tribe, ordinarily
uses broken Spanish. These languages are not destined to disappear or to fuse, nor are they
destined to have a literary development. One has but to examine the literature which has
appeared in the last fifty years in each of these tongues to see how unlikely of literary
development is any one of these languages. The masterpiece of Tagalog literature is a satirical
poem entitled “Ang Salitan Buhay ni Florante,” which was composed years ago by a Filipino
filosofo named Baltazar. It was his professed intention in writing this poem to use the Tagálog
language in its purity, and he continually strives to avoid circumlocution and the introduction
of words derived from the Spanish. His result is not a success, and the poem, while of great
interest, promises nothing for the development of a Tagálog literature. For common
intercourse, as well as for education, the Filipino demands a foreign speech. To confine him to
his native dialect would be simply to perpetuate that isolation from which he has so long
suffered and against which his insurrection was a protest. Opponents of English education find
no sympathizers among the Filipino people. The movement seems to be limited for its support
to the academic circles and periodical offices of the United States and to the Congressional
halls of the nation. The advantage which the possession of the English language will give him is
readily understood by the Filipino, and it is fortunate that the acquisition of the Spanish
tongue was largely denied him and that it never won his affection. English is the lingua franca
of the Far East. It is spoken in the ports from Hakodate to Australia. It is the common language
of business and social intercourse between the different nations from America westward to the
Levant. It is without rival; the most useful language which a man can know. It will be more
used within the next ten years, and to the Filipino the possession of English is the gateway into
the busy and fervid life of commerce, of modern science, of diplomacy and politics, in which
he aspires to shine.
Knowledge of English is more than this—it is a possession as valuable to the humble peasant
for his social protection as it is to the man of wealth for his social distinction. If we can give the
Filipino husbandman a knowledge of the English language, and even the most elementary
acquaintance with English writings, we shall free him from that degraded dependence upon
the man of influence of his own race which made possible not merely insurrection, but that
fairly unparalleled epidemic of crime which we have seen in these islands during the past few
years.
From my own personal observation and conversation with men of wide experience in the
events of recent years, I believe it is safe to say that in the majority of murders committed
during the last five years the murderers, ignorant and debased [648] ools, acted from no other
motive than that they were told by those to whom they were economically bound and on
whom they were dependent that they must go and kill such and such men. There is no remedy
for thin state of society or for caciquismo generally except the enlightenment and moral
training of this great ignorant mass of the Filipino people.
649
#prologue #chapter 1 [PK: recognition of English becoming a global language]
[At the Insular Normal School in Manila, Table:]
First Year: English: Textbook: Fifty Famous Stories; Old Stories of the East; Stories of
Animal Life; Fairy Stories and Fables. 666
#folk literacy [https://archive.org/details/fiftyfamousstor00baldgoog
https://archive.org/stream/oldstorieseast00baldgoog#page/n0/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/storiesanimalli01holdgoog#page/n6/mode/2up
http://www.worldcat.org/title/fairy-stories-and-fables/oclc/17684477]
Of the total number of teachers [in 1903] [...] 236, or 4 per cent, were Spaniards, of
whom 192 were in Manila. 684
#chapter 6 #chapter 7 #chapter 9
The total number of pupils enrolled in all the schools was 356,385. This was 5.1 per
cent of the civilized population, a small proportion when contrasted with the
corresponding figure for the United States, 20 per cent, but large when it is recalled
that this was practically the growth of two years only. The proportion of enrolled
pupils to the civilized population ranged widely, as shown in the following table, the
largest proportion being in Bohol, where it was 11.1 per cent. The comandancias and
wild tribe provinces are omitted from this table, since in these regions of wild peoples
many children attended school but were not represented on the population schedules.
687
#chapter 9
[Table: Proportion of school enrolment to children of school age]
Manila city, 34.9 per cent [the highest]
Bohol, 34.0 per cent.
688
#chapter 9
Of the entire number of scholars [in 1903], 11 per cent were said to understand
English and 11.8 per cent, Spanish. After two years of teaching the English language
the result may be regarded as very satisfactory. 689
#chapter 1 #chapter 9
The following table shows, by provinces, the proportion of school children who could
use Spanish. [...]
[Table:]
Manila: 80 per cent [highest]
Bohol: 1 per cent [equal lowest with Surigao]
#chapter 9
Miller, John Maurice. 1904. Philippine folklore stories. Boston:

Ginn & Company.
[PK: contains a hari-sa-boquid, hari sa bukid story]
As these stories are only legends that have been handed down from remote times, the
teacher must impress upon the minds of the children that they are myths and are not
to be given credence; otherwise the imaginative minds of the native children would
accept them as truth, and trouble would be caused that might be hard to remedy.
Explain then the fiction and show the children the folly of belief in such fanciful tales.
#methodology: folklore #epistemology
Fourth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission: 1903. 1904. 3

vols. Vol. 3. Washington: Government Printing Office.
There has been considerable strife [in Tarlac] during the last six months between the
Roman Catholics and the adherents to Aglipay’s church in Mocada, Victorria, and
Murcia, but the bitter feeling is gradually dying out and no trouble is anticipated. 74
#aglipay
The Aglipay Church movement is at a standstill and will no doubt die out in time. It is
believed, however, that it has done the country much harm by exciting the people,
affording an excuse for not working, thus causing discontented and ignorant people to
drift into shiftlessness and ladronism. The same might be said of any popular
movement wich springs up in these islands; following the movement will come
shiftlessness and sedition. 79
#aglipay
A number of “Philippine republics,” “Tagalog republic,” etc., have been broken up
within the last six months. They are generally organized by men of no prominence or
ability, many of them being fanatics, but they always get a following, and cause local
disturbances. It is believed that the death sentence, with prompt execution, will have a
deterring effect on this element. 79
PK: lieutenant of Biaba part is here too.
#history of Biabas
There was apprehension in other provinces of danger from pulijans, but the higher
classes of natives attributed most of the talk to the discussions concerning the Aglipay
Church, and the preliminary organization of its followers from various sections.
Aglipay’s expected visit to the southern islands was looked forward to, and some of the
church people feared riot and bloodshed would come with him. 116
#aglipay
Division of Bohol [Annual report of Division Superintendent L. T. Gibbens.]
It must be borne in mind that during the period from September 1, 1900, to
November 15, 1901, the province was in organized rebellion against the United States
Government, and 20 pueblos, including some instances all their barrios, were burned
to the ground. Thousands of horses, cattle, and carabaos were shot and left lying
where they fell, to vitiate the atmosphere and pollute the streams of water. Following
closely after these events, rinderpest became epidemic among the remaining cattle
and carabaos, while surra and glanders played havoc with the surviving horses. These
facts have been commented upon in previous reports, but it is thought appropriate to
again note them since their effects will be noticeable in this province for many years to
come.
The surrender of all the armed forces in the province, in December, 1901, was
followed by the return of the province to the control of the civil governor, April 1,
1902. The province having formerly been under civil government, the provincial
officials and a number of the municipalities were nominally transacting their official
duties during the period of the insurrection.
The 35 original pueblos were reorganized under the Municipal Code and the work of
reconstruction was begun. Three pueblos deserve special mention for the manner in
which they have risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes’—Dimiao, Anda, and Loon. The
success of each of the above-named pueblos in the work of reconstruction is due to the
precept, example, and untiring energy of its presidente.
Nearly every pueblo in the province has an abundance of fresh water issuing from
springs in the mountains, which is utilized in the growing of upland rice. Necessity has
caused the planting of more rice than in former years, but still the yearly supply is not
equal to the consumption. Near the coast considerable copra and a verly little hemp
are produced for export. Many of the natives of the coast towns are fishermen, but
seldom any fish is exported. Business is principally carried on by trade or barter. On
market days the natives from the coast towns carry their products to the interior towns
for exchange, and vice versa.
[...]
The vast upland prairies of Talibon, Ipil, Ubay, Carmen, Sierra Bullones and
Batuanan, the section best adapted to stock raising and grazing, are now practically
deserted. For reasons previously stated the natives have been compelled to change
their occupations, and many of them have removed nearer to the mountains, where
the water supply is more available for the cultivation of rice, camotes, and other
articles of first necessity.
The population of the division of Bohol is estimated at 240,000, of whomeabout one
eight, or 30,000, are of school age (6-14 years of age). The statistics of the census
recently completed differ very slightly from the above estimate.
The public schools were opened for the school year 1902-3 on July 1, 1903, in 29
pueblos and 11 barrios, with a teaching force of 8 American and 95 Filipino teachers.
At the close of the second month of school the enrollment had reached 17,228, with
an average daily attendance of 8,756. Cholera having become epidemic in 20 or more
pueblos, the schools of the division were closed September 15 by order of the
provincial board of health. [740] The contagion having disappeared from Calape, the
municipal council and teachers requested that school be resumed. The board of
health having given permission, the schools of that pueblo were reopened October 13.
The office received a communicaiton from the president of the provincial board of
health, under date of October 28, 1902, stating that in his judgment the work of the
public schools might be resumed with safety in all the pueblos except Guindulman
and Loboc. The schools were reopened on Monday, November 3, as indicated, and
continued with but slight interruption until the close of the school year. The schools of
Guindulman and Loboc were reopened in December and January, respectively.
Immediately following the epidemic of cholera there appeared fevers and smallpox.
While very few cases of fever were fatal, the contagion sadly interfered with the school
attendance. Four pueblos were obliged to close their schools on account of smallpox.
During the year an average of 1,328 persons for each day taught received personal
instruction in English from American teachers, 2,738 pupils were taught by Filipino
teachers, and 2,774 pupils were taught by Filipino teachers who have no knowledge of
English. Average daily attendance for the year, 6,840. 741
#history of biabas
Jimenez, Pedro. 1904. English-Bisaya grammar in twenty eight

lessons. Abridged from the grammars of the Recoleto
fathers, Guillen, Nicolas and Zueco and translated into
English for the use of the American people by R.P.Fr. Pedro
Jimenez. Cebu: Imprenta de <<El Pais>>.
Preface
In presenting this English-Bisaya Grammar I do not pretend to be considered an
author, my only aspiration is to be useful to my American brethren in the priesthood,
in order that they in turn, may be so to the Bisaya people. The priest for the Bisaya
people must be one who will devote all his attention to them, live among them study
their ways, their character, their tendencies, and therefore, the study of their dialect is
absolutely necessary to him, since they, for the most part, do not know how to speak
either Spanish or English. In preparing this compilation I have used every effort to do
it as well as possible, but I am only a pupil in both the English and Bisaya languages,
and I believe, the work is not as perfect as would be desired, but I indulge a hope that
the kindness of my readers will excuse my faults. n.p.
XXVIII
Being one day hunting the Emperor Charle V. lost his way in the forest, and having
arrived to a house he went in, in order to rest himself. There were four men, who
affect to sleep. One of them got up, and approaching to the Emperor told him he had
dreamed he should take his watch, and took it. Then another rose and said that he
had dreamed his overcoat fitted him well, and took it. The third took his purse. At
last, the four came up and said: “I hope you will not take it ill if I search you” and in
doing it saw around the emperor’s neck a golden chain to which a whistle was tied,
which he wishes to rob him of; but the emperor said: “my good friend, before
depriving me of this jewell (hias) I must teach you its virtue, and saying this he
whistled. His attendants who were seeking him, hastened to the house and were
astonished of seeing his majesty in such a state. But the Emperor seeing himself out of
danger (gaos sa calisud) said; “behold these men who have dreamed all that they like.
I wish in my turn to dream” and after a short musing, he said: “I have dreamed that
you all four deserve to be hanged” which was not sooner spoken than executed before
the house. 96
Sa pagpamusil niadto sa emperador nga si Carol V naualá sia didto sa cacahuyan, ug
sa pag-abut nia sa usá ka balay, minuslud sia didto cay aron pagpahuay. Didto
niadtong balaya duna nay upát ca tao nga nagapacatológ. Ang usá nagbacod, ug sa
pagdo-ol nia sa emperador nag-ingon cania nga nagdamgó sia nga caoton nia untá
ang iyang orasán, ug guicaoat nia. [...] 113
Stuntz, Homer C. 1904. The Philippines and the Far East.
Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye.
The strength of the Aglipay movement lies in its appeal to a growing feeling of
nationality, its recognition of the Word of God, its partial satisfaction of the large class
whose hands have long waited for an available club [492] with which to smite the
friars, and to its easy program of religious reformation. 493
#aglipay
It [the church] is of the soil, and therefore he who does not support it is not a good
Filipino. He does not love his Fatherland unless he joins the Independent Filipino
Catholic church. This form of pressure is very effective. It brings thousands into the
ranks of “Alipayaños” [sic] who have precious little concern about merely religious
matters. They habitually stand up for anything that exalts the Philippines, hence they
put down their names and accept places on the committees which Aglipay leaves in
charge of his interests in every place where a Church is established.
The success of Aglipay cuts the Catholic church to the quick. Therefore friar haters
welcome the movement. Any weapon that will give promise of humbling the haughty,
tyrannical friar is welcomed and used most lustily. The same motive leads hundreds to
welcome Protestantism, as they suppose that our first business is to fight Rome. When
they find out the spiritual and moral demands which Protestantism makes, they flinch.
It was not for this that they desired “a new religion.” 493
#aglipay
The Aglipay movement helps us [American Protestant missions] by detaching tens of
thousands of members from a nominal connection with the Church of Rome, and
leaving them without positive instruction in a more excellent way. Our preachers get a
hearing with them, and hundreds of them accept the Word and are saved. These
people would never have left the Roman Catholic church to become Protestants,
feeble as was the hold of the old Church upon them; but once out-[494]side and
hungry for spiritual food they hear and are saved. Aglipay loosens this fruit from the
tree, and we gather it. God is thus overruling the shortcomings of the leaders of this
revolt against the Romish Church to the spiritual good of many souls. 495
#aglipay
Conciliar seminaries. 1904. In The Philippine Islands 1493–1898,

edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson. Cleveland, Ohio.
The constitution was adopted in October, 1902, at a convenion of the priests and
laymen who had joined the movement, and Aglipay was elected archbishop. The
movement spread rapidly. In north Ilokos but three priests with their churches
remained loyal to Rome. Various estimates place the number of adherents to the new
faith at 1,500,000 or 2,000,000, although they themselves claim 3,000,000. The
question of their right to hold church property came up early, and Governor Taft
ruled that the party which is in peaceful possession of any house of worship shall be
deemed to be the rightful occupant, and the contrary must be proved in the courts
before ejection can take place. More than 200 priests have joined the movement, and
young native priests ae being ordained with somewhat startling ease and carelessness,
in the seminaries which the new Church has opened. The foremost priests and
laymen have been open enemies of the United States and some of them still advocate
independence. Isabelo de los Reyes, a politician of the demagogue type, is one of the
active leaders of the movement. A weekly paper is published in the interests of the new
Church. Patriotism rather than religion is the reason for its rapid growth, so that its
basis with many is political. The fear of the return of the friars was seized upon by the
schismatics to gain new adherents. Homer C. Stuntz says: “Its easy program of
religious reformations attracts thousands. It promises a better order of things, but
makes no spiritual or moral demands. Priests may come into the movement, and keep
their mistresses and continue their gambling. Aglipay himself has never been accused
of immorality or gaming, but he sets up no standard of purity in his priesthood or
among his people. The cockpit, games of cards and dice, the bino habit, and all other
national vices come into the new Church without direct rebuke. This, its real
weakness, gives it apparent strength. Because of this it is enabled to count its members
by the million within less than two years from its birth”. Protestant influence is seen
on every hand. Protestant missionaries congratulate themselvs that the Catholic front
of the islands is broken by this movement. The office of bishop is elective, Aglipay
himself being included by this rule. Stuntz’s conclusions are as follows: “The
Independent Filipino Catholic Church has come to stay. Just how strong a hold it will
be able to keep over the multitudes which have flocked to its standard of revolt against
the pope cannot be foretold. But it may be reckoned with as a permanent factor in the
religious future of the Philippines.” 235
#aglipay
Annual Report of the Commissioner of Public Health: covering

the period from September 1, 1903, to August 31, 1904.
Manila: Bureau of Public Printing, 1905.
An isolated case [of cholera in Bohol] was first registered on March 19, 1902. After
this the disease again appeared on July 29, 1902, on which date a case occurred in a
banca that came from Cebu; thereupon the epidemic spread from north to south of
the island, developing steadily until June 20, 1903, when it began to decrease. More
than 6,000 cases occurred during the epidemic, most of them being registered in the
towns of Valencia, Panglao, Tubigon, Inabanga, Loay, Bilar, Loon, Ipil, Jagna, and
Tagbilaran. 65
Blair and Robertson, Phil. Is, Vol 29 p283.

“They are not far from our belief on the point of creation of the world. They believe
in a first man, the flood, and paradise and punishments of the future life …” (Blair
and Robertson) 283
#narrative intersections #lost tribes of israel
RPC 1905 [1906], vol. 3.

There does not seem to be as much agitation now as there was last year between the
Aglipayano and Romanist churches, still in certain localities there is a very bitter
feeling between the people of the two religious factions. [...] It was claimed at one time
that this was not a religious organization, but the groundwork for a revolution. I
believe that that theory has been entirely exploded. 61
#aglipay
Willis, Henry Parker. 1905. Our Philippine problem: A study of

American colonial policy. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Its [Aglipayanism’s] doctrines are rationalistic, conforming rigorously to the results of
modern science. It accepts Darwinism, harmonising it with Biblical doctrine. 209
#aglipay
It is charged by some, especially by those who represent the Catholic Church proper,
that the new movement both has been and is insurrectionary in character; that its
leaders are collecting funds for the support of new revolutionary outbreaks: that its
chief men are sworn members of the Katipunan society, and much more to the same
purport. 211
#aglipay
In an order given about a year ago, Governor Taft directed that churches should in
all cases remain in the hands of those actually in possession until the matter could be
referred to the courts by that party to the controversy which should feel itself ready to
test it there. The result has been that in most cases the priest in charge has been
regarded as the actual holder of the church. Where he and his congregation have
turned Aglipayan, he has been able to carry the church itself into the ranks of the
reformers. Where the congregation has revolted, but the priest has stood fast, the
church building has remained the property of the established hierarchy. 212
#aglipay
Aglipay: “I give it as my opinion,” he says in an authorised newspaper communication
[Manila Times, June 14th, 1904], “that the government of the United States, as
successor of the government of Spain, is the only party that can show ownership or is
competent to appear in court, just as in the San José College case, [214] which is now
pending in the Manila courts. And I may say, in explanation, that the position of the
Independent Catholic church in every case has been to have the church property
registered with the municipal officials in trust for the people, and we are entitled to the
use of such property where the great majority of the people belong to our branch of
the Catholic church.
Every case thus far brought in court has been only for the possession, as there never
was a title issued to any church any more than in the case of any other government
building, and therefore it will be seen that the establishment of ownerhip by any one
but the United States Government is absurd.” 215
#aglipay #chapter 8
[PK: Nonetheless, American judges were more likely to rule in favour of the
Catholic.Forcible repossession of churches on the part of Catholics were recognised as
legitimate, while Aglipayan possessions or repossessions were dismissed. (see pages
214-215]
#aglipay
Dauncey, Campbell Mrs. 1906. An Englishwoman in the

Philippines. London: John Murray.
His [Aglipay’s] followers are numerous, in fact it is generally believed that they now
out-number the orthodox; and the whole movement is known to be the outward and
visible sign of inward and hidden fires of Insurrection and Independence. 209
#aglipay
Then, on the other side of the water, in the suburb of La Paz [Iloilo City], which is a
big town in itself, we met the Aglipayanos—Aglipay himself and his followers—all
brown, flat-faced Filipinos, dressed something like the R.C. priests, only with
fantastically bent up hats, and driving in the native quilezes or calesas. 237
Millington, WH and Maxfield, Berton L. 1906. Philippine

(Visayan) Superstitions. The Journal of American Folklore (19)
74: 205-211
The Visayans in general believe in three kinds of spirits: the tamawos, dwendes, and
asuangs. The first are not especially bad, although sometimes mischievous, and
accustomed to kidnap children, in order to make them like themselves. They live in
mounds or elevated places in the fields. Their houses, which are generally on the
inside of the mound, although sometimes built outside, are of metal or glass, and
ordinarily invisible to mortals. Those who have seen them, and in each town there is
usually at least one person who claims to have done so, say that the houses have the
appearance of those inhabited by men, contain handsome furniture, and usually have
in them beautiful young ladies who do their utmost to induce the child whom the
tamawo has captured to partake of their food, since if a mortal once eats of their food
he becomes for all time a tamawo like themselves. If, however, he successfully resists
them, the child is, at the end of three or four days, taken back to the spot where he
was captured, and released.
The tamawo can take on any shape he pleases, generally appearing as a man, but
sometimes as a dog, carabao, or other animal. The tamawo, however, can be
distinguished from the true animal, because the former has a huge body, big staring
eyes, and the toes much prolonged and ending in big claws. 205
#chapter 4
On the second of November (All Souls' Day), most of the lowest class prepare a rich
supper, which is laid on the ground at night, and the souls of those relatives who have
died during the year are supposed to come and partake of it. 210
#mexican-filipino encounters
RPC 1907, vol. 1
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/philamer/acp1475.1907.001/7?q1=borja&view=imag
e&size=100
[Governor Salustiano Borja (report translated, presumably from Spanish, in the RPC,
and dated 17 July, 1907)]:
Pulahanism, which had threatend to disturb the peace and tranquillity of this
province, especially of the southern portion, disappeared with the capture of Catalino
Lagare, Benito Adayo, Tomas Caguang, Juan Cagud, Alonso Rodriguez, and Pedro
Pamon. Otherwise there has not been any change in the political conditions since my
last report, and peace and order have not been disturbed in any way worthy of
mention. 282
#chapter 8
RPC 1908 [1909], vol. 1.

In the case where it was reported that some of the people of the settlement of
Quimaya had removed the bell and image from the Roman church and placed it in
the Aglipay building, by order of the lieutenant-governor it was immediately restored
to its original position and the incident closed. Although this act was committed by
Bukidnons (nuevo Christianos), it is believed they were influenced by seacoast
sympathizers of the Aglipay movement, and not by their own volition. 205
#aglipay #boholano-eskaya traditions
Couturat, Louis and Léopold Leau. 1907. Compte rendu des

travaux du Comité. Coulommiers: Brodard.
'M. Wise – Le Comité a reçu de M. Wise (Luna, Philippines) un mémoire exposant les
principes théoriques d’une langue artificielle. L’un de ces principes est caractéristique
des langues à priori dites philosophiques: “Les mots analogues de sens doivent être
analogues de forme”. Ce principe en apparence logique est contredit par une loi
psychologique, qui veut que plus les mots ont des sens voisins, plus ils doivent etre
différents de forme, afin d’etre aisément distingués et retenus. L’auteur a joint à son
mémoire des projets de réforme de la numération et du système métrique, que le
Comité n’a pas examinés, attendu qu’ils n’ont aucune connexion avec la question de
la Langue internationale.'
#national language #chapter 1 [PK: see James email]
Borja, Salustiano. 1907. Report of the Governor of the
Province of Bohol. In Annual Reports of the War
Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1906, Report
of the Philippine Commission Volume VII: Part 1.
Washington: Government Printing Office.
The present political conditions of this province are scarcely different from those of
the year before. Complete peace and tranquility prevail. The only disturbance was the
work of certain persons belonging to a group of discontented ex-insurgents who under
the pretext of protecting the rights of their fellow-citizens against the vexations that
might be caused them by the authorities and for the purpose of concocting cabals
have formed a sort of party from among some of the residents of Dimiao, Valencia,
Carmen, Bilar, Sevilla, Loboc, Garcia Hernandez and Jagna, the true purposes of
which I have not yet been able to find out, though the presumption is that one of its
ends is to exploit the ignorance and guilelessness of the people. They avail themselves
of peaceful means and soft words to attract people to their ranks, and once the latter
are members of the party they have contracted an obligation to obey all orders of the
leaders and faithfully to continue members of the party forever afterwards, on pain of
death. In view of this terrible menace persons tiring of the party and wishing to leave
it desert by emigrating to other provinces.
One of the promises held out by the leaders to entice the guileless and ignorant whom
they wish to attract to the party was the assurance that from the moment [201] of
their association they would be exempt from all obligations to the municipality. This
gave rise to a disturbance which would have become an uprising against the
municipal authorities of Dimiao had it not been for my timely intervention. [...]
In addition to the event above described [of sedition in Dimiao], a rumor that there
was a group of persons organized in a similar manner to those now in prison created a
disturbance of the public order in the pueblo of Carmen. The meeting place of said
persons was the barrio of Biabas in the municipality of Guindulman, and rumor had it
that on the night of the 15th of last May [1906] they were coming into town for the
purpose of sacking it and of making prisoners of the municipal officials. This also led
me to make a hasty trip with the necessary armed force requested by the municipal
president of the said town, though after all it was proved that there was nothing to the
rumor that had been the cause of so much excitement. 202
Owing to the famine and the suffering caused thereby, and the drought which
prevailed in this province from the month of January 1905, 9 schools were closed
down until June, 1905, the time for opening the schools in this division. During the
month of July all of the schools at Garcia Hernandez and 18 other barrio schools were
also closed in view of the impossibility of keeping them open. By August, 42 schools
were closed down. Thanks to the copious rains in July and August, [1905] the farmers
were able to plant corn and the famine was somewhat mitigated by the fair crop
gathered in August and September. 203
During the period between October 29 and December 23, 1905, classes were held in
the normal institute at the municipalities of Tagbilaran, Tubigo (sic), Loay, and
Guindulman. The high school was also open during that time. 203
Conant, Carlos Everett. 1909. The names of Philippine
languages. Anthropos 4 (4):1069-1074.
This confusion of b and v in Spanish orthography is of course due to their similarity,
and, in most parts, identity, of pronunciation. In the spelling of the uneducated there
is always doubt as to whether the sound is to be written de palo (i.e. b) or de corazón (i.e.
v). As the native pronunciation [1070] is a labial stop in both Bisaya and Bikol, in
which languages there is no labial spirant v, there is no justification for the English
spelling Visaya(n), now almost universally used colloquially and in the press, both in
the Philippines and in America. 1071
#preface #chapter 1 #faking it in Visayan
I […] propose that […] all Philippine languages and dialects be designated by their
native names without inflectional endings, and that in their spelling all peculiarities of
Spanish orthography be eliminated. 1073
#chapter 1
Starr, Frederick. 1909. A little book of Filipino riddles. Yonkers,

N.Y.: World Book Co.
Many Filipinos know how to read and write their native language, although few have
had actual instruction in doing so. 5
#folk literacy
To [21] school boys in Agoo, San Fernando (Union), Malolos, Manila and Tayug we
owe many thanks. Would that the publication of this imperfect collection might lead
to their greater interest in a neglected section of their folklore. 22
#folk literacy
1910-1919
Hall, Alton L & Andres Custodio. 1911. Visayan-English
Dictionary.
Here is a book containing 3,000 Visayan words, with wide margins in which other
words can be written and corrections made. The work is intended as a foundation on
which the purchaser can build up a good dictionary.
Americans learning Visaya will find English-Visayan word-lists in the back part.
To those Filipinos, friends of the Americans, who trusting in the promises made by the
American Government, are patiently co-operating with it in securing the realization
of its ideal,—the peace, education, unity, prosperity and ultimate independence of the
Filipino People, this volume is dedicated.
Preface
Neither the Spanish nor the English spelling is used, but a simplified spelling
recommended by Dr. Jose Rizal.
u is dropped from between g. and i. gina, not guina
qu is changed to k. Bankilyo, not banquillo
ll is changed to ly. bankilyo, not bankillo
j is changed to h. Hinigaran, not Jinigaran.
In only one particular,—the universal use of k, have Dr. Rizal’s rules been deviated
from. To assist those learning English, K is used before e and i; and c before a, o, and
u, as in English. Thus coring, cat; not koring, kat; baca, cow, not baka, kow, c changes
to k before i. cáon, kináon; cuha, kinuha.
Prefixes are separated from the root by spaces, and sufficxs separated from it by
hyphens. The prefixes are separate as an aid to the student of Visaya, and not as a
model. [pI]
[...] The nucleus for this work was a two thousand word list gotten toghether by Rev.
S S. Huse, Jr of the Baptist Mission, and donated to the author in 1902. [pIII]
[357 pages in total]
#visayan dictionaries #orthogaphy #chapter 6 [relexification as an historical practice]
and #chapter 9
Ferrándiz, Jose. 1912. Prólogo. Catequesis de la Iglesia Filipina

Independiente. Manila: Isabelo de los Reyes.
El católico papista ha de ser un sin patria, campeón de un rey destronado, eterno
pretendiente á la perdida corona y á reinar por sugestión sobre los otros reyes; ha de
creer siempre enemigo y ladrón de la Iglesia al Estado y ha de vivir con la vista vuelta
hácia atrás, ansiando que reviva lo que murió y que sean perseguidos cuantos no
piensen como el Papa, aunque crean en Dios y en Jesucristo. El sacerdote católico se
dice perseguido, cuando y donde no le dejan perseguir, y [xii] detentado, cuando no
se le permite acaparar la riqueza de todos. xiii
Filipinas bien lo sabe. Sobre sus espaldas ha padecido el indígena, tratado como una
bestia por el incrédulo y corrompido fraile, el latigo inquisitorial del Papa. A
bejucazos se le ha impueto una fé del carbonero, vaga y superstíciosa; á palos se le ha
robado el dinero, la hacienda, la virtud de sus mujeres, el honor, la libertad y la
cultura. Se le ha sustraido á la comunicación mundial, apartándole de una lengua
como la castellana, la más extendida en el planeta; así se le ha tenido hasta nuestros
días, y cuando ha intentado, no rebelarse, respirar siquiera, la Iglesia implable ha
señalado á los Virreyes ó Generales, las víctimas que debían sacrificarle. xiv
#chapter 1 #chapter 9 (‘Se le ha sustraido á la comunicación mundial, apartándole de
una lengua como la castellana, la más extendida en el planeta’)
La comunión católica filipina venía, durante siglos, constituyendo un ejemplo
elocuente del designio inícuo del papado, consecuencia de su críterio egoista sobre lo
que deben ser la (sic) Iglesias y las Naciones, todas como la filipina, administradas por
el fraeile (sic); pueblos qequeños (sic), cada uno con su lengua sólo allì que los aislara,
impotentes y hostiles al resto de los hombres; el clero secular indígena, esclavo; ínterin
no hubiera ocasión de suprimirlo; la Iglesia monástica, en fin. xv
He aquí el ideal romano. Donde quiera que prevalece, fomenta el separatismo y las
lenguas ó dialectos locales, porque aborrece las grandes nacionalidades y las lenguas
muy extendidas, fáciles vehículos del saber y de la solidaridad humana, que ha de
extinguir el romanismo particularista. De ese tenor procede el redículo invento
jesuítico de la patria chica, mísera caricatura del sentimiento patrio. El Papado alienta
con encono el mal llamado regionalismo, en Francia, entre los Bretones; en Inglaterra,
entre los Irlandeses, en Bélgica, procurando sustituir el francés por el local y tan
limitado fiamenco; en España, entre los Catalanes y los Vascos. Que se hablen
únicamente lenguas no etendidas fuera de un campo muy estrecho; suelen ellas ser
rudas é incapaces de filosofía, refractarias á las sutilezas se un espiritualismo profundo.
El vascuense, por ejemplo, carece de vocablos para nombrar á Dios, el espíritu, la
cantidad, lo abstracto. En esas lenguas se hace imposible escribir de Matematicas, de
Metafísica, de Astronomía, de Ética trascendental ó de Derecho.
—Pero esos pobres pueblo, se ha dicho á la Iglesia, no podrán leer á S. Agustin ni á
Santo Tomás, ni á Santa Teresa.
—No importa, replica, les basta con el catecismo y el devocionario La Ciencia, para el
clero; ya trans-[xv]mitirá él, predicando, el espíritu de esos autores; en compensación,
los que no pueden leerlos, á fuer de intraducibles á su dialecto, tampoco podrán leer á
Renán ni á Strauss. xvi
Lo que es un mito para la Ciencia, un mito es para la Iglesia Filipina, como sos
ángeles, el infienro, el paraiso, los demonios, el limbo, el pecado original, el fin del
mundo.... xxiii
Una dogmática tan diáfana, ha permitido confeccionar una liturgia con ella
armónica, sencilla, sugestiva, democrática y en lengua corriente, que llene el antiguo
foso que separaba el presbiterio del pueblo creyente en el interminable, laberíntico é
[xiii] indescifrable culto católico en lengua hoy para todo el mundo muerta. xxiv
El gran enemigo de toda la Humanidad es el Papado; salir de su yugo es entrar en la
vida. xxiv
#chapter 8
Aglípay y Labáyan, Gregorio. 1912. Catequesis de la Iglesia

Filipina Independiente. Manila: Isabelo de los Reyes.
Los Siete enigmas [...]
6. la razón y el pensamiento con la cuestión aneja del origen del lenguaje; 17
Fin de Nuestro Mundo
¿Acabará alguna vez el Universo?—Nó; sino sólo sufrirá muertes parciales, ó mejor
dicho, transformacionés, porque no hay verdadera muerte. La Tierra, con todo
nuestro sistema solar, morirá seguramente, pero es para renacer otra vez; y lo mismo
ocurre con otros mundos ó sistemas solares. 32
Resurrección
[...]
¿Qué demuestran las leyes físicas y químicas?—Nos prueban de consuno que nada se
aniquila, nada desaparece: ni energía ni materia: todo renacerá, probablemente con
otras formas (pero parecidas) que las actuales, porque serán distintas las circunstancias
que concurrirán á su formación; más todo volverá á surgir. Diariamente nacen
mundos, [...] 9
¿Que demuestran las leyes fisicas y quimicas? –Nos prueban de consuno que nada se aniquila, nada
desaparece: ni energía ni materia: todo renacerá, probablemente con otras formas (pero parecidas) que
las actuales, porque serán distintas las circunstancias que concurrirán á su formación; más todo
volverá á surgir. Diariamente nacen mundos, mientras otros mundos se mueren, pero todos renacen
immediatamente trasformados, porque el poder de Dios es inagotable. ‘Resurrección’ 33-34
Uso de Lengua Entendida
Es imposible orar con devoción, si nos dirigimos á nuestro Dios en lengua que no
entendemos. Y toda oración en idioma no entendido es sin fruto, como dijo San
Pablo.
Debemos, pues, siempre orar y predicar en el idioma de cada pueblo á que nos
dirigimos. 100
#oracion
Blunt, Mason Cpt. 1912. An army officer’s Philippine studies.

Manila: University Press.
On the 25 of the same month [January 1899], another ceremony took place. The
people were assembled to kiss the new flag and to swear fealty to it. Some two
thousand Igorotes had come down from the hills, and they too were solemnly sworn
in. After that Aglipay reformed the clerical dress for out of doors. All the priests, and
the seminarians as well, had to be uniformed as captains. When the seminary boys
were out for their walk, they, including the priests that were with them, looked like a
small regiment of captains. 311
About the latter part of 1902 and the earlier of 1903, Aglipay appeared in Manila.
Having made his peace with the Civil Government, he started the Independent
Filipino church, of which he appointed Governor Taft as president. [...]Governor
Taft courteously declined to accept the presidency of the new church [...] 312
By forcing the [Catholic] Church to incur great expense in prosecuting these cases [of
title to church buildings] in the courts, it furthermore caused that organization no
little financial embarassment. What gives still greater force to this impression was that
no other acts of the Insurgents or of their government beyond those in reference to
Church property, were recognized to the same extent by the Civil Government. 40
#aglipay
Osorio, Amando. n.d. [1913?] Ang Walay Palad: ang Sugbu sa

Kanhing Panahon [PK: Should this be Armando Osorio?]
[PK: Description: date is illegible, this is a novella in Cebuano. It tells the story of
Daylinda, Omanad, Hamabad and Magellan. Probably the same text Martinez
mentions as having been published in 1913. A version of it appears in a 1947 issue of
Bisaya magazine (see Alburo’s article: Alburo, Erlinda K. ‘History and the Prewar
Cebuano Novel’, Philippine Studies. Volume 55, Issue 4 (2007)]
Footnote: “Matud sa Historia nga sa ubang mga dapit sa Pilipinas, ang mga tawong
nanagpuyo sa usa ka walog ug ang mga nagpuyo sa pikas sa walog dili kono mag-
inilhanag ni magkinit-anay hangtud sa pagkamatay. Dili ba mga suroyán ang atong
unang mga ginikanan?”
Chapter ‘Tungud sa Inahang Yuta’ p11-12
Briggs, Charles W. 1913. The progressing Philippines. Philadelphia:

The Griffith & Rowland Press.
In July, 1902, Governor Taft made a journey to Rome to adjust these matters with
the Vatican authorities. The result was the purchase by the government of the friar
estates on condition that the friars be removed from the Islands, and American
bishops placed in charge of the Catholic churches.
When the report of these arrangements became known in the islands, the Aglipayano
movement [114] declined in strength. The Filipino priests and their sympathizers felt
that they had already gained their contention.
But early in December, 1902, the papal legate, Mons. Guidi, arrived in Manila with
his pope’s bull on the Philippine church (quae mare sinico), which he straightway
published. From this bull it became evident that after Governor Taft’s departure from
Rome, friar interests had dominated the Vatican. The bull was a vinidcation of the
friars, and bespoke an almost open contempt for the Filipino clergy. There were in it
passages that were construed by the Filipinos to mean that the friars were to be
maintained in the Islands and returned to their parishes throughout the provinces.
Many, indeed, were so returned.
That the bull was a colossal and typical friar blunder was soon evident. The leading
Filipinos openly allied themselves with Aglipay; scores of native clergy flocked to his
standard. He made fifteen of these priests bishops, assigned them districts throughout
the Islands, and began an ovation march of triumph through the provinces. Where
the Cahtolic churches were occupied by a priest loyal to Rome the Aglipayanos built a
chapel for their own use. Thus Aglipayano chapels sprang up throughout the Islands.
[...]
The strength of the movement, in addition to its offering an alternative to the friar
church, lay in its appeal to the growing sense of nationality and patriot-[115]ism.
Filipinos who would not join the movement were looked upon as tories. 116
#aglipay
Taft, Helen Herron. 1914. Recollections of full years. New York:
Dodd, Mead & Company.
Mr. Taft was repeatedly warned by the allies of Rome that the movement [of Aglipay]
was nothing but a cloak for the worst insurrection against the government that the
Filipinos had yet attempted, and this suspicion was somewhat strengthened by the fact
that many of the least tractable insurrecto leaders were among its directors, but in the
main the schismatics evinced every desire to obey the injunction laid upon them not
to resort to incendiary methods. And it was thought that the treatment they received
in return would probably do more than all the preaching in the world to convince
them that under American sovereignty they were actually to enjoy complete religious
freedom. 260
#aglipay
Torralba, Domingo and Timoteo Butalid. 1916. ‘Some stories

connected with the caves of Bohol’. Ethnography of the
Bisaya peoples, v3, Paper no. 71. Box 103. ADD to Endnote
The island of Bohol, different from the other islands, has many caves some of which
have been entered but by very few people not for the sake of conquering or
investigating what archaeological remains can be found inside but for the nests of a
certain kind of birds (sic), which are highly prized locally. Some say that these caves
are connected so as to form a tunnel or an underground labyrinth. Others say that
some of these caves are so deep into the ground that if a stone is let fall into the sound
of the face is faintly or not at all heard (sic). The people, however, believe that some of
these deep caves are the homes of supernatural beings. It is said that these beings are
seen hanging around these caves and some music is heard at night especially during
moonlights. Stories, some of which are weirds (sic), spread among the people and the
more they hear them, the farther they go from the caves.
In a certain place, Ilaya (shore) there is a cave into which I believe, no one has gone
because it is claimed to be inhabited. One stormy night two fishermen were cast
ashore near the cave. As they approached the shore they begged of the inhabitants of
the cave (of course they did see no one) that they should be left alone. They took
shelter beneath a protruding rock. They had not eaten any supper. They had some
fish with them and they [1] wanted to roast them if they could only kindle a fire. One
of them addressed the cave dwellers.
“Please, have pity on us. We are dying of hunger. Give us a little fire only.”
Right away a glowing fuel was thrown before them. They did not see anyone. After
thanking they built a fire and roasted their fish.
The following day the story of these two fishermen was spread throughout the town.
Three days after it happened that the two fishermen went out for a voyage of two days
and two nights. They forgot to bring with them plates. But when they passed by the
cave they landed and borrowed some plates promising that they would return them
on their return. Out came five plates.
As soon as this was known the people of the town could do, more or less, whatever
they wished. They just went to the cave and told the cave dwellers what they needed.
But this was stopped because of an old woman who borrowed an earthen jar which
she did not return as she promised. The people regretted very much. The things
borrowed were taken from them unknowingly.
Somewhere in the interior of the island there was a small barrio the name of which I
don’t remember now. Near the barrio was a cave which was full of nests, so most of
the men in the barrio were nest gatherers. They gathered plenty of these nests and
sold them to the people. One day, five of these gatherers went into the cave to gather
the nests. But when they were inside they could not find any nest. They were very
much surprised and believed that they were fooled by the cave-dwellers. They [2] got
mad and scolded them. But when they groped their way they found that they were
lost. In the course of two days it was known throughout the barrio that Messrs. So and
So were lost. They wandered around the country and shouted for them. They found
that the mouth of the cave was closed with a big rock, and believed that the five men
were closed into the cave. They did not try to remove the rock because they fear that
some harm would be done upon them. They deserted their village instead and settled
in another place.
The people attributed all cases of loss to these caves. When some got lost in the
mountains or forest, they at once went to one cave after another calling the name of
the person lost. 3
#chapter 2 [Tiyo Iyo’s cave expedition] #chapter 4 #article: literature
Torralba, Sergio. 1916. Uac-uac. In Stories from the islands of

Bohol and Siquijor. Ethnography of the Bisaya peoples.
Volume 3, paper no. 86. Box no. 103. ADD to ENDNOTE
I believe the name uac-uac corresponds to the Tagalog name aswang but I am not
certain about what they know of its nature. They say that this aswang eats or lives
upon human flesh and they are very common in the Visayan islands. There is no such
superstition in those islands except this uac-uac. 11
#chapter 7 [PK:difference between aswang and wak-wak but also add as supporting
ref to statement about importance of aswang in Visayan folklore]
Cole, Mabel Cook. 1916. Philippine folk tales compiled and

cnnotated by Mabel Cook Cole. Chicago: A.C. McClurg &
Co.
From time to time since the American occupation of the Islands, Philippine folk-tales
have appeared in scientific publications, but never, so far as the writer is aware, has
there been an attempt to offer to the general public a comprehensive popular
collection of this material. It is my earnest hope that this collection of tales will give
those who are interested opportunity to learn something of the magic, superstitions,
and weird customs of the Filipinos, and to feel the charm of their wonder-world as it is
pictured by these dark-skinned inhabitants of our Island possessions. vi
The last group contains the stories of the Christianized natives—those who accepted
the rule of Spain and with it the Catholic religion. Their tales, while full of local color,
nevertheless show the influence of the European tutors. They furnish an excellent
opportunity to contrast the literature of the savage head-hunters with that of the Moro
and Christian tribes and to observe how various recent influences have modified the
beliefs of people who not many centuries ago were doubtless of a uniform grade of
culture. It is interesting, too, to note that European tales brought into the Islands by
Mohammedan and Christian rulers and traders have been worked over until, at first
glance, they now appear indigenous. xi
#article: grimm
United States Bureau of the Census. 1920-1921. Census of the

Philippine Islands, taken under the direction of the Philippine
legislature in the year 1918, in four volumes. Part II: Schools,
university, commerce, transportation, banks, and insurance.
Manila: Bureau of Printing.
[Table: Number of pupils years 1918-1919 ]
Philippine Islands, total: 789,046
Bohol: 27,495
432
#chapter 9 #folk literacy
[Table: Proportion of pupils to population of school age:]
Philippine Islands: 2,746,202 [population of entire country]. Pupils: 763, 227. Percent:
27.8
Bohol: 104, 711 [population of island]. Pupils: 27,087. Percent: 25.9
534
#chapter 9 #folk literacy
1920-1929
Fansler, Dean Spruill. 1921. Filipino popular tales collected and
edited with comparative notes by Dean S. Fansler. Lancaster PA.
and New York: American Folk-lore Society.
The folk-tales in this volume, which were collected in the Philippines during the years
from 1908 to 1914, have not appeared in print before. They are given to the public
now in the hope that they will be no mean or uninteresting addition to the volumes of
Oriental Märchen already in existence. The Philippine archipelago, from the very
nature of its geographical position and its political history, cannot but be a significant
field to the student of popular stories. Lying as it does at the very doors of China and
Japan, connected as it is ethnically with the Malayan and Indian civilizations,
Occidentalized as it has been for three centuries and more, it stands at the junction of
East and West. It is therefore from this point of view that these tales have been put
into a form convenient for reference. Their importance consists in their relationship to
the body of world fiction. v
But what is “native,” and what is “derived”? The folklore of the wild tribes —
Negritos, Bagobos, Igorots — is in its way no more “uncontaminated” than that of the
Tagalogs, Pampangans, Zambals, Pangasinans, Ilocanos, Bicols, and Visayans. The
traditions of the traditions of these Christianized tribes present as survivals,
adaptations, modifications, fully as many puzzling and fascinating problems as the
popular lore of the Pagan peoples. It should be remembered, that, no matter how wild
and savage and isolated a tribe may be, it is impossible to prove that there has been no
contact of that tribe with the outside civilized world. Conquest is not necessary to the
introduction of a story or belief. The crew of a Portuguese trading-vessel with a genial
narrator on board might conceivably be a much more successful transmitting-medium
than a thousand praos full of brown warriors come to stay. Clearly the problem of
analyzing and tracing the story-literature of the Christianized tribes differs only in
degree from that connected with the Pagan tribes. In this volume I have treated the
problem entirely from the former point of view, since there has been hitherto a
tendency to neglect as of small value the stories of the Christianized peoples. vi
While the most obvious sources of importation from the Occident have been Spain
and Portugal, the possibility of the introduction of French, Italian, and even Belgian
stories through the medium of priests of those nationalities must not be overlooked.
Furthermore, there is a no (sic) inconsiderable number of Basque sailors to be found
on the small inter-island steamers that connect one end of the archipelago with the
other. Even a very cursory glance at the tales in this collection reveals the fact that
many of them are more or less close variants and analogues of tales distributed
throughout the world. How or when this material reached the Philippines is hard to
say. The importation of Arabian stories, for example, might have been made over
many routes. The Hindoo beast-tales, too, might have quite circled the globe in their
progress from east to west, and thus have been introduced to the Filipinos by the
Spaniards and Portuguese. Again, the germs of a number of widespread Märchen may
have existed in the archipelago long before the arrival of the Europeans, and, upon
the introduction of Occidental civilization and culture, have undergone a
development entirely consistent with the development that took place in Europe,
giving us as a result remarkably close analogues of the Western tales. This I suspect to
have been the case of some of our stories where, parallel with the localized popular
versions, exist printed romances (in the vernacular) with the mediaeval flavor and
setting of chivalry. To give a specific case: the Visayans, Bicols, and Tagalogs in the
coast towns feared the raids of Mindanao Mussulmans long before white feet trod the
shores of the Islands, and many traditions of conflicts with these pirates are embedded
in their legends. The Spaniard came in the sixteenth century, bringing with him
stories of wars between Christians and Saracens in Europe. One result of this close
analogy of actual historical situation was, I believe, a general tendency to levelling:
that is, native traditions of such struggles took on the color of the Spanish romances:
Spanish romances, on the other hand, which were popularized in the Islands, were
very likely to be “localized.” A maximum of caution and a minimum of dogmatism,
then, are imperative, if one is to treat at all scientifically the relationship of the stories
of a composite people like the Filipinos to the stories of the rest of the world. vii
#article: grimm
A word might be added as to the nature of the tales. I have included only “hero tales,
serious and droll,” beast stories and fables, and pourquoi or “just-so” stories. Myths,
legends, and fairy-tales (including all kinds of spirit and demon stories) I have
purposely excluded, in order to keep the size of the volume within reasonable limits. I
have, however, occasionally drawn upon my manuscript collection of these types to
illustrate a native superstition or custom.
(b) SUAN EKET. [Fn: Narrated by Manuel Reyes, a Tagalog from Rizal province.
He heard the story from his grandfather.]
Many years ago there lived in the country of Campao a boy named Suan. While this
boy was studying in a private school, it was said that he could not pronounce the letter
x very well: he called it “eket.” So his schoolmates nick-named him “Suan Eket.”
Finally Suan left school, because, whenever he went there, the other pupils always
shouted at him, “Eket, eket, eket!” He went home, and told his mother to buy him a
pencil and a pad of paper. “I am the wisest boy in our town now,” said he. [2]
One night Suan stole his father’s plough, and hid it in a creek near their house. The
next morning his father could not find his plough.
“What are you looking for?” said Suan.
“My plough,” answered his father.” Come here, father! I will guess where it is.” Suan
took his pencil and a piece of paper. On the paper he wrote figures of various shapes.
He then looked up, and said, —
“Ararokes, ararokes,
Na na nakawes
Ay na s’imburnales,” —
which meant that the plough had been stolen by a neighbor and hidden in a creek.
Suan’s father looked for it in the creek near their house, and found it. In great wonder
he said, “My son is truly the wisest boy in the town.” News spread that Suan was a
good guesser.
One day as Suan was up in a guava-tree, he saw his uncle Pedro ploughing. At noon
Pedro went home to eat his dinner, leaving the plough and the carabao in the field.
Suan got down from the tree and climbed up on the carabao’s back. He guided it to a
very secret place in the mountains and hid it there. When Pedro came back, he could
not find his carabao. A man who was passing by said, “Pedro, what are you looking
for?”
“I am looking for my carabao. Somebody must have stolen it.”
“Go to Suan, your nephew,” said the man. “He can tell you who stole your carabao.”
So Pedro went to Suan’s house, and told him to guess who had taken his carabao.
Suan took his pencil and a piece of paper. On the paper he wrote some round figures.
He then looked up, and said, —
“Carabaues, carabaues,
Na nanakawes
Ay na sa bundokes,” —
which meant that the carabao was stolen by a neighbor and was hidden in the
mountain. For many days Pedro looked for it in the mountain. At last he found it in a
very secret place. He then went to Suan’s house, and told him that the carabao was
truly in the mountain. In great wonder he said, “My nephew is surely a good guesser.”
[3]
One Sunday a proclamation of the king was read. It was as follows: “The princess’s
ring is lost. Whoever can tell who stole it shall have my daughter for his wife; but he
who tries and fails, loses his head.”
When Suan’s mother heard it, she immediately went to the palace, and said, “King,
my son can tell you who stole your daughter’s ring.”
“Very well,” said the king, “I will send my carriage for your son to ride to the palace
in.”
In great joy the woman went home. She was only ascending the ladder when she
shouted, “Suan, Suan, my fortunate son!”
“What is it, mother?” said Suan.
“I told the king that you could tell him who stole the princess’s ring.”
“Foolish mother, do you want me to die?” said Suan, trembling.
Suan had scarcely spoken these words when the king’s carriage came. The coachman
was a courtier. This man was really the one who had stolen the princess’s ring. When
Suan was in the carriage, he exclaimed in great sorrow, “Death is at hand!” Then he
blasphemed, and said aloud to himself, “You will lose your life now.” The coachman
thought that Suan was addressing him. He said to himself, “I once heard that this
man is a good guesser. He must know that it was I who stole the ring, because he said
that my death is at hand.” So he knelt before Suan, and said,”Pity me! Don’t tell the
king that it was I who stole the ring!”
Suan was surprised at what the coachman said. After thinking for a moment, he
asked, “Where is the ring?”
“Here it is.”
“All right! Listen, and I will tell you what you must do in order that you may not be
punished by the king. You must catch one of the king’s geese tonight, and make it
swallow the ring.”
The coachman did what Suan had told him to do. He caught a goose and opened its
mouth. He then dropped the ring into it, and pressed the bird’s throat until it
swallowed the ring. [4]
The next morning the king called Suan, and said, “Tell me now who stole my
daughter’s ring.”
“May I have a candle? I cannot guess right if I have no candle,” said Suan.
The king gave him one. He lighted it and put it on a round table. He then looked up
and down. He went around the table several times, uttering Latin words. Lastly he
said in aloud voice, “Mi domine!”
“Where is the ring?” said the king.
Suan replied, —
“Singsing na nawala
Ninakao ang akala
Ay nas’ ‘big ng gansa,” —
which meant that the ring was not stolen, but had been swallowed by a goose. The
king ordered all the geese to be killed. In the crop of one of them they found the ring.
In great joy the king patted Suan on the back, and said, “You are truly the wisest boy
in the world.”
The next day there was a great entertainment, and Suan and the princess were
married.
In a country on the other side of the sea was living a richman named Mayabong. This
man heard that the King of Campao had a son-in-law who was a good guesser. So he
filled one of his cascos with gold and silver, and sailed to Campao. He went to the
palace, and said, “King, is it true that your son-in-law is a good guesser?”
“Yes,” said the king.
“Should you like to have a contest with me? If your son-in-law can tell how many
seeds these melons I have brought here contain, I will give you that casco filled with
gold and silver on the sea; but if he fails, you are to give me the same amount of
money as I have brought.”
The king agreed. Mayabong told him that they would meet at the public square the
next day.
When Mayabong had gone away, the king called Suan, and said, “Mayabong has
challenged me to a contest. You are to guess how many seeds the melons he has
contain. Can you do it?” Suan was ashamed to refuse; so, even though he knew that
he could not tell how many seeds a melon contained, he answered, “Yes.” [5]
When night came, Suan could not sleep. He was wondering what to do. At last he
decided to drown himself in the sea. Sohe went to the shore and got into a tub. “I
must drown my-self far out, so that no one may find my body. If they see it, they will
say that I was not truly a good guesser,” he said to himself. He rowed and rowed until
he was very tired. It so happened that he reached the place where Mayabong’s casco
was anchored. There he heard somebody talking. “How many seeds has the green
melon?” said one. “Five,” answered another. “How many seeds has the yellow one?”
—
“Six.”
When Suan heard how many seeds each melon contained, he immediately rowed
back to shore and went home.
The next morning Suan met Mayabong at the public square, as agreed. Mayabong
held up a green melon, and said, “How many seeds does this melon contain?”
“Five seeds,” answered Suan, after uttering some Latin words.The melon was cut, and
was found to contain five seeds. The king shouted, “We are right!”
Mayabong then held up another melon, and said, “How many does this one
contain?” Seeing that it was the yellow melon, Suan said, “It contains six.”
When the melon was cut, it was found that Suan was right again. So he won the
contest.
Now, Mayabong wanted to win his money back again. So he took a bottle and filled it
with dung, and covered it tightly. He challenged the king again to a contest. But when
Suan refused this time, because he had no idea as to what was in the bottle, the king
said, “I let you marry my daughter, because I thought that you were a good guesser.
Now you must prove that you are. If you refuse, you will lose your life.”
When Mayabong asked what the bottle contained, Suan, filled with rage, picked it up
and hurled it down on the floor, saying, “I consider that you are all waste to me.”’
When the bottle was broken, it was found to contain waste, or dung. In great joy the
king crowned Suan to succeed him. Thus Suan lived happily the rest of his life with
his wife the princess. 6
#folk literacy
#motif: literacy as a means to success
#motif: literacy as sleight-of-hand to awe the illiterate
#motif: illiteracy as a shameful condition
This story seems to be fairly widespread among the Filipinos: there is no doubt of its
popularity. The distinguishing incidents of the type are as follows: —
A1 Lazy son decides that he will go to school no longer, and (A2) with his ABC book
or a pencil and pad of paper, he has no trouble in making his parents think him wise.
(A’) He tells his mother that he has learned to be a prophet and can discover hidden
things. (A4) He spies on his mother, and then “guesses” what she has prepared for
supper.
[...]
H Afraid of being called on for further demonstration of his skill, hero burns his
“magic” book.
[...]
A concluding adventure is sometimes added to version c, “Juan the Guesser.” King
and queen of another country visit palace of Juan’s father-in-law and want their
newly-born child baptized. Juan [7] is selected to be godfather. When called upon to
sign the baptism certificate, he instantly dies of shame, pen in hand: he cannot write
even his own name. 8
#folk literacy
#motif: literacy as sleight-of-hand to awe the illiterate
b) Three brothers of fortune [Fn: Narrated by Eugenio Estayo, a Pangasinan, who
heard the story from Toribio Serafica, a native of Rosales, Pangasinan. ]
In former times there lived in a certain village a wealthy man who had three sons, —
Suan, Iloy, and Ambo. As this man was a lover of education, he sent all his boys to
another town to school. But these three brothers did not study: they spent their time in
idleness and extravagance. When vacation came, they were ashamed to go back to
their home town, because they did not know anything; so, instead, they wandered
from town to town seeking their fortunes. In the course of their travels they met an old
woman broken with age. “Should you like to buy this book, my grandsons?” asked the
old woman as she stopped them.
“What is the virtue of that book, grandmother?” asked Ambo.
“My grandsons,” replied she, “if you want to restore a dead person to life, just open
this book before him, and in an instant he will be revived.” Without questioning her
further, Ambo at once bought the book. Then the three continued their journey.
Again they met an old woman selling a mat. Now, Iloy was desirous of possessing a
charm, so he asked the old woman what virtue the mat had.
“Why, if you want to travel through the air,” she said, “just step on it, and in an
instant you will be where you desire to go. “ Iloy did not hesitate, but bought the mat
at once.
Now, Suan was the only one who had no charm. They had not gone far, however,
before he saw two stones, which once in a while would meet and unite to form one
round black stone, [118] and then separate again. Believing that these stones
possessed some magical power, Suan picked them up; for it occurred to him that with
them he would be able to unite things of the same or similar kind. This belief of his
came true, as we shall see.
These three brothers, each possessing a charm, were very happy. They went on their
way light-hearted. Not long afterward they came upon a crowd of persons weeping
over the dead body of a beautiful young lady. Ambo told the parents of the young
woman that he would restore her to life if they would pay him a reasonable sum of
money. As they gladly agreed, Ambo opened his book, and the dead lady was brought
back to life. Ambo was paid all the money he asked; but as soon as he had received his
reward, Iloy placed his mat on the ground, and told his two brothers to hold the
young woman and step on the mat. They did so, and in an instant all four were
transported to the seashore.
From that place they took ship to another country; but when they were in the middle
of the sea, a severe storm came, and their boat was wrecked. All on board would have
been drowned had not Suan repaired the broken planks with his two magical stones.
When they landed, a quarrel arose among the three brothers as to which one was
entitled to the young woman.
Ambo said, “I am the one who should have her, for it was I who restored her to life.”
“But if it had not been for me, we should not have the lady with us,” said Iloy.
“And if it had not been for me,” said Suan, “we should all be dead now, and nobody
could have her.” As they could not come to any agreement, they took the question
before the king. He decided to divide the young woman into three parts to be
distributed among the three brothers. His judgment was carried out. When each had
received his share, Iloy and Ambo were discontented because their portions were
useless, so they threw them away; but Suan picked up the shares of his two brothers
and united them with his own. The young woman was brought to life again, and lived
happily with Suan. So, after all, Suan was the most fortunate. 119
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to restore the dead to life
(c) PABLO AND THE PRINCESS. [Fn: Narrated by Dolores Zafra, a Tagalog from
La Laguna. She heard the story from her father]
Once upon a time there lived three friends, — Pedro, Juan, and Pablo. One morning
they met at the junction of three roads. While they were talking, Pedro said, “Let each
of us take one of these roads and set out to find his fortune! there is nothing for us to
do in our town.” The other two agreed. After they had embraced and wished each
other good luck, they went their several ways. Before separating, however, they
promised one another to meet again in the same place, with the arrangement that the
first who came should wait for the others.
Pedro took the road to the right. After three months’ travelling, sometimes over
mountains, sometimes through towns, he met an old man. The old man asked him for
food, for he was very hungry. Pedro gave him some bread, for that was all he had.
The old man thanked the youth very much, and said, “In return for your kindness I
will give you this carpet. It looks like an ordinary carpet, but it has great virtue.
Whoever sits on it may be transported instantly to any place he desires to be.” Pedro
received the carpet gladly and thanked the old man. Then the old man went on his
way, and Pedro wandered about the town. At last, thinking of his two friends, he
seated himself on his carpet and was transported to the crossroads, where he sat down
to wait for Juan and Pablo.
Juan had taken the road to the left. After he had travelled for three months and a half,
he, too, met an old man. This old man asked the youth for something to eat, as he was
very hungry, he said. So Juan, kind-heartedly, shared with him the bread he was
going to eat for his dinner. As a return for his generosity, the old man gave him a
book, and said, “This book may seem to you of no value; but when you know of its
peculiar properties, you will be astonished. By reading in it you will be able to know
everything that is happening in the world at all times.” Juan was overjoyed with his
present. After thanking the old man and bidding him good-by, the youth returned to
the meeting-place at the cross-roads, where he met Pedro. The two waited for Pablo.
Pablo took the road in the middle, and, after travelling four months, he also met an
old man, to whom he gave the bread he [120] was going to eat for his dinner. “As you
have been very kind to me,” said the old man, “I will give you this ivory tube as a
present. Perhaps you will say that it is worthless, if you look only at the outside; but
when you know its value, you will say that the one who possesses it is master of a great
treasure. It cures all sick persons of every disease, and, even if the patient is dying, it
will restore him instantly to perfect health if you will but blow through one end of the
tube into the sick person’s nose.” Pablo thanked the old man heartily for his gift, and
then set out for the meeting-place. He joined his friends without mishap.
The three friends congratulated one another at having met again in safety and good
health. Then they told one another about their fortunes. While Pedro was looking in
Juan’s book, he read that a certain princess in a distant kingdom was very sick, and
that the king her father had given orders that any person in the world who could cure
his daughter should be her husband and his heir. When Pedro told his companions
the news, they at once decided to go to that kingdom. They seated themselves on the
carpet, and were transported in a flash to the king’s palace. After they had been led
into the room of the sick princess, Pablo took his tube and blew through one end of it
into her nose. She immediately opened her eyes, sat up, and began to talk. Then, as
she wanted to dress, the three friends retired.
While the princess was dressing, Pablo, Juan, and Pedro went before the king, and
told him how they had learned that the princess was sick, how they had been
transported there, and who had cured her. The king, having heard all each had to say
in his own favor, at last spoke thus wisely to them: —
“It is true, Pablo, that you are the one who cured my daughter; but let me ask you
whether you could have contrived to cure her if you had not known from Juan’s book
that she was sick, and if Pedro’s carpet had not brought you here without delay. —
Your book, Juan, revealed to you that my daughter was sick; but the knowledge of her
illness would have been of no service had it not been for Pedro’s carpet and Pablo’s
tube. — And it is just the same way with your carpet, Pedro. — So I cannot grant the
princess to any one of you, since each has had an equal share in her cure. As this is the
case, I will choose another means of deciding. Go and procure, each one of you, [121]
a bow and an arrow. I will hang up the inflorescence of a banana-plant. This will
represent the heart of my daughter. The one who shoots it in the middle shall be the
husband of my daughter, and the heir of my kingdom.”
The first to shoot was Pedro, whose arrow passed directly through the middle of the
banana-flower. He was very glad. Juan shot second. His arrow passed through the
same hole Pedro’s arrow had made. Now came Pablo’s turn; but when Pablo’s turn
came, he refused to shoot, saying that if the banana- flower represented the heart of
the princess, he could not shoot it, for he loved her too dearly.
When the king heard this answer, he said, “Since Pablo really loves my daughter,
while Pedro and Juan do not, for they shot at the flower that represents her heart,
Pablo shall marry the princess.”
And so Pablo married the king’s daughter, and in time became king of that country.
122
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to reveal events in other places
(d) LEGEND OF PRINCE OSWALDO. [Fn: Narrated by Leopoldo Uichanco, a
Tagalog from Calamba, La Laguna.]
Once upon a time, on a moonlight night, three young men were walking
monotonously along a solitary country road. Just where they were going nobody could
tell: but when they came to a place where the road branched into three, they stopped
there like nails attracted by a powerful magnet. At this crossroads a helpless old man
lay groaning as if in mortal pain. At the sight of the travellers he tried to raise his
head, but in vain. The three companions then ran to him, helped him up, and fed him
a part of the rice they had with them.
The sick old man gradually regained strength, and at last could speak to them. He
thanked them, gave each of the companions a hundred pesos, and said, “Each one of
you shall take one of these branch-roads. At the end of it is a house where they are
selling something. With these hundred pesos that I am giving each of you, you shall
buy the first thing that you see there.” The three youths accepted the money, and
promised to obey the old man’s directions.
Pedro, who took the left branch, soon came to the house described by the old man.
The owner of the house was selling a rain-coat. “How much does the coat cost?”
Pedro asked the landlord. [122]
“One hundred pesos, no more, no less.”
“Of what value is it?” said Pedro. “It will take you wherever you wish to go.” So
Pedro paid the price, took the rain-coat, and returned.
Diego, who took the middle road, arrived at another house. The owner of this house
was selling a book. “How much does your book cost?” Diego inquired of the owner.
“One hundred pesos, no more, no less.” “Of what value is it?” “It will tell you what is
going on in all parts of the world.” So Diego paid the price, took the book, and
returned. Juan, who took the third road, reached still another house. The owner of the
house was selling a bottle that contained some violet-colored liquid. “How much does
the bottle cost?” said Juan.
“One hundred pesos, no more, no less.”
“Of what value is it?”
“It brings the dead back to life,” was the answer. Juan paid the price, took the bottle,
and returned.
The three travellers met again in the same place where they had separated; but the
old man was now nowhere to be found. The first to tell of his adventure was Diego.
“Oh, see what I have!” he shouted as he came in sight of his companions. “It tells
everything that is going on in the world. Let me show you!” He opened the book and
read what appeared on the page: “‘The beautiful princess of Berengena is dead. Her
parents, relatives, and friends grieve at her loss.’“
“Good!” answered Juan. “Then there is an occasion for us to test this bottle. It
restores the dead back to life. Oh, but the kingdom of Berengena is far away! The
princess will be long buried before we get there.”
“Then we shall have occasion to use my rain-coat,” said Pedro. “It will take us
wherever we wish to go. Let us try it! We shall receive a big reward from the king. We
shall return home with a casco full of money. To Berengena at once!” He wrapped
the rain-coat about all three of them, and wished them in Berengena. Within a few
minutes they reached that country. The princess was already in the church, where her
parents were weeping over her. Everybody in the church wore deep mourning.
When the three strangers boldly entered the church, the [123] guard at the door
arrested them, for they had on red clothes. When Juan protested, and said that the
princess was not dead, the guard immediately took him to the king; but the king,
when he heard what Juan had said, called him a fool.
‘‘She is only sleeping,’’ said Juan. ‘‘Let me wake her up!”
“She is dead,” answered the king angrily. “On your life, don’t you dare touch her!”
“I will hold my head responsible for the truth of my statement,” said Juan. “Let me
wake her up, or rather, not to offend your Majesty, restore her to life!”
“Well, I will let you do as you please,” said the king; “but if your attempt fails, you will
lose your head. On the other hand, should you be successful, I will give you the
princess for a wife, and you shall be my heir.”
Blinded by his love for the beautiful princess, Juan said that he would restore her to
life. “May you be successful!” said the king; and then, raising his voice, he continued,
“Everybody here present is to bear witness that I, the King of Berengena, do hereby
confirm an agreement with this unknown stranger. I will allow this man to try the
knowledge he pretends to possess of restoring the princess to life. But there is this
condition to be understood: if he is successful, I will marry him to the princess, and he
is to be my heir; but should he fail, his head is forfeit.”
The announcement having been made, Juan was conducted to the coffin. He now
first realized what he was undertaking. What if the bottle was false! What if he should
fail! Would not his head be dangling from the ropes of the scaffold, to be hailed by the
multitude as the remains of a blockhead, a dunce, and a fool? The coffin was opened.
With these meditations in his mind, Juan tremblingly uncorked his bottle of violet
liquid, and held it under the nose of the princess. He held the bottle there for some
time, but she gave no signs of life. An hour longer, still no trace of life. After hours of
waiting, the people began to grow impatient. The king scratched his head, the guards
were ready to seize him; the scaffold was waiting for him. “Nameless stranger!”
thundered the king, with indignant eyes, “upon your honor, tell us the truth! Can you
do it, or not? Speak. I command it!”
Juan trembled all the more. He did not know what to say, but he continued to hold
the bottle under the nose of the prin-[124]cess. Had he not been afraid of the
consequences, he would have given up and entreated the king for mercy. He fixed his
eyes on the corpse, but did not speak. “Are you trying to joke us?” said the king, his
eyes flashing with rage. “Speak! I command!”
Just as Juan was about to reply, he saw the right hand of the princess move. He bade
the king wait. Soon the princess moved her other hand and opened her eyes. Her
cheeks were fresh and rosy as ever. She stared about, and exclaimed in surprise, “Oh,
where am I? Where am I? Am I dreaming? No, there is my father, there is my
mother, there is my brother.” The king was fully satisfied. He embraced his daughter,
and then turned to Juan, saying, “Stranger, can’t you favor us now with your name?”
With all the rustic courtesy he knew, Juan replied to the king, told his name, and said
that he was a poor laborer in a barrio far away. The king only smiled, and ordered
Juan’s clothes to be exchanged for prince’s garments, so that the celebration of his
marriage with the princess might take place at once. “Long live Juan! Long live the
princess!” the people shouted.
When Diego and Juan heard the shout, they could not help feeling cheated. They
made their way through the crowd, and said to the king, “Great Majesty, pray hear
us! In the name of justice, pray hear us!”
“Who calls?” asked the king of a guard near by. “Bring him here!” The guard obeyed,
and led the two men before the king.
“What is the matter?” asked the king of the two.
“Your Majesty shall know,” responded Diego. “If it had not been for my book, we
could not have known that the princess was dead. Our home is far away, and it was
only because of my magic book that we knew of the events that were going on here.”
“And his Majesty shall be informed,” seconded Pedro, “that Juan’s good luck is due to
my rain-coat. Neither Diego’s book nor Juan’s bottle could have done anything had
not my rain-coat carried us here so quickly. I am the one who should marry the
princess.”
The king was overwhelmed: he did not know what to do. Each of the three had a
good reason, but all three could not marry the princess. Even the counsellors of the
king could not decide upon the matter. [125]
While they were puzzling over it, an old man sprang forth from the crowd of
spectators, and declared that he would settle the difficulty. “Young men,” he said,
addressing Juan, Pedro, and Diego, “none of you shall marry the princess. — You,
Juan, shall not marry her, because you intended to obtain your fortunes regardless of
your companions who have been helping you to get them. — And you, Pedro and
Diego, shall not have the princess, because you did not accept your misfortune quietly
and thank God for it. — None of you shall have her. I will marry her myself.”
The princess wept. How could the fairest maiden of Berengena marry an old man!
“What right have you to claim her?” said the king in scorn.
“I am the one who showed these three companions where to get their bottle, rain-
coat, and book,” said the old man. “I am the one who gave each of them a hundred
pesos. I am the capitalist: the interest is mine.” The old man was right; the crowd
clapped their hands; and the princess could do nothing but yield. Bitterly weeping, she
gave her hand to the old man, who seemed to be her grandfather, and they were
married by the priest. The king almost fainted.
But just now the sun began to rise, its soft beams filtering through the eastern windows
of the church. The newly-married couple were led from the altar to be taken home to
the palace; but, just as they were descending the steps that lead down from the altar,
the whole church was flooded with light. All present were stupefied. The glorious
illumination did not last long. When the people recovered, they found that their
princess was walking with her husband, not an old man, however, but a gallant young
prince. The king recognized him. He kissed him, for they were old-time
acquaintances. The king’s new son-in-law was none other than Prince Oswaldo, who
had just been set free from the bonds of enchantment by his marriage. He had been a
former suitor of the princess, but had been enchanted by a magician.
With magnificent ceremony the king’s son-in-law was conducted to the royal
residence. He was seated on the throne, the crown and sceptre were transferred to
him, and he was hailed as King Oswaldo of Berengena. 126
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to reveal events in other places
(b) THE MYSTERIOUS BOOK. [Fn: Narrated by Leopoldo Uichanco, a Tagalog

from Calamba, La Laguna.]
Once upon a time there lived a poor father and a poor son. The father was very old,
and was named Pedro. The son’s name was Juan. Although they were very poor, Juan
was afraid of work.
One day the two did not have a single grain of rice in the house to eat. Juan now
realized that he would have to find some work, or he and his father would starve. So
he went to a neighboring town to seek a master. He at last found one in the person of
Don Luzano, a fine gentleman of fortune.
Don Luzano treated Juan like a son. As time went on, Don Luzano became so
confident in Juan’s honesty, that he began to intrust him with the most precious
valuables in the house. [145] One morning Don Luzano went out hunting. He left
Juan alone in the house, as usual. While Juan was sweeping and cleaning his master’s
room, he caught sight of a highly polished box lying behind the post in the corner.
Curious to find out what was inside, he opened the box. There appeared another box.
He opened this box, and another box still was disclosed. One box appeared after
another until Juan came to the seventh. This last one contained a small triangular-
shaped book bound in gold and decorated with diamonds and other precious gems.
Disregarding the consequences that might follow, Juan picked up the book and
opened it. Lo! at once Juan was carried by the book up into the air. And when he
looked back, whom did he see? No other than Don Luzano pursuing him, with eyes
full of rage. He had an enormous deadly-looking bolo in his hand.
As Don Luzano was a big man, he could fly faster than little Juan. Soon the boy was
but a few yards in front of his antagonist. It should also be known that the book had
the wonderful power of changing anybody who had laid his hands on it, or who had
learned by heart one of its chapters, into whatever form that person wished to assume.
Juan soon found this fact out. In an instant Juan had disappeared, and in his place was
a little steed galloping as fast as he could down the street. Again, there was Don
Luzano after him in the form of a big fast mule, with bubbling and foaming mouth,
and eyes flashing with hate. The mule ran so fast, that every minute seemed to be
bringing Juan nearer his grave.
Seeing his danger, Juan changed himself into a bird, — a pretty little bird. No sooner
had he done so than he saw Don Luzano in the form of a big hawk about to swoop
down on him. Then Juan suddenly leaped into a well he was flying over, and there
became a little fish. Don Luzano assumed the form of a big fish, and kept up the
chase; but the little fish entered a small crack in the wall of the well, where the big fish
could not pursue him farther. So Don Luzano had to give up and go home in great
disappointment.
The well in which Juan found himself belonged to three beautiful princesses. One
morning, while they were looking into the water, they saw the little fish with its seven-
colored scales, moving gracefully through the water. The eldest of the maidens
lowered her bait, but the fish would not see it. The [146] second sister tried her skill.
The fish bit the bait; but, just as it was being drawn out of the water, it suddenly
released its hold. Now the youngest sister’s turn came. The fish allowed itself to be
caught and held in the tender hands of this beautiful girl. She placed the little fish in a
golden basin of water and took it to her room, where she cared for it very tenderly.
Several months later the king issued a proclamation throughout his realm and other
neighboring kingdoms, saying that the youngest princess was sick. “To any one who
can cure her,” he said, “I promise to give one-half of my kingdom.” The most skilful
doctors had already done the best they could, but all their efforts were in vain. The
princess seemed to grow worse and worse every day. “Ay, what foolishness!” ex-
claimed Don Luzano when he heard the news of the sick princess. “The sickness!
Pshaw! That’s no sickness, never in the wide world!”
The following morning there was Don Luzano speaking with the king. “I promise to
cure her,” said Don Luzano. “I have already cured many similar cases.”
“And your remedy will do her no harm?” asked the king after some hesitation.
“No harm, sir, no harm. Rely on my honor.”
“Very well. And you shall have half of my kingdom if you are successful.”
“No, I thank you, your Majesty. I, being a faithful subject, need no payment whatever
for any of my poor services. As a token from you, however, I should like to have the
fish that the princess keeps in her room.”
“O my faithful subject!” exclaimed the king in joy. “How good you are! Will you have
nothing except a poor worthless fish?”
“No more: that’s enough.”
“Well, then,” returned the king, “prepare your remedy, and on the third day we shall
apply it to the princess. You can go home now, and you may be sure that you shall
have the fish.”
Don Luzano took his leave of the king, and then went home. On the third day this
daring magician came back to the palace to apply his remedy to the princess. Before
he began any part of the treatment, however, he requested that the fish be given to
him. The king consented to his request: but as he [147] was about to dip his hand into
the basin, the princess boldly stopped him. She pretended to be angry on the ground
that Don Luzano would soil with his hands the golden basin of the monarch. She told
him to hold out his hands, and she would pour the fish into them. Don Luzano did as
he was told: but, before the fish could reach his hands, the pretty creature jumped out.
No fish now could be seen, but in its stead was a beautiful gold ring adorning the
finger of the princess. Don Luzano tried to snatch the ring, but, as the princess jerked
her hand back, the ring fell to the floor, and in its place were countless little mungo
seeds scattered about the room. Don Luzano instantly took the form of a greedy crow,
devouring the seeds with extraordinary speed. Juan, who was contained in one of the
seeds that had rolled beneath the feet of the princess, suddenly became a cat, and,
rushing out, attacked the bird. As soon as you could wink your eyes or snap your
fingers, the crow was dead, miserably torn to pieces. In place of the cat stood Juan in
an embroidered suit, looking like a gay young prince.
“This is my beloved,” confessed the princess to her father as she pointed to Juan. The
king forgave his daughter for concealing from him the real condition of her life, and
he gladly welcomed his new son-in-law. Prince Juan, as we shall now call our friend,
was destined to a life of peace and joy. He was rid of his formidable antagonist; he had
a beautiful princess (who was no longer sick) for a wife; and he had an excellent
chance of inheriting the throne. There is no more. 148
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to make possessor fly: to make possessor change shape
The fullest form of the story, however, is the Tagalog metrical romance popularly
known under the title “Juan Bachiller.” The full title runs as follows: “The Sad Life of
a Father and of his Son named Juan, in the Kingdom of Spain. The son sold himself
to a merchant on condition that he would bury the corpse of his father.” My copy
bears the date 1907, but this is merely a reprint of an older edition. Retana cites an
edition dated 1902 (No. 4337) and one before 1898 (No. 4156). The poem is in 12-
syllable lines, and contains 350 quatrains. It is still very popular among the Tagalogs,
but does not appear to have been printed in any of the other Philippine languages.
Inasmuch as there is a close connection between our variants and the verse form of
the story, I give a prose paraphrase of the latter:—
There was once a poor beggar, Serbando, who had an only son named Juan. They
lived in the kingdom of Spain. They had a little hut outside the city in which
Serbando used to go to beg their living. One morning,when Juan returned home from
school and was playing around their little [204] hovel, he heard many kinds of birds
speaking to him thus: “Juan, be patient and toil in poverty. The time will come when
God will reward you.” Then a large bird flew to him, and said, “Juan, leave your little
miserable hut; go and seek your fortune.” When his father returned home, Juan
told him all about the advice of the birds. Serbando did not believe that birds could
talk, and doubted, of course, the truth of what his son said.
Now, it happened that Serbando became sick, and after a short time died, leaving his
son alone in the world. Poor Juan wept bitterly over the dead body. He did not know
what to do. He covered the corpse of his father, and then went crying out through the
streets of the city, “Who wants to buy a slave?” A merchant heard him. “I will serve
you as long as I live if you will only see to the burial of my dead father,” said Juan to
the merchant. Without hesitation the merchant assented, and together they went to
the little hut. The merchant ordered and paid for a funeral; there was a procession, a
mass, and after the burial a banquet.Then the merchant took the boy to live with him
in the city where the king and queen lived. Moreover, this kind merchant sent Juan to
school,and treated him as a son. In time Juan took his bachelor’s degree, and was
greatly admired and respected by his teachers.
One afternoon Juan put a notice on the door of the merchant’s house, which read
thus: “If we use money, there is nothing we cannot discover.”It happened that on that
same afternoon the king and queen were driving through the streets of the city. The
king chanced to fix his eyes on the sign which Juan had put up. He did not believe
that the notice was true; and so, when he arrived at the palace, he ordered the
merchant to appear before him. The merchant was very much frightened at the
summons, so Juan himself went and presented himself before the king.
“Is the notice on your door true?” asked the king.
“It is true, your Majesty,” said Juan.
“Then go and find my daughter. If you can find her, she shall be your wife; if not, you
shall lose your head three days from now,” said the king, who hid his daughter in a
secret room in the palace.
Juan went home and called all the best goldsmiths in the kingdom. He told them to
make a little wagon of pure gold, with a secret cell inside in which a man could sit
with a musical instrument and play it. The goldsmiths finished the wagon in two days
and were paid off. Then Juan called a man and told him to drag this little wagon
along the street toward the palace, and then to the plaza. After entering the secret cell
with his musical instrument, he told the driver to do as he had been directed. The
man began to drag the wagon along the street toward the palace. Men, women, and
children crowded both sides of the street to see this wagon of pure gold, which gave
out such sweet music. When the wagon passed in front of the palace, the queen was
amazed at it. She asked the king to summon the driver before him. So the king called
the driver, and asked him to bring the golden wagon into the hall where the queen
was.
“How much will you sell this for?” asked the queen.
“I will not sell it,” answered the driver.
“Can you not lend it to me until this afternoon?” said the king; and at last the driver
agreed to lend the wagon for a few hours.
The queen then dragged the wagon along the hall, and took it to her daughter in the
secret room. The princess was delighted. As she pushed [203] it forwards and
backwards, sweet music charmed her ears. At last Juan came out of the secret cell in
the wagon and knelt before the princess. He told her why he had been led to play this
trick, and last of all he told her that he would have lost his life on the morrow if he had
not been able to find her. He also began to express his love for her. At first she
hesitated to accept his protestations of affection; but at last she accepted him, and gave
him one of her rings as a sign that she would marry him. Fearing that he might be
caught in the room by some one else, Juan now entered the secret cell of the wagon
again.
At last the king came, and started to drag the wagon out of the palace to the place
where the driver was waiting. Juan suddenly opened the doorof the secret cell and
stood before the king. “O king!” he said, “now I have accomplished your command. I
have found and seen your daughter in the secret room, and she has given me this
ring.”
The king was amazed, and said to himself that, had he known that the wagon
contained any one inside, he would not have allowed it to be brought to his hidden
daughter. He said to Juan, “You have told the truth, that anything can be discovered
if money is used; but you shall not marry my daughter.”
“Remember your promise,” said Juan.
“Wait, and I will ask the princess,” said the king. “She might refuse.”
“Whether she refuses or not, she is to be my wife, for I have seen her and found her,”
replied Juan.
“Then you shall have her,” said the king. So Juan was married to the princess, and
there was great rejoicing in the kingdom. The king, however, was very sorry that his
daughter had married Juan, who had now the right to inherit the throne from him.
He could not endure the idea, so he pondered night and day how to kill Juan under
some pretext or other. Juan learned of the king’s plot, and decided to leave the city for
a while. He asked his wife for permission to go and visit the little hut in which he was
born, and at last she consented.
One day Juan left the palace and went to the country. While he was walking in the
woods near his old home, two birds flew to him. “Juan ,take this ring with you; it has
magic power, and will furnish you whatever you ask of it,” said the male bird.
“Here, take this pen-point, and use it whenever the king asks you to write for him,”
said the female bird. “Remember, Juan, you do not need to have any ink; you can use
your saliva,” it continued. “Now go back to the kingdom, and do not be afraid of the
king’s plots,” said the two birds together. So Juan went back to the palace, and lived
there with his wife.
One day the king called Juan, and ordered him to write something. The king thought
that if Juan should make any mistakes in the writing, he would order him to be
executed. Juan used the pen-point which the second bird had given him. The king
furnished him only paper, but no ink, so Juan used his saliva. “Write this, Juan,” said
the king: “‘It is not right that you should be heir to my crown, and successor to the
throne.’“
Juan wrote the words just as the king had given them, and they appeared on the paper
in letters of pure gold. The king was very much surprised by this demonstration of
Juan’s ability. [204]
Then the king continued, “Write this: ‘You ought not to inherit the crown, you who
were born in a little village, and whose ancestors are unknown.’“ Juan wrote this
dictation, and, as before, the letters were ofpure gold. Again the king said, “Write now
what I shall say: ‘You cannot cheat a king like me; you saw my daughter the princess
because you were hiding in the wagon of gold.’“
Juan wrote these words, and they were in pure gold too. The king was now sad, for he
could think of no other way in which to detect a fault in Juan. So he dismissed his son-
in-law, and showed the queen the golden letters that Juan had written. Juan returned
to his apartments.
When night came, Juan decided to ask his magic ring for a tower which should stand
beside the palace of the king. During the night the tower was erected; it was
garrisoned with field-marshals, colonels, and soldiers. Early in the morning the king
was surprised to see this tall tower standing beside his palace. He said to himself, “I
rule the kingdom, and the kingdom is mine; this tower is in my kingdom, therefore the
tower is mine.” So the king went out of the palace and entered the tower. No one
saluted him. Then he called Juan, and asked him about the tower. Juan answered that
its presence there was due to the will and power of God. When Juan and the king
together entered the tower, all the soldiers lined up and saluted Juan, and music was
heard everywhere. Everything inside was made of solid silver and gold. The king was
astounded at the magic power of his son-in-law, whom he was trying to kill.
“Juan,” said the king, “wipe away this tower and erect at this moment a palace in its
place. If you can do this, you shall be the king of the whole of Spain.” By the magic
power of the ring, Juan was able to fulfill the command, and the tower was changed
into a beautiful palace. The council of the kingdom, at the order of the king, agreed to
crown Juan and his wife king and queen. There was great rejoicing throughout the
realm. The old king and his wife abandoned the palace, and went to live in an abbey,
where they died.
Juan now called the merchant, his former master, to the palace. The merchant was
afraid, for he feared that the king wished to do him mischief; he did not know that
Juan was now king. But Juan received him affectionately, and from that time on the
merchant, Juan, and the beautiful princess lived together happily in the palace.
It will be noticed that the Tagalog poem differs from the three oral versions, in that
after Juan has won the first wager from the king, his skill is subjected to further tests,
which he comes out of successfully through the aid of magic objects given him by
birds. In other words, the poem carries on the folk-tale by adding some additional
episodes. The fact that the folk-tales, both Pampango and Tagalog, preserve the
simple structure, while only the printed Tagalog verse-form seeks to elaborate and
extend the tale, suggests that the simpler form is the older, and that the anonymous
author of the romance added to the oral material for mere purposes of length. As it is,
the poem is very short compared with the other popular metrical stories, which
average well over 2000 lines. The localization of the events in Spain signifies nothing.
205
#folk literacy:
#motif: textual object has supernatural power
The prince’s dream

"I have told you that dreams are never true," she said. "The ghost must be joking you.
You see, you have gone to a far-away land in vain. Banish all thoughts of that
treasure, and continue ruling your kingdom well, and you will be very much better
off." 305
#lost treasure
Then the king of the demons said to the prince, "Young king, since on your way to my
palace you fell in love with this maiden, I deem it fit that you should have her for your
companion; but do not expect the diamond column any more." 308
#lost treasure
As an example I will give the opening of a story entitled “Ricardo and his
Adventures” narrated by Paulo Macateaet, a Tagalog from Batangas: —
RICARDO AND HIS ADVENTURES.
Once there was a widow who had a son named Ricardo. One day the mother said to
the boy, “Ricardo, I want you to go to school, so that you [347] may learn something
about our religion.” Ricardo was willing enough, so he took his Catechism and set
out. Instead of going to the school, however, he went to a neighboring pond and
listened to the merry croaking of the frogs. When eleven o’clock came, he went home
and told his mother about the real school. The poor woman was very happy, thinking
that her son was spending his time wisely. Ricardo took great delight in joining the
chorus of the frogs, for his mother gave him food as a reward for his diligence.
One morning the woman asked her son to read his lesson. The boy opened his
Catechism and croaked very loudly. His mother was glad when she heard that her son
could croak so well, because she thought that that was the way to read the book. [...]
348
#folk literacy
Millington, WH and Berton L. Maxfield. Beyer, H. Otley.

Philippine (Visayan) Superstitions. Published in the “Journal
of American Folk-Lore” (Volume XIX, pp. 205-211) July-
September, 1906. Reproduced in H. Otley Beyer (ed.) 1922.
Bisaya Paper No. 186. Ethnography of the Bisaya peoples. Vol.
9. Surigao, Leyte, Manila.
The Visayans in general believe in three kinds of spirits: the tamawos, dwendes, and
asuangs. The first are not especially bad, altho sometimes mishievous, and
accustomed to kidnap children, in order to make them like themselves. They live in
mounds or elevated places in the fields. Their houses, which are generally on the
inside of the mound, although sometimes built outside, are of metal or glass, and
ordinarily invisible to mortals. Those who have seen them, and in each town there is
usually at least one person who claims to have done so, say that the houses have the
appearance of those inhabited by men, contain handsome furniture, and usually have
in them beautiful young ladies who do their utmost to induce the child whom the
tamawo has captured to partake of their food, since if a mortal once eats of their food
he becomes for all time a tamawo like themselves. If, however, he successfully resists
them, the child is, at the end of three or four days, taken back to the spot where he
was captured, and released.
The tamawo can take on any shape he pleases, generally appearing as a man, but
sometimes as a dog, carabao, or other animal. The tamawo, however, can be
distinguished from the true animal, because the former has a huge body, big staring
eyes, and the toes much prolonged and ending in big claws. 1/3
There is a kind of tree called lonoc which the people think to be inhabited by
tamawos, and they are afraid to touch it. 5/7
One must not point a finger at the rainbow, for if this is done the finger will become
crooked. 9/11
Beyer, H. Otley. ed. 1922. Bisaya Paper No. 195. Data on the
"Colorum" movement in Bohol, Leyte, and Surigao.
Ethnography of the Bisaya peoples. Vol. 9. Surigao, Leyte,
Manila.
1.
Office of the Provincial Commander, Surigao. August 2, 1922.
From: Provincial Commander, Surigao.
To: Adjutant, Dist. of Mindanao & Sulu.
Subject: Colorums.
1. During the last two months, the influx into this province of Boholano and Leyteño
home-seekers have been very unusual. They invariably struck the island of Siargao as
their destination and now a great majority of them are shifting themselves in barrios
of Pamosaingan, Socorro and Consolacion, where Boholanos and Leyteños have
settled in former years. Needless to say practically all of them are of the laboring
ignorant and superstitious people and as such they are easily subjected to the
influences of the wiser man of their class, who pretend to be leaders and claim ability
to heal human ailments and who are locally known as colorums.
2. The most outstanding figure among these colorums is one by the name of Juan
Bajao. He is residing at barrio Consolacion of Dapa and the people in this and the
other neighboring barrios of Socorro and Pamosaingan look upon him as their leader,
their “Papa” and their Doctor. It is no secret in Dapa that this man is often called
upon to cure [1/165] physical ailments of the people by massaging or giving cold
water baths to the sick. We have proofs of a specific case in which he endeavored to
cure a sick child by giving him cold water baths, but not long after he administered
the last bath thte child died. These proofs have already been placed in the hands of
the Provincial Fiscal. While we have not yet obtained any evidence that Bajao has
been receiving money or any thing of value for his “doctorings”, there is no doubt but
that he is lving upon the sweats of the poor ignorant people. It is a sad affair that
President-elect Nicanor Sering of Dapa is backing up these so-called colorums.
Sometime before the election I sent out soldiers in plain clothes but Sering got their
wind and so warned Bajao at once to be on his guard.
3. Information has it that Bajao is in close touch with the notorious Noneng said to be
the great colorum leader in Cebu. No doubt some of those new comers from Bohol or
Leyte are the agents of Noneng who, like those in Misamis caught sometime ago, will
induce the people to sell their property in order to be able to visit their colorum saint.
However we do not have information as yet that the people here have been making
sacrifice sales of their property. [2/166]
4. Any further activities of Bajao of the progress of our investigations of his deceptions
will be reported accordingly.
(Sgd.). V.S. Juan
p3/167
[PK: intervening correspondence from Provincial commander, Cebu (J.P. De Tagle)

alleging that Noning’s cult and criminal activities had ended – the last charge for
“swindling” was seen on March 1919 and that since then he has maintained a law-
abiding existence in the barrio of Luyang, Carmen, Cebu. ]
Office Provincial Commander, Surigao, October 10, 1922.
To Adjutant, P.C., thru Adjutant, Dist of Mind. & Sulu.
1. While Laureano Solar, “ Noneng, must have remained passive since his colorum
activities in 1918, the fact is that other colorums have greatly capitalized his name.
Where there was a colorum activity, the name of “Noneng” has always been
mentioned as being their great saint so that any report of this character would not be
[5/169] complete without Noneng being mentioned, be he active or not. The
attached copies of correspondence will probably illustrate further my point.
(Sgd.). V.S. Juan.
p6/170
Reyes, Francisco B. Myths, spirit beliefs and miscellaneous

folklore from the island of Bohol. in H. Otley Beyer (ed).
1924. Bisaya Paper no. 191. Ethnography of the Bisaya peoples.
Vol 9. Surigao, Leyte, Manila.
[PK: No notes taken]
Table of Contents
I. Superstitious beliefs.
1. Wakwak
2. Ongo
3. The Bakunawa and the Moon
4. Bangil
5. The Gabaan
6. Nag Lunos
7. Walay Katapusan
8. How to Detect Culprits
II. Favorite Phrases
III. Customs & Tradition
1. Betrothals
2. Kombida
3. Ganas
Chaves, Angel R. Magic tales from Cagayan, Misamis. in H.

Otley Beyer (ed). 1924. Bisaya Paper no. 202. Ethnography of
the Bisaya peoples. Vol 9. Surigao, Leyte, Manila.
Panuelong Buoton (A wise handkerchief)
Summary by PK on 6/5/2009: This is a sort of cindarella narrative. The story begins
“Tó Andoy was a very zealous Colorum”. Tó Andoy loved both is daughters but
preferred the younger Maria who was vain and lazy over the elder Juana who was
virtuous and industrious. Maria spent all day combing her hair and often visited
neighbours at all hours of the night. Juana meanwhile did all the housework and was
devoted to the family anitos or household gods to whom she prayed for the welfare of
her sister. One night when Juana was cooking the hearthfire dimmed and out came
an old woman who offered her a magic handkerchief as recompense for Juana’s hard
work. One day the colorum’s priest held a festival in honour of the “faithful members
of the sect” (11/262). At thist festival they were to elect amongst the ladies a “Virgin
Binawi” but Juana did not attend because she was working in the kitchen. The high
priest disapproved of all the candidates, especially Maria. The old woman appeared to
Juana who was weeping because she could not attend, and told her to ask her
handkerchief anything she desired. Juana requested to attend the festival an instantly
she was granted a pretty gown, stylish soes and a carriage drawn by white horses.
“Oh, what a transfiguration; from a kitchen woman to a queen-like being.” Naturally
she was selected to be the “Virgin Binawi”. Her selfish sister emerged from the crowd
to attack her with a bolo, but using the handkerchief, Juana had her transformed into
an owl saying that she must “be always awake during the night and asleep during the
day as your eternal punishment” (12/263). To this day you can hear her saying
“Manang-hac, jac-jac” meaning “I am the bad sister, I want to be good-good now.
“Virgin Binawi” now married the high priest of the barrio Sugbong Kogon,
Talisayan, Misamis. “She died many years ago and all her followers mourned for her
lost (sic) because she was a virtuous woman and a wise leader of her people”. 13/264
Fegi, Elipidio. Magic tales from Calubian, Leyte. In H. Otley

Beyer (ed). 1925. Bisaya Paper no. 205. Ethnography of the
Bisaya peoples. Vol 9. Surigao, Leyte, Manila.
The White Monkey
A story about a mysterious monkey was related to me by a neighbor, a white-haired
man, by the name of One‘[glottal]. When a boy, he lived with his parents in a thick
forest. Among the monkeys in the neighborhood, there was an extraordinarily large
one. And what was more wonderful, this monkey had white hair. There were many
notable peculiarities of this monkey. Whenever “Apo Ongoy” (as the men in the
neighborhood called it) shrieks, a typhoon is bound to come very soon, and if it walks
on the ground for a day or so without climbing a tree, earthquake (sic) is expected to
occur shortly thereafter. 11/295
Flores, Pedro S. Local Magic Tales in Dumaguete, Oriental

Negros. In H. Otley Beyer (ed). 1925. Bisaya Paper no. 211.
Ethnography of the Bisaya peoples. Vol 9. Surigao, Leyte,
Manila.
The Magic Booklet.
Once upon a time, Juan, a shepherd of a rich famer, while on his way to the field
found a booklet floating against the current of a brook. To his great surprise Juan
picked up the book and found blank pages except on one page. This happened to be
on Friday, and it was soon found out that for everyday (sic) of the week there was a
corresponding printed matter on a page. With the possession of the booklet Juan came
to possess magical power. Where before he could not read anything, he was now able
to read what is daily written on a page of the booklet.
Anything he wanted he could have. One day he went to a field to fish. Throwing his
line and muttering a few words a large fish was drawn in from the field. On another
occasion a sack of corn was placed on the ground. By muttering magical words every
grain of corn was extruded from the sack, and when the sack was empty, he muttered
another magical words (sic), and the grains of corn returned to the sack. His co-
laborers were astonished of his powers. His master, however, became jealous of him
because of his powers. One day Juan told his companions that he could tell the exact
amount of money their master possessed. And to the great surprise and anger [1/357]
of the master Juan told exactly that their master had but fifty pesos in his trunk, which
was correct. This made the master angry, and he wanted to get hold of the booklet
from Juan. After a hard fight Juan became exhausted, and the book was taken from
him by his master. What magic powers Juan possessed then consisted only of what
could (sic) remember from the book. 2/358
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural powers
“Mutya” of the banana – Just before the bud of the banana plant opens, one must be
under it at night as a pearl or “mutya” will fall as soon as the bud opens. To secure
the “mutya” the person must fight a sprit (an Aeta). If the person conquers the sprit
and takes hold of the “mutya”, he becomes very strong man (sic). 2/358
#mutya #antinganting
The magic handkerchief – This tells of haddkerchief having magic powers (sic).
Whatever is wanted, the handkerchief is spread and the things desired are on it.
2/358
Gonzales, Milagros M. Folk tales in Bacolod, Occidental

Negros.In H. Otley Beyer (ed). 1925. Bisaya Paper no. 218.
Ethnography of the Bisaya peoples. Vol 9. Surigao, Leyte,
Manila.
How the Island of Siquijor Came to Be Named. 12/434
The captain met the man and asked, “Come to llama usted?” (What is your name?).
Of course the man did not understand the captain’s words. The latter repeated his
question, and the man shouted, “Sikihod”. The crew did not exactly know whether
Sikihod was the name of the man or not.
When they went back to the ship, they related to their companions how they had met
a man named Sikihod; so they took for granted that the name of the place was similar
to that of the man’s name. They called the island [13/435] Siquijor. 14/436
How Bohol Got Its Name
Many years ago there was nothing known about the island now called Bohol. When
the Spaniards came, they visited a small barrio along the seashore. The people did not
know how to speak the Spanish language, so the Spaniards could talk with the natives.
They found the [18/440] island full of caves. Wherever they went the Spaniards
found caves. Finally they learned that the natives called the caves bohó, which a (sic)
Visayan word for hole or cave. The Spaniards then repeated the word bohó with the
sound of the letter “l” at the end; so they called the island Bohol, an island of many
caves. 19/441
Laubach, Frank Charles. 1925. The people of the Philppines:

Their religious progress and preparation for spiritual
leadership in the Far East. New York: George H Doran
Company.
The court of First Instance in 1904 decided that the churches belonged to Rome. The
Filipinos appealed to the Supreme Court, which sustained the former decision. And so
in December, 1906, all of the schismatic Filipino priests had to leave the old churches,
which in almost all cases had been by far the finest buildings in every town, and lead
their congregations out to build such bamboo and nipa structures as they could afford.
The blow was almost incalculable. 149
#aglipay
1930-1939
Cañon, Juan. 1937. Modo practico de aprender la gramatica
castellana con traduccion al ingles y bisaya por Juan Cañon Jr.
Cebu: Felix B. Gacura.
This book that I call “Modo practico de Aprender La Gramatica Castellana” is a
summary of the Spanish Grammar taken from several books such as “Gramatica
Castellana” of the Ateneo, Gramatica Española F.T.D. and from other Grammars
that I had at hand. n.p.
Cañon, Juan Jr. [1937] 1956. [“date of registration[of

copyright]” Feb 19, 1937]. La Gramatica Castellana con
traduccion al Ingles y Bisaya. n.p. (?): Bacalso Press.

P.I. Copyright, 1937
by
Felix B. Gacura
3

This book that I call ‘Modo Practico de Aprender La Gramatica Castellana’ is a
summary of the Spanish Grammar taken from several books such as ‘Gramatica
Castellana’ of the Ateneo, Gramatica Española F.T.D. and from other Grammars
that I have at hand. 4
[PK: Description: This is a 60 page trilingual pedagogical grammar. It follows exactly
the same format as the museum document including typsetting. Pages are divided into
three columns: Spanish words are on the left, English in the middle and Visayan on
the right. Each section is preceded with grammatical explanations in the three
languages above each of the columns (this is different to the museum document which
does not put these in columns). If a book like this was the basis for the museum
document it would appear that the Visayan section is missing and supplanted by
Eskayan. This document has more errors in the english column than the museum
document (eg, errors of pluralisation and transposition of ‘e’ and ‘i’). It includes Rizal’s
ultimo adios in Spanish, English and Visayan. Look for works in National Library
around 1937, search ‘ingles’. It includes popular sayings in the three languages. The
museum document is much longer and more detailed grammatically. The
vocabularios don’t coincide.]

Se conocera que la palabra The word ending in s is Nahimong plural ang mga
terminada en una S esta en formed into its plural by pulong matapus ug S kon
plural, por medio del placing before it the plural ang articulo una kanila
articulo que lleva form of the article. plural
EJEMPLO: EXAMPLE: PANANGLITAN:
los Jueves The Thursdays Ang mga huwibes
las crisis The crisis Ang mga kalisud
las bilis The biles Ang mga pado
13
Verdaderamente todos Truly, all of us owe our Sa pagkamatuod, tanan
nosotros debemos la vida a lives to God. kita nabuhi tungod kang
Dios. Bathala.
Quizas no venga esta perhaps he may not come Tingalig dili siya moanhi
mañana this morning. karong buntaga.
Yo tampoco no se la Nor I do not know the Ako usab dili maantigo sa
leccion lesson (sic) leksiyon.
Cuando quieras, vendras. You may come if you want makauban ka kun buot
to. mo.
17
Gullas, Atty Vicente. 1937. English-Visayan-Spanish Dictionary.
Cebu: Visayan Institute.
Preface [PK: bilingual English then facing page Visayan]
This humble volume has been prepared by an instructor and several college men of
the Visayan Institute who are interested in improving our Visayan dialect so that it
will adopt such modern rules and usages as employed by both the English and the
Spanish languages.
As English is our official language, now extensively used by the Chinese and the
Japanese, the language of business and society, of millions of boys and girls, young
men and women studying or teaching in our public and private schools and colleges,
this work is intended for the use of students, teachers, government employees and
business men in these Islands especially to those who are interested in the progress of
the Visayas and Mindanao. In these regions, the native inhabitants and the foreign
business men (sic) are also anxious to increase their knowledge of both the Visayan
and Spanish to improve their business and social relation (sic) with the people thereof.
Hence, the main objectives of the publication of this humble volume can be summed
up this way:
To give a better chance to the 10 million inhabitants of the Visayas and Mindanao to
know more of English, Spanish and Visayan;
To enable these people who speak either Visaya (sic) or Spanish only or both, to
understand whatever book, magazines, or newspapers written in English.
The author of this volume has spent several years in compiling hundreds and
thousands of the Cebu-Visayan words used by the people of Eastern Visayas and of
the towns and the plains of Mindanao [vii] before attempting to construct them into
the present dictionary. More difficulties wre encountered in preparing the English and
Spanish translations or explanations. In the process of recorrections and
investigations, more difficulties were discovered as explained in the next introductory
chapter. If there are merits in this humble work, they belong chiefly to the untiring
efforts and continuous study and investigation of my assistants in the course of the
preparation of this work. The errors and mistkaes therein, are to be assumed by the
undersigned.
THE AUTHOR
[viii]
***PK: Some consecutive words for comparison with Eskayan lexicons:***
A
a
aback
abaft
abandon
abash
abase
abete
avvey
abbot abbreviate
abdicate
B
Babble
baboon
baby
bachelor
back
backbite
backbone
backward
bacon
bad
baffle
E
[…]
elicit
elm
elope
else
eslewhere
elude
embark
embarrass pagkahilaw sa panagway, pagka-ulaw embarazar [!!!]
S
Sable - cebellina
saber - sable
sac - saco
sacred - sagrado
sacrifice sacrificio, sacrificar
sacrilege sacrilegio
sad triste, melancolico
saddle silla, f; ensillar
safe caja de hierro, seguro
saffron aza fran
sag colgar
sagacity sagacidad
sage savia, f; sabio
sago saugu, sagu, m.
sail vela, dar ala vela
sailor marinero, m
saint santo
sake causa, razon
salad ensalada
#visayan dictionaries
#chapter 9 (check if this has been excluded as a model for Castañares document)
Commonwealth of the Philippines Commission of the Census.

1941. Census of the Philippines: 1939. Volume I: Reports by
provinces for census of popluation. Part I: Abra to Camarines Sur.
Manila: Bureau of Printing.
[Table Population–Bohol:]
Biabas: 1,164
4
#chapter 9
[Table: Population by ability to speak Tagalog, English, and Spanish, and by Sex, and
Age, by Municipalities:]
Guindulman
Total population: 16,670.
Persons able to speak Tagalog: 194
Persons able to speak English (total): 4,744
Under 5 years: 5
5 to 9 years: 134
10 to 14 years: 954
15 to 19 years: 1089
20 to 24 years: 924
25 to 34 years 1048
35 to 44 years: 421
45 to 54 years 146
55 to 64 years: 15
65 years and over: 8
14
#chapter 9
Persons able to speak Spanish
Under 5 years: 0
5 to 9 years: 1
10 to 14 years: 1
15 to 19 years: 4
20 to 24 years: 4
25 to 34 years: 18
35 to 44 years: 15
45 to 54 years 17
55 to 64 years: 20
64 years and over: 11
14
#chapter 9
Commonwealth of the Philippines Commission of the Census.

1941. Census of the Philippines: 1939. Volume II: Summary for
the Philippines and General Report for the Census of Population
and Agriculture. Manila: Bureau of Printing.
Data on literacy and illiteracy were obtaind by inquiring of each person 10 years old
and over, whether he or she is able to read or write in any language or dialect. The
enumerators were instructed to report as literate only those who are able to both read
and write in some language or dialect.
The inquiry was restricted to persons 10 years old and over, because data on literacy
in other countries usually relate only to that part of the population 10 years old and
over. No doubt there is a considerable number of persons under 10 years of age who
are able to read and write.
[Table]
Total number of persons 10 years old and over: 10, 903, 879
Persons able to read and write: 5,316,146; percent of total persons 48.8
Persons not able to read and write: 5,574,254; percent of total persons 51.1
[…]
65 years and over: 553,782
Persons able to read and write: 98, 058; percent of total persons: 17.7 [PK: lowest]
286
#folk literacy
[Table: Per cent of persons 10 years old and over, literate and illiterate, by sex, by
province: 1939:]
Bohol: Total [population] 338,279
Per cent literate: 44.4
290
#folk literacy
While the term “language” means more or less a fixed idiom of a large number of
people who have developed considerable written literature, and “dialect” refers to the
medium of speech of a group of people who have comparatively little or no written
literature, and whose speech is thus changeable, in the Philippines, any native
medium of speech is spoken of as dialect and the foreign idioms as languages. For
instance, Tagalog and Iloko are called dialects; English and Spanish, languages. 317
#chapter 4 #folk literacy #primacy of writing
[Table: Persons able to speak foreign languages: 1939]
Total: 4,831,465. Per cent distribution 100.0
English: 88.2 per cent
Spanish: 8.6 per cent
Chinese: 2.5 per cent
Japanese 0.6 per cent.
320
Of the male population, 29 percent is able to speak English, while only 24.2 per cent
of the female population is able to speak English. 320
#prologue #chapter 1
[Table: Persons able to speak English, by sex and age: 1939]
Both sexes: 26.6 per cent
321
[Table: Persons able to speak English and Number of Persons who have completed
Grade III or a higher grade, by sex and age groups, by provinces: 1939]
322
#chapter 9
However, it should be pointed out that Spanish still has a more stable base than
English, particularly if the teaching of English in the schools is discontinued. In fact,
there are more persons under 5 years of age reported as able to speak Spanish than
English, indicating that Spanish is still a more widely used language than English in
the home. 330
#chapter 1
[Table: Persons able to speak Spanish by sex and age: 1939]
Both sexes: 2.6 per cent
331
#chapter 1
[Table: Number of persons reported as able to speak various languages and dialects:
1939]
Bisaya: 44.37 per cent
[Broken down into:]
Cebuan: 22.63 per cent
Panay-Hiligaynon: 22.63
Samar-Leyte: 12.19
Bisaya: 5.76
Aklanon: 2.71
Hamtikanon: 10
333
#chapter 1
Bisaya.—Considering the five component Visayan dialects as a group, Bisaya is by far
the most important Philippine dialect, being spoken by 7,099,582 persons, or 44.37
per cent of the entire population. Bisaya is the predominant dialect in the Visayan
Islands and in fact is the leading dialect in the following provinces:
Agusan
Antique
Bohol
Capiz
Cebu
Davao
Iloilo
Leyte
Misamis Occidental
Misamis Oriental
Negros Occidnetal
Negros Oriental
Romblon
Samar
Surigao
Zamboanga
335
#prologue
[Table: Population of each province classified according to language or dialect: 1939]
Bohol
Bisaya-Cebuan 94.6 [Percent of population of Bohol]
English 25.2
Bisaya 5.9 [PK: this means Visayan without dialect specified]
Tagalog 1.0
Spanish 0.6
Chinese 0.2
368
#chapter 9
1940-1949
Parsons, Elsie Clews. 1940. Filipino Village Reminiscence. The
Scientific Monthly 51 (5):435-449.
An anting anting is an object of stone or wood which imparts invulnerability, invisibility
and the power to transform into an animal of any kind, into bird or snake. 449
#antinganting
Ratcliff, Lucetta K. 1949. Filipino folklore. The Journal of
American Folklore 62 (245):259-289.
In 1908 while a teacher for the United States government in the provincial high
school in Pagsanjan, Laguna, I suggested to a class that had been studying
Washington Irving’s Alhambra the collecting of local folk tales. The following are
selected from those written by the pupils.
[Footnote:] These folktales, collected by Mrs. Lucetta Kellenbarger Ratcliff and her
students more than forty years ago, were accepted for publication in the Journal in
1939 by its then editor, the late Ruth Benedict. […] 259
"Legend of Halimumog" By Honorio Montecillo
In Alaminos, there was once a very extensive farm on which many farmers together
with their families lived in separate cottages.This farm was located at the foot of the
mountain, where according to tradition, an Enchanted Man lived, who possessed
precious treasures. Often when these farmers were gathered together at rest under a
spreading tree near their cottages, as was their habit, each told a story about the
Enchanted Man. One favorite story was that, in earlier times, the farmers could talk
to that man and could even borrow some needful things,especially all kinds of plates
to be used on wedding days. But it happened that a dishonest, odd looking fellow did
not return what he had borrowed, so after that no one could see the Enchanted Man
again.
[...]
The old man took him into the room, where a sum of money was given to him as a
reward. This room was so richly decorated that it awed the farmer, as he had never
seen such beautiful furnishings before. There were an ottoman and a rocking-chair in
which he was invited to sit; so he seated himself, but jumped up very suddenly like a
deer that hears the gun, for suddenly he thought that he would turn over. The old
man just stood still and said to him, "Whenever you need my help, you need only
come back here and you will obtain aid in whatever you may need." Before Remigio
left the house, all the jars on both sides of the corridor were opened for him to look in,
and he beheld such wealth that he easily determined to return in his next difficulty as
the Enchanted Man said.
[...]
As time went on, he becamevery well-to-do; but he still worked hard and always kept
the warning of the Enchanted Man in his mind. Once when Remigio was with the
friendly old man, he was offered a jar filled with wealth to be taken to his cottage
[264] at midnight with no other help than his carabao. The Enchanted Man wished
to go to some other place for several months, so he desired to provide Remigio with a
liberal supply to cover his needs in his absence. After the warning had been again
called to his mind, the old man told him that he would place the jar on the top of a
mound, whence the farmer could roll it down to his sledge easily. Accepting the offer
gladly, Remigio went home to prepare for the enterprise. His curious helpmate, seeing
him preparing strong rope, the sledge and the yoke, asked what it all meant. He was
so overjoyed at the prospect of great riches that unfortunately he told everything
frankly, concluding with the announcement that now his Enchanted Friend would
give him the jar of wealth. His wife advised him to take their eldest son with him. At
first, the farmer refused to consider it, but he knew the jar was too heavy for him so he
consented. Midnight came, and they started to go with their carabao pulling the
sledge. When they came to the mound, they found the heavy jar exactly as promised.
Then Remigio took hold of the jar, and with the aid of his son he rolled it down to the
sledge. As the mound was very steep, the jar slid and bounded on the sledge very
suddenly. At once the earth opened and the jar disappeared. The farmer, bitterly
disappointed, then repented in vain of his foolish disobedience.
After this, the unfortunate farmer related the story to one of his neighbors, named
Mariano. This ambitious man, who claimed to know something about the magic
power, replied to him with enthusiasm, "Keep still, my friend, and we can find it; at
midnight we will go with pick-axe and spade to the place where it disappeared, and I
will tell you where it is to be dug out. But I advise you not to speak a word while there,
nor to be frightened whatever you may see when we are digging."
The appointed time came, and they soon arrived at the foot of the mound. Mariano
knocked and knocked the ground with his hand, and held his ear listening closely.
Finally he told Remigio where the jar was to be dug out. At first Remigio dug the
ground; then his friend, Mariano, took his place. As Mariano was digging and
Remigio stood silent, he saw many terrible and frightful creatures, among which were
snakes with heads lifted up, wild boars with very long tusks and their bristles raised,
and the form of a big, tall, black man with a whip in his hands. All of these seemed to
be approaching near and nearer to seize them. At last, unable to endure his fright
longer, he exclaimed, "Let us go home now, my friend."
Upon hearing these words, Mariano's face became disfigured with rage and he said, "I
was already touching the rim of the jar of wealth; but when you spoke, it at once sank
down." Then the two unfortunate friends went home full of sadness, and the
Enchanted Man has not been seen there again up to this present time. 265
#lost treasure
‘The Naiad of Botocan Fall [sic]’, Unisimo Solisa
In the province of La Luguna [sic], there is a town named Majayjay, which has a
small river on the east, known as the Botocan, with a beautiful fall. […] In front of this
fall just at the edge of the precipice is a big tree covered from top to bottom with
inscriptions in an unknown language. At the bottom behind this fall is a spacious cave
inhabited by a wonderful naiad. This naiad is a golden princess dressed in a garment
adorned with the most precious jewels and gold. In her habitation, she had a servant
and also a golden cow, [265] a golden centipede, and many other golden things; for
whatsoever the naiad uses is made of gold. […]
About the time of the American occupation, a poor little girl living in a barrio of
Majayjay was passing near the fall with her mother one twilight when she stopped to
wash her feet in a stream near by. […] The naiad gave this poor girl a great sum of
money including bracelets, necklaces, rings and earrings, saying that she must not tell
where these valuables came from. […] When she reached home, her mother asked
her where that money came from; but she said that she must not ask, for it was a
secret. Finally the mother asked her so persistently that she could not keep quiet any
longer, so she had to tell the forbidden secret; but after so doing, she found no money
in the chest where she had hidden her treasure. […]
During the guerrilla warfare between the Americans and Filipinos, an American
captain who was stationed at Majayjay once went to Botocan to take a bath. When he
reached the river, he decided first to go to the bottom of the fall; he did so and when
he arrived there, he saw the golden centipede. So he dived suddenly to catch him and
as the golden centipede was so big that he could not move quickly, the captain caught
one of his legs. He made this one leg into two big rings. When the Americans heard
about this treasure, many of them went there, and they have continued to visit the
falls until the present time; but whenever an American or any foreigner goes then,
even if it be Mr. William H. Taft, it rains heavily although the sun shines brightly. 266
#folk literacy #article: literature #lost treasure
#motif: textual object has supernatural power
‘Juan the Lazy’, Maximo A. Madridejos
In a little village in the mountains there once lived a poor old farmer, who had only
one son named Juan Zafiro. Little Juan’s father loved him very much and taught him
how to read and write when he was seven years of age; but unfortunately when he was
about eight years old, his father died, so he and his mother lived alone in their little
cottage. His mother worked very hard on the farm; but Juan, though he ought to have
worked to help her, stayed in the cottage and did not like to work. The people called
him Juan the Lazy. When he was very hungry he just called his mother to give him
food and water.
One day he called his mother, for he wished to take a bath in the river; so his mother
called for aid from her neighbors to carry Juan to the river. Having arrived at the
river, the neighbors told her that she should not take such care of Juan; they advised
her to leave him by the bank and he would go home himself when he was very
hungry, so she abandoned him. Juan stayed there like a statue on the bank of the river
crying and calling his mother. Many people who saw him said, “Move, Juan. Go
home, you lazy boy.”
Until it was about two o’clock in the afternoon Juan stood there and at that time no
people were passing by, for all were taking their siesta. It happened then that Juan saw
a package of papers floating on the stream. He immediately reached out for it; he
opened it at once and found a book of seven pages. The book contained nothing
except the word “Fibicoy,”written on each page. When he pronounced the word
“Fibicoy,” the little book answered, “What, sir, have you anything to command? I am
ready to do it.” Juan was very glad when he heard these words, and he said eagerly,
“Fibicoy, carry me home.” After saying this Juan found himself in his cottage, and the
book lying on his bosom. His mother was not at home at that time, so he [267]called
Fibicoy again to bring him the best kind of food, for he was very hungry. After that he
gave the book many commands, and the book obeyed him every time. His mother
wondered at the change in her son because she was not called upon to take any more
care of him.
Not far from Juan’s cottage there was a town famous for its beautiful buildings, but
Juan had never been there. As he was anxious to visit this town, he ordered Fibicoy to
carry him there. It happened that when Juan was at the gate of the town he heard the
sound of the bells; as he had never heard so many church bells ringing before, he
immediately rushed away in terror and ran very fast through the groves toward his
village. He did not know here he was and had forgotten all that he had seen on his
way. But the next morning, when he found that Fibicoy was not on his bosom, he
went again toward the town to find the precious book. He cried very loudly “Fibicoy,
Fibicoy”; but as no one answered, he still traveled on. Upon reaching the gate again,
he found his little book lying on the road. This time he visited the town, and after he
had seen all the pretty houses he ordered Fibicoy again to carry him to his cottage.
Not long afterwards his mother and his neighbors discovered his secret. Then many
people went to Juan to ask all about his book, for they believed that the book was
given him by a magician who was a friend of his father; many others said that the
book had been the property of his ancestor many years ago. It is said that Juan and his
neighbors received benefit from the book in all their difficulties. 268
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to serve possessor as a servant
‘The Maiden and the Monkeys’
Once there lived a man and his wife with their young beautiful daughter. When the
maiden was yet young, her mother died. The man was very lonely at the death of his
wife so he soon married another woman. The new wife was jealous of the young
maiden and secretly drove her away from home. She wandered into the woods. Wild
fruits were her only food. But one day, while she was walking near a brook, she found
a small cottage. This was the home of the monkeys, but they were not there. She went
to the cottage, and on the table she found small plates containing food and small
glasses of water, so she ate and drank. After that, she went to sleep in a small
bedroom. When evening came, the monkeys returned home and found that the food
was gone. One of the monkeys went to the bedroom and found the youngmaiden
sleeping. He did not wake her. From that time the monkeys were very kind to her and
considered her as one of their companions. When the stepmother heard this, she
wanted to poison the young maiden. Disguising herself as an old woman selling
apples, [272] she put poison in one of the apples and went to the woods. When she
arrived at the monkeys’ house they were not there. She offered the apples for sale; but
the maiden would not buy, so the woman gaver her the apple. The maiden then
began to eat and after a short time she fell fainting. The woman went away, hoping
the maiden would die. When the monkeys arrived, they found that the maiden was
lying as if dead and began to cry loudly. It happened that a gentleman was passing
near the cottage. He went to the cottage, looked at the body, and asked the monkeys
to give him the body of the maiden, which they did willingly, as they thought he
understood better than they how to bury it properly. He carried the body about a mile
from the cottage when suddenly the maiden vomited the poisonous apple and
regained consciousness. The gentleman asked her to marry him, and she gladly
consented. They went to the house of the gentleman where they were to be married.
The maiden went to invite her father to attend the ceremonies. When he saw the
maiden he fainted, for he had thought she was already dead. The shock was so great
that he did not recover. 273
#article: grimm
‘The Legend of Bay’, Godofredo Rivera
In former days the town of Bay was on the beautiful shore of Lake Bay, but now it
stands far back from the shore on the bank of a small, sluggish river.
[…]
A new Bay was built farther up the shore. Now it is a center of commerce and many
cascos stop there for loading and unloading of cargoes. To prove the veracity of this
story, another may be told of a casco that once stopped at the very spot where the old
Bay sank and dropped anchor. When the casco was ready to sail away, the pilot
started to lift up the anchor. He put forth all his strength, but could not move it, so he
called his companions and all joined together in the effort. All their strength was
exerted in vain, so the captain ordered one of his sailors to dive and investigate the
matter. The diver discovered that the anchor was fastened in the bell of the church
towere of the old Bay. Even today the top of the tower may be seen when the water is
very clear at the spot where the town sank. 275
#article: literature
"How the Church of Santa Maria was Built" By Sixto R. Domine

When he came near the tree the old woman said, "Don't be afraid, wise priest, for the
old woman who is talking to you is the mother of Jesus Christ. Oh! kind priest, I
would like you to do one thing in this wide world. I will open my treasury to you, and
with the riches you will get from it you will build a church on this hill; on this spot
where this tree is growing, place my altar." She then directed that he himself should
come every evening during the building of the church to take as much money as he
could carry. As they were talking, St. Mary said to him, "You must stay here while I
go and open my treasure and while I am gone you must not move or else you will turn
into a stick."
Suddenly she disappeared, but in a short time she appeared again. She then led him
by a hitherto unseen passage into the hill through three great doors and the fourth
door she unlocked and in that room was her treasure. St. Mary gave him a strong
sack; he filled his sack with gold and money. When it was full, he could hardly lift it.
So he carried it away, stooping under its weight.
He was led by her again through the three big doors. As he stepped from the fourth
door, St. Mary said, "Tomorrow you will begin your work. Do not forget that you
must come here every evening until you have finished the work which I told you to
do." The priest, as he reached home, was almost breathless. He put the sack in his box
secretly. It is said that when he finished building the church, he was larger and
stronger than before, for he had carried his sack from the Virgin's treasury every
evening. The next morning the priest hired some workmen to build the church, and
so they began working as hard as they could and continued until the church was
finished. Now it is one of the largest churches of the province of Ilocos Sur. If you will
climb to the top of the tower of the church, you will have a grand panorama of the
surrounding country, with the blue black sea in the distance.
After a few years the priest died at his convent. Now many people think that he buried
a large part of the money left from the building of the church under the convent, and
that thousands and thousands of jars of gold, money, and precious stones are buried in
that hill. 280
#lost treasure
1950-1959
Ratcliff, Lucetta K. 1951. Some Folklore from Bicol Province,
Philippine Islands. Western Folklore 10 (3):231-236.
The Enchanted Bell. (By Sulpicia Caro.) Once upon a time in the town of Cagsana in
the province of Albay, there was a bell which was so big that when it was rung, the
sound was heard by the Moros in the island of Mindanao. For that reason the Moros
were very anxious to capture the town in order to get the bell. When the people of
Albay heard of the impending danger, they took the bell from the church tower and
concealed it in a deep lake near the town. They had just hidden the bell when the
Moros landed in great numbers, entered the town, and looked for the bell. They were
greatly disappointed not to find the desired object, and they sailed away without
injuring the local inhabitants. When the Moros were out of sight, the people tried to
raise the bell from the lake. During their efforts a storm arose with mighty thunder
and lightning. Neither then nor later could the bell be recovered. The divers who tried
to lift the bell told of an enormous eel which lay under the bell. Even today the bell
rests in the lake. Its top can be seen above the water. 233
One Easter I went into the mountains to hunt deer, as I said, but really to look for a
doll. My father had told me that one must search during Easter. If you desire a bulto,
doll, you must go to the forest at this particular time. As soon as it is three o'clock in
the afternoon, you take a bolo and cut every little shrub which you see. From one of
these shrubs drops of blood will fall as soon as the bolo cuts it. This shrub is the one
which you must take to make your doll. At the proper time I went about cutting
shrubs until I found one with a bloody juice. This shrub I carried home and shaped it
into the doll which I now have. [The man stopped to fetch the doll.] You see these
holes? If you wish to kill anybody, you fill the holes with different materials. The
person whom you wish to kill will surely die, because the spirit will move to the
person. 234
#eskayan etymology: bultu
Some people also believe in Anting-anting, which may be obtained by the same
process as the Hocloban during the Easter days. Some men who are Fulisanes possess
this power. I have seen persons who could jump ten feet into the air, and who could
carry a huge sack of rice for an hour. Such men we call Daragagfian. An old man told
me that when the town of Pamplona was assaulted by Fulisanes during the year 1888,
the Fulisanes showed great daring, which was the effect of their Anting-anting. He
told me that those Fulisanes could jump from the ground to the windows of the
presidency. When they pointed at a flying bird, the bird would fall dead. One of them
alone could carry three logs on his shoulders. 235
#antinganting
How to be Strong. At night before the lamps and candles in your house are lighted, go
to a banana tree that is ready to unfold its inflorescence. Stay by it watching until the
inflorescence unfolds. At the end there is a small black stone which you must catch as
it falls. The moment that you have it in your hand, a big man will come to you. If you
can overcome him in a fight, you will be the strongest man in the world. 235
#mutya
UNESCO. 1953. Progress of literacy in various countries: A

preliminary statistical study of available census data since 1900.
Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization.
Table 110. Number and percentage of illiterates in the population of the Philippines,
10 years old and over: 1918–1948 [Excluding persons unspecified for literacy; native
population only]
Census year Percentage illiterate
1918 50.8
1939 51.2
1948 38.7
It should be noted that the criterion of literacy used in the 1918 census was simply
ability to read, without reference to ability to write, whereas at the later censuses a
person was only considered literate if he could both read and write. Hence the data
from the 1918 census are not comparable with those from the following censuses. 122
#folk literacy
Percentage of persons having completed 3rd grade and higher
Male: 38.7 (1939), 49.4 (1948)
Female: 31.2 (1939), 45.5 (1948)
124
#chapter 9
For example, among male person 65 years old and over, about 18 per cent had
apparently learned to read and write without having completed the first grade in
school […] 125
#folk literacy
Pajo, Maria Caseñas. 1954. Bohol folklore. MA, Faculty of the

Graduate School, University of San Carlos, Cebu City.
Marriage customs in early Bohol. During Pre-Spanish Bohol, there were many customs
and ceremonies for different classes of people. This had been true to many parts of the
Philippines also. The most typical was the parents of the groom or some respectable
elders acted as go-betweens to the parents of the bride to ask for the lady's hand or for
marriage arrangements. One of the elders carried a spear of the groom and when he
arrived at the bride's house, he threw the spear pointing it at the stairs and prayed to
God to bless this marriage. The elders then entered the house and conferred with the
parents of the bride. The conference dealt with the marriage proposal, the dowry, the
other [14] gifts, and the date of the marriage [fn]. After the conference, they carried
the bride to the groom's house. The bride had to appear shy, tried to say that she did
not want to go up into the house and persisted that she was timid. The father of the
groom tried to offer her a gift, maybe a slave, money, or another gift so that she would
go up. As soon as she arrived at the top step, she began to demur and the father of the
groom offered her another gift of jewels or articles of the home. Another gift was
offered to make her sit; and another to make her eat; and still another, when she
drunk. A drinking bout followed. One of the elders stood up and announced in loud
voice that if the groom broke the marriage vows and would not support her anymore,
the bride would not be obliged to pay back the dowry and could marry another man.
That if the bride broke the marriage vows, the groom could keep the dowry and he
could remarry. All those who attended the pre-nuptial ceremonies became witnesses
of the vows made. After the drinking bout, a plate was filled with rice and one of the
elders joined hands of the bride and groom over the plate as a sign of marriage. Rice
was then scattered on the bride and groom and over all the people present and
everyone would shout with [15] joy. The poor did not follow the above ceremonies.
Their marriage was devoid of fanfare. The bride and groom would drink from one
glass and the people would shout, "Long live!" After this, everyone would consider
them married. The slaves had the simplest marriage ceremony. They would only say
to one another in the presence of other slaves that they would marry and they were
already married [fn]. 16
Bohol marriages in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. [...] [15] The marriage ceremony is
performed in the church, the degree of solemnity depends upon the amount that the
groom could pay. After the marriage ceremony, rice is thrown at the new couple
before they leave the church in order to wish them riches and fecundity. Then the
bride and groom arrive at the house of the bride, they will be met by one of the
relatives who lets them drink from one glass and who combs the hair of the bride and
groom with one comb. Then they are brought to the parents of the bride for blessing
and advice. Then the feasting begins and is continued generally after [17] breakfast.
The groom and his relatives take the bride away to the home of his parents. This is
called ganas [fn]. 18
The quack doctor sits on the stool by the side of the patient in front of the wine, rice,
and leaves. All of a sudden he starts trembling to shake off the evil spirits with force so
that he perspires tremendously at the performance, therby purifying himself. Then he
mutters a litany of prayers in Latin which implores the spirits to placate their anger, to
pardon, and bless the sick. 28
#urasyun
There is some superstition connected with almost every native toy that the children
play with. The yoyo, which is a seasonal game, is according to old folks an accursed
game for it brings the mumps. It is also believed that flying kites will bring wind and
rice harvest which will be mostly chaff. Kite flying also stunts and dwarfs other crops,
even root crops and corn. Playing tops result in a bountiful harvest. Playing with shells
may also bring crops. 40
Myth of Creation. At the beginning, there was only sea and sky. One day a bird was seen
flying. The bird became tired of flying for there was no place to land. He took water
from the sea and threw it against the sky. The sky in turn got angry and threw back to
the sea, rocks and boulders; that formed part of the earth. From these sprang the
islands, the mountains, the valleys, and the hills.
Origin of the first man and woman. The bird that made the earth rested on the seashore for
a few days. A floating bamboo thrown by the wind hurt its feet. The bird got angry
and pecked it. It broke into pieces, and from its internodes sprang the first man and
the first woman. [42]
The first man was called Silalac, and the first woman, Sibabay [fn]. Silalac and Sibabay
lived together in the world and became rich for they were both industrious and God-
fearing. A few years after, a snkae came and it gave a fruit to Sibabay and Silalac,
saying to them: "If you eat the fruit, it will open your eyes". Then they both ate the
fruit. This made Bathala angry and did not give them any more blessings and they
could not see Him anymore. 43
#chapter 4 [PK: commentary on biblical influence in Eskaya literature]
The people who fasted, eat the food left by the anitos. Then they mix the herbs that
they gathered with oil and place the mixture in bottles. They believe this mixture to
possess some medicinal properties that will make them the possessors of magic charms
and love potion that will attract adamant women; it might be a magic charm that may
make them invisible to human eyes. 79
#invisibility #article: dagohoy
She was not like other women. She was white, with eyes, no blow, now light brown;
she could nto see very well at noon; this was noted by everyone in the barrio of
Lantang. She was an albino. 85
It is believed by the people of Jagna that the point of Canupao is owned by an Apo [fn:
Apo is an albino inhabitant in caves]
Many years before the Spaniards came, Bohol was known in Mindanao and other
nearby provinces to have owned big frigates, and if the crew were asked from where
they came, they answered that they came from what is now the town of Valencia,
Bohol, near the point of Balitbiton. The people from other provinces, thinking that
this town must be a big town full of rich men, went to Valencia to visit the place but
found it to be a forest. Others also testified tha those big frigates disappeared as soon
as they reached the place, and concluded that they must have taken its route through
the underground river toward the barrio of Lantang. What amazed other people who
learned of the crew of these big frigates was that they were all white with golden hair.
At present only these two barrios, Lantang and Anas have albino children, so that the
people of [103] these two villages wonder why they happen to be there. 104
One day, he learned that Señor Luis, the town's opulent man [...] 121
The carabao knocked down by a man. A picture was being shown to the people in which the
artist had painted a carabao knocked to the ground by a lone man. The onlookers felt
great strength and glory seeing like this. But a carabao passed by and put an end to
their cackling chatter [123].
“I see the man is given victory in this picture,” mowed the carabao, “but the artist had
deceived you. The artist could paint it as he liked; but if carabaos could paint, the
man would have been knocked down in the picture and it would have been more true
to life!” 124
#folk literacy #postcolonialism
#motif: writing as a political weapon
The trigamist. Here the fable is used both as a teaching tool and an instrument of satire.
A certain man, while his wife was still alive, married two other women. As soon as
news reached the chief of the barangay, he ordered the polygamist to be tried for the
offense, and ordained that such a punishment should be meted out as would terrify
the whole people and prove a warning forever. To the judges, specially appointed to
hear the case, the chief said: “If his punishment is a light one, then I'll hang all you
judges within four days.”
For three days they deliberated as to what punishment they could contrive for
the man. They had an idea. They called the man into court and announced their
unanimous decision thus: “The prisoner is sentenced to live with all his three wives at
once!” At such a decision the people of the barangay were astonished. They feared
that the chief would hang all the judges. The people’s fears were groundless for before
the fifth day arrived, the trigamist had hanged himself. Since that time no man has
committed trigamy in that country. 127
#polygamy
FN 13: Anting-anting or dagon is a sort of amulet or charm, believed to protect the
possessor against any harm or evil. 130
#antinganting #article: dagohoy
The amulet (anting-anting). [Fn: Told to the writer by an old woman of Candijay,
Asuncion Baja]. Iyo Filemon was well-known in the village as wanting to posses a
charm, the charm of anting-anting. So he spent his life looking for a banana plant, the
species called tindok. He finally found one plant of this kind. Its bud was about to open.
He know it would open that very night. He ate his supper very early. About eleven
thirty, he went to the said banana plant and there he waited for the clock to strick
midnight. He stood right below the bursting banana bud. It should be known that it
was not only Iyo Filemon who was after this amulet. The agta and other supernatural
beings were also after this amulet. They were invisible. Iyo Filemon was unaware of
this. He just waited for the time, mid-night.
When this time came, he whistled, then opened his mouth on the direction of
the bursting banana bud. It was said that the amulet never falls except by whistling to
it. As Filemon whistled, down fell the amulet. He caught the amulet in his mouth and
closed it tightly, for fear someone might steal the precious treasure. He fought against
the [152] agta and other supernatural beings who were present. The amulet gave him
strength and vigor; that made him fight and defeat the agta. He went home and kept
the amulet in his mouth. When he arrived home, he cut his right arm, just below the
armpit. It was no joke to do that himself. He opened the skin and buried the amulet.
He then sewed the skin again so that no one could take it away from him. Now that
Iyo Filemon had the amulet, he had the power of invisibility, no one could ever defeat
him. He was well known in his barrio as the invincible Don Filemon. He became the
bodyguard and friend of Pascual Datahan who lived in the mountains of Duero, as a
barrio king with vassals at his command. After many years, during the Japanese
occupation, he disappeared from the town. The old folks believed that he went away,
to rule the spirits of the other world. 153
Maria Loon [fn: Reported to the writer by Santa Relampagos, Loon, Bohol]. In the
town of Loon, about twenty kilometers from Tagbilaran, stands a beautiful and large
[160] church, one of the oldest and biggest in Bohol. An interesting legend is told
about it, a tale which became very popular in the early days of American occupation.
According to this legend, Maria Loon was the woman responsible for the construction
of this church. She was once a very poor woman, but by a stroke of good fortune she
became richer than anyone else in the whole town. That is why the town has been
named after her, for she was the most civic-minded citizen that ever lived there.
It is said that a long time ago, just as the Spaniards settled in the province of
Bohol, there lived in the town of Loon, Maria Loon and her husband Juan Tamad.
They were poor but honest couple who did not live very happily. Juan was a
fisherman who never liked to work, and often-times his wife scolded him for being so
careless and lazy. If they had nothing to eat, it was Maria who tried her best to get
some food. It was she who constantly urged Juan to stop loafing and go to work.
When the need arose, it was also she who decided what was best for the family to do.
It was no wonder, therefore, that Juan somewhat feared his own wife.
One dark night Juan got into his boat and started to go fishing. When he got
far way from the shore, he put out his fishing lines and patiently waited for some fish
to snatch the bait. Juan seemed to have no luck. A long [161] while passed but still he
caught nothing. Then he grew sleepy and more sleepy, and before long, he was fast
asleep in his banca. When he awoke, it was already morning. He found himself
stranded on a point of land in the midst of the sea. It was clear to him that his boat
was drifted by the currents while he was asleep. He looked into the shallow water
about him, and he saw quantites of bright, shining pebbles. Since his banca was
empty, he filled it nearly full with these pebbles. He set out to return home.
When Juan came home without any catch, he was greeted by an angry wife,
who scolded at him: "Why did you bring home stones instead of fish? Whoever heard
of people eating stones?"
“Well,” Juan began to excuse himself, “As I caught no fish and as I did not
want to come home with my banca all empty, I brought home these whitish and
attractive pebbles for which we may have use some day.”
Juan put away the pebbles in a pile under the house and thought no more
about them. Since the pebbles were brought, at night time the house of the fisherman
and his wife looked as if it were on fire. The pebbles that were kept under the house
shone brightly in the dark and gave the appearance of fire. This attracted the
attention not only of the couple but also fo the neighbors.
Maria could not sleep nights thinking of these fiery [162] pebbles. Being a
clever woman, Maria brought samples of the pebbles to Manila. There, she showed
them to a jewler who examined them and found to be rare precious stones.
This was how Maria acquired her wealth. Being of a religious nature, and
wishing to leave a memento behind her, she undertook the building of a church in her
native town. Now, old and young people remember Maria as the woman who gave
Loon its church. The peple were not even reluctant to name the town after her. Maria
became very wealthy. No one was able to equal her in wealth. After the Americans
stayed in the Philippines for five years, Maria died with the blessings of thankful
people. 163
In his dream, the herbolario was instructed to take off the marble from the head of the
datu. At the same time that he was removing he was to pray the oracion. He was also
told to make some oracion everyday as long as he possessed the stone, and to preserve
the head in his house. 164
#urasyun
The greedy man [Fn: Reported by Miss Josefa Libres, Normal Department, Central
Visayas Colleges, Jagna, Bohol]. Once there lived two jewelers named Carlos and
Juan. Carlos became jealous of Juan so that he tried all he could to ruin the business
of his rival.
Juan's business began to decline and after two months he was totally out of business.
The unhappy man went to a certain isolated spot and sat on a big stone. There he
grieved over his misfortune. After sitting there for an hour thinking of what to do in
order to support his family a group of elves. came and encircled him. They danced
and sang. Juan was frightened so that he wanted to run away from the place. One of
the elves told him not to be afraid of them. He asked Juan what worried him so; he
told the elf how his rival had tried to put him down. The elves then lifted the big stone
where Juan had been sitting and told Juan to follow them. That hole covered by the
stone turned out to be a cave. Juan could not believe what he saw. There were so
many sacks of gold and silver. The elves told Juan to get all he wanted but Juan was
very shy. He answered them that he would get only what they would give [166] him.
The elves insisted on his getting all he would carry so that the poor man thanked them
for their kindness.
Juan reached home with a sack of gold. His wife was surprised to see so much gold
that she frightfully asked Juan where he got it. She was afraid her husband had stolen
the gold but when Juan told her how he had obtained it she felt very happy.
The next day everybody in town saw·that Juan was a very rich man. Carlos, his rival,
asked him how he had acquired his wealth so that the good man told him about the
elves. Carlos went to the same spot and there he encountered the same elves. They
brought him to the cave and asked Carlos what he wanted to bring home. Carlos
greedily answered that he would bring home all the gold he could carry.
He filled his pockets with gold and put over his back a very big sack of gold coins, He
reached his house very late in the evening for he had to rest many times.
His wife was at the door waiting for him. She was very anxious as to what had
happened to him, for it was already late in the evening. "Do not worry,” he said, "See
what I have here.” He poured the contents of the sack on the floor. What did they
see? Stones, many stones were laid before their eyes. His wife thought he had gone
mad, but when Carlos kept on muttering of his cruelty and bad deeds, his wife
understood him and she did not mind him. 167
#lost treasure
The dances in the lowlands show much foreign influence but the dances in the
mountains has remaind much more pure. 236
Most Boholano dances are slow, except in curacha which is breath-taking and part of
curadang also. 236
Most dances of foreign extraction are rather ballroom dances, not folk dances. Some
of these are Valse, Polka, and Danza. The Rigodon and the Lanceros belong to old
and gracious memory.
To open a formal dance, the woman should wear formal evening dresses, the mestiza
dress; and the gentlemen, should wear embroidered and expensive [238] barongs with
black trousers. 239
Telling riddles was one interesting way of spending leisure hours by the ancient people
of Bohol. This was a habitual form of recreation in most of the rural homes. This time
took place after supper before the rural folks went to bed. Riddles have been an
interesting pastime for they develop thinking and humor among the old folks.
Filipinos, in general, are very fond of riddles. Some Filipinos even today still express
their ideas in terms of riddles, in a round-about way.
It is curious to notice that most of the legends have parallel versions in other
provinces, and even in other Malay, and in Hindu countries. Only they are given local
color but they retain the central theme and the mythical elements. Most of the folk
tales given have been told orally from generations until today. The Spanish friars have
been blamed for burning whatever written literature existed in the Philippines. This
tragedy is deplored today by both Spaniards and Filipinos, clergy and laity [fn]. 271
#chapter 1
Arens, Richard. 1959. The early Pulahan movement in Samar

and Leyte. The Journal of History 7 (4):303-371.
The term Pulahanism seems first to have been given to a subversive fanatical
organization, which in 1894 brought death and terror to every town in Samar from
Pambuhan in the North to Basey and Giporlos in the South. The members of this
organization wore, as a distinguishing mark, red trousers or a sash of red colour
elsewhere about their sparse clothing.
It seems that the Pulahan movement was partly a continuation of the “Dios-Dios”
movement. The “Dios-Dios” members — religious fanatics [304] — went in 1884
into the mountains of Samar and were able to get a hold on the simple mountain
people. They were harmless, however, and created very little trouble during the
Spanish regime [fn: Vic Hurley in his Jungle Patrol also points out the connection of
the “Dios-Dios” movement with the Pulahanes. he writes: “On Samar island, ‘Pope’
Pablo had consolidated factions of the Dios-Dios, which was to develop into
pulajanism. The Dios-Dios had been under Anugar, who now relinquished the
leadership to the ‘Pope’. Pablo was the religious head; Pedro de la Cruz rose to
become Jefe Superior de Operaciones; Isidro Pompac, better known as Otoy, became
Segundo Jefe de Operaciones”, p124] 305
The Pulahan movement in Samar gained momentum when the Insurrectos of the
island surrendered in 1902. Some of the Insurrectos did not like to surrender; they
went into the mountains and joined the Pulahanes. 313.
Jaime de Veyra stated in an interview with the author that some of the Pulahan
leaders [of the early 20th century in Samar] came from Masbate, some of whom went
to Samar and others to Leyte to spread the movement. 315
The two most notorious of the Samar Pulahan chiefs were “Papa” Pablo and Enrique
Dagohob. “Papa” Pablo was the medicine man, and under the cloak of religion he
played upon the superstitions of these primitive hill people. 316
[Governor Curry of Samar] reports that on July 1, 1905 there were about 7,000
people generally referred to as “Pulahanes”, with about 120 guns, in Samar.
In march 1906 [Captain George Curry] could announce that the last of the Pulahan
leaders were to make their formal surrender in the near future. 321
Pedro de la Cruz and Papa Pablo were killed by patrols under Major John B. Murphy
in November 1906 [...] 323
At the turn of the century there existed in the mountains of Ormoc a band of “Dios-
Dios” bandits under the leadership of “Papa” Faustino Ablen. Faustino, who declared
himself Pope of the island promised his followers immunity against Constabulary
bullets if they wore an anting-anting (charm) —sold by “Papa” Faustino himself. 325
Under the leadership of Faustino the bandits robbed, burned, raped and carried off
girls. By October 1902 it was necessary to send colonel Taylor to Leyte with three
hundred men. Thus began the first of the two famous Pulahan camapigns in Leyte.
First Pulahan Campaign in Leyte (from October 1902 to August 1903) 325
Second Pulahan Campaign (1903 to 1907) [PK: also in Leyte]. 326
On May 11, 1906 Felipe Tamayo, Faustino’s “Chief of Staff”, came in with sixteen
men and surrendered to Captain Crockett. 326
After the surrender of Felipe Tamayo, a new leader, Felipe Ydos, rose. Whether
Faustino or the new bandit leader, Felipe Ydos, led the attack on the town of Burauen
on June 19, 1906 has never been determined. [...] After the attack of Burauen the
Pulahan movement gained such strength that it was quickly seen that the movement
was beyond the strength of the Constabulary, and the regular troops were called
upon. 328
PK: On June 11 1907, Papa Faustino is captured. 329
The Commission Report has the following to say about Faustino Ablin, styled by the
common people “Papa” or “Pope”: “Faustino is a perfectly ignorant man, who can
neither read nor write. He is 53 years old and a native of the outskirts of Ormoc. He is
the youngest of a large family, and has himself 5 living children, 4 of whom have been
with him in the hills. His wife is still with him and has shared his hardships in the
mountains also. About 1887 or 1889 he was, by the Spanish authorities, arrested for
having organized a fanatical movement known as the “Dios-dios” movement. He was
taken to the penal colony in Zamboanga, San Ramon, and also to Iligan and
Marahui. In all he was absent some ten years during which time his family lived in
Ormoc. he says he was brought to Iloilo with a number of others about the time of the
American occupation of Iloilo and that he was sent to Ne-[329]gros, where the
American authorities released him and allowed him to go home. He joined the
insurrection then in progress in Leyte, and when the leaders finally surrendered in
Leyte, he refused to come in, and has ben an outlaw ever since. [...] 330
Faustino’s capture ended the campaign. Ydos, now with little following, surrendered
four months later. Although Pulahanism in Leyte was now crushed, it did not entirely
disappear. The unstable elements soon began to mgrate to nearby Mindanao where
they staged the major uprising of the 1920’s, known in Philippine history as “The
colorum Uprising of Surigao.” 330
The inhabitants of La Paz had been active in the early Pulahan movement. It is said
that “Papa” Pablo had been living in La Paz, and other Pulahan leaders were well
known in La Paz. According to some informants Marcial showed signs of mental and
emotional imbalance. He did “funny” things. He was a fancy tree climber, but the
people of La Paz believed that in Marcial the spirit of Antonio Anogar and “Papa”
Pablo had been revived. They accepted Marcial as their god-sent leader. Marcial
played well up to this belief and convinced the people that he had special powers and
a very efficient “Anting-Anting”. 332
When the Pacific War broke out in 1941 and the USAFFE soldiers (United States
Armed Forces in the Far East) surrendered and disbanded in Samar, the Pulahanes
were resuscitated and became very active. 334
[During the Jap occupation] They avenged the abusive acts of government officials
who had been hard and arrogant in dealing with people of the interior during peace
time. 334
When the Japanese Imperial Forces occupied Samar on May 24, 1942, the three
Pulahan organizations under three different leaders were unified into one
organization and they called themselves Katipuneros. The Japanese commander
Hakoyen utilized the Katipuneros as guides in the campaigns against the guerrillas
and hostile civilian evacuees who helped the guerrilla movement. 334
The best known Pulahan units during the war were in Gandara and Wright. 334
Money was also in Kubalan’s case the driving motive. As a supervisor of the Samar
district said: “All these fake leaders were clever fellows who knew how to deal with the
simple mountain people and to get from them all the money and women they
wanted.” It is well known that Kubalan, even in his late age, was always surrounded
by young women. 335
#polygamy
Although the Pulahanes were friendly to the Japanese, the Pulahanes in Gandara did
not receive any material aid from them. The soldiers had only bolos and sungangs to
fight with . The Labong brothers alone were in possession of four revolvers and 4
rifles. The organization did not have a flag of its own. 338
According to the reports the Pulahanes of Wright had closer connections with the
Japanese than the Pulahanes of Gandara. The Pulahanes asked the Japanese for help
and protection against the guerrillas. The oppression practiced by the guerrillas
against the mountain people of Wright was explained by officials of Wright in the
following way: At the outbreak of the Japanese war the Philippine [etc] 342
Oppressive methods must have been used. Ex-Mayor Abalos said people of Lawaan,
Calapi, Concepcion and Casanding were molested by the guerrillas. Seven civilians
were killed in Lohilokon. The mountain people, resenting this oppression, joined
together in an organization the general public called Pulahanes. 342
The name chosen by the organizers was “Katipunan”, to mark it as a continuation of
the old revolutionary movement. The guerrillas were very much offended by the fact
that this group, which openly supported the Japanese invaders, misused the sacred
name of the Revolution. 344
Discipline was strict for the women soldiers. Unmarried women had to dress like older
women—no colorful or fine dress was permitted. The hair could not be worn in curls:
dancing was also forbidden in the camp. 345
In the Otley Beyer collection at the museum of Archaeology in Manila is an oracion
amulet designed on a shirt of a Pulahan leader in Samar who had been killed by an
American soldier in the 1944 pacification campaign. The shirt is a ‘classic” of an
oracion amulet with fine drawings of angels and incantations. The Anting-antings of
the common soldiers were mostly oracion amulets —written on paper and sewed in
cloth, then worn as a necklace, called “reliquias”.
The Pulahanes of Camp Minarog believed that Rizal would return to life, and that
there would be a time when rich and poor would be alike. They also believed that
Pulahanes killed in battle would be revived after three days. 346
#urasyun
A Padi-Padi, a layman, took charge of the religious needs of the people in camp
Minarog. 346 [PK: Compare pari pari in Candijay]
In the early part of 1947, the remnants of die-hard Pulahan leaders, like Antonio de la
Cruz alias Toñing Pabelonia, Crispin Dagles, Ignacio Lagbo, Diosdado Labong
(mabe a nephew of the Labong brothers), and a host of others reorganized the
interiors of Yawa and San Jose de Buan. In May 1947 they resumed their subversive
activities by attacking and killing innocent civilians. They burnt many houses in San
Jose de Buan, and in barrio Paglayogan of Catbalogan (Samar). To counteract their
activities, a squad of Constabulary soldiers from the defunct 51st MP Company led by
Leocadio Espina was dispatched to barrio Pagloyagan to intercept the Pulahanes. The
patrol, however, was ambushed, which resulted in the death of Pfc Lucas Larrobis.
353
[...] in the morning of May 3, 1947 a bloody battle was fought in Calantawan. During
this battle the prisoners from San Fernando were able to escape to their homes. The
Pulahan “Verdugo” or “butcher, executioner” whose name was Crispin, was killed
with many others.
In three months of rigorous joint campaigns undertaken by 51st and 52nd M.P.
companies, all the important leaders of the Pulahan organization were captured and
prosecuted. [...]
On May 27, 1947, the provincial fiscal of Samar filed a case of “Rebellion or
Insurreciton with multiple murder and incendiarism” against twenty-six of the
imprisoned Pulahanes. 356
“[...]The Katipunan was also responsible, in later years, for the growth of many of the
numerous quasi-religious sects whose members terrorized Samar, Leyte, and Luzon.
There is evidence, too, of Katipunan influence in the raids of the organized bandits
who caused the Constabulary so much concern in the interval following the
insurrection.” [Vic Hurley, Jungle Patrol, p117] 360
For example the leader would say: “Come back next week, your name will be
submitted to Christ, if he accepts you, you will be a member.” When the day of final
decision came, the applicant was led to a room with a curtained crucifix. This crucifix
had been rigged up in such a way that by pulling a string the head of Christ would
not, or his leg jerk. The leader would submit the name of the applicant in a loud voice
to Christ. After a while of anxious waiting, during which Christ was “deliberating the
case,” suddenly the head of Chrislt would nod. for the simple mountain people this
was a tremendous experience [...] 363
A cross was placed in a glass filled with water. The leader would say: “Come back
next week, if Christ accepts you, the cross will have grown to its double size in the
glass.” coming the following week the “miracle” had happened, the cross had grown
(replaced by a bigger cross in a bigger glass, bought in Manila), the applicant was
accepted and contributed his little earnings to the exploiting leader, at the same time
becoming a fanatical followers. 363
#pamilacan cross #bio of anoy
The Fifth Annual Report of the Philippine commission, 1904, brings out the fact that
the simple people blindly followed these “leaders”:
[...]
“[...] live at the expense of the unwary, as happens with the Pulahans, who use flag,
have an infinity of prayers fabricated by their leaders which their dupes believe are a
talismanic protection against the enemy’s fire. [...] [p610-611]
364
[PK: Note that the above is a misquote. Actual text runs as follows: ‘I can assure you
that the character of the natives of this province is peaceful, but, as the lower classes
are very ignorant, a person little more enlightened than themselves teaching them
false doctrines is believed in implicitly, and they allow themselves, lamblike, to be
misled through devious paths of error, it being very difficult afterwards to make them
understand that their guides or teachers are nothing but bandoleros who, accustomed
to idleness, live at the expense of the unwary, as happens with the Polahans (sic), who
use flags bearing religious emblems, scapularies, and rosaries, and who have an
infinity of prayers fabricated by their leaders which their dupes believe are a
talsimanic protection against the enemy’s fire.’ [Feito, Eduardo. 1905. Report of the
Governor, Province of Samar. In Fifth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission:
1904. Part I. Washington: Government Printing Office. 610]
#antinganting
Frei, Ernest J. 1959. The historical development of the Philippine

National Language. Manila: Institute of National Language.
PK: If collaborating with James on an article on ‘The invention of a national
language: the appeal to linguistic theory in the formulation of Filipino’, make sure to
really re-read this text. There’s plenty in it. In addition, read Cecilio Lopez’s The
Language Situation in the Philippine Islands (at NLA), and perhaps more importantly
Trinidad A. Rojo’s 1937 document possibly called The Language Problem in the Philippines
(at NLA) “it is of interest to remember that this study was published after the National
Language Act was passed but before Tagalog had been recommended as the basis of
the national language” Frei, 71.
Note also that this is only part 1 of the thesis. “Parts Two and Three of this thesis deal
with the history and character of the grammatical treatment of the national language
and its promotion” 92 Look for this in the NLP??
PK: Look up B&R Vol IX, Instructions of Governor Tello to the King. p218,
regarding refusal to implement Spanish teaching policy
PK: Look up Doherty, D.J. “Conditions in the Philippines,” 1904, p 7 for discussion
of ‘fusing’ vernaculars to create an auxiliary language.
#national language #prologue [to add citation other than Frei]
Some grammars were written as early as 1580 or even earlier, and though some were
never printed and remained in manuscript form, they were used by the newly arrived
friars in the study of the dialects. 6
Pardo de Tavera: “The friars in studying the Filipino languages continually compared
them with the Latin and the Castilian, to the grammar and genius of which they
moulded, whenver they could, those of the new language which they were learning.
As a result the grammars of the Filipino languages which they soon made created an
artificial language, very different from that actually spoken by the islanders. Everyone
who understands Tagalog has endured mortal torments thousands of times while
hearing from the pulpit the sermons which a great number of religious utter in the
conventional language” (1899) 7
#history: language documentation (Spanish era) #unintelligibility
The Nueva Recopilación de las Indias contains law 18, title I of Book IV, issued by Carlos I
on June 7 and July 17, 1550, in which it was ordered that teachers be assigned to the
“Indians” to instruct them in Castilian [fn: B&R]. The instructions to Governor Tello
of May 25, 1596 refer to a decree for teaching Spanish, to be given to him with the
instructions. Another royal decree concerning native schools to teach the Spanish
language was issued by Carlos II on June 20, 1686. The royal decree of December 22,
1772, demanded again the teaching of Spanish in native schools and referred to
previous decrees of May 10, 1770, November 28, 1772, and November 24, 1774,
demanding strict observance of these decrees. 9
#literacy: spanish
The laws of the Indias and all the royal decrees ordained that there should be schools
for teaching Spanish in order to have a suitable language in which to teach the
Christian faith. 10
#literacy: spanish
Carlos I, 1550: “Having made special investigation as to whether the mysteries of our
holy Catholic faith can be thoroughly explained even in the most perfect language of
the Indians, it has been seen that it is impossible without committing great discords
and imperfections, and although chairs are founded where the priests, who should
have to instruct the Indians may be taught, it is not sufficient remedy, as the diversity
of the language is great” (recopilacion de las Indias, Vol XLV, p. 185)
#literacy: spanish
Fernando Valdes Tamon (1739): “Would that they might devote themselves at once
to suppressing the variety of languages which the natives use, [...] gradually bringing
to the use of the Castilian language and endeavoring to secure instruction therein all
the schools” (Vol XLVII, p. 157) 10
#literacy: spanish
#language diversity
To advance the cause of teaching Spanish the government began to stimulate the
linguists to produce textbooks in the dialects for the study of Castilian by Filipinos.
Thus a royal order in 1876 ordered, “that the zeal of persons conversant with the
various dialects of the archipelago be stimulated, so that a grammar may be compiled
in each dialect for the teaching of the Castilian tongue in the schools of primary
letters, for the purpose of obtaining the diffusion of siad language.” Vol XLVI, p 247.
14
#literacy: spanish
In 1883 a decree of the General Government was published for the purpose of calling
an assembly in which the authors of the best grammars written in the dialects of the
country for the teaching of Castilian should be awarded. Following this decree the
General Division of the Civil Administration on September 25, 1883, convoked an
assembly for this purpose and fixed the conditions of it. On October 6, 1885, there
was a decree of the General Government, “granting to the original Hispano-Tagalog
grammar of the right reverend Father Fray Toribio Minguella the privilege
established in rule 6 of the preceding decree” [fn: B&R, vol XLVI, 250-251) [...] It
does not seem that there were entries for the [14] competition from other dialect
areas, which would not be strange in view of the fact that between calling the
assembly and the date of its meeting hardly enough time was given to reach the
Pampanga and Ilokano districts, much less the Visayan Provinces. As a result, in the
same decree of October 6, 1885, a new assembly was called for a competition to be
followed by prizes for the best Castilian grammars written in Visayan, Cebuan,
Ilokano, Bikol, Pangaisnan and Pampangan, there being one in Tagalog already. 15
[...] definite influences were engaged to slow down or nullify government endeavors to
spread the Spanish language in the Philippines. 15
[...] the friars provided the chief obstacle to the spread of the Spanish language. 15
#literacy: spanish
For one thing, they [the friars] wanted to keep the power over the people in their
hands and the government [of Spain] depending on them [the friars]. 16
#literacy: spanish
At this point [establishment of the Katipunan in 1892] the question of the use of
language is not very clear, but it would seem that Bonifacio’s work was done in
Tagalog so that the Filipino people might understand and respond more readily. The
very name of the organization, “Kataastaasan Kagalanggalang Katipunan ñg mga
Anak ñg Bayan” (Most High and Venerable Association of the Sons of the Nation),
would indicate the growing importance of the vernacular in the movement for
freedom. 27
#history: language documentation (revolutionary era)
The “Constitución Provisional de la República Filipinas” was drafted and adopted at
Biac-na-Bato, November 1, 1897, and one of its articles declared Tagalog the official
language of the Republic. 27
It was clear that the language of the oppressors would not be considered as the
national language, for it was understood by only a small percentage of the people, but
it was continued temporarily as official language. 28
Yet there was no definite plan [to secure Tagalog as the national language], and any
aspirations toward Tagalog as the national language or indications of a program or
plan of promotion of Tagalog in other language areas of the Philippines died with the
short-lived first Philippine Republic. 30
[‘The President’s Instruction to the Commission’ in Report of the Philippine
Commission 1900, p444:] “In view of the great number of languages spoken by the
different tribes, it is especially important to the prosperity of the Islands that a
common medium of communication may be established, and it is obviously desirable
that this medium should be the English language.” 32
#language diversity
[...] the feeling on the part of the Americans that only in the English language could
they make their cultural contribution to Philippine life [...] 33
Hence the Commission determined that English was the language the people ought to
be taught, because it is the language of free institutions and of the government. This in
spite of, “a demogogic agitation [...] to prejudice the people against English and to
bring about the teaching of the barbarous dialects to the narrowing effects of which
the people had ben condemned for so many centuries.” [In Forbes, op. cit. Vol II,
quoted from Appendix XXIV, “Excerpts from Ex-President Taft’s address before the
Brooklyn Institue of Arts and Sciences”, November 19, 1913, p. 501. PK: I can’t find
the op cit. Note that the demogogic agitation refers to US citizens] 33
#history: language documentation (american era)
#language diversity
#sapir-whorf
“The question has been frequently raised whether these Filipino languages are
sufficiently related so as to fuse into one common tongue, and the Bureau of
Education has received its most vigorous criticism in the United States because of its
alleged attempt to supplant and destroy what might, in the opinion of absentee critics,
become a national and characteristic speech. Such criticism would only proceed from
a profound ignorance of the nature of these languages and the people who speak them
[...] In no case is there any indication that these languages are fusing. The Filipino
adheres to his native dialect in its purity, and when he converses with a Filipino of
another tribe ordinarily uses broken Spanish. These languages are not destined to
disappear or fuse, nor are they destined to have literary development.” [Hayden,
quoting from the Report of the Philippine Commission, 1903, Vol III, pp. 700-701]
#national language
His conclusion was that the new order of things, which the Americans and Filipinos
alike wished to introduce into the Philippines, could come only through a new
language, namely English. 35
#national language
[English] was the “Open Sesame” for cultural, economic, and political advancement
and achievement. 38
#language prestige
In 1911 the then Resident Comissioner, Manuel L Quezon was quoted by the
Cablenews-American as emphasizing, “the need of a common language for the entire
islands, preferably English, as that was spoken by a vast majority of the civilized
world”.
That he later changed his preference to Tagalog does not alter the fact of his
recognition of the service the English language has rendered all over the Islands. 39
#national language
[Constitution of 1935:] “until otherwise [39] provided by law, English and Spanish
shall continue as official languages,” 40
#national language
Others, for reasons, not always disinterested, seized in turn upon Doherty’s idea that
the various dialects could be fused to create a national language for the Philippines in
order, as already indicated, to embarrass the administration. This was what Taft
criticized as “demagogic agitation”, and Barrows, referred to when he spoke of “the
opinion of absentee critics” who thought that the languages could be fused. In the
opinion of Barrows “such criticism could only [40] proceed from a profound
ignorance of the nature of these languages and people who speak them” [See earlier
in this chapter under “English Becomes the Official Language and the Language of
Instruction,” supra. p. 47]
It appears that he [David J Doherty] had been working on Tagalog for some time,
and finally in 1903, he took a trip to the Philippines for the purpose of making a first-
hand investigation of the language situation, the tentative results of which he
published in an undated pamphlet probably late in 1903 [“Notes on Filipino Dialects”
Chicago, no date]. Three of his conclusions as a result of this trip need to be
mentioned. First, he was greatly impressed with the possibility of a fusion of the
dialects, which he considered necessary because
not for a century or more can [English] become the vernacular, because it is not the language
of home life. Hence arises the necessity of perfecting the Filipino language; of fusing the seven
dialects into a common one. (p2)
On the assumption that more than fifty percent of the words are similar if not
identical, and that the grammatical structure is the same, he thought the fusion could
be accomplished by making up a combined vocabulary, and then have native wirters
promote the fusion language by writing literature in this new medium. To this end he
encouraged Lope K Santos, then editor [41] of Mulig Pagsilag, in the organization of a
Filipino Academy. 42
#national language
MacKinlay, in the preface to his grammars, says, [42]
Shortly after the arrival of the author in the Philippines, he in common with many others, felt
the need of a work upon the Tagalog language in English, and began to prepare this
compendium, working upon it from time to time as other military duties permitted, and, upon
being ordered to duty in Washington for the purpose of having better facilities for the
completion of the work, has been enabled to bring it to such completion [...]
This indicates that the Army encouraged linguistic interest, but since such
publications on the part of the Army personnel are restricted to the early days of the
occupation, it must be assumed that with the reduction of the armed forces, the
usefulness of such studies for the Army diminished and linguistic interest waned. 43
#language documentation (american era)
[...]the government was interested from an anthropological and ethnological rather
than a social and educational point of view. 43
[Frank R Blake, 1920]: ...comparatively little progress in the development of our
knowlege of Philippine languages in the period of more than two decades [43] since
1898. But this is perhaps not surprising, considering the lack of interest on the part of
the government [...] [Blake, F.R., “The Part Played by the Publications of the United
States Government in the Department of Philippine Linguistic Studies,” Journal of the
American Oriental Society, Vol. XLII, pp. 147-170.] 44
From his [Blake’s] list of publications it appears that the civil government and the
Army together brought out only eleven linguistic works, of which only one is on
Tagalog. 44
[Blake, 1911:] Some persons, struck by the great resemblance which the various
Philippine languages bear to one another, have thought that it would be possible to
fuse these languages into one, but such an artificial scheme is certainly impracticable.
If the Filipinos are destined ever to have a national language in which a national
literature can be written, that language will almost surely be Tagalog, the language of
the captical city, a language admirably suited by the richness of form and its great
flexibility for literary development, and needing but the master hand of some great
native writer to make it realize its latent possibilities. [Blake, Philippine Literature, 1911,
p. 457] 45
[...]Lope K. Santos, at that time editor of a supplement to that newspaper, helped to
form an academy for the purpose of reforming and fusing the dialects into a common
vernacular. 63
#national language
The absence of evidence of any permanent results would indicate that the interest of
the Academy was mild; no far-reaching pronouncements were made either by it or by
the press of those days. 63
#national language
Another, similar, academy is reported by Bartless to have
proposed over two decades ago to direct the development of a ‘Philippine’ language by
creating at the start a generalized literary [64] language, grammatically based on Tagalog, but
with a composite vocabulary utilizing the words of greates prevalence in the Philippine group
as a whole. [Bartlett, H. H., “Vernacular Literature in the Philippines,” Michigan Alumnus
Quarterly Review, XLII (June 27, 1936)]
The name of this organization was “Akademya ng Wikang Pilipino” or Academy of

the Philippine Language. Its secretary, Eusebio T. Dáluz, published in 1915 an
interesting Filipino-English Vocabulary which was intended to aid the establishment of
this common Filipino language. These and other academies seem to have had for
their main purpose the promotion of a vernacular union and evidently were little
concerned with Philippine linguistic studies per se. This may explain why Bartlett
reported that the movement did not find a general response. 65
#national language
Thus, there was among othes the “Sanghiran San Binisaya” (Academy of the Leyte-
Samar Bisayan Dialect [...] 65
#national language
In 1923 the University of the Philippines inaugurated the Department of Oriental
Languages. Already in 1922 a committee appointed by its President, G.P. Benton, to
study Philippine linguistic matters, reported that a general knowledge of the
Austronesian languages is very desirable in the study of Philippine national linguistics,
thus indicating the wide scope of the new department. [...] the purpose was explained
to be
a scientific comparative study of the various dialects with the objective of rendering the
students capable of forming an adequate independent and intelligent judgment regarding the
future of the Philippine speech. [Gloria, C.P. “The Class in Linguistics,” The Philppine
Collegian, October 15, 1923]
The study of the role of the various dialects and the possibility of a synthetic language
were included among other subjects as proper for this department. 66
#history: language documentation (american era)
#national language
Thus again [in the 1930s], the language problem was tied up with nationalism and
politics. Consequently, the discussion of the problem was not confined to linguists,
educators, and politicians, but almost all groups of people of all walks of life keenly
interested, and whenever opportunity arose, they expressed their opinion. 69
#national language
In the thirty-six-page article entilted, What Should be the National Language of the Filipinos,
[Eulogio B. Rodriguez, 1926, wrote that] Tagalog can and should be the national
language, but that the Filipinos must develop it themselves, neither waiting for the
government to do it, nor for foreign students to take the initiative. [...] In advocating
Tagalog he maintains that Filipinos have no right to “relegate to the backseat the
language” in which they were born. 70
#national language
the English language, furthermore, is unable to compete with the vernacular in which
the Filipinos think and live outside of school and office hours. 72
#national language
#sapir-whorf
According to the mandate of the National Language Act, the Institute was to prepare
not later than a year after its [84] establishment the lists of words and phrases used in
all or in the majority of the native tongues with common sound and meaning, with the
seame sounds but with the same or different meaning; the study on Philippine
phonetics and orthography; and the comparative study of Philippine affixes
[Commonwealth Act No. 184]. This meant that the work was due on January 12,
1938. 85
PK: note, this was not for the formation of an auxiliary but to test shared vocabulary
and intelligibility for selecting best language. Note also that the amount of literature in
said language was a factor
#national language
The comparative studies made on lexicography include words used in all or the
majority of a number of given languages [...] as required by Section 2 of the National
Language Act. 85
#national language
[Quezon] signed the Executive Order designating Tagalog as the basis for the
national language of the Filipinos on December 30, 1937, the anniversary of the death
of Jose Rizal [...] 88
#national language
This Executive Order, in accordance with the provisions of the National Language
Act, took effect two years thereafter and Tagalog became the national language on
December 30, 1939. 89
#national language
Febrary 8, 1935: Constitutional Provision for a national language
November 13, 1936: National Assembly Act no. 184 providing for the creation of the
Institute of National Language.
January 12, 1937: Executive order establishing the Institue of National Language.
November 12 1937: The Institue of National Language selects and recommends
Tagalog.
December 30, 1937: The Proclamation of Tagalog as basis of the national language.
Decmeber 30, 1939: The national language goes into effect.
June 19, 1940: The Public Schools begin to teach the national language.
June 1940: The national language is declared to be an official language effective July
4, 1946.
89
#national language
The ten supposed errors [in the national language] as printed in one of the English-
language newspapers, were as follows: (1) destruction of non-Tagalog dialects [“Ten
Errors of the National Language Movement,” The Herald Mid-Week Magazine, March
23, 1938, pp. 12-13, 21-22] 90
#national language
1960-1969
de Achútegui, Pedro S, and Miguel A Bernad. 1961. Religious
revolution in the Philippines: The life and Church of Gregorio
Aglipay: 1860-1960. Vol. 1. Manila: Ateneo de Manila.
On 20 October 1898, General Emilio Aguinaldo, President of the Philippine
Revolutionary Government at war against Spain, and Baldomero Aguinaldo,
Secretary of War, affixed their signatures to an important document. They conferred
upon Father Gregorio Aglipay, priest of the Roman Catholic Church and member of
the Malolos Congress, the title of “Military Vicar General — Vicario General Castrense.
iv
#aglipay
With the capture of Aguinaldo, peace began to be restored, although slowly. Seeing
the hopelessness of further resitance, the guerrilla leaders, one after another,
surrendered to the Americans. In April 1901 Aglipay and Tinio Surrendered in the
Ilocos. Guerrilla leaders in Cebu and Iloilo surrendered in October, those in Bohol in
December, those in Cavite in March 1902. 34
The bitterest fighting [of the Philippine–American War] was in Samar and Batangas.
34
Deserved or not, the feeling of hatred against the friars existed, and it had terrible
results. “It is not a secret to any person,” said Felipe Calderon, the author of the
Malolos Constitution, “that one of the causes of the Philippine insurrection against
Spain, and even against America, was the animosity of the people — whether justified
or not, this is not the time to discuss — against the religious corporations...” [Memorias
(trans. in Encycl. of the Philippines, XV 239)].
This animosity against the friars may be traced to five main causes, some of which
were due to conditions which were not the friars’ doing. These five causes deserve
more detailed and more accurate study than can be devoted to them here, but at the
risk of some oversimplification they must be briefly indicated in order to obtain some
understanding of the mental climate in which the drama which we are studying took
place.
The first of these causes was the fact that the friars held extensive landed estates in
which large numbers of Filipino families lived as tenants. William Howard Taft, who
had tried to negotiate with the Holy See for the sale of these lands when he was
Governor of the Philippines, has given an estimate of the extent of these lands in his
Report to the President of the United States as Secretary of War in 1908:
A most potential source of disorder in the islands was the ownership of what were called the
“friars’ lands” by three of the religious orders of the islands.... These lands amounted in all to
425,000 acres, [45] of which 275,000 were in the immediate neighborhood of Manila, 25,000
in Cebu, and 125,000 in the remote Provinces of Isabela and Mindoro. The tenants on those
which were close to Manila numbered some sixty or seventy thousand persons ... [Special
Report of Wm. H. Taft, Secretary of War, to the President on the Philippines, January 23,
1908 (Manila 1909) pp. 20-21.]
In such circumstances, any complaint by the tenants against the administration of the
haciendas would unfortunately tend to become a complaint against the friars as such.
A second source of discontent was the fact that entire regions of the Philippines were
assigned for missionary work to a particular religious order. The Augustinians were
assigned the Ilocos and they have left an impress of their corporate personality by the
magnificent churches that still exist there. The Dominicans had charge of the
Cagayan Valley in the north and of various sections near Manila. The Franciscans
evangelized the Bicol region. The Jesuits, who had been among the earliest
missionaries to come to the Philippines, established mission stations in the Visayas and
Mindanao, as well as those in Antipolo and other districts near Manila. But their
expulsion from all Spanish territories in the eighteenth century deprived them of their
mission stations as well as of any landed estates that might have accrued to them for
the support of these missions. This fact, among others, helps to explain why the hatred
for the friars was not extended to the Jesuits even after their return to the Philippines
in 1859.
This parceling out of the country to the various religious orders for missionary work
was a necessity in the beginning of the Christian era in the Philippines. But it survived
the missionary era and had become an established condition. This meant that in the
regions assigned to a particular religious order, the parishes were in the hands of
members of that order. The friars who were parish priests could be replaced only by
other friars of the same order. This meant that Filipino sec[46]ular priest in those
territories stood little chance of ever becoming pastors of parishes themselves, but had
to resign themselves to the prospect of remaining coadjutors all their lives. Human
nature being what it is, such a prospect must have seemed dismal to many a Filipino
secular priest.
A corollary of this fact constituted a third source of complaint. It was natural that in
the administraiton of the municipal and provincial governments, the central
government in Manila should lean heavily on the assistance of the parish priests.
Indeed, many of the towns had been founded by friars or by other missionaries, and it
was only natural that in their administration the priests in charge of the parishes
should be consulted. Even where the friars did not enjoy formal civil power as such,
the fact that little or nothing could be done against the determined opposition of a
parish priest meant in the concrete that the parish priest excercised great authority in
the district of which he was in charge. In a context in which this moral power was
also, in some cases, combined with considerable economic and social power from the
possession of landed estates, the impression could be obtained that the real ruling
power in the country was not the civil government but the friars, and any injustice or
error in goverment would be laid justly or unjustly, at their door. It was gainst
“frailocracia” that the chief efforts of the Propaganda Movement in the late nineteenth
century was directed.
There was a fourth complaint against the friars, and it was an ironic twist of history.
The friars had played a preponderant role in the hispanization of the Philippines. Yet,
in ther efforts to spread more widely the benefits of education — and therefore of the
Spanish tongue — the educated Filipinos found themselves opposed, allegedly, by the
Spanish friars. Marcelo H. del Pilar complained bitterly against this opposition in his
pamphlet La Soberanía monacal, which waS itself a violent attack on the friars: [47]
Public education is one of the common aspirations of both the government and of the
Filipinos. The government as well as the people dreams of a common language in the Islands.
The government wants to understand the people and to be understood by them. The people
want the government to know and remedy their needs without the mediation of other
elements.
But monasticism is opposed to this, because it fears that the country may become Hispanized
and cease to be a monastic colony.
There is a normal school in Manila where teachers are trained for the diffusion in the towns of
primary education and the teaching of the Spanish language. Competent young men who have
graduated from it prove the zeal and the efforts of the government and of the Jesuit fathers
towards the realization of that ideal. But everything is shattered in the face of friar opposition.
[La Soberanía monacal (Manila 1898), trans. by E. Alzona (Quezon City 1957), pp16-17.]
If this opposition was real, it was a reversal of the long-standing policy of the friars
themselves. Two of the more important centers of Spanish culture in Manila were the
University of Santo Tomás and the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, both administered
by the Domincans, which many of the leaders of the Revolution (including Mabini
and Aglipay) had attended.
A fifth complaint against the friars was the alleged contemptuous treatment meted out
by them to indios, as the Filipinos were then called. Rizal in his novels dramatized this
attitude, and Manuel L. Quezon in his autobiography, The Good Fight, gives a tiny
specimen of it. Some of the friars themselves provided an example of this attitude in
writing about the Filipinos. [For instance Fr. Ulpiano Herrero’s description of the
Filipino soldiers (Nuestra prisión pp 601-603). Cf. J. del Castillo Malolos y sus prohombres
pp. 109-110]
This is not the place to determine whether or not these complaints against the friars
were justified, and to what extent if they were. But it is important for the purposes of
this bio-[48]graphy to bear in mind that these complaints were made and that the
animosity against the friars was so strong as to color the judgments of otherwise
sensible people. The violent treatment dealt to Catholic priests and religious by a
Catholic population can not otherwise be explained. 49
In the rest of the Visayas, Aglipayanism hardly made any headway. The island of
Leyte, with a population of half a million, had less than one hundred Aglipayans. The
large island of Samar, with 400,000 inhabitants, remained untouched for a long time,
until personal feuds led some to embrace the new religion. The province of Capiz in
Panay was not invaded by Aglipayanism, nor was the island of Siquijor (province of
Negros Oriental) with its 35,000 inhabitants. Bohol remained Catholic except for the
town of Candihay (sic) where Aglipayanism appears to have taken deep root. 214.
#aglipay
Keats, John. 1963. They fought alone. Philadelphia and New

York: J.B. Lippincott Company.
PK: Private Ball and Major McClish arrive in Misamis to serve under General
Wendell Fertig. and fought in Butuan
But a few days ago, Knortz had drowned when a sudden storm at night swamped the
overladen motor launch he had been trying to take across Gingoog Bay. In his youth
and his pride, Knortz had died trying to swim in a storm while wearing his guns. 304
Orendain, JC. 1963. Ten datus of Madiaas. Manila: Mabuhay

Press.
[PK: This book includes second-migration hypothesis and also the Code of Kalintiaw.
It is purportedly based on the writings of Father Tomas Santaren (1853) and the
Maragtas said to have been copied out by Pedro A Monteclaro (see below) in 1901.]
[Preface by Cornelio T. Villareal:]
He [Orendain] writes about it [Panay] as the island of Aninipay, (so called by the Ati,)
then Madiaas (so called by the Borneans) and mistakenly called Panay from “Pan-
hay” the observation of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the first Spaniard to visit the island.
Legazpi exclaimed when he came upon the island of bounty: “Pan hay en esta isla!”.
viii
#folk etymology: panay
[Preface to “Maragtas” by Pedro A. Monteclaro]:
In order that the reader of this Maragtas would not think that this narrative is the
creation of my imagination, I am presenting here two writings which I have been able
to find:
The first was given to me by an old man over eighty years of age who said that the
written nar-[xix]rative was given to him by his father, who received it from his father,
who at that time was the teacher of this town. Because of the length of time and the
years that this document had existed, it was almost impossible to handle the paper it
was written on without it disintegrating into shreds. The paper was very old and this
was worsened by the fact that the ink used had been made of black dye mixed with a
strong sap of wood that burned the paper.
The other I found in a bamboo tube kept by my grandfather wherein he put his
important papers. This document could hardly be read and if handled carelessly, the
paper would crumble to pieces. xx
#written language #ideology: antiquity
Footnote: Rizal’s annotation in Morga’s “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas” says: “Acaso
existiera una confederacion . . . Existen ademas otros documentos del Siglo XII que
testifican esto.” p297. 77
#imagined communities
[The two daughters of Datu Paiborong] learned what they could learn, and were
dedicated to the study of the syllabic writing. This was being introduced by the
Bornay-Bisayan wherever they settled and the two Paiborong girls were adept at it. 80
Lubay, Pdohinog, Dumangso and Dumalogdog were with him and when they came
to a cape, Sumakuel, talking to the other datus, tried to describe the cape, comparing
it with some other place. He was distracted, however, so that he could not think of
what to say except “dao, dao, dao.” And the other datus made fun of him and siad:
“Let’s call it Da-o,” which is now the name of the mountain and town at this point. 84
#folk etymology
As the party was beginning to wane, the priest took a big empty plate and told the
sponsors of the wedding, man and woman, to fill it with white and choice rice they
called bisaya. [Asterisk: Anything that was fine such as excellent rice and fine and small
select anchovies, are called bisaya] 96
#folk etymology: bisaya
After writing this on the tablets [indigenous ‘hours of the day’] Ilehay [Ilehay
Solangaon, daughter of a datu] went ahead and wrote the days of the weeks. The job
of writing on the tablets was slow and tedious, but she had much time and she did not
want to be lonely. She etched these names of the days:
Tagburukad Monday
Dumason Tuesday
Dukot Dukot Wednesday
Baylo baylo Thursday
Danglus Friday
Hingothingot Saturday
Ligid ligid Sunday (day of rest)
“Let those who wish to learn look at this,” Ilehay called to Pabulanan [her mother].
“What’s all that about?” her mother asked.
“Come and look.”
Pabulanan called Ilohay and they both were happy that Ilehay was recording the
name of hours and days. How about the names of the months? Ilohay asked her
younger sister.
“It’s coming.” And she continued to write on another wooden tablet the names of the
months.
Ulalong January (Time for women to begin
weaving cloth)
Dagangkahoy February (Time to cut the trees from the
lot they want to plant)
Dagangbulan March (The moon is bright during these
nights and the women can spin their
thread in the moonlight)
Kiling April (Lightning and thunder)
Himabuyan May (Worm called timbaboy multiply)
Kabay June (Time to use their kaba they wore
over their ordinary clotes because they
did not want to get wet)
Hiladapdapon July (Not explained)
Lubdlubad August (They eat only once when the sun
sets)
Kangorosol September (Month of regrets for those
who owed money. The next month
would be harvest time.)
Bagybagyo October (There’s so much rice,
sometimes the cooked rice is spoiled and
is called bagyo)
Panglot nga diotay November (Cold weather begins to be
felt)
Panglot nga dacu December (Very cold weather)
111
#chapter 7 [not actually relevant] #chapter 10
Foster, George. 1964. Treasure tales and the image of the

static economy in a Mexican peasant community. The Journal
of American Folklore. 77 (303): 39-44.
#lost treasure #mexican-filipino encounters
These tales are neither myth nor legend (categories essentially lacking
inTzintzuntzan), nor are they folk stories.The latter are told fairly frequently, and they
deal with such common European motifs as Pedro de Urdemales, Tar Baby, kings
with three sons, and the like, all set in the vague and indefinite locales that
characteristically mark such accounts. Treasure tales are short, historical accounts,
dealing with people still living or recently dead, in specific places localized as precisely
as well known houses, trees, or rocks. 39
If, however, treasure tales are examined in the light of the economic world view of the
villagers, a continuing keen interest in them becomes not only intelligible, but it
becomes apparent that such tales are a functional requirement for the maintenance of this world
view. That is, treasure tales (or modern equivalents) must continually be invented and
told and retold to explain economic phenomena which can be explained in no other
way.
The economic world view that characterizes the Tzintzuntzan peasant is that of a static economy
which precludes growth and development. This world view, of course, is realistic, in accord
with the observed facts of village life. If one looks at Tzintzuntzan traditional
productive processes, it is clear that they do not lend themselves to expansion by dint
of harder work or other activities open to villagers. 40
The role of treasure tales in Tzintzuntzan should now be clear: they account for wealth
that can be accounted for in no other manner. When other, more commonplace, explanations
are examined and found wanting, treasure tales are drawn in to fill the gap, to balance
the economic equation, to maintain the world view of the static economy. 42
1. In societies in which the image of the static economy prevails, the appearance of
wealth beyond that explicable by the traditional economic activities of the individual
involved produces explanations running through a three-stage sequence:
a. Encroachment on the rights of fellow villagers.
b. Tapping of outside sources of wealth, by honest or dishonest means.
c. Tapping of outside sources of wealth by supernatural or lucky means. [43]
The Tzintzuntzan concern with treasure tales—the third category—reflects a
widespread Mexican pattern, so that for Mexico, the hypothesis seems valid.[fn] The
next research step is to test this hypothesis in other peasant societies.
2. In a traditional peasant society, trade and commerce provide the easiest, and
usually the only, legitimate avenue whereby an able person can break out of the bonds
of the static economy and significantly improve his lot. (It will be recalled that almost
all Tzintzuntzan treasure finders opened stores.) He can do so much better than his
fellow townsmen who stick to agriculture or arts and crafts that he rises to an
economic level simply incomprehensible to them. Thus, in modern peasant societies
the same economic forces are at work producing or tending to produce class
differences that presumably played a major role in the rise of the first class systems in
history.
3. In a static economy, economic morality is opposite that of the Protestant Ethic. The
American-style Horatio Alger makes no sense in this setting. No amount of thrift and
hard work at traditional occupations is seen to permit a person to improve his
position, so hard work is not a virtue. Thievery excluded, luck is the only avenue of
advancement. The Horatio Alger of static economies, therefore, is the person who
conscientiously seeks luck opportunities, and who saves pennies, not to invest, but to
increase his luck probabilities. Horatio Alger, in fact, is personified by the gambler.
The man who goes without lunch or who otherwise deprives himself or his family of
basic necessities to buy a weekly lottery ticket is not the ne’er-do-well of the American
morality; he is the prudent man of his society, the one worthy of emulation and
aphorisms, the one who is following the only avenue he sees open to him to change his
place in life. He is, in fact, hoping to hit a lucky “growth stock.” The odds are long,
but the possibility is there. He can find it nowhere else. 44
Tirol, Victoriano B. 1968. A study of Bohol litreature (hero-
tale, drama, poetry and short story). PhD in English.
[Narrated by Nicolas Ligason of Bool, Tagbilaran City, a retired public school
teacher]:
Sikatuna was the chief of the island now called Bohol. He was loved by the people. He
was a tambalan and could cure sick people. He was also a religious leader and could
sanction marriage contracts. [25]
In order to invite traders from other places, the chieftain dug a canal between Panglao
island and Bohol. This canal brought to Bohol traders from Siquijor, Cebu and
Mindanao. Even Chinese came to trade too.
Sikatuna wa looked upon as a protector of his people. He taught the young men the
art of fighting. He taught them how to fight with the bolo, spear and bow and arrow.
When the Moro pirates came the women, children and the aged were instructed to
run and hide behind Banat-i Hill. The warriors ran to the chief with their weapons
and prepared dugouts along the seashore. Nature seemed to help the natives
everytime the pirates attempted to come ashore. The sea urchins like tuzoms, bangas
sizuk and suaki would pile up about a meter hight along the seashore. The pirates had
a difficult time for they did not wear shoes.
Sikatuna posted guards on the top of Banat-i Hill to watch incoming vessels. Every
one should listen attentively to the sound of the tambole blown by the guards. The
guards could see as far as Camiguin Island in the east, Siquijor Island in the south and
Cebu Island in the west on top of Banat-i. The people were very familiar of the
following tambole code: two [26] long sounds blown at short interval, Moro vintas are
seen; three short sounds blown at long interval, Chinese junks are seen; four short
sounds blown at long interval white men’s ships are seen.
Sikatuna had two trusted men. One was Magbuaza. The other were Kabzawon.
Magbuaza was more of a warrior than a statesman. He ruled in the western part of
the island now called Muawong. He was able to drive away a group of people called
Incarnatis. Magbuaza’s subjects hated the Incarnatis, for the Incarnatis possessed evil
powers. These people are called by the natives Buyagan.
The Buyagan can cause the death or illness of a person, work animal, or plants by
merely expressing a wish. This power is called boyag. The Incarnatis being
outnumbered by Magbuaza’s men tried to cross the Abatan River but Sikatuna’s men
met* [To meet in the dialect means abat. This is why the river is called Abatan River]
them on the opposite side of the river. So the Incarnatis went down toward the
seashore of a place now called Maribojok then stole the banca and baroto and sailed
toward Panglao Island. The others proceeded to Dumaguete, Siquijor, Baliyangao,
and other towns in Mindanao. [27]
#chapter 7
The descendants of the Incarnatis can be identified by the way they talk and
pronounce some Visyan words: kalayu for kayu (fire), siliboyas for siboyas (onions),
palayong for payong (umbrella), kalanding for kanding (goat), kalabao for kabao (carabao).
However, it is said that the Incarnatis have lost their powers.
#chapter 3
Kabzawon the other trusted man of Sikatuna lived and ruled in the eastern part of the
island now called Hinawanan in the town of Loay. He was more of a statesman than a
warrior. He was the counselor of Chief Sikatuna.
One day, the people hear the signal that white men’s ships were coming. The children
and the aged fled beind the Banat-i Hill under the care of Kandong-gon. He was so
called because he could hear and see all dangers.
Sikatuna posted his men in strategic positions. About a hundred men under Mainit
guarded Talisay cave, an ancient cemetery. A group of ninety men under Subay, a
good warrior guarded the springs for public bathing. A group of about twenty men
aunder chief Sikatuna met the visitors. Both natives and visitors were very cautious
[28] in their language and movement. They smiled as they talked. But they could not
understand each other. Luckily one of the visitors could speak and understand
Visayan. It was from him that the natives learned that the visitors came as friends and
to secure food and water. Sikatuna told the visitors that they could have all the water
they wanted but they have to pay for it. The visitors heartily consented. They gave
Sikatuna gifts such as toys, mirrors, clothing and many others. Sikatuna, in return sent
to the visitors in the ships, rice, corn, bananas, and chickens. On the second day the
Spaniards invited Chief Sikatuna to the ship. But some Spanish soldiers were left as
hostages on the shore. The gun salute almost spoiled the good relations between the
parties. The natives were very much frightened at the burst of the guns.
The natives were entertained by the Spaniards playing tops. Sikatuna was so
fascinated by the top that he asked fore one which the Spaniards readily gave. Legaspi
introduced himself as he gave the top. The native chief in return introduced himself as
Si Katuna.
On the following day Sikatuna invited Legaspi and his men to a feast held on the
sandy shore. The Spaniards were served native foods and drinks. During [29] the
feast, the natives exhibited their arts in fighting. One group of warriors threw spears at
another. The other group caught the blades of the spears with bare hands. They also
exhibited their skill with the bolo and the pinota.
Sikatuna and Legaspi sealed their frienship with a Sandugo. They drew a few drops of
blood from their arms and mixed them in the same cup with water and wine. The
mixture was divided equally in two cups and they rained their cups alike. Thus was
concluded the famous Blood compact. 30
Comments: [...] The sandugo, a rite performed between equals to seal a treaty of
friendship is a definite suggestion that the natives had a culture and civilization
sufficiently advanced to command the respect of other people. 30
#mimicry and rejection #chapter 4
The Spanish authorities in Bohol were cruel. They [31] imposed onerous taxes,
demanded unreasonable dues for the church, and forced the people to work in
building constructions without being paid. The inhabitants resented but they kept
silent, afraid of brutal punishment if they complained.
Amidst this dissatisfaction, a man named Tamblot set out to fulfill his mission.
Tamblot was a babaylan, a priest of the native religion. He roamed the island and told
the people that the time had come to throw off the Spanish vassalage and their God.
Tamblot incited the people saying “Bathala, the God of our ancestors, has sent me to
proclaim his power and free His people from oppression. If you follow me and fight
the Spaniards, the God of our ancestors would cause the mountains to rise against
them. Their muskets would not go off or else would rebound on those who fired them.
If any believer of Bathala should die, the God of our ancestors will make him live
again to continue the fight against the enemies.”
“Come follow me to the hills where we will live a life of abundance and freedom.
There we will be free from the encumbrance of paying tribute to the Spaniards and
from the dues to the churches of the white men.” [32]
Finally, Tamblot declared, “So that you will believe that I am sent by Bathala,
through me he will perform miracles which will be the revelation of his powers.”
The baybaylan [Tamblot] led the villagers to a bamboo thicket. In their presence he
cut a bamboo tube with a small knife and wine gushed. Then he cut another and rice
came out.
After these great marvels, Tamblot said again, “Bathala, the God of our ancestors will
perform more miracles if you follow me. In the hills where we will go, the leaves of
trees will turn into fish, and from the leaves of banana plants we will have fine cloth to
cover our bodies”.
The followers of Tamblot grew in number. At last the time came for them to attack
the Spaniards. The day chosen was the feast of the beatification of St Xavier when
most of the church and civil authorities were in Cebu to attend the celebration.
The news of Tamblot’s rebellion spread throughout the nearby islands. It caused fear
among the Spaniards and their loyal subjects but inspired the enemies of Spain. The
Spaniards assembled their troops composed [33] of Spanish soldeirs and Cebuanos
and prepared to fight the rebels. Before they left Cebu a mass was offered to their
patron Santo Niño to implore his help and protection.
Meanwhile in the natives’ stronghold, Tamblot assembled all his followers and a great
feast was prepared. The rites of Bathala was performed and the babaylan prayed
saying, “Diwatas of nature: Buntugan, Kadagkuan, Pinili; souls of our ancestors;
Lumad, Umagad nga Tigpalain, Dumuduung, come now and dine with us. There are
many kinds of food especially prepared for you which do not have salt.”
“When you are already satisfied, please grant us our requests. Tell Bathala, our God,
that we have come back to him. Ask Bathala, the most powerful, to protect us from
the white men, their God, and their muskets.”
The Spanish troops arrived in Bohol not long after. The battle started with the
Spaniards firing their muskets. But suddenly, a heavy rain fell and the powder of the
Spaniards would not catch fire. Upon seeing this, Tamblot and his followers attacked
with their bolos. Many were slain on both sides with [34] the Cebuanos fighting with
their bolos for the Spaniards. The invaders soon withdrew.
Days and months passed and the Spaniards did not come back. Again, Tamblot
assembled his followers and said to them, “Bathala, the God of our ancestors is now
restored to his people. It is time that I go to other places to proclaim his powers. You
who gained in his favor must continue to worship earnestly even in my absence.”
After saying these words, Tamblot walked down the hills and never returned. 35
Ponciano [son of Ongko, son of Dugay Palangga, descendant of Tamblot]:
The sight of Ponciano began to fail him in his old age. But even as his sight was
diminishing he also developed a strange power of seeing things that happened in other
places. He could also foresee the coming of storms and other natural calamities like
famines and epidemics.
Ponciano lived to a ripe old age of more than one hundred years. He was so old that
some people thought that the page of the book in heaven where his name was written
had been lost.
#chapter 8 [PK: discussion of longevity]
The people of the village asked the old man when he would die and he told them that
death would come to him when a fountain would spout under his bed. “Until then,”
he said, “I will live on and continue to serve the people.”
One afternoon, Angela, Ponciano’s wife, shouted for help with great bewilderment.
She said that water was coming out from the earth under Ponciano’s bed. When the
old man learned of what had happened, he called his children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren. He [40] said, “The time has come for me to meet the Creator.
Take me to Osip’s house in Mana-ol because I wish to die there.” Osip was his
youngest child.
While in Osip’s house he called his descendants to come near him. He touched their
heads one by one but in the end he said, “Not one of you is worthy to succeed my
knowledge and my powers.”
After saying this, Tatang Ponciano got a libreto from his pocket and swallowed it page
by page. He died after eating all the pages.
But before he died, Ponciano predicted that one of his descendants near the seventh,
in the seventh, and after the seventh generation will grow up to be a very great man.
41
#chapter 9 [PK: Note parallels with age, disappearance of libreto, feuding sons,
prophecied leader etc]
His [Dagohoy’s] followers said he never died. 47
#immortality
The last survivors of Dagohoy’s men made their stand in the cave of Ginaguban, in
Candijay. These men were led by Handog who had fought from the beaches of
Pangpang to the mountains of Kailagan, Tawagan, Boasa, Kambanbay and
Katagdaan. Inside the cave they had a supply of food: water was provided by an
underground stream which passed through the cave.
For many weeks the defenders holed inside the cave coming out occasionally to make
a sneak attack at the enemy camps who guarded the entrance of the cave.
One day towards dusk, a loud shout came out thundering from the cave saying, “If
you do not build a fire at the mouth of the cave and smoke us out you will never get
us.”
It was the voice of Handog.
Hearing this, the Spaniards built a big fire.
Inside the cave, meanwhile, Handog and his men made preparations for the last fight.
He had put on [51] his new armor made of carabao hide and rushed ahead of his
men towards the secret outlet. Handog and his men actually wanted the invaders to
guard the main entrance while they sneak out through the secret passage and attack
the enemy from behind.
Unfortunately, Handog who was a big man had become bigger because of his armor.
He could no longer pass through the small secret passage. His men, in a frantic
attempt to get out kept on pushing to no avail. All the warriors in the cave were
suffocated to death.
Only Berudya survived the tragic incident. Being a woman, she covered her face with
her skirt and was saved from the smoke.
Handog’s powerful voice failed him because he wore the carabao armor. Bathala, it is
sad, was angry because he no longer trusted Him.
And so the rebellion of Dagohoy ended. 52
Somewhere in the high cliffs of kailagan, the treasures of Dagohoy are buried. These
treasures were the booty of war which Dagohoy and his men carted away from the
Spanish missions, convents and churches [52]. These treasures were buried in a cavity
of the cliff by lowering a man on a rope ladder. The length of the ladder was five
joints of a pig trap rope […] It is said that anybody who looks for it will die unless he
uses it to fight for the freedom of the Boholano people.
Today, the Kailagan cliff gleams against the setting sun with its cannon holes and the
hidden treasures. 53
#article: dagohoy #article: literature
Berudya [narrated by Amalia Reyes of Ubay, Bohol, the great granddaughter of
Berudya.]
Many years ago, the whole eastern and nothern portions of the island of Bohol were
ruled by a woman named Berudya. She was a very brave woman, strong and
possessed with supernatural powers. Her hair was white and long that some people
thought she was a tagabanua [fairy]. [60]
Berudya ruled her domain by force. She had a white horse which could run very fast
enabling her to fight her enemies in many places almost at the same time. Moros,
bandits and other enemies were killed with the use of a magic stick. During combats,
Berudya would jump very high and her enemies could not hit her from the ground.
She was very strong and could even uproot a full-grown coconut tree. She could also
throw a spear with amazing accuracy even at a great distance.
Being the ruler of the place, Berudya had a claim to anything she wanted. She had a
magic horn which had a sweet sound. Everytime she blew it, all the carabaos within
the hearing distance would follow her even if they were tied by their owners.
Sometimes the line of carabaos following her was so long that it would stretch from
one town to another. It is said that Berudya acquired such power when she split a
fresh bamboo tube and found black ants inside. This was unusual because the
bamboo had no cracks. It was then predicted that she would have many carabaos, as
many as black ants.
But in spite of her strength and power, Berudya was like any woman. She also
admired good looking men. When a man caught her fancy, she would take him for a
[61] husband. If he was already married, she would ask for him from the wife. A wife’s
refusal would mean death but favors were showered on those who acceded to her
wishes. They were given chickens, carabaos, rice, and even tracts of lands.
Berudya would live with the man of her choice for some time, but if after a while, he
could not give her a child she would return him to his wife or simply send him away.
Then she would take another man.
Berudya had so much gold and silver that sometimes she had to dry them under the
sun. It was made known to her people that if anybody would see her drying her coins,
they were allowed to grab a handful and run away with it without being punished.
Berudya buried her gold and silver in a thick forest near her house. With each tibod
[earthern jar] of coins, she also buried a boy together with some food, clothing,
candles and other things which he might need. The boy, she said, would guard her
money.
Berudya, however, had a peculiar passion for [62] livestock with white skin, fur or
feather. All the people throughout her domain never harmed a white animal nor
killed them for food to avoid the anger of Berudya.
One day, all the white animals and the carabaos looked sick and tired. They would
not eat nor drink. This was a sign, the people said, that Berudya had died. 63
#polygamy #chapter 8 [PK: add a footnote to discussion of ‘periodic emergence of
charismatic leaders’: mention berudya and also the Aparece cases]
It may also be speculated that the auhtority and influence of Berudya over her people
were remnants of the [63] independent government of Francisco Dagohoy. 64
#article: dagohoy
After the battle the American forces tried to arrest Capitan Filimon. But the pursuers
never caught up with him although in some instances he was almost cornered. At one
time he ran through a bamboo thicket unimpeded and unscratched. In another, he
simply picked up a small twig and hid behind it. He became invisible and escaped. 65
#invisibility #chapter 8
Demetrio, Francisco. 1969. Towards a Classification of Bisayan

Folk Beliefs and Customs. Asian Folklore Studies 28 (2):95-132.
To make food serve a hundred or more guests, the saliva of a frog is wrapped in a
banana leaf and placed inside the food container. (TIN=N; LI=G; TIG=M) 96
#miracles (food) #chapter 8
During midnight of Holy Fridays a certain species of bananas yield a hard stone
which if caught and swallowed will make its possessor very charming to women. 99
#mutya #antinganting
The bird pugo when caught and rubbed on one's face will render that person invisible.
99
#invisibility
People believe in bolto, an image of a person carved in wood [105] whereby holes are
made at the joints, stomach, mouth, etc. The person who has a bolto could kill his
enemy by pricking a needle in the hole or the bolto. If the bolto is pricked on the
stomach, the enemy will die of stomachache. 106
#eskayan etymology: bultu #chapter 7 #check if added
When a baby is a cry-baby, it is the custom of the family to have the baby undergo a
queer rite of being “smoked” over a mixture of burning ingredients of incense, bones
of guisao (fish), dry seaweeds, and live charcoal placed in a coconut shell. The
performer chants unintelligible words in Latin as the baby is passed over the smoke.
Incredible as it may seem, the cry-baby becomes a bit reformed (not always crying
anymore) after it has been subjected to this rite for three successive times which is
usually done in the twilight. 109
#urasyun
Ayadon or Hil-o, a custom of the people to help each other in group work, like planting
rice, preparing the land, as plowing, clearing a kaingin, etc. The person for whom the
work is done returns the favor to each of the rest when their respective work comes.
112
1970-1979
Misa, Sotero Nuñez. 1970. The life and struggle of Francisco
Dagohoy: A historical and cultural heritage to the Filipino
people, University of Bohol, Tagbilaran.
Anting-anting. An amulet or charm with magic power which our ancestors velieved that
makes its possessor invulnerable to iron weapons (via Zaide, Philippine Political and
Cultural History, Vol 1 p69). 22
#antinganting
Only persons born of Spanish [24] parents in the Philippines were called Filipinos by
the Spaniards. 25
Francisco Dagohoy died in the year 1825 at the age of one hundred and one years. 40
PK:note persistent reference to the “sworn statements of centogenarians” throughout
#immortality/longevity
Tales form old folks which were handed down to the lips of this generation, related
that Dagohoy possessed some supernatural powers. On his neck hangs an amulet or
anting-anting, a charm which protected him from being harmed by his enemies. It
was also said that the anting-anting gave Dagohoy the power to appear and disappear
from [65] a scene as he wished. The story goes on that Dagohoy could jump from one
hilltop to another hilltop and from one side of the river to the other side of the same
river.
Dagohoy’s followers called their leader, “dagangan”. “Dagang” is a Bisayan word for
feathers. Hence, Dagohoy was referred to as a man with feathers because of his ability
to jump from one place to another in a fardistant [sic]. 66
#invisibility #invulnerability #antinganting #boholano-eskaya traditions
When the enemy was confused, Dagohoy vanished and reappeared in a distance
already beating a drum for the enemy’s knowledge of the hero’s location [Fn: Story
related by Attorney Victoriano D. Tirol, Sr. to the writer] 67
Tugpa who was Handog, the alias of Maximino, Dagohoy’s younger brother; Bankaw
of Ubay, Omahas and Abahib of Candijay and Jagna; Serrano of Sierra-Bullones;
Calizto of Tagbilaran; [68] Miguelilo and Islao of Baclayon, Santos and Lazro of
Dauis; Antonio, Busyo, Anoy, Dagohoy’s nephews of Inabanga; Gencio, Donato
Udtohan and others from other towns. 69
#genealogy
In the mountain bastion and in the coastal towns, the Dagohoy Government
performed not only the functions of the civil and military affairs but also the most
sacred duties of the Catholic Church, baptism and weddings. These duties were
solemnized by persons who acted as ministers of the church. 76
Francisco Dagohoy’s rebellion revitalized some of the beautiful culture of the early
Boholanos which were fading and almost lost during the Spanish administration in
Bohol. 82
Stories go on that Francisco Dagohoy, not only possessed the charm of the gentle
wind but also possessed the charm of the “trabungko”, a glittering pearl which
enabled the possessor to see and view things even in total darkness inside the caves.
Further tales related that the Bohol hero possessed a dozen of different charms given
to him by supernatural beings. 94
#mutya
In an official report of Captain Manuel Sanz, dated August 31, 1829, at Talibon,
Bohol, 19,420 rebels surrendered; 3.000 Boholanos fled to other islands; 395 perished
in the last engagements and 98 were exiled [117]. [...] Governor Ricafor pardoned the
survivors and patriots of Bohol and were permitted to live in the new villages as
follows: Batuanan, 6,266 souls; Balilihan, 2,100 souls, Catigbian, 1,967 sous; Bilar,
930 souls; Cabulao, 790 souls. 118
PK: note that this is approximately a quarter of the population of Bohol at the time
#history of bohol: DAGOHOY
Some of Dagohoy’s leaders who were priests of babaylan were also allowed to practice
their diwatas and worshipped the anitos as their bathala. 126
Dagohoy’s surname was a connotation of two Bisayan words, “Dagon” and
“huyohoy”. Francisco was also referred to as “ang tawo nga nakadagon sa huyohoy”,
a man who possess (sic) the charm or magical power from the gods of the gentle wind.
This charm gives him the power to vanish and reappear as the hero wishes. Like [138]
the blowing of the wind, it was said that Dagohoy could only be heard but could not
be seen. [...] Legends related that Dagohoy will appear on a place away from the
Spanish patrols beating a drum, challenging the enemy to capture him. The
Spaniards rushed to the scene of the drum-beating Dagohoy only to betrapped, killed,
and routed by his special forces, waiting in well-planned ambush position and terrain.
139
#invisibility #boholano-eskaya traditions
Gaabucayan, Samuel. 1971. The Medicine Men of Agusan in

Mindanao, Philippines. Asian Folklore Studies 30 (1):39-54.
The Mananawal or Orasyonan.
All the folk healers interviewed claimed to possess some kind of hinuptan or orasyon.
However, there is a specialist in curing venomous bites called the tawalan or orasyonan.
His orasyones are really said [44]only for this purpose. These prayers are a
conglomeration of Latin, Spanish and Cebuano verses. Ciriaco is one of the famous
tawalan of this barrio [Agusan, Mindanao]. He declared that much of his powers to
heal poisonous bites is due to the prayers handed him by his great grandfather who
was a well reputed tawalan of this district. The prayers were shown to the writer, all
contained on the lanhanan or luba. He says, “Kining akong diyutay nga pamaba ug ang
lanhanan nga kabilin sa akong mga ginikanan mao ray akong gisaligan sa
pagpanambal contra todos!” This means that his power of healing lies in his little
knowledge of prayers and the only heirloom of the family, the bottle of Oil. Armed
with these, he is confident of curing all kinds of diseases. 45
#polyglossia #urasyun #urasyunan (definition)
This preliminary ceremony was followed and Iyo Kakoy started [45] the ritual of
healing. First he applied his saliva to the [snake bit] wound and murmured this orasyon:
Orasyon Contra Malala Free V. Translation [footnote 13]

“Getog, Getog, Hependa, Espina (Getog-nonsense.
Aleloya, Aleloya Amen.” Pluck out the thorn.
“Jesus salba, Dominus dido, Alelluia, Alelluia, Amen.)
Jesus salba Compendido (Lord Jesus Christ,
Christe Nustra Cosa de Save this boy who had
(Pinaakansa halas) Been bitten by a snake,
Linebreme, Bebit Aleloya.” Save him O Lord!
Live boy! Live! Alelluia.)
[footnote 13]: The free verse translations to all prayers are given here to the best
ability of the writer. If translated literally, one would hardly find any meaning at all.
The informants who have the prayers have been asked regarding the possible
meaning, but they themselves do not know even in the dialect for they are supposed to
be a supernatural power given them and are not supposed to be understood. They
must remain a mystery. 46
#unintelligibility
[This prayer was used to free patient from lock jaw caused by a barang or voodo doll]:
Credosum Free V. Translation
Credosum Christum I believe in
Etium Dominostrom Our Lord Jesus Christ
Vestram selem (Vestram nonsense) conceived by
Meatam Maalem (Meatam nonsense)
Virginem Portam Mary the Portals of heaven
Crucifisus.... ! Amen. and He was crucified. Amen!
At the word crucifisus, Tranquilino shook the doll's head vehemently thrice and
pricked the ears slightly until Anki declared that the culprit it now suffering from pain
as caused by sorcery just performed. The old man however, keeps complaining of the
pain he is suffering, hence, Tranquilino gave him a glass of ilimnon contra sa barang."
While the old man Lorenzo was drinking the prepared drink, Anki [50] accompanied
it with prayer:
Ginoo kong Jesucristo, O Lord Jesus Christ

Ec nos benedictos loria We praise and bless Thee
Beati pauperis espiritu Bless your people O Holy Spirit,
Es reghum ecce colorum. Amen! Thou Who reign [sic]
In Heaven. Amen!
With this act of drinking and the accompaniment of Anki's prayers, Lorenzo vomited
profusely as had been earlier signified to him by the healer-sorcerer. Anki explained
that Lorenzo has now vomited out the barang. 51
#urasyun
Constantino, Ernesto. 1971. Tagalog and other major languages

of the Philippines. In Current trends in linguistics, edited by T.
A. Sebeok. The Hague, Paris: Mouton.
The enumeration of the Philippine languages and dialects is until now incomplete and
is largely done by guesswork. The first survey of the Philippine languages and dialects
in the twentieth century was made by William E.W. MacKinlay (1902). He counted
‘eight tongues spoken by the civilized races of the country, and about sixty dialects of
the savage mountain tribes,’ besides ‘a dialect of Spanish spoken in and around
Zamboanga’ and ‘two or three dialects spoken by small half-civilized tribes’ and the
‘Negrito dialects’. In 1917 the anthropologist H. Otley Beyer (1917) listed 43 lan-
[112]guages and 87 dialects. 114 [note there is a map page]
Eight of the Philippine languages, chief among which is Tagalog, have been called
major languages. The other major languages are Sebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon,
Bikol, Waray, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan. These languages were designated
major languages because they were the native languages of the eight largest ethnic
groups in the Philippines. 114
Tag. [Tagalog] was chosen as the basis of the Philippine National Language, now
called Pilipino, in 1937 when it was spoken by only 25 percent of the population. 117
#national language
Indeed, one can say without exaggerating that the history of Philippine linguistics is
largely the history of the study of the major Philippine languages, especially Tag.
[Tagalog]. 118
The study of the Philippine languages during the Spanish Period was done exclusively
by Spanish missionaries who were usually stationed in the Philippines for some period
of time. The linguistic work of these missionary-linguists was ancillary to their mission
of Christianizing the natives. Since the natives were not taught the Spanish tongue,
the missionaries had to learn the native languages so as to be able to preach to the
natives and prepare religious instructional materials for them. As Phelan (1942:194)
says, ‘The friars did enough linguistic research in order to enable them to discharge
their sacerdotal obligations.’ It is not surprising then that the bulk of Philippine
imprints during the Spanish Period are linguistic studies: grammars, dictionaries,
catechisms, confessionals, and Doctrinas Christianas (Phelan 1942:158).
The Spanish missionaries emphasized the study of the major languages, most
especially Tag. Much of their work, like that of the European missionaries who went
to Oceania, ‘rests upon the normative preconceptions and traditional pigeon-holes of
conventional European grammer’ (Milner 1963:64). 119
The interest of the United States Army in the Philippine languages seems to have
lasted only a few years. It faded away soon after 1901 when the military government
was replaced by the civil government. The publications of the Army linguists were
limited to the first few years of the occupation; cf Blake (1922). 120
The study of the Philippine languages and dialects reached firmer grounds under the
civil government. 120
He [the linguist Carlos Everett Conant] was in the Philippines as a government
translator from at least 1903 to 1906 where he compiled six wordlists [...]. He also
compiled in collaboration with two native spakers of Seb. a Seb.-English dictionary
(1906) containing about 5500 words. The wordlists and the dictionary have remained
unpublished until the present time. 121
The Philippines produced her first native Filipino linguist, [Cecilio] Lopez, before the
Second World War. Lopez began as a student of Sheerer at the University of the
Philippines. 130
Anderson, Benedict. 1972. The idea of Power in Javanese

culture. In Holt, Claire (ed.). Culture and politics in Indonesia.
Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Indeed, the secua fertility of the ruler is one essential sign of the Power that he holds,
for his seed is the microcosmic expression of the Power he has concentrated. The
fertility of the ruler was seen as simultaneously evoking and guaranteeing the fertility
of the land, the prosperity of the society, and the expansionist vitality of the empire.
18
#polygamy #messianism #chapter 8
For signs of the ruler’s virility are political indicators that he still has the Power.
Conversely, any marked decline in sexual activity could be taken as a sign of waning
Power in other respects. 18
#polygamy #messianism #chapter 8
The critical point, I think, is that the Javanese view of history was one of cosmological
oscillation between periods of concentration of Power and periods of its diffusion. The
typical historical sequence is concentration-dif[20]fusion-concentration-diffusion
without any ultimate resting-point [fn]. In eash period of concentration new centers of
Power (dynasties, rulers) are constituted and unity is recreated; in each period of
diffusion, Power begins to ebb away from the center, the riegning dynasty loses its
claim to rule, and disorder appears—until the concentrating process begins again. 21
#chapter 8
This conception of history helps to explain two notable but apparently contradictory
features of Javanese political psychology: its underlying pessimism and at the same
time its susceptibility to messianic appeals. The pessimism derives from the sense of
the impermanence of concentrated Power, the difficulty involved in its accumulation
and retention, and the inevitability of disorder on the far side of order. The
susceptibility to missianism in times of disorder, however, arises from the sense that a
new concentration of Power is always preparing itself within that disorder, that one
must be alert for portents of its imminent appearance and then approach [21] the
germinal center as rapidly as possible, attaching oneself to the new order as it
emerges. This messianism clearly has little of the linear quality of many European
millenary movements, which saw the world coming to an end with the arrival of the
Messiah. Traditional Javanese sense that history does not come to an end, that
messiahs are only for their time, and that the primordial oscillations of Power will
continue as before. 22
#messianism
The Sumpah Pemuda (Oath of Youth) of 1928—One Country, One Flag, One
Language—reiterates the same theme. 23
#chapter 4 [PK: Cannot find Franco slogan “una bandera” in thesis. Was it in TAJA
article?]
Wealth should flow to the holder of Power, as a consequence of that Power, in the
same way that pusaka, large populations, wives, neighboring kingdoms or states flow
toward the ruler, as it were, magnetically attracted to the center. The vast wealth that
the great rulers of the Javanese past are described as possessing is always an attribute
of Power, not the means for acquiring it. Thus in the Javanese political tradition
welath necessarily follows Power, not Power wealth. 41
Significantly, in the wajang stories the single most powerful weapon in the hands of
the favored Pandawa is not an arrow, club, or spear, but a piece of writing, the Serat
Kalimasada, the special pusaka of the eldest Pandwaw brother, King Judistira. What
is actually written in this pusaka is never made clear, indeed in one sense the power of
the pusaka rests in its opaqueness to all but the initiated.[fn] Seen in this light, literacy
is simply an external sign of the possession of knowledge. [...]The literacy of the ruling
class was a symbol of Power largely because it presupposed the ability to make the
qualitative leap out of illiteracy. The literati were not just better educated—they were
the educated in a society of uneducated. Their power derived not form their ability to
disseminate new concepts through society, but from their ability to penetrate to and
concerve old and secret knowledge. 47
#unintelligibility #folk literacy
The contemporary sociologist would probably expect such charismatic leaders to
emerge in times of social unrest; most writings about Javanese messianic movements
stress this point.[fn] But from within the traditional intellectual framework, once again
causality must be reversed. It is the abrupt emergence of such figures into the political
arena wich reveals the inner decay or disruption of the social order, indeed
precipitates it. 54
#messianism #chapter 10 [PK: regarding responses to ‘cultural stress’]
[Footnote 110:] Compare the description of charismatic leadership given by Weber,
in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and eds. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 245-252; cf. also Bendix, pp. 298-328.
65
[PK: for #messianism see The Ruler and His Critics, and Conclusions p62-69]
Wolff, John U. 1972. Introduction. A dictionary of Cebuano

Visayan. Vol. I. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University.
Cebuano is spoken in the central portions of the Philippines: on the islands of Cebu
and Bohol, on the eastern half of Negros, western half of Leyte, along the northern
coasts of Mindanao, and on smaller islands in the vicinity of these areas. A large
portion of the urban population of Mindano, and on smaller islands in the vicinity of
these areas. A large portion of the urban population of Samboanga, Davao, and
Cotabato is Cebuano speaking. Cebuano is also widely spoken throughout the
lowland areas of the entire eastern third of Mindanao, where it is spreading at the
expense of the native languages (most of which are closely related to Cebuano).
Cebuano is the trade language in most places in Mindanao where Cebuano-speaking
populations and populations speaking other languages are in contact. vii
The Cebuano language is remarkably uniform. There are differences, to be sure, but
these diferences are no greater than the differences found among the various varieties
of English spoken around the world. vii
Footnote: Approximately five percent of our data [from written sources or from taped
oral sources of Cebuano of nearly a million words, gathered from all over the
Cebuano speech area and covering a wide range of topics and styles] is not included
for lack of reliable informants. These are mainly forms of only local currency, a large
portion of them from Bohol. viii
#chapter 1 [see Frank Blake footnote] #chapter 3
Wolff, John. The Influence of Spanish on Tagalog. Manuscript

(find published version).
#article: vocabulary
Of course, not all of these items were entirely new introductions. In many cases there
were similar things existing in the Philippines prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, but
the Spanish introduced ways of looking at these items or using them such that they
were felt to be something new. Thus the Filipinos probably already knew footgear, but
it was something different from the Spanish zapatos; they had sugar cane for which
there is a root tubó of perfectly good Austronesian etymology, but refined sugar came
in with the Spanish, and for this they borrow the Spanish azucar; they had toddy very
similar to wine, but the Spanish vino was rather different; they had native boats, but
nothing like the Spanish barco, and their anchors where different from the Spanish
ancla. Rattan associated with Spanish-style furniture is called by a Spanish derived
name, behúko, but there are numerous names of native origin for rattan as well. [n.p.]
#acculturation
One explanation is that Spanish forms are a way of indirection (a virtue in present-
day Filipino culture and no doubt a long standing cultural characteristic), and in that
way they serve to make the derogatory statement somewhat less derogatory. [n.p.]
This does not by any means account for forms of Spanish provenience in the list of
Tagalog forms for the register of everyday activities or events. There is any number of
forms of high frequency for which there are competing forms of native provenience.
Here are a few examples: asikáso “pay attention”, asistí “attend, help”, atrás “go
backwards”, atrasádo “behindhand”, aksidénte “accident”, bóses “voice”, bíktima “victim,
victimize”, bentáha “advantage”, alakdán “scorpion”, mas bále “better (to do X than
something else)”, and many others. A closer look is needed at these forms and
comparison of the contexts in which they are used with the contexts in which the
forms of native provenience are used to see if some evidence is available of the
motivation for their borrowing, but in any case they can only have been borrowed if
Spanish was a code for some members of the speech community. Some originated in
a specific register for which Spanish was used and referred to a learned borrowing or
an introduced way of looking at things and then moved into a more general register,
but others seem to have come in from the use of Spanish forms to give a certain status
to the speaker - that is, Spanish forms were a marker of status, much as French was in
European languages of three or four generations ago.
[n.p.]
For example, a character in Rizal’s Noli me Tangere, Consolación, the Filipino wife of a
Spanish officer assigned to the town of the story, is described as speaking a bad
Tagalog and a bad Spanish, pretending not to know Tagalog properly. The
description of this woman’s speech sounds rather similar to the English-Tagalog
mixture we may observe in the Tagalog community to day.
[n.p.]
In short, some of these borrowings from Spanish into Tagalog can best be explained
as the result of the existence of an intertwined Spanish-Tagalog code. What is
important to note is that these forms do not require a widespread societal use of the
mixed code. It would have been sufficient for only a small percentage of the
community to use these forms for them to have spread throughout the speech
community. In short, they are still surface manifestations: the masses adopted these
forms imitating the speech of the prestigious Spanish speakers who employed them as
an indication of their high status. What I mean to say is that the use of adyós in
Tagalog is very similar to the use of adieu/adé in German. The use of the conjunctions
and prepositions is much like the use of Dutch loan forms in eastern Indonesian
dialects, which originally were employed as indicators of class but now have moved
into general speech.
[n.p.]
An example from another area of morphology: nouns in Spanish are obligatorily
inflected for number, but in Tagalog are not. Thus Spanish forms are borrowed in
singular or in plural, probably depending on whether singular or plural was of most
frequent occurrence: bérhas “grating”, butónes “button”, búrlas/bórlas “tassle”, bóses
“voice”, aláhas “jewelry”, and so forth. In some cases a Spanish form ending in /-s/ in
the singular is borrowed in Tagalog without the final /s/: abriláta “can opener “
(Spanish abrilatas). Another example is bakasyón “vacation” Spanish vacaciones. (Spanish
vacación means “vacancy”.)
[n.p.] ᜊ
Francisco, Juan R. 1973. Philippine palaeography. Quezon City:
Linguistic Society of the Philippines.
De los Reyes wrote:
...me ha mostrado una curiosa caña de tres o cuatro metros de largo, en cuva (sic)
superficie estan grabados los caracteres de las Tagbanuas de la Paragua, que son
enteramente iguales a los ilocanos y tagalogs, lo cual corrobora mi opinion sobre la
unidad de alfabetos en Filipinas.
A la vista de dicha caña, parece resolverse la cuestion referente a la direccion: segun la
comodidad exige y la disposicion de las letras, es indudable que dichas caracteres se
han escrito de izquierda a derecha horizontalmente; pero despues colocan la caña
vertical u oblicuamente apoyada en la pared y en esta posicion leen lo escrito, esto es:
las letras colocadas de abajo hacia arriba. [Tavera, Annales de l’extrem Orient, VII,
p.233.] 17
#chapter 5 #writing systems [PK: compare Miller’s comments on writing direction]
In spite of these three pieces of evidence, with the proofs provided not only by the
living scripts in the Palawan and Mindoro regions but also by the documents we have
here referred to like the Povedano manuscript and the Romualdez report on the three
documents from Western Negros island, it stands to reason that the direction of the
Tagalog writing as well as the others was from bottom to top, left to right. 19
#chapter 5 #writing systems [PK: Note that Miller disputes this point]
The impression that one gets from a survey of the illustrations tabulating the various
Philippine “systems” of writing, each labeled Iloko “alphabet,” Tagalog syllabary, or
anything else, is that a number of “alphabets” or systems of writing were used in the
ancient Philippines. This, it seems, was an unconscious error, if not indeed a
deliberate scheme, among earlier writers in their effort to create multiple cultural
complexes in the Philippines.
But upon examination of all these systems, there appears to be a singular affinity
among them. If there was evidence of variety, this can only be understood as a result
of the idiosyncrasies of the individual writers. Note, for instance, what T.H. Pardo de
Tavera, one of the pioneers in the study of the subject, wrote: “Al momento se ve que
la diferencia que hay entre estos alfabetos no es fundamental: se puede decir que son
uno mismo, consistiendo sus diferencias en la manera de trazarlos ...”. [Footnote: Cf.
Ignacio Villamor, La Antiqua Escritura Filipina, pp. 24-25. In this work while Villamore
mentioned Tavera to have seen the “singularity” of the Philippine scripts, he
(Villamore) referred further back to Fray Cipriano Marcilla y Martin (Estudio de los
Antiquos Alfabetos Filipinos, pp 41, 44-45) and W. Retana (Los Antiquos Alfabetos de
Filipinos, p. 3) who “hold that there is only but one Philippine alphabet,
notwithstanding the slight differences noticeable in the tracing of the letters of the
alphabets published by the different authors ...”] 21
Apart from the Tagbanuwa tradition on the origin of scripts, there is a very interesting
reference to the origins of the Tagalog writing by two writers – Pedro Paterno [Pedro
A Paterno, La Antiqua Civilizacion Tagalog (Madrid: Tipografia de Manuel G.
Hernandez, 1887, pp35-52, 357-359), and Guillermo A Tolentino. This reference
may be considered legendary. Paterno’s view is not altogether hopeless in the sense
that [28] while he attributed the name of god to be formed from the symbols b ba, h
ha, and / (l abbreviated to [/]) la (ba b imitation of the external feminine organ, ha
h the symbol for the ray of light or spirit and / corresponds to the external masculine
organ), he becomes more scientific in his view toward the end of his discourses on the
Tagalog letters. 29
[PK: in footnote on p5 of La Antigua civilizacion, paterno write (regarding bathala
symbols “Consultase nuestra obra Arco Iris, Camino del paraiso Tagalo, cap II—
Origenes de la escritura]
[PK: also note Paterno’s backwards and forwards reading of ‘Bathala’ like Tirol’s
reading of cave inscriptions]
#chapter 4 #chapter 5 #writing systems
Guillermo A. Tolentino, Ang Wika at Baybaying Tagalog (Manila: The Author, 1937), pp
70-95:
The N is the whole creation (liNalang) under heaven thus the form which pictures the
sound (tunog) of this is one wide area that is covered by the heavens. (That is the
reason) the earth where we live (pinakikipamayanan) is known by the universe
(sansinukuban). The line (guhit) that rises in wavy form to the heaven(s) is none other
than man’s thought (or spirit) which soars (pinaiilanlang) into the world other than
this, so that it may attain (what it needs to attain) through faith. 29
Footnote 1: An Augustinian Friar, Tomas Santaren, brought out the supposed
document [the Maragtas] in a Spanish translation in 1858. This translation has been
translated into English by Enriqueta Fox with the title Bisayan Accounts of Early Bornean
Settlements in the Philippines Recorded by Father Santaren (Transcript No. 4, Philippine
Studies Program, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1954). See
Mauro Garcia, “The Sources and Provenience of the Maragtas, in Maragtas Symposium
Proceedings (UNESCO Philippine National Commission, 1967). 121
Footnote 2: [circumstances of Maragtas coming to light first mentioned in] Fray Angel
Perez, “Igorrotes: Estudios Geografico y Etnological sobre Algunos Distritos del Norte
de Luzon,” El Mercantil (Manila, 1902) 121
Mojares, Resil B. 1974. The myth of the sleeping hero: Three

Philippine cases. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. (2)
3: 156-162
The principal motif of the King’s expected return characterizes Hari-sa-Boqued, one of
the better known tales in Philippine folklore. 156
#article: literature [PK: compare return of Datahan]
Spanish rule brought with it the infusion of new types and motifs into Philippine
folklore. These elements were quickly assimilated into existing folklore material,
bringing about the mutations which make Philippine folklore both a difficult and
exciting field of study. 158
#article: grimm
A Spanish tale which quickly gained hold of the popular imagination, through such
forms as the corrido, the moro-moro, and the oral narrative, was the story of Bernardo
Carpio, which is one of the most popular stories in the country. Drawn from Spanish
sources — e.g., Bernardo Balbuena’s Bernado, o victoria de Roncesvalles (1624) — this
story of a fictitious Spanish warrior was soon adapted by local troubadours and
storytellers to local conditions: the hero was placed astride a carabao; he was
entombed in San Mateo, Rizal, near the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains,
between two crushing rocks, there to remain until the Philippines was free from freign
dominance (Del Castillo-Medina 1972: 125). 158
Santos, Alfonso P. (ed.). 1973. Rizal miracle tales. Quezon City:

National Book Store.
#folk literacy
These tales were collected in 1950 with the aid of my former students in the
University of the Philippines, whom I have credited individually in the footnote of
every story. Viii
[PK: Rizal goes to visit an old woman with supernatural powers. The old woman
gives him a locket]
“To you I give this locket. Wear it and you will be shielded against all mortal harms.
My only request is that, if this locket should fall on other hands, repeat aloud the
inscription on it, and it will vanish and return to me.” She placed the chain with the
locket around Rizal’s neck and concluded, ‘Now you can go, you are safe against your
enemies.”
In his studies and travels abroad, Rizal was protected by the locket, but he lost it when
he was harassed by the Spaniards in the latter years of his life. 16
#folk literacy #urasyun
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to protect possessor from harm
Rizal’s magic cigarette
Some old folks in Calamba said that young Rizal was an easy going student although
his biographers had written that he was a very studious scholar. After his classes, he
would throw his books on his bed, go on his usual walk, visit his friends, or go and
stand by the path usually taken by a girl who had suited his fancy.
He never devoted himself to his books, yet during class recitations he was always very
responsive and could answer all the questions that the teacher asked him. On the eve
of an examination, he would go to bed early instead of preparing for it, but he would
always get a very high grade if not the highest in his class. Because of this everyone in
the school, including the professors, wondered at his brilliance, but nobody could offer
an explanation for the mystery.
One night, however, a group of his dormitory mates plotted to spy on Rizal’s actions.
They agreed to go to bed early and pretend to be asleep when Rizal would return
from his walk. It was ten o’clock when he came home. He was not aware that he was
being observed. In order not to disturb his companions, he tiptoed quiety into his
room. He put on his pajamas, gathered his books and other things he used in school,
and proceeded to his study table near his bed. He put out the light and everything was
dark in his room.
Then his dorm-mates got up and gathered quietly in front of his closed door. They
took turns in peeping [17] through the keyhole and wondered how Rizal could study
his lessons in the complete darkness. Finally they saw him rise from his seat and light a
cigarette. Then their eyes opened wider with surprise when they saw that the light
from his cigarette flarred up and illumined the book he was reading. The eager
observers thought that their eyes were deceiving them, but no matter how they looked
again and again, all they could see was the luminous light from his cigarette. With his
magic cigarette, Rizal mastered his lessons secretly and topped his classes.
In the daytime they watched him closely, but he did not smoke the same kind of
cigarette. 18
Dr. Rizal and the posts
A former servant of Dr. Rizal said that one day the doctor and his mother went to
visit some sick relatives on the other side of Calamba. The only persons left in their
house were one of his little nephews and their house-boy, Isidro.
[PK: While Rizal is on his rounds, Isidro rummages through Rizal’s personal
belongings and steals four pesos].
Upon entering the house, Dr. Rizal went directly to the first corner post. From his
pocket, he took out a piece of paper and pencil. He pressed the paper against the post
then scribbled something on it. After this, he went to the second corner post and did
the same. He repeated this act on the third and fourth corner posts, and it aroused the
curiosity of Isidro.
Like any inquisitive youth at his age, he went to stand behind Dr. Rizal when he was
in front of the fourth post, and he observed that his master seemed to be receiving a
silent report from the post which he scribbled on the piece of paper. But the writing
was a mysterious kind to him, for he had not seen the likeness of it in his Cartilla or in
any other book. [71]
When Dr. Rizal had finished his silent conversation with the four posts, he suddenly
turned to Isidro and said, “Boy, tell me what you did with the four pesos that you took
from my pocket while Mother and I went to visit the sick.” His voice was firm and his
eyes went straight into the eyes of the houseboy. He was not angry or threatening, but
he was insistent.
Surprised by the suddenness and the mysterious way by which he was discovered,
Isidro could not say a word or move his legs. He merely stood there with fear, then he
dipped his right hand into his pocket and brought out the four pesos of Dr. Rizal. He
gave them to the doctor and said, “I am sorry, sir. Please, forgive me. I shall not do it
again.”
Dr. Rizal softened his look on him, and Isidro felt relieved and released. Since that
day, he kept telling people that his master had magic eyes and a detective mind. He
could also converse with inanimate objects like posts. When they asked him how Dr.
Rizal did this, he confessed to them how his since of commission was discovered by his
master. 72
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to reveal events in other times
#motif: literacy as sleight-of-hand to awe the illiterate: into virtuous behaviour
The notebook of Dr. Rizal
[…]
One day Dr. Rizal was called to go and see a very sick patient who was too weak to be
carried to his clinic. Since he had no assistant doctor to take his place while he was
away, he told his trusted servant to attend to his other patients if any of them came to
his clinic.
“But, Doctor, I do not know medicine and I do not know the dialect here. I would not
know what to do and what they want,” the servant protested.
“Don’t worry about that, I will make you know everything,” Dr. Rizal said to him,
and at once he felt confident. Then the doctor got a notebook and wrote [80] rapidly
on it with a mysterious smile on his lips. He wrote many things that aroused wonder
in the servant, for the latter could not even read them, but he would not dare question
his master. He thought Dr. Rizal might not want to be delayed by answering his
questions. So he just obeyed quietly.
When he was through writing the doctor said, “When somebody comes, consult this
notebook, ask any question to it, and it will answer you and tell you what to do. Don’t
fear anything.”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, and Dr. Rizal picked up his medical bag and was gone.
True enough, some patients came after the doctor had left, and at first the servant was
a little bit nervous. They talked to him and told him about their sickness, but he could
not understand their language. Then he turned to the notebook, which was within
hearing distance of the patients, and asked what he should do.
It moved slightly, then the writings of Dr. Rizal on it became his image, and it spoke
to him clearly. At first, it frightened him with wonder, but its eyes restored his
confidence, and he followed carefully what it dictated for him to do. The patients
submitted themselves obediently for treatment, though they too were surprised almost
to the brink of fear, but their faith in the voice and image of Dr. Rizal on the
notebook held them steady.
After all the patients had been treated, the image and the voice became writings again
and the servant sat quietly for a long time pondering over what he had seen, heard,
and gone through. “Dr Rizal is an enchanted man,” he [81] said and repeated the
same to others, especially after the hero was gone from this life. The patients too
retold what they witnessed, hence this tale of mystery. 82
#folk literacy
#motif: textual object has supernatural power: to impart medical instructions
[PK: Rizal discusses the virtues of reform over revolution with is friends by Laguna
lake]
[PK: Note that there are many other stories about Rizal’s magic cane]
Just then a stray dog was scavenging around for food. Dr. Rizal coaxed it with a
friendly call, and it approached him. When it was almost within reach, he touched it
gently with is cane, and the dog died instantly. Then he turned to his companions and
said, “I can do this to all the Spaniards, but my conscience does not allow me. It is a
sin against God who is in all of us”. Then he touched the dog kindly with his hand,
and it sprang to life again.
All of his companions gathered around him with great surprise, and some of them
feared him secretly for his miraculous power. Before they walked home, he advised
them, “Please, do not do anything rash while I am away.”
Many years later, while he was abroad, he used his pen instead of his cane to touch
the Spaniards. With his pen he wrote two books to show the sufferings of his people
under their rule. When copies of the books reached the Philippines, they roused the
Filipinos more to revolt than the Spaniards to reform their administration. His pen
instead of his cane wiped out Spanish tyranny in the Philippines. 101
#folk literacy
#motif: writing as a political weapon
The mysterious professor
Dr. Rizal, according to many people in Calamba Laguna, did not die when he was
shot at Bagumbayan. Right after his execution, he went back to Calamba and from
there proceeded to Cebu. In Cebu he was appointed professor at the College of San
Carlos. He taught Latin and Spanish in that college every Wednesday under the
name of Gonzaga. […]
He was never recognized by the authorities of the school, for his disguise made him
look very differently from the Rizal that everybody knew. It was Luis Pobregat, one of
his students in Latin, afterwards parish priest of Calamba, who finally recognized him.
But Dr. Rizal was quick to sense that Pobregat had discovered his identity. At once he
resigned his job and disappeared. Since then no more of him was ever heard or seen
in San Carlos. 136
#funny
Santos, Alfonso P. (ed.). 1974. Rizal in life and legends. Quezon

City: National Book Store.
On the 1973 Rizal Day, President Ferdinand E. Marcos made the following
observation about our hero: “[…] [vii] As we attain peace and progress in our
country, the central concern of Rizal’s life — his belief in peaceful and evolutionary
change — gains all the more currency and relevance. It casts meaningful light on
many of our endeavors today, where before it seemed feeble in the throes of ferment
and violence in our country.
Quite possibly it is our generation that stands to profit most from the best that Rizal
had to say to his people. […]” viii
#article: rizal
[PK: Compare Rizal’s comment that imperfect independence would result in a tyrant,
and also U.S. desiring a non-violent national hero. Wide appeal of Rizal was that he
was a cosmopolitan before he was a nationalist]
Most of the contents of this book are adition to RIZALIANA, not duplicates. They
are a sequel to RIZAL MIRACLE TALES. ix
One afternoon, when he was a schoolboy, he talk a walk in the street in front of their
house. […] On this particular afternoon, he met a Spanish officer in blue uniform
newly pressed and full of hangings and decorations. […] He expected every Filipino
or indio, young or old, to salute him […]. Instead [Rizal] looked at him straight in the
face as if they were equal in rank and race. This insulted the officer […] [17]
Accordingly he raised his cand and threatened to strike him, but the boy, with skill
and speed, dodged and escaped his blows. He stepped backward continuously, and
this made the officer look like a fool because he was armed yet he could not reach his
young victim. This angered the Spaniard more and was determined to catch Rizal
and reduce him to a worthless indio. But as he made a final advance he stumbled, and
the boy stepped into their yard and closed the gate behind him. 18
#article: rizal
‘Young Rizal Entertained a Priest’
In his boyhood, Rizal was very fond of repeating quotations from Spanish, Latin, and
German. He recited these passages to the church authorities, civil officials, and
military officers who stopped at their house in Calamba to take a rest while on their
way to the health resort in Los Baños. He repeated these quotations not to show that
he was learned, but to see how those people would react to them. He liked to see what
was behind the pretenses of other people in order to learn more about them.
One day a Spanish priest stopped at the Rizal house. Because Rizal’s father was not
feeling well, young Rizal himself was forced to entertain him. They conversed and
talked about painting, sculpture, medicine, and other allied subjects until their
conversation drifted to tropical ailments and the possibility of extracting special
medicine from plants and herbs abounding in the Philippines.
Then Rizal looked at the old priest intently and said, “Panet teurum aprosum matrinquete
arte.” The latter looked blank and remained silent. After a while, Rizal checked him
up saying, “I hope you understood what I meant, Father,” the priest was taken aback,
but did not show any surprise because this might betray his ignorance. He was served
a light refreshment, then shortly after he thanked his host and left for Los Baños. [25]
Later, when the priest had gone, Rizal’s father, who overheard the conversation,
asked his son, “Jose, what was that ailment you told Father Lopez when you were
conversing with him?”
“Oh, that, Father?” answered Rizal laughing. “That was not an ailment. It was just an
expression I picked up from our maid. It is supposed to ward off evil spirits.” 26
#urasyun #article: rizal #folk literacy
‘Young Rizal and the Anagram’
[…] when he was a student at the University of Santo Tomas, In Intramuros, Manila,
a candy factory not very far from his boarding house in Calle Magallanes sponsored a
series of anagrams in the daily morning paper in order to improve its sales. The prize
was a box of candies for anyone who could solve and submit the anagram first before
anybody else.
Rizal decided to win the whole series in order that he would not pay for his candies
and to show that the sponsor was not above his ability to think. He looked at the
anagrams like the problems in his studies and in his life, and he felt he must conquer
them. So at four o’clock every morning, he woke up, dressed himself for school, then
went downstairs to wait for the morning paper. As soon as it came, he opened it to the
page where the anagram was printed and started solving the puzzle. After solving it,
he sent his solution to the candy factory through the houseboy. Every solution he
made was the only one correct among the other solutions submitted, and was always
the first delivered. [31]
Everyday for several days he received his box of candies, and his boardmates were
surprised and envied his ability to solve problems. Some of them imitated is ways and
habits, but they could not match him in the quality of his achievement. Some more
anagrams were printed and solved by Rizal, and more boxes of candies were won by
him, until the factory stopped the series and gave up business. 32
#folk literacy #article: rizal
‘Young Rizal and the Flying Cards’
[Rizal’s friends] were playing cards and when they saw him, they opened a place for
him at the table and included him in the game. […] his friends requested him to
entertrain thre group with his card tricks. […] At this point he saw a beautiful girl
looking at him steadily, and when she smiled he stood quietly and asked [33] for all
the cards. Then he said to the girl, “Please, think of a certain card, but do not name it
aloud until I ask you.”[…]
Now he shuffled the cards thoroughly in his hands with all eyes fixed on him. Then he
flipped them all in the air and they fell scattered on the crowd except one that got
caught on the ceiling, face-up. Everybody saw it and was in great suspense. Rizal
sought the girl with is eyes and spoke to her again, “Please, tell the crowd the card
you have chosen.” She looked around to everybody and said, “The king of hearts.”
The audience turned to Rizal suspiciously as if he were the one intended as the “king
of hearts”, but he pointed at the card on the ceiling and they turned their eytes to it. A
stick was given to the girl and Rizal told her to touch the card so that it would fall to
the floor. It did drop, she picked it up, and showed it to everybody — the king of
hearts, indeed! 34
‘Dr. Rizal and the Foolish Widower’
Dr. Rizal had a tenant in Calamba by the name of Diego, a widower with three
children. […] Of all the girls Diego had courted, he was most in love with the
beautiful daughter of a widow, and because of his devotion to her he had neglected his
fields and his children. This troubled Diego very much and he went to consult Dr.
Rizal. Being an illiterate and a common tao, he addressed his landlord thus, “Amo, I
want to speak to you about a very serious matter […] I am deeply in love with a
beautiful girl and I want to marry her, but she does not love me. She loves another
man, and I am desperate, so I have decided to kidnap her. I am sure she would marry
me then after I have said and done everything to her.” […] Dr. Rizal was seated at his
table with an old book, written in Spanish, in front of him. He told Diego that the
book contained great wisdom, and it could help him solve his problem if he would
promise to follow him and what he would read from it. He promised. [45]
“Very well then,” said Dr. Rizal, “tell me your age, the date of your birth, then choose
a number from one to ten.” Diego did as he was told, and with the figures he
submitted, Dr. Rizal made some calculation. Then he consulted his book and read a
sentence from it which he addressed to Diego, saying, “You can do as you desire, but
be careful that a snake does not bite you.”
The desperate lover was puzzled, so Dr. Rizal explained to him that a woman is like a
snake, which attacks unexpectedly. That if he married the beautiful girl, who did not
love him but loved the handsome bachelor, and during his absence she would go and
have a good time with her lover, would that not be like a snake biting him?
Diego looked at the book with wonder, then turned to his landlord and said, “Amo, if
that is what the book says, then I give up.”
“Well, that is what it says,” Dr. Rizal confirmed, and the kidnapping was prevented.
46
#folk literacy
#motif: literacy as sleight-of-hand to awe the illiterate: into virtuous behaviour
‘Dr. Rizal the Linguist’
The fame of Dr. Rizal as a linguist is widely known in the Philippines. In fact, he
could speak and write in twenty-two languages, and this has aroused wonder in many
people, especially those who could communicate in only two languages. […]
Once when Dr. Rizal was a guest of Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt in Leitmeritz,
Germany, he was elected member of the Leitmeritz Mountaineer Society. […]
As was expected of him, Dr. Rizal stood to deliver a speech of response and
acknowledgment. […] Accordingly, the chairman called for a Spanish interpreter […]
Then Dr. Rizal cleared his throat, surveyed his distinguished listeners, and delivered
an extemporaneous speech in fluent and almost perfect German. For this he was
loudly applauded and was embraced by Dr. Blumentritt, who said that he had done
something distinctive for the Germans themselves found it difficult to deliver an
extemporaneous speech in their own language. [66]
[…] As to how Dr. Rizal learned German, Dr. Viola wrote: “As we lived in the same
room (when they were in Barcelona) my attention was called to his habit of going to
bed early, lighting his table candle, open his book, and after six or ten minutes, put
out the light, not, of course, failing to say good-night. As this practice was rigorously
observed every night, I interpreted it as a prayer, and on asking him if it was trisagio or
some other prayer, he answered that it was neither; it was his methodic study of
German consisting in learning and committing to memory five basic words of the
German language, which, multiplied by 365, the number of days in a year, would
enable one in time to achieve the position of an academician in that tongue.”
The other languages that Dr. Rizal knew were Tagalog, Ilocano, Spanish, Latin,
Greek, French, English, Arabaic, Malaya, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Swedish, Dutch,
Catalan, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Subanon and Visayan. 67
#article: rizal #folk literacy
‘Dr. Rizal and the White Stone’
Some people say that Samson the Great was in Calamba. He was there during the
time of Dr. Rizal, and the two were very good friends. But Samson was under the
assumed name of Damos. He lived at the foot of Mt. Makiling as the caretaker of a
field planted with corn and peanuts. On different occasions, he had shown his great
strength, so the people had proclaimed him as the strongest man in town.
One day, while he was away, a huge bird went to Damos’s field and ate some of the
crops. On returning he saw the great damage done to his field, and he became very
angry. So he watched for the bird to come back. On the following day, it came back
and Damos caught it.
Because of the great strength of the bird, Damos was carried up with it when it flew
away. So he prayed for greater strength to come to him. It came in the form of a
heavy weight, and it pulled him and the bird together to the ground. The fall made
the bird unconscious and Damos tied it with rattan. He plucked one of its feathers and
went to Calamba to show it to his friend, Dr. Rizal.
Dr. Rizal was very much surprised to see the big feather. It was so big that it could
enfold one ganta of rice. Damos boasted of his prize and invited Dr. Rizal to come
and see the huge bird for himself. Dr. Rizal [68] consented to go but was told to wait,
while Damos had to go and attend some business in another part of the town.
In his eagerness, Dr. Rizal could not wait while Damos was away, so he proceeded to
the place where the bird was tied. Upon seeing the bird, Dr. Rizal was filled with pity
for it. Then the bird spoke to him and he was greatly surprised. The bird said,
“Please, set me free and I will never offend your friend again.” He cold not believe
what it said, so he did not heed its pleas.
But it spoke again, saying. “I will reward you with something that will enable you to
know and speak all the languages if you untie me.” Dr. Rizal knew how hard it is to
lose one’s freedom, so he believed the bird, and set it free. The bird told him to open
his mouth, and he did. It desposited in it a white stone, and since that time Dr. Rizal
became a linguist. In addition to twenty-two languages that he learned and could
speak, he could also understand animals, the songs of birds, and the hum of the bees.
[Retold from an account by Jose Bariconosa, president, Iglesia Watawat ng Lahi,
Calamba, Laguna, as reported by Rosario M. Silva]. 69
#mutya
People who saw this incident happen in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, during the
Revolution, believed that though Dr. Rizal was executed in Bagumbayan, God gave
him some super-natural power and he did not really die. He was among the
generation of his time and is still among us today, they say. 101
#longevity #chapter 8
[Guingguing, C.B.] Anonymous. 1 Dies, 6 Captured in PC
encounter. Bohol Chronicle 21 September 1975. 1, 8.
A follower of the Rizalian sect was killed during an encoutner with a PC patrol Friday
morning in sitio Sugpong Cogon, barrio Lundag in Pilar town while six others were
captured by another PC Patrol. [...] 1
The [shot] Rizalian was identified [1] as Jose Umantod, 56, widower, reported to hold
the rank of Reverend in the Philippine Ecumenical Christian Church popularly
known as Rizalian.
Umantod was barefooted and sported a long hair (sic). He was attired with ragged
clothes with a breast band which had an embroidered name Rev. Jose T. Umantod.
8
The encounter took place in a wooded area some 20 kilometres from the highway.
Umantod was gunned down by the PC patrol after he emptied his paltik .22 caliber
revolver at the PC patrol. He was also armed with an Indian pana (bow and arrow).
Some Rizalian items were also found in his possession.
Some 100 darts were likewise seized by the PC with sharp points believed to have
been poisoned. 8
The six persons captured were identifieds as Roquillano Ratila y Galorio, 24, farmer,
of La Hacienda, Lundag, Pilar; Inocencio Magallon y Abaldo, 39, married, farmer, of
aga, Zamboanga del Sur; Gavino Escabosa y Bayron, 39, farmer of Lundag, Pilar;
Ramon Custodio y Asdule, 22, single, farmer of Cabasalan, Zamboanga del Sur;
Conrado Bayron y Anoede, 25, married, farmer of Lundag, Pilar; Flaviano
Pangunuron y Sumulhig, 50, married, farmer, of Lundag, Pilar.
The PC patrol which encountered the lawless group was dispatched after several
violent incidents were reported in the area.
The PC said that on Sept. 18 in sitio Ilaya in barrio Lombog, Guindulman four
persons were hogtied in a forested area by some 17 persons.
Those hogtied wer Fausto Gamalo, 65, married, Filipa 55, married; Federita, 13,
single; and Ricardo, 22, single, all surnamed Gamalo.
Ricardo is still missing.
Later on the same day, in the same locality, Florentino Escabusa, 33, married, a
farmer, and Niserata Escabusa, 34, were also missing from their house. They were
believed captured by the same armged group led by a certain Arcadio Bagarsa
according to thsoe who returned to their homes.
On Sept 19 in the same sitio, three young boys who were catching parrots in the
wooded area were also captured by the same group: Eutemio Escabusa, 15, Guillermo
Pinedo, 17; and Raymundo Escabusa, 9.
Later Eutemio was found dead with stabbed (sic) wounds in his neck and stomach. 8
Guingguing, C.B. ‘Pacification, Cival in Pilar: Roud-building
through embattled area to link inland barrios.’ September 28,
1975. 1, 8
The provincial board mounts tomorrow a massive pacification and civic action drive
to ease the tension obtaining in the Pilar area including the inland barrios of the towns
of Guindulman, Duero, Candijay and Alicia. [PK: Note all this happened under
Martial Law] 1
At least four civilians were already found dead in the thickly forested area of Lombog,
Biabas and Mayuga in the Guindulman side last week.
Anti-government forces are being holed up in pinpointed areas with several civilian
hostages where they are facing starvation.
About a score of the anti-government elements were captured or have surrendered to
the PC patrols which have secured the critical areas.
Those interrogated had admitted having been linked with the New People’s Army in
Mindanao. 1
[...]
The following four are civilians believed killed by the armed band:
1. Ricardo gumalo, 22, single, farmer, Ilaya Dos, Londog, Guindulman.
2. Florentino Escabusa, 33, married, farmer, same adress.
3. Niserata s. Escabusa, 34, wife of Florentino, same address;
4. Eutemio Escabusa, 15, single, same address. 8
Captured during the military operations last week besides the six already reported
were:
1. Pedro Garridos, 20, married, Reverend of the Rizalians, Mansabay, Misamis Oxx.;
2. Amado Laga, 65, married, cook, Lombog, Guindulman;
3. Samual Carias, 48, married, farmer, Buena Suerte, Pilar;
4. Pedro, borther of Samuel, 43, farmer;
5. Ireneo, cousin of Pedro, 42, farmer. 8
[...] the provincial commander [of the PC] appealed to members of the Rizalian sect
to disassociate themselves from the lawless elelments coming from Mindanao. He said
that the armed band led by Jose Escalera alias Aser who is reportedly wanted for a
series of cases in Tagum, Davao del Norte has taken advantage of the Rizalian
movement as a front to foster their criminal activities. 8
Vice Gov. David Tirol and Board Member Erico Aumentado will head two separate
civic action teams in a massive road-building project tomorrow which would link the
inland barrios of Pilar, Guindulman, Alicia, Candijay and Duero. [...] The roads will
connect the barrios of Bato Catungawan, Mayuga, Biabas and Lombod in
Guindulman with Lundag, Pilar and another road will cut through the barrios of
Tambungan, Cadapdapan, Inaghuban, San Vicente in Alicia with Lundag. 8
Peace emissaries have been sent to the beleagured anti-government group holed up
somewhere to reach a peaceful solution of the controversy.
[Vice Gov. David] Tirol and Aumentado had a rendezvous with top Rizalian and
rebel leaders at one’oclock dawn today at an undisclosed place to effect a peaceful
confrontation. 8
Some NPA converts who escaped from embattled Mindanao last year managed to
infiltrate the Rizalians in Central Bohol headed by Zenon Balaba in the Pilar area.
Somehow, Escalera who is being wanted in Mindanao with his handful of armed
henchmen succeeded to influence the Rizalians and asserted his leadership in the
area.
According to intelligence reports gathered by Capt. Jesus Magno, Balaba who is now
aging and suffering from paralysis is reportedly being held hostage by the armed men
of Escalera. Nevertheless, Balaba is still being respected by the Bohol Rizalians in the
area. 8
[Guingguing, C.B.] Anonymous. Gov’t presses peace overtures:

emissaries contact rebel group; peaceful confrontation seen.
The Bohol Chronicle, October 5, 1975. 1, 8.
Many civilians were reported to be held as hostages of this rebel group inside two
caves where they are reported to be facing starvation. Food supply inside the caves is
running low, it was learned. It was even feared that incidence of disease has already
erupted and had taken [1] toll of innocent lives. 8
Civilians in the beleagured area are invited to visit the evacuation centers. 8
Vice Gov. David Tirol and Board Member Erico Aumentado were set to confer
yesterday with Federico Melecio, supreme pontiff of the Iglesia Catolica Filipina,
whose headquarters is in Lawis, Inabanga.
The government panel will also confer with the offices of the Philippine Benevolent
Missionary Association headed by Ignacio Sabrado in Ubay, Guindulman and Duero
and Cipriano Otero in Pitogo and Talibon.
The religious sect in the Pilar-Guindulman area is known as the Philippine
Ecumentical Christian Church. 8
Aumentado who heads a task force in the Guindulman side said that civic action work
including distribution of medicines and medical treatment has been completed in the
barrios of Lombog, Biabas, Mayuga in Guindulman and Canapnapan (sic) and
Tambungan in Candijay.
Road building has started to link Lundag with the towns of Guindulman, Pilar and
Candijay. 8
Eng. Francisco Ceniza is in charge of the road project from Canapnapan, Candijay to
Lundag via Biabas [...] 8
[...] Board Member Aumentado as officer-in-charge of the governor’s office, asked the
town executives to discourage the influx of evacuees from other provinces especially
Mindanao. 8
At the same time, the coast guard station in Tagbilaran has been asked to report the
arrivals of soldiers on furlough, rest or recreation.
They will be asked to submit their mission orders to prevent fake soldiers from
infiltrating the civilian ranks. Even mission orders must be scrutinized thoroughly
since many have been found to be forged. 8
Guingguing, C.B. Rizalians deny rebel affilation: Head pleges

support to government during peace talks. Bohol Chronicle.
October 12, 1975. 1, 8.
The Rizalian sectarian group headed by Zenon Balaba, highest ranking leader of the
Philippine Ecumentical Christian Church, vehemently denied last Wednesday any
complicity with the rebel group operating in the inland barrios of Pilar and
Guindulman. 1
He [Balaba] spelled out his request for the release from the forest zone the tracts of
land which have been under tillage by his followers during the past several years. 1
and two couriers [to pass on negotiation messages] Eugene Datahan and Celso
Valleser. Nobody was armed.
Datahan, barangay captain of Tambungan, Candijay has been taken into confidence
by Balaba and had freely entered their hideout during the negotiations which took
several months.
Valleser is an employee in the office of Aumentado who had volunteered to
accompany Datahan during his contacts with Balaba.
Among the concessions which Balaba offered to the government which would help
ease the tension in the area are the following:
1. To pledge full allegiance to the present administration of President Marcos.
2. Immediate return of the evacuees inside the Fatima Cave, his hideout in Lundag,
Pilar to their respective homes in Babacjanan, Sierra Bullones and from all inland
barrios between Pilar and Guindulman surrounding the Lundag area.
A modest estimate of Datahan, the government courier who frequented the Fatima
Cave in the course of the negotiations was about a thousand evacuees.
[...]
At the same time, Balaba reiterated that his group had no hand in the atrocities
committed by other armed bands in the area. 8
In return to these concessions, Balaba sought the immediate release from the forest
zones the tracts of land under tillage by his men in the Lundag area.
He also asked for the immediate completion of all farm-to-market roads leading to
Lundag particularly the road network from Canapnapan in Candijay via San Vicente
in Pilar.
These two requests have been fulfilled by the government even as other roads are
being constructed by heavy equipments from Guindulman to Lundag and from Pilar
to Lundag.
Under the Central Bohol Resettlement Project, the Lundag area was already covered
by the agrarian reform program with all government benefits extended to the farmers
in the area.
In addition to these requests, Balaba also sought the following from the military side:
1. The release of detainees identified by his group who have been arrested or
captured.[...]
Balaba denied any complicity about the activities of Jose Escalera, alias Aser, who was
reported to be heading an armed group with hostages in another cave identified as
San Roque Cave.
He admitted, however, that Aser is his son-in-law but alleged that he had left for Leyte
to join another group there.
He also disclaimed knowlege about Arcadio Bagasarza, the No. 1 councillor of Pilar
who had joined the group of Aser. Balaba admitted that Bagsarza was with him
before at the Fatima Cave but had left the hideout when their food supply was getting
low. 8
Guingguing, C.B. Final talks set; to yield arms: Massive civic

action work on as followers plege faith in gov’t (sic). Bohol
Chronicle 19 Oct, 1975.1. 6
The final round of talks that seeks to restore peace and harmony to the strife-torn
highland barrios of Guindulman and Pilar will be heald at 10 o’clock a.m., Tuesday
October 21 at sitio Candelaria, Lundag, seat of the Rizalian sect in central Bohol.
During the meeting, Zenon Balaba, recognized leader of the group is expected to
surrender all firearms in the sect’s possession, including a machine gun of pre-war
vintage used by the guerrillas during the Jap occupation.
Other armaments which Balaba had earlier pleged to turn over to the government are
long boloes (sic), bows and arrows, darts and home-made guns locally known as
“paliuntod” or “surit-surit”. 1
Paving the way for the coming Tuesday talks was the meeting held last Sunday also in
sitio Candelaria, four kilometers from Kabagnan, Biabas, Guindulman, where the first
contact with the Balaba group was made.
[...]
The head-count, the census yielded 984 Rizalians including 15 families who came
from Mindanao and joined them. 6
[Guingguing, CB] Author unknown. Rebels surrender
unconditionally with arms, ammo, papers. Bohol Chronicle
26 October, 1975. 1, 8.
Sixteen armed rebels including the elusive gang leader Terry Escalera, alias Aser, 33,
of Baroy, Lanao del Norte together with their arms and ammunition unconditionally
surrendered to the government negotiators headed by Board Member Erico B
Aumentado at 6.20pm Wednesday morning at the chapel site of barrio Lundag in
Pilar town. 1
The armed rebel group which later professed unconditional support to the
administration was composed of.
1. Terry Escalera, 33, of Baroy, Lanao del Norte:
2. Arcadio Bagsarsa ...
3. Senecio Basilad ... barrio caouncilor of Lundag, Pilar
4. Leotico Toraroso ..
5. Fortunato Carbonel ...
6 Epimaco Paster
7. Narciso Galo
8. Pedro Ruso
9. Ernesto Camatura [PK: the above were all from Mindanao].
10. Porfiro Cornito, Cebu
11. Edilberto Borja, 30, Lundag, Pilar
12. Maximo Abcede, 50, Lundag, Pilar
13. Glicerio Abcede, 20, Lundag, Pilar
14. Paulino Alaba, 45, Lundag, Pilar
15. Diascoro Busangilan, Ubay
16. Rebucato Taer, Garcia Hernandez
[...]
Fifteen-year old Susan Garridos of Lopez Jaena, one of Escalera’s 15 common law
wives surrendered with the armed group. Ten other common-law wives of Escalera
were already interrogated by the PC.
His legal wife, Margarito Balataoy, is from Maribojoc.
The rebel group surrendered the following arms [...] two Japanese rifles... [among
other things of course] 28 rubber sling shots, 664 pointed arrows, one portable
typewriter, PC and ranger uniforms, Rizalian uniforms, neckerchiefs with Latin
inscriptions, 64 bottles of oil said to contain superhuman powers [...] 8
The dramatic surrender was the culmination of a series of peace talks between the
government panel and Zenon Balaba, ecclesiastical governor and spiritual leader of
the Rizalians in Bohol with Lundag, Pilar as the seat of Power.
Escalera, however, managed to wrest control of a segment of the group particularly
those who were inclined to subversion. Escalera holds the rank of grand master of the
group. 8
Earlier, the armed group held as hostage inside two caves in Fatima and San Roque
almost all the civilians in the surrounding sitios numbering about 1000. However
when their food supplies were running low and health conditions insided the caves
became intolerable, the hostages began to abandon the armed group 8
[...] This civic action [of road building] practically alienated the support of the
populace from the rebels. 8
Tirol, Lumin B. History of Bohol (Prehispanic up to 1972).

Graduate School, University of Santo Tomas, Manila.
October, 1975. In partial fulfilment of the requirements for
the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in History.
The name Bohol was derived from the name of the place where Sikatuna and Legazpi
sealed their bond of friendship with a blood compact on March, 1965. It is about
three kilometers from what is now the city of Tagbilaran. The present spelling is from
bohol, the Spanish attempt to reduce the local term bo’ol to writing, the Spaniards not
having the glottal stop between two vowels.
The term bo’ol refers to a kind of tree (exora philippinensis Nerr) 1
It is said that when Legazpi met Chief Sikatuna he asked the [1] latter the name of the
place, pointing to a bo’ol tree nearby in an effort to be understood. The Chief
anwswered “Bo’ol”, thinking that Legazpi was asking for the name of the tree. Since
then the place has been called Bo’ol. 2
#folk etymology
There is another origin given to the term “Boholanos” per information given by
Alcina who says: “the word boholanos means “fishermen”. [Francisco Ignacio Alcina.
The Nuñoz text of Alcina’s History of the Bisayan islands. (1998) trans by P.S Lietz (Chicago:
n.p.) Part 1, Book IV, p15.]
This means basically that documentary evidence about Bohol starts with the
chronicles, memoirs and other written materials first put together by the Spaniards.
This is not to say that Bohol did not possess written documents before the arrival of
Spain. As a matter of fact, the Boholanos did posses such documents, including a
system of writing not much different from those found elsewhere in the archipelago.
But as in the rest of the Philippines, these documents were destroyed by the zealous
attempt of the friars to eradicate paganism. 26
#chapter 1 [PK: add ref]
Balangao. When a rainbow or balangao appear, the children should not point it or their
fingers will rot or be cut. It is because they believed that the rainbow is a great diwata
being born. Others also say that it is a dress of a diwata who gets angry when
somebody points at it. For the same reason, they cease working for a day. 74 [Possibly
taken from Alcina and therefore referrring to the Visayas at large, not Bohol
specifically]
They believed that an earthquake or Linog is caused by a certain woman who moves
her very large bust and so for this they abstain from working for eight days. 75
#funny
These teachers [first American teachers in Bohol] had two-fold duties: teaching the
schools under their charge and training filipino teachers to take charge of classes.
They conducted classes to teach the native teachers what they should teach the
following week. Such beginnings were forerunners of the district institutes or
provincial normal institutes which later became common throughout the archipelago.
The institute taught or trained teachers for the work they were to handle.
The first American teachers assigned in Bohol were Mr. Frank John and Miss
Misheart [according to Mr Claudio Butalid, a retired supervising teacher of Bohol,
residing in Tagbilaran City]. Mr John took charge of the boys while Miss Misheart
taught the girls. [PK: note sex segration as per early Eskaya schools]. The next
American teachers to arrive were Mr. Cameron and Miss Wood. The classes which
were organized by Mr John were divided into three. Mr Cameron took charge of
Class A and Ba as combined and Miss Wood of Class C.
When Mr Frank R. Adams and Mrs Jesie DY Adams came, they managed to open
another school from January to April, 1902. In this school, pupils were taught as
teachers for the beginning of the school year 1902-1903. The adults who could read
and write a little Spanish [249] enrolled, knowing that a great deal of teachers were
needed for the schools to be opened.
Primary schools. As provided for by law, the Tagbilaran Municipal School was opened
in 1902. Mr Cameron conducted the classes with the help of native teachers, Mr
Remegio Ramirez and and Mr Cecilio Putong. They were under the charge of the
District Supervising teacher, Mr Adams.
Primary instructions were extended to the barrios, making a total of 183 primary
schools in the division of Bohol in 1904. There were also seven night schools with an
enroment of 303 pupils. Primary instruction in English was given by 24 Americans
and 13 Filipino teathers in 13 pueblos, representing a total population of 177.396 and
a school population of 35,479.
In 1905, the number of primary schools increased to 183 of which schools in 15 towns
were attended by municipal teachers without the intervention of Americans. Also,
those schools controlled by the religious orders in the towns of Tagbilaran, Valencia,
Jagna, Loboc and Anda were allowed to continue operating with an aggregate
attendance of 2,000. [250]
More primary schools were opened in Bohol to accommodate more pupils until 1918
when there were 243 schools in the province.
Intermediate schools. Intermediate education was started in Bohol in 1908. Two
intermediate schools were opened, one in Tagbilaran and the other in Guindulman.
The intermediate course consisted of three years.
The number of intermediate schools continually increased until it reach to 16 in 1918.
Methods of instruction. The pupils who attended the English schools were the previous
Spanish pupils during the Spanish regime. This caused difficult in communication.
The American teachers resorted to translation of Spanish words into English or vice-
versa, to facilitate learning. From the method of instruction mentioned, it can be
deduced that Mr John was also a Spanish speaking teacher. Mr Claudio Butalid who
was then a pupil said that Mr Frank John taught with the use of Spanish instruction
until March 1901.
#chapter 8 [PK: regarding leap forward in Spanish competence in late 19th cent]
Another method used was memorization. The pupils read aloud after the teacher,
repeating it several times until they could recite it themselves. They also sang the
letters of the alphabet. Big charts [251] showing pictures of objects with the names of
each, written below, were used. After teaching vocabulary, simple sentence
construction was taught.
Curriculum. The curriculum of the early public schools was patterned to that what was
adopted in United States. But after some time, it was modified to suit local needs and
conditions.
This curriculum prescribed four years for the primary course. Mental and physical
training was directly provided for. Provisions for moral training were given in the
stories read by the children. The primary curriculum underwent revisions in 1907,
1910, 1913, 1915, 1924 and 1934 to 1935, to meet the demands of the time.
Vocational and physical education was included.
In 1904, and intermediate curriculum for three years was introduced following the
general pattern of the then existing grammar grades in the United States. It was also
revised in 1909, 1913, 1917, 1922 and 1934.
Provincial high school. By Act No. 375 passed on March 7, 1902, the provincial high
schools were established. These schools were designed to fit graduates of the
intermediate course for useful vocation. The courses offered were: literature, history
and sciences, which would prepare the students for advanced standing in
undergraduate work of American colleges; a course in teaching which would qualify a
student to teach all intermediate grades; a course in commerce [252] designed to fit
young men for business or industrial undertakings and a course in arts and crafts for
the training of workmen. These courses took from three to four years to finish.
The Philippine Commission visualized the provincial college, “and the few who might
demand such instruction in Manila or in the United States”. In fact among the
Filipino students sent to United States, two came from Bohol. They were Eduardo
Ramirez who studied in Manual Training High School, Indianapolis, Ind. and
Cacharias Rocha who enrolled in the Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass.
The provincial high school of Bohol started in 1904. It was temporarily housed in a
municipal building that was leased by the Provincial Board. There were 157 students
of boths sexes enrolled at the start. In order to accommodate the big number of
students, the members of the provincial board of Bohol passed a resolution asking the
insular treasury for a loan of P20,000 to be expended in the construction of a building
[in Tagbilaran] to be used as a provincial high school and for the school of Arts and
Trade. 253
Normal institutes. The native teachers who were first employed were for the most part
equipped as far as the subject matter was con-[254]cerned, but were deficient in
English. In order to train and improve their efficiency in the service, normal institutes
were opened.
All of the barrio teachers received preliminary instruction in their English as well as
the methods which they must follow in teaching in their respective schools through the
Normal Institutes. This school opened two months in a year. In Bohol, there were five
hundred and fifty-four pupils, of whom about one-half were teachers who enrolled in
the Normal Institutes during 1904-1905.
The course of study conformed to that laid down by the general superintendent of
education, and the work of teaching was done by American teachers. The school day
was divided into six recitation periods of forty to forty-five minutes each and each
teacher who had less than five periods of teaching each day was required to teach one
hour each night. In addition to the classroom work, mechanical drawing and
carpentry were also taught.
[...]
Teachers who enrolled in this school returned to their respective barrios to educate
their pupils in those matters taught to them during the two month staying the Normal
Institute. For the school year 1918-1919, of the 579 teachers of Bohol 100 [255] were
elementary graduates, 422 secondary graduates, 8 collegiate, 45 vocational and 1
university graduate and 5 not mentioned. 256
Year Primary Intermediate Secondary Total

1905-1906 15,359 83 107 15,448
1918-1919 24,315 2,305 465 24, 684
1930 36,345 4,985 1,978 43,308
256
An isolated case of cholera in Bohol was first registered on March 20, 1902. After this,
the disease again reappeared in July, 1902 and killed many people. From March,
1902 to August, 1904 the number of cases reported were 2,706 with 1,877 deaths.
The towns mostly affected were Valencia, Panglao, Tubigon, Inabanga, Loay, Bilar,
Loon, Ipil, Jagna and Tagbilaran.
Smallpox also claimed a heavy toll of lives during the six months of the year 1902. In
1904, there occurred 1,903 cases with 100 deaths, in 1905 there were 671 cases with
96 deaths, and in 1906, 234 cases with 24 deaths. With the systematic vaccination
employed by the Provincial Board of health officials, death rate caused by the
epidemics in the following years was reduced. 264
Aglipayanism was first introduced in the province of Bohol in 1903, in Biabas,
Guindulman [Data furnished by Miss Emerita Menez, Secretary of the Women
Auxiliary of the Philippine Independent Church in Bohol]. Among the pioneers of
Aglipyanism in Bohol were Don Mariano Datahan, a self-made member of the
Katipunan and one of the most active members of the insurrectos; Sr. Filimon
Veronilla Sr; Tomas Tambayaon and other Boholano leaders.
The church had the following objectives: to struggle for an indigenous church,
religious freedom and to give spiritual guidance in [273] supporting the
administration of the civil government. With its good foundation many at present are
professing such religion. In Guindulman, its members numbered to 420 house; in
Candjay 321 houses; San Miguel 46 houses; Ubay 94 houses; Talibon, 110 houses;
Alicia 271 houses; Pilar 342 houses; Sierra bullones 301 houses; Jagna 267 houses;
Duero 303 houses; Valencia 130 houses; Sevilla 97 house and Loon, 8 houses.
Aside from erecting chapels, they had established cemeteries and taught the
obligations of the people towards the ecclesiastical and civil government.
They, too, had their share of problems like the rest of the established religious groups
in the archipelago, such as: lack of money [276] propagation, the partiality of the
religious actuations mostly of government officials and employees; internal rivalry and
personal interest.
The Seventh Day Adventists. Another religious group that was proagated in Bohol in 1905
was the Seventh Day Adventists. It had its first operation in Bohol in Three Stones,
Tagbilaran Bohol. 277
#aglipay
Jehova’s Christian Witness. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the Jehovah’s
started to propagate in Sevilla, Bohol. 384
Islam. In 1958, a group of Muslim traders formally introduced Islam religion in Bohol.
Since then, every Friday, Islam believers group together for worship in any of the
Muslim residence. At present there are about 180 Islam worshippers in Bohol. 385
Sturtevant, David R. 1976. Popular Uprisings in the Philippines,

1840–1940. New York: Cornell University Press.
Serious history is not a form of suspense literature. Readers should not be required to
search for clues concerning the thesis, nor be compelled to await an exposition of
camouflaged themes in the final chapter. Before beginning a book they deserve an
indication of the orientation that has shaped it. 13
#methodology: ethnographic history
Pre-Spanish practitioners of magic evolved a [24] repertoire of techniques and devices
to assist fellow villagers through the maze of a supernatural milieu. Hexes,
incantations, and miraculous formulas protected hamlet dwellers from unearthly
influences. Equally impressive methods were developed to ward off the intentions of
human foes. Anting-anting, in the form of talismans, guaranteed invulnerability to their
possessors. Enchanted clothing held forth a similar promise. Sorcerers gained renown
for their ostensible ability to conjure love potions, devise concoctions to incapacitate
and subjugate enemies, create amulets granting invisibility to their fortunate owners,
and formulate charms which permitted men to swim rivers and lagoons without
getting wet. 25
#antinganting
The existence of numerous, small, stable communities frustrated the creation of
baronial establishments comparable to the vast reducciones which emerged among
nomadic folk on Latin American frontiers. 26
#land policy
As the [ninetheenth] century wore on, the developing contrast between classes took on
a chiraoscuro quality. Principales were literate; peasants were not. Principales spoke
Spanish; peasants used local dialects. More and more members of prominent families
pursued the learned professions – particularly theology, law, and medicine; villagers
continued to farm and fish. A simple mental-manual social dichotomy emerged.
Sheltered faces, soft muscles, and long fingernails designated educated leaders or
ilustrados. Sun-ravaged flesh, wiry bodies, and work-worn hands distinguished
commoners or taos. The fact that a Spanish superlative was reserved for the elite,
while a Malay noun was retained for the peasantry underlined the cultural nature of
the developing gap. 39
Obvious differences between the foreign conduct of fair superiors and the customary
ways of swarthy inferiors generated a variety of wry comments. Most revealing,
perhaps, was the growing tendency on the part of the peasantry to refer to themselves
as “Filipinos of heart and face” [Footnote: “Filipinos de corazon y cara.” Suppressed
racial feelings asserted themselves in 1896 when rebelling villagers smashed the
Caucasian noses of religious images. Theodore Friend, Between Two Empires (New
Haven, Conn., 1965)]
#postcolonialism
Between 1872 and 1898, consequently, ilustrados led a disjointed drive for national
independence. Like most nineteenth-century revolutionaries, they sought essentially
political goals. Other objectives – particularly the creation of a more equitable social
order – held little allure for the men who challenged Spanish authority. By 1896,
Filipino elitists were attuned to the great tradition. They challenged neither its basic
assumptions nor its rational purposes. All they hoped to achieve was a transfer of
power. Ilustrados, in short aspired to direct the course of Philippine development. 41
#postcolonialism
With all its imperfections, the experiment [the American education policy] produced
benefits. For one thing, literacy rates rose sharply. By 1939 at least 7,000,000 Filipinos
were able to read and write – a figure equal to the total population at the turn of the
century. For another, increasing reliance on the English language helped break down
regional linguistic barriers. 45
#literacy #language policy
By 1906, the most dangerous military expressions of Philippine nationalism had been
suppressed, and Americans broadened the role of Filipinos in the colonial regime.
Calls were issued for the first general election in Philippine history. Restrictions on
civil rights, together with bans against groups advocating independence, fell by the
wayside. New parties representing all shades of opinion on the subject formed and
received the freedom to advocate their causes before captivated voters. A Partido
Independista Inmediatista, and a Partido Urgentista, along with other organizations bearing
similarly exhilarating titles, appeared on all sides. 47
Among those primary weaknesses [of the established colonial economy] were a
number of perplexing conditions related to landownership. American administrators
recognized the centrality of the issue. As early as 1902 they attempted to overhaul an
antiquated registration system. One year later complex negotiations for the purchase
of church estates were brought to a successful conclusion, and the insular government
embarked upon an ambitious redistribution program. Over the years other, if less
sweeping, efforts were made to resolve the persistent problem. None of them
succeeded. The final American record on the crucial land question added up to an
unbroken series of failures.
The unenviable performance grew out of cultural and political miscalculations. In the
first place, the approaches adopted by the United States were ill suited to Philippine
conditions. Administrators attempted to apply techniques derived from the American
frontier to the inhospitable milieu of Southeast Asia. Homestead laws, survey pro-
[51]cedures, and registration machinery which had worked relatively well in Kansas
and Colorado broke down completely in Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan. A second
cause of failure grew out of the Filipinization process. Almost from the outset of
American rule, most provincial and municipal officials came from prominent families
with vested in interests in maintaining or expanding the traditional landholding
system. Like their ancestors, many local leaders used their positions to serve selfish
purposes. Political and social realities, therefore, combined to shatter effective
implementation of the land policy. Instead of creating a nation of free farmers, the
United States unintentionally fostered the formation of a society composed primarily
of landlords and tenants. 52
#land policy
The resettlement program, therefore, failed to gain momentum during the first decade
of American rule. After 1910, popular awareness of the land law and its potential
benefits, together with official efforts to eliminate inequities, increased the flow of
homesteaders to respectable dimensions. 54
#land policy
In 1622 “nativism” swept through the coastal communities of Bohol. The antifriar
mass movement materialized abruptly. Lulled by the ostensible devotion of their
charges, many missionaries had left the island to attend commemorative services in
Cebu, but ominous circumstances soon confronted the remaining Jesuits. Outlawed
babailanes (priests) and catalonans (mediums) returned from the mountains to spread
apostasy among former neighbours. Their spokesman, a spellbinder named Tamblot,
called upon villagers to reject the Spaniards and their faith. Those willing to return to
ancient ways were promised lives of plenty in upland retreats. [79] More importantly,
potential disciples were guaranteed invulnerability amongst Spanish reprisals.
[Footnote: According to a contemporary Spanish account, Tamblot promised that the
“mountains would rise against their foe; that the muskets of the latter would not go
off, or rebound on those who fired them; that if any Indian should die, the [gods]
would resuscitate him”. Extract from Murillo Velarde’s Historia de Philipinas” BR,
XXXVIII, 88.] Four villages rebelled. Others threatened to erupt in xenophobic
excesses, and a general exodus toward the high country began. 80
#nativism #history of bohol #article: dagohoy
Four decades later [after the Tamblot uprising] a similar eruption interrupted Visayan
peace. Like the Bohol-Leyte episode, the Panay tumult of 1663 originated in nativistic
yearnings. Unlike its forthright predecessor, it rapidly took on eclectic elements.
Calling for the revival of pre-Spanish religion, a proficient sorcerer named Tapar won
a small but devoted following among Catholic parishioners. Over missionary protests,
some villagers began to participate in traditional rites. Although resident friars warned
their superiors in Cebu of impending trouble, church authorities – fearful perhaps of
another Bohol – were reluctant to initiate punitive measures. Tapar refused to be
ignored. The defiant leader finally took an inspired step which routed hamlet
opposition and outraged the ecclesiastical establishment. Proclaiming himself “God
Almighty,” he labeled one of his aides “Jesus Christ,” another the “Holy Ghost,” and
added insult to injury by designating a female associate “Maria Santisima.” To that
charismatic assemblage he appended a roster of “popes” and “bishops” until all his
lieutenants carried divine or semidivine titles. The conglomeration of sacred and
sacerdotal types demolished the orthodoxy of Panay’s villagers. Almost overnight
Tapar’s small following blossomed into a mass movement. When the dissenters
launched attacks on mission compounds, Spaniards responded with predictable fury.
Cebuano contingents again overwhelmed and scattered the religous rebels. They also
hunted down Tapar and his retinue. The last vestiges of the “diaboli-[80]cal farce”
vanished after a series of grotesque public executions. By 1664, subservience, if not
serentiy, had returned to Panay. 81
#nativism, #syncretism
Regardless of their secular origins, however, many militant movements took on sacred
characteristics. Like Tamblot and Tapar, popular redeemers usually claimed
miraculous powers. They won and retained supporters by portraying themselves as
prophets or deities in regular communication with a “supernatural pseudo-
community”. [Footnote: The phrase was coined by Anthony F. C. Wallace,
“Revitalisation Movements,” American Anthropologist, LVIII (1956) ...] They also
expanded the ranks of their adherents through apocalyptic pronouncements linked to
assurances of collective invulnerability. Sooner or later, leaders and followers alike
experienced delusions of limitless power. 81
#nativism, #messianism
The repetitious pattern – religious insurgency followed by Spanish repression –
produced a series of miniature Armageddons in Luzon and the Visayas. Iberia
churchmen and administrators, however, never grasped the significance of the
rhythmic phenomena. More importantly, they refused to accept the upheavals as
manifestations of profound cultural stress or deep-seated social tension. Instead, they
regarded them as [81] outlandish examples of provincial perversity. Devotees of
native messiahs, moreover, were dismissed as naive and superstitious “fanáticos”
deserving neither curiosity nor compassion. 82
#chapter 10 [PK: around discussion of cultural stress]
Spaniards patrolling the trouble zone heard that Apolinario was living in “ridiculous
majesty” surrounded by attractive maidens who “attended to his needs and
pleasures.” [fn] Less earthly rumors also indicated he was experiencing delusions of
grandeur. Some maintained he had declared himself “king of the Tagalogs.” Others
alleged he had named five bishops who reciprocated the honor by electing him
“Supreme Pontiff.” Gossip concerning an “indigenous Pope” caused an abundance of
righteous comment in [89] Manila. 90
#popes #reincarnation
By 1870 inhabitants of tiny communities dotting the mountain sides had dropped the
name Cofradía de San José and had begun to call themselves “Colorums.” [Footnote:
The origins of the word are usually traced to the Latin phrase “per omnia secolar
seculorum,” used by Catholic priests to terminate prayers. The last three syllables
appear to have been corrupted by peasant religious leaders and applied to the
mountain sects.] 94
#colorums
The deceased Julian Baltasar [of the Guardia de Honor] had been elevated to the
status of a living deity. Many residents regarded him as “God Almighty.” The supremo
Antonio Valdes, his principal adviser Gregorio Claveria, and their constant
companion Maria de la Cruz, were worshipped respectively as “Jesus Christ,” the
“Holy Ghost,” and the “Virgin Mary.” The twelve liutenants, perhaps inevitably
,were believed to be the “Savior’s Apostles”. Such an assemblage made anything seem
possible. 111
#colorums #syncretism, #messianism, #cults, #reincarnation
Many discontented hamlet dwellers, “fled from the bells” to the bracing atmosphere
and comparative freedom of the mountains. Known as “montestas” or “remontados,” the
fugitives florished in sparsely settled uplands or on out-of-the-way islands like
Palawan. [Footnote: The terms montesta and remontado were sometimes used as
synonyms for bandit. LeRoy, Philippine Life in Town and Country, 29-30] 115
Attacks on well-to-do strangers and affluent foreigners, or onslaughts against distant
poblaciones and their prosperous inhabitants, were regarded by most villagers as
rewarding, if not legitimate, pursuits. Relatives, neighbors, and friends provided
sanctuary and sustenance to outlaws. Informers seldom appeared. Tulisanes,
consequently, tended to vanish into the rural background as quickly as they had
materialized. Villagers came to look upon the largess-dispensing outlaws as defenders
and frequently elevated them to the status of folk heroes. Their exploits, embellished
and romanticized to swashbuckling heights by admirers, created persistent Robin
Hood myths in the barrios. [Footnote: See the observations of Wiliam Howard Taft in
Report of the Philippine Commission, 1902. (Washington, D.C.), I, 17. ]
Almost without exception, brigands claimed miraculous attributes. Outstanding
chieftains were widely reputed to be protected by potent anting-anting. The wonder-
working talsimans – ranging from simple amulets and charms to elaborate uniforms
bearing mystical designs or quasi-Latin formulas – allegedly shielded their owners
from malign sorcery and physical misfortunes. Famous ladrones often maintained they
were immune to death. Some even averred they possessed the capacity to extend
invulnerability to followers. Less prentitious tulisanes asserted they could resurrect dead
comrades. The most influential outlaws, hoever, posed as reincarnations of divine
beings or deceased popular champions. 117
#antinganting #latin #immortality, #reincarnation #invulnerability
Brigandage of both the mercenary and social varieties flourished as never before
between 1890 and 1910. Revolutionary turmoil and the chaos emanating from
Filipino-American hostilities created conditions favorable to its growth. 118
On June 18, 1901, the Philippine Commission authorized the formation of a
binational police force to be deployed in the provinces. Unlike the defunct Guardia
Civil – on which it was partially pat-[118]terned – the Philippine Constabulary was
designed to eradicate brigandage by winning the confidence of insular civilians. [fn]
Within a year the militarized enforcement agency had begun to earn its keep. During
1901 and 1902, tulisanismo erupted everywhere. Forced to grapple continually with the
hydra-headed monster, American and Filipino officers soon became aware of its
characteristics. Constabulary analysts even evolved a derious of categories to identity
their furtive opponents. Under the genus “outlaw” they established three distinct
subspecies: (1) ladrones, (2) ladrones politícos, and (3) ladrones fanáticos. [The classifications
were used by General Henry T. Allen in Report of the Philippine Commission, 1903
(Washington D.C.) III, 100.] The first two yielded relatively easily to systematic force.
By late 1903, most of the “flotsam and jetsam from the wreck of the insurrection” had
been cleared away [fn]. The third variety, however, manifested extraordinary
regenerative capacities. Instead of disappearing, seditious religious creeds tended to
proliferate. Ferreting out the leaders of secret congregations posed unanticipated
difficulties and often provoked violent peasant responses. The disruptive outcome of
clandestine spiritual associations prompted one Constabulary realist to predict
“frequent local uprisings for a long term of years.” [fn]
His gloomy prognosis proved accurate. Between 1902 and 1906, militant sects
surfaced from northeastern Mindanao to northwestern Luzon. In addition to
troublesome Colorums and anarchistic Guardias de Honor, toiling constabularymen
faced Pulajanes and Colorados (Reds), Cazadores (Hunters), Babailanes (Priests),
Santos Niños (Holy Children), and Hermanos del Tercero Orden (Brothers of the
Third Order). They were also confronted by crusaders who called themselves
Soldados Militantes de la Iglesia (Militant Soliders of the Church), and by numerous
converts to underground cults with redun-[119]dant names, such as Dios-Dios, Cruz-
Cruz, or Anting-Anting. District inspectors found the grandiose titles delightful. That,
however, was all. Wthout exception, the esoteric societies instigated – or were linked
to – terroristic upheavals in the municipalities that severely taxed Constabulary
resources. Responsible officers, therefore, learned to fear the implications of village
mysticism. 120
#pulahanes #antinganting #cults
Third-largest land mass in the Philippines, Samar in 1900 boasted fewer than ten
kilometers of barely passable roads [fn]. Horse trails to the interior were nonexsistent.
Footpaths, known only to primitive hunters and adventurous remontados, were the sole
means of crossing the island. Communications between widely spaced coastal towns
took place via fishing boats and occasional interisland vessels. Physically, Samar added
up to little more than an ideal refuge for fugitives from the law. 125
#chapter 8
Bandits, never-say-die common solders, ex-convicts, and and Dios-Dios divines
directed the rebels [of Samar]. Communal governments – of, by, and for the poor –
appeared throughout the interior. The barangay-like regimes acted as semiautonomous
units in larger, less formal coalitions. Neither national independence nor
republicanism was a unifying motive. Back-country supremos did not emulate elitist
patriots by calling themselves presidentes and coronels; rather, hearkening back to
prerevolutionar carities, they appropriated sacred titles sucha s “First Teacher” or
“Pope,” and rallied the hill people to a holy crusade against their coastal exploiters.
They built unity around spiri-[128]tual themes. Thatched iglesias, accordingly, became
the developing insurrection’s command posts. Militant preachers used the chapels to
disseminate anarchistic doctrines, to distribute anting-anting, and to arouse
congregations to martial heights. Dedicated “soldados” left the services to march
against lowland towns. Wearing nondescript red unifroms emblazoned with white
crosses and fighting with the ferocity of men convinced of their own invulnerability
[fn], the marauders dismayed the constables and townspeople, who tagged the gaudy
terrorists “Pulajanes.” The scarlet label stuck. It soon became a catchall category for
peasant religious rebels throughout the eastern Visayas. There was no dearth of
claimants to the contemptuous designation. Pulajan successes encouraged similar
movements in Leyte and Bohol. 129
#pulahanes #popes #antinganting
Moving regularly between southern Bulacan and northern Pangasinan, [Felipe]
Salvador provided the peasantry with constant inspiration. His recommendations
pertained to a vast range of topics. In addition to dispensing wisdom on spiritual and
domestic matters, he supplied advice on farming, together with uncannily accurate
information on tropical storms [Footnote: The Constabulary was convinced that
Salvador’s meteorological data came from the old Spanish Weather Bureau in
Manila. Report of the Philippine Commission, 1906. III, 55.] The weather forecasts
convinced doubting Thomases of his near-divinity. Hamlet dwellers believed the
prognostications were derived from regular conversations with God. Barrio people,
consequently, gave their all to the supremo, who, like other charismatic leaders,
acquired an honorific title, “Apong Ipe.” According to Constabulary records, many
farm couples offered their daughters to the peregrinating mystic: the gesture
originated in a belief that sexual unions involving Salvador and village maidens would
produce a Malayan messiah to lead “Filipinos of heart and face” out of the alien
wilderness. 136
#prognostication #messianism #polygamy
Learning of wholesale defections from the Church of Rome, Laureano Solamo – the
supremo of the Visayan Colorums – sent a group of emissaries to Bucas Grande. Their
reports convinced him that the situation was ideally suited to a major conversion
effort. Late in 1918, consequently, halens (Colorum immigrants) from Bohol, Leyte,
Samar, and Cebu began to arrive on both the mainland and the offshore islands [fn].
Within two years the newcomers had established enclaves in Misamis, Agusan, and
Surigao provinces. But Solamo’s lieutenants enjoyed their greatest success on Bucas
Grande. By early 1921 all the island’s Catholic defectors had affiliated themselves with
the folk faith.
While provincial authorities regarded the sect as an outlandish religious expression, its
original activities provided no ground for intervention. Organized for devotions to the
“Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” the cult subjected
converts to rigid discipline. Initiates were required to rid themselves of personal
property and were urged to settle in tightly organized villages. On Bucas Grande, for
example, the barrios of Socorro and Paomsaingan became self-sufficient Colorum
settlements [fn]. Spiritual leaders assembled residents for compulsory prayers at 4:00
am and 6:00 pm. Between morning and evening devotions, inhabitants labored at
assigned tasks – primarily farming, fishing, and lumbering. Yields from the communal
enterprises were divided equally among villagers. One month out of each year,
moreover, was set aside for mutual-assistance projects such as house construction.
Dwellings were identical in size and shape. In every way the hamlets added up to
intriguing examples of peasant utopianism.
Asceticism reinformed Colorum egalitarianism. Prohibitions developed against
smoking, drinking, dancing, cursing, and gambling. Elaborate restrictions also
regulated sexual activities. Segregated labor and housing patterns, in fact, reflected
antipathy toward all fleshly pleasures. 143
Spiritual relationships were as stringently governed as social and economic conduct.
Colorums throughout the eastern Visayas and northern Mindanao recognised the
ultimate authority of Laureano Solamo. From his ornate headquarters near Cebu
City, the supremo controlled far-flung sectarians via a hierarchical chain of command
[fn]. A veteran revivalist named Felix Bernales directed Solamo’s Mindanao followers
[fn]. Known as “Lantayug” Bernales demanded and received total devotion. Juan
Bajao, annother Cebuano, acted as liaison between the regional leader and local
lieutenants. Pators oversaw the destinies of individual congregations, which were
composed ideally of 156 adults. Church groups, in turn, broke down into twelve
smaller units, called decorians, each consisting of a headman and twelve disciples.
Mystery bound the complicated structure together. Like other Colorum sects in
southern and central Luzon. Solamo’s followers abided by intricate creeds derived
directly or indirectly from the confused legacies of Apolinario de la Cruz and his
charismatic successors. The revolutionary era, however, had added some distinctly
new features to the syncretistic faiths. During the quarter-century since 1896, village
cultists had elevated a group of fallen patriots – particularly José Rizal and Andres
Bonifacio – to the status of divine or semi-divine beings [fn]. In the minds of many
barrio people, Rizal exerted a heavenly influence comparable to that of Jesus Christ.
The revolutionary martyr’s “Second Coming,” according to hamlet believers, would
initiate a final struggle to achieve social equity. His imminent return, furthermore,
constituted the major premise in their articles of faith.
Bernales, or Lantayug, personified the myth. Ignoring conventional designations such
as “Papa,” he proclaimed himself a reincarnation of José Rizal [Footnote: Many of his
followers, however, addressed him as “Papa Indong”. N.A., B.I.A., FE 4865-A-57].
Under any circumstances, the “Malayan Messiah’s” alleged reappearance would have
been enough to cause profound unrest. Lantayug, however, did not limit his
performance to dramatic poses. He reinforced peasant credulity with predictions of
universal calamity. The earth and its occupants, Bernales siad, teetered on the brink
of disaster. Epidemics, flame, floods, and fratricidal war would scourge mankind.
Only Bucas Grande’s most dedicated inhabitants could hope to escape unscathed.
Survivors would be called upon to construct a new order on corruption’s sodden
ashes. Soccorro, Lantayug promised, would emerge as the “Eternal City” of a
theocratic paradise. Within its shining precincts, José Rizal, sovereign over all, would
dispense justice and well-being from a golden throne [fn]. 145
Uneasy peace returned slowly to the region. By late March, the wheels of justice were
ready to grind. Lantayug, his querida (mistress) Eusebia Puyo, Juan Bahao, and other
leaders, together with 190 ragged Colorums, appeared before the court of Firsts
Instance in Surigao town. 154
#genealogy
After January 8, 1924, Constabulary officers brought heterodox peasant leaders under
close surveillance. Rumors of apocalyptic pronouncements or reports of secret
gatherings were enough to generate preventive action [Footnote: Retired General
Guillermo Francisco granted an interview to the author in 1966. Entering the
Constabulary as a third lieutenant in 1904, he role to the rank of lieutenant colonel by
1924. He and other senior officers recognized the dangerous potential of peasant
religious movements. As district commander of the Visayas during the Colorum years,
he said, “Things were tense. If I heard there was a popular faith healer in my district,
I had him kept under close surveillance. If I heard that a prophet was predicting
natural disasters, I either had him arrested or shipped out to another island.”]. Any
spiritual association with unorthodox political or economic objectives, moreover,
received a “Colorum” designation. Newspapers and periodicals picked up the theme.
Within weeks Colorumism had become synonymous with fanaticism and criminality.
Indiscriminate use of the term rapidly created a Colorum scare. Uneasy politicians
and reporters prone to exaggeration convinced many people that conspirators
dedicated to sedition or to terrorism populated the countyside. In time, even
authoritative United States publications accepted the myth. The New York Times, for
example, printed the story, ascribing 13,000 political murders (mostly unsolved) to
Colorum assassins. [fn] 156
In large part, the much-publicized Colorum threat was a joint figment of elitist guilt
and police suspicion. 157
With all their otherworldly proclivities, the Colorums represented a rude form of
hamlet nationalism. Emphasis on José Rizal constituted the key to understanding the
countryside’s evolving climate. Two decades of American rule had altered peasant
aspirations. In the emerging universe of village true believers, millennium and
independence had come to mean one and the same thing. 157
#postcolonialism #cults #millenarianism
Judged by barrio standards, Entrencherado was no run-of-the-mill prophet. The son
of a wayward seaman by a wife he soon deserted, Entrencherado was born on
Corregidor in 1871. While playing alone one day under the sentinel island’s
watchtower, young Florencio was approached by what appeared to be two dignified
old men. He recognized them immediately: one was God; the other was Padre
Burgos. The Lord, Entrencherado said, pointed to Father Burgos and declared, “This
child is good ... he will replace you.” [fn] After a breif interchange along similar lines,
the heavenly figures departed. Florencio told his mother of the incident. Shortly
thereafter, the young woman moved with her child of destiny to Cavite.
Placing Florencio in the hands of her parents, Mrs. Natividad left [160] the provincial
port town for Manila. Entrencherado spent the next nine years in the shadow of his
grandfather, Captain Luis de la Cruz, master of the interisland steamer San Pedro, who
introduced his grandson to the ways of the sea. 161
#chapter 8
Unless Filipinos joined Entrencherado’s effort to refashion insular society, the world
would be destroyed on February 4, 1929. On doomsday, the Emperor warned,
typhoon gales of 4,000 kilometers per hour would roar over the Islands, and fire
storms would erupt in their wake, setting the stage for a deluge of mountain-
swallowing dimensions [fn]. 165
True to the miraculous tradition, Kabola also guaranteed invulnerability to villagers
who affiliated themselves with the Kapisanan. 177
One of the raiders, Benito Allas, declared, “Many of us, including myself, were
formerly owmers of big pieces of land in Tayug and Santa Maria. We have been
driven from our lands by the hacenderos, from the lands which our fathers and
grandfathers cleared [or] have occupied since time immemorial. Because of this
grievance we have long planed ... to drive away the hacenderos and get our lands back”
[fn] 189
The Constabulary, for instance, regarded the Tayug incident as an inexplicable event.
On the organization’s thirtieth anniversary, an official chronicler revealed his inability
to perceive the obvious: “The officers and soldiers ... in this municipality were
Filipinos who had been stationed there for years. They met the town folk ... at parties,
and the officers stood high ... with the cream of society. They all spoke the ... local
dialect. Many of them spoke English and Spanish, and yet one of the most unexpected
surprises – a massacre – occured [sic] “ [fn]. 192
Ricarte recommended the substitution of “Rizalines” for “Philippines”. [Fn 2] 196
Total independence, Ramos said, was essential because only national freedom would
ensure the maximum development of insular human and natural resources. After
promising to withdraw all Sakdalista officials if full sovereignty were not granted “by
the end of 1935,” Ramos outlined new objectives. He called for: [...] (3) teaching of
native dialects in the public schools [...] 225
#chapter 9
Among other prophecies, he [Valentin de los Santos] proclaimed the “Second
Coming”. [...] In preparation for Judgment Day, LM members were ordered to
perform a series of patriotic drills and spiritual exercises. They were advised also to
accumulate prescribed paraphernalia guaranteeing invulnerability – sacred bolos,
bullet-defying uniforms, anting-anting, and protective oraciónes (spoken or written
formulas). By 1966, Valentin de los Santos and his retainers shared a sense of
developing omnipotence. 258
#antinganting
The demise of secularism led to an apparent resurgence of supernaturalism. Scores of
organizations similar to Lapiang Malaya appeared in the municipalities. Half-
forgotten folk cults also took a new lease on life. Priests and priestesses, faith healers
and spritualists, prophets and proselytizers crisscrossed the countryside ministering to
the rural poor. The revival, however, was not limited to the provinces. Converts
carried the message of salvation to relatives and former neighbors in urban working
districts. Crude chapels and churches sprouted in barrios and municipalities,
materialized along the cluttered streets of Tondo, and in Manila’s burgeoning squatter
communities. By 1960 the various movements were firmly established throughout
Luzon and the Visayas and were taking root among Christian settlers in Mindanao.
[fn]
In many ways the reanimated revitalization efforts were similar to their mystical
predecessors. Like the militant sects of the 1920’s and the chiliastic cults at the turn of
the century, the new movements [261] attracted support through an ingenious
merging of indigenous and Christian religious elements. Like their forerunners also,
the proliferating faiths developed around prepossessing figures who claimed divine or
semidivine attributes. In one important respect, however, their appeal rested on
another foundation. Almost without exception they incorporated patriotic ingredients
into their evolving creeds. That emphasis has created a popular religious atmosphere
revolving around the worship of national heroes. While sectarian adoration has not
been restricted to José Rizal – Andres Bonifacio and Apolinario Mabini, for example,
have also attracted numerous disciples – the overriding reverence for the
revolutionary martyr has led students of the phenomenon to label it “Rizalism.” [fn]
262
For one thing, the millennial experiences of Filipinos are not unique. In both
hemispheres and in every clime people under comparable conditions of stress have
responded similarly. The nativistic prophets, social bandits, millenarian saviors, and
impractical secular leaders who crowd Philippine history have materialized regularly
in other cultures undergoing fundamental dislocations. 263
The ubiquitous phenomena also reflect – no matter how unrealistic they might appear
to pragmatic urban or Western observers – creative [263] efforts to cope with a hostile
world. What Eric Hobsbawm labeled the “extraordinary impracticality” of many
abortive mass movements has camouflaged their significance [fn]. 264
Even when that improbability occurs, unfortunately, the village victors are destined to
lose more than they gain. Caught between tradition and modernity, peasant
revolutionaries are anachronisms. Their actual enemy is the depersonalized and
incomprehensible world that had emerged around them. They long to destroy it. But
they also yearn to build a social universe which is basically anarchistic in style and
content. Such milieu, of course, has no place in the contemporary world. “The
peasant’s role,” as Wolf again observed, “is thus essentially tragic: his efforts to undo a
grievous present only usher in [264] a vaster more uncertain future.” [fn]. 265
Since 1896, their atavistic struggles have been couched increasingly in patriotic terms.
Before 1946, they fought for “independence.” After Magsaysay’s death, they deified
Filipino heroes and sought spiritual answers to the burdens of chronic stress. Within
the narrow conceptual confines of the barrio, they regard themselves as earnest
“nationalists.” But most hamlet dwellers believe that “nation” and “justice” are, or
should be, synonyms. Sovereignty, lamentably, has not brought about that blissful
state.
Until now, nationalism in its larger ideological sense has been a near monopoly of the
elite and the politically conscious middle class. All too frequently, they have
manipulated the abstraction to serve [265] their own ends. 266
If there were so many people then why did Guardia de Honor disappear? It did not disappear. It
became part of the Aglipayan Church.
#aglipay
Tinampay, Miriam Rocha. 1977. Dialectology of Bohol Cebuano

and its implications to teaching English phonology. MA
submitted to Ateneo de Manila.
[Description: phonology only, there is no lexical or syntactic comparisons. All
informants were non mobile and over 60]
[PK: There are two dialects of Cebuano in Bohol: the Eastern Bohol dialect (EB) and
Western Bohol dialect (WB). The former (sic) is bounded by Lila, Dimiao, Valencia,
Garcia-Hernandez, Jagna, Duero, Guindulman, Anda and Mabini. The latter is
bounded by the towns of Panglao, Loon, Calape, Tubigon, Clarin, Inabanga,
Buenavista and Jetafe.]
/y/ becomes /j/ if this sound is found in initial or medial positions
WB EB
yabág jabag
yabú jabu
yagaqyagaq jagjag
puyúq pujúq
túyug tújug
-consonant sound /k/ becomes /q/ in initial position
WB EB
/kanúsqa/ /qanúsqa/
/karún/ /qarún/
-consonant /k/ becomes /h/ in medial position
WB EB
/qákub/ /qáhug/?
/nákug/ /náhuq/
-consonant sound /l/ becomes /r/ in medial position
WB EB
/qablíhi/ /qabrihi/ ‘open’
/pultahán/ /purtahán/
-the vowel /u/ becomes schwa in unstressed syllables
WB EB
nátuq nátəq
nákuq nákəq ‘me’
- /a/ becomes /ə/ in unstressed position
WB EB
magpuyúq məgpəjúk ‘will stay’
nagkúhaq nəgkúhaq ‘got’ [last vowel is not schwa: mistake?]
The Butuan City Historical Committee. 1977. The Controversial
First Mass: Limasawa, Leyte or Masao, Butuan. Butuan City: The
Butuan Historical Committee.
“How can we train the younger generation to assume the reins of power in the future if they
do not know any history, if history is not given importance that must be alloted to it…
With the study of the history of the country, we can utilize the past in order to fortify the
present and secure the future…”
President Marcos Speech on November 30, 1976 before the members of the National
Historical Institute)…
Long before the challenge was made by President Ferdinand E. Marcos to
correct in Philippine History what he called distortions written by others, many civic-
minded citizens and lovers of history among the residents of Butuan City researched
and wrote articles to correct what they felt was a serious historical error regarding the
recognition of Limasawa as the site of the celebration of the first known Christian holy
sacrifice of the mass on Philippine soil, a distinct historical honor that rightfully
belongs to MASAO, BUTUAN. But their efforts were of no avail. They were like
voices in the wilderness. Nevertheless, these Butuanons kept plodding on their
painstaking research on the subject. They were undaunted. The challenge by
President Marcos came as a gentle breeze that fanned the glowing embers of their
enthusiasm into a new fire of hope!
[n.p. Chapter 1, The Problem, A. Introduction]
#localised history
The following pertinent portions are here under quoted verbatim, to prove once again
the degree of civilization in Butuan, long before Magellan ordered the celebration of
the First Mass on land in the Philippines on March 31, 1521, and which we honestly
believe that the reason why Magellan had set out his plans to circumnavigate the
world was the knowledge and information he received from his slave interpreter
Enrique de Malacca that the place where he came from was in Mazaua, Butuan.
Dr Peralta says: –
[…]
The Butuan Paleograph
In another pothunted site with the coffin burials and its associated materials described
above, a strip of metal tentatively identified as silver was found. The strip measures
17.8 cms long and varying about 1.3 cms in width. One side of the strip is inscribed
with what appear to be twenty-two units of writing. The characters are scratched into
the metal with a point that show characteristics of the point of a small knife, held with
the cutting edge upwards. The sharp edges of the lines resulting from the process of
inscribing are then hammered back. The characters are oriented from left to right.
Comparisons with ancient script (sic) in Southeast Asia resulted in establishing
an affinity of this writing with Javanese script of the 14th-15th century. A copy of the
script has been sent for study and verification by a Southeast Asian paleographer in
Indonesia. The implications of this form of writing found in Butuan is far reaching
considering the finding in 1917 of the Agusan gold image which is now in Chicago,
and its identification lately as Javanese in influence.
The foregoing quoted portions of the reports prepared by Archeologist Linda
Burton of Xavier University and Dr. Jesus T. Peralta, Anthropologist of the National
Museum, with their respective findings on the various artifacts recovered within the
periphery of the Butuan diggings fully justify the claim of the Butuanons that Butuan,
being then admittedly an old settlement evidencing likewise of a flourishing trade
center in the days of old.
With these facts and evidence adduced, the burden is now shifted on the part
of the defenders of the Limasawa theory – to produce similar if not any artifacts
whatsoever – to downgrade Butuan’s claim as the venue of the First Mass said on land
in the Philippines on March 31, 1521.
[n.p. IV. B. ‘Archeological Finds’]
The people of Butuan City and their government appeal for historical justice. They
appeal to the Honorable Members of the Philippine Historical Institute to give due
recognition and distinction to MASAW, Butuan City as the site of the first mass in the
Philippines. This distinct honor which rightfully belongs to Masaw has long ben
overdue.
It’s time, therefore, to give honor to whom honor is due so that justice be
done.
This is our clamor. This is our appeal.
We do home this clamor, this appeal will find a responsive chord from the
government and its instrumentalities.
[n.p. V. B. ‘Recommendations]
#contested histories #symmetrical schismogenesis
Meñez, Herminia Q. 1978, Encounters with spirits: Mythology

and the Ingkanto syndrome in the Philippines. Western
Folklore (37) 4: 249-265.
The Spanish chroniclers during the period of colonization referred to these spirits as
nono, diwata, anito or tumao.
[Footnote: See, for example, Francisco Colin, “Native Races and Their Customs,” in
The Philippine Islands, eds. Emma Blair and James Robertson XL:71-71; Tomas Ortiz,
“Superstitions and Beliefs of the Filipinos in Bliar and Robertson XLIII:104-105; Jose
Maria Pavon, The Robertson Translations of the Pavon Manuscripts of 1838-1839. Transcript
No. 5-A, 50-51] 252
#chapter 4
[small quote:] They say that in the old days, people borrowed plates and wedding
clothes from the ingkanto in that cave in —. There’s an altar, it’s a rock shaped like an
altar. When I was a little boy, we used to go to the cave to get the money left there by
the people. People wold leave coins on the altar—five, ten, twenty centavos. I guess
they were offerings. They say that the ingkanto there were very good to the people.
When there was a wedding, the family of the groom borrowed the things they needed,
but they had to return them. Everything was beautiful—the plates, spoons, and other
things sparkled like gold. But one day, a couple got married and borrowed those
things. They were so beautiful that they hid them in their trunk. The ingkanto got
angry. When the couple opened their trun, the plates, the traje de boda [wedding gown]
had all turned black [F3480.1]. From that time on, the ingkango did not lend the
people anything.
[Fn:] Recorded from Federico F. age 50, 30 July 1974. 257
They say that in the old days, people borrowed plates and wedding clothes from the
ingkanto in that cave in— .There's an altar, it's a rock shaped like an altar. When I was a
little boy, we used to go to the cave to get the money left there by the people. People would
leave coins on the altar–five, ten, twenty centavos. I guess they were offerings. They say
that the ingkanto there were very good to the people. When there was a wedding, the
family of the groom borrowed the things they needed, but they had to return them.
Everythingwas beautiful–the plates, spoons, and other things sparkled like gold. But one
day, a couple got married and borrowed those things.They were so beautiful that they hid
them in their trunk.The ingkanto got angry. When the couple opened their trunk, the
plates, the traje de boda [wedding gown] had all turned black [F348.0.1].From that time
on, the ingkanto did not lend thepeople anything.[fn: Recorded from Federico F., age 50,
30 July 1974.]
257
#lost treasure
Beyer, Otley H. 1979. The Philippines before Magellan. In

Garcia, Mauro (ed.). Readings in Philippine prehistory. Manila:
Filipiniana Book Guild.
Spanish colonization in both the Americas and the Philippines was characterized by
one feature calculated to drive the historian to despair. The fanatic zeal of the
Spaniards for the Christian faith and corresponding hatred for all other forms of belief
led them to regard the native writings and arts as works of the devil — to be destroyed
wherever found. In Mexico and Peru many old records were preserved in more or less
modified form in the writings of early native Christians and Spanish half-castes, but in
the Philippines the destruction was more ruthlessly thorough and only a few fragments
have survived. It cannot be said that such writings did not exist, since the early
Filipinos were even more literate than the Mexicans; they used syllabaries of Indian
origin. One Spanish priest in southern Luzon boasted of having destroyed more than
three hundred scrolls written in the native character. How valuable these old records
might have been had they come down to us, we have of course no means of knowing.
But the result is that for the great part of [8] Philippine pre-Spanish history we have
no trustworthy native material and the past can be recovered only by painstaking
research in the records of neighboring countries. 9
However, it was probably in the time of the great warriro-statesman Chrandragupta
(316-292 B.C.) that Hindus first began to found settlements in Java, Siam and
Cambodia, and to introduce Brahmanism into those [9] countries. Less than a
hundred years later, in the time of the equally famous Asoka, a small Buddhist colony,
which was later to develop into a well-organized state with great influence and power,
was founded in Sumatra. [...]
From other sources we gather that the early Brahman colonies established themselves
most firmly in eastern Java, which remained their stronghold from the time of the
earliest settlements down to the Mahommedan conquest and beginning of the modern
period. Their activities, until the foundation of Madjapahit in the thirteenth century,
seem tohave been confined largely to the eastern two-thirds of Java itself, and not to
have extended toother islands — except possibly Bali and Madura. On the other
hand, Buddhist influence appears to have established itself strongest in southeastern
Sumatra, the seat of its power being the kingdom of Sri-Vishaya (or Sri-Vijaya) in the
district now known as Palembang. From this center its influence was extended widely
throughout the Archipelago, and until about the thirteenth century it was stronger
than the Brahman power. 10
#chapter 3 #etymology of visayas
Makassar, in Celebes, was probably also first colonized from Sri Vishaya; ane even in
distant Formosa and on the island of Hainan there are evidences of settlements from
this source. These wandering colonists appear to have carried everywhere the name
Visaya, or Bisaya, and to have left traces of it scattered over a wide area. Large groups
of people bearing this name still exist in Borneo and in the southern and central
Philippines; while in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was known also in southern
Formosa, and about the same period other peoples of that name made several
piratical raids on parts of the China coast. It seems likely that both the colonizing and
the pirate Visayans originally emanated from Sri-Vishaya, though we have as yet but
little direct evidence to support such a conclusion. 12
It is not known just how large an area of the central Philippines was peopled from
Brunei in pre-Mahommedan days. Such records as we have related only to Panay,
Palawan, Mindoro, and southern Luzon. At the present time all of the islands between
Luzon and Mindanao, except Mindoro and Palawan are called the Visayas. An
examination of the earliest Spanish records, however, shows that the name was first
applied bythem only to the people of Panay; but later was extended to the people and
region of the other islands, apparently because of the similarity in language. 13
There has been preserved in the island of Panay an ancient manuscript giving a
circumstantial account of the settlement of that island by natives of Borneo at least
several centuries before Magellan’s discovery. The major facts of this account are as
follows: Under the leadership of one Datu Puti, a little fleet of ten vessels, each
commanded by a datu [...] 13
#chapter 3
The people [in this ancient manuscript] possessed a form of syllabic writing, a well-
developed code of laws, weights and measures, and other appurtenances of
civilization, including metal-working and numerous industrial arts. 14
#chapter 3 #writing system
At the time of the Spanish discovery, not only were the more civilized Filipinos using
the Indian syllabaries for writing, but their native mythology, folklore and written
literature all had a distinct Indian cast. The same was true of their codes of laws and
their names for all sorts of political positions and procedure. The more cultured
Philippine languages contain many Sanskrit words, and the native art a noticeable
sprinkling of Indian design. 20
#chapter 3 #chapter 10 #writing system
[the account of Chau Ju-Kua, written about 1225:]
In the remotest valleys there lives another tribe called Hai-tan (Negritos, Ai-ta). They
are smal in stature and their eyes are round and yellow; they have curly hair and their
teeth show between their lips. 28
#little people
Fox, Robert B. 1979. The Philippines in prehistoric times. In

Garcia, Mauro (ed.). Readings in Philippine prehistory. Manila:
Filipiniana Book Guild.
The fundamental characteristics of pre-Spanish social and political organization do
not justify the use of such terms as “king,” “noble,” “slaves,” “baranganic
confederations,” and so forth. To give the meaningful expressions usually assigned to
these terms is to contribute to a myth-building not consistent with analytic
scholarship. The problem lies in that many of the descriptions of the early Spanish
historians are of the few large communities which had just developed into trading
centers with an atypical political structure due primarily to [56] relatively late
Bornean and Muslim influences. The Kalantiaw Code appears to be a “colonial”
document, for it certainly does not reflect the social and cultural characteristics of the
pre-Spanish Filipino, even in the late prothistoric period. 57 [PK: Fox sussed this out
before Scott?]
#chapter 4 #chapter 7 #chapter 10 #mimicry and rejection
The size and range of the bilaterally extended family was of great importance as it
provided strength and security. Blood pacts and [57] ritually sanctioned “kinship
agreements” were employed to extend lateral relationships, as is the “compadre
system” today. 58
#chapter 8 #article: dagohoy
No community structures, such as buildings for religious and political purposes, were
built of nonpershable materials, a further testimony of the absence ofhigher levels of
political and social organizations, and an evidence of the widespread practice of
shifting-cultivation. 58
#chapter 4 #chapter 7 #chapter 10 #mimicry and rejection
While trading in distant communities, they wer protected by blood pacts such as was
described by Pigafetta. Thus, the blood pacts acted as “trading pacts” in addition to
being a means of ritually extending kinship. 58
#article: dagohoy
The use of charms to protect the wearer from illness, from malign spirits, to secure
good luck in hunting and fishing, as well as to influence and control the behavior of
other persons was widespread; and intrinsic power being attributed to unusual and
rare objects which were used as charms. 60
#antinganting
The languages of the Philippines, as noted, do have final consonants; and if the
syllabary was introduced by the Javanese or another group in Indonesia who write
final consonants, why did not the ancient Filipinos employ a similar feature? It would
appear that the actual mediators of the type of syllabary found in the Philippines were
the Buginese traders, and that the syllabary was introduced relatively late, probably
not more than seven or eight hundred years ago. 61
#writing system
Ileto, Reynaldo C. 1979. Tagalog poetry and image of the past

during the war against Spain. In Perceptions of the past in
Southeast Asia, edited by A. Reid and D. Marr. Singapore:
Heinmann Educational Books.
The indigenous literature that the Spanish priests destroyed soon after the conquest
was replaced by awit and other related forms. 380
#destruction myths
Ileto, Reynaldo Clemeña. 1979. Payson and revolution: Popular

movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910. Quezon City, Metro
Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Eventually, the problem we face is how to categorize the activities of post-1902
Katipunans, religiopolitical societies and other peasant-based groups that waved the
banner of independence and plagued the new colonial order up to the 1930s. 6
During the Spanish and American colonial eras, these images [of the life of Christ
dramatised in the Pasyon Pilipil] nurtured an undercurrent of millennial beliefs which,
in times of economic and political crisis, enabled the peasantry to take action under
the leadership of individuals or groups promising deliverance from oppression. 19
Before the candles burned out, the food and drink would have been consumed by
spirits who would leave a white stone in one of the empty vessels. A struggle for
possession of this anting-anting would then ensue between the aspirant and earth-
spirit called lamang lupa [fn: Gonzales, “Anting-Anting”; Bento Reyes, “lenten Fiestas
in Manila and Neighboring Towns” (1937) BCTE, vol. 4, no 183.] 29
#antinganting
On the other hand, those [in the pasyon narratives] whose loób are pure, serene, and
controlled have “special powers” granted to them by Christ. They can control the
elements, cure the sick, speak in different tongues, interpret signs and foretell the
future. These are are precisely some of the powers one hopes to obtain through
anting-anting. 33
#antinganting #chapter 8 (re: ‘speaking in tongues’: “these are the kinds of powers
widely associated with amulets”)
[PK: Ileto does not distinguish the Katipunan categorically from other mystical
peasant-based movements, and sets them in opposition to the ilustrado-led reform-
based movement of educated Tagalog elites.]
[From Ileto’s translation of Bonifacio’s manifesto ‘Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga
Tagalot’ (‘What the Tagalogs Should Know)]:
In the early days, before the Spaniards set foot on our soil which was governed by our
compatriots [...] young and old, women included, could read and write using their
own alphabet. 103
#chapter 1
He [the protagonist of a popular awit Bernado Carpio] is alive, a potential of power,
but only the completion of a redemptive event will bring about his freedom. 125
#chapter 4 #article: literature #chapter 10
PK: The New Katipunan (in Ileto’s term) revived by Macario Sakay after the
surrender of Aguinaldo, ended with their capitulation in July 1906
The belief that independence, or kalayaan, would jump out of a box is consistent with
Katipunan images of kalayaan as a personified condition: Mother Filipinas or
Bernardo Carpio lying in a state of limbo or sleep, awaiting the day of final liberation
that would bring about prosperity, comfort and knowledge. 234
#chapter 4 #article: literature #chapter 10
Schumacher, John. 1979. The ‘Propagandists’ reconstruction of

the Philippine past. In Perceptions of the past in Southeast Asia,
edited by A. Reid and D. Marr. Singapore: Heinmann
Educational Books.
[...] among the five religious orders, which undertook the Christianization of the
Philippines. 264
#chapter 1
Rather, Paterno accepted Spanish culture as the norm — only to claim that it had all
really existed in the Philippines before the coming of the Spaniards. The burden of his
message is that the Filipinos are Spaniards no less than those born in the Peninsula
and, one might almost say, had been Spaniards at heart even before the Spaniards
arrived in the Philippines. 268
It was not then surprising for Paterno that Spanish missionaries had found
evangelization so easy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Christianity was
already there in substance! 268
For many conservative Propagandists, the ideal was not a separation from Spain, but
Spanish recognition of Filipino capacity to participate freely in the running of their
own affairs, and to share according to ability, not race, in the government of that part
of Spain in the Pacific called the Philippines. 269
#chapter 1
Indeed the blacker the [280] picture that could be painted of the Spanish colonial
experience [by the ilustrado Propagandists] and its evil effect on a flourishing pre-
Hsipanic Filipino culture, the more neatly it all fitted into the American-sponsored
ideology—that the Filipino people, stunted abruptly in in its development by Spanish
misrule, could eventually become a real nation under American tutelage, if only they
embraced American ideals, values, and practices. 280
#chapter 1 [PK: Maybe footnote this remark to American era section of Chapter 1,
regarding the ‘duty’ of Americans to provide education for Filipinos.]
1980-1989
Alburo, Erlinda Kintanar. 1980. A study of two Cebuano
legends: The lost lender and Maria Cacao. Philippine Quarterly
of Culture and Society 8 (1):44-59.
The Lost Lender
There once lived a spirit in a mountain cave far from the town. This spirit was so
kindhearted that he would lend clothes, plates, spoons and forks, and whatever was
needed by the poor townsfolk for their weddings, baptisms, and other celebrations.
The borrower simply went up the mountain and stated his wishes at the mouth of the
cave, and soon the needed articles would appear in his household. The time came,
however, when a borrower forgot to return the things and another returned them
without washing them first. Still another returned some plates already broken. Then
one day, the people found out that their requests were no longer answered. Nobody
knew what had happened to the spirit, but the folk thought that he left the cave
because of the ingratitude and thoughtlessness of the borrowers.
The Legend of Maria Cacao
Once there was a beautiful engkanto [Fn: Although some Cebuanos identify the engkanto
or the engkantada as a fairy, Wolff’s dictionary defines engkanto as “supernatural beigns
that may show themselves in human form, usually handsome, European in
appearance.”] living in the mountain. She owned a golden boat which used to sail
down the river, but every once in a while, it collapsed and whenever that happened,
the people said that it was because the boat got snagged on the bridge. When the
Americans came, they built a concrete bridge. This bridge has stood unharmed.
People today think that Maria Cacao is no longer living in the mountain and that she
has probably moved to another place. 44
[Maria Cacao occasionaly conceived of as] a business woman who sometimes plies
her cacao trade in America where she buys the silverware and chinaware to be leant
to the townsfolk [thus articulating with ‘Lost Lender’ story] 49
Ferandos, Pio B. 1981. Irksome relationships with other

guerrilla forces. Cebu City: Our Press. 83-85
In January, 1943, another group of around 25 soldiers from Cebu under a certain Lt.
Quimpo came to Tubigon and, luckily for them, did not make any trouble and
recognized immediately the authority of Major Ismael P. Ingeniero, the Commanding
Officer of the Bohol Guerrilla Force.
On March 12, 1943, a party of 225 armed soldiers under a certain Colonel McClish,
a Capt. Knortz, and a Lt. Jaradic arrived at Duero from Butuan, Agusan, and picked
Auditor Roman T. del Bando and Mariano Datahan and took away 7,5000 rounds of
ammunition. 84
#chapter 8
22 May 1942. Japanese “peaceful invasion” of Bohol. 167
#chapter 8
1942 September [timeline]
The “Biabas Force” at Biabas, Guindulman under an officer mainly supported by
civilian old man Mariano Datahan, had acquired a non-too-desirable (sic) reputation
due to abuses of the soldiers. After its crushing defeat at the hands of the Japanese
resulting in the capture of several rifles, one machine-gun (complete) and one
machine-gun (tripod), the Biabas Force was disbanded in the later part of September,
1942. 169
#chapter 8
25 May 1945 Bohol province formally declaried liberated from the enemy by Major-
General W. H. Arnold, head of the American Division. 195
#chapter 8
Reid, Lawrence A. 1981. Philippine linguistics: The state of the art

1970–1980. In Philippine studies : political science,
economics, and linguistics, edited by D. V. Hart. Detroit,
Mich. : Northern Illinois University.
The primary goal of SIL is translation of the New Testament, but a necessary
subsidiary goal is a detalied linguistic analysis of the speech variety under study. The
continuing volume of SIL’s published research provides a highly reliable and therefore
invaluable data base for others whose interests are purely theoretical.
Prior to 1970, linguistic research by SIL members was tagmemically oriented,
stimulated by Kenneth L. Pike and Robert Longacre. It was directed towards the
analysis of phonemic systems and “lower” levels of the grammatical hierarchy – word,
phrase and clause. This decade has seen a move away from preoccupation with
tagmemics to a more heterogeneous theoretical approach with papers appearing using
the transformational-generative framework, generative semantics, and case grammar
of one sort or another.
This change in theoretical orientation probably can be traced to the influence of
Austin Hale whose substantial help in the preparation of SIL’s research papers in
recent years is reflected in the considerable number in which he appears as co-author.
The cross-fertilization of ideas from theoretical positions other than tagmemics has
been valuable, and will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter.
Basic linguistic research continues to be done on word, phrase and clause structures
by SIL members. However, there has been a change in emphasis, begun in the late
sixties and continuing into the seventies, to the analysis and description of “higher”
levels of the grammatical hierarchy – sentence, paragraph and discourse.
For people involved in the translation of the New Testament – one of the most
difficult of translation tasks – there can be no question regarding the relevance of the
study of discourse. It is essential. To some linguists, the study of discourse is outside
the pale; to SIL linguists, it is a prerequisite to effective translation. 214
#history: language documentation (post-war)
About ten years ago, linguists from the Ateneo de Manila University and the
Philippine Normal College, decided to pool their resources. They developed a
consortium program which offered a Ph.D. in Linguistics. To attract quality students,
a number of full scholarships were made available by The Asia Foundation. The Ford
Foundation and SIL each supported one scholar. Nine Ph.D.s have been earned since
the inception of the program. Three more candidates are currently writing their
dissertations.
Because of the small demand for Ph.D.s in Linguistics in the Philippine job market,
the drying up of scholarship money, and the general change in emphasis in Philippine
linguistics in recent years, the Ph.D. in Linguistics consortium is now officially
terminated and a new consortium has been developed. This is for a Ph.D. in Bilingual
Education with the Philippine Normal College as the home institution and Ateneo de
Manila and De La Salle University as cooperating institutions.
The value of the Ateneo-PNC linguistics consortium cannot be overestimated. The
students were generally of [215] a very high caliber and are now the emerging leaders
in the field in the Philippines. Dr. Gloria Chan, the first graduate, [etc etc]
Some of the dissertations written by Ateneo-PNC consortium graduates were on pure
linguistic topics, such as a case analysis of Cebuano verb morphology, and a study of
the subcategorizational and selectional restrictions on English verbs. Other
dissertations were on more applied linguistic topics, such as an analysis of Hokkien
Chinese borrowings in Tagalog, a sociolinguistic study of Bahasa Indonesia, the
elaboration of a technical lexicon for Pilipino, a composite diction of Philippine
Creole Spanish, and the developing of a model of a Filipino’s bilingual competence
based on Tagalog-English code switching. 216
The LSP was formed in 1969. 216
Current information on the research of Professors Ernesto Constantino and Ernesto
Cubar, two prominent linguists at UP, is unavailable. To them passed the cloak of
Cecilio Lopez, the first great Filipino linguist, who at the time of his passing in
September 1979, was Professor Emeritus in the Linguistics Department at the
University of the Philippines. 217
Probably the most important [work of grammar to have appeared in the last decade],
in terms of its quality and impact on scholars outside the field, is Schachter and
Otanes’ grammar of Tagalog (1972). Since this book is a reference source, not a
polemic for a theoretical position, it has been widely used and often quoted in the
literature. 219
The PALI Series of grammars and dictionaries appeared in 1971. These were
commissioned originally by the Peace Corps to accompany sets of teaching materials
for each of the major languages. 219
Mirikitani (1972) and Gonzalez (1972) both describe the syntax of Kapamgan.
Mirikitani’s book is a transformational-generative treatment, with notions of case
introduced as prepositional phrases. Gonzalez’s publication exemplifies Chafe’s
version of generative semantics. 219
Comparative lexical material is now available in several published soures, including
Reid (1971), Lopez (1974), Yamada (1975), Yap (1977), and Barbian (1977b) for
Manyan languages. McFarland (1977) is also an excellent source for lexical and
grammatical material from the Northern Philippine languages. 220
Most, if not all, of the above works are structuralist in their orientation. [PK: These
are “traditional phonemic and morphopholnemic statements” published between
1970-1979] 221
The Lexicase model (Starosta 1978), adopted by De Guzman (1978a), uses a restricted
and possibly universal set of case relations, established on the basis of meaning and
morpho-syntactic consequences. The Lexicase model is a highly restrained, empircally
based and falsifiable generative model which does not appeal to abstract deep
structures or to transformational rules. Lexicase therefore has the potential for
providing Philippine linguists with a suitable model for the systematic comparison of
Philippine grammatical systems. 229
In 1967 and 1968, Robert Longacre of the Summer Institute of Linguistics conducted
a series of worskhops where he introduced the members of SIL, Philippines, to his
theory of the structure of the hierarchical units larger than the single clause. This
theory, articulated within the general framework of tagmemics, was the starting point
for the systematic analysis of 25 languages by some 32 SIL participants in the
workshops. 231
The first issue of the Philippine Journal of Linguistics contained an article by Dyen (1970)
demonstrating the value of using qualitative evidence (innovations in phonology,
morhpology and syntax) to substantiate a subgrouping hypothesis formulated on the
basis of quantitative evidence such as lexicostatistical percentages. Prior to 1970, a
number of studies had been done relying solely on lexicostatistics. 234
The most extensive study of a comparative-historical nature that has been done for
any group of Philippine languages is Zorc (1977). His thorough examination of the
phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of 36 speech varieties spoken in the
central and southern Philippines establishes them as belonging to the Bisayan
subgroup of Central Philippine languages. Rafael (1976) provides us with a diachronic
study of the development of negatives within this subgroup. Zorc postulates five
branches within the Bisayan group: West, Banton, Central, Cebuan, and South
Bisayan. The constituency of the last group has been challenged by Pallesen (1977,
1978). He believes that southern Bisayan also includes the languages of the east coast
of Mindanao. These are languages Zorc believes are coordinate with the Bisayan
group, as are Tagalog and Bikol. 239
In the preceeding sections, the discussion has been restricted to various core areas of
linguistics. This chapter would leave a false impression of the state of Philippine
linguistics were no mention made of the great bulk of work done in some of the more
peripheral areas of linguistics. It is in these areas that most Filipino linguists are doing
their research. They are working not on the structure of Philippine languges, but in
areas such as dialectology (Pelaez-Soberano 1977), bilingualism (Pascasio 1977,
Butista 1974, 1977), first and second language acquisition (Segalowitz and Galang
1978, Castillo 1972), and language planning and language use (Constantino, Sikat
and Cruz 1974), Sibayan and Gonzalez 1977, Gonzalez 1980).
Reference is made to ongoing research in some of these areas in Rafael (1978b). The
leadership of Bonafacio Sibayan and Bro. Andrew Gonzalez in the fields of language
planning and language use is internationally recognized. To discuss their published
research in each of these areas would require another lengthy bibliography and a
second lengthy chapter.
[…]
Most Filipino linguists today are occupied with other than “pure” linguistic research.
To a great [241] extent this emphasis is a function of their society. The dictates of the
New Constitution [of 1973] require that a new national language called Filipino (as
distinct from Pilipino) be developed. Furthermore the radical changes which resulted
from the 1974 decision to institute a blingual policy (English and Pilipino) from the
primary through the tertiary educational system have required a commitment from
linguists to meet the problems that thee changes have brought. There are few rewards
for a Filipino linguist who wants only to teach linguistics and to do descriptive and
theoretical linguistics.
As a result the number of Filipino linguists who have published descriptive material on
some language other than their mother tongue within the last decade is extremely
small. One wonders whether having a small cadre of practicing native linguists is a
luxury that a developing nation cannot afford. Yet considering the exigencies of the
present situation in the Philipppines, with the new national language (Filipino)
required by the Constitution to be based on some unspecified number of Philppine
languages, it would seem that the nation must have a group of highly skilled linguists
involved ina systematic comparison of Philippine languages. This comparison should
be concerned not only with the lexicons of Philippine languages, a task which is not
particularly difficult, but with the far more difficult task of systematic syntactic
comparison.
The purpose of this comparison should not be the discovery of a “universal abstract
base” which would then somehow become the base of the proposed language. Its
purpose would be to discover to what extent surface structures are comparable from
language to language. When a speaker of one language makes a linguistic reaction to
another language, he is not comparing his intuitions against the intuitions of the other
person, he is reacting ona more surface level. He reacts to the parole, not to the
langue. He reacts to intonations, to pronuncaitions, to choice of affixes for particular
verbys, and so on. 242
[…] there has been relatively little sophisticated cross-linguistic description of the kind
that Zorc (1977) has done for the Bisayan languages. He used his comparison
primarily for genetic subgrouping and reconstruction. But the data will be of immense
value when decisions need to be made about the form of Filipino. Admittedly these
decisions, if and when they are made, will primarily be political decisions. Yet the
country must make certain that such decisions are made on the basis of solid linguistic
research. They cannot be made on the whims of linguistically unsophisticated
politicians. 243
Linguists are moving into a period when the historical study of Philippine languages
will undergo substantial changes. The major phonological developments are known.
What is not known is the extent to which the languages of the Philippines have been
influenced by secondary migrations. 246
Footnote 2: Pilipino, the present national language, is based on Tagalog. The 1973
constitution requires a new national language, one that would be based on a number
of Philippine languages and which will be called “Filipino.” 247
Eugenio, Damiana L, ed. 1982. Philippine folk literature: An
anthology. Quezon City: Folklore Studies Program College of
Arts & Sciences, University of the Philippines Diliman and the
U.P. Folklorists Inc.
The ruins of the Guadalupe monastery in Rizal province, on the other hand, fairly
seem to invite ghosts. The eerie look of the place alone would account for its
reputation. People say that a giant serpent dwells in the monastery well. It is believed
there's treasure hidden somewhere in the ruins but few dare to dig it. A foreigner did
tell the villagers that he had been scared away by a bearded friar in black. So great is
the terror inspired by the ruins that an old village woman swears she has never once
set foot in the place. "Encantado iyan!" (That place is enchanted) she cried, rolling her
eyes. 262
#lost treasure
Ileto, Reynaldo C. 1982. Rizal and the underside of Philippine

history. In Moral order and the question of change: Essays on
Southeast Asian thought, edited by D. K. Wyatt and A.
Woodside. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia
Studies.
When the Katipunan is superseded by Emilio Aguinaldo’s Republican government,
the Filipino people are finally released not only from the colonial Mother Country but
from a dark past. 278
Some of the movements that challenged the Republic, notably the Katipunan ni San
Cristobal and the Santa Igelsia, were just like the “failed” Cofradia of 1841. 279
In 1704, the first Tagalog rendition of the [pasyon] story in verse form saw print. 293
Ego sum, by itself or together with a string of Latin, Spanish or indigenous words, is
commonly [305] inscribed in oraciones, efficacious prayers pronounced at the point at
which anting-anting powers are activated by their possessors. Present-day practitioners
of invulnerability magic are even referred to at times as nag-eegosum [sic] (persons
engaging in egosum) [fn]. In reference to the nineteenth century, one cannot draw the
line between “Christian” and “animistic” features of Holy Week rituals. Concomitant
with the chanting of the Pasyon and performance of the sinakulo, various kinds of
magical powers – ranging from invulnerability to bullets to charms for attracting
women – were acquired and tested. Men sipped potions concocted from unbaptized
fetuses and oil on a series of Fridays culminating on Good Friday. Men and women
placed objects inside the glass case housing the image of the dead Christ, or scrambled
for the candle drippings, parts of crucifixes and other objects used in Church rituals,
or carried wooden crosses and rocks to the tops of sacred hills or through the streets of
towns, to be like Christ not only in the sense of purifying themselves but also of
concentrating power in objects or in themselves. 306
#antinganting
The story goes that on one occasion when Rizal had to leave his clinic to attend to a
very sick man, he instructed his servant Isidro [Antazo] to attend to other patients
who might come in. Knowing neither medicine nor the dialect of Dapitan, Isidro
protested, upon which Rizal got a notebook and wrote things in it which the servant
could not even read. This would take care of any problems, according to Rizal. True
enough, when some patients came in and “consulted” Isidro, he turned to the
notebook:
It moved slightly, then the writings of Dr. Rizal on it became his image, and it spoke to him
clearly. At first, it frightened him with wonder, but its eyes restored his confidence and he
followed carefully what it dictated for him to do. The patients submitted themselves obediently
for treatment, though they too were surprised almost to the brink of fear, but their faith in the
voice and image of Dr. Rizal on the notebook held them steady. After all the patients had been
treated, the image and the voice became writings again ... [Fn: “The Notebook of Dr. Rizal,”
in Santos, Rizal miracle tales, pp. 80-82] 311
#chapter 10 #unintelligibility #folk literacy

In the story of Isidro and the notebook, the distinction between author and work,
writing and curing, collapses. Rizal’s writing does not refer to some knowledge
external to it. What Rizal knows cannot be “learned” by Isidro because it is
unintelligible and proper only to a person of Rizal’s stature. This knowledge is power
itself and the writing on the notebook is, like the Ego sum in the Pasyon and the
inscriptions of anting-anting, an illustration of that power, equivalent to Rizal’s presence
and convertible to image and sound. [Fn: For stories of the appearance,
disappearance, and survival in fires of the writings of Bonifacio and Jacinto, see Nepe
(pseud.), “The Thirteen Miraculous Escapes of the Bonifacio Document,” clippings in
Pedro Cortes, Mga kasulatan Ukol sa Himagsikan [Documents on the Revolution],
1927, compilation in the Philippine National Library. Analogies with anting-anting
stories, such as the following, are obvious: “A certain Cabesang Juan Vicente used a
triangular book which he used to take care and light every Holy Thursday and Good
Friday. By doing so, this book would have letters on the printless pages and that was
just for a short time. The spell about any desired thing was taken from this book with
reference to an old text, the ‘Libro Primera Tomo’ ... Many an old man possessed
such talisman, inherited from father to son and son on” (Historical Data Papers, Paete,
Laguna Province). 312
#folk literacy #antinganting
Rizal’s sojourn in Europe from 1888-92 [...] [312] This period of Rizal’s life tends to
belong to the history of the nationalist awakening and its reformist phase. The next
phase (armed struggle) was initiated by Bonifacio in 1892 with the founding of the
Katipunan. 313
[...] Everywhere, too, he [Rizal upon his return to Manila in 1892] found his tricks of
sleight-of-hand recalled, people averring that he had supernatural powers” [Coates,
Rizal, 233] 314
When, less than three weeks after his return [to Manila in 1892], Rizal was deported
to Dapitan on the island of Mindanao, Bonifacio began to reorganize segments of the
the Liga [La Liga Filipina] into the revolutionary katipunan. Efforts by Katipunan
agents to harness the exile’s support failed. The year 1892 thus marks the end of
Rizal’s effective involvement in the anticolonial struggle. It was only after [314]
hostilities had broken out against Spain in 1896 that Rizal was brought back to
Manila, tried and convicted of sedition. 315
In a pamphlet published on the second anniversary of his death in December 1898,
with the words Mahalagang Kasulatan (lit. “Highly Important Writings”) splashed on its
cover, the national hero is referred to as
... VERBONG nagngalang Jose Rizal, na inihulog nang langit sa lupang Filipinas, na gugulin
ang boong buhay mula sa pagkabata, sa pagsulsumikap na kumalat sa nilapadlapad nitong
Sangkapuloan ang wagas na pagtangol ng katowiran ...
...The WORD named Jose Rizal, sent down by heaven to the land of Filipinas, in order to
spend his whole life, from childhood, striving to spread throughout this vast archipelago, the
notion that righteousness must be fought for wholeheartedly ... [Fn: Pamphlet in SD 919,
Philippine Rvolutionary Papers, reel 54.] 320
#check if added
The veterans of the Katipunan were known to at least a generation after the event
[Rizal’s execution] as “men of anting-anting” [Fn]. 321
#antinganting
Even their recognition today in the works of such writers as Sturtevant and
Constantino fails to liberate them from the categories “irrational,” “fanatical” and
“failure” to which ilustrado and colonial writing initially condemned them. Indeed, so
much of what undergirds present historical writing will have to be brought to light
and challenged before it can even be imagined that these peasant leaders were Jose
Rizal, just as Rizal was Bernardo Carpio and Jesus Christ. 323
Scott, William Henry. 1982. Sixteenth-century Tagalog

technology from the Vocabulario de la lengua Tagalo of
Pedro de San Beuanventura, O.F.M. In Gava‘: Studies in
Austronesian languages and cultures: Studien zu austronesischen
Sprachen und Kulturen, edited by R. Carle, M. Heinschke, P.
W. Pink, C. Rost and K. Stadtlander. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer
Verlag.
A serious shortcoming of the Spanish colonial documents which form the basis for
16th-century Philippine historiography is that they do not describe the technology by
which Filipinos exploited the resources of their archipelago. Administrative and
missionary correspondence, as well as occasional treatises on Filipino culture, refer
frequently enough to commodities like rice and textiles as objects of tribute, but do not
reveal the methods by which they were produced. 523
#lexical archeology
Fortunately, he early Spanish dictionaries of Philippine languages make it possible to
answer this question [of what technology supported an economy which could
participate so vigorously in the international commerce of Asia, and attract imperialist
invation from the other side of the globe]. For the lexicographer, unlike the colonial
office-holder or friar proselytizer, has to define all the terms he collects whether he is
personally interested in the subject to which they pertain or not. Thus, the names he
records for the individual parts of the loom enable us to reconstruct the Filipino
weaving technique, while the absence of indigenous terms for potter’s wheels or plows
strongly suggests that these items were either completely wanting or introduced too
recently to have influenced native nomenclature. Moreover, since the dictionaries
were produced by missionaries for the use of other missionaries, they are free of the
deliberate distortions to which official correspondents were frequently tempted for
purposes of their own interests, though of course, they may contain errors due to the
ignorance or misunderstanding of the lexicographer himself. 523
#lexical archeology
[…] enabled him [Buenaventura] to assign geographic limitations to certain words
with annotations like “M” for Manila or “T” for the hill folk of the “tingues”. 524
It has long been a commonplace of Philippine historiography that the so-called
cultural minorities in the interior mountain ranges were driven there from the coastal
plains by later migrants with a more advanced technology. The present study of the
16th-century Tagalog vocabulary, however, lends little support to such a theory.
Rather, it suggests an alternate theory – namely that the 16th-century coastal
civilizations developed where they did not because of any technical superiority but
because of their access to the sea, sea-lanes, overseas markets, and foreign ideas. Such
civilizations would therefore have been produced by Filipinos within the archipelago,
not imported by civilized migrants from abroad. Thus, the Taglogs would not have
occupied the seacoasts because they had an advanced culture; they would have had an
advanced culture because they occupied the seacoasts. 535
Suarez, Jorge A. 1983. The study of Mesoamerican Indian

languges. The Mesoamerican Indian languages. Cambridge;
New York: Cambridge University Press.
The preparation of descriptions of the [Mesoamerican Indian] languages, on the
other hand, was prompted by motivations of religious indoctrination. The conversion
of the native population to the Catholic religion was one of the aims of the Spaniards,
and it was at the request of the conqueror of Mexico, Hernán Cortez, that the first
contingent of Franciscan friars arrived in 1524 to start the task of conversion; they
were followed by Dominicans, Augustinians and Jesuits. These regular orders very
soon adopted the policy that the conversion effort should be conducted in the native
language (cf. chapter 11). To fulfil their tasks the orders needed a much more intimate
knowledge of the languages than the rudimentary one sufficient for use as a contact or
for trade purposes. They had to teach, preach and take confession in the native
languages, and assist the friars to do the same without having to start from scratch.
This resulted in an amazing number of Doctrinas (‘catechisms’), Confesionarios (‘manuals
for confession’), Sermonarios (‘collections of sermons’), Artes (‘grammars’) and Vocabularios
(‘vocabularies’). In the period from 1524 to 1572 over a hundred were written for ten
languages spoken in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (which included only part of
present-day Mexico). Many of these works were never printed, circulating only in
manuscript; those that were, were printed in New Spain. The friars, especially the
Franciscans, were imbued with a humanistic spirit which, among other things, is
reflected in the fact that the first bishop of Mexico, Francisco de Zumárraga,
introduced the printing press to the New World in 1534, and that the first printed
book (1539) was a bilingual catechism in Spanish and Nahuatl. This humanistic spirit
was also reflected in the founding of schools for sons of Indian nobility, where Spanish
and Latin were taught and religious works were translated into the native languages.
The friars were also anxious to familiarize themselves with native cultures, chiefly as a
means of preventing the introduction of native beliefs into Catholic religion, and they
they therefore asked their Indian pupils to write about their cultures. The result was
the preservation of a corpus of the language about subjects not related to the Catholic
faith (cf. chapter 9). 3
#lexical archeology
The grammars written within this period are generally valued only to the extent that
they offer raw materials on the respective languages, and are usually lumped together
and dimissed as merely latinized descriptions. One should not, however overlook the
fact that they do represent the earliest attempts within the European linguistic
tradition at coping with exotic languages. [...] Of course, the Spaniards were in some
ways prepared for their new situation, because of their experience with Arabs and
Jews and the problems of conversion they had to face recovering the southern region
of Spain from the Arabs. At the time of the conquest of America, Spaniards were very
language conscious both about [2] foreign languages and about the assumed
superiority of their own. It is important that in 1492 Antonio de Nebrija wrote a
Spanish grammar and, when asked by the Queen what use it would be, replied that it
would be valuable for teaching Spanish to her new vassals in the same way she had
learned Latin by means of the Latin grammar that he had written years before. It is
natural, then, that Nebrija’s grammars were taken as a model for writing grammars of
unknown languages; indeed, there was hardly any other model, and, as it is repeatedly
stated, it is better to have a bad model than no model at all. 3
Also, a frequent error to be found in the literature is the assumption that the Indian
language has the same parts of speech as Latin. On the other hand, the statement that
the language lacked syntax (Carochi (1892 [1645]: 400) is not a unique example),
while obviously wrong in absolute terms, is understandable in that the authors were
considering as syntax the use of cases and features of agreement proper to Latin, and
these patterns were not found in most Indian languages.
However, these grammars were intended as practical aids for learning the language so
that in most cases the references to Latin or Spanish were by way of comparison. The
practice of inventing declensions for languages not having them was not the most
common procedure, but rather the explicit statement that the language lacked
declension, or plural, or an article, and so on (cf. Córdova 1886 [1578]: 12). Even in
the presentation of verbal paradigms closely matching those of Spanish it is clear that,
although they were described as equivalents, the authors were well aware of the
differences in structure; [...]3
Were friars merely copying Latin structure they could scarcely have described, as they
did from the very beginning, the morphological mechanism for transitivity in Nahuatl,
for which even a new terminology was coined [...] 3
‘Notwithstanding the imperfection of this Mixtec language and the defects that may
be noted in it chartacteristic of a barbarous language, most parts of it can be reduced
to rules and ordered as an arte (Reyes, Antonio 1890 [1593]: 4) 4
Alburo, Erlinda K. 1986. Literary apologetics: The case of pre-

war Cebuano historical fiction. Philippine Quarterly of Culture
and Society 14 (117-127).
In Daylinda […] a brief discussion of the difference between Yutang Natawhan (land of
birth) and Inahang Yuta (motherland) which is central to the intention of inspiring
patriotic feeling. 121
#chapter 4
Gonzalez, Andrew. 1986. SIL and Philippine linguistics. In

Language in global perspective : papers in honor of the 50th
anniversary of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1935-1985,
edited by B. F. Elson. Dallas, Texas: Summer Institute of
Linguistics.
For the discipline of linguistics or the scientific study of language, one can look upon
Jose P. Rizal, the national hero, as our first linguist, with his seminal work on the
grammar of Tagalog […] 79
Linguists there were in the Philippines, all missionary linguists who through their
Artes (grammars) and Vocabularios (word lists), sought to help other missionaries
attain an active, productive use of the local languages for preaching and for religious
activities, but the discipline itself had not attained official recongition in the country.
80
When the Americans came in 1898, there were scholars interested in Philippine
languages (Luther Parker, David Doherty) as a dimension of the larger investigation of
anthropology and ethnic studies then, but there was no institutionalization of the
discipline until Otto Scheerer founded the Department of Linguistics at the University
of the Philippines in 1924. Otto Scheerer was an extraordinary man, for he came to
the Philippines in the 1880’s and founded La Minerva Cigar Company in Manila and
later moved to the Mountain Province and planted coffee. In the Mountain Province,
he developed a life-long interest in the languages of the Philippines, especially the
Northern languages, and went on to settle as an academician at the University of the
Philippines, teaching German and linguistics. His interests were wide, writing one of
the best analyses of the development of a national language for the Philippines (1914,
1920), and it was Scheerer who introduced to the discipline the first indigenous
linguist of the Philippines, Cecilio P. Lopez, initially trained as a taxonomic zoologist.
He was instrumental in sending Lopez to the best known center of Austronesian
linguistics at the time, to the University of Hamburg to study under Otto Dempwolff.
Lopez finished his Ph.D. in 1928, writing a contrastive analysis of Ilocano and
Tagalog, and returned to the Philippines to continue the work of Scheerer at the
University of the Philippines. 80
#history: language documentation (American era)
Cecilio Lopez joined an untrained but self-taught and competent linguist, Otto
Scheerer, at the University of the Philippines; outside of academia, there was also an
avocational linguist in the person of H. Costenoble, a French sugar chemist who had
worked in the sugar mills of Pampanga and Negros and who had made a start at
comparative Philippine linguistics as a side interest. There was no Department of
Linguistics anywhere at that time, although there was a Department of Oriental
Languages at the University of the Philippines. There were also isolated missionaries,
Catholics and Protestants, working on individual languages in the areas where they
were assigned.
Linguistics as a discipline was a post-war phenomenon, begun unofficially in the early
fifties through applied linguistics and the teaching of English as a second language and
institutionalized as a discipline through the establishment in 1969 of the Linguistic
Society of the Philippines, with its journal the Philippine Journal of Linguistics, and of the
Diliman Linguistics Circle through it spublication Archive. Eventually the linguists at
the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippine Normal College, University of the
Philippines, subsequently De La Salle University, the University of Santo Tomas and
Saint Louis University began offering graduate programs in linguistics, hence,
providing for the training and continuity component in the institutionalization of the
discipline. Earlier, under its anthropology offerings, one could do a linguistic thesis at
the University of San Carlos in Cebu. 81
#history: language documentation (american era) #history: language documentation
(post-war era)
During the Post-war Period, linguistics continued at the University of the Philippines
under Cecilio Lopez, who, however, was occupied as an administrator and for one
year (1954) as Acting Director of the Institute of National Language during the
Magsaysay Administration. He continued directing MA theses in linguistics; outside
these activities, however, there was no real public for linguistics until the TESOL
movement in Philippine education.
Coming as a Fulbright Exchange Scholar, Clifford Prator of the University of
California in Los Angeles spent a year in the Philippines (1949-1950) and at the end of
the period published his by-now classic work Language Teaching in the Philippines, which
assessed the state of the art (the dominant mode or approach was the grammar-
analysis approach) and suggested (based on the newly popularized approach, the
aural-oral approach, later the audio-lingual method, developed from the language
learning experience of the United States during the war and transferred to academia
as a new and promising method after the war) a reorientation of English teaching in
the Philippines along new lines as well as the use of the vernaculars as the languages of
instruction the first two years, based on the Iloilo Experiment (Davis 1967). Later
these recommendations were enacted into policy under the New Elementary
Curriculum which prevailed from 1958 to 1974 (when the Bilingual Education Policy
was enacted) and its agency of implementation institutionalized through the
Philippine Center for Language Study (1957-1965) which eventually moved to the
Philippine Normal College Language Study Center in 1965. 81
#history: language documentation (post-war era)
In the meantime, independently of this movement but ultimately stemming from the
same intellectual period, the Summer Institute of Linguistics arrived in the Philippines
in 1953 during the Magsaysay Administration and set up its initial headquarters at the
Institute of National Language at the Department of Education to help in the study of
minority languages and in literacy programs. The TESOL movement was propagated
through the efficient delivery system of the Bureau of Elementary Education. On the
other hand, SIL had as its main purpose the study of languages with a view to
developing their writing systems and recording folk literature for literacy and
ultimately Bible translation. These separate objectives, from the point of view of
linguistics as a discipline, had this in common: both arose from the same intellectual
climate and dominant linguistic paradigm of the 1940’s and 1950s, namely, Neo-
Bloomfieldian Linguistics or what is now known as American Structuralist Linguistics.
82
#history: language documentation (post-war era) #national language
From the confluence of these two movements, American Structuralist Grammar or
Neo-Bloomfieldian Linguistics arrived in the Philippines; a new chapter in the history
of linguistics in this country was then to be written. For while Cecilio Lopez was
himself trained in classical comparative linguistics and nineteenth century traditional
grammar, on his own, he learned much from the early Bloomfield of 1933 and from
Bloomfield’s 1917 Tagalog grammar and text and based the first grammar of the
National Language in English (published in 1940) largely on Bloomfield. However,
Lopez’s activiety was directed largely at his University of the Philippines clientele so
that in the international world of linguistics his impact on applied linguistics and the
teaching of English and Filipino in the public schools was nonexistent. Neither, strictly
speaking, was Lopez trained in the American Structuralist linguistic mode, and at
least not in Immediate Constituent analysis nor its later devlopments (perhaps best
‘codified’ in Joos (1957)). 82
Subsequently, as the post-1957 linguists arrived [from the US], teachers of English
were introduced to the mystifying trees of Chomsky (1957). 83
One exception to the focus on minority languages was the influential Restatement of
Tagalog Grammar (1961) by Elmer Wolfenden, which was cited as an excellent example
of American Strucutralist analysis and used in syntax-grammar courses. The fact that
Wolfenden wisely appended the grammar of Rizal, based on Lopez’s critical edition of
this short work, was not only an excellent device for acceptance but provided
continuity in scholarship with an earlier generation.
Moreover, through their early teaching manuals (e.g. the book on Ilocano by
McKaughan and Forster 1957), the teaching of a foreign or second language, using
the new approaches (audio-lingual method, pattern drilling, etc.) found
exemplification and provided clues as to how the national language, Tagalog
(renamed Pilipino in 1959), could be taught to non-Tagalogs. 83
Subsequently [after 1974, say mid 1970s], a consortium for the teaching of linguistics
was formed by Ateneo de Manila University and Philippine Normal College, later
joined by De La Salle University. Initially, the fields of specialization were in applied
linguistics, theoretical linguistics, and descriptive linguistics. Subsequently the
program was modified to lead to a doctorate in bilingual education , an
interdisciplinary topic in the field of applied linguistics. Descriptive and general
linguists continue to be taught at the University of the Philippines, applied linguistics
at the Institute of Language Teaching. 84
Thus, in the 1970’s and continuing in the 1980’s, linguistics became a professionalized
discipline[…] 85
For the rest of the decade of the 1950’s up to the 1970’s, however, the dominant
paradigm, in effect the scientific model of SIL, at least for the Philippines, was
Kenneth Pike’s tagmemic model; p…] 86
#history: language documentation (post-war period)
In the 1970s, as linguistics progressed and as some SIL linguists finished training at
various centers of linguistics in the United States, in Britain and in Australia, other
competing models began to be used: Newell used stratificational grammar for his
analysis of an English text (1966), Hohulin and Hale (1977) used relational grammar
for Keley-I, Ashley (1964) used case arrays patterned after Fillmore for his study of
Tausug, network grammar was used by Errington (1979) as a transitional device in
translation.
Lawrence Allen (1975) used the model of generative phonology and distributive
feature analysis for his study of Kankanay. 86
In turn, Fillmore’s [1968] analysis of subjectivalization made post-Chomskyan
linguists aware of the penury of transformational generative grammar in attempting to
account for these semantic-bound phenomena and in my opinion contributed in no
small way to the gradual erosion of the theory in spite of attempts to ‘extend’ it
through what seems to me no more than ad hoc measures 87
The rediscovery in post-Chomskyan linguistics that there are aspects of grammar that
are impossible to account for if one confines oneself only to the sentence level of
languages dovetailed neatly with the independent development in SIL linguistics of
grammar beyond the sentence to the paragraph and the discourse, inspired
undoubtedly by Pike’s tagmemics but going beyond Pike’s tagmemics into Longacre’s
and Grimes’ and a host of other discourse analysis analystic innovations that now
continue to enrich the field. 88
In the area of historical linguistics the [SIL] output has likewise been relatively small
though no les significant. Undoubtedly, in terms of the social mission of SIL,
synchronic linguistics is of far more significance and relevance than diachronic
linguistics. Nevertheless, given the extent of work among the Philippine languages, it is
a pity that not more SIL linguists have gone into this area of investigation. However,
the output, though relatively small is nonetheless impressive. Thomas and Healey
(1973) worked on lexicostatistics to look at distance and time depths among the
Philippine languages. Healey (1973) alos worked on laryngeal reflexes of Austronesian
in the Philippine languages. Walton (1979), on the basis of lexicostatistics, contructed
a ‘Philippine languge tree’. Individual linguists have workd on proto-languages within
their own groups: Gallman, ProtoMansakan [etc, etc, etc] 89
In the field of sociolinguistics, Pittman (1952) produce the first linguistic atlas of the
Philippines, which though limited in data and a very preliminary work, set the stage
for this type of work, until McFarland (1982), a non-SIL linguist, came out with an
enriched atlas based partly on the more than twenty-five years of filed work of the SIL
linguists, fo the atlas relied heavily on the extensive surveys and field work and
information found in the data files of SIL, [89] which were made available to him.
Perhaps the most interesting work of the SIL linguists in the area of sociolinguistics is
their survey work in different areas to find out which languges are spoken and their
mutual intelligibility testing to discover linguistic distances and degree of mutual
understanding among neighboring languages, thus using a behavioral task to measure
language distance and a viable measure based on this instrument to distinguish
between dialect and language, a problem as yet not solved by other dialectologists.
Walrod (1978) worked on dialect boundaries, Philippine surveys are reported in the
bibliography (Kilgour 1978: 8) while Flesichmann (1981) has reported on the Danao
languages. 90
Arora, Shirley. 1987. Memorate as metaphor: Some Mexican

treasure narratives and their narrators. Perspectives on
contemporary legend II, edited by Gillian Bennet, Paul Smith
and J.D.A. Widdowson. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
#lost treasure #mexican-filipino encounters
Such tales function, in Foster’s view, as a necessary means of explaining prosperity
that cannot be accounted for in any other way within the economic world view of the
narrators. 81
Rather, they imply, as we shall see, that while ‘good’ itself may be abundant, access to
that good is subject to severe, though not necessarily insurmountable restrictions, not
least of which is the overriding concept of suerte—luck or fate. This is not ‘luck’ merely
in the sense of ‘chance’, as in many lost mine or treasure stories associated with the
western United States, but in the sense of a predetermining factor that governs the
opportunity to locate a treasure but not necessarily success in recovering it. In their
constant emphasis on the role of suerte and on the evil often associated with treasure,
these Mexican narratives are similar to some of the treasure stories recorded by
Patrick Mullen among English-speaking fishermen on the Texas coast and used by
him as the basis for certain qualifications of Dundes’s ‘Unlimited Good’ concept [fn].
At the same time, of course, these stories tend to support Foster’s observation that in a
static eonomy, ‘luck and fate—points of contact with an open system—are viewed as
the only socially acceptable ways in which an individual can acquire more “good”
than he previously has had’ [fn]. 81
Although Foster, as an anthropologist, considers his ‘treasure tales’ to be ‘neither myth
nor legend’, most folklorists would not hesitate to assign them to the latter category. It
is of course the truth or presumed truth of the treasure story that gives it meaning.
The narratives told by [81] my Mexican informants were without exception presented
as accounts of real events, usually involving named individuals and localities. They are
primarily stories of unrecovered treasure, or of discoveries of treasure that nevertheless
end in ultimate tragedy. They may be considered fairly representative of Mexican
treasure narratives as a whole, and they include numerous motifs that are traditional
throughout the Spanish-speaking world or are of even broader European distribution.
They concern treasure of two general types that we may term ‘natural’ and
‘supernatural’, although I should stress that these are purely analytical categories and
are not used by the informants themselves, either in reference to treasure or in a more
general context. Indeed, the line between what we might term ‘natural’ and
‘supernatural’ events is not at all distinct; both are simply part of a continuum of
human experience.
‘Natural treasure, as I shall use the term here, includes wealth in tangible form,
usually coins of gold or silver, that has been hidden by persons whose identity may or
may not be known, sometimes in response to conditions of social or political
upheaval—in Mexico it is usually the Revolution of the early third of this century—,
sometimes imply as the normal means of safekeeping. ‘Natural’ treasure is often
revealed by or associated with supranormal phenomena, but its origins are clearly
human. It is by far the predominant type. Moreover, ‘natural’ treasure unquestionably
does exist, though presumably not with the prevalence suggested by the body of
legends in circulation. ‘Supernatural’ treasure, on the other hand, owes its existence or
availability to forces other than human. The sudden wealth acquired by empautados—
those who enter a pact with the devil—would fit into this category. So too would
encantos, enchanged caves containing untold wealth that open briefly at specific times,
such as midnight on New Year’s Eve; and also the money that can be generated by
means of certain magrical procedures or with the aid of magical objects. 82
Treasure, particularly ‘natural’ treasure, is frequently envisioned as [82] ‘labelled’, so
to speak, with the name of a particular individual and destined to be found by him or
her. Other persons may pass by the spot where the treasure is hidden but will have no
inking of its presence; if they actually uncover it they will either see it as something
else—as charcoal instead of gold, for example—or will not be able to remove it from
its hiding place. ‘No era para ellos’—it was not meant for them—is a consistent
refrain. If the individual for whom the treasure is intended fails for some reason to
take possession of it, someone else my perhaps do so, but often at severe risk to
himself. The role of suerte in the finding of treasure is obviously a crucial one—again,
not so much luck in the sense of mere chance as a king of once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity that the individual must be able to recognise and take advantage of.
Should he fail to do so, whether because of ignorance, inexperience, foolishness,
laziness or timidity, he will then in effect have only himself to blame. 83
Much of this information is presented in the form of experiences attributed to
individuals known to the narrator—as memorates, in the broad sense that includes
second- or even third-hand accounts. [fn] Of particular interest, however, ar the
sizable number of narratives that are first-person experiences or that involve members
of the narrator’s immediate family and have therefore touched the narrator’s own life
in some way. 84
Ricarda Ramírez, now in her early forties and the mother of three married childresn
and two younger ones still at home, recalls ‘como entre sueños’—as though in a
dream—a childhood experience with an [87] encanto, which she describes as an
enormous cave filled with an infinite variety of goods for sale, ‘something like a cantina
or a market’. Ricarda was with her mother, and she remembers her mother’s repeated
warnings not to touch anything she saw, as well as the urgency with which her mother
pulled her along, telling her to hurry because the door would soon close. They wanted
to bring something back withthem, but everyone was in a hurry; and finally they had
to leave for fear that they would be trapped inside. The description, suggestive of a
hazy memory of a childhood visit to Harrod’s at closing time, is nevertheless a
traditional picture of what an encanto is like, at least as conceived by the informants
with whom I talked. 88
In a sense the memorate serves, in a limited fasion, to mediate the disparity between
aspirations and achievement, between what might have been and what actually is.
Scaled down to a single incident—a treasure, dinero, not obtained—the memorate
encapsulates a much broader spectrum of disappointments and frustrations,
examining them metaphorically and ultimately helping to make them understandable,
tolerable, even acceptable, to the narrator as well as to the audience. 91
Eugenio, Damiana L. 1987. Philippine folk literature: The legends.

Vol. 3, Philippine Folk Literature Series. Quezon City: The U.P.
Folklorists Inc, Folklore Studies Program, U.P. Diliman.
In Laguna, a six-year old child was befriended by the King of Duendes. The duende
took the child to his luxurious underground home. During the period of friendship,
the child's father became very lucky in his fishing,. The parents also sometimes found
money and gold nuggets in the child's bed. But then the father refused to give the
child to the duende, the·favors stopped, the King of Duendes stopped visiting the boy,
and worst of all, the money given by the duende disapeared. xxxi [PK: more detailed
narrative on page 229]
#lost treasure
LEGENDS ABOUT BURIED TREASURE. The search for buried treasure HAS
always excited man. Legends express certain folk beliefs concerning buried treasure.
One of these is that there are indicators, or signs, that show the location of buried
treasure, In "A Bikol Legend,” one such indicator is said to be white mice. A white
mouse can lead one to the location of buried treasure. The narrator in the
legend caught a white mouse and kept it in a cage as a pet. An old man in the
neighborhood told him that by doing so he lost the opportunity to own five or six
tapayans (jars) of treasure. What he should have done was to tie the mouse with a
string and let it roam. It would have led him to the buried treasure.
(Duran 1946: 154-156). In a Tagalog legend, a chicken was the indicator of buried
treasure. The spot on the mountain side in which a golden-feathered chicken laid eggs
yielded treasure (239), A mysterious voice. was the one that told a woman where a
treasure was buried, in a Bikol legend. The voice told her to get it and use it but not
reveal it to anyone, not even to her husband. Like a typical woman, however, the wife
found it impossible to keep a secret and revealed it to her husband. The treasure
vanished (242).
Another belief is that fairies sometimes claim treasure buried in the ground by
mortals. A legend tells of a rich man who buried his treasure and afterwards died
without leaving any map to his heirs. With the help of a diviner, the heirs were able to
pinpoint·the locatlon of the treasure so they hired men to dig for it. In the course of
the digging, however, the laborers began to covet the treasure and decided to keep it
for themselves. They were never able to raise the treasure, however, for on the third
day, they were terrified by a slush-slushing sound as of flowing water underground.
The diviner interpreted that to mean that the faires had claimed the treasure. The
sound they heard, he said was that of the treasure flowing into the underground. river.
The moral of the story is summped up in the diveiner’s concluding remark: “I have
seen much evil wrought by too much gold. [xlv] Perhaps the loss is for the best” (240).
[PK: see actual stories within the body of the volume for more detail] xlvi
#lost treasure
The man said to her, "Oh woman, do not be afraid of me, I am a "cafre," I came here
just to tell you a very important matter. The people who died in this house asked me
to come and say that you must get the box of gold which they left in their garden, and
give it to their children," The woman answered, "Yes, yes, I will do it, but go away, I
cannot look at you.” The "cafre” did not go away. His body separated again into
many parts and were scattered over the floor. They were changed into long cigars.
When the woman saw these cigars she ran away from the house to a forest. After
three days she wen-t to the garden and took the box of gold, and gave it to the
children. But she did not return to the house any more because she was afraid of the
"cafre." 209
#lost treasure
People say that long ago, Mt. Arayat was the abode of a young and beautiful
enchantress named Maria, popularly known as Mariang Sinukuan. But she was noted
not so much for her light and graceful figure but for her kind and generous heart, Her
palace which no one was allowed to enter, was said to be of pure gold. During fiestas
and extraordinary occasions she used to lend earrings, rings and other ornaments of
gold to some poor deserving maidens.
How she withdrew this privilege and other tokens of her favor is explained by this
story. At the foot of this mountain, is the town of Arayat. Every day she used to send
her negrito slaves to barter for some fodder for her numerous litters of pigs. For every
ganta of bran she exchanged one ganta of gold dust and nuggets of gold. In fact she
was so rich that even the measure was made of gold. Time came when the people of
Arayat became so interested in "all that glitters" that they did not want the gold dust
only but they wanted the gold measure also. In order to do this, they killed the negrito
slaves.
From that time, Mariang Sinulman sent her slaves no more and the supply of gold
came to an end. The people were punished for their greediness. In their effort to get
more, they lost all! 251
#lost treasure
G.P.D. 1987. "Treasure-hunting in Southeast Asia." Economic
and Political Weekly 22 (13):532-533.
What gives his [retired Maj General, John K Singlaub’s] arrival a Robert Louis
Stevenson novelcharacter is that by his own confession he has travelled to the
Treasure Islands of the Philippines in search of several million dollars worth of
treasure and loot that the Japanese General Yamashita had buried in as many as 172
different places in the island. Gen Yamashita was executed by the allies in 1946. Ever
since his execution the storiesof the treasure he is supposed to have buried in the
Philippines seem to surface from time to time. Recently the stories were in circulation
again. Gen Singlaub is back here to look for that treasure. [532]
But there is no gold more shining than the blood of communists, Gen Singlaub might
say! 533
#lost treasure
Rafael, Vicente L. 1988. Contracting colonialism: Translation and

Christian conversion in Tagalog society under early Spanish rule.
Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
It appears that the natives [in Noli me tangere] are compelled to submit to the priest’s
authority despite, indeed because of, the fact that his sermon is almost
incomprehensible. 2
#unintelligibility
Concomitantly, he [Phelan in Hispanization of the Philippines] commends the natives’
“capacity ... for creative social adjustment” to the colonial regime. 5
#accommodation and resistance
Wolters sums them up as follows: “Cognatic kinship, an indifference towards lineage
descent, and a preoccupation with the present that came from the need to identify in
one’s own generation those with abnormal spiritual qualities are, in my opinion, three
widely represented cultural features in many parts of early Southeast Asia” [O.W.
Walters, History, culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspective].
In traditional Southeast Asia, kinship—determining the construction of descent and
genealogy—was crucial in the development of authority and hierarchy. Cognatic
kinship involving the recognition of bilateral descent resulted in, among other things,
the “downgrading of the importance of lineage based on claims to status through
descent from a particular male or female.” Thus kinship networks in the region have
been characteristically arbitrary, tending to extend far beyond the nuclear family. In
addition, the marginalization of lineage descent made genealogy shallow. Wolters
points out that ancient Cambodian genealogies, for example, “were important not to
justify a ruler’s legitimacy but to distinguish those among his contemporaries—
probably distant kinsfolk identifiable through their forebears—whom he could regard
as his supporters.” Similarly, in Bali and in the Philippine archipleago, “the
achievement of founding a line of descent is emphasized rather than that of
perpetuating an old one” [Wolters, 9] [13]
Genealogy thus acted as a provisional, revisable marker rather than as an
unassailable organizing principle of authority. It was a means of differentiating and
reckoning kinship alliances and thereby accentuating the ruler’s current status vis-à-vis
those he ruled, not an immutable basis for the establishment of dynastic states and
feudal prerogatives. There was far less interest in maintaining old and distant ties that
went back in time than in cultivating new kinship networks that would spread out in
space. This practice has had an important effect in structuring leadership in
traditional societies where wealth was measured on the basis not of private property
but of ever-shifting popular support.
In effect, anyone who displayed an inordinate ability to attract and mobilize a
network of loyal followers for ritual, agricultural, commercial, or military purposes
could claim to be what Wolters calls a “man of prowess”. As such, he gained the status
of the community’s “Ancestor,” displacing or incorporating previous ancestors into his
lineage. These leaders were able to attract followers and extend their networks of
dependents because others perceived them to have a surplus of spiritual energy, as
evidenced by their ability to promote a series of beneficial reciprocal exchanges
between the earth and the cosmos—the known and unknown realms of society—as
well as among that society’s various members. Conversely, the breakdown of such
exchanges, leading to chaos and the disruption of social life, was attributed to the
ebbing of the ruler’s spiritual energy, and the people then attached themselves to a
new authority figure. Power and reciprocity were thus seen to originate in discrete and
substitutable centers of authority. 14
[Footnote 13:] In this connection see the highly influential essay of Benedict
Anderson, “The idea of Power in Javanese Culture” in Culture and Politics in Indonesia
...]
#messianism #check if added
It is not until Spanish conquest that distinct ethnolinguistic groups are designated,
most of them in terms that are still in current use. It is as if “Tagalog,” along with
“Ilocano,” “Visayan,” and so forth, did not exist as historical and linguistic categories
before Spanish writers classified and categorized them as such. Thus one cannot write
about Tagalog local history without taking into account the presence of alien
colonizers who recorded and so lent documentary density to the reality of “Tagalog”
as a distinct ethnolinguistic group among numerous others in the archipelago. People
who spoke Tagalog certainly existed before the Spaniards took note of them; yet our
ability to speak of them as a group qualitatively distinct from other groups is directly
dependent on their having been previously objectified—through the translation of
their language, the descriptions of their customs and politics, and the recording of
their responses to colonial authority—in Spanish accounts. 16
#construction of indigeneity #article: virgin birth
But as I noted in the Introduction, certain key terms retained their Latin or Castilian
forms—Dios, Virgen, Espíritu Santo, Cruz, Doctrina Cristiana, and the like. In order to
maintain the “purity” of the concepts that these words conveyed, the missionaries left
them untranslated, convinced that they had no exact equivalents in Tagalog. 29
#unintelligibility [PK: See also Zuckerman on ‘Amen’ and “Hallelujah”]
The possibility of resituating the vernacular within a hierarchy of languages hinges on
establishing a continuity between translation and the ritual commemoration of the
central tenet of Christianity: the death and resurrection of Christ. Such is conceivable
if one thinks of rituals, first of all, as forms of linguistic events. An essential feature of a
ritual is that, like language, it is reiterable. But unlike other forms of speech, rituals are
believed by their practitioners not only to reflect an event that has already occurred
but to cause that event to happen again. In the Catholic mass, for example, the death
and resurrection of Christ is not merely recounted but reenacted as well. 33
#ritual language
In converting the Tagalog language to the terms of Latin grammar, on the one hand,
and Spanish-Catholic concepts into Tagalog words, on the other, the missionaries
ensured the position of Castilian as an indispensable mediator of linguistic transfers
analogous to the Spanish priest as the exalted broker in the transactions between God
and his converts. 35
#chapter 1
The 1745 arte of Sebastián Totanes is symptomatic of the Spanish wishfulness with
regard to the question of Tagalog writing. The first section of the work, titled “The
Tagalog Alphabet in Our Castilian Characters,” states that he no longer finds it
necessary to illustrate babayin characters becase “rare is the indio who still knows how
to read them, much less write them. All of them read and write our Castlian letters
now.” [Totanes, Sebastián P. Arte de la lengua tagala y manual para la administración de los
santos sacramentos. Manila: Convento de Nuestra Señora de Loreto, 1745, p1.] 51
#chapter 1
Totanes:
They have no F but they supplement it with a P so that to say confesar, they say compisal. Nor
LL to say cavallo, they say cabayo, because they substitute for it a Y. Nor do they have X, or
Z, or J, substituting for them S...
Neither do they have a strong R, so that to say ramo they say damo, because they supplement
it with a D... Neither do they have Ce or i as we do when we pronounce the name Cicerón...
Neither do they have a Ge as in general or Gi like gines ... [Totanes, p2]
52
#phonotactics
Totanes:
There are only three vowels: because E and I are commonly mistaken for each other and are
used almost indifferently, now one, now the other, especially in writing; though in speaking
they use the I more. At the beginning of the sentence, there is no need to look for E, owing to
the barbarity of the Tagalogs. The same occurs with O and U, which are mistaken in speaking
as they almost always are in writing, and they often convert one into the other, especially when
forming the passive. For example, arao, day, they sa arauan [to expose something in the
daylight]; ligao, to appear, linilitauan ang catauan &c [the body is appearing]. E and O they
call malata, i.e., soft [blanda]. I and U they call matigas, i.e., hard [dura]. Such is the
explanation of the indios for violating our five vowels. (p.1) 52
#phonotactics #chapter 5 #chapter 7 [is there an Eskayan word ‘malata’?]

At the close of the Spanish regime, only about 10 percent of the population could
actually understand [Spanish[ [footnote: Census of the Philippine Islands, 1903, 3 vols
(Washington, US Government printing office, 1905) 56
Hearing Castillian [in the macaronic poem of Tomas Pinpin in Librong Pagaaralan nagn
manga Tagalog nang uicang Castilla. In La primera imprenta en Fiipinas, ed. Manual Artigas y
Cuerva, pp. 235-359. Manila: Germania, 1910], one is thus reminded of that which
does not belong and is alien to Tagalog but nonetheless insists on lodging itself there.
64
#unintelligibility
In a colonial context, Tagalog infused with untranslatable Latin and Castilian words
now seemed not alien, exactly, yet not quite one’s own language, either. The
untranslated Latin and Castilian terms were the traces of an outside force breaking
into the fabric of the convert’s language. They made it necessary to translate within
one’s own language, that is, to distinguish between terms that had indigenous
referents and terms whose meanings lay outside of what could be said in Tagalog.
Thus the presence of Latin and Castilian terms in Tagalog opened up for the natives
the possibility of finding in their language something that resisted translation. Their
way of coming to terms with this resistance, however, differed from that of the
Spaniards. It is on this difference in approach to the untranslateable—in ways of
domesticating one’s discourse—that I wish to focus. 111
#unintelligibility
Father Murillo Velarde:
“The marvel is that many indios and a great many Indian women, at the mere sound of the
preaching in the mission and without understanding what they hear, are stricken with
contrition, confess themselves, and receive communion in order to gain indulgences—to their
own great advantage and to the unspeakable consolation of their confessors at seeing the
wonderfully loving providence of God for these souls.” [Blair and Robertson (?) ww:33-34)
#unintelligibility
The fact that translation lends itself to either affirmation or evasion of the social order
is what gives it its political dimension. It draws boundaries between what can and
cannot be admitted into social discourse even as it misdirects the construction of its
conventions. Translation, in whatever mode, leads to the emergence of hierarchy,
however conceived. This tendency raises another possibility that haunts every
communicative act: that at some point translation may fail and the social order then
may crumble. As Siegel points out, a risk is involved in any attempt to traverse the gap
that separates one from others. 211
#translation
Dumont, Jean-Paul. 1988. The Tasaday, Which and Whose?

Toward the political economy of an ethnographic sign.
Cultural Anthropology 3:3, 261-275
It could be said, however, that [the Tasaday] were born to history on June 7, 1971
[…] 262
#chapter 10 #article: lumina
From this standpoint, there are no Tasaday per se, but only a social and symbolic
relationship, and it is the only analysable reality here. 263
Certainly, the Filipino peasants who fed their large families on a handful of rice
seasoned with a small morsel of dried fish and on whom fell, intermittently and
reluctantly, the pitying and condescending gaze of the presidential family, offered all
the elements required of a prefabricated symbol of the Philippines. But the very
peasants also belonged, and with reason, to a dangerous class, to a rural proletariat
prone—they have shown it clearly throughout history—to rebellion. 264
The symbolic value of other Philippine tribal groups and of an array of different
Filipino peasants paled before that of the primitive Tasaday, who appeared so
peaceful, so simple, so humble, so satisfied with their lot, and who spoke—wonder of
wonders—in a vernacular so marvellously deprived of a word for “war.” Here they
were the perfect embodiment of the wildest aspirations of the Marcos regime. 264
PK: Eskaya are in some sense the anti-Tasaday, embodying rebellion and with
multiple words associated with war, and a mythic tradition of belligerence. Contra
emphasis on Tasaday’s fragility (see House Resolution bill for Eskaya)
Immediately upon their discovery, the Tasaday had become useful objects, little
meaning-making machines. Because they gave, in the open air theatre of nature, the
permanent performance of a living and eternal Filipino folklore, the State could
dream of harmonies. 265
In the United States, just as in the Philippines, it was not the Tasaday per se, with their
ridiculously minuscule number, who were relevant to the public, but rather it was the
sign they were supposed to make. If it was a relatively arbitrary sign, which I am ready
to concede, it was also a relatively determined one since history enclosed and
contained it in its network of significations. 267
[…] the semiotic conditions that lead to the inevitability of such a “discovery”. 267
#prologue #chapter 10 #article: lumina
[MacLeish, Kenneth and John Launois. 1972. Stone Age Men of the Philippines.
National Geographic 142(3):219-250]:
“Nothing is more gentle than man in his primitive state,” wrote French philosopher Jean-
Jacques Rousseau two centuries ago. His theory about the human condition seems borne out
by this Tasaday child [photographed] and his defenseless kin, who must now depend on the
protection of 20th-century man for their very survival as a people [1972:248] 270

As a result, one can begin to see, through the publication—and in the popularity—of
anthropological texts, how a social science functions as ideology that, in its imaginary
apprehension, does not “discover” any truth, but invents—or constructs—a reality.
272
#methodology: anthropology
In its bone-dry form, when even in its metaphors, positivistic and scientistic,
anthropology takes itself seriously. It postures within a genre, “le genre sérieux,” to use
Diderot’s expression, recently resurrected by Clifford Geertz (1983). But here, as
elsewhere, all is in flux, and the most serious risk of this seriousness is that it might
degenerate all too quickly into the ridiculousness of an austere and pedantic tone, into
boredome and obsolescence—in other words, into the pretense of having reached the
truth of Tasadayity. 273
#methodology: anthropology #chapter 10 #article: lumina
1990-1999
Agbayani, Pacita R. 1990. Duero: yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Tagbilaran: Department of Education, Culture and Sports.
The terrain of Taytay is mountainous with thick forest. It has loam and clay soil. The
inhabitants make use of their cool place, a haven for vegetable track gardening and
coffee plantations. Due to the presence of abundant abaca, they also engage in rope
making. They earn their living by marketing various vegetables to Jagna and Duero.
Taytay has a communal farm and garden whose proceeds are for their visitors and
barangay expenses. The Gulayan ng Bayan of the province of Bohol is in Taytay.
Taytay constructed its house of prayer in the center of the place. Their religion is
(Aglipayan) Pilipinista. They celebrate their feast every May 1, with its patron saint
Our Lady of Perpetual Succor.
[...]
At present this minority barangay of Bohol enjoys privileges from the government.
Every Sunday they have an Eskaya class whose teachers are the old people. They
teach without any compensation because they want the Eskaya to be handed down to
the next generation. This group of people have their own culture. When visitors are
around they will entertain them with their own songs and dances. Despite being in the
hinterland, unity is beyond compare. One of the very important personalities of this
place is an ex-army, by the name of Fabian Baja, the founder of the barangay, during
the tenure of Ex-Mayor Loreto Achacoso, and the ESKAYA.
The early setters used to pass the place by walking at the top of the mountain. This
mountain trail is used in going to neighboring barangays like Bangwalog or
Abakhanan. The people passed the place and said “wanay tay kami”. They prepared
the trail on the mountain top for they were afraid of the wild animals in the forest. So
they called the place “Taytay”. This barangay was created in 1945. 17
#history of taytay, #folk etymology #chapter 10 (Abakano)
They are a close-knit group under a fatherly leader whom they hold in high esteem.
They affectionately call him Nong Bian nee Fabian Baja. His words are law to them
which they obey willingly.
A day is set every week for group work in which everbybody reports for work, be it
farm, beautication (sic), or community work. Their barangay is a very clean place,
neatly swept and beautification and sanitation are meticulously kept. Stray animals
are nowhere to be found. Their public buildings are free of vandalism as are common
in most public buildings elsewhere. [...]
They are presently enjoying the benefits of DELSI-LIFE. The acronym stands for
Development of an Effective Learning System for the Improvement of Life. A project
undertaken by the Bureau of Non-Formal Education. 18
#history of taytay
Aparece, Rolando B and Doria Abundia. 1990. The history of

Sierra Bullones. Tagbilaran: Department of Education,
Culture and Sports. Cantaub:
Cantaub was the last defense made during the Second World War. The Sixth [3]
Army which had its Mobilization Center at Dat-an, Carmen notified the townspeople
of impending danger of Japanese invasion. so the people went to Cantaub and
established a fortification but the war did not occur because there was already an
order to surrender. 4
#history of biabas
Cadavez, Bartolome R. 1990. Guindulman: It’s historical data and

facts. Tagbilaran: Department of Education, Culture and
Sports.
Biabas:
Long ago, this barangay was considered as a forest zone. The people of Ubay and
Mabini used to pass through this place for their shortcut passage in going to Pilar and
Candagas presently known as Sierra Bullones. They used to eat their meals under the
shade of a big guava tree where a cold spring was found at the foot of said tree. As
time rolled on people come to live in this place. But some people from other places
still continued to pass through this place. Once asked where they would eat their
meals, they used to answer “In Biabas.” Hence the present name Biabas.
The barangay Biabas has total land area of 1,478 square meters [5] and is composed
of three sitios.
It is bounded by mountains and rolling hills with several creeks. It has a population of
983 people more or less. Most of them are farmers and few are professionals. The
important products that abound in said place are rice, corn, coconuts, bananas,
coffee, camote, cassava, and abaca plants. 6
#history of biabas #chapter 8 #check if added
Chapter IV, ‘Folklore’ (Guindulman):
Upon arrival at the house where the reception is to be held, rice grains are showered
unto (sic) the couple at the doorway to wish them a life of plenty. This is followed by
the combing of the hair of both parties, the bride and the groom, to signify peace and
harmony. Then the couple are made to drink water from the same glass with the
belief that they will remain cool whenever disagreements arise. 55
Building a House –
a) The first post is to be planted at early dawn to insure peace among the members of
the household.
b) Pieces of coins are buried underneat the posts to insure a life of plenty.
c)When a family transfers to a new house, it is done at early dawn to have peace in the
house all the time. 56
1. People in this town are generally helpful. When a member of a family dies, the
people in the nighborhood readily give their assistance in the form of “tampuhay” the
local term for contribution in order to help, a little if not much, the financial problems
of the bereaved family 56
Camacho, Dulceña. 1990. This is our town: Loon South

District. Tagbilaran: Department of Education, Culture and
Sports.
The early 1900 marked the beginning of the American period. But the records
whether oral or documented are not clear. Contemporaries tell that the first two
decades of the 1900’s was characterized by skirmishes between the occupying
American forces and the Filipino rebles notoriously caled “insurrectos”. Many of the
town ilustrados left the municipality to neighboring municipalities like Calape and
Maribojok and even to other provinces like Camotes Islands in Cebu and in Leyte.
Progress was plodding slowly while in the peirod of transition. The only major
development during the time was the establishment of Loon Central School in 1915. 4
Parish priests:
Martin Torrillos Mariano 1850
Antonio beda 1850
Antonio de la Satnisima Trinidad 1851
Sivestre Hernando 1852
Jose Garcia 1854
Pablo Navarro 1890
Francisco Araya 1892
Abrosio Alade 1893
Felix Guillen: 23 August, 1893
Filomena Orbeta: 6 November, 1898
106
#history of loon #chapter 8 #check if added
Luengo, Josemaria Salutan. 1991. A history of the Philippines: A

focus on the Christianization of Bohol (1521–1991). Tubigon,
Bohol: Mater Dei Publications.
The author presents the microhistory focusing on Bohol and ushers the readers with a
sense of history and truth to the cogent discovery and acceptance of the following:
1. That the genesis of the Ancient Boholanos is traced back to the Semitico-
Phoenicians, Expert Seamen, sent by King Solomon and King Hiram in 621 B.C.,
whose remnants were the Eskayas of 726 A.D. still surviving during the Dagohoy
Revolution. The Spaniards respectively called them "Los Tingianes, or Monteses
Serranos or Rebeldes Pulahanes", and are still living in Bohol as the "Mabansagon ug
Hamiling mga Lumadnong Tomindok sa Blangay sa..." i
#definition: indigenous #pulahanes
That the Royal Educational Decree of 1836 providing obligatory elementary
education originally for Bohol paved the way to the issuance of the Educational
Decree of 1862 by Queen Isabela II for the whole Philippines. Such Educational
Decree brought about the educational system of the Philippines and is held as the
Philippine Bible of Education. i
The 9 justifications are few indices to point out cogent and important facts Filipino
historians-researchers wittingly or unwittingly have left out. It is the author’s hope
they could open the minds of the Filipino academicians and researchers, who seek the
truth that will make them FREE AT LAST!
It is expected that there will be shrill hollers of protests against this work. However,
such protests should occasion in-depth investigations and written documentary
exhibits of errata correcta to the errata corrigenda.
It is then imperative for research-oriented Filipinos to shed off the uncomfortable
straightjacket of the colonial-minded historians and historiographers. Such have no
place in this time of digital precision and laserbeam. i
#funny #crackpots #chapter 10

[Acknowledgements:] Judge Simplicio Apalisok for helping to straighten up some

impressions that form part of this work;
Engr. Jess B. Tirol for presenting a paper corrobarative of the author's errata
corrigenda; iii
Were Magellan and the Spaniards really the discoverer of this archipelago? Much
earlier than 1521-326 B.C., - the archipelago already was discovered by the Pacific
Armenoids who originally came from Mesopotamia (later called Babylonia, and still
later named Baghdad) long after the Babel diaspora. It was they who came earlier and
became our ancestors. [1]
There were two kinds of Armenoids (Aryans), according to the direction they travelled
long after the Babel diaspora, namely, the atlantic Armenoids, who rode in a payrus
boat, the Rah ( in honor of the sun god), and drifted to the Carribean islands and to
South America. They became the ancestors of the Incas of Peru, Mayas of
Guetemala, Aztecs of Mexico and other ancient tribes in the Americas.
The Pacific Armenoids, who first settled in the Indus, became the ancestors of the
Indo-Europeans, with their Sanskrit language. They were pushed down to Southwest
India and Southeast Asia during the conquest of Alexander the Great. Some of them,
riding in reed boats, drifted to the islands of Polynesia (Hawaii, Tahiti, Pagopago,
Borabora, etc.), Micronesia and Indonesia during the Thessalocracy of Phoenecia, the
voyagers of Solomon and Hiram. 2
#lost tribes of Israel #chapter 1 [Add after the sentence: “…Boholano values of social
unity and piety had been successfully passed forward from their Eskaya forebears.”
Note: also links to theory of Alexander the Great and a supposed migration of ‘Pacific
Armenoids’]
The Armeno-Medan-Persian-Aryan Pacific Armenoids came in 326-100 B.C.
Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedonia and Olympias, daugher of
Neoptolemeus of Epirus, had ascended the throne in 336 B.C. In 327 B.C. great
conquests were secured.
Alexander the Great then returned to Afghanistan and prepared to invade India,
which he later reached through the Khyber Pass. In 326, he crossed the Indus. In 12
years he made himself king and master of Asia.
"The first inhabitants of Sulu, the Cotabato (Pulangi) was a couple named Jamiyun
Kulisa and Indira Suga. They were sent over by Alexander the Great. The Suluans
believe that Alexander the Great himself came to Sulu and that their ancient rulers
were descended from him" [fn]
Zaide called this exodus of the Pacific Armenoids: Malays, who acquired the skill of
navigation from Aryans and Phoenicians, who constructed the Rice Terraces of
Banaue, the Giant Statues in the Easter Island, the Temple of Burobodur, while the
Atlantic Armenoids built the Temple City of Michupichu (sic), Peru, the Pyramids of
Mexico, the Mayan Temple of Guatemala, etc. These are the Zigurats or heaven-
shooting structures scattered all over the earth.
This exodus of Malays to the Pacific World, navigating the vast stretches of the
unchartered Pacific resulted in the discovery and colonization of new lands and
islands as far as Korea, Southern Japan, Polynesia, Micronesia and even as far as
Madagascar and South Africa. These Malay (Pacific Armenoids) including the
Filipinos, were the first discoverers of the Pacific world long before Columbus and
Magellan. [5]
#chapter 10 [might fit in somewhere around discussion of cultural calquing or the
‘Prince of Manila]
The second wave of Malay-Armenoids migrated to this archipelago in 621 B.C. -1276
A.D. This wave of migrants used the alphabet they had derived from the Sumerian
cueniform, Egyptian heiroglyphics or Phoenician scriptology.
These became the ancestors of the Subanons Bisayan, Tagalog, Ilokanos, Bikolanos,
Pampangos and other Chrisian Filipinos of animistic creed converted to the Christian
Faith at the advent of Fr. Pedro Valderrama.
From the Sri-Vidjayas Dynasty at Palembang to the Madjapahit Dynasty at
Menangkabao came in 1276-1389 A.D. the ten Datus. Because both dynasties were
animistic with Hinduistic colorations, they were opposed and subsequently conquered
by the Malaccan dynasty which was Islamic and tyrannical to the Gentiles. It was in
this period, when many freedom-loving Malay-Armenoids opposed the tyrant Sultan
of Borneo. So the ten Datus under the leadership of Datu Puti, the Sultan's chief
minister decided to leave Borneo and to seek their freedom and new homes beyond
the Bornean seas, in their binidays (balanghai) guided only by the stars. They were:
Datu Puti, the leader; Datu Sumakwel, Datu Bankaya, Datu Paiburong, Datu
Dumangsil, Datu Balkasusa, Datu Dumangsul, Datu Dumalogdog, Datu Lubay and
Datu Paduhinog. 6
#lost tribes of Israel
#article: literature #boholano-eskaya traditions
Extramesopotamian Civilization. Civilization is the art of living together. The
Mesopotamians who were disperesed all over the vast earth continued to build their
own cities, kingdoms, and civilization. The stupefying engineering and architecture of
those ancient massive structures they started in the multi-aeonic Babylon were carried
over as a pattern for all the colossal constructions which modern science cannot
explain, such as, the pyramids of Egypt, Michu Pichu (sic), Peru and Mexico; the
gigantic statues in England and in the Easter Islands of the Pacific; the pcituresque
rice terraces of Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines; the Great Walls of China, etcetera. 8
"There were four brothers and one sister who were warriors living in Solud-Banua,
now Cotabato, along the bank of the Pulangi River, now Mindanao River of Rio
Grande. The four brothers, from the eldest were, Tabunaway, Menelered, Dumalan-
dalan and Bumabongabon. They had a sister calld Dahumpalay whom the Sultan of
Sulu abducted and made his wife thereby becoming the mother of the Tausugs of
Sulu. [Timuay Imbing, Unpublished Manuscript (Western Mindanao State
University, Zamboanga City, Philippines) and lecture to graduate students of St
Colombun College Pagadian, consortium with WMSU, January 18, 1979. “Historical
Notes on the Subanon Tribe of Lapuyan, Zambonga del Sur”].14
The Aryans, the first inhabitants of Mesopotamia, orginally had an orthodox doctrine
about God but, in the course of time, this doctrine was prostituted by Balaamistic
Hinduistic practices. However, the baseline belief was Semitic, that is, God will come
in the form of a child born of a woman and this Son of God (Messiah) will liberate
man from the slavery of sin. The Boholanos had a great predisposition to Christianity
due to the bottom-line animistico-SEMITIC belief in BATHALA-DIWATA 17
#lost tribes of Israel #chapter 10 [around ‘Prince of Manila’?]
But it is noteworthy that those ghomatans (kings, not rajahs) and their tribes had been
open to the new Faith not because of political convenience or fear, nor because of
Spanish power or ploys, but because the Spaniards came with the child God whose
coming they had long awaited in their animistic hearts, where the concepts of spirit
and divinity lurked waiting to be fine-tuned by cathechism and theology, the
evangelization. 20
#chapter 10 [around ‘Prince of Manila’?] #commensuration
Later, those Concepcion Christians would meet the Jesuit missionaries and give the
latter the pleasant surprise of learning that in that land there were already Christians.
Thus, the Gospel Values were first preached by the Lay crewmen escapees from the
gory massacre in Cebu in 1521. 32
...in their belief in Bata-Alah through Diwa-Bata: the child-God: God-Child. 77
#folk etymology #chapter 7
In the letter of Fr. Domingo Ynsausti, Rector of Cebu to the Fr. Provincial Bernardo
Pazuengos on June 25, 1759, Fr. Ynsausti made him aware that the rebels of Bohol
had attacked Loon, burning houses, wounding and killing some who refused to follow
them. The captain accompanied by three soldiers and people with weapons caused
them to withdraw with a threat to go back so as to destroy the town. [fn]
#history of loon #article: dagohoy
A Royal Decree of 1836 (sic?) mandated that in all the towns of Bohol, no matter how
small primary schools must be established at the cost of the Comunidad de Indios
Fund. The children were obliged to attend and learn the christian doctrine, reading,
writing, counting and singing. Parents found to be negligent in complying with this
decree should be penalized with eight-day imprisonment to be policed and imposed
by the gobernadorcillo through previous agreement with the parish priest: [fn]
Asi que en el ano 1836, un real decreto nos informo que en todos los pueblos de la isla de
Bohol, aunque fueran pequenos, debian tener una escuela de primera letras contadas todas del
fondo llamado de Comunidad de Yndios. A ella deberian asistir todos los varones y au las
mujeres para aprender leer y escribir. A los padres, que no [144] hicienro caso o descuidaran la
educacion de sus hijos recibirian un castigo de 8 dias de carcel ... se les impone por el
governadorcillon con previo acuerdo del cura parroco. 145
Before the Educational Decree of Isabel II, education in the Philippines was carried
out in the parishes. There was no systematic national policy and ministry of education
under the auspices of the Government. It was only first in 1836 in Bohol, then in 1862
in the whole archipelago, that the goverment took interest in obligatory elementary
education. Contemporary Philippine Education calls this decree the Bible of
Philippine education:
Education in the Philippines has always been traced back to the early Spanish regime with the
Lancasterian method introduced by Fray Juan de la Pasencia in 1575 until the Educational Decree of
Isabel II in 1862, in which the official systematization of public school teacing was established. 145
Thus, Fr. Juan Nuñez Crespo became the First Filipino diocesan Priest in 1621, the
very year when Tamblot rebelled against Spain. 150
La palabra Bahala es derivada de Bata y Ala-Hijo de Dios. Bathala se confirma con el Divata de los
Visayaos: Diwa y Bata. No sin misterio quiso la providencia de Dios que el primer hllazgo de los
primitivos españoles, como verdadero creador de cielo y de tierra y Redentor de linaje humano. [Fn:
Chirino via Luengo, Rosales] 167
#folk etymology
It was during the time of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan that Franciscan missionaries
were sent to Peking, and many nobles and merchants were converted to the Faith.
The Christian population spread exponentially so that after the Sung Dynasty the
subsequent emperors were inimical to the Christians. Persecution ensued and the
Christians were compelled to live incognito. Many of them fled to the coastal regions.
A great many of them riding in sampans came to the Philippines in the guise of
merchants and traders. They practised the Faith of their forebears by living the gospel
value of honesty in barter trade and honor in their commercial transactions. [...]
It was during the exodus of the latent Chinese christians that many of them came to
the Philippines. Especially in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, these latent christians
came to Bohol. They took native wives and taught their children the Chinese skills,
trades, [168] recreational pastimes such as paguingi chungka, the use of iron, tin
copper, silverwares, jars, wares and wears. But what was implicitly taught were the
Christian virtues of love and respect for parents and elders, patience, industriousness
and many gospel values that are still even upheld and practiced today 169
#commensuration
Fr. Torres was so surprised to be informed that a ready made church has been built
and is given to the missionary as a gift:
Me parti a una parte de la isla hacia el Oriente que llaman las Minas de Talibon, la tierra
adentro como cinco o seis dias de la playa, base por unas fescas hesa hasta llegar a unos montes
que son los que tenian las minas. Habia mucha gente de todas partes que concurria a los
lavadores del oro; llegando , alli, un buen Espanol me recipio y regalo el qual tenia ya hecha
una Iglesia, para que se recogiessen los cristianos y oyessen misma confesion. [fn: Colin, Pstells,
Lavor Evangelica etc, via Rosales] 170
Karyapa lamented the ruin of the Diwata upon the arrival of those people who would
possess this island of Bohol:
Baibai co sa nagbanua
Bulong co sa nagcubayon
Cai magdalibaliba ra anb banua
Magcapuera ra ang cubayon
Mabulag ra quining lungsond
Matumpang ra quining cubayon
[fn: rosales] 174
The Boholanos, tracing their roots from the Pacific Armenoids and the Eskaya
immigrants to the island 3,000 B.C. and across centuries, have interwoven their
cultural values and religious ideals and convictions underlying their commitment to
Christ translated them into the language of daily living of the Gospel. In the local
ecclesial community, the Dioces of Tagbilaran, the Boholano People (ever Boholano)
is a walking public document of the Mission of the Church. 215
#chapter 10 [around ‘Prince of Manila’]
Anderson, Benedict. [1991] 2003. Imagined communities:
reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. Pasig City:
Anvil Publishing.
With a certain ferocity Gellner [Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change, p169, emphasis
added] makes a comparable point when he rules that ‘Nationalism is not the
awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it invents nations where they do not exist.’
The drawback to this formulation, however, is that Gellner is so anxious to show that
nationalism masquerades under false pretences that he assimilates ‘invention’ to
‘fabrication’ and ‘falsity’, rather than to ‘imagining’ and ‘creation’. In this way he
implies that ‘true’ communities exist which can be advantageiously juxtaposed to
nations. In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact
(and perhaps even these) are imagined. 7
But Christendom, the Isalmic Ummah, and even the Middle Kingdom – which,
though we think of it today as Chinese, imagined itself not as Chinese, but as [12]
central – were imagineable largely through the medium of a sacred language and
written script. 13
#imagined communities #writing systems
All the great classical communities conceived of themselves as cosmically central,
through the medium of a sacred language linked to a superterrestrial order of power.
Accordingly, the stretch of written Latin, Pali, Arabic, or Chinese was, in theory,
unlimited. (In fact, the deader the written language – the farther it was from speech –
the better: in principle everyone has access to a pure world of signs.) 13
Yet if the sacred silent languages were the media through which the great global
communities of the past were imagined, the reality of such apparitions depended on
an idea largely foreign to the contemporary Western mind: the non-arbitrariness of
the sign. The ideograms of Chinese, Latin, or Arabic were emanations of reality not
randomly fabricated representations of it. [...] There is no idea here of a world so
separated from language that all languages are equidistant (and thus interchangeable)
signs for it. In effect, ontological reality is apprehensible only through a single,
privileged system of re-presentation: the truth-language of Church Latin, Qur’anic
Arabic, or Examination Chinese. 14
#imagined communities #primacy of writing
Today, the Thai government actively discourages attempts by foreign missionaries to
provide its hill-tribe minorities with their own transcription-systems and to develop
publications in their own languages: the same government is largely indifferent to
what these minorities speak. 45
#primacy of writing
It is always a mistake to treat languages in the way that certain nationalist ideologues
treat them – as emblems of nation-ness, like flags, costumes, folk-dances, and the rest.
Much the most important thing about language is its capacity for generating imagined
communities, building in effect particular solidarities. 133
As we have seen earlier, in everything ‘natural’ there is always something unchosen.
In this way, nation-ness is assimilated to skin-colour, gender, parentage and birth-era
– all those things one can not help. And in these ‘natural ties’ one senses what one
might call ‘the beauty of Gemeinschaft’. To put it another way, precisely because such
ties are not chosen, they have about them a halo of disinterestedness. 143
If nationalness has about it an aura of fatality, it is nonetheless a fatality embedded in
history. Here San Martín’s edict baptizing Quechua-speaking Indians as ‘Peruvians’ –
a movement that has affinities with religious conversion – is exemplary. For it shows
that from the start the nation was conceived in language, not in blood, and that one
could be ‘invited into’ the imagined community. Thus today, even the most insular
nations accept the principle of naturalization (wonderful word!), no matter how difficult
in practice they may make it. 145
What the eye is to the lover – that particular, ordinary eye he or she is born with –
language – whatever language history has made his or her mother-tongue – is to the
patriot. Through that language, encountered at mother’s knee and parted with only at
the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined, and futures dreamed. 154
In an important recent book [Cracks in the parchment curtain], William Henry Scott has
attempted meticulously to reconstruct the class structue of the pre-Hispanic
Philippines, on the basis of the earliest Spanish records. As a professional historian
Scott is perfectly aware that the Philippines owes its name to Felipe II of ‘Spain,’ and
that, but for mischance or luck, the archipelago might have fallen into Dutch or
English hands, become politically segmented, or been recombined with further
conquests. It is tempting therefore to attribute his curious choice of topic to his long
residence in the Philippines and his strong sympathy whith a Filipino nationalism that
has been, for a century now, on the trail of an aboriginal Eden. But the chances are
good that the deeper basis for the shaping of his imagination was the sources on which
he was [166] compelled to rely. For the fact is that wherever in the islands the earliest
clerics and conquistadors ventured they espied, on shore, principales, hidalgos, pecheros,
and esclavos (princes, noblemen, commoners and slaves) – quasi-estates adapted from
the social classifications of late mediaeval Iberia. The documents they left behind offer
plenty of incidental evidence that the ‘hidalgos’ where mostly unaware of one another’s
existence in the huge, scattered, and sparsely populated archipelago, and, where
aware, usually saw one another not as hidalgos, but as enemies or potential slaves. But
the power of the grid is so great that such evidence is marginialized in Scott’s
imagination, and therefore it is hard for him to see that the ‘class structure’ of the
precolonial period is a ‘census’ imagining created from the poops of Spanish galleons.
Wherever they went, hidalgos and esclavos loomed up, who could only be aggregated as
such, that is ‘structurally,’ by an incipient colonial state. 167
[PK: I thought Scott critiqued Spanish class categories in Looking for the prehispanic
Filipino. Although in his article about textual archeology he seems to take Spanish
lexical equivalents of native terms at face value. PK]
In Europe, the new nationalisms almost immediately began to imagine themselves as
‘awakening from sleep,’ a trope wholly foreign to the Americas. Already in 1803 (as
we have seen in Chapter 5) the young Greek nationalist Adamantios Doraes was
telling a sympatehtic Parisien audience: ‘For the first time the [Greek] nation surveys the
hideous spectacle of its ignorance and trembles in measuring with the eye the distance
separating it from its ancestors’ glory.’ Here is perfectly exemplified the transition
from New Time to Old. ‘For the first time’ still echoes the ruptures of 1776 and 1789,
but Koraes’s sweet eyes are turned, not ahead to San Martín’s future, but back, in
trembling, to ancestal glories. It would not take long for this exhilarating doubleness to
fade, replaced by a modular ‘continuous’ awakening from a chronologically gauged,
A.D.-style slumber: a guaranteed return to an aboriginal essence.
Undoubtedly, many different elements contributed to the astonishing popularity of
this trope. For present purposes, I would mention only two. In the first place, the
trope took into account the sense of parallelism out of which the American
nationalisms had been born and which the success of the America nationalist
revolutions had greatly reinforced in Europe. It seemed to explain why nationalist
movements had bizarrely cropped up in the civilized Old World so obviously later than
in the barbarous New. Read as late awakening, even if an awakening stimulated from
afar, it opened up an immense [195] antiquity behind the epochal sleep. [...]
Until late in the eighteenth century no one thought of these languages [French,
English, Spanish, German] as belonging to any territorially defined group. But soon
thereafter, for reasons sketched out in Chapter 3, ‘uncivilized’ vernaculars began to
function politically in the same way as the Atlantic Ocean had earlier done: i.e. to
‘separate’ subjected national communities off from ancient dynastic realms. And since
in the vanguard of most European popular nationalist movements were literate people
often unaccustomed to using these vernaculars, this anomaly needed explanation. None
seemed better than ‘sleep,’ for it permitted those intelligentsias and bourgeoisies who
were becoming conscious of themselves as Czechs, Hungarians, or Finns to figure
their study of Czech, Magyar, or Finnish languages, folklores, and musics as
‘rediscovering’ something deep-down always known. (Furthermore, once one starts
thinking about nationality in terms of continuity, few things seem as historically deep-
rooted as languages, for which no dated origins can ever be given.) 196
#imagined communities #chapter 9
Berreman, Gerald D. 1992 The Tasaday: Stone Age survivors

or Space Age fakes? In Headland, Thomas N. (ed). The
Tasaday controversy: Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC:
Special Publications of the American Anthropological
Association.
‘Rain Forest Watergate’ 31
#article: lumina #chapter 10
Bodley, John H. 1992. The Tasaday debate and indigenous
peoples. Headland, Thomas N. (ed). 1992. The Tasaday
controversy: Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC: Special
Publications of the American Anthropological Association.
197-199
Historically, there have been many “first” face to face “contacts” between Europeans
and “isolated” indigenous groups. However, referring to such events as “discoveries”
and emphasizing the “first” aspect reinforces the image of indigenous people as
ignorant, if not “lost.” This sort of terminology masks the fact that they know perfectly
well where they are and they probably have a good idea of what lies beyond them. It
masks the possibility that they may be deliberately choosing to avoid contact with
threatening outsiders. 198
#chapter 10
The characteristics of indigenous groups that are most significant in the contemporary
political context are that they are culturally distinct, territorially based, small-scale
communal societies that are self-governing and primarily dependent on local
resources. They need be neither “Stone Age” or “isolated” to self-identify as
indigenous peoples and to claim their internationally recognized rights. The real issue
is political control over territory and resources. 199
#chapter 10
Dumont, Jean-Paul. 1992. Visayan vignettes: Ethnographic traces of

a Philippine island. Chicago and London: University of Chicago
Press.
My initial fieldwork on the Philippines that launched this study was conducted on the
island of Bohol in 1979 thanks to a summer grant from the Graduate School Research
Fund of the University of Washington (Seattle). xi
Headland, Thomas N. (ed). 1992. The Tasaday controversy:

Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC: Special Publications
of the American Anthropological Association.
PK: Front cover of the volume has the caption given on imprint page: “Tasaday man
Gintuy with one of his wives. Photo by Oswald Iten, March 1986”. However, the
chapter by Amelia Rogel-Rara and Ammanuel S. Nabayra ‘The genealogcial
evidence’, shows images of real Tasaday versus Tasaday poseurs with convincing
separate genealogies for each. From the images provided by these authors it is clear
that the front cover image does not show ‘Gintuy with one of his wives’ but Tasaday
poseur Fidlo Swing (see Fig 6) with Tasaday poseur Doloy Budul (incorrectly
identified elsewhere as Tasaday ‘Dul’).
Sponsel, Leslie E. 1992. Our fascination with the Tasaday:
Anthropological images and images of anthropology.
Headland, Thomas N. (ed). The Tasaday controversy: Assessing
the evidence. Washington, DC: Special Publications of the
American Anthropological Association. 200-212
Why are the Tasaday so fascinating? McGrane (1989:95) goes so far as to suggest that
“Anthropological discourse isn’t concerned with what the tribes are ‘in themselves’
but with what they represent.” At several levels the Tasaday represent a complex
symbol with multiple meanings, regardless of whether or not they are in any sense and
to whatever degree authentic. 201
[McGrane. Bernard. 1989. Beyond anthropology: Society and the Other. New York:
Columbia University Press. ]
#chapter 10
The Tasaday offered an island of peace in a sea of violence. In the United States the
Tasaday became one of the symbols of peace during the last phase of the Vietnam
war, especially for the media and public who were saturated with reports of killing.
206
#chapter 10
Headland, Thomas N. 1992 Introduction. In Headland, Thomas

N. (ed). The Tasaday controversy: Assessing the evidence.
Washington, DC: Special Publications of the American
Anthropological Association. 9-17
Some reporters, then, are fighting a straw man by writing treatises arguing that these
Tasaday actually do exist. 14
#prologue
Headland, Thomas N. 1992. Conclusion: The Tasaday: A hoax

or not? In Headland, Thomas N. (ed). The Tasaday controversy:
Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC: Special Publications
of the American Anthropological Association. 215-224
I myself have observed Agta foragers hide their shorts or T-shirts and put on G-strings
when they knew a government official from Manila was coming. 220
[Footnote 11]: I know of three specific instances of this among the Agta: (1) On May
7, 1964, when the then –Secretary of Education for the Philippines, Alehandro Roces,
visited the Agta and had lunch in our home. (2) On July 4, 1977, when the then-
Minister of Defence, Juan Ponce Enrile, visited Casiguran, and about 40 Agta men
greeted him when his helicopter landed, all dressed in the same-colored G-strings, and
no shirts. (3) In 1976, when three farmer women, all one-fourth Agta by blood (but
who do not speak Agta) went to Manila, dressed in wrap-around Agta-style skirts and
Agta necklaces and arm bands, and reportedly made a call upon the Panamin
directors to request help. I personally observed the first two cases. The third case was
later described to me by two of the three women. The majority of Agta men normally
wear cotton G-strings (usually with shirts); but in the above cases they purposely
undressed themselves or, in case 2, were ordered to do so by the local military
commander, in order to look exotic in front of outsiders they wanted to impress. 223
Molony, Carol H. 1992. The Tasaday language: Evidence for

authenticity? 107-116
It is as if there were some need to view them only in black and white: either they are
Stone Age primitives, as the journalists reported 18 years ago, or they are participants
in some elaborate hoax, as we are being told today. 116
#chapter 10 #prologue
If the Tasaday are said not to be a distinct, anthropologically unique tribe, there will
be no reason to treat them any differently from other natives. They, like others, may
have to give up their land to loggers, miners, and developers. 116
PK: Three trained linguists with impeccable credentials in dialectology and historical
linguistics: Elkins. Molony and Reid all concur that Tasaday represents a separate
dialect.
#chapter 10
Lee, Richard B. 1992. Making sense of the Tasaday: Three

discourses. In Headland, Thomas N. (ed). The Tasaday
controversy: Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC: Special
Publications of the American Anthropological Association.
167-171
The complexities are compounded when we pose the nonquestion: Are the Tasaday
“real”? Of course they are real. But the nature of their “reality” depends on which
discourse we are engaging. 167
#prologue
What we must resist is the temptation to jump on the debunking bandwagon and
wallow in the cynicism and world-weariness that is so characteristic a feature of
contemporary consciousness. 171
#prologue
We must not allow the Tasaday case to be used as a vehicle either for delegitimating
anthropological studies of hunters and gatherers, or as a vehicle for delegitimating the
foragers themselves, by calling into question their cultural autonomy or claims to
authenticity—and by implication their rights to survival as cultural entities. 171
#prologue
[Footnote 1]: Note that to document the hoax, it is not necessary to invoke the two
lines of evidence that generated the most discussion both at the Zagreb and the
Washington meetings: the linguistic data and the genealogical data. 171
#chapter 10
Iten, Oswald, 1992. The “Tasaday” and the press. In Headland,

Thomas N. (ed). The Tasaday controversy: Assessing the
evidence. Washington, DC: Special Publications of the
American Anthropological Association. 40-58
The clothing of the three brothers, especially their shabby T-shirts, differed in no way
from those of the other inhabitants of the area. 42
caption: “relatives from the Tboli and Manobo tribes in the cave which provided the
locale for the Tasaday fraud in 1972”. NOTE: clothed. [also, front cover of
Headland book itself] 45
This time the Tasaday, having been warned by Dafal of the approaching reporters,
were wearing leaves. The German reporters observed, however, that some Tasaday
were wearing colored underpants beneath their leaf G-strings. In addition, some
women had added orchid leaf brassieres to their Stone Age outfit. Finally, 49 Tasaday
gathered at the caves—probably everybody living nearby—since gifts could be
expected. Among them were the five Tasaday men (and their wives) I had
photographed a week earlier . But instead of wearing jeans and T-shirts as in my
pictures, they posed for Stern in their cave-man outfits. 50
Nance’s party found the Tasaday just about as the Stern people had found them.
“Most were topless, although some … covered their breasts with leaf brassieres and
others uneasily crossed their arms over their chest (ibid.:30). Since I had met them
only 34 days earlier in quite different apparel (of which Nance was not yet aware at
the time of his visit), Asiaweek’s text later accounted for the embarrassing and bizarre
photographs by explaining that the pseud0-Stone Age outfit was worn “because they
thought it pleased visitors and [would] thereby bring the Tasaday economic benefits”
(ibid.). It seems the Tasaday did not want to please me. 52
In an interview with a Philippine newspaper (Malayang 1986), Nance also deprives us
quietly of the Stone Age illusion: “They are real people but definitely not Stone Age”
(Malayang 1986, p.10 of the fourth article in the series). Nobody had ever claimed
they were not real flesh-and-blood human beings. 53
#prologue
Peralta, Jesus T. 1992. The role of the national museum of the
Philippines in the Tasaday issue. In Headland, Thomas N. (ed).
The Tasaday controversy: Assessing the evidence. Washington,
DC: Special Publications of the American Anthropological
Association. 157-164
The implication, at least to this author, was that the Tasaday were putting on the
leaves for the benefit of outsiders who had come to see and photograph them, having
been conditioned to this in the past. The less reticent among them even knew what
was wanted of them in terms of action and poses. It appeared that they were conscious
of the image that was wanted of them and, in fact, they were putting on a visual and
even an auditive performance. There was no indication from any of the dialogue that
they had been asked to attempt this seeming deception. It appeared rather to be a
spontaneous attempt to maintain an appearance because of the economic benefits that
it brought. 162
Reid, Lawrence A. 1992. The Tasaday language: A key to

Tasaday prehistory. In Headland, Thomas N. (ed). The
Tasaday controversy: Assessing the evidence. Washington, DC:
Special Publications of the American Anthropological
Association. 180-193
Considerable confusion has surrounded this matter [of language versus dialect],
primarily because some of those who have written on the Tasaday lack linguistic
sophistication. 187
#chapter 10
Questions of whether Tasaday speak an “older” language than some other group are
meaningless, since all languages change from one generation to the next and are
therefore only as old as the generation that speaks them. 187
#chapter 10
I think it more likely that differentiation has been taking place for no more than five
or six generations at the [189] most, perhaps for 100–150 years. 190
[PK: mention genealogical data]
#chapter 10
Salazar, Zeus A. 1992. Third and final footnote on the Tasaday.

76-85
The question as to whether Tasaday speech is an “independent language” may soon
be settled as Dr. Ernesto Constantino is trying his best to have Bidula’s testimony
transcribed by somebody from the area and then analysed more properly. 82
Scott, William Henry. 1992. Looking for the prehispanic Filipino :
and other essays in Philippine history. Quezon City: New Day
Publishers.
#article: virgin birth [PK: from page 4 onwards]
By the 19th century, this whole process of acculturation had been forgotten.
Untattoed Filipinos who wore pants and did not decorate their teeth considered
themselves a different people from mountain tribes with traditional practices now
considered barbaric. College graduates who called themselves Filipinos bitterly
resented being lumped together with headtaking Igorots as indios, especially on the
streets of Madrid. The final turn of the screw came with the Exposition of the
Philippine Islands in the Madrid Zoological Gardens in 1887.
The exhibition of Philippine products and handicrafts had been welcomed by
the Filipino community in Madrid as a means of publicizing the colony’s wealth and
competence for representation in the metropolitan legislature. But they had not
foreseen what was to attract the most attention – an Igorot Village where six Bontoc
warriors, battle-scarred and tattooed, were exhibited and their naked musculature
measured. 7
#article: virgin birth [PK:second migration theories from page 8 onwards]
The silence [on the wave migration theory] is eloquent: probaby the only place where
the theory can be found is in the Philippine school system. 11
The fortunes of the Malacca Filipinos, however, were not based on such petty
commerce as the Philippine trade: rather, they came from ship-owning and the
underwriting of large-scale export ventures in the China market, even letting out small
shares which illiterate Portuguese sailors could afford. The head of this community
was Regimo Diraja, who had attracted his fellows from Luzon in the first place, a
genuine tycoon who sent junks to Brunei, China, Pasai, Siam and Suna, and whose
widow and father-in-law continued his business following his death in 1513. Another
Filipino magnate was Surya Diraja who paid the Portuguese 9,000 cruzadas’ worth of
gold to retain his plantation and country estate, and annuallly sent 175 tons of pepper
to China; one of his junks sailed in the first Portuguese fleet to pay an official visit to
the Chinese Empire [fn]. Considering the high visibility of this Filipino community,
one wonders if a sharp-minded adventurer like Magellan could have been unaware of
the existence and location of the Philippines. Perhaps the “discovery of the
Philippines” was made in Malacca. 31
When he [Magellan] came to the equator, he strangely did not veer west in search of
the Moluccas he knew to be on that line; rather, he continued on and only changed
course when he reached the latitude of Luzon, and then headed direct for the
Philipines [fn]. There, instead of carrying out his orders, he spent six weeks
merchandising, baptizing and politicking in Cebu, and died trying to force a
beachhead in Mactan. Crewman Ginés de Mafra speculated that this unauthorized
behavior was motivated by Magellan’s desire to have Cebu as one of two islands to be
granted him in perpetuity, “because he had said so many times” [fn]. Perhaps the
easiest way to explain this whole scenario is to assume that Magellan knew where he
was going and wanted to get there. 32
The Portuguese had been in the Moluccas since 1511, when freebooter Serrão
established himself as warlord to the Sultan of Ternate, and started writing letters to
Magellan about the location and wealth of the Spice Islands [fn]. [...] Then in 1562,
they struck Bohol with eight Ternatan warships in a raid so shocking it was still on
everybody’s lips when Legazpi arrived. They killed hundreds and carried off both
booty and captives, and then wiped out the Butuanon settlement on Limasawa,
though losing four Portuguese in the action. The paramount chief of Bohol moved to
Mindanao and established himself as an overlord to Subanons in Dapitan, a strategic
point for advance defence against such raids in the future, [fn] [...] 47
#history of bohol
Lost Visayan Literature
It was Chirino who first stated that it was a rare Filipino or Filipina who could not
read and write, an opinion repeated by his Jesuit brothers Francisco Colín and
Franciso Alcina in the next century. That this is a fond exaggeration is inidcated by a
number of Spanish documents containing notarial statements that the litigants did not
sign because they did not know how to. 104
#literacy
Literacy came late to the Visayans. Both Colín and Alcina thought in the 1660’s that
it had been received from the Tagalogs only a few years before the arrival of the
Spaniards. Actually, it seems to have come a little later. Antonio Pigafetta said that
Rajah Kolambu of Limawasa was amazed to see writing for the first time in 1521;
Miguel Loarca said the “Pintados” had no writing at all in 1582; and when Legazpi’s
royal notary took the sworn testimony of a number of Visayans and Borneans in
Bohol in 1565 – including the famous Si Katuna – none of them were able to sign
their names. As it happens, the only known specimens of Visaya penmanship today
are the signatures of Bernadino Dimabasa and Maria Mutia of Bantay Island which
appear in their 1647 divorce proceedings. In Alcina’s day it was assumed that
Philippine literacy was ultimately derived from non-Filipino Muslims because the first
literature Filipinos the Spaniards encountered were the Muslim rulers of Manila.
Thus the Visayans referred to the Philippine script as “Moro writing,” perhaps with a
smug sense of Christian satisfaction.
But Visayan oral literature was well-developed, sophisticated, and ubiquitous
in Visayan life, and it was created and presented by artists rewarded for their skill.
This is amply shown by dicitonaries and descriptions from the early 17th century [...]
105
#literacy #writing systems #visayan literature
Part of Father Alcina’s survey of Visayan culture has been published with an English
translation in Philippiniana Sacra (1978-1985), including [105] a chapter entitled,
“Concerning the alphabet and manner of writing of the Bisayans [and] the various
and particular types of poetry in which they take pride.” 106
#visayan literature
But the essence of Visayan poetic skill lay not so much in a command of vocabulary as
in the ability to use words figuratively to create subtle images. Father Alcina says:
In their poetry, even if not with the variety of rhyme schemes and meters of ours though they
do have their own rhymes [106] somewhat different from ours, they no doubt excel us, for the
language they use in their poems, even most of the words, is very different from what they use
in common everyday speech, so much so that there are very few Europeans who understand
their poems or rimes when they hear them, even if they are very good linguists and know a lot
fo Visayan, because, besides the words and meanings which they use in verse being so
different, even when using the ordinary words they sometimes apply to their courtesies what
they say in verse is so figurative that everything is the subtlest metaphor, and for one who
doesn’t know and understand them, it is impossible to understand them in it.
To this may be added that less sophisticated Visayans were also unable to follow
“deep” poetry, and that when lovers sang to each other, their words became mere
symbols that were understood by nobody but the two of them. 107
#visayan literature #cryptolects
The bikal was another kind of contest which used the ambahan form, a poetic joust
between two men or two women in which they satirized each other's physical or
moral shortcomings, but were expected to harbor no hard feelings afterwards. 108
#visayan literature
[PK: Description of Boholano epic ‘Datung Sumanga and Bugbung Humasanun
pp113-17]
#visayan literature
Visayan Religion at the Time of Spanish Advent
And Cebuanos referred to the image of the Holy Child [119] which Magellan gave
Humabon’s wife as“the Spaniard’s diwata” and supposedly rendered it homage after
Magellan’s death, or took it down to the shore and immersed it in time of drought.
120
#chapter 7
The Tagalog Bathala was well-known in Chirino’s day, but he was the first to mention
a Visayan equivalent, though his statement was repeated verbatim by Jesuits of the
next generation like Diego de Bobadilla and Francisco Colín. But not by Father
Alcina: rather, he devoted one whole chapter to the thesis that Malaon was simply
one of many names which Visayans applied to the True Godhead of which they had
some hazy knowledge. Thus he equated [120] Malaon – who the Samareños thought
was a female – with the Ancient of Days, Makapatag (to level or seize) with the Old
testament God of Vengeance, and Makaobus (to finish) with the Alpha and Omega,
attributing these coincidences to some long-forgotten contact with Jews in China or
India. 121
#lost tribes of israel #commensuration
Mantala were incantations or verbal formulas – e.g., to request crocodiles not to bite or
hot iron not to burn. Awug was a spell put on coconut palms to make a thief’s stomach
swell up; tiwtiw made fish follow the fisherman to shore or wild boar follow the hunter
out of the woods, and oropok caused rats to multiply in somebody’s field. Tagosilangan
were persons with a charm which enabled them to see hidden things, and tagarlum was
a charmed herb that rendered its owner invisible. 124
#urasyun #antinganting #invisibility
Visayans kept small idols in their homes called taotao, batabata or larawan, guardians of
family welfare and the first recourse in the case of sickness or trouble. Taotao meant a
manikin or little tao, human being; batabata was a little bata, great grandparent; and
ladaw or larawan was an image, mould or model. Idols of individual diwata with their
names and properties, however, did not figure prominently in Visayan worship. Nor
were they annointed, perfumed or decked with gold and jewels as they were in the
lake regions of Manila. Thus, members of the Legazpi expedition, fresh from Mexico
with its monumental Aztec imagery, reported that Cebuanos had neither temples nor
idols. But the household idols were common enough and visible enough to attract
Magellan’s disapproving attention. Why were they not all burned? he demanded after
the mass baptisms he instigated. 127
#eskayan etymology: bultu
In the beginning there was only sea and sky – so says a Visayan myth well known to
Spanish chroniclers. The following is the account attributed to Legazpi himself in
1567:
In the beginning of the world there was nothing more than sky and water, and between the
two, a hawk was flying, which, getting angry at finding no place to alight or rest, turned the
water against the sky, which was offended and so scattered the water with islands and then the
hawk had some place to nest. And when it was on one of them along the seashore, the current
threw up a piece of bamboo at its feet, which the hawk grabbed and opened by pecking, and
from the two sections of [128] the bamboo, a man came out of one and a woman from the
other. These, they say, married with the approval of Linog, which is the earthquake, and in
time they had many children, who fled when their parents got angry and wanted to drive
them out of the house and began to hit them with sticks. Some got in the inner room of the
house, and from these the grandees or nobles are descended; others went down the steps and
from these the timawa are descended, who are the plebeian people; and from the children who
remained hidden in the kitchen, they say the slaves are descended. [fn]
With local variations, the myth was well known all over the Visayas. In a Panay
version, the bamboo itself was produced by a marriage between the sea breeze and
the land breeze – probably the primordial pair of deities, Kaptan and Magwayan –
but in Leyte and Samar, the first man and woman issued from two young coconuts
floating on the water and pecked open by the bird. And the highlanders of Panay
listed two other categories of fleeing children – those who hid in the kitchen ashbox
and became the ancestors of the blacks, and those who fled to the open sea, the
progenitors of the Spaniards. The most detailed account was recorded by Loarca from
the coastal people of Panay, probably in Oton (Iloilo) where he was operating a
Spanish shipyard.
In this version, the man and woman who came for from the bamboo were Si
Kalak (i.e., laki, male) and Si Kabai (female), and they had three children – two sons,
Sibo and Pandagwan, and a daughter, Samar. Samar and Sibo married and had a
daughter named Lupluban, who married her uncle Pandagwan, the inventor of the
fishnet, and they, in turn, had a son named Anoranor, whose son Panas was the
inventor of war. Pandagwan’s first catch was a shark which died when he took it out
of the water, the first death in the world; grieved, he mourned its death and blamed
the gods Kaptan and Magwayan, who, angered, killed him with a thunderbolt. But 30
days later they revived him from the underworld and restored him to the land of the
living. But during his absence his wife had been won over by Markoyrun with a stolen
pig and would not now return to him. So he went back to the land of the dead, setting
the pattern of mortality for all mankind.
The Visayan origin myth thus describes the creation of man and woman,
accounts for the introduction of war, death, theft, [129] concubinage, and class and
race differences into the world, and provides a human genealogy with divine roots.
But it does not contain any creator god. Christians, however, called the Creator “the
Potter,” Mamarikpik, from pikpik or pakpak, the slaps the potter gives the clay in the
paddle-and-anvil technique. Father Sanchez quoted an educated Cebuano as saying,
“Kanino pikpik inin kalibutan, dile kanan Dios? – Who made this world if not God? An (sic)
Dios in Mamarappak sinin ngatanan mga yada – God made everything there is” [fn] 130
[PK: Loarca describes this from p121, vol 5 of B&R]
#origin myths #visayan literature #commensuration
[PK: traditional Visayan burial practices pp130-134; consult for #article: dagohoy]
Available swidden land was unlimited: a century after Spanish advent, Father Alcina
could still write, “Regarding land, here there is no difference between mine and thine
... because it is so great, so extensive, and in almost all places so good.” [fn] Farmers
simply drove a stake, patkal, in the ground or cut some branches off a tree to establish
their claim. This claim did not include ownership of the land, however, but only of the
crops grown on it: these could be harvested, traded or sold, even a full field of
standing grain – e.g., “Iyo ako daganihan sining akun tabataba – Help me harvest this rice
I’ve bought.” [fn]. Two farmers might work a field in common, tobong, and all fields
were worked by exhange labor, alayon, planting or harvesting each one’s field in turn,
the owner feeding them all. 140
[PK: planting and harvesting rituals pp140-142]
Spaniards regularly praised the flavor and variety of Visayan bananas: Juan Martínez
rhapsodized over their Latin name, musa, “There can be no doubt that they are the
same fruit which Jupiter’s nine sisters [i.e. the Muses] used to eat in their day, because
they gave them the name of musas.” [fn: “Una descripción e la vida de los naturales”
(Cebu, 25 July 1567), Colección de Documentos inéditos relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y
Organización de la antiguas Posesiones españoles de Ultramar, Segunda serie, Vol. 3 (Madrid,
1887), p. 456] 144
To file their [the dogs’] teeth slightly was thought to increase their bravery, and so was
a crocodile tooth carried by the hunter, or a boar’s tusk grown in a full circle. 147
#antinganting
One of the first things the Spaniards learned about the Visayans was that they were
good drinkers. [...] The Spaniards therefore called the Visayan social occasions
bacanales, drinkfests. Loarca commented, however, “It’s good they rarely get angry
when drunk,” [fn] and Father Chirino left a well-known tribute to the Boholano’s
ability to carry their liquor:
It is proverbial among us that none of them who leaves a [152] party completely drunk in the
middle of the night fails to find his way home; and if they happen to be buying or selling
something, not only do they not become confused in the business but when they have to weigh
out gold or silver for the price ... they do it with such delicate touch that neither does their hand
tremble nor do they err in accuracy. [fn] 153
#funny
The Bisayan alphabet by Pavón (but dated 1543 and credited to 17th-century
Francisco Daza, SJ) is erroneously presented [in the Code of Kalantiaw] as a phonetic
alphabet rather than a genuine Philippine syllabary, and contains a blatant
hispanization – “The modulated ‘N’ they supplied by their combined letter ‘NG’ and
the guttural sign,” the guttural sign being nothing other than a large tilde. 163
#writing systems
Eugenio, Damiana L, ed. 1993. Philippine folk literature: The myths.

Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.
Of many waterfalls in the country, a few have been inunortalized in legend. The
famous Hinulugang Taktak in Antipolo was formed, according to legend, because it
was dug by the genii in a futile attempt to recover a golden crown given to a princess
by the god of the mountain and which had fallen into the water. xxxviii
The gold hidden in the mountains of Mountain Province has also excited the
imagination of the folk, causing them to weave legends about its origin. According to
one legend, gold came from a tree which grew on the spot where an old person had
been covered with a paldyok (large native kettle) during a kanyaw. He had instructed the
people not to remove the kettle until the third day of the feast. From the tree that they
would see, they were to get only the fruits. When the people lifted the paldyok on the
third day, it broke to pieces and from it they saw a gold tree growing very fast. Int heir
excitement, they scrambled for the parts of the tree, forgettingg the old man’s
instruction to get only the fruits. At last the tree was completely uprooted. It fell with a
great crash. As it fell, it broke into pieces and the pieces were thrown in many
different directions. The loud noise made by the tree as it fell struck the people
unconscious. When they came to, they heard a voice saying: "You disobeyed me, so
the gods will punish you. You want gold? Then work, dig in the soil for it." This,
according to the Igorots, is the origin of the gold mines of Benguet (103). xxxix [PK:
more detailed verison told on page 188]
#lost treasure
The origin of the makopa (Iloko)
A small village in the Ilokos was the envy of the surrounding villages many, many
years ago. The people kept a little bell, the gift of a kindly anito. Whenever the people
needed rain for their crops, they only had to ring the magic bell. They always had
abundant harvests even while the other village suffered from drought.
The envious neighbors banded together and plotted to steal the magic bell and if
necessary, wage a war for it. The villagers learned of the plot. The keeper of the bell
spirited it to the forest and there buried it. the villagers then prepared to resist the
planned attack on them.
Many persons were killed in the battle that ensued, among them, the one who buried
the bell. It was a futile war. The aggressors did not get the bell, neither did the owners
keep it. Nobody could tell where in the forest it was hidden. Then for the first time
since the villagers could remember their fields grew parched, their crops wilted. The
people prayed hard but vainly for rain.
One day a boy from the village was playing at the edge of the forest. He went deeper
among the trees until he lost his way. He ate fruits and berries to keep away his
hunger. When he did find the way home again and reached his village, he told of a
marvelous tree he saw deep in the forest. Its branches were thick with juicy red fruits
shaped like little bells.
Could this strange tree with bell-shaped fruits be a clue to their missing magic bell?
Perhaps the anito who gave it to them wanted that they should find the bell again, and
so made the fruits of the tree of that shape.
The villagers asked the boy to show them the tree. On examining the red clusters of
fruit, one of them exclaimed, “Makopa!” meaning “many cups.” The shape of the
fruit struck him as like that of a cup hanging upside down. The sight of so many cup-
like fruits made him exclaim again and again, “Makopa!” “Makopa!”
The men dug around and under the tree carefully, reverently. Intact beside the
taproot was their precious bell!
A joyous procession carried bell, tree and all, into their village. Everybody turned out
of their houses at the sound of the familiar clear tinkle of their magic bell. Then clouds
darkened and a gentle rain fell on the parched earth. Great was the rejoicing! The
drought ended at last.
The grateful people planted the strange tree and thereafter called it Makopa. 427
#chapter 4 #article: literature
Long time ago, in a very remote place, there was a church which the people loved
very much. They never failed to attend mass and all religious activities in that church.
This church was known for its golden bell of which the people took utmost care .[452]
One day the people were shocked by the news that a group of Moro pirates were
coming to seize the golden bell. The people lost no time in hiding the bell. They
buried it in front of the church.
When the pirates arrived in the place, they went directly inside the church to get the
golden bell. The bell could be found nowhere inside the church. They searched for it
in the houses and everywhere else in the place but in vain. This enraged the robbers.
To punish the people the group beheaded anybody they met or cut their tongue for
refusing to tell them where the golden bell was. Some of the people were able to flee
to the mountain.
Not long after this incident, a tree was found growing on the spot where the golden
bell was buried. The people watched it grow. After a few years, it bore fruits shaped
like bells. As the fruit ripened, it became deeper red in color. The people found it very
delicious. 453
Tsing, Anna. 1993. In the realm of the diamond queen: Marginality
in an out-of-the-way place. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Indeed, these claims forced a debate in which either the Tasaday were completely
separate from the imagined “us” of modernity or else they weren’t interesting enough
to talk about. ix
Diaz, Marius V. 1994. Aklat sanayan ng Abakadang Rizaleo.

Manila: Katipunan Gatrizal.
Si Marius V. Diaz ay pangkalahatang pangulo ng Katipunang Gagrizal na kung saan
ay Araw Gatdagat ang kanyang pamagat. Ang kanyang pagkakahirang sa
katungkulang ito ay pinagtibay ng Pangalawang Pangulong Josepfh E Estrada noong
ika-24 ng Marso, 1993, sa Maynila.
Isinilang siya sa Calapan, Or. Mindoro noong 1942, supling ng angkang Valino at
Diaz ng Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija. Kasal kay Cynthia Alberto ng Navotas, Metro
Manila, sila ay may dalawang anak na sina Laya Hasmin at Mahar Khali.
Matapos ang kursong pang-maestro ng pilosopia sa seminario ng SVD sa Tagaytay,
nagmatrikua siay noong 1966 sa kursong pang-maestro ng Sining Pang-
komunikasyon sa pamantasan ng Ateneo de Manila sa pamamahala ni Dr. Josefina
Patron.
Noong mga taong 1970-1972 ay nagtungo siya sa mga bansang Israel, Grecia, Italia,
Francia at Inglaterra na kung saan ay pinag-aralan niya sa sariling pananaliksik ang
mga ginawa at ginawi ng Simbahang Katoliko Romano partikular sa panahon ng
Inkisisyon at ng mga krusada laban sa mga Muslim.
Ipinagpatuloy niya ang kanyang pagsasaliksik sa kasaysayan ng Simbahang natukoy sa
sariling bansa, hanggang sa humantong siya sa mga aklat at sulat ni Dr. Jose Rizal, at
sa mga katutubong pananampalataya at pananaw ng mga “namumwesto” sa Bundok
Banahaw. Nagbunga ang pananaliksik niyang ito sa pagbubuo ng magka-akibat n
konseptong binansagan niyang “Pamamathala” at “Pamathalaan”na siya namang
tinalakay ni Dr. Consolacion Alaras sa kanyang disertasyon sa doktorado ng pilosopia
sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, at inilathala sa kanyang aklag noong 1988.
Isa pa sa ibinunga ng kanyang pananaliksik ay ang pagtatatag ng Rizaleo, noon diing
taong 1988, bilang isang paaralan, surian at pamantasan nag mga taal na kaalaman at
katutubong kabihasnan na nakabalangkas sa diwa’t adhikain ni Rizal. Ang abakadang
ipinakikilala ng munting aklat na ito ay proyekto ng Rizaleo sa ilalim ng Katipunang
Gatrizal. n.d.
#article: abakano
Paliwanag at Paanyaya
Ang pagbubuo at pagsasa-computer ng abakadang ito ay proyekto ng Rizaleo bilang
ambag ng Katipunang Gatrizal tungo sa pagpapayaman ng ating taal at katutubong
kabihasnan.
Ibinatay po ang abakadang ito sa sinaunang pagsulat ng ating mga ninuno, at
minarapat po naming lakipan ito ng ilang pagbabago upang ito’y maging ganap na
kasangkapan sa ating kasalukuyang pangangailangan sa pagsusuri at pag-aaral, hindi
lang ng panitikan, kundi na rin ng mga teknikal na kaalaman sa larangan ng agham at
pangkabuhayan.
Salamat po sa inyong pagkalinga sa ating katutubong kalinangan, at sana’y masiyahan
po kayo sa pagsasanay sa abakadang Rizaleo. Nawa’y makasanayan din ninyong
ipagmalaki na tayo’y may tunay na sariling panitik ng panitikan, tulad ng iban
gdakilang kabihasnan.
Ang proyektong ito’y isang maliit na simula lamang ng isang napakalawak na likhain
na kung saan ay inaanyayahan po namin kayong maki-isa tungo sa dangal at puri ng
ating lahi at kultura. —Marius V Diaz, 1993. 1
#article: abakano
Ileto, Reynaldo C. 1995. Cholera and the origins of the

American sanitary order in the Philippines. In Discrepant
histories: Translocal essays on Filipino cultures, edited by V. L.
Rafael. Anvil Publishing: Manila.
What is missing in American accounts of local bungling or intransigence is precisely
the war context or, to put it another way, the local interpretations—shaped by recent
memories—of the colonial enterprise of saving human lives from disease. 68
After Malvar’s surrender, all forms of armed resistance to the regime were labeled
“ladronism” (from the Spanish word ladron “bandit” or “highwayman”). 71
#check if added
[...] the quarantine was preventing peasants from tilling their fields. Yet tenants were
being forced to pay their annual rent, “crop or no crop.” As a result “many of them ,
and many of the field labors [were’ taking to the mountains and joining the ladrones
as a means of earning a living. Were these “bandits” among those who joined up with
the revived Katipunan revolutionary government which began to appear in parts of
Cavite, Laguna, Tayabas, and Rizal provinces beginning, not surprisingly, in mid-
1902? 71
#check if added
Cholera epidemics clearly offered ideal conditions for the appearance of healers who
attracted villagers away from town-centers and to their fold. 72
#check if added
But in 1902 their [cholera prevential measures] actual role was to close a chapter of
the Philippine–American war. 73
Danguilan Vitug, Marites. 1995. Faith, hope and politics. In Boss:
5 case studies of local politics in the Philippines, edited by J. F.
Lacaba. Pasig, Metro Manila: Philippine Center for
Investigative Journalism.
Both Glenda and Reyneria will ride on the popularity of a dead man, the man they
once shared in their lives. Glenda was accepted as the wife of the late Ruben Sr. and
was known as his “material wife.” But he had relationships with other women, and
these women, Borja included, were known as the “spiritual wives.” 37
#chapter 8 [maybe added already]
To them [PBMA members], Ruben Ecleo Sr. was the Divine Master, the redeemer,
the reincarnation of Jesus Christ as well as of Jose Rizal. 41
Ruben journeyed through parts of Mindanao and the Visayas, Somewhere along the
way, he is said to have discovered that he had faith-healing powers. By most accounts,
he founded the PBMA in the 1960s, in the town of Aloran, Misamis Occidental,
where he started with 12 apostles. 41
Local historian Fernando Almeda Jr. sees similarities between the PBMA and the
Colorums of the 1920s because of the character of the membership, mostly from the
peasantry. However, the similarity ends there. 43
#chapter 8 [maybe added already]
In various records of the PBMA, Ecleo claimed he was a two-star American general
before his rebirth in 1933 to Aglipayan parents. But in later stories, Ecleo maintained
that, like Christ, he was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of his mother. He
claimed other similarities to Christ, saying that he taught at the age of 12 and that he
cured people and instructed them to lead moral lives. 47
He disallowed smoking, womanizing, drinking of alcohol. But he did not practice
what he preached. He smoked, drank imported whisky, and had relationships with
women other than his wife Glenda. PBMA members accepted their Divine Master’s
errant behavior, justifying this as a privilege granted to their leader. Besides, they also
thought that it was their leader’s way of testing his followers’ steadfastness. 47
The PBMA gives no details on who Hugh Tovar and Caple Jury are [claimed Spirit
guides]. Gen. Adriano de la Concepcion, said to be one of the “spirit guides,” is
regarded as the leader of a group that fought the Americans with a nativistic and
nationalist orientation. At the beginning of the century (1902-03), Concepcion led the
local resistance in Surigao against American rule. The uprising was crushed by the
new colonial powers. Concepcion was captured and executed. 48
Just like their Divine Master, members of the PBMA believe they, too, can heal. This
divine power is their source of empowerment. They wear rings, follow their libritos, or
manuals for curing, and use “operating needles” said to have magical powers to cure
diseases. In an essay in the book Filipino Religious Psychology (1977), Father Falcon gives
the following eyewitness account:
“The needles are small and bent like a number 7, hence the password for the initiated: ‘Have
you a number seven?’ During rituals for curing, members mumble cryptic words, believed to
have healing powers. The language is mysterious, unrecognizable, but it appeals to the simple
folk as a means of communicating a mysterious reality.” 49
#unintelligibility
Apart from shares of stock, members are required to buy rings and reading materials
and to pay annual membership fees. 50
Free labor is another form of service PBMA members traditionally provide to their
Divine Master. They observe a weekly practice — every Sunday — of pahina, a kind
of bayanihan or mutual-help arrangement whereby they clean the streets, plant trees,
carry stones for a building construction, among others. 50
Juan, Cristina. 1995. Eskaya: Letters, language and the fourth war
[documentary]
Narrator: 7.05: “According to Philippine folklore, a person surviving three near-death
experiences is rendered invulnerable”
#chapter 8
Guy in white hat at minute: 8.55: “Dagohoy and Anoy were the same person.
Dagohoy in Spanish is Amoy – Amoy, Anoy – the same.”
#chapter 8
11.16 decipher the sign
12.47: “There were three scribes, the first was designated One, the second Two, and
the third Three. When the old man called out ‘One’, the first person would write
down what Anoy dictated. When he said Two, he dictated and the second one wrote
down what he said. The same with the third.
#chapter 4
22.47 (guy in white hat): “Unlike other countries, the Philippines remains
undeveloped. Because we have too many languages. Unlike the Americans, they have
only one. The Japanese, the Russians – only have one language. But us, we have too
many and this is why we are very confused. When someone tells to speak in reverse
we obey and speak in reverse. Unlike the Americans who have one language, we have
many.
23.23 (unknown): “It is said that this language will become the superior one, over
Tagalog or English. The ancient language of Bohol will be revived.”
24.14 (Dionisio Galan, speaking in English and quoting from Rizal’s El Filibusterismo)
“One and all, you forget that so long as a people conserves its language, it also
preserves the guarantee of its liberty [...]”
Dizon, Eusebio Z. 1996. "The anthropomorphic pottery from
Ayub Cave, Pinol, Maitum South Cotabato, Mindanao,
Philippines." Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
14:186-196.
#lost treasure
On 3 June 1991, I received a telephone call from Mr. Michael Spadafora, a
consulting geologist who reported to me the existence of pottery in human form
discoveredin a cave while treasure-hunting for Japanese World War II gold bars
somewhere in Maitum, South Cotabato. Ac- cording to him the cave is approximately
a 4-hour drive on a rough coastal road to the west of General Santos City. It is under
the control of Hadji Ayub Mindug, Chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front
(MNLF) in South Cotabato. 186
The site lies in the coastal area of Pinol, Maitum, South Cotabato where the majority
of the population are Mus- lim Maguindanaos. The cultural materials were recov-
ered from a Miocene limestone cave approximately 1 krn inland and about 6 m above
mean sea level (Figures 1, 2). The cave has been called Ayub Cave in recognition of
Hadji Ayub Mindug. It is approximately 5 m wide and 3
m high and slopes down inwards at about 30° for some 8 meters from the mouth
(Figures 3, 4). The digging for "Japanese gold" had mainly been carried out in front of
the cave, with some in the center and back portions.
Sometime in May 1991 a Japanese visited Hadji Ayub and claimed he could locate
buried treasure. He successfully convinced Hadji Ayub that gold bars had
been buried in or near the cave and some digging was undertaken. Ancient artifacts,
but no gold bars, were recovered. Some pottery decorated with haematite and in-
cised designs was even interpreted as a sign of the existence of treasure on the basis
of a mimeographed "dictionary of signs for treasure hunting" sold by the Japanese to
Hadji Ayub.
Thus, the deposits in Ayub Cave had been severely disturbed and artifacts
haphazardly collected from on and below the cave floor. The entrance of the cave had
been bulldozed (Figure 4). There is evidence that portions of the cave wall near the
mouth had collapsed. Remains of earthenware sherds and fragments of
anthropomorphic pots were visible in the cave deposits at the time of my visit. All the
cultural materials found were in the possession of Hadji Ayub, according to whom
about 300 pottery heads had been recovered together with human bones. The
human bones, except for two long bone fragments, were re-buried.
There were at least 25 pieces of restorable anthropomorphic pottery in the Hadji
Ayub's collection, some being life-sized human heads. 187
Kajiwara, Kageaki. 1996. "The myth of Yamashita treasure: Its
role in mutual perceptions." In Towards a shared future
through mutual understanding: Proceedings of the First
International Conference on Philippines-Japan Relations 28-29 July,
1995., edited by Wilfrido V Villacorte and Ma. Reinrauth D
Carlos. Manila: De La Salle University.
#lost treasure
The legend of the Yamashita treasure is not a fleeting anecdote, but rather, a
haunting and lingering tale capable of mobilizing people even to this day. From time
to time, the ubiquitous legend resurfaces in any given location in the Philippines. 161
A few years back when I visited Baguio City, for example, rumors were afloat that
ongoing sewage repairs in that city were merely a front for a Japanese government-
funded treasure hunt being undertaken by a contracted Japanese firm. More than a
few residents of that resort city believed in the veracity of that theory. In the
Cordillera Region alone, the site of Japanese concentration during the final stages of
the Occupation, a plethora of legends persists with a vengeance. According to one
version I wrote down, a Japanese war veteran arrived at avillage in the Mountain
Province one day and offered village elders some rice wine to enjoy. The elders and
their guest amused themselves late into the night with wine and song. The next
morning after sleeping later than usual, the elders awoke only to discover that a huge
crater had been dug in the nearby field. Stories such as this one accentuate the
suspicion many Filipinos harbor, namely that all Japanese have a hidden agenda. Any
former Japanese installation site, i.e. hospital, cemetery, or garrison, attracts the
interest and fantasy of the public and becomes a potential excavation site.
Even caves housing the sacred ancestral remains of ethnic minorities are not spared
the treasure hunter's pick and shovel. During the construction of the Baguio
Convention Center, for instance, word spread that the digging of the building's
foundations was unusually deep. A similar rumor was heard in connection with the
Aguinaldo Museum. Many a powerful figure, the late President Ferdinand Marcos
topping the list, have somehow been associated with the legend as an explanation for
sudden wealth. Considering the whole picture and the many colorful personalities
involved, these stories offer us a glimpse into the socio-cultural and socio-political
heritage of the Philippines over the past half century. 162
The Filipino perception of the Japanese is clearly shown in some versions of the tale as
earlier outlined. The inherent distrust and suspicion of the Filipino toward the
Japanese is condensed into what I call the "hidden agenda" syndrome. 163
The act of digging to unearth treasure, in itself appears to be symbolic of the retrieval
of past memories. The never-ending search for treasure prevents any fading of the
memories of war. It rather reproduces the memories in the subconscious. 163
In this context, I would venture to say that the Philippines was in no clear terms a
winner in that war. I can well imagine how easy it would be for a Filipino to convince
himself that after all the barbarity, something in the way of compensation was left in
Philippine soil. That hidden treasure, in my view, is now the birthright of the Filipino
people. The discovery of even a portion of that buried wealth would function as a
compensatory means in light of all the devastation the war caused in this land. In a
twist of irony, the economic expansion of postwar Japan may somehow lend some
credibility to the believed enormity of the hidden treasure.
Judging from circumstantial evidence, the legend does not seem too plausible
especially where its magnitude is concerned. General Yamashita himself was assigned
as supreme commander of the Philippine Islands only towards the latter part of 1944,
when the Imperial Army had lost its command of both air and sea, having fallen into
the hands of the US Forces. General Yamashita and his staff made a clandestine entry
into the country via a small transport plane under immediate threat of US
interception. The General's overwhelming victories in both Malaya and Singapore
behind him, Yamashita was next transferred to Manchuria by order of then Prime
Minister Tojo who was enraged by Yamashita's surge in popularity. Against this
backdrop, it is quite unlikely that Yamashita was charged with the transport of so
much booty to Japan, much less to the Philippines. 164
First, the legend is well known in one country while obscure in the other [Japan].
Second, tales of treasure in themselves are divisive. Such stories disclose a gap
between the haves and the have-nots. According to the stories in circulation, the few
colorful characters who purportedly discovered part of the treasure have attained
wealth and influence, while the vast majorities who have unearthed nothing continue
to grovel in poverty, never to have access to the loot. 164
Treasure tales, as inspiring as they are by offering hope to the impoverished masses,
serve to fixate the gap in the politico-economic structure of society. Thus in short, as
long as the treasure remains hidden, it shall never be reproduced --even if it were to
be retrieved, it will eventually be sequestered by the powerful minority --hence, the
treasure will always be barren for the masses. 165
This legend also reflects the Filipino mentality that greener pastures are found abroad.
The prevalence of such a notion continues to linger in an era of transnational
migration. Going abroad is in the pursuit of economic gains. Nevertheless, it involves
going beyond. In this case, one detects a certain degree of cosmological rationale. The
legend can be an archetype of the notion of external prosperity.
In closing, I wish to stress that the constitution and reactions of Filipinos towards this
legend is in no way passive. A celebrated Filipino tendency to reinterpret often
externally imposed institutions or understanding for their own needs rather eloquently
tells of their initiative and resistance [165] against those who impose. The legend is
not a mere fantasy, but a philosophy of folk narratives. On the occasion of the fiftth
anniversary of the war’s end, let us really listen to these faint voices. 166
Meñez, Herminia. 1996. Explorations in Philippine folklore.

Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Juan Sadut, extremely poor and lazy, wants to marry a rich man's daughter. He marries
Ines by making her father believe that he is rich; but he remains too lazy to support a wife.
The couple are disinherited by the girl's parents. One day, because of his laziness he
throws Ines' gold hairpin at the birds feeding on the rice which was left to dry in the sun.
Ines scolds him severely and he weeps bitterly. But when he looks for the gold hairpin, he
finds a gold bush and under it ajar full of gold and silver money. He regains the love of
Ines. Thus, Juan is reinstated in her father's household, and the storyteller ends the story
with “Juan became a rich man without any effort. Fortune favors the lazy—sometimes.
(Fansler 1965, 351)
45
#lost treasure
Valeros, Limon. 1996. 100 hectares of ancestral domain

awarded to Eskayas, Bohol Chronicle. 11 February, 1996. 4
A total of 3,173.0889 hectares of ancestral domains were given due recognition by the
government with the issuance recently of a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim
(CADC) to the Escaya tribe in Bohol by the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR).
The move was in line with the Social Reform Agenda (SRA) flagship program for
indigenous peoples (IPs) seeking recognition and protection of their ancestral domain
rights, access to basic services, cultural integrity, and full participation in governance.
DENR Secretary Victor O. Ramos disclosed that the total hectarage cited above has
sof ar brought to 23 CADCs, covering an aggregate area of 376,540.87 hectares
which the DENR has issued to beneficiaries.
The CADC is a document showing that the government recognizes and respects the
rights of IPs to their ancestral domain claims based on the provisions of Section 5,
Article XII of the Constitution.
Ramos said no less than President Fidel V. Ramos will lead government officials in
the CADC awarding to Chieftain Juan Datan (sic) who represents about 1,841
beneficiaries living in Duero, Guindulman, Pilar and Sierra Bullones towns in Bohol.
Romanillos, Emmanuel Luis A. 1997. The Dagohoy rebellion

revisited. Quezon City: University of the Philippines-Diliman
The native priest's [Tamblot's] adherents resorted to apostasy and desecration: they
flung rosaries and crosses on the ground. “Debased by execrable boldness, they
mutilated a beautiful image of most Blessed Virgin holding the Child Jesus in her arms
with eighteen slashes, her venerable mouth with twelve lance strokes,” lamented the
Jesuit who authored the Annual Letter to his superior general in Rome in 1621
[Annual Letter 1621, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Philippinarum 6, II, 308r-
308v.] 3
#history of bohol
In another letter to his provincial dated 24 April 1767, the Jesuit minister [Father
Silvestre Puig Sert] warned him about the relentless havoc wrought by the rebels,
saying: “If no remedy is taken , the whole island shall be lost, for there are more pople
in the countryside than in the towns”. (Roble Rosales 315) 12
In the meantime [1762, when Bishop Miguel Lino de Espeleta was negotiating a truce
with Dagohoy], the insurgents continued to occupy the extensive upland areas from
Guindulman to Inabanga that comprised the villages of Ubay and Talibon. They
went on unimpeded in their surprise raids, posing continuous threats to the peace and
order of the land. 13
[After Dagohoy's death] The free community of Agbonan [renamed San Isidro in
1970], perched in the mountains some seven kilometers away from Catigbian town
proper, was ruled by Gaam. This last insurgent chief of the western side of the island
held “absolute and despotic power over his minions,” who numbered at one time over
14,000. Caciques from other dissident communities climbed hills to pay taxes to him.
Gaam’s edicts were deemed “savage and atrocious” by Hilario Sánchez (1869-1930),
curate of Catigbian [...] 19
Far from the encompassing influence of the Spanish friar and guardia civil, monogamy
prevailed among the rebels of the Agbonan enclave. Gaam and his commanders,
however, could keep two wives. Marriage was just a simple rite where the couple
voluntarily and verbally expressed mutual consent to cohabitation. The ritual was
performed in the presence of their respective parents and the local chief or
commander.
Prehispanic burial practices were revived in Agbonan. The Recollect curate of
Catigbian writes that the folks customarily buried their deceased in caskets together
with items they owned and treasured most in their lifetime like money, jewelry or
tools. The friar chronicler called this a practice common among idolatrous and savage
peoples. A slain warrior was interred with his precious weapons like his machete,
spears, bow and arrows. They held on to the belief that the warrior's lifestyle of
combat and killing would resume in the afterlife.
The dead were buried in elevated places or hung from trees to avoid water from
reaching the corpses or to prevent formation of muddy places in burial grounds.
During nine consecutive nights following interment, close kinsmen gathered together
for prayers dancing and singing. They partook of the [20] nightly meals and drinks
that were as sumptuous as the bereaved family's financial means could afford. The
practice prevailed in Bohol until the close of the nineteenth century, according to the
Recollect minister.
Gaam's subjects practiced a pseudo-Christian religion that assimilated superstition,
idolatry and animism. Sánchez further writes on their syncretistic religion and their
makeshift house of worship:
Do not be suprised at what I have just said about the prayers of these indigenous mountain
dwellers [indígenas monteses] during the long period before its reduction. They had a chapel
or small church made of bamboo and cogon. Here a considerable number of Christian
remontados practiced their devotions, mixing themselves with the baptized who also attended
in order to practice the superstitious acts and cults, proper to savagery, decadence and
ignorance where they have been wallowing themselves. The practices are rarest and most
outlandish; the most repulsive amalgamof Christianity and savagery was performed in the
small kingdom of Agbonan [no citation].
21
A total of 395 insurgents were slain in the last major battle in the mountain of Boasa
near Canangay. [...] This stronghold, governed by its chief Handog who was believed
by his followers to be invulnerable, was strategically positioned and protected by
natural defenses. [Fn: Bohol history writers personally told this researcher that
Handog, Hantud or Tugpa, the undisputed rebel chief in Catagdaan and Inaghuban,
was one and the same person. 30
[Breves apuntes sobre el pueblo de Catigbian por Fr. Hilario Sánchez, Catigbian 13
febrero 1898]:
[...] Agad, hoy Antequera [...] 51
No hay que extrañarse de lo que acabo de decir sobre el rezar de esto indígenas
monteses con la larga fecha antes de la reducción ya poseían una capilla o pequeña
igelsia de caña y cogon en la que los cristianos remontados, en número considerable
practicaban sus devociones, confundiéndose, allí con los bautizados, que también
acudirse a practicar los actos y culto supersticiosos, propios del salvajismo,
envilecimiento e ignorancia en que yacían sumidos.
las prácticas más raras y estrambóticas, y la mezcla más repugnante de cristianismo e
idolatría [end folio 12]
eran ejectadas en el miroscópico reino de Agbonan. Además de iglesia tenían escuelas,
según me aseguraron los ancianos que lo oyesen de sus mayores, y que implícitamente
lo confirma el P Fr José del Carmen, el cual de una nota escrita el año 1790 al folio
del primer libro de bautismos de Malabago (hoy Cortes) dice lo siguiente: Por tantas
revoluciones de dicha visita, y por no tener en que vivir ni decir Misa, pues me
aseguraron varios haber idolatrado en el pedazo que había dado de iglesia
consumiendo los datos y maestra de Agbonan, etc.
Tanto la iglesilla como las escuelas fueron arrasadas por el ejército expedicionario. 52
No es que estos naturales [de Catigbian] sean de malos instinto y cualidades morales,
no, pero si son muy holgazanes y perezosos, cual con dificultad se encontrará en
Bohol otro pueblo igual. 54
#funny
Washbourne, John, James Rector, Paul Milligan, Jeff Selbig, and

Archq Ford. 1997. "Near-surface exploration for treasure-
filled tunnels in grano-diorite."
#lost treasure
The field site has considerable historical significance. It was termed “Tunnel-8”
during the Japanese occupation. During the war, the Japanese moved a great deal of
treasure and valuable artifacts to the Philippines for inventory and storage prior to
shipping to Japan Before these treasures could be safely relocated the Japanese Navy
was destroyed. Understanding that they were facing defeat, the Japanese hid much of
the treasure in tunnels on the island of Luzon. The Tunnel-8 site is believed to be one
of the largest such Japanese treasure tunnels. The site was reportedly the destination
of a large convoy of Japanese trucks transporting huge quantities of gold.
In 1945, Ben Balmores served as houseboy to Kimsu Marakusi. Kimsu was the
director of treasure disposal in the Philippines and believed to be a member of
Japanese Imperial household. He visited each treasure site with Ben Balmores at his
side, and was provided with maps and detailed inventories. Near the end of the war
they took a tour of all the treasure sites. At each site, the tunnels were typically
dynamited shut, burying all the workers alive. Later, the surface was landscaped to
cover all tracks.
General Yamashita, the supreme commander of Japanese forces in the Philippines,
attended the Tunnel-8 ‘burial’. All others with first-hand knowledge of the treasure
sites were reportedly in the Tunnel-8 complex as Ben, Kimsu, and Yamashita exited
and the ground was shaken by a series of explosions. After the closing of Tunnel-8,
Kimsu gave over 171 of the maps to Ben for safekeeping, extracting a promise that
they wouldremain undisturbed until Kimsu's return
Many years later a high-ranking officer in the Philippine army learned of the maps in
Ben’s possession andforced bim to give up 171 of them.Ben had secreted away an
additional 25 of what he considered the most important and valuable of the maps,
and he later attempted to gain access to some of these sites. His attempts were.
unsuccessful and he eventually quit due to poorhealth and lack of funds. Subsurface
treasure sites of tbis magnitude typicallyrequire hundreds of thousands of dollars to
explore. In 1988, Arch Ford began collaborating with Ben Balmores. Ford obtained
several original Japanese treasure maps, including the map of Tunnel-8 shown in
Figure. 1. n.p.
While the tunnel excavation did not make us fabulously wealthy, it did prove the
viability of surface-to-borehole imaging of shallow voids. n.p.
Tirol, Jes B. 1998. Bohol: From Spanish yoke to American harness.

Tagbilaran City: Universal Press.
[Manuel] Hidalgo [uncle of José Rizal] wrote [on 1 January 1889 to Jose Rizal] “En
esta provincia [Bohol] la gente es todavia muy fantica, por falta de instruccion” [fn:
epistolario Rizalino]. 11
"All the towns of the province are interconnected by main roads and horse-roads with
different paths and by-ways from one place to another in the hills and barrios. The
town centers have horse-roads with some segments for fast carriage.
Generally the roads toward the south from the capital town is at the coastline
extending to Guindulman, 83 kilometers away. There are two difficult portions for
passage, one a Punta Gorda (Now: Balitbiton, Valencia.---JBT) and the other at Punta
Cabud, although lately it is made easier by a road which is little by little being
constructed at the base of the difficult portion which form the points. It is possible to
travel by horse-drawn carriage even in times of heavy rains. [13]
From Baclayon one can travel by carriage through a 10 kilometer road to Corella
which connects by horse-raod to Balilihan and Catigbian. These horse-roads can
potentially be transformed into carriage roads, but the few corvee makes
improvement difficult as yet.
From Loay towards Loboc is a 5 kilometer road which branches off to Sevilla and
Bilar. The road is wide but the elevation and steepness of the terrain makes it difficult
for passage by carriage.
From Dimiao is another carriage road to Bilar, 17 kilometers away. However, it is
difficult to ascend by horse-carriage without the help of carabao or people, to the
boundary which is 400 meters above sea level.
From Bilar to Carmen, is 18 kilometers. It can be traveled by carriage although there
is a slope towards the boundary, though not for a long distance. From Bilar to Sierra-
Bullones and Ubay is a horse-road which is cogonal.
Generally towards the north, from the capital town through the coastline is a road to
Inabanga which is 66 kilometers away. It is possible to travel at any season even
during rains except in some segments between Tagbilaran and Paminuitan (No:
Cortes--JBT), Calape, Tubigon and Inabanga due to Winding terrain and difficult
portions at PUnta Cruz, Maolong, and the boundary of Tubigon and Inabanga.
Along the Abatan river towards its source, is a 10 kilometer road up to Antequera. It
can be passed by carriage.
From Guindulman to the southern part is a horse-road which traverses the towns of
Bauanan (Now: Alicia--JBT), Ubay, Talibon, and Getafe, ending at Inabanga.
Regarding the northern part [14] of the island, all the towns are far from the next
town. The distances between towns are 24 to 30 kilometers from each other for which
reason it is not possible to have a road for horse-drawn carriage, because of insufficent
resources to make them.
The towns of Tagbilaran, Baclayon, Loay, Dimiao, Jagna, Loboc, Maribojoc, Loon,
and Dauis have their town-houses (tribunal) and schools made of stones. The
improvements in Loon excel those in other places in the province. In the towns of
Alburquerque, Corella, Garcia-Hernandez, Tubigon, Inabanga, Panglao, Ubay, and
Valencia, either the town-houses or the schoolhouses are the only ones constructed of
stones. The others have no stone buildings, not even stone wall partitions. The walls of
the Schoolhouses are made of vines and lumber, like those in Getafe and Batuanan,
for they have no stone and lime available.
Almost all the towns have male and female teachers’ living quarters. Those which
have none has one under construction.
The major portion of the island is cultivated although there are large tracks of
uncultivated land because the natives desire rice paddies in the towns with water
sources. [...] There are cultivated areas in all the escarpment of the coastlines which
nestles around the island. The years of houses have some cacao and coffee trees. [...]
[15]
In all the towns, there are two schools, one for boys and another for girls. A few of
these schools are being served by teachers of Normal School training, and the other
schools are served by substitutes.
In all schools, the lessons differ by sex. For example, the boys and girls both learn
writing, catechism in Spanish and Visayan, grammar, geography, arithmetic and
some agriculture, but the girls are made to specialize in activities fitted for their sex;
like sewing, decorative art, embroidery in white and color, crotchet and other types of
decoration. Particularly excellent are the schools in Dimiao and Garcia-Hernandez
although lately, it is taught by a substitute female teacher.
In all the schools for boys the Spanish language is taught to the pupils. Those who can
speak the language varies from 6 to 60 or more, as what happened in Tagbilaran,
Loboc, and Dimiao. In the schools for girls, only a few can speak Spanish because the
majority of the teachers who manage these schools have little previous schooling.
To avoid the decrease in attendance that will lower the viability of schools in the
town, schools of light materials managed by assistants paid by the towns, are
established in big barrios. However, the students from the barrios have to attend
classes twice a week in the town school to have their progress assessed.
[...] [16]
The climate of the province is sufficiently good and healthful. The birthrate exceeds
the death rate. In some towns 4 to 5 months will pass without any deaths, not even
among the old. If it were not for the propensity of the natives to emigrate to other
provinces, Bohol would have been the most populated province in the archipelago.
The adventurous character of the people makes them constantly travel to other
provinces, most often to escape or elude the payment of contributions or takes...
The rains start in July and end in December. There had been years of drought of long
duration like those of '85, '86, and 1887 that caused a shortage of water and harvest. It
resulted in misery and in the delay of the province's payment of its contributions.
However, the good harvest in the ensuing year, made the province recover slowly.
The criminality is low, with only a few cases reaching the Court of First Instance. In
the interior and coastal towns, especially in the towns of Calape and Ubay which are
constantly visited by Cebuanos and Leyteños, minor crimes occur. I have not known
any banditry in the province although there are cases involving the stealing of
carabaos and cattle for subsistence, by the loafers who hide in the hills and those
pursued by the Civil Guards.” 17
#history of bohol: #literacy
#route to biabas
What was not mentioned by the Governor was that, it was more convenient to travel
from one coastal town to another by boat or banca rather than by road. 18
#route to biabas
It must be noted that in the 1890s, the descendants of the followers of Dagohoy still
had their own system of education and system of writing which are still maintained by
the Eskaya of Bohol. 19
Since Bilar was the end of the horse-carriage road, the carriage was left behind. Dr.
Rizal and his companions proceeded on horseback to Condagaz, Sierra-Bullones
town to view the wide plane which was suitable for an agricultural colony. [Fn 46
"Eskaya of Bohol folklore say that their leader Mariano Datahan met Dr. Jose Rizal at
Sierra-Bullones] 31
Don Vincente Elio of Mambajao, Camiguin island, and a contemporary of Dr. Jose
Rizal at Ateneo de Manila, in his letter to his friend Felipe Calderon on January 31,
1901 said;
“...Because of the good civic organization of our town, no other rebel groups came
here. Not even another party led by a criminal who pretended to be Dr. Jose Rizal
resurrected and styling himself as a ‘saint’, but also perpetrated crimes in Bohol,
where he was eventually captured and executed..." [Fn: Vicente Elio, "News Sent to
the Press and Published From 1887-1928", (The Local Historical Sources of Northern
Mindanao, Chap 14), Francisco Demetrio, S.J. (ed), Xavier University, Cagayan de
Oro City, 1995. p. 552. ] 33
The route of the imposter [Jose Rizal impersonator] was from Cebu, then Jagna,
Bohol, then along the coastal road to Dimiao, then Loay, then Tagbilaran until he
was captured and killed in Calape, Bohol. He had a small army and committed
atrocities like robbing, mauling, burning, and killing along the way. He wore a kind of
uniform. 34
Loon: Parish Priest----Fr. Felix Guillen. 42 [From ‘Guia Oficial De Las Islas Filipinas’.
Pubicada por la Secreteria de Governador General, Manila, 1898, p. 1056.]
In order to survive, the Cebuanos who escaped to Bohol began to collect taxes from
the Boholanos. Some towns in Bohol, especially those in the eastern part of the
province welcomed the Cebuanos. In other towns, especially those well under control
by the Spaniards, the local residents were mobilized into volunteer militias. In
Tagbilaran [...] Don Salustiano Borja was the Captain of the mobilized volunteers.
Their primary purpose was to guard the people of Tagbilaran against the predatory
activities of the Cebuanos.[fn] 45
Anticipating Spanish withdrawal, Cebu revolutionary General Emilio Verdeflor came
to Tagbilaran to establish a revolutionary government. On December 20, 1898 the
"Gobierno de Canton" was established in Tagbilaran which recognized the supreme
authority of General Emilio Aguinaldo. This government was part of the "Federal
State of the Visayas" based in Santa Barbara, Iloilo. [fn] 49
On January 8, 1899 President Aguinaldo issued a decree for the election of officers
and the organization of the Armed Forces of Bohol. The decree authorized Don
Bernabe Reyes, a businessman from Dauis, Bohol to act as temporary Provincial
Head and Don Eduardo Calceta as Chief of the Army in Bohol.
The decree was transmitted by Secretary Apolinario Mabini to the Secretary of War
and Navy for transmittal to Bohol [fn]. The decree reached Bohol on the last week of
January 1899.
There with the Gobierno de Canton or Federal Government was reorganized to cover the
whole province of Bohol as authorized by President Aguinaldo. Since the Govienro de
Canton of Tagbilaran swore allegiance to President Aguinaldo and the Philippines
Government, they obeyed the order.
Prominent people of Tagbilaran and the “Presidente” or Mayors of the towns of Bohol
gathered at the Provincial Tribunal in Tagbilaran in order to elect the officials for the
second Gobierno de Canton. The elected officials [...] were as following: [54]
Bernabe Reyes----Gobernador
[...]
Braulio Flores----General de Division de toda la Provincia 55
A National Constitution was already in existence to govern the Republic of the
Philippines, however, the connection of Bohol to the National Government was cut
because the Federal Government of the Visayas ceased to exist.
It was decided that the province of Bohol will establish its own Provisional
Constitution. It was patterned upon the National Constitution with suitable
modifications for Bohol It provided for a provisional “Republic of Bohol” which will
exist on its own until it can be integrated into the Republic of the Philippines.
[...]
On June 11, 1899 the Town Preisdents met at Tagbilaran as the representatives of the
people. The constitution was approved and Don Bernabe Ryes was elected President
of the Republic of Bohol. Don Salustiano Borja was the Vice President and the same
officials of the second Gobierno de Canton were elected as Ministers for Justice, Police
and the Treasury. These officials formed a Provincial Junta or Cabinet to execute the
laws.
A budget was prepared based upon estimated income; a system of taxation was
estabished; a police or military force created; a postal service provided; schools and
churches re-opened; and internal improvements such as roads were commenced. 60
In February 11, 1899, the Gobeirno de Canton headquarters in Santa Barbara, Iloilo was
already put to run by the invading Americans. The link of Bohol to the national
government was cut. The Boholano officials decided to establish the Republic of
Bohol. Town Presidents were elected to become the delegates to the organizational
meeting. Governor Reyes went around the province to supervise the election.
However, it was the contention of General Flores that he ought to supervise the
elections because he had a higher office.
The Provincial Junta decided to eliminate General Braulio Flores. The plan was to
accuse General Flores of committing unlawful acts in the process of enforcing laws
[fn]. [...] 62
General Braulio Flores was called by the Provincial Junta to report to the Provincial
Tribunal to answer the charges. But first the Provincial Junta had to find someone
who can enforce the order. Don Pedro Samson and Don Ambroiso Sandoval and
their men were chosen to enforce the order.
Before the order was carried out, General Flores was able to learn of the plan to
dismiss him from his command. Having made his own plan to kill the members of the
Provincial Junta, he hastened to Tagbilaran. But General Flores underestimated the
strength of the Provincial Junta. The General only brought along with him his two
sons named Pedro and Diosdado [fn]
[...]
With his left hand, Don [63] Pedro drew his revolver and fired it at General Flores,
killing the latter [fn].
When the brothers Pedro and Diosdado Flores drew their guns, they were shot by the
men of Don Pedro Samson. With the death of General Flores and his sons, the
Provincial Junta came out the victor in the power struggle for control of the
government of Bohol. 64
Don Vicente Elio, writing in Mambajao, Camiguin island on January 28, 1899 said:
“...Lately we know that once the condition in Bohol had normalized and the Republic
of the Philippines had been established there, these groups disappeared. Pareng was
captured by the General of the Army (his name escapes me) and by now he has been
shot in punishment for his crimes” [fn]
Regarding Pareng or Amoy, Don Vicente Elio had this to say;
“...Another gang was led by one who pompously called himself ‘Pareng’ or ‘Amoy’.
He pretended to be no less (what infamy!) than the well deserving Dr. Rizal...The
rascal 'Pareng' committed crimes and griefs with defenseless and honorable citizens.
For this he was made the terror of the province of Bohol...”[fn]
[...]
Former Senator Olegario Clarin wrote regarding the incident involving Don Aniceto
Clarin, the senator's father, and “Pareng”:
“...He (Don Aniceto Clarin) hurriedly returned to Bohol (from Manila) and upon his
arrival he found the place in confusion. He was met by Pareng or Amoy-Amoy, who
with his small army invaded Loay, Bohol and ordered for his [Aniceto Clarin’s] death.
He was mauled by the group and could have been killed if not for the timely
interention of Capitan Vicente Solideo. Amoy-Amoy and his men went to Calape,
Bohol and was killed by the people of the locality. He [Pareng] was beheaded and his
head was [65] placed on top of a pole and was paraded through the streets of the
town...” [fn]
The inhuman treatment of the dead, by placing his head on a pole and parading it
around town, was an example of the excesses of General Braulio Flores which the
Bohol Provincial Junta did not look on with favor. Be that as it may, the harsh
methods employed by General Flores caused terror on other bandit groups which
immediately disbanded to avoid capture.
In order to maintain peace and order, local militias under the control of the army
were organized in the towns. In the town of Talibon, Bohol the local militia was led
by Don Marcelo Evangelista. In that town, a certain Felix Taran came from Cebu
with his gang of bandits. They collected taxes from the people who were already
suffering from the hardships caused by the revolution. When the people could not
pay, their properties were confiscated and the people maltreated. Because of these
abuses, Don Marcelo Evangelista led his militia to attack the bandits at their hideout
in Carmen, Bohol. With the help of other men who were also victimized by Feliz
Taran, the hideout was surrounded and the bandits killed, including Felix Taran [fn].
In Jagna, Bohol the Cebuano gang led by Clemencio Cañeda, who claimed to be
General Tomas Mascardo, was dispersed by the local militia. [fn] 66
#chapter 8 [PK: Also compare all these names to those mentioned in Salustiano
Borja’s reports of arrested pulahans]
In consonance with the spirit of the war period the announcement contained some
code names. It was the practice to give code names to places and persons to disguise
the identity. 70
On February 20, 1899 the Americans were already in the neighboring island of Cebu.
71
Sama sa tanang dapit sa kapupod-ang Pilipinhon ang mga Bol-anon giabot sa dakong kamigaw
tungod kay ang kaugalingnan nga nakab-ot human matundag ang pamunaon sa mga Katsila,
nahanaw na usab ubos sa landong sa bandilang Amerikanhon. [fn: Bernadino Inting, 1934]
Translation: “Like those in all places in the Philippines archipelago, the Boholanos
suffered great loneliness because the [83] independence attained after the sinking of
the Spanish administration, vanished agian beneath the shadow of the American
flag”. 84
On September 1, 1900, fighting began and the peaceful atmosphere vanished. Most
of those huts and houses described by Scriven were burned by the Americans. 89
“Samson and his men were inadequately armed with bolos and a scattering of antique
musket; but they seem to have trusted too much in the potency of the ‘anting-anting’;
in amulets, often just scraps of cloth, that were thought to shield the wearer from
harm. Whatever the reason, the American marksmen simply gunned them
down.”[Fn: Norman Cameron] 102
[Dear Norman Cameron,
I came across a citation from your commentary on your grandfather's Bohol diary in
Jes Tirol's Bohol: From Spanish Yoke to American Harness (Tagbilaran:University of Bohol
Research Centre, 1998). I found this commentary on the Duke University website and
it's made me very keen to read the original diary.
I am writing a history/linguistics PhD on Bohol - specifically, I'm looking at the
emergence of a complex language code (now called Eskayan) used by a particular
group of guerrillas from roughly 1903 in the southeast highlands. I have found only
one early reference to the group in the records of the US War Department.
Fascinatingly, both the group and their language still exist but the circumstances of
their genesis are vague. So I've been scouring every available scrap of documentation
from the 1900-1908 period to search for clues. I would love to review a digital copy of
the diary if it is available and I will gladly make available to you the results of any
historical analysis of the text.
Thanks in advance,
Piers Kelly]
On March 5 , 1901 Major Miguel Balmoria sent the following report to Col. Pedro
Samson:
Sr. Comandante Mayor,
Jerusalem 5 de Marzo de 1901.
119
The town of Loon, Bohol had organized a guerilla force under a certain Capitan Dinlok
[fn] (Note: dinlok = thin but sinewy). It was this group of boholano patriots which was
the first object of attack of the newly arrived 19th Regiment. By May 10, 1901 [fn],
the American invaders were already in the town of Loon. After offering a spirited
resistance, the guerrilla force of Loon, Bohol withdrew to the hills. As a punishment
for resisting American occupation, the whole town of Loon was burned to the ground.
What was left standing was only the church building which the Americans made into
a garrison. 127
The Boholano patriots [at the battle of Punta Gorda] were composed of soldiers who
mostly came from the town of Garcia-Hernandez. His code name was “Commander
Noah”. Under the command of Commander Noah was a certain “Capitan Sinono” and
Capitan Gregorio “Goyong” Ranario. 140
On October 11, 1901, after defeating the Cebuanos, General Robert P. Hughes
arrived in Tagbilaran. He brought with him the main bulk of the 19th Regiment. 142
When the contagion disappeared in the town of Calape, the schools were reopened on
October 13, 1902. On Monday, November 3, 1902, the provincial board of health
allowed the schools to resume classes except in the towns of Guindulman and Loboc.
These two towns were allowed to reopen in December and January respectively.
Immediately following the cholera epidemic, there appeared fevers and smallpox.
While very few cases of fever were fatal, the contagion interfered with school
attendance. 154
Mojares, Resil B. 1999. The war against the Americans: Resistance

and Collaboration in Cebu: 1899–1906. Quezon City: Ateneo
de Manila.
When the prominent insurgent leaders surrendered in 1901, many of these elements
remained in the hills, bearers of a long tradition of social instability and armed
struggle. 172
#chapter 8 [#check if added already]
The pulahan phenomenon, however, did not become entirely a thing of the past.
Events in the years that followed indicated how a folk tradition of protest remained
close to the surface. In 1908, a “prophet” named Anastacio Quejada was baptizing
people in the diestrict of Guadalupe and a man presenting himself as “Jose Rizal” was
organizing a cult in some northern Cebu barrios. At around the same time, there were
reports that in Olango (Santa Rosa, Mactan) there was a Tagalog who called himself
Santiago Apostol, had a sword whose brightness, when unsheathed, could smite
nonbelievers, and who traveled in the company of “Mary Magdalene” and a preacher
named Segundo Tilana [fn].
Prophets and rebels continued to walk the Cebu countryside. 192
Apalisok, Simplicio M. 1999. Bohol without tears: Land of the

country’s most battered people. Book 3.. Muligraphics and Copy
Systems. Quezon City.
Ang ngalan sa lalawigan sa Bohol gikan sa naglan sa usa ka balanbay sa lungsod sa
Tagbilaran nga Bool. Matud pa, sa pag-abut sa mga Kastisa nangutana sila sa mga
molupyo kon unsay ngalan niadtong dapita; pinaagi sa pagsenyas sa tudlo, ug maoy
natudlo and (sic) usa ka dakung kahoy duol sa baybayon, kaingon sa mga molupyo
nga ang ngalan sa kahoy nga ‘bo-ou’, ug sa pagdungog sa mga Kagsial mao ang
‘Bool’. Sukad niadto ang dapit ginganlan ug Bool ug hangtud karon ang ngalan sa
balangay mao gayud ang Bool. [From Bernadino Inting, Bohol ug mga Bol-anon.
Prefaced 3 January 1934, p6] 47
#folk etymology
[From Legaspi chronicles:]
“We set dais avoding the deep shoals above mentioned as we proceeded to Butuan.
The breeze was strong, but the current was running leeward, so we could not sit with
the favorable wind. We tried the island of BOJO” [From Filipiniana Book Guild,
1984. The colonization and conquest of the Philippines by Spain, 1558-1557, p51] 47
#folk etymology
Below is a portion of the DECS’ account [of Lonoy massacre]:

It was during th term of Captain Franciso Acala, then the municipal mayor of Jagna
that the American soldiers stationed in Jagna Central , unearthed the presence of
Filipino inusrrectos mostly Jagnaanons camping at Lonoy under the command of
Capt. Gregorio ‘Goyo’ Caseñas, a man with an amulet (anting-anting). Goyo was
from the barrio of Canjulao, Jagna.
[]...]
the Americans reached Lonoy on the Easter Sunday of 1901 together with Capitan
Francisco Acala, believed to have collaborated with the enemy. Before proceeding to
the fixing line, the gun and bayonet wielding troopers gathered around the front of
the chapel, tossed a coin, and shot at it. This was believed to have suppressed the
powers of Capt. Goyo’s anting-anting because after hearing the rounds of shots, the
revolutionists came out of their hiding positions and began attacking their formidable
foes. 224
[Regarding Lonoy massacre Jagna]:
With a short hearing and the innocence of Franciso (capitan Esco) Acala regardless,
the latter was meted out the extreme penalty of death by a firing squad. The sentence,
handwritten in Spanish (with several undecipherable words from its original text) is
the General Order pronouncing Acala’s death [226] sentence:
Orden general del Campamento el dia se hoy:
El Consejo de Guerra que se habia anunciad el dia cuatro del actual se selebre ayer
fecha sus de los corrientes y no pudiendo terminarlo por falta de tiempo esta mañana
se termino cuyo resultado es el siguetes: Eusebio Deliman procesado por robo fue
absuelto dentro de las fortificacciones, Mariano Datahan contra la union de los
revolucionarios y Antonio Balili por incendio tambien fueron absueltos sin perjuicio se
continuas dentro de las fortificaciones mientras que la Revolucion no trien fs (sic).
Carmeo Oceana por traicion a la Patria fue condenado a cadena perpetua. Vicente
Berola y Saturnino Achacoso por sospechos de su espias fueron absuelto por no
resultarlos algunos cargos procesales quedan permitido este ultimo para restituirse
pueblo de su residencia. Marcos Abrea por el mismo delito encerraoto dentro del
Establicimiento Penal hasta la terminacion de la guerra Benigno Ranes tambien per
sospechos del mismo delito el sobresimiento definitivo de su cause restituyondose a la
hogar por no resultarla algun cargo no proceso y Franciso Acala por el mismo delito a
la pena capital duya ejecucion tendra luz el dia de mañana a las ocho en punto de en
el sitio Cambabag tiendo el rio esco por una seccion de tiradores al mande de un
oficial. 227 [frm Division of Military Information, File 875, Dec 24, 1901: Philippine
Insurgent Records, National Archives and Record Management. ]
After the conclusion of peace between the Boholanos and the American troops in
1901, teachers appointed during the Spanish regime were allowed to continue their
duties by the new conquerors. This is shown by the fact that in 1908, maestra Iyay
Mendoza who was a teacher at the escuela de niñas (at the present site of the Tagbilaran
PNB building) continued with her duties using Spanish and home-studied English as a
medium of instruction. 266
Despite the merits of the Spanish and American educational system in our country,
the effects are said to be dangerous, for slowly, the Filipinos embraced the foregin
culture, threatening to obliterate Filipino customs, traditions, their values and national
identity. The uneducated masses were made to believe in western superiority,
effectively through an educational system using a foreign tongue as medium of
insturction, with a curricula that had little relation with a way they lived as native
Filipinos. 268
2000-2009
Añasco, Carliloso. n.d. ca. 2000. Bohol: The capsulized history.
To replenish their dwindling food supply, the ship Victoria now under the command
of Sebastain de Elcano dropped anchor at the seaboard between the Bohol mainland
and the island of Panglao. Through the natives, they found potable water in a well
called”BOHO”, very close to the place where they anchored. Despite its proximity to
the sea (about 30 meters), its water deposit is not salty. It projects an inexhaustible
amount of water even during prolonged rainless dry season (sic). In spite of this
unprecedented phenomenon, the surrounding community is devoid of accounts that
purpotedly explained the origin of the [3] name “boho”. The early inhabitants must
have named it “boho” not “atabay” because it was not a man-made well. As the years
went by the name of the place has been handed down from parents to children by
word of mouth and the word “boho” was later corrupted and became the lead, the
cue and the clue on why Bohol was called by that named. This well called “Bohol” is
along the shoreline of barangay Guiwanon, Baclayon five kilometers from Tagbilaran
City. History writers, textbooks and reference sources often give vastly divergent
accounts relating how the name Bohol has been attributed to the island of Datu
Sikatuna and Sigala. Some historians had said that “the name Bohol is derived from
Bo-ol, a barrio from the mainland, in a place where Magellan’s men came upon after
they toured the island of Panglao. Other chroniclers and early historians invariably
write the name of this province as Bojo, Bohol, and Bohol. Compilation of sources
and maps from Legaspi’s chronicles on Philippine map and other accounts have
shown that name Bohol has already existed before the Spaniards came. 4
#folk etymology
It was believed that Dagohoy possessed some supernatural powers, an amulet,
“anting-anting” or “dagon”, a charm which protected him from being harmed by his
enemies. It was said that the hero possessed the charm of “hoyohoy”, a gentle wind
which enabled him to jump from one hill to another hill, from one side to the other of
the same river. Because of his power, the people called him “tawo nga may pako”, a
man with wings and another power where he could see in darkness even inside the
caves. He was also referred to as “ang tawo ng nakadagon sa hoyohoy”, a man who
possesses the charm of magical power from the gods of the gentle winds. This charm
gives him the power to vanish and reappear as he wishes. In a different version of the
same episode it was said that Dagohoy’s bodily scent could be sensed through the
airwaves but could not be seen. Dagohoy’s real name was Franciso Sendrijas, a native
of Inabanga, Bohol. Because of his charm from the gentle wind the natives called him
Dagohoy from the coined Bisayan words, “Dagon sa Hoyohoy”. original surname of
Sendrijas. 8
#dagohoy #folk etymology
Boholanos are sometimes looked down (sic) by non-Boholanos in exaggerating the use
of “j” in speaking the local dialect in their own intonation and accent. But to them,
the intonation and accent should not be considered a defect; it is a trademark of the
twang the native tongue (sic). Every town, province or even every country for that
matter has its own intonation and accent in speaking their own language and that the
Boholanos are proud that they have their own (sic), a symbol and identification that
they are real Boholanos. So they have nothing to fear for being despised. Instead, they
have to preserve it. 19
#hypercorrection #chd
Whenever one moves to a newly built house, a celebration takes place. The owner of
the house, as a tradition, would prepare a pig or a cow to be slaughtered for the
celebration. There are games and dancing besides eating. They called this belief, “pa-
orog”. The “pa-orog” will enable the owners of the newly built house to b e protected
from harms and bad omens and at the same time, they will be guaranteed to have a
happy home life. 22
For the healing of the sick they employed a “diwatahan or tambalan” who utters
strange language to appease the anito or the invisible being inhabiting a tree whom
the natives believe to be responsible for their ailments. They called this practice
“dangkoy” which involves dancing over hot coals. 22
#urasyun
In Rizalino Israel’s “Captain Francisco Salazar Has Fallen”, a biography of Vicente T
Cubero, he told the story of a brave Surigao-born Boholano who used the name
Francisco Salazar as his war name [...]
However, on the other hand, Cubero was known to have possessed a talisman in the
form of a libretto, according to Israel. Many claimed that Salazar became
invulnerable to bullets and other weapons after uttering ejaculations from the strange
tiny book. 26
#antinganting
It has been said by old-folks-knowers that only a female could neautralize the power of
a talisman. It had been coincidentally proven true in the case of Francisco Salazar for
before the firing line the battle line (sic). A woman crossed the path, in the person of a
certain Maria, who, together with a lad pretended to be looking for a medicine man
to cure her ailment but in reailty was a Japanese spy. After the incident three
truckloads of Japanese soldiers in fully armed gear (sic). At the end, fourteen guerrilla
fighters fell and eighty nine Japanese soldiers lost their lives in that encounter.
Francisco Salazar fell dead from bullets of the Japanese soldiers and his charmed
exploits ended too.
(Reprinted from the book, “This is Bohol”, written by the Bohol Provincial Librarian, Mrs Salome D
Ramos and her assistants) 27
#antinganting
It used to be called “Guinduluman” meaning “overtaken by darkness” because it was
said that there were only two towns organized in Bohol: Jagna and Batuanan (Alicia).
Travelers starting from any part of those towns in the morning were sure to be
benighted or overtaken by darkness in this place. The name was later changed to
Guindulman.
#folk etymology (see also Tirol’s opinion on this)
The construction of the church [of Loon], the two primary school buildings, the flight
of steps from Moto to Napo and the municipal building in Napo was done with forced
labor. On Sundays, every male person had to go to church and bring at least one
ganta of sand. The house of the governadorcillo was built in the same way. The
wooden materials used for this construction came from Maitum, a former barrio of
Tubigon. Hundreds of men had to cut timber from the mountains and haul the logs
to the sea. It is said that many died from the hardship of task. The men assigned to
work at Maitum were out for at least one year. It is also said that when the men left
for this assignment, the church bells tolled for those who would not be able to return
because of death from exhaustion, hunger or disease. [...] There are fisherman who
do not limit themselves to the sea around Bohol. They go as far as Palawan and
Turtle Island.
#route to biabas
Mapes, Victor L. 2000. The butchers, the baker: The World

War II memoir of a United States Army Air Corps soldier
captured by the Japanese in the Philippines. Jefferson, North
Carolina: McFarland & Company.
I learned later that the four men who had escaped joined the guerrillas under Lt. Col.
Fergig. William G. Knortz, the escape leader, had been a good friend of Lt. John
Chandler, who was one of the three POWs executed in retaliation for the escape.
Knortz took Chandler’s death hard and threw himself into reckless operations against
the Jpas. Knortz died in aciton September 11, 1943. It was rumored that he had been
paddling toward a pier guarded by several Japs. As usual Knortz had slung two
bandoliers of ammunition over his shoulder. It was not completely dark and the Japs
discovered him before he could begin firing. To avoird their fire, Knortz slipped into
the water only to sink and drown under the weight of his ammunition. 226
Hau, Caroline S. 2000. Literature and history. In Necessary
fictions: Philippine literature and the nation, 1946–1980. Quezon
City: Ateneo de Manila Press.
The question of culture is central to the nationalist debate over the continuing impact
of colonialism in Philippine everyday life. Filipino culture itself is theorized, not least
by some Filipinos themselves, as being tainted by the Philippines’ colonial history and
its aftermath. This contamination, and the mark of inauthenticity that is its byproduct,
springs from the assumption that Philippine culture is principally and substantively
defined through its interaction with the “outside,” especially its foreign colonizers.
Renato Constantino has commented on the “colonial mentality” afflicting Filipino
academics who remain trapped within the logic and values of their “Western”
colonizers. No doubt the Americans played a key role in constructing lowland,
“Hispanized” Philippine culture as debased and corrupt, effectively setting it apart
from, and in conceptual opposition to, the Noble Savage culture of the highlanders in
Mountain Province (Cannell 1999, 6-9). The durability of this concept of a
“damaged” culture – this is James Fallows's dramatic phrase – is confirmed by the oft-
repeated lamentation among Filipinos that "we have no culture," and by interminable
public and private debates (especially among the middle classes) over Filipino identity
or the lack thereof. 100
#authenticity
#definition: indigenous #chapter 1 [prefiguring Jolly in chapter 10]
"When we ourselves began to write the history of our own country, we were naturally
outraged by the idea that an alien people [i.e., the Spaniards] had intervened in that
history and just as naturally resolved to reject that invervention as not our history,not
our true history, which we formulate as the era before the coming of the West, and
the era in which we began to fight to break free of the West, the intervening
intervention being skipped as much as possible as no affair of our own.” Nick Joaquin.
1975. Culture as history. Manila Review 1 (3) (April): 6-7. Cited in Hau, 103
#authenticity #chapter 10
“Identity is such a problem for us because we are of two minds about it. On the one
hand we say that we must change, we must leave the past behind, we must move
forward, we must update. On the other hand we insist that there is a fixed primeval
Filipino identity to which we must make our way back. And at the same time we are
asking: “What is the identity of the Filipino today?”
Everybody thinks that is a question impossible to answer.
Actually the answer is very easy and very plain.
The identity of the Filipino today is of a person asking what is his identity.”
Joaquin, Nick. 1988. Culture and history: Occasional notes on the process of Philippine becoming.
Mandaluyong: Solar Publishing Corporation. p244. Cited in Hau 116.
Far from being diametrically opposed categories, the “indigenous” and “foreign” take
shape through the mutual determination of one by the other, within specific historical
and material circumstances. 132
#authenticity #definition: indigenous #entification #chapter 4 #article: virgin birth
Cullinane, Michael. 2000. The master and Juan de la Cruz:

Hilario C. Moncado, politiko and man of mystery. In Lives at
the margin: Biography of Filipinos, obscure, ordinary, and heroic,
edited by A. W. McCoy. Madison, Wisconsin: Ateneo de
Manila University Press.
For the faithful, Moncado was the reincarnation of Christ through Rizal. 71
The countryside of Moncado’s youth—Cebu’s contracosta, or west coast—was in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries alive with charismatic leaders and
socioreligious rebels who defied Hispanized elites, resited American rule, and
established uniuqe societies that frequenlty sought withdrawal from mainstream
society. More than any other region of Cebu, this area was, in the view of indigenous
elites and the colonial authorities, notorious for movements that were labeled colorum.
Moncado and his family were undoubtedly familiar with several of the more
prominent charismatic figures of Cebu’s contracosta. 73
#article: bio of anoy
Tirol, Jes B. Biography of Mariano Datahan Sumatra. [Part 5],

25 June, 2000 The Bohol Chronicle.
After the Lonoy, Jagna debacle of the Boholano patriots on March 8, 1901, a general
court martial was held by the Boholano forces. The supposed traitor of Jagna,
Francisco Alcala was sentenced to die by firing squad. The others accused of crimes
were found innocent like Eusebio Deliman for robbery and Antonio Balili for arson.
Mariano Datahan (he was already known by that name), was found innocent for the
crime of “contra la union de los revolucionarios” (against the union of the revolutionaries).
(See. S. Apalisok, “Bohol Without Tears” (1999), Book 3, p227)
After his release, Datahan went back to Misamis and fought with the Filipino patriots
against the Americans in the towns of Clarin, Oroquita, Langaran, Nocalan and
Todela.
[...]
In the month of August 1901 Datahan decided to return to Bohol. On August 8, 1901
he was already at the island of Pamilacan, Baclayon together with his friend Eustaquio
Daligdig and they went separate ways. Datahan then went to Panglao, then to
Maribojoc, then Balilihan, Carmen, Batuan, and Carmen, Bohol. Between the towns
of Carmen and Batuan, he joined with the group of Col Pedro Samson.
The Eskaya Biography of Mariano Datahan give details about a battle between the
Boholanos and the Americans at Carmen, Bohol near a place called Carmanayon. It
occurred on August 17, 1901. It was a large scale battle. This battle is not recorded in
any history book.
[...]
The Eskaya biography of Mariano Datahan gave the date of September 13, 1901
when Col Samson reorganized the Boholano government at Cambaliga, Carmen,
Bohol. It was because the officials of the Republic of Bohol did not function anymore.
In the reorganization, Colonel Samson assumed the rank of General. That is why
when Col Samson surrendered on December 23, 1901 he was already recorded by
the Americans as General Pedro Samson. It is only Datahan’s Biography that can
supply us when and where Pedro Samson assumed the rank of General. 1
During the Second World War, Mariano Datahan organized his own Guerrilla force.
It was this force that Lt Esteban Bernido, later on became Governor of Bohol, tried to
take over command but Datahan rejected Bernido.
Datahan was very supportive of the Boholano Guerrillas. According to the Eskayas,
throughout the war period Datahan slaughtered sixty cows and carabos in order to
feed the Guerillas.
Immediately after the war, Datahan was again in trouble because he sheltered the
Pulahan Cult from Leyte and Negros whose beliefs were similar to the Eskayas who
were officially Aglipayans. He was arrested by the authorities for rebellion. After this
experience, he took Atty. Victoriano D. Tirol as a lawyer to advise him on the
intricacies of the law. 2
#aglipay
Gray, Edward G. 2000. Missionary linguistics and the

description of ‘exotic’ languages. In Sylvain Auroux, E.F.K.
Koerner, Hans-Josef Niedefehe & Kees Versteegh (eds.)
History of the Language Sciences. Handbücher zur Sprach –und
Kommunkiations-wissenschaft. Band 18.1 Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter. 929-937
To properly understand the experiences and contributions of missionary linguists, one
must abandon the impulse to search among their writings for the seeds of modern
language sicence. This is not to diminish the many and real contributions of Christian
missionaries to the growth of the scientific study of language. Rather, it is to suggest
that in order to have any meaningful historical understanding of the sources of those
contributions, we must move beyond the all too common tendency among historians
of linguistics to be satisfied with simply identifying the antecedents of their own
discipline. 929
While the experiences of Christian missionaries have widely in time and place, one
generalization can be made with confidence: until the 19th century, their language
studies were a means to an end, namely the salvation of souls. The result of this was,
on the whole, a highly utilitarian approach to the study of language. Only in
exceptional cases does one find among the vast corpus of early missionary writings
elaborate morphological analyses or philosophical ruminations on the nature of
language. Instead, those writings reveal a persistent struggle to comprehend foreign
languages in familiar, Western terms. This does not reflect some sort of impediment
imposed by Christian dogma. Rather, it is indicative of the fact that for most Christian
missionaries language-acquisition, not language tout court, has been the primary
concern. 930
By Papal decree, the Asian trading routes were given to the Portuguese, and because
Portugal was primarily a trading power (as opposed to a colonizing power), its
presence in Asia was generally confined to seaports. For missionaries, this meant that
activity was limited to trading centers, cities with abundant linguistic resources,
including cosmopolitan merchants and seafarers, some hailing from the Levant or
other regions long acquainted with Europeans and their languages. For this reason,
there was little need for missionaries to study local languages. They could, instead,
rely for interpretation on the many multilinguals who lived in these trading centers.
930
In addition to India, China, and Japan, another notable area for Catholic missionaries
in 16th century Asia was the Philippines. In 1579, the Pope created the bishopric of
Manila, which, largely because of Spanish trading ties, was incorporated into the holy
see of Mexico. Very much unlike those elsewhere in Asia, missionaries in the
Philippines faced little concerted resistance to their presence. There was simply no
large-scale imperial structure to unite the people against foreigners. Yet, to some
degree because of this fact, the missionaries’ burden was all the more difficult to bear.
Without any sort of overarching governing apparatus, there was no extrinsic force to
bring unity to Philippine culture and language. Missionaries could not, therefore, rely
on a single elite lingua franca such as Mandarin in China, or Nahuatl in Mexico.
Similarly, without the clear social hierarchies of China or India, there was no far-
reaching imperial elite to disseminate Catholic learning.
These circumstances left missionaries with no choice but to master various local
languages and dialects, and to this end, they produced numerous grammars and
dictionaries. Among these were the Dominican Tomas Pinpin, Blancas de San José’s
Arte y reglas de la lenguag tagalag, first published in 1610, and Father Augustín de
Magdalena’s Arte de la lengua tagala sacado de diversos artes (1679). Much like other
missionary grammars of the era, these works relied on a Latin grammatical standard.
The use of a Latin standard, as numerous scholars have observed, was perhaps the
single trait that unified all pre-modern missionary grammars. And while one familiar
explanation for this is the absence of a relativistic world view, there is another less
often recognized explanation. Far from being dispassionate scientific treatises,
missionary grammars were textbooks, designed first and foremost to aid missionaries
in the expedient acquisition of local languages. It only made sense, then, to present
these languages in familiar terms. And for Jesuits, dominicans, and Franciscans, all of
whom had spent time learning Latin, and many of whom had taught Latin, it made
even more sense to employ a Latin standard. 932
But beyond this [the benefit of imperial lingua francas], from very early in the Spanish
conquest of Mexico, Spanish missionaries had the extraordinary advantage of having
printing presses at their disposal. In Mexico, a press was established in the 1530’s,
under the auspices of the first bishop of Mexico, Don Antonio de Mendoza, and the
first book printed on the press was a bilingual catechism entitled Breve y más compendiosa
doctrina Christiana (sic) en lengua castellana y mexicana. This work was followed in 1555 by
the first Spanish-Nahuatl dictionary, written by the Franciscan Alonso [932] de
Molina. The first printing press in Peru was established in 1580, and soon it was
issuing religious works in Quechua and Aymara. The first of these was the Doctrina
Christiana (sic) y catecismo para instrucción de los Indios (1584), a fully trilingual work in
Spanish, Quechua, and Aymara. 933
Once again, a brief survey of French missionary writings on Amerindian languages
reveals a continued reliance on a Latin standard, and, in turn, the persistence of the
Christian utilitarian approach to language study. 934
The most remarkable of the early Protestant missions to the Americas was that of the
New England minister, John Eliot (1604-1690) who spent the second half of the 17th
century pursuing the conversion of a small group of Algonquian-speaking Indians in
Eastern Massachusetts. Much like the Catholic missionaries in New Spain, Eliot had a
printing press at his disposal, but Eliot’s use of print differed profoundly from that of
these Catholic missionaries. If, for the latter, printed works in indigenous languages
were intended to serve the missionaries themselves, for Eliot they were intended to
serve the Indians. 934
#literacy
[...] Eliot was the first to apply to a non-European peoples the Protestant doctrine that
every Christian should have ready and immediate access to Scripture. 935
#literacy
But even within this group [Puritans], Eliot was radical. He believed fervently in the
millennialist notion that the second coming of Christ wwas imminent, and that
humans had much to do to prepare the way for Christ’s return. Most importantly,
they had to reconstruct an early “primitive” church of Christians that resembled the
morally uncorrupt world before original sin. In Eliot’s view, the only acceptable way
to do this was to begin with persons devoid of the corrupt habits of mind endemic to
the Old World. The American Indians seemed the ideal subjects for such an
experiment. They appeared untouched by European greed and immorality, and (in
Eliot’s view) may even have been one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. 935
Borja, Tiburcio. 2001. Our early ABC's in Bohol. In Bearers of
benevolence: The Thomasites and public education in the
Philippines, edited by M. Racelis and J. C. Ick. Pasig City: Anvil
Publishing.
In Bohol that same year [1901] the English school [in Tagbilaran] did not begin to
function till June. 194
There were copybooks with one line of writing at the top to be copied on the whole
page, line by line. 195
Francisco, Jose Mario C. 2001. Language as currency and

dictionaries as barter. In Reflections on Philippine culture and
society, edited by J. T. Peralta. Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University Press.
This early-seventeenth-century manuscript [Vocabulario Tagalo]– whose history and
condition Antoon Postma has carefully traced – consists of a Tagalog-Spanish
dictionary and a Spanish-Tagalog finding list aimed at helping Spanish speakers learn
Tagalog, not vice versa (Ruiz 1997).
#language policy
“Missionaries made adaptations to the customs, values, and structures of Filipino
society in order to present Christianity in a form not totally alien to the culture with
which it was coming into contact. Most obvious of these adaptations was the decision
taken from the very beginning to teach the faith, not in Spanish but in the native
languages.” John Schumacher (1979, 74-75) 44
#language policy
Hence they [Spanish missionaries] insited on the Spanish Dios instead of any
vernacular words, such as Bat-hala Meikapal (Origin, Maker of Earth and Heaven), for
fear that their nuances and imprecision could lead to idolatry (de la Costa 1961, 140).
47
#language policy
The translation of the Spanish perdon into the Tagalog tauad, as mentioned above,
locates the native understaning of forgiveness in the realm of an exchange of goods
through barter or selling. Further, it elicits the entire ethos of native commercial
practices into the theological meaning of forgiveness. While religious or technical
theological discourse in other languages, like Spanish, has earlier employed a similar
root metaphor for Christian forgiveness, the [47] translation of this metapahor into
Tagalog specifies the meaning of forgiveness within the local context. Hence, it is not
surprising that Filipino Christians appear to be bargaining, or haggling, (tumatauad)
with God in their prayers. 48
#language policy
De la Paz, Myrna J. 2001. Abadeha: The Philippine Cinderella.
Auburn, California: Shen’s books.
One upon a time in the islands called the Philippines, where sea stars bloom in a
shimmering emerald sea, ther lived a fisherman named Abak, his wife Abadesa, and
their beautiful daughter Abadeha. [n.d.]
#folk literacy #article: writing system
Racelis, Mary. 2001. Introduction: Bearing benevolence in the

classroom and community. In Bearers of benevolence: The
Thomasites and public education in the Philippines, edited by M.
Racelis and J. C. Ick. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing.
Of all the values deliberately programmed into the curriculum, the most contentious
was the American value placed on the dignity of labor. The Thomasites learned early
on that only lower status people carried loads or did manual labor. The American
governor of Leyte created a sensation when he arrived at his new station carrying his
baby in his arms, with no maidservant to be seen. Little wonder that when
Thomasites carried piles of books, unloaded crates of school supplies, constructed
benches, swept the floor or erased the blackboard, Filipinos stared and experienced all
kinds of qualms as to whether they should help. Poorer Filipinos would invariably leap
to the rescue, while elites hung back in agonies of indecision.
The climax came with the introduction of vocational subjects especially gardening,
into the school curriculum. Until then, teachers had followed a strictly academic
program, deliberately done lest Filipinos believe that American education was aiming
at making them “hewers of wood and carriers of water.” Vocational skills were to be
introduced gradually, with students of all social statuses expected to help teachers
erase the board, move chairs and tables, and run errands carrying small items. Since
the teachers themselves erased, moved and carried, this could not be interpreted as a
matter of status distinction.
Gardening was another matter though. Cultivating the soil with one’s bare hands was
something only poor people did. The children of landlords might sit next to the
children of their tenants in the classroom, but that did not reflect social and economic
relations outside of it Many a [10] Thomasite had to send home the muchacho who
came along with his child “master” on gardening day to do the manual labor for him.
Even the poorer children’s parents objected because they were sending their children
to school to make them into professionals who would never have to dirty their hands.
The Filipino teachers themselves were cast into all kinds of role conflicts on the
matter.
Since, however, the American teachers were in charge and themselves showed the
children how to prepare the vegetable garden, plant, nurture, and harvest, their pupils
could hardly refuse to follow suit. [...]Home economics classes taught the girls how to
use a variety of recipes, cooking the vegetables so they retained their nutritional value.
The concept of nutrition and posters with the three basic food groups became
standard information in local communities. 11
#chapter 4 [discussing literature to do with nutrition, value of hard work etc]
Aparece, Ulysses B. 2003. Sukdan curing practices in Anonang,

Inabanga, Bohol: An ethnography of performance, Graduate
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of San
Carlos, Cebu City.
...the Visayans name them [shamans] baylan or babaylan [via McCoy 1982]. 8
In the northern part of Bohol, the word tambalan is the umbrella term for all medicine
men who can specifically function as any of the following: albularyu (healer who utilizes
herbs to treat diseases); manghihilut (native masseur who treats “sprains” and bone
dislocations); urasyunan (one who utters verses in Latin, or a Latin-Visayan mix, to cure
illness); mananayhup (healer who blows air softly on the afflicted part of the sick
person’s body while incantations are muttered); manunuthu (the curer who squirts
his/her saliva on the afflicted part of the patient’s body) (Galleon, 1976:80-86); and
sukdan (one who performs curing in trance through ritualistic dancing, chanting, acting
and singing). The sukdan might also be an albularyu, “herbal shaman,” or urasyunan
simultaneously ... 9
#urasyun
The biray is a voluntary association with a constitution (acta) and a board (hunta),
organised for the sole purpose of providing funeral assistance to its members. Any
person or group of persons may organize a biray, along lines of clan or family
membership, or to serve the needs of those living in a particular locality. A person or
family may belong to more than one. Each biray may function indefinitely. 60
The gala is organized for the specific purpose of providing financial assistance to a
member at the marriage of a male child. Members all have one thing in common: at
least one single male child in the family. A gala may not be guided by a constitution if
its members are small in number; only about 30 persons or less comprise a gala.
Members agree to contribute a specific amount upon the marriage of the male child.
If a member has more than one unmarried son, he may “register” all of them on
condition that he pay the agreed-upon contribution for each.
The gala has a relatively short life span. It ceases to function when all the members
have collected upon the marriage of their respective male children. If a member’s son
does not marry, and he is thus the last in line, he collects what is due him anyway.
There is always a danger that upon his son’s marriage a member may no longer be
interested in honoring his obligations to the others. There is no adequate safeguard
against this, except the trust that every member places in his fellows. Again, a person
may be a member of one or more such associations.
The ayunay, from ayun or alayun, “alliance, cooperation,” is a practice whereby a
person lends his service to another in exchange for a similar future service. The
service is free, but its beneficiary is obligated to provide food, [62] drinks, and
entertainment at the time and site of service. Examples of this are the cleaning of
weeds froma rice field, and the preapration and production stages of rapya, a roll of
woven buri fibers about ten meters long and one meter wide, weavable in one day,
that can bring a price of 300 persos.
Buluntaryu is a practice in Anonang whereby the whole community, or a large part of
it, is required to render volunteer service in order to repair roads, construct a
barangay hall, chapel or basketball court, etc. 62
Many residents [of Anonang] are known for their kalaki or ability to rise above the
ordinary through their magical or spiritual powers. On the good side are the tambalan,
“medicine men,” who are either urasyunan (who utter verses in Latin or corrupt Latin
to cure a person), mananayhup (who blows air softly on an afflicted part of a person’s
body while muttering incantations between blowing), manunuthu (who treats by spitting
on the affected part of the patient’s body), and the sukdan, the subject of this work.
They are generally believed to be benevolent. [67]
On the bad side are the dautan, “evil ones,” who inflict harm in various specialized
ways that could collectively be called sorcery, except for one. There is the barangan
(who harms another through his pet creatures like beetles, scorpions, centipedes, or
bees), the paktul (who inflicts harm by piercing with a needle a part of a doll that
represents the person to be destroyed), the sampalan (who ties magic charms to the
branches of his fruit trees to prevent theft of the fruit, and causing any thief to suffer a
swelling of the stomach and sometimes death), and the haplit (who inflicts harm by
touching his hand to a part of another’s body). More real may be the hiluan (who kills
through the surreptitious administration of what may be a real poison).
Frequently heard in the barangay are stories of the night creatures, or “creatures of
the lower world,” as Filipino folkorists call them (Ramos 1971:3-4) such as the
kundinadu (restive souls dragging metal chains), kik-kik (nocturnal birds believed to be
the pets of a witch or ungu), wakwak (birds which turn into women of terrifying
appearance upon landing), wuwug (a viscera-sucking, flying human head), and many
others. 68
#urasyun #eskayan etymology: bolto
In Anonang’s brief history as a community, there have been, and still are, stories
about charismatic leaders and popular personalities who commanded a number of
followers or believers and attracted a great attention because of their verbal skills, and
extraordinary feats such as healing, levitation, mastery over nature, and ability to
become invisible. At the forefront of these have been the sukdan. One of the great
sukdan in Anonang’s past was Candido.
When he was still alive, the shaman Candido was known in Anonang and its
neighboring barangays as an excellent curer of persons who fell victim to barangan,
paktul and ungu. He was especially known for liberating or freeing a victim of the
patakud, or that ingested substance which turns an unsuspecting person into an ungu or
wakwak. It was learned from him that some obvious symptoms that one has become a
victim of patakud are his restlessness at nights and his emission of strange sounds that
resemble a young bird’s while sleeping. The patakud is put into delicious food, given to,
and eaten by a prospective victim. The victim can still be saved from becoming a full-
fledged ungu or wakwak if the patakud is destroyed in its infancy, a pisu, or a young bird,
that is, a young wakwak. According to Candido, this could be accomplished through
ritualistic cleansing by fire. 70
#boholano-eskaya traditions, #messianism
Another person of charismatic character in Anonang was Pelagia. She was a small,
hunch-backed woman gifted with healing through urasyun. She was [71] revered to the
point of being called birhin (virgin) and addressed as nanay. Her story resembles the
Cebuano tale of Maria Cacao.
A loose group of followers was formed. Money and farm produce were freely given to
Pelagia. She was so deeply respected that she was carried by her followers when
crossing rivers and walking uphill. She and her group used to live in sitio Kalubihan in
houses made of galvanised iron (g.i.) sheets for roof walls and floor. The group
believed that this kind of house could endure a deluge similar to the one at the time of
Noah. Members claimed they saw Pelagia walking on the flood waters that devastated
Inabanga in 1962. Many also said that they had witnessed Pelagia turned away from a
ship in Cebu bound for Cagayan because of excess passengers, only to find that she
had arrived in Cagayan ahead of their ship’s arrival.
This researcher, when he was still an adolescent, had personal experiences of Pelagia’s
character. One good experience was when they were together in the motorized
banca, M/V Señor Sto. Niño bound for Cebu. She uttered incomprehensible Latin in
order to appease nature’s wrath. Then she threw food [72] to the angry and hungry
waves – bread, boiled rice, eggs, and dried fish – as an offering to the nature spirits.
The banca miraculously survived.
Much care was given to Pelagia by her followers because of her hunchback. They
believed that if it exploded, the whole of Anonang would be inundated. But she died
through another cause. She left behind nine houses which have remained padlocked
for fear that once they are opened, the whole world would be flooded with coins. A
small chapel has been built in her honor. An image of the Lady of the Rule, the
chapel’s patron saint, is kept at the altar; beside it is Pelagia’s own image. Their feast
day is November 21. 73
#boholano-eskaya traditions: #messianism #urasyun #female cult leaders
According to the sukdan himself the name comes from the word sukud which in today’s
Boholano or Cebuano means “to measure” or “to calculate”. 74
In its old understanding, it refers to a verb which means to challenge, to dare, or to
provoke to a fight or battle, or to try to find out a person’s sincerity, love and ability.
True enough, the striking characteristics of the sukdan are his strict adherence to the
rule of numbers, contents, and amounts, his fighting stance in his ritualistic dances as
if he were ready to do battle using his ritual bolo, and his sacrificial performances to
show his sincerity, love, and ability regarding his curing practices. He could be called
the “measuring shaman” or “the measurer”. 75
[The sukdan] Pedro [Suete] was called by the spirits of local historical warriors,
foremost of whom was Dagohoy, a famous Boholano anti-Spanish revolt leader. His
calling was characterized by various illnesses that struck him and his family at separate
times: sugpa (vomiting of blood), suka-kalibang (loose bowel movement coupled with
vomiting), and recurring high fever. He was told that these are signs of shamanic
calling, which he later accepted as he became more and more desperate for cure.
According to Pio, Dagohoy used to live in the caves of Taming and Magtangtang
(both now in the municipality of Danao), near to Pedro’s lands. Pio [84] believed that
Dagohoy was himself a sukdan, and was his distant ancestor. Pedro has two other
brothers who are also shman. Spirits of local warrior-relatives also called them to this
position. 85
#reincarnation #dagohoy #chapter 1 #chapter 8
When this diagnosis [of an illness inflicted by an ancestor shaman, calling the victim
to become a shaman himself] is made out to be certain, a shaman-to-be has no choice
other than to accept the call, because not only may he himself suffer a grave illness or
die, so may any of his family members suffer a catastrophe. In fact, the diagnosis of a
malady of one of the family members by a shaman could also pinpoint the candidate
as the one being given a call. 89
The caves [of Taming] are in the barangay of Taming, in Danao town, and are
believed to have been the hideout of the shaman and rebel, Dagohoy. 92
The mother of Conching [Conchita Capio], Henie’s [Henie Jenizan] wife is an
urasyunan who cures with magical verses. 95
#urasyun (CONSULTANT)
NOTE: Bad luck in childhood as evidence of being ‘chosen’ – see Biography of Anoy
Datahan.
The shamans admit that they have poor relations with the urasyunan. In the past, many
urasyunan have interfered with a sukdan especially when he is in the act of self-sacrifice
or immolation doing the fire-dance, or doing the bolo dance (sayaw sa alam-alam annd
sayaw sa lunas, respectively). The urasyunan might mumble an oracion in Latin to render
a dance unsuccessful, perhaps even leading to the sukdan’s injury of himself or even
death. The urasyunan believe the sukdan’s rituals have to be stopped because they
believe they involve evil powers. Should a sukdan notice that an urasyunan is interfering,
he will first speak a warning to stop. If unheeded, he might then run after the enemy
to attack with his ritual bolo. 100
#urasyun
There are no female sukdan. 102
#female cult leaders
Barangay folk say that they sometimes see lights on the mountain at night, seemingly
coming from glass-covered kerosene lamps. They believe that they are connected with
a fairy who watches over the whole place, staying awake at nights to frighten away
bandits. Her name is believed to be Alejandria, but she is also known as Dalagang
Bukid, “Maiden of the Mountain”. She is the shepherdess of golden livestock such as
carabaos, horses, and cows that can be seen at any time should they wish to appear to
humans. At times, it is said, the whole mountain glows brilliantly at night, probably
due to these golden animals.
According to popular accounts, Mt. Puwawan used to be a place to which people
evacuated to hide from the Japanese. When the Japanese troops finally set foot on the
mountain to make it their camp, the evacuees moved farther east. Anonang people
believe that when they left Bohol, they buried bars of gold there, and many have gone
to discover these treasures, some even losing their lives in an unsuccessful endeavor.
One group of treasure-seekers was headed by American engineers who wanted to
bulldoze the whole mountain, it is said. But while the work was still in its early stages,
two of them came down with myserious illnesses and later died. Their workers
became demoralized and demanded that the project be called off. [104]
Kalubihan Creek flows across sacred ground from the base of Mt. Puwawan to Sitio
Kalubihan, through a coconut palm plantation, and then flows into the Baogo River
to the west. The residents of Sitio Kalubihan claim that they have sometimes seen a
golden ship, carrying a cargo of coffee and cacao, floating down the creek. But instead
of sailing into the Baogo River, it takes off across the fields and valleys until it reaches
the Inabanga River at the site of the enchanted city of Makaban. They claim that the
ship’s ultimate destination is Davao City, where Alejandria was believed to have once
been seen, speaking about Mt. Puwawan and its cacao plantations. Her ship is said to
carry a cargo of gold bars as well, and its name is written in gold letters as MV
Puwawan City. Like the account of Pelagia, the story of Alejandria appears to be a
variant of the myth of Maria Cacao in Cebuano culture. 105
The shamans say that the caves and rocks of Taming are as large as cathedrals, and
that they may cover twenty hectares. The shaman-trainee must enter them alone to
locate another istampa near which are found smaller rocks claimed to be statues of the
patron saints. As a reward for completing this [107] hazardous task, the mutya amulet
is revealed to the apprentice. He is allowed to find it when its brilliance pierces
through the cave’s thick sheet of darkness. Once taken, it will act as the shaman’s
taming against enemies through its divinatory powers.
The many mouths of the caves are perched dangerously on cliffs. Pio siad that he had
entered only six of them. Their names are Tagulilung, Guba-guba, Ilagun,
Kaumajanhun, Ilihan, and Pagunub, all names of cave spirits or ancestors who used
to live in the caves as hermits (irmitanyu). He said the cave of Ilihan has the skeletal
remains of American, Filipino, and Japanese soldiers who fought there. 108
PK: fusing of anticolonial nationalism with animism
#chapter 1
The shaman in trance will dance with the sacred sundang and touch it to his arms and
legs without inflicting self-infury. This bolo, according to Pio, may be able to frighten
a rival urasyunan who may be present at a healing, preventing him/her from making
the shaman’s ritual ineffective through the utterance of verses in corrupt Latin. 114
#urasyun
Their color [shirt and pants] must be white, a color reflecting the shaman’s personal
purity and cleanliness. There are also a red triangular headwrap, red chest [115]
band, and red waistband, providing a sharp contrast to the white. The color red was
the favorite color of local warriors of old which, from the researcher’s point of view,
symbolizes the courage and bravery needed by the shaman to interact with the spirits
in trance in order to combat human malady. 116
#pulahan #chapter 1
Thirdly, the shaman peers into it [cup] for divinatory purposes. He can see whether
the paraphernalia and offerings on the mat are ritually correct in number and
contents – at least it concentrates his attention on the ritual tasks ahead. He can also
tell from it wheter a corrupt urasyunan, his arch-enemy, may be near. 117
#urasyun
House-transfer rituals are also commissioned so that landowning ancestral spirits will
enable a smooth movement from the old housesite, and to the new housesite. 123
#boholano-eskaya traditions, #house blessing
Pagsudlay, “Ritual Hair-combing” By 3pm on Good Friday, the group had descended
Mt. Puwawan and returned to Pio’s house. Upon arrival, each member was welcomed
inside the house by being given a ceremonial hair-combing. The shaman’s wife
Corcine used her comb to do this. The meaning of this is unclear, but may be related
contextually to a similar hair-combing done in Bohol when a newlywed couple enter
their dwelling after their nuptials. The comb used by the bride and groom is first
dipped into a glass of water where a certain leaf symbolizing happiness has been
submerged. This was not done by Corcine. 132
Addressing his wife as dinay, a ritual term for “wife” and an obvious re-arrangement of
the phonemes for the term of endearment inday, he asked her whether everything was
ready. 136
#word play #cryptolects #chapter 7 #chapter 9
[From Arukay]
6. Ka-umagdang urasyunan, Pagsabungan,
Ancestors who can speak words of power, Pagsabungan, 137
[list of ancestors mentioned in the arukay, compare with Eskayan texts]: Puwawan,
Kuampang, Matinlig, Kansusu, Panghagban, Kurus, Hamaga, Pagdasigan,
Kambantug, Tilbanuk, Kanlinti, Muntiapu, Kitanglad. 139
Aku si Pag-ugisan. Karun pa mi ka-ila nimu. Gikan ku sa Puluhagan du-ul sa Guindulman. Di ku
malisang bisan unsang katalagman. Naay gasa?
I am Pag-ugisan. It’s only now that we know you [the spirit was meeting everyone for
the first time]. I come from Puluhugan near Guindulman. I don’t feel afraid no matter
what the catastrophe. Is there a gift? 143
The spirit now continued with the arukay chant, Pio’s voice still in the voice of a
woman.
57. Sura Surayda walay la-ing gisaligan,
Suray Surayda, no one else is trusted in,
58. Himu-un ang lunas sa aghuy sa kabata-an,
The lunas of the aghuy sa kabata-an must be done,
59. Nga gisaligan sa pagpanubay ug panusi, ang ka-alam
Which is entrusted to search and investigate, the wisdom
60. Di mu pagahikawan, kana ang gihangyu namung tanan.
You won’t deny, that is what we all ask.
61. Sura Surayda, busa dapita ang mga bayani, kudban
Sura Surayda, so invite the heroes, the invulnerable,
62. Ug urasyunan, siya gayud sa bala dili madutlan,
And the gifted in words, he can’t be wounded by the bullet,
63. Ug sa kampilan siya dili mapasipad-an.
And by the bolo he won’t be harmed.
64. Pagjugum, pamalabad, ug pangkyamun mung tanan.
Drink, smoke the tobacco, and eat you all.
65. Mutya sa panipas, mutya sa panli-as,
Precious stone against deception, precious stone against trickery,
66. Mutya sa Panay-ay, mutya sa Mindoro, mutya sa Sagukluy,
Precious stone of Panay-ay, precious stone of Mindoro, precious stone of Sagukluy
67. Mutya sa tagulilung, mutya sa hangin
Precious stone of invisibility, precious stone of the wind,
68. Mutya sa lipak, mutya sa lambinaw, mutya sa adlaw,
Precious stone of lightning, precious stone of the water, precious stone of the sun,
69. Mutya sa liti, mutya sa panuktuk, mutya, sa mangginan-aw,
Precious stone of thunder, precious stone of panuktuk, precious stone of mangginan-
aw
70. Mutya sa bitu-un, mutya sa kabangla, mutya sa buwan, [145]
Precious stone of the star, precious stone of kabangla, precious stone of the moon,
146
#invisibility, #invulnerability, #mutya #antinganting
In the first dream, a quack urasyunan (healer using verses in corrupt Latin) had severed
his head with his pinuti bolo. 148
The urasyunan’s beheading of the shaman in the researcher’s dream might signify
assassination of the sukdan’s character, as the urasyunan is wont to do because he
believes his methods are based in evil. 149
The women, led by the shaman’s wife, were guided by Cebuano-language novena
booklets (tamdanan) printed in Cebu City. Excerpts from them were recited in the
following order: Anonymous 1935a, 1935b, 1984b. 158
And, finally, [the habak bottle] must never be stepped over or walked on, even
accidentally. It must be kept in an elevated place, preferably an altar. 162
At early dawn, a few hours after the ritual, the shaman must perform without fail a
certain task, namely, to take a bath. Should he not do this, he has to make amends by
killing a person outside of Bohol. Pio said that this act had never yet been committed
by any shaman: a man would rather take a bath, no matter how cold the weather, and
even if he is not feeling well. 182
#funny
But though the phases of ritual and the line of the invocation are fixed, out-of-script
lines or action can occur, for example when the shaman, perhaps still in trance as a
medium, enters into dialogues with visitors, issues instructions to assistants, patients or
patient’s companions, asks how the patient is feeling now, and warns an urasyunan (if
supsected to be present) against doing harm. 190
The steps of the shaman’s dances were found to resemble those used in the kuradang,
which is a dance indigenous to Bohol. 194
#boholano-eskaya traditions, #dance
Lines 4-8 [of the Arukay Invocation] categorize these katiguwangan into ka-apuhan and
kasungkuran, who are all the most distant ancestors; the punu-an, who are all the chief
spirit guides of shamans; ka-umagdan, or ancestors with special powers; dangangan who
can fly; the kudban who cannot be wounded in battle; urasyunan who can heal through
the power of words and who must not be associated with the plain [ie non-ancestral,
actual living and breathing PK] urasyunan who use corrupt Latin and are the arch-
enemies of the sukdan; and the spirit-guides as called by their individual names such as
Paglumutan, Pagabunan, and Pag-ugisan, who are in fact Pio’s guide spirits. 202
#invulnerability, #urasyunan (definition)
[There is] a high concentration of ritual variants of everyday words [used in the
invocations]; these sound unfamiliar and strange to the audience. Examples are the
words for the offerings: bahirus, pamalabad, tudungun, bantangun, alasyu, matam-isun (egg,
rolled tobacco leaf, sacrificial rooster, sacrificial hot, wine, soft-drink). 207
#unintelligibility #cryptolects
The audience’s awareness of the present becomes cloudy, as the chant transports it
back in time and space to the ancestors and warrior-heroes, through archaisms of
language, invented terms and poetic expressions: [214]
From the word dagang, ‘feather,’ comes dagangan, ‘feathered ones,’ for the spirits
who can fly;
from sabung, ‘cockfight,’ comes Pagsabungan as the name of a warrior-spirit
known for his courage;
from lumut, ‘moss,’ comes Paglumutan, the name of a spirit of great age,
symbolized by the moss that grows on the surface of things with time;
from lawig, ‘travel’ comes Paglawigan, ‘traveler,’ a spirit-knight of past time
who was an adventurous and questing warrior;
from ugis, ‘white,’ comes Pag-ugisan, a warrior of purest intention;
from sungkud, ‘walking stick,’ comes kasungkuran, ‘great-grandfather’;
from banhaw, ‘resurrect,’ comes Makabanhaw, a cave spirit who is able to bring
back the dead to life; he is called upon in the lunas to bring back to power the collected
(destroyed) herbs to replace the previous year’s gathering;
from lubsan, ‘cave,’ comes lubsanan, ‘cave-spirits’ who are believed to have deep
wisdom as hermits living isolated lives. [215]
Other important symbols are:
Tanung, a ritual word for the epiphytes or plants that grow on trees that may be
collected as medicine, for it symbolizes a man’s dependence on others, especially the
Supreme Being;
mutya, the talismatic crystal, chard, or stone which, for the shaman in the
diagnosis, provides him with direction in becoming aware of a supernatural cause of
malady; this reminds of the mutya’s brilliance which the shaman’s spirit guides allowed
to pierce through the darkness of the Caves of Taming so as to become visible to the
shaman on his quest. The stone’s various epithets are listed:
mutya sa panipas or panli-as, from the words tipas or li-as, ‘out of the way,’ the
charm ‘from the out-of-the-way place,’ for the shaman’s charmstone was found in an
out-of-the-way place and also brings the shaman out of harm’s way. There is also
reference to the mutya sa hangin, which makes the shaman as invisible as the wind;
mutya sa lipak or liti, which as thunder frightens the enemies of the shaman; mutya sa
lambinaw which like water allows the shaman to slip and slide away from his enemies;
mutya sa adlaw which like the sun dazzles and blinds the eyes of the shaman’s enemies;
mutya sa panuktuk or mutya sa mangginan-aw, which, as in ‘staring’ or ‘watching,’
paralizyes the shaman’s enemies who can then only look at him; and mutya sa bitu-un
or buwan, ‘stone of the stars’ or of the ‘moon,’ which causes or charms his enemies to
forget their bad intentions against him. 216
#unintelligibility #invisibility #invulnerability #mutya (DEFINITION) #word play
Failure to cure could also be laid down by the shaman to the presence in the audience
or in the neighborhood of an ursasyunan of the inferior type who may have attempted
to botch the shaman’s cure by reciting a verse in doggerel Latin. This could cause him
to slash his clothing while dancing the lunas. 224
The onlookers who were followers of the urasyunan Pelagia were also performing roles
not uncommon in Bohol’s cultures and subcultures of curing. These roles were to
come and witness, and evaluate, the performance of a curer rivaling their own
favorite, in the context of their own beliefs. 229
The adherents of the urasyunan Pelagia admitted that the shaman appeared to be very
competent. They were awed by the seeming presence of the supernatural as revealed
in his diagnosis – the bottle tied to a string held still by the shaman yet seen swinging
to and fro without his interference, and the mutya crystal showing shades reflecting the
afflicting spirits. Yet they were quick to condemn, saying that these were evil works,
that even the devil can heal the body but destroy the spirit. Furthermore, they
revealed that the sukdan are diwatahan, or worshippers of the diwata, or fairies, who are
believed to be fallen angels inhabiting mountains, trees, rivers, streams, and springs.
The fact that the sukdan hold the rituals in forested areas, offer unseasoned food, and
call the environment, ancestor and nature spirits are proofs that the sukdan’s practices
are evil, they said. 231
#urasyun
The residents of Sitio Kalubihan claim that they have sometimes seen a golden ship
carrying a cargo of coffee and cacao, floating down the creek. 237
Major activities [in the pre-dangin sa lutu break] involve [...] the praying of the novenas
of the patron saints of the shaman (by the female spouses and female relatives and
friends). 240
2) Pamisa de lamisa, ‘Mass and Table’ 242
One finding is that the shaman’s dances resemble the kuradang which is indigenous to
Bohol. All dances have an overall counterclockwise movement, which is probably and
originally of symbolic significance. 245
#boholano-eskaya traditions, #dance
The adherents of the urasyunan Pelagia admitted that the shaman appeared to be very
competent in his rituals. Yet they were quick to condemn his works as evil. 249
urasyunan, ‘word curer’ 252
Kudban are kaumagdan who could not be wounded by any weapon. They could become
vulnerable, though, through an incantation uttered by an urasyunan. 301
#invulnerability, #urasyun
Lakdan, ritually ‘being stepped over’. To do this to herbs renders them ineffective in
curing as they are thereby desecrated. 302
Pamisa di la misa, ‘mass and table,’ is a curing ritual in honor of forgotten but now
remembered deceased relatives, or the kalagnun. It is done after a Catholic mass has
been celebrated in their honor and dedication. 305
#syncretism
Urasyunan is a ka-umagdan who heals through utterances in verses. the urasyunan who is
the sukdan’s archenemy is not a ka-umagdan. He obtains his power or ability from Latin
or corrupted Latin verses.
Yamyam refers to the soft muttering which the sukdan sometimes does in his spirit
invocation. 312
#unintelligibility
Asian Development Bank Report. 2003. ‘Indigenous Peoples of
the Philippines’ June 2003.
With the advent of Spanish colonization, the “minorization” of the indigenous peoples
started. The Spanish colonizers forced their subjects to live in pueblos through a policy
called reduccion. Those natives that refused to live in these pueblos retreated into the
hinterlands and were called remontados and infieles. The natives ot the mountains, like
the Igorots of the Cordillera, put up a strong resistance against colonial intrusions
against their territories. Because of this, they were called tribus indipendientes by the
Spanish chroniclers. They were also labeled as barbarians, pagans, and all sorts of
derogatory names. Soon, even the assimilated indios internalized these prejudices
against indigenous peoples. Thus, a dichotomy between the assimilated majority and
unassimilated minority emerged.
The Spaniards introduced laws that contradicted, even denied, customary
concepts of land use and ownership. They introduced the Regalian Doctrine, first,
through a policy of encomienda. These were land grants by the King of Spain, but were
managed by an encomiendero. The latter was tasked to collect tributo (taxes) and enforced
the economic policies of the Crown (bandala, polo y servicio, etc.). Later, the Spanish
Crown enacted the Maura Law, which reiterated that all pueblo lands were protected
lands; they could not be alienated because they belonged to the King. In spite of these
colonial policies, the unassimilated indigenous peoples continued to practice their
customary practices with regard to their land and resources. 9
Hau, Caroline S, and Victoria L Tinto. 2003. Language policy

and ethnic relations in the Philippines. In Fighting words:
Language, policy and ethnic relations in Asia, edited by M. E.
Brown and Š. Ganguly. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Early Spanish accounts of the so-called highlanders in the northern Philippines were
more interested in differentiating between Spaniards and colonized “natives” than in
distinguishing between one “native” and another. These “natives” were distinguished
from one another mainly by whether they submitted to Spanish rule or not; in
censuses, vassals were called indios while the rest were called tribus independientes. The
Spanish census also categorized people on the basis of their submission to Catholic
missionization or baptism, with bautizados and convertidos being counted separately from
infieles. The twin logic of conversion and separation of rulers from ruled lay behind the
Spanish decision to create the intermediate category of mestizo and to apply it to the
offspring not just of European and native unions but of Chinese and native ones as
well. 320
Ethnological science, education, and colonial policy coalesced during the American
period. American ethnographic discourse on “non-Christian tribes” was
institutionalized through the establishment of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes in
1901. The bureau played a crucial role in advancing the annexation debates by
providing the rational that justified American presence and intervention in the
Philippines [fn]. The bureau called for “systematic investigations with reference to the
non-Christian tribes of the Philippine Islands, in order to ascertain the name of each
tribe, the limits of the territory which it occupies, the approximate number of
individuals which compose it, their social organizations and their languages, beliefs,
manners and customs, with special view to determining the most practicable means of
bringing about their advancement in civilization and material prosperity” [fn] 327
#history: language documentation #definition: indigenous #article: virgin birth
American attitudes toward indigenous peoples differed from those of their colonial
predecessors. Whereas Spaniards looked upon the pagans and Muslims as feroces, the
United States’ “civilizing mission” was informed by a “noble-savage” discourse that
aimed to rescue the non-Christian tribes from the “corrupt” culture of lowland,
Hispanized Filipinos, whom Americans regarded as purveyors of the “cacique system”
(the domination of local and provincial politics by a class of landed mestizos [of
Spanish and Chinese ancestry]) and whose economic elite had been co-opted by the
Spanish colonial state. This so-called Malay society was frequently characterized as
“feudal” and “aristocratic”. [fn] 328
#definition: indigenous #history: language documentation
In the postindependence era, conflicts with “outsiders” became more pronounced and
led to political mobilization and activism on the part of the indigenous peoples. Under
the administration of Ferdinand Marcos, the office of the Presidenttial Assistant on
National Minorities, formed in 1975, promoted Igorotlandia as a tourist attraction –
the home of “authentic natives” fn. In 1978 the ministry of tourism embarked on a
cultural enhancement program that was meant to highlight the distinctiveness and
cultural attractions of ethnic minorities. 329
#definition: indigenous #authenticity #history: language documentation
The biggest outcry against a Tagalog-based national language has come from the
Visayan elite. While they have recognized the need to fashion a linguistic symbol of
unity, they have either favored English over Tagalog or advocated their regional
language. 337
#national language #history: language documentation
The 1903 census reported that after more than three centuries of Spanish rule, less
than 10 percent of the population spoke Spanish as a first or second language. The
1870 census found that only 2.46 percent of the population could “talk Castilian” [fn].
The lack of Spanish usage resulted from a decision by the Spanish Crown that initially
encouraged friars to work in native languages, which they hoped would speed up
religious conversion [fn]. In the sixteenth century, the Crown reversed course and
instructed the friars to teach Castilian [fn]. In 1550 Carlos I decreed that colonies be
instructed in Christian docrine in the Castilian language and not in native languages
[fn] Felipe II later issued another decree making instruction in Castilian a
re[338]quirement for all natives. This would be reiterated in subsequent decrees
throughout the Spanish period.
Efforts to teach Spanish were hampered by a lack of funds, the paucity of teachers, the
absence of an organized system of primary education, and scarcities of teaching
materials. [fn] It was not until 1863 that an educational decree was passed establishing
a system of primary education and including regulations for a normal school for
teachers. Its objectives included the teaching of Spanish. Spanish was to be used as the
sole medium of instruction, and literacy in Spanish was to be the major objective of
the school curriculum [fn]. Native languages, however, continued to be used in
primary schools [fn], and the 1863 decree – like its many predecessors – was
hampered by poor implementation.
That is not to say that the Spanish language had no impact on Philippine society. A
Hispanized elite evolved that could afford to send its sons to Europe to pursue a
higher education. Filipino nationalism in the late nineteenth century was not
articulated in terms of the debate between “foreign” and “native” languages. The
language of elite-based Philippine nationalism was Spanish; the vernacular was used
by other populist movements.
During the Revolutionary Period that followed the Filipino war of independence
against Spain, nationalist leaders did not concern themselves with the issue of a
national language. The 1897 Provisional Constitution of Biak-na-Bato made Tagalog
the “official language” of the republic and the medium of elementary-school
instruction. 339
#national language #history: language documentation #chapter 9 [note that in
Anoy’s lifetime, knowledge of Spanish went from 2.46 percent in 1870 to ten per cent
in 1903, thus he was part of the tripling of Spanish competency at a time which
happened to coincide with the rise of nationalism]
In 1934 a national assembly was called to frame the Philippine constitution in
preparation for formal political independence from the United States. Spirited debates
among members of the assembly led to a compromise proposal that adopted a “multi-
based” approach to the national-language issue. The compromise called for the
national language to be “based on all existing native dialects.” When the proposal
came before the style committee responsible for refining hte language of the
constitution, however, the basis of the national language was changed from “all [341]
existing native dialects” to “one of the existing native languages.” [fn] Thus the 1935
constitution mandated the development of a national language based on only one
Philippine language, and it designated English and Spanish as official languages. The
constitution made provisions for setting up the Institute of National Language to study
the chief languages spoken by half a million Filipinos, their vocabulary, phonetics, and
orthography. In 1937 the institute recommended Tagalog as the basis for the national
language.
Commonwealth ACT 570 of 1940 called for the development of a national
language based on Tagalog. Tagalog was chosen because it was used in the capital,
Manila, and because it had spread to other areas through nationalist efforts. Although
Visayan was used by more people than Tagalog, the term “Visayan” was problematic
because it referred to a region, not a unitary language; in fact, there were considerable
differences among Visayan languages such as Cebuano, Hiligaynon/Ilonggo, and
Waray. This picture was complicated, because although the Visayan languages were
not mutually intelligible, ethnic unity among Visayans was nevertheless conceivable:
This led some to oppose the use of Tagalog as a basis for the national language. [fn]
[fn] 342
#national language #history: language documentation #prologue [a reprise of the
idealistic fusing of vernaculars] #faking it in visayan
In 1940 Tagalog (renamed Pilipino in 1959) was designated an official language
alongside Spanish and English. On the eve of World War II, the new national
language was introduced in schools. The use of local dialects was permitted in the first
and second grades as an auxiliary medium of instruction. English, though, remained
the de facto principal medium of instruction throughout the Philippines. 342
#national language #history: language documentation #language policy
Hirtz, Frank. 2003. It takes modern means to be traditional: On

recognizing Indigenous Cultural Communities in the
Philippines. Development and Change 34(5): 887–914
As the title of this article suggests, my main thesis is that it takes modern means to
become traditional, to be indigenous. A form of ‘bureaucratic Orientalism’ — to
borrow Edward Said’s term (Said, 1978) — has been devised, constructing and
reaffirming the Other through the minutiae of administrative procedures and
contemporary representational processes. 889
#chapter 10 #article: virgin birth
Modernity needs the contrasting concept of indigeneity and tradition, whereas
traditional societies in pre-modern or pre-colonial times did not need to establish their
‘otherness’ in opposition to modernity or their own history.[fn] In other words,
through the very process of being recognized as ‘indigenous’, these groups enter the
realms of modernity (Chaliand, 1989). 889
As this brief overview makes clear, the indigenous organizations inevitably encounter
the Janus face of contemporary civil society, in which indigeneity is forged into a
modern organizational form that conforms to the necessities of depersonalized and
issue-oriented institutional settings. 907
Seagrave, Sterling, and Peggy Seagrave. 2003. Gold warriors:

America's secret recovery of Yamashita’s gold. London: Verso.
#lost treasure
[PK: feverish paranoia on every page]
As a precaustion, should anything odd happen, we have arranged for this book and all
its documentation to be put up on the Internet at a number of sites.
If we are murdered, readers will have no difficulty figuring out who ‘they’ are. xii
In the closing months of World War II in the Philippines, while General Yamashita
Tomoyuki fought a delaying action in the ragged mountains of Luzon, several of
Japan's highest-ranking imperial princes were preparing for the future. They were
busy hiding tons of looted gold bullion and other stolen treasure in nearby caves and
tunnels, to be recovered later. This was the property of twelve Asian countries,
accumulated over thousands of years. Expert teams accompanying Japan's armed
forces had systematically emptied treasuries, banks, factories, private homes, pawn
shops, art galleries, and stripped ordinary people, while Japan's top gangsters looted
Asia's underworld and black economy. In this, the Japanese were far more thorough
than the Nazis. It was as if a giant vacuum cleaner passed across East and Southeast
Asia. Much of the plunder reached Japan overland through Korea. The rest, moving
by sea, got no farther than the Philippines as the U.S. submarine blockade became
complete in early 1943. Hiding the treasure there was crucial, so that if Japan lost the
war militarily, it would not lose financially. In whatever settlement concluded the war,
Japan always expected to keep the Philippines. Overseen by the princes, 175 'imperial'
treasure vaults were constructed throughout the islands. Early in June 1945, when
U.S. tanks were less than twenty miles from Bambang, the 175 chief engineers of
those vaults were given a farewell party 220 feet underground in a complex known as
Tunnel-8, stacked wall-to-wall with row after row of gold bars. As the evening
progressed, they drank great quantifies of sake, sang patriotic songs and shouted
Banzai ('long life') over and over. At midnight, General Yamashita and the princes
slipped out, and dynamite charges were set off in the access tunnels, entombing the
engineers. They were buried alive. Those who did not kill themselves ritually would
gradually suffocate, surrounded by gold bars. The vaults would remain secret. In
subsequent days, the princes escaped to Japan by submarine, and three months later
General Yamashita surrendered to American troops. 1
Early that October, Major Kojima broke down and led Lansdale and Santy to more
than a dozen Golden Lily treasure vaults in the mountains north of Manila, including
two that were easily opened.
What lay inside astounded everyone.
While Santy and his teams set to opening the rest of these vaults, Captain Lansdale
flew to Tokyo to brief General MacAtthur, then on to Washington to brief President
Truman. After discussions with his cabinet, Truman decided to proceed with the
recovery, but to keep it a state secret.
The treasure – gold, platinum, and barrels of loose gems – was combined with Axis
loot recovered in Europe to create a worldwide covert political action fund to fight
communism. This 'black gold' gave the Truman Administration access to virtually
limidess unvouchered funds for covert operations. It also provided an asset base that
was used by Washington to reinforce the treasuries of its allies, to bribe political
leaders, and to manipulate elections in foreign countries. In the late 1940s, this agenda
was seen as entirely justified, because the Soviet Union was aggressively supporting
communist and socialist movements all over the world, putting the survival of the
capitalist world in peril. 3
According to Ray Cline and others, between 1945 and 1947 the gold bullion
recovered by Santy and Lansdale was discreetly moved by ship to 176 accounts at
banks in 42 countries. 4
In later chapters we see numerous documented instances when these underground
funds surfaced as huge bribes, or were used to buy elections in Italy, Greece, Japan,
and elsewhere. 5
Some major artifacts, including solid gold Buddhas, have been seen recently in
underground hiding places in the Philippines. But most of the art and artifacts are still
in private vaults in Japan, or in the imperial collections in Tokyo. Why was Japan
allowed to keep it? 7
Robert Curtis, who actually recovered $8-billion in gold bars for President Marcus
from Teresa-2. 10
Included here are handwritten letters and diagrams showing how a group of senior
U.S. Government officials and Pentagon generals hoped to use Golden Lily treasure
to create a new private FBI and a military-industrial complex controlled by them, in
partnership with the John Birch Society, the Moonies, and far-right tycoons. This is
confirmed by tape recordings of a 1987 conference in Hong Kong that included
retired U.S. Army General John Singlaub and General Robert Schweitzer of the
National Security Council under President Reagan. 11
The princes were especially interested in Manila Cathedral, San Augustin Church, Ft.
Santiago, Ft. McKinley and Santo Tomas University. n.p.
In a flash of good humor, Chichibu led the other princes out to the cloister passage
hung with huge oil paintings, stopping before one titled, Saint Augustin Blessing a Native.
The saint had his right band raised, as if be was gesturing in the direction of the new
Recibidor treasure vault. Chichibu ordered his aides to have an extra finger painted
on the hand, pointing directly at the disguised entrance. The engineer who prepared
the construction drawing for this site used the saint's sixth finger as the fulcrum point.
(This became known as the 'Six-Finger Site'.) n.p.
One evening, when Colonel Adachi sent him to fetch salt in the bomb shelter next to
the house, Ben saw nothing resembling salt and wandered into the wrong tunnel,
where he found boxes filled with gold bars, and many jars. Thinking one of the jars
might be full of salt he opened it and found it packed with coins: gold soverigns, silver
dollars, all the hard currencies in circulation across Southeast Asia. He had never seen
such coins. He opened other jars to see if they contained salt, and found more coins.
Amazed to see so much money in one place, he stuck his hand in a jar and picked up
a coin. n.p.
When they reached Ben's home, Kimsu told Ben's father through Col. Adachi that
Ben had worked out so well as his valet that he wanted to keep Ben on and to give his
father in trade the sewing machine, the cow, horse, carabao and wagon, and the big
bag of coins. n.p.
Arriving at each site, Kimsu carried out a final inspection, scrutinizing maps and
drawings prepared by the chief engineer, walking around above and below ground.
When he was satisfied, the vault was sealed with all Allied POWs and slave laborers
inside. Kimsu told Ben that Emperor Hirohito directly ordered him to seal each site
with all the slave laborers and POWs inside, to guarantee that its location would
remain secret till the treasure was recovered later by members of the imperial family.
Kimsu said he had no choice but to obey. Ben believed him because he often saw the
prince weeping as a tunnel was closed with men inside. [PK: Note similarity with
other story about Imelda Marcos’s entombment of wokers] n.p.
This pit was then lined with concrete, and filled with treasure, in certain cases solid
gold Buddhas (what Ben thought of as 'the Japanese god'). 80
Recent efforts to recover treasure there have been stymied not only by thousand-
pound bombs, but by ingenious water traps devised by the Japanese that can flood
tunnels in a matter of seconds. 81
A small quarter-ton solid gold Buddha was carefolly encased in a concrete egg, then
was dragged by a group of Korean slave laborers into the chambers, using a canvas
sling. 81
First, Ben was forbidden ever to talk about Prince Chichibu. Second, he must never
reveal Prince Takeda's secret name. Finally, he must never reveal locations of any
treasure sites “not to Americans, to Filipinos, to guerrillas, to Chinese, even to
Japanese”. These sites, Kimsu told him, were reserved only for members of the
imperial family.To provide for Ben in the future, Kimsu said he was hiding two steel
trunks full of gold. So that Ben would not forget, he had one of his men tattoo two
blue dots on Ben's hand, one for each box. 84
They would now sprinkle the boxes with poison, Kimsu told him, and close them.
After the war, Ben was to come here by himself and recover the boxes. When he
opened the pit, he must pour kerosene over the boxes and burn the powder off. When
he opened the lids he should pour in more kerosene to burn off the powder inside
each box. Then he could recover the gold safely. He was given small pieces of ingots,
instead of whole ingots, because they would be easier to sell without attracting too
much attention. Kimsu told him to buy land for a very big ranch, and to marry the
pretty girl they had often watched in the village, and have lots of children to help him
run the ranch. Ben was speechless. 85
Kimsu put down his leather satchel and his sword, and took off his white tunic. He
handed Ben the tunic, then handed his sword to Ben as well. He started to walk away,
then made up his mind about something and came back to hand Ben the satchel,
which held a full set of maps. Perhaps in his mind was the possibility that the
submarine taking him back to Japan might not get there.
"Keep these for me. Put it in a wooden box and bury it in the ground, behind your
house." Then he repeated the mantra: "Never forget your oath: You will not give the
maps to anyone, no American, no Chinese, no Japanese, no Filipino, no guerrillas,
just wait for me. Asha, Asha, Asha." (Repeating this, Ben counts on his fingers as he
says the word Asha ten times.) "Wait, until I come back and get these from you. Wait
thirty years. If I have not come back by then, take the maps to Japan. If I am dead,
give the maps to my family." 87
Once on American turf, however, the Marcoses were hit by lawsuits accusing them of
theft and conversion of recovered treasure, human rights abuse and racketeering
related to that treasure. n.p.
Cathcart's firm took seven years to gather evidence of eyewitnesses establishing that
there was Japanese plunder in the Philippines, that Roxas had found a solid 22- karat
Gold Buddha and ingots, and that Marcos had stolen the Buddha and ingots, then
tortured Roxas in a conspiracy to hush it up. n.p.
A few hours later, a CIA informant known to Cathcart and Friedman phoned his law
office from Manila and told Friedman, "Your client is dead. He was poisoned. Imelda
ordered it, and we did it." n.p.
According to an affidavit signed by nearly a hundred of these men, they carried out
'massive diggings' while pretending to restore national monuments, and recovered
thousands of metric tons of gold, other precious metals and large quantifies of loose
gemstones. Marcos came to the sites, they said, often in the company of Japanese. n.p.
Urich, Peter. 2003. Land tenture history, insurgency, and social
forestry in Bohol.
Slopes, rising up from the lowlands, were also claimed by individuals. A person
claiming an area of lowland was, by tradition, recognised as the claimant of all slopes
extending from where they met his flat land up to a hill summit. This still applies in
lands being claimed today on the expanding frontier fringing the island’s remaining
forest lands. The summits of hills, either gently rounded or in some cases quite flat,
were also cleared and cropped. In these instances, use rights were formally recognised.
However, cultivation was often not feasible on summits and these cleared and
generally grass-covered places were used by the community as a common property
resource. Writing on the land holding system at Spanish contact, Bernad (1992)
commented on the presence of formalised individual holdings for lowland plots and
communal use of the summits of hills. Indeed, many of the uncultivable hills are still
communally managed. 160
#chapter 8
First, historically, the island has been characterised by various authors as being
“unusually egalitarian” in its landholding patterns (Miller and Storms 1913, Pelzer
1945, JICA 1986). 165
#chapter 1
It is postulated that the insurgency that was present in most of the Philippine
provinces in the 1970s surfaced in Bohol in 1981 (Bernaldez 1981). At that time,
insurgent activities occurred in and around the forest zone (public lands) of the
municipalities of Sevilla, Bilar, Batuan and Balilihan. 170
#chapter 2
Zincke, Herbert with Scott A Mills. 2003. Mitsui madhouse:

Memoir of a U.S. Army Air Corps POW in World War II.
Jefferson, North Carolina & London: McFarland & Company.
On July 1, 1942, [radio officer Cpl. William] Knortz and his three most likely
companions, [William] Johnson, [Robert] Ball, and [Jas S] Smith, failed to report
back to the barracks at 6am after their night shift. 50
On July 3, a Japanese interpreter came to the barracks and took away Co. Vesey,
Captain Price, and 1st Sgt. Chandler […] Thus the Japanese mainly carried out their
threat to execute our commanding officer, company commander, and 1st sergeant if
there were even an attempt of escape. 50
Boyd, Carl. "Review of Seagrave and Seagrave, Gold Warriors."

Pacific Historial Review 73 (2):337-340.
#lost treasure
This account is a classic example of popular history at its worst. 337
From the outset, the Seagraves fail miserably to separate myth [337] and reality. 338
Why would the Japanese government hide treasure in the Philippines when, contrary
to the authors’ assertion, it had good reason to believe Japan would not “keep the
Philippines” after the war? In fact, Tokyo fully understood the significance of the
unconditional surrender doctrine spelled out at the end of the Casablanca Conference
in January 1943 and elab- orated upon in the Cairo Declaration eleven months later.
Further- more, the Americans had been in the Philippines since the late nineteenth
century, while the Japanese had been there for only a couple of years. And, while the
authors’ claim that the American submarine blockade around the Japanese home
islands was complete in early 1943 is only a slight exaggeration (1944 is more ac-
curate), one wonders why large Japanese submarines were not employed to transport
the gold some 1,200 miles to Japan. If submarines were a safe enough means of
transport in the summer of 1945 for the highest-ranking imperial princes, who were in
charge [338] of hiding the gold in the Luzon mountains, why not for the gold itself
somewhat earlier? It also strikes this reviewer that something as important as gold
would have been mentioned in secret enciphered communications, Japanese Ultra.
Gold is not mentioned in the context of the Seagraves’ subject, but it is discussed in
certain I-boat communications, as researchers can easily verify in Record Group 457
in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. 339
The authors’ thesis appears to have dic- [339] tated their definition, selection, and
interpretation of evidence. In my opinion, this account of America’s recovery of
“Yamashita’s gold” is dominated largely by myth. 340
Orcullo, Proceso L. 2004. The Eskaya Communities of Taytay,

Duero Bohol: A Study of Change and Continuity. PhD
Dissertation. Davao City: Ateneo de Davao University.
Last but not least the Lord God Almighty, who guided me through thick and thin, this
humble piece of work I dedicate. iv
[description of changes to IP departments] 7-8
Further, the data on the existence of the Eskaya language will be helpful in
discovering the authenticity, roots, historical and geographical accounts, and political
and economic significance of the Eskaya language. 19
Eskaya language is a system of language considered sacred and used in their
prayers. It is spoken by the Eskaya people. It has its own alphabet numbering around
46 letters.The alphabet, Aspormos Meneme in Eskaya means from the body of man. The
symbols (Estorba, 2003) represent different positions of the body and parts like head,
hands, feet, etc. 22
Its [Bohol’s] people are said to be descendants of the last group of inhabitants of the
country called “pintados”, meaning the tattoed ones. 27
The men folks don themselves in white long sleeves, polos with mao collar and pedal
pusher pants, while the women are in white voluminous costume of by-gon eras with
white cloth to cover their heads as head turban. 61
#chapter 3 or #chapter 9[PK: note change in dress code]
Life in the Eskaya community is simple, devoid of whims, and is unstylistically
outmoded. The community can be regarded as rustic and backward. 66
#funny
Eskaya: Their Origin and Beginnings [An interview with Elpidio Palaca, a
Provincial Environment Natural Resources Officer, DENR Provincial Office,
Tagbilaran, Bohol, January 13, 2003]
Two years before the coming of the Spaniards, the Center of the so called
Tribo Bisayan is located in Cantaub, Sierra Bullones. One of the sons of Dangko,
named Amgay is the tribal leader. Not far from Dawis, Bohol are two identified strong
chieftains, Datu Dailisan and Datu Pagbuaya.
The story narrates that when the Portuguese came, a war took place between
Datu Dailisan and his men together with Datu Pagbuaya and his men against the
Portuguese. The kingdoms of Datu Dailisan and Datu Pagbuaya in Dawis were
defeated by the Portuguese. Datu Dailisan died leaving behind Datu Pagbuaya and
his brother Bagumbayan.
In 1521 Rajah Humabon then becomes the fiercest tribal chief in Cebu, and
Datu Humabad becomes the tribal chief in the kingdom of Wadji in La Paz, Cortez of
Bohol. The place now is popularly called Abatan, Cortez. Rajah Humabon invites
Datu Humabad to Cebu to be baptized. Datu Omanad, the assistant of Datu
Humabad, joins him in Cebu and expresses his wish to be baptized as a Christian.
Datu Omanad never refuses to be baptized by some men of Rajah Humabon. A war
soon breaks out between Datu Humabad’s men and his assistant Datu Omanad
against Lapu-lapu, the strongest tribal chieftain of Mactan. In that battle, Lapu-lapu
dies. The two tribal chiefs of the kingdom of Wadji in La Paz, Cortez, Datu Humabad
and his assistant [end p70] Datu Omanad die in that battle. Datu Iriwan from the
Lapu-lapu clan now becomes the tribal chieftain of Mactan.
Babaylan Tumod known as Tamblot, is a high priest and highly respected by
his men as the Beriki, is now a strong leader of the kingdom of Wadji in La Paz,
Cortez. When Legaspi returns, a war breaks out between Tamblot and Legaspi.
Tamblot retreats, abandons his kingdom in Wadji, and transfers to Antequerra [sic],
formerly part of Loon, an ancient town of Bohol. The Spaniards and with some
warriors from Cebu, Leyte, and Samar come to fight Tamblot and his Boholano men.
The Boholanos retreat to some interior towns in Bohol. Two years later, the Beriki or
High Priest Tumod dies. The kingdom of Wadji disappears.
Forty years later, Francisco Dagohoy comes. He fights so hard against the
Spaniards in some interior towns of Danao and the present Dagohoy town. It is
during this time that Mariano “Anoy” Datahan cover into the narrative. He fights
against the Spanish, later the Americans and much later the Japanese in his own place
at Biabas, Guindulman, Bohol. Francisco Dagohoy dies at the age of 82. His son Ka
Tugpa or Turpa becomes the tribal leader. Tugpa later transfers to Pilar town moves
later to Cantaub, Sierra Bullones where the tribal Bisayan originated. The Tribo
Bisayan is the forerunner of what is referred to as the Eskaya tribes. 70-1
#chapter 4 #article: dagohoy
Biabas is the seat of Eskaya culture long before Mariano Datahan died. 82
It is observed that although the Eskaya have their own religion, the Aglipayan, there
remains in their attitudes a sort of animistic behavior. They always connect their lives
to God as personified by Salvador Ai-sono. Ai-sono is the modern day Sr. Sto. Nino.
94
#suno
#aglipay
In the processional [for weddings], the song You’ll Never Walk Alone is played. 97
When the church ritual is over, the priest asks that the bride’s parents receive the
newly wed couple at the stairs with a glass of water, a comb, and a handful of rice
grains thrown on their heads. The comb is dipped in the glass of water and is run
through the hair of both the bride and groon. Then the couple drink the glass of
water. Rice is showered on them. The rice is a symbol of plenty… 98
A meeting follow for the feast [of the funeral] to look into the books after the members
who have not paid their contribution. A member who has not yet paid is dealt with
either by declaring that he or she is no longer a member or is given a light punishment
and an extension of a few-days allowance until the member has paid. The meeting is
known to them as biling. 101
In 1944, Fabian Baja studies the Eskaya alphabet in Biabas under Mariano Datahan.
He learns the Eskaya alphabet by heart. Learning the language helps him to
understand deeply the Aglipayan religion which is the traditional religion of Tamblot,
Dagohoy, and Sikatuna. From 1980-1981 Fabian Baja opens the Eskaya Adult School
in Taytay where Eskaya language is taught. According to the Eskaya tribal law, every
Eskaya must learn the language. Reading and writing in Eskaya is the mission of the
new adult school. The sacred books left to Fabian Baja by Mariano Datahan before
he died serve as teachers to the pioneering batch of Eskaya in learning the language.
[end p102]
When Mariano Datahan died in January 26, 1949, the Eskaya people were
scattered. Some remain in Biabas, Guindulman under the leadership of Juan
Datahan, son of Mariano Datahan. Others follow Fabian Baja, a follower of Mariano
Datahan, who establishes his tribal clan in the forest of Taytay, Duero the place where
they can be located at present. It is Mariano Datahan who prods Fabian Baja to build
the Eskaya community and to continue spreading the culture of the Eskaya in Taytay.
New followers and other relatives come to join Fabian Baja. They come from the
adjacent barangay of Cantaub in Sierra Bullones town, Mayana in Jagna and from
Bangwalog a barangay of Duero.
Eskaya language is spoken by a people who call themselves Eskaya. The
Eskaya community lives in a very isolated mountain barangay of Taytay in Duero,
Bohol. The Eskaya had been living in Taytay since time immemorial and are believed
to have been a splintered group of the late Mariano Datahan, founder of the Eskaya
culture, originally of Biabas, a barangay of Guindulman town of Bohol.
In 1951, the first Eskaya School is set up in the house of Fabian Baja. There
are no teachers to teach the language. Fabian Baja and the Eskaya sacred books left
by Mariano Datahan to his care serve as the first teachers. Taytay in those days is a
sitio of Biabas in Guindulman, a town next to Duero. It is part of Biabas,
Guindulman, the original seat of Eskaya culture under Mariano Datahan. In 1953,
Taytay Primary School is founded.
The Eskaya language has 46 letters in their alphabet. The alphabet is
described as “logographic” (Tirol, 1990) because the letters are taken from the human
body [end p103] (aspormos meneme). To quote Abregana in the Republic news (no date)
as cited by Estorba, Regina A., in her Scribbling the Voice of Tende: An
Ethnography on the Women of Eskaya, (2003), she siad that the Eskaya is the earliest
language and culture of the Boholanos as recorded in ancient records found in the
caves at Biabas, Guindulman whose teachings are secretly followed by a group of
locals whose last keeper and teacher is a certain Anoy Datahan, Unquote. […]
The Eskaya language is sacred and it is used in their prayers. Added to this,
contemporary writers describe the language as mystical, because it combines
mysticism in the life of the founder Mariano Datahan. It is one language considered
ancient and revolves around the life of Mariano Datahan. The Eskaya is the language
of Dangko, Amgay and Pinay who are the ancient Boholano’s Bagani, Bansithi and
Contor (Dictator, Governor and Educator) respectively for whom the Eskaya
language is handed down. 104
The first senior teachers of Eskaya language are the late Dionesio Bag-o and Fabian
Baja. Contemporary language teachers were Hilario Galambao, Sergio Baja, Pedro
Bag-o, Berto Baquiza and Anacleto Acerda. 106-7
#chapter 9 #history of taytay
Teachers like Alberta Galambao, Adricula Bagotsay and Estanislaw Deloso remain
silent heroes in the fight of preserving the Eskaya language. 107
In the hearts and minds of these brothers and sisters hang the thought of reviving and
putting into use the mystical language of Tamblot and Dagohoy. All Boholanos who
have traced their roots to Dangko, Amgay, Pinay and later Mariano Datahan dream
of having a common tongue and this is the Eskaya language. 107
When ask about what occasion they speak the Eskaya language, 78 or 89.65 percent
siad that it is when attending Eskaya classes, 6 or 6.90 percent state when attending
church services in the chapel or in the main church. It is observed that more Eskaya
speak the Eskaya language during classes because Eskaya teachers serve as role
models and students have to follow. It is also a kind of strategy in order that students
can really learn how to speak and develop to love it as their own culture. Eskaya
language is also used in their prayers. The old people particularly the novenarians use
it in the chapel or in the main church, (Table 25).
Table 25
Occasions the Eskaya language are spoken.
During what occasion you speak the Total
Eskaya language
Number Percent
When attending Eskaya classes 78 89.65
When attending church service 6 6.90
When attending communal 1 1.15
activities
Others 1 1.15
No response 1 1.15
Total 87 100.00
109
One of the mysteries that haunts the minds of his followers rests on Mariano Datahan
who founded the Eskaya culture. He has tamed the minds of the peole into learning
the language, which I believe is the source of weaving into the very fabric of what is
known as Eskaya culture. The ultimate objective is how to preserve the language in
order that the Eskaya culture that Mariano Datahan once built will not crumble and
be gone forever. I have observed the actions of the people during the 54th death
anniversary held last January 26, 2003 in Biabas, Guindulman, Bohol and have come
to realize that the puzzle is still unsolved. 110
Mariano Datahan was born in Biasong, Loon Bohol on April 1, 1844. He was born to
a mother that the people’s poor memory could only recall as Becca and a father
named Juan. Biasong until now is a barangay located in the interior part on the
western side of Loon, an old town of Bohol. My interviews would tell me that he
drowned in a nearby river at the age of seven in Biasong Loon, Bohol but he was
saved. Another accident meets his poor life. A cow gores him. Nobody knows what
[end 110] happen to him after that accident, except that he disappears for 20 years.
After 20 years he appears in Biabas, Guindulman, Bohol. 111
In Biabas, he [Anoy] starts life anew. Everybody knows he starts preaching the
Eskaya culture and the Eskaya language. He starts to organize the Iglesia Pilipina
Independente, a traditional Aglipayan religion which for him is Bohol’s Aglipayan
religion. During the Spanish occupation he fight against the Spanish government,
which the old Boholano Tamblot has fought so hard against Legaspi’s men in the
Spanish war of Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar. When Tamblot’s men retreated, the
war move to Antequera, once a part of Loon. After two years, Tamblot died. Forty
years later, Dagohoy came. It was Dagohoy who fought the longest war in Bohol in
the history of the Spanish revolution in the Philippines. It costs Dagohoy 82 years of
his life to fight the Spaniards. It is during this time that Mariano Datahan begins his
fights in the Spanish war in some interior towns of Bohol. 111
Mariano Datahan is the only Boholano who has fought in four major
Philippine wars: the Spanish-Muslim war against Datu Pakpak, Katipunero Head, in
Isla de Malabon, Insurecto, Dagohoy Rebellion; as Rebolusyonaryo, in the Filipino
American War; and as Guerillista, in the Japanese occupation during World War II in
1943. In the latter part of 1943, Mariano Datahan organizes the guerilla movement in
Biabas. His most loyal cousin, a first class private who is also a Lieutenant in the U.S.
army, is always with him. He is Teodulo Datahan. In 1944, a few months before
Christmas, a general conference is called at Biabas. It is during this time that Fabian
[end p111] Baja becomes the soldier of Mariano Datahan. Together with Teodulo
Datahan he is inducted into the guerilla force. 111-112
#chapter 9
The philosophy of Mariano Datahan until now remains a mystery among the
present generations of Eskaya. He attributes the mystery to three important things:
God, Governance and Spiritual Power. According to his philosophy, one has to obey
God. God is everything and without his creation, there will be no life. Second, one has
to obey the government. Governance is there even during the ancient times. The
Eskaya teachings always emphasize that governance has been with them long before
the Spanish came. There is already a structure as exemplified by the pioneering
leaders and teachers of Eskaya. The sacred Eskaya books unfold these personalities:
Pinay, who is the Contor or the first educator who hails from Loon, Bohol. Malingay
is from Calape, Bohol is the Bagani Sundon or Captain. Amgay who hails from
Inabanga, Bohol believe to be the only son of Dangko is the Bansithi or governor. 112
Alburang who come from Catigbi-an, Bohol is the Baganhunda or judge. Dangko,
the [end p112] father of 16 children is the Bagani or Dictator. He hails from
Pulangyuta, Talibon, Bohol. Tugpa or Ka Tugpa is the sone of Dagohoy who is the
Baganiring or Commander General hails from Cansungay, Guindulman, Bohol.
Other ancient Eskaya like Kurarang who is from Antequera now a town, formerly
part of Loon. Marta of Tubuan, Loon, Paulit of Kangabli, Loon and Cera who hails
from Bungco, Loon. All of them are ancient Eskaya teachers of Bohol.
Contemporaries and more known is Francisco Dagohoy who lead the longest
Philippine revolution. He is from Booy, Dawis. He fight so hard in Danao, presently
an interior town of Bohol. Ka Tuna or Sikatuna, who forge the historical blood
compact between Miguel Lopez de Legaspi representing the King of Spain for the
purpose of fostering friendly relations between the early Filipinos and Spaniards on
March 16, 1565, was from Bool, now a barangay of Tagbilaran. All of them explain
that governance is practiced and considered an old theory of development. Many
related the ida particularly to political development. 113
#genealogy #chapter 2
Third, there is the philosophy of Spiritual power. It refers to the mystical
significance of the life of Mariano Datahan toward Eskaya teaching and culture. His
teachings are godly and at the same time worldly but it is also full of mysticism. 113
Interviews from my informants say that during the guerilla days, his men complain of
lack of food. There is no rice to cook. Mariano Datahan instructs one of his men to go
to the bodega and get the sacks of rice. To the surprise of many, there are plenty of
rice, more than enough to cook for his men. Mariano Datahan is a witty mystical man
but nobody can tell where his intelligence comes from. Everybody knows he is [end
p113] unschooled. 113
Estorba (2003) from a study, “An Ethnography on the Women of Eskaya,” a Holy
Name University publication states that Mariano Datahan has the power of
bilocation, telekinesis, and clairvoyance. He can foretell events before they happen. It
is this mystery that makes the people venerate his image, the bust-statue that remains
a memorabilia among fanatics of the Eskaya community.114
He [Anoy] is the first man to claim that the Eskaya are the first tribe to have fought
against foreign invaders. 114
He [Anoy] is even proud to say that self-reliance and independence are in the blood of
every Eskaya because through their culture, they acquire the first letter of the Eskaya
alphabet, the Eskaya flag, and the belief translated as self-righteousness. 114
Mariano Datahan is not dead among his followers. He is still there, and he can
be seen and felt. He leaves a legacy of 42 children born out of 10 women during his
entire life. Out of the 10 women, one he consider as his wife with whom he sires one
child but unfortunately the latter died at a very young age. The nine other women he
dearly have nine children. The children now all grown up, fondly remember him as
“Papa Anoy”. Some of the children are living their own lives in what was once upon a
time described as a land of the prairees of Biabas, Guindulman; Luan, Candijay;
Cantaub, Sierra Bullones: Lundag, Pilar and Taytay, Duero all in Bohol. 114
#bio of anoy #polygamy
Name Position Place of origin

Pinay Contor (Wiseman) Loon, Bohol
(Unang kinaadmanon)
Dangko Bagan Bagani Pulang-yuta, Talibon
(Dictator)
Malingay Bagani Sundon (Captain) Candungao, Calape
Amgay Bansithi (Governor) ________, Inabanga
Alburang Bagan Hunda (Judge) ________, Catigbi-anaub
Tugpa Bagani Ring Cansungay, Guindulman
Kurarang Cerdas Tagabas-an, Antequerra
(formerly Loon)
Marta Ecerdas Tubuan, Loon
Paulit Himing Cerdas Cang-abli, Loon
Sikatuna Sot Bagani Bool, Tagbilaran
Dagohoy Bagani Heber Booy, Dawis
Fig 3. Ancient people of Bohol who are the first Teachers of Eskaya Language 115
Juan Datahan: The Son of Mariano “Anoy” Datahan
Juan Datahan is 75 years old. He is the Tribal Chieftain of Biabas,
Guindulman, Bohol at present. He is the son of the late Mariano “Anoy” Datahan
from one of the several women whom Mariano dearly loved. Juan Datahan is
considered a complete replica of his father in terms of how he leads the Eskaya
followers in Biabas, Guindulman. The virtues of the father are ingrained in his blood.
It can be observed in his administrative prowess how he set himself as an example the
way Eskaya philosophy is inculcated in the psyche of every Eskaya. A third grader in
1938, he takes pride in this highest credential but he speaks of so many brilliant ideas
describing the sophistication and mystical culture of the Eskaya society. He is [end
p115] humble , frank, and down-to-earth. He philosophizes on such topics as the
abstraction of God and the mundaness of human life. 115-16
Juan Datahan recites that the Eskaya society has been already existing before
the arrival of Pinay. Pinay in the sacred books of the Eskaya is an ancient Boholano
believed to have been born in 500 B.C. He is very much older than Dangko including
the early teachers of Eskaya language like Kurarang, Alburang and Malingay. After these
ancient people, there are still personages like Si Katuna or Sikatuna, Datag the wife of
Sikatuna, Francisco Dagohoy who is responsible for making the Eskaya language
flourish during the classical period.
Juan Datahan can clearly recall from his memory the sacred books that Pinay,
the Mangi-alamon or Wiseman used. He is the most respected person who helps
organize a group of religious people in Bohol. As what the sacred books claimed,
when Pinay started his own teachings, there existed already an Eskaya government
and its own language. Juan Datahan said that the Eskaya are the first people who fight
against foreing invaders, the Spaniards. It is justified during the Spanish colonization
when Dagohoy and Sikatuna fought hard. It is also during this time that Mariano
Datahan becomes active during the guerilla regime. 116
Fabian Baja: The man who keeps the secret of Mariano “Anoy” Datahan
117
The connection between the Eskaya language and the traditional Aglipayan religion is
Mariano Datahan’s contribution to the development of the self toward a group life
which is transparent in the culture of the Eskaya. It is Mariano’s living legacy to the
culture which Fabian Baja accepts with open arms and which he develops over time.
It is this hidden secret which Fabian Baja keeps for five (5) long decades. Fabian Baja
as observed even in his casual talk, reflects cues that there are still other unexplained
mysteries that will give light to the Eskaya culture and society. Fabian Baja still talks of
the late Mariano Datahan. He relates his para-normal experiences with the old man
and dishes out stories of Mariano’s heroic deeds during the Spanish and Japanese
wars. Until when the secret is unfolded, only Fabian Baja can tell. 119
Table 27
More influential to people’s decision making Process.
Who is more influential to Total

the people’s decision making
process Number Percent
Barangay council 76 87.35

Aglipayan council 1 1.15
Eskaya teachers or tribal 5 5.75
council
Others 5 5.75
Total 87 100.00
123
The Tribal Chieftain gets a lesser responsibility because he is less exposed and has few
access to the political sturcutre in the barangay. His concern is more on the tribal laws
related to [end p123] the ancestral domain. In terms of legislation process (more of
the FGD) the two councils have equal footing during the general assembly. (Table 28).
Table 27
Influential in the community as recognized elder or Leader (Rank) 1-5, 1=more,
5=less
Who is more influential in Total

the community as recognized
elder or leader Number Rank
Barangay Captain 60 1
Tribal Chieftain 56 2
Eskaya Teacher 42 3
School Principal 39 4
Aglipayan priest 32 5
124
The Sangguniang Kabataan [Eskaya Youth] officers and members gather for a focus
group discussion and they answer several questions. They are asked questions like
what contributions have they done to help the development of the youth. […]
A resolution is passed and is approved by the council for the improvement of
the Eskaya cave for tourist attraction. Some of the activities are given priorities like
the improvement of the Rizal Park, a seminar on “Linggo ng Kagataan” held on
December 21, and a Christmas party branded as “SK Night” on December 24, 2002.
Likewise, a resolution is provided in the council that the officers and members of the
Sangguinang Kabataan Council have to undergo Eskaya classes starting January 2003
at the Eskaya Adult School. 126
#language policy
The Sangguniang Kabataan members are asked whether they are proud to be
called an Eskaya or members of the indigenous tribe. They respond that they are very
proud, only they cannot speak Eskaya. Only the old folks talk using Eskaya. 126
As a social organization, only the older Eskaya could pride themselves with their
ability to speak the language of Boholano revolutionaries like the language of late
Dagohoy and Sikatuna.
Probably, one of the reasons why the younger Eskaya no longer speak the
Eskaya language is because the major language spoken in the area is Boholano
language. Barangay Taytay previously described as isolated area is no longer true.
Cemented road now connects Taytay to the rest of the barangays and the Eskaya
people freely go to several places either to market their farm produce or to visit
relatives in some neighboring towns. Young Eskaya, particularly the students, travel as
far as Tagbilaran, the educational center of Bohol and to some places like Cebu,
Leyte, and Mindanao.
Another reason, perhaps, is that the older generation do not speak the Eskaya
language during ordinary conversation. They speak the Boholano language which is
easy for them to use on casual occasions like Sunday novenas, birthdays, wedding and
even parent’s meeting in school. The use of Eskaya language is strictly followed during
Sunday language class only. Only the old people can speak the Eskaya language.
They include teachers of the Eskaya language. For a culture to flourish in the case of
language, it should be used. Constant use of the language will develop in [end p129]
them unity which later becomes cultural identity. It will develop pride among
themselves.
These are few of the reasons why the use of the Eskaya language as the
common tongue of the Eskaya is not sustained.
In order to help the younger generations of Eskaya who no longer speak the
Eskaya language, Taytay Barangay Council and the Sangguniang Kabataan pass a
joint resolution and unanimously approve the act of Barangay officials, members of
the council and Sangguniang Kabataan members to undergo Eskaya language classes
every Sunday starting January 2003 at the Eskaya Adult School. 130
#language policy
Some of the laws which have culturally changed or discontinued are the following:
a) the Eskaya women are not allowed to wear long pants and to cut their hair short; b)
the men folks are not allowed to drink liquor or any spirited drinks to avoid
drunkenness and invite trouble; c) men and women are prohibited to hold benefit
dances in public because according to the tribal law, it is good to the eyes of the
people but bad in the eys of God.
These laws are no longer working at present. They have been influenced by
the new trends and modern cultural practices. Fasion and dances like discos easily
catch their fancy and interpret the laws as traditional. 131
It [the veneration of the bust of Mariano Datahan] involves the triangular connections
of the church, language and cultural practices of the communities in Taytay, home of
the Eskaya. 138
Domingo Galambao an elderly Shaman and father of Hilaria Galambao, who is the
Eskaya Tribal Chieftain, make signs to the young future owner of the house. 138
#genealogy
A five-minute walk towards a hill along forested mountains overlooking sayote patches
and rice farms means the arrival to a house the Eskaya people call medya culpo. It is
constructed some years ago with the help of a Japanese philanthropist that Fabian
Baja’s poor memory can no longer recall. It is a one building affair that houses all
Eskaya Alphabet scribed on hard board, an Eskaya flag, and some of Fabian Baja’s
awards, recognitions, and plaques. On the wall are painted some of the Filipino
heroes like Rizal, Bonifacio, and others who defended the country against foreign
invaders. This is placed in one corner where the wooden-bust of Mariano “Anoy”
Datahan they call Medya Culpo is placed to serve as a reminder to all Eskaya that he
still lives in the minds of everyone. As a good follower of the late Eskaya Supremo,
Fabian Baja, as keeper, faithfully complies with Mariano Datahan’s request to house
the Eskaya relics so the latter will live forever. 140
Bankoff, Greg. 2004. Bestia Incognita: The horse and its history
in the Philippines 1880–1930. Anthrozoös 17 (1):3-25.
However, it is possible that surra was already present in the archipelago prior to the
twentieth century, given the historical trade links between the Philippines and Spanish
America, and that it was partly responsible for the earlier epidemic that affected
horses in the 1880s. 6
#chapter 8
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-02-28-Faustina

PECC, nothing else of value. Just a rambling conversation between Reysil? and
Faustina
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-02-28-Faustin#9F880

born May 22 1925 born in Biabas
attended school up until grade 4
her teachers were: Aryuhiño? Arjohiño Buses but his students overtook him so he
stopped.
Mariano Datahan was very strict with discipline. he would get mad if somebody didn’t
work or if somebody quarreled.
After the war, people came to visit Mariano Datahan from Luzon, Mindanao etc. She
doesn’t know why they came.
her son is a teacher in Lundag
Faustina’s parents from Loon
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-RufinoBago

Nothing interesting
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-Nida&AureaBusano

alphabet is from the human body and syllables are internal organs
#chapter 5
Nida: “I heard from Tay Juan that there are also Eskaya tribe members in
Mindanao”
Aurea Busano: “Pinay karaang maistra [woman!]. When he get old he gives the books
to Mariano Datahan” Could not answer whether laki or bayi. Datahan met Pinay on
Panglao
#chapter 4
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-02-28-EskChie#9F4EE
From minute 50, discussion of lost tribes of israel, including an observation that the
ambassador of Israel pointed out similarity between Hebrew and Eskayan
#chapter 2
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-CandelarioBago

Nothing interesting
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-FabianBaja2

#chapter 9
This interview is gold. Get Visayan speaker to translate properly. At about minute 14,
talking about where Eskayan comes from.
Something about Eskayan in Visayan at minute 19.20
What is the meaning of the word ‘Eskaya’ ? 28.46 Answer: ‘pagtulunan sa mga tawu’
At about minute 30, discussion of pinulungan Eskaya and Tagalog.
Datahan didn’t force anybody to learn Eskaya, only those who were willing (at about
1 hour 10 minutes
Victorian Tirol discussion at 1hr 14m
“Time comes when Eskaya language will be used by all people...” 1hr 24 (but Visayan
is prior to this) The story of the banana becoming abaca is about people wanting to
know the language
#chapter 9
Bedford, Zoë. 2004. ZB-2004-HilarioGalambao

Became chieftain in 1998, he was born in 1950, went to Eskaya school when he was 8
years old (ie, 1958), same year he moved to Taytay
“There was someone who told Pinay to make the alphabet from the human body and
he does not know who that someone is” 20.27
-Maura and Hilario talk about Pinay as a contemporary of Datahan
From minute 50 and earlier:
Riche: ‘[Hilario] said that before, Mariano first teach the language to his secretary
Espedrion Diyesgrasya. First he teach the way of the writings, then the alphabet after
that... that Espredion is his secretary. After that Espedrion learn the writings he
dictate what was the history about Pinay the people who succeeded Pinay were before
and then ... we’re really confused.. how come Mariano Datahan knows about it?
Pinay and his successors didn’t write any books that pass to next generation until
Mariano come. Only old people know the ... her grandfather Fabian Baja used to
remember and other who knows already the Eskaya they conclude that Mariano
Dathan and Pinay is one, because they can really imagine how come Mariano Dathan
knows what happened before and for the future.’
Up to minute 59
Brewer, Carolyn. 2004. Shamanism, catholicism and gender

relations in colonial Philippines: 1521–1685. Aldershot: Ashgate.
The oratical skills involved in hearing confession were very different from those
required to deliver a sermon. While a man like Blancas, conversant in the Tagalog
language, could produce a series of sermons to be read by those with insufficient
command of the vernacular, the confessional involved quite a different set of
circumstances. It was in the hearing of confession that a dialogue between the
Catholic convert and the Spanish priest was necessary. If a missionary did not have
enough indigenous language to write his own sermons, he obviously could not
adequately hear a confession; highlighting what Rafael has termed, the ‘highly
unstable linguistic basis’ of the sacrament (fn). However, as with sermons, the task of
confession was made somewhat less onerous for the priest with the compilation, in the
vernacular, of confessionarios that contained checklists of possible transgressions against
each of the Ten Commandments (fn).
At Taytay, the Jesuit Martín Enríquez was working on a confessionario as early
as 1592, although it was Blancas who, eighteen years later, first published one for the
use of his confreres (fn). Rafael suggests that these were designed ‘as mnemonic
devices to aid Spanish clerics in elicting the confessions of their native flock’ (fn). Even
with such a crutch, however, the confessor would have needed to be competent in the
local language, since, not only did he have to probe possible transgressions of the
convert, but he also had to have some understanding of the replies. Further, the priest
had to be sufficiently fluent to appropriately ‘judge, punish, forgive, console and
reconcile’ the penitent (fn). Rafael’s suggestion that the confessionarios were designed so
that a yes/no answer on the part of the penitent was sufficient(fn), is contradicted
somewhat by Velarde’s complaint that in the early years of contact, the confessor
demanded, but seldom got the precise detail he was expected ‘to distinguish and
explain numbers, incidents and circumstances,’ expecially in relation to what Velarde
constructed as ‘unbridled licentiousness’ and ‘vice’. 66
#language policy: confessional
[...] the case of ‘a Baylana or priestess, by the name of Cariapa’ who, in 1609, sang a
hymn to the cheiftains of the town of Bohol [?] (now Dauis). Her prophetic
proclamation,
This land will be changed, other people will possess it,
with another culture, other practices.
This town is to be utterly destroyed.
This province with the rest of the islands will be subjugated, (See Lopez, ‘Annual Letter of
1608-1610,’ trans. Repetti, ‘The Society of Jesus in the Philippines, 1607-1709,’ p. 439)
ostensibly uttered two years before the Spaniards reached her village, was initially
ridiculed ‘with contumelious words’ by the Boholano chieftains who ‘boldly added
that they could not be conquered by anyone on earth.’ (fn: Ibid) 87
#prognostication #prologue #chapter 4(?) #chapter 10 (search prophecy)
The first saint to be recognised on Philippine soil began its journey towards veneration
in Cebu in 1521, on the first day of the very week that, across the other side of the
world, Martin Luther was asked to rescind his teachings that castigated the Roman
Catholic Church for encouraging the veneration of saints. This, however, was no
human saint, but the imagene of the Christ child, in the form of the Infant of Prague
that was given by Magellan’s crew to the wiefe of Humabon at the time of her
baptism, when she was given the Christian name, Johanna. Forty-four years later,
when Legaspi returned to the spot, he found that the previously baptised Cebuano
people had apostatised, and he sought vengeance from those who had ‘betrayed’ the
faith. In the holy-justified violence that followed, ‘about one hundred houses were
burned ... [and] the soldiers were quartered in the houses remaining after the fire’ (fn:
Resume of contemporaneous documents: 1559-1568,’ cited in B&R, Vol2, pp.77-160,
p.120). In one of these dwellings, as the documents record:
There was found a marvelous thing, namely a child Jesus like those of Flanders, in its little pine
cradle and its little loose chirt, such as come from those parts, and a little velvet hat, like those
of Flanders—and all so well preserved that only the little cross, which is generally on the globe
that he holds in his hands, was missing ... It gave great happiness and inspiration to all to see
such an auspicious beginning, for of a truth it seemed a work of God to have preserved so
completely this image among the infidels for such a long time (fn: ‘The finding of the Niño
Jesus,’ in Col. Doc. Inéd. Ultramar, iii pp. 277-84, cited in B&R, Vol 2. p.120).
While the Spaniards attributed the safekeeping of the image to a miraculous act of
their God, the discovery of it, surrounded by ‘many flowers’, suggests that human
actors were closely involved (fn: Miguel Lopez de Legaspi (1565), ‘Relation of the
voyage to the Philippine Islands,’ in B&R, Vol. 2 [PK:12?], p.216). Indeed, several
fragments of narrative imply that in a syncretic exchange, this potent Christian
symbol had been adapted to fill the needs of non-Christian Animist practitioners. In
two out of the three eyewitness narratives of the rediscovery of the image, it is
recorded that the cross, the sign that is inextricably linked to Jesus and Christianity,
had been lost from the image. Further, Chirino explained that the ‘Indians’ used the
image in place of their own Anito ‘making sacrifice to it after their custom, and
anointing it with their oils, as they were accustomed to anoint their idols’ (fn: Ibid
p181)—thus adding weight to the contention that the imagene had taken the place of
Johanna’s household idols that had been destroyed in obedience to Magellan’s
command. Chirino suggests that the Cebuano people acknowledged the cultural
heritiage of the image by referring to it as “the Divata [Anito or God] of the
Castilians,’ but it is doubtful, given the brief cultural encounter with magellan’s fleet,
that the spiritual trappings of Christianity that inhered to the child Jesus, would have
leapt the religious and cultural divide. For forty-four years, then, it is probable that the
image was exiled from its traditional conceptual confines and arrogated for Animist
observances and ceremonies by Johanna, her progeny and friends. [111 (112 is an
image plate)]
In 1595, when Chirino was assigned to the Jesuit College in Cebu, thirty years had
elapsed since the Augustinains had reapporpriated Magellan’s gift to Johanna. By this
time Legaspi’s instruction that the ‘sacred image be placed with all reverence in the
first church that should be founded’ (fn: Ultramar, 119-120) had become a reality. As
the Jesuit father explained in his 1604 report to the Superior General.:
The religious [Augustinians] at once took possession of the image, (regarding it as a good
omen); and out of respect and devotion to it named the city Santísimo Nombre de Jesús, and
placed the image in a church of their order that was erected there ... Each year it is born in
solemn procession from the church of St Augustine to the spot to where it was found where a
chapel has been erected. The procession takes place on the day that the discovery was made—
namely the twenty-ninth of April, the feast of the glorious martyr St Vital, who is patron of the
city, and as such that day is kept in a solemn feast in his honour (fn: Relation of Legaspi).
A virtual aside from Chirino begs further analysis. He wrote, ‘it [the image] remains
in highest veneration, and has wrought many miracles, particularly in childbirths,
whence it is both facetiously and piously called man-midwife [el partero] (fn: Relation of
Legaspi).
By the time Chirino made this observation in the first decade of the new century, the
image had been a reality for indigenous inhabitants of Cebu since April 1521, a
period of eighty-three years. It is not unreasonable to assume that Cebuano women
used the image of a child to augment their midwifery and healing skills, and therefore
it cannot be presumed that the transformation from the imagene to man-midwife
ocurred only after its ‘rediscovery’ by Legaspi’s troops, and eventualy installation in
the newly built Augustinian church. In this context, the label ‘man-midwife’ could
signify a continuation of the role attributed to the image in the intervening years
between Magellan’s visit and Legaspi’s arrival. 113
#suno #syncretism
It could be argued that these anomalies were the result of regional variation, but the
author of the ‘Manila manuscript’ brings this suggestion into dispute by claiming that
‘although it is true that in these islands of Luzon, Panay and Cebu there is an infinitiy
of languages, on different from the others and as a consequence different garbs ...
almost all agree as to pagan rites and ceremonies’. (The Manners, Customs, and
Beliefs of the Philippine Inhabitants of Long Ago, being Chapters of "A Late 16th
Century Manila Manuscript,"' transcribed, translated and annotated by Quirino and
Garcia, in The Philippine Journal of Science, 87, 4, December (1958):325-449, this quote,
p. 430. Henceforth 'Manila Manuscript.', p428) 133
#language diversity
But I argue that in the pre-colonial period these cases were unusual, rather than the
norm, and that it was the influence of the male-centred Hispanic Catholicism that
eventually tipped the balance in favour of the male shaman, so much so that by the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Cullamar suggests, all the babaylan on
Negros were male (fn). 135
#female cult leaders
Halili, Maria Christine N. 2004. Philippine history. Manila: Rex

Bookstore.
In 1891, Governor General Valeriano Weyler, known as the “Butcher” for his
ruthless suppression of early revolts in Cuba, invaded Lanao. On August 21, 1891, he
won the First Battle of Marawi in Lanao Lake. Datu Amai Pakpak, the defender of
Marawi, was able to escape. he recruited more warriors to fight against the Spanish
invaders. Failing to conquer Lanao, Weyler assaulted Cotabato. However, he was
overpowered by Datu Ali Jimbangan and his fierce krismen (warriors).
In 1895, Governor General Ramon Blanco invaded the Lanao Lake region. Blanco’s
troops attacked Marawi on March 10, 1895. In this Second Battle of Marawi, the
heroic Datu Amai Pakpak died in action. Blanco won his battle, but he failed to
conquer Lanao like Terrero and Weyler. To avenge the fall of Marawi and the death
of Datu Amia Pakpak, the Muslim warriors declared a jihad (holy war), forcing Blanco
to halt the campaign and return to Manila.
The bitter warfare between the Spaniards and the Muslims ended in 1898, after the
signing of the Peace Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, which ended the Spanish
domination in the Philippines. 125
#bio of anoy
Moreno, Msg Robespierre Tan. 2005. IFI centennial celebration

1905-2005: Ika-100 ka tuig nga panglungtad parokya ni San
Pedro, Biabas, Guindulman, Bohol
Sa dihang ang Iglesia Filipina Independiente giproclamar sa Manila sa tuig 1902, siya
ug ang mga kadagkoan sa Biabas, mihangyo dayon sa pangulo sa bag-ong Simbahan
didto sa Manila nga padad-an silag pari isip ilang kura paroko sanglit ang ilang
simbahan gidumala man lamang sa usa ka laygo [layiku]. Si Padre Terencio Najarro
kanhi pari sa Romano Catolico maoy unang pari nga miabot sa tuig 1904 ug
pagkasunod tuig 1905 gihimog parokya ang Biabas.
Ang Parokya sa Biabas maoy nahimong sinugdanan ug sentro sa mga misyonaryong
kalihukan ug gimbuhaton sa IFI sa Bohol. Bisan asa padulong si Mariano Datahan,
ang Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) iyang gisangyaw ug gitukod. Gikan sa
Catagdaan, Bagacay ug Bayong (Lungsud sa Pilar), sa Cantaub, Nan-od ug Matin-ao
(Lungsud...) 3
[...]
Si Mariano Datahan giila ug gitahod niining mga gagmayg Kristohanong katilingban
nga amahan sa IFI ug magtutudlo. Ang unang mga sakop nakasinati sa talagsaong
disiplina ug hugtanong pagsunod sa mga balaod sa Dios. Ginadili ang sugal,
paghuboghubog, pag-estambay panahon sa tingtrabaho, bayle ug pagtrabaho sa
Dominggo. Ang mga babaye wala tuguti nga magkarsones ug mugbog buhok. Kining
maong matang sa kinabuhi nga ilang gipuy-an nakapataas sa ilang dignidad ug bili.
Gikan sa Biabas natukod ang mga bag-ong parokya sa Bohol: Catagdaan, Boctol,
Cantaub (gibalhin sa Matin-ao) Bangwalog ug Botong. Dako usab ang iyang
gikatabang sa pagkatukod sa parokya sa Candijay ug kanhi parokya sa Biasong
(Loon).
Sanglit ang mga lumulopyo sa Biabas mga Eskaya man ug Aglipayano, sila
gibugalbugalan nga kuno sila “ sobrang nagpatootoo” ug mga “culto”. Daghang
mga ngalan ang gibugalbugal kanila “mga erehes”, “mga rizalistas” , “mini” ,
“paripari” ug “mga ignorante”. Kon mahibaloan sila nga mga taga Biabas , sila dili
dawaton sa escuelahang privado, dili patrabahoon sa gobierno ug walay mga
beneficio nga madawat sama sa yanong mga Filipino. 8
[Trans attempt]:
When the Iglesia Filipina Independiente was founded in Manila in 1902, he and the
higher officers in Biabas immediately petitioned the head of the new church in Manila
to send them priests to serve in their parish because their church was served by a
single layman. Father Terencio Najarro, a former Roman Catholic priest was the first
priest to arrive in the year 1904 and by 1905 the parish of Biabas was established.
From the outset, the parish of Biabas was the centre of the missionary activities of the
IFI in Bohol. Wherever Mariano Datahan went, he spread the word of the Iglesia
Filipina Independiente (IFI) and built churches.
[...]
Mariano Datahan is recognised and respected by these few Christian communities as
a father and teacher of the IFI. The first members would have experienced the
remarkable discipline and hugtanong obedience to the laws of God. Prohibited
gambling, drunkenness, the idleness in work hours, dance and working on Sunday.
The women who do tuguti mugbog magkarsones and hair. This same kind of life that
dwelt nakapataas their dignity and price.
[...]
Since the inhabitants of Biabas are Eskaya and Aglipayan, they are ridiculed and
called ‘ultra-superstitious’ [sobrang nagpatootoo] and ‘cult members’. Many names are
used to mock them: ‘infidels’ [mga erehes], ‘Rizalians’, ‘fakes’ [minì], ‘pseudo-priests’
[paripari] and ‘ignoramuses’
If they are identified to be coming from Biabas, they are not accepted in a private
school, not employed in the government, and can't have the same benefits received by
ordinary Filipinos.
#chapter 2
Quakenbush, Stephen Jay. Philipine linguistics from an SIL

perspective – trends and prospects. In Liao, Hsiu-chuan, and
Carl R. Galvez Rubino, eds. 2005. Current issues in Philippine
linguistics and anthropology : parangal kay Lawrence A. Reid.
Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines : SIL Philippines.
SIL has addressed two primary research questions in the Philippines from the start,
both of which have stemmed from a desire to serve among the lesser known language
groups known nationally as “cultural communities.” These two questions are:
What Philippine languages are there?
What are these languages like?
It is noteworthy that the primary questions addresed by SIL overlapped with, but
were not identical to, the primary interests of many of the Filipino linguists who were
returning from study abroad to establish the discipline of linguistics in their own
country in the 1950s and 1960s. These scholars were often more interested in the
pressing matters of developing a national language and teaching an international
language than with documenting and analyzing the many local languages. With the
exception of a few linguists at the University of the Philippines who continued in the
tradition of Cecilio Lopez, research on the majority of Philippine languages largely
became the purview of foreign scholars.
The desire to answer the question “What Philippine languages are there?”
assured that SIL would be concerned with matters of comparative linguistics and
dialectology, and in particular with the issue of dialect and language boundaries. The
motivating question underlying this research was a practical one, namely: “how many
distinct translation or language development projects does the linguistic diversity
warrant?”. 6
#history: language documentation #national language
The current state of affairs regarding the number of Philippine languages reported or
recognized is an interesting one, with varying estimates from different sources. One of
the earlier well-documented sources, Reid 1971 stated that there were “more than 80”
Philippine languages (Reid 1971:vii). McFarland 1980 listed 118, while McFarland
1994 listed only 110. Constantino 2000 stated there were “maybe about 110.” Reid
2000 lists 150, whereas the 2002 Ethnologue lists 163 living Austronesian languages
spoken natively in the Philippines (including Chavacano)[ref]. Some of the differences
in these estimates result from different groupings of dialect clusters or language
complexes. Other differences no doubt come from differing access to and acceptance
of sources of information. 7
In each of these categories – syntax, discourse and lexicography – SIL linguists have
concentrated on the ‘smaller’ languages of the cultural communities. 12
Luspo, Marianito. 2005. Bohol and the Boholanos. Tagbilaran.

PK: This is a manuscript version of what would later be published in a more reduced
form in Tubod
A contemporary Carta Annua mentions the reception into the church of an old chief
during the feast day of Joachim and Anna [in about 1599]. Although he was not
mentioned by name, this old chief was most probably the famous chief Katunao. He
died not long after at the ripe old age of 120. 7
#immortality
#history of bohol: Sikatuna
Outside the reducciones [in 17th century], life went on as it did before the coming of
the Spaniards. Those Boholanos who refused to accept the new way of life offered by
Christianity lived outside the reducciones and their satellite of visitas. These people
were generally called Tingguianes by the Spaniards. Outside the pale of Jesuit
civilization, they retained their bellicose attitudes. The fiercest of this Tingguian tribes
lived in the mountains of Malabago, which corresponds to the present districts of
Maribojoc, Antequera, San Isidro and Catigbian. A Jesuit annual report later made
mention of the conversion of the Tingguianes of Maribojoc who agreed to come down
from their mountain villages to settle in a place called Viga, along the banks of the
Maribojoc River. 8
#history of bohol
Of the many towns of Bohol, only two towns – Baclayon and Loboc – did not join the
[Dagohoy] uprising against the Spaniards. A punitive expedition led by the Alcalde
Mayor of Cebu, Don Pedro Lechuga failed to contain the rebellion. The Boholano
rebels established themselves in the mountains of northern Bohol, making sporadic
raids on the Spanish settlements on the lowlands from time to time. Thus, soon after
the revolt, they looted the Jesuit hacienda of San Xavier located in Inabanga. Two
years after, they raided Jagna and killed its parish priest Fr Guiseppi Lamberti, and
not long after, they succeeded in assassinating Fr Gaspar Morales, the hated curate of
Inabanga whose refusal to give Christian burial to the brother of Francisco Dagohoy
sparked the fire of rebellion in the island.
The middle part of the 18th century saw the rebellion still unchecked, probably due to
the general instability of the southern islands during this time. The 18th century was
the bloodiest of the prolonged Moro Wars, and raiding forays were all-too-frequent,
making real progress almost impossible. Furthermore, the Seven Years War brought
about the British invasion of Manila which dissipated the Spanish crown’s efforts at
upholding its sovereignty over Bohol. In 1759-60, Bishop Lino de Espeleta, erstwhile
bishop of Cebu who was then acting in the capacity of governor-general of the
Philippines, personally tried to talk peace with the Boholano rebels, to no avail.
In 1768, the Jesuits were expelled from the Philippines by order of the Spanish king.
Taking over their missions in Bohol were the Augustinian Recollects, headed by their
former provincial, Fray Pedro de Santa Barbara. With the rebellion strong in the
interior part of the island, the Recollects preferred to stay in Baclayon than in the
former seat of the Jesuits, the town of Loboc. With remarkable diplomatic skill, Fr.
Pedro de Santa Barbara and the Augustinian Recollects were able to establish a
modus vivendi with the Dagohoy rebels. Thus, they were able to do about their
religious mission without molestation from the rebels. As a result, the Recollects were
able to establish new towns in Bohol, and new parishes were created out of the
original six established by the Jesuits. By the turn of the 19th century, the towns of
Dimiao, Loon, Guindulman, etc. had come to existence, aside from many other small
but prosperous villages and visitas. By the end of the Spanish regime in 1898, Bohol
already had 35 towns.
The beginning of the 19th century saw Bohol crawling in terms of development. The
combined threats of both the Dagohoy rebels and the Moro marauders made real
progress almost impossible. Still, the Recollect peiod in Bohol was comparatively
more progressive than the time of the Jesuits. 10
#history of bohol: Dagohoy
The Dagohoy rebellion was finally put to an end during the time of Governor-
General Mariano Ricafort. In the early part of the 1800’s, a Recollect missionary
stationed in Guindulman reported the burning by rebels of a chapel in a place called
Tugas. This friar, by the name of Fr. Narciso Hernandez de Jesus Maria, reacting to
this incident, petitioned the civil authorities to send a force that would stop once and
for all the 80-year old rebellion in Bohol. This incident seems to indicate that at least
by the 19th century, the once formidable Dagohoy Rebellion had become a mere
irritant to the Spanish missionaries operating in Bohol. This is not surprising since
Dagohoy had died long before.
Footnotes: It seems that the Dagohoy Rebellion had its peak during the 1760’s. Towards the
closing decades of the century, it had gone down to the level of banditry due probably to the
absence of the unifying figure of Francisco Dagohoy. This would explain why the Spanish
authorities suddenly had more time to spend for the construction of Moro watchtowers
between 1768 to 1798. This would also explain why the Recollects managed to spend more
and more for the beautification of Baclayon, their home base. Interestingly also, the silver
ornaments and many of the pipe organs of Bohol’s churches were bought in the 1820’s, even
before the final end of the much-touted Dagohoy rebellion.
Sotero Misa, in his masteral thesis on the life of Dagohoy opined that Dagohoy died in 1825,
just four years before the end of his revolt. This would make Dagohoy a centenarian when he
died. On the other hand Prof. Emmanuel Luis Romanillos, in his book about the Dagohoy
Rebellion, which he based solely on documentary sources he uncovered in the archives of
Spain, he insists that Dagohoy died in or around 1782, as mentioned in the Libro de Cosas
Notables of Talibon. Misa also mentions the tradition that Dagohoy died because of rabies
which he got from his pet dog.
There were other uprisings that broke out in Bohol at about this time. The town of
Tubigon retains memory of a revolt led by a man named Gaom; Romanillos also
reports another revolt led by an unidentified man in Batuanan in the 1850’s. These
were however short-lived.
In 1827, a large contingent of soldiers under Manuel Cairo landed in Bohol. This
expedition, however, was not too successful. The next year, a bigger army of over
6,000 men, composed of both Boholano and Cebuano warriors under the command
of Capt. Manuel Sanz, succeeded in decimating the remnants of Dagohoy’s army in
the Cave of Caylagan, the very headquarters of Dagohoy who had died years before.
The surviving rebels tried to regroup in the mountains of northeastern Bohol, but at
the end of August, 1829, they were finally defeated in the Cave of Tugpa, thus putting
to an end the glorious 85-year rebellion of Francisco Dagohoy.
The rebels who surrendered were given amnesty by Gov. General Ricafort and
resettled in the new towns of Batuanan (now Alicia), Cabulao ( now a barrio of
Mabini), Vilar and Catigbian. Pax Hispanica had come to Bohol at last. 11
#history of bohol: Dagohoy
The growing economic wealth also touched the shores of Bohol starting in the 1840’s
because the open climate of the time brought in migrants from the north. Many of
these northerners, mostly Tagalogs from the Cavite and the surrounding areas, settled
in Bohol. Many came over as servants of the friars or as civil servants. These
northern migrants later intermarried with the locals and gave them their hispanized
names. The use of Spanish surnames was introduced to the country by then
Governor-General Narciso Claveria, but it seems that this order was not enforced
here in Bohol until much later. As a result, many Boholanos, especially those living in
the older towns of Bohol have retained their native family names, such as Matig-a,
Dumagan, or Butalid. Now, with the intermarriage between natives and migrants
from the north, such family names as Torralba, Sarmiento, Mendoza, Calceta, etc.
became localized. 12
#genealogy
It was only in 1854 that Bohol became a politico-military district separate from Cebu.
Since the establishment of colonial rule, Bohol had been considered part of the
ecclesio-political district of Cebu, under the jurisdiction of the alcalde mayor and the
bishop in residence at the City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. But for about two
hundred and sixty years, the only Spanish presence in the island had been the handful
of Jesuit and later Augustinian Recollect missionaries assigned there. 12
#history of bohol
After the 1863 educational decree of Queen Isabel II, stone buildings were erected in
almost all the towns of Bohol to house the escuelas de niños and escuela de niñas
provided for by this momentous decree. These schools were run by schoolmasters
trained at the Escuela Normal in Manila. Among these local schoolmasters was the
famous Fernando (Maestro Andoy) Rocha scion of the illustrious Rocha family in
Tagbilaran.
Aside from school-buildings, the Spaniards also built a system of good roads that
connected the main towns of Bohol, mostly on the southern, western and eastern
flanks of the island. These roads, though unpaved, served to make travel between the
towns easier, either on horseback or by carriage. 13
#history of bohol: #literacy
#route to biabas
There are no records available to prove that the Katipunan was ever established in
the Island. The only probable link of the Katipunan to Bohol was Sabas Ligones, the
22-year old student of the Colegio de San Carlos who came from humble family
origins. He worked for a time as a servant in order to earn enough money to pay for
his schooling. Upon finishing Bachiller En Artes, he is said to have joined the
Katipunan in Cebu and fought in the battle to rid Cebu of the Spaniards in April,
1898. However, when fresh Spanish troops gained the upper hand over the Cebuano
patriots, Sabas Ligones was forced to return to Bohol [fn: Sabas Ligones was born in
Tagbilaran in 1876 of poor parentage. He distinguished himself as a freedom fighter
who fought against the Americans in the famous redoubt of Camp Verde in Duero].
Finding himself in the watch list of the Spaniards in Tagbilaran, he fled to the town of
Antequera, later to Siquijor. Going back [14] to Bohol, he hied off to the town of
Balilihan to escape the Spanish dragnet. But at night, he would secretly come to
Tagbilaran to confer with friends on how to drive away the Spaniards.
Sabas Ligones and the rest of the Katipuneros of Bohol failed to organize the
Katipunan in Bohol for two reason: First, there was indifference on the part of the
leading families of Bohol over the Katipunan cause. Most of the people of the time
were still overtly pro-Spanish. Sabas Ligones and his friends were most probably seen
as dangerous fanatics by them, thus the refusal to lend them a hand. The second
reason was because the patriotic cause in Bohol was overtaken by events. By middle
of 1898, the Americans had entered the fray with the arrival of Dewey’s fleet into
Manila Bay.
Towards the end of November, 1898, the Spaniards began evacuating Bohol,
starting with the Augustinian friars who left for Mambajao, Camiguin aboard the
steamship “Salvadora.” By Christmas Day of that year, the last Spaniards had left
Bohol from Jagna on the way to Mambajao.
Gobierno de Canton
Thus, there was almost no bloodshed attending the departure of the Spaniards of
Bohol. Two reasons could explain this: either the Boholanos did not experience the
degree of cruelty and oppression that made Filipinos from other provinces rise up in
bloody confrontation against the Spaniards, or, the Spaniards left in such secrecy and
speed the Boholanos did not get the chance to put their act together.
There was only a minor unpleasant event which was reported to have happened in
the eastern towns of Guindulman and Jagna in late December of that year. As
reported by Don Vicente Elio, some people from these two towns killed a few
Spaniards who did not have the luck to escape from the Boholanos. [Fn: Reported by
Lumen T. Pamaran in her unpublished doctoral dissertation entitled “History of
Bohol Up to 1972”, Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 1975. P. 194.] Not satisfied,
they sailed across the sea to Mambajao in pursuit of the fleeing Spaniards. The
patriots brought musical instruments with them, intending to mock the Spaniards by
serenading them as they were leaving the land they once considered theirs for over
three hundred years [Fn: Jes B. Tirol quoting Don Vicente Elio in his paper on
regional participation in the Philippine Revolution, 1998]. But fortunately or
unfortunately, they missed the departing Spaniards by a day.
The vacuum left behind by the departing Spaniards resulted in the need for an
interim government to secure the peace in Bohol. Already, there were reports of
banditry and other forms of lawlessness in the island. Since the upper class had the
most to lose in this kind of situation, the ilustrados of Bohol took the initiative of
securing mandate from the Malolos government to set up a kind of government in
Bohol. The result was the formation of the so-called Gobierno de Canton, or Federal
Government that swore allegiance to President Emilio Aguinaldo. 15
#history of bohol: Gobierno de Canton
The Gobierno de Canton of Bohol is reported to have possessed a seal or escutcheon
composed of “an ellipse bearing a sun rising behind three mountain peaks and with
three stars above, surrounded by the legend ‘Gobierno Republicano de
Bohol’…bordered by the colors red, white and blue from inside out” (from Scriven).
16
#history of bohol: Gobierno de Canton
The Junta tasked Col. Pedro Samson and Col. Ambrosio Sandoval were tasked to
carry out the order to eliminate Braulio Flores. Flores was summoned to Tagbilaran
to answer the charges against him. On May 20, 1899, he arrived at the Casa
Provincial in Tagbilaran accompanied by his two sons, Pedro and Diosdado. [16]
At the patio of the Casa Provincial, he was met by Samson and Sandoval who
presented to him the order of his dismissal. In the altercation that followed, Flores
pierced Samson with his sword, forcing the latter to draw his revolver and shoot the
erstwhile military commander of Bohol. His two sons were likewise killed when they
tried to fight in defense of their father [Fn: Jes B. Tirol, “Regional Participation
During the Philippine Revolution: Bohol”, A Paper presented during the Philippine
Historical Association Conference, February 7, 1998]. As a result of the death of
Braulio Flores, Col. Pedro Samson was appointed commander of Bohol’s military
force. Soon he would distinguish himself in the resistance against the Americans.
The Junta Provincial of Bohol sat in power from April, 1899 until March 17, 1900
when upon the arrival of American troops they were forced to disband.
The Boholano-American War
In the morning of March 17, 1900, American troops under the command of Major
Henry C. Hale, arrived in Bohol by way of Cebu. They landed at Nagtubo, now
Mayacabac, Dauis, Bohol. Upon disembarking, Major Hale immediately sent a party
to secure Mt. Banat-i. The rest of the occupation troops marched without resistance
to Tagbilaran.
On the way, the American troops met a carriage bearing Don Bernabe Reyes,
President of the Gobierno de Canton, and his party. From there, the Americans
marched on to the center of Tagbilaran. In a large hall at the Casa Tribunal (now the
Provincial Capitol) overlooking the plaza and the church, all the members of the
Bohol government gathered to meet their American masters for the first time. They
had prepared a formal document wherein they spelled out their decision to
accommodate the American occupation force, “even if it is against our principles and
our political faith.” Stressing their continued allegiance to Emilio Aguinaldo, they
nonetheless declared their willingness to cooperate with the occupation troops “to
guard the complete harmony and peace…of the province.” [Fn: Manuel Artigas y
Cuerva, “Galeria de Filipino Ilustre”, 1918., entry on the biography of Salustiano
Borja, translated into English from the original Spanish by Jes B. Tirol]
In reply to this courageous stand by the Boholano leadership, Major Hale replied:
“To the President- Your protest is of no avail. I have the force to take your island and
I have done so.” [Fn: Cf. Scriven Diary]. Whereupon, Major Hale demanded the
complete surrender of the provisional government. He also announced the banning
of the Philippine flag from being displayed in public. Furthermore, he set upon the
organization of another set of public officials under the American flag. Some
Boholanos accepted the positions offered to them by the new masters. Don Margarito
Torralba accepted the post of Mayor of Tagbilaran, and Don Aniceto Clarin
accepted the appointment as Governor of Bohol. Col. Pedro Samson agreed to
become Chief of Police of the entire island. However, a strong feeling of distrust for
the Americans prevailed. As a result, the Americans noticed a “marked disinclination
on the part of the leading citizens [of Bohol] to accept public office.” [Fn: Dean C.
Worcester, “The Philippines Past and Present”, ( The Macmillan Co., New York,
1930). P277, cited by Jes Tirol in his book “Bohol: From Spanish Yoke To American
Harness.”]
On the surface, the Boholanos showed that they have reconciled with the idea of
being under a new foreign master. Unknown to the Americans, however, the leading
citizens of Bohol were holding secret meetings to plan their uprising. From August 10
to August 20, 1900, the Boholano patriots secretly met at the house of Fernando
Reyes, [17] a prominent Chinese trader. Among those who attended these secret
meetings were Pedro Samson, Luis Toribio, Roman Torralba, Sabas Ligones,
Mariano Parras, Jacinto Remolador, Andres Torralba, Timoteo Oppus, Fr. Roman
Ortiz, parish priest of Tagbilaran, Dionisio Inting, Francisco Castaño, and many
others. [Fn: This was the list provided by Bernardino Inting in his 1934 book “Bohol
Ug Mga Bol-anon”. Tirol, however, believed that it was the new parsih priest of
Tagbilaran, Fr. Mariano Baluyut, who attended these historic meetings].
Finally, on September 1, 1900, the Boholano patriots raised the cry of resistance and
moved towards the hinterlands of the Bohol, thus following the footsteps of their
ancestors who under the able leadership of Francisco Dagohoy once shook the entire
island with their determined fight for freedom.
For the next fifteen months, they successfully held the Americans at bay, setting
successful ambuscades and making the island ungovernable. In retaliation, the
Americans burned twenty of the thirty five towns of Bohol, killing innocent civilians
and destroying livestock and agricultural produce to deprive the patriots of food and
shelter (from Gibbens).
Despite the lack of arms and ammunition, the Boholano patriots valiantly fought the
Americans and inflicted many casualties among them. On September 2, 1900, they
engaged the Americans in battle in Catigbian. On September 3, in the shadow of the
now famous Chocolate Hills, they clashed again in Balikwing, Carmen. On
September 15, the Boholanos successfully staged an ambush on the American soldiers
at Kabantian Pass. Finally, on July 5, 1901, they routed the Americans in the battle
of Cambaliga, Carmen.
The Boholano army was under the overall command of Col. Pedro Samson, who had
previously accepted the post of Chief of Police of Bohol. In reality, he accepted the
position to gain the trust and confidence of the Americans and get hold of their arms
and ammunition. The other patriot leaders were Lt. Col. Luis Toribio, Manuel
Miñosa, Miguel Balmoria, Pantaleon del Rosario, Martin Cabagnot, Sabas Ligones,
Leon Remolador, Miguel Parras, Juan Vaño, Sabas Dagondon, Apolinario Olivares,
Jacinto Remolador, Rafael Espuelas, and Ambrosio Sandoval.
Other Boholano officers who represented their respective towns in this patriotic war
were Gregorio Caseñas of Jagna; Estanislao Rocha, Pedro Visarra, Cornelio Matig-a
and Candelario Borja of Tagbilaran; Catalino Sumampong of Loboc, Juan Beronilla
of Guindulman; Isidro Unahan and Barlotolme Doria of Carmen, and many others.
Meanwhile, the Americans went from town to town trying to flush out the insurgents.
In each of these towns, they demanded that the leading citizens meet them to show
that they have not joined the insurrectos. If this did not happen, or if they suspected
that the townspeople secretly aided the rebels, they put the town to the torch. Thus,
Baclayon was saved from burning by the tactfulness of Capt. Timoteo Oppus, who
met and entertained the American soldiers; Loay, too, was saved because it was the
town of the American-appointed Governor, Don Anicleto Clarin; Loboc was saved
because of the prudence of Fr. Cayetano Bastes, the parish priest [Fn: Cf. Cecilio
Putong].
The other towns of Bohol, however, were not as lucky. The whole stretch from Lila
to Anda was almost without exception reduced to a howling wilderness, with houses
and fruit trees burned to the ground and animals shot on sight. Fortunately, the [18]
Americans spared most of the old churches and convent because generally, these were
the only building large enough to shelter their troops. The major towns of Loon and
Inabanga were also burned. The towns of Catigbian, Balilihan and Sevilla were
totally razed to the ground. In Balilihan, the town officials led by Capital Municipal
Antonio Racho, met the American soldiers with band music, but all the same, the
entire Balilihan officialdom was arrested and thrown to jail. Then the whole town,
including the church, convent and the municipal building, were burned.
Not only did the Americans destroy buildings, they also applied torture on both
suspected insurgents and leading citizens of Bohol. The water cure, which involved
forcing the hapless victim to drink plenty of water then jumping on his stomach to
force water out of every orifice of his body, was the form of torture most favored by
the Americans. Among those recorded to have been tortured in this way were some
municipal officials of Corella, the Capitan Municipal of Tagbilaran and its parish
priest [Fn: Cf. Scriven. The Tagbilaran victims were most probably Don Claudio
Gallares and Fr. Mariano Baluyut].
Meanwhile, the American scorched-earth policy began affecting the uprising. On
March 8, 1901, the Americans surprised the Boholano insurgents preparing for an
ambush at Lonoy, Jagna. In the ensuing massacre, Captain Gregorio (Goyo) Caseñas
was killed together with 400 other fighters. The debacle at Lonoy opened the way to
the main Boholano headquarters which was situated on a heavily forested mountain
with sheer cliffs- Campo Verde in Duero.
From March 10 until July 1, 1901, the Americans tried to dislodge the Boholanos
from their base at Campo Verde. Finally after their ninth attempt, the Boholanos
were forced to abandon the camp. They regrouped at Mayana, Jagna, before moving
inland into the thick forests of central Bohol.
The Americans attempted to set up a civil government for Bohol with the
appointment of Don Aniceto Clarin as Governor on April 20, 1901. However,
because of the continuing insurgency, Bohol was returned to military control on July
17, 1901. With the fall of Campo Verde, however, the fate of the Bohol uprising was
sealed. This became even more pronounced with the arrival during the last week of
September of seasoned troops belonging to the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 19th
Infantry Regiment led by General Robert P. Hughes.
It was General Hughes and his 19th Infantry Regiment responsible for much of the
horrible atrocities committed by the Americans in Bohol. The effectiveness of his
well-known ruthlessness can be gauged from the fact that less than three months after
their arrival in the island, the Boholano resistance to American rule finally came to an
end.
On December 21, 1901, an American negotiating party met with Col. Pedro Samson
in his hideout at Canhayupon, Dimiao. They brought with them an ultimatum
written by Gen. Hughes wherein he warned that if the Boholano insurgents will not
lay down their arms by December 27, 1901, the whole town of Tagbilaran would be
burned. Since most of the Boholano insurgent leaders were from Tagbilaran, a pall of
gloom and resignation descended upon the Boholano insurgent camp. This forced
Col. Pedro Samson to agree to surrender with his men to the superior arms of the
Americans.
In the morning of December 23, 1901, Col. Pedro Samson and his men descended to
the town center of Dimiao which had already been reduced to ruin by the Americans.
At the ground floor of the convent of Dimiao, he signed the surrender[19] agreement
which stipulated among others that all Boholano insurgents be granted amnesty upon
their surrender.
#history of bohol: Boholano-American war
David, E. J. R., and Sumie Okazaki. 2006. Colonial mentality: A
review and recommendation for Filipino American
psychology. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
(12)1: 1-16
[Footnote 1:] Although the term internalized oppression is used in the literature in
minority psychology to refer to the resulting perceptions of ethnic or cultural
inferiority of historically oppressed groups, this psychological syndrome will be
discussed as the colonial mentality with respect to Filipino Americans because this is the
term that is already widely used within the Filipino American community movements
and in Filipino American scholarship (e.g., Root, 1997) 2
He further asserted that the internalization of racial oppression often leads to a
devalued self-worth among the oppressed. 3
The classical colonial model includes four phases of colonization (Fanon, 1965), whit
the first phase involving the forced entry of a foreign group into a geographic territory
with the intention of exploiting the native people’s natural resources. The second
phase involves the establishment of a colonial society that is characterized by cultural
imposition, cultural disintegration, and cultural recreation of the native’s indigenous
culture, all of which are intended to further create a contrast between the superior
colonizer and the inferior colonized. 3
#prologue #article: virgin birth
Root, M. P. P. (1997). Filipino Americans: Transformation and identity. Thousand Oakes,
CA: Sage.
Fanon, F. (1965). The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove.
Cannell, Fenella. 2006. Reading as gift and writing as theft. In

The Anthropology of Christianity, edited by F. Cannell. Durham
and London: Duke University Press.
#urasyun
Moreover, the central office of the Catholic faith, the Mass, could not be conducted in
any tongue but Latin until the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) ruled that
henceforward it should be celebrated in local languages. 140
Two largely mysterious languages [Spanish and Latin] containing secrets of the new
religion were therefore in circulation during the ealy Spanish period, and it is my
consistent observation that, despite Vatican II, prayers and texts in Spanish or Latin
are still greatly prized by Bicolanos today, although they are rarely if ever able to tell
the difference between the two. 140
#unintelligibility
According to the Franciscan chronicler Ribadeneira, the Bicolanos of the early
seventeenth century were enthusiastic to use writing to record the words of the
missionaries:
The desire which they have to hear the Word of God causes many to make thier own little
books, like Books of Hours, in which they write with their own characters or letters what the
Father preaches to them, in order not to forget it. They ordinarily ask the ministers to tell and
recount to them the lives of the saints, and particularly like to hear the life and miracles of our
[146] Lady and of women saints who were penitents. They are careful to write it all down and
they read it frequently with great delight for their souls, and try to do works which are in
conformity with the examples that they hear from the friars. (Ribadeneira, quoted in
Schumacher, ed. 1987:84) 147
#boholano-eskaya traditions #folk literacy #urasyun

Indigenous Filipino scripts (which are quite closely related to each other) are
mentioned by several other of the early chroniclers, many of whom learned the script
and who give examples written in it. As Scott (1984: 52-61) and other historians have
noted, the scripts were more ambiguous than those using the roman alphabet. In
Filipino script, there are characters for all the consonants of the language, but vowel
markers did not distingquish between e and i, or between o and u (a has a marker to
itself), while the endings of words were also ambiguous. Thus in a famous passage
Gasapar de San Augustin complains that a certain two letters of the syllabary “can be
read in eight ways, which are lili (side), lilim (shade), lilip (border), lilis (to raise), lilit (?),
lilim (the act of shading something), liclic (to deviate), liglig (to drop something), and
with all these they are understood” (San Agustin, Compendio, quoted in Rafael 1988:
45-47).
To read a Filipino script thus required both an initimate familiarity with the language
and a pleasure and skill in guessing, which in certain contexts such as in the writing of
love-verses was probably a deliberately cultivated art form akin to riddling, and which
was called in Tagalog baybayin (to coast). The apparent scene of religious dictation,
therefore, actually con-[147]tained at least two potential sources of ambiguity: there
was the question of what the Filipino listeners would have made of (or written down
of) the Latin liturgy rather than the Bicol exegesis when they heard it, and there was
the question of the possible ambiguities arising from the script. 148
PK: Cannell exaggerates ambiguity here. o/u, i/e is not relevant in a three vowel
system. These letters are used interchangeably anyway. The ambiguity is greater on
the part of Spanish speaker/writer reading script than a literate Filipino.
#writing systems #ambiguity
Throughout contemporary Bicol, as in much of the rest of the lowlands, spirit
mediums and ordinary people alike make frequent use of a written form called orasion,
which I would translate as prayer spells, since the word conveys both meanings; in
fact, the use of orasion is part of a deliberate resistance to the attempt to separate
“legitimate” Christian power from “illegitimate” forms of power derived from the
spiritins, in Bicol healing practice. The more prayer spells one has, the more likely
one is also to have mastery of a range of other broadly shamanic powers. The greatest
adepts collected their many prayer spells together into a volume known as a “little
book” or librito. 148
This appropriative logic goes further, however, for it attempts to redefine the nature
of the saints and holy figures, claiming an origin for them which is different to that
given by the church. On page 33, for example, the author recommends that three
paternosters should be recited to Santa Barbara, who is then referred to as “the
grandmother of Jesus Christ.” Lafuente explains (in Spanish), “the first part is
indecipherable; what follows seems to mean; that when (the grandmother of Christ)
was a heathen, she was called as is indicated in the symbolic letter which precedes this
[spell]. But since she has been baptized, they impose on her the name of Siontisia; –
there follows a recommendation that 3 Paternosters, a Credo and a Salve should be
recited.”151
#origin myths #boholano-eskaya traditions
While the captilization, and the painstaking formation of the letters in the original
[Retana’s urasyun document], are clearly reference both to the insistent (and to the
non-Spanish reader, mysterious) use of capitals and abbreviations in Spanish religious
books (letters standing for the religious orders, for titles, for statuses in the church,
Latin Scriptural tags such as I.N.R.I, etc.). They also seem to recall the arrangement
of letters in the alphabets of Filipino Spanish-period hornbooks (which were of course
always religious and always taught by the church’s officers or delegates). 154
#writing systems #unintelligibility #pamilacan cross
Whether he knew that the words he [author of Retana’s urasyun] was copying were in
Latin or whether he thought they were some more obscure reaches of Castilian [155]
would be interesting to know; it is likely that few Filipinos made this distinction
clearly. On the other hand, the words of the Latin Mass (albeit pronounced by
Spanish priests, so probably sounding very much like Spanish) may have intrigued
many Filipinos, not only because of the obvious centrality of the ritual, but also
because even for those who knew some Castilian, they would have remained at
further remove from comprehension, powerful and familiar, yet inaccessible. Access
could be provided only through memory and imagination, or through the half-
comprehending examination of printed books in Latin. 156
PK: In previous sentence Cannell reproduces the speculation of the annotator as to
the origins of the urasyun as fact. That the author copied it from a breviary is
convincing but not knowable.
#unintelligibility
While I was conducting fieldwork, I was haunted by the constant mention of two
particular texts that were cited as additional sources for the construction of the Passion
play and as objects of supernatural virtue. [157] These two texts, the Tronco del Mundo
and the Martir de Golgota, were, however, never actually produced for me to see, as
everyone always claimed to have lost them. [...]
The conclusion to draw from this proliferation of texts and virtual texts is that it was
not only the content of a particular text which defined its arcane, but also the context
in which that translation was made and the book used. 158
#old books
[Vicente] Rafael seems to be right in talking of a way of understanding – an aesthetic
perhaps – that relies on ambiguity and hesitation in meaning. In the history of the
Philippines, in which colonial powers have constantly told people to discard
relationships with supernaturals that they themselves wish to retain, ambiguity seems
to provide a holding ground, in which such matters reach a very broad number of
temporary or individual solutions. 159
#ambiguity
Now, in more fragmentary form [...] alternative views about the creation are [151]
also current in Bicol and the Visayas [...] 153 Fn: These included, for example, the
belief that the Virgin Mary existed as a kind of ancestress before the creation and
watched it happen (because she is portrayed in the Bicol Pasion before the story of the
Creation), and alternative versions of the story of Adam and Eve. 161
#boholano-eskaya traditions #origin myths
Kawada, Makito. 2006. Review: [untitled]. Asian Folklore Studies

65 (1):116-118.
In my research site, the Central Visayas, the mananambal (healer) is similar to the
baylan, and both females and males can be found there. However it seems that their
strong points are different according to sex; while female mananambal mainly deal
with herbal medicine, males have a good knowledge of orasyon (magical words). In
the Libreto sa Orasyones [Magical prayer book], there are many prayers for
protecting themselves and attacking the enemy, such as orasyon for tightening one's
body, or for making an enemy unable to move. 118
#urasyun
Mojares, Resil B. 2006. The formation of Filipino nationality

under U.S. colonial rule. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and
Society 34:11-32.
There were two important conditions for the rise of the arts in the early twentieth
century. The first was nationalism. The flurry of activity was driven by the will for
social and cultural self-assertion that had been building up in the late nineteenth-
century, suppressed, nourished by revolution and war, then bursting forth into the
spaces created by the transition from one colonial order to another.
The second condition was American colonial state formation. State-building widened
and “fixed” the social and territorial space for the formation of a “Filipino
nationality.” Constructing the Philippines as an object of knowledge and control, the
Americans carried out knowledge-building projects from the onset of the occupation.
They defined the national territory, commissioned histories, built up archives, and
conducted censuses and inventories of what the country encompassed and contained
(from trees and minerals to categories of inhabitants and their languages and arts).
Material and mental infrastructures were built for the formation of a national culture,
the apparatus for its production and circulation. 12
A countrywide public school system was developed. Between 1903 and 1940, the
number of schools increased from 3,000 to 13,000; the number of teachers from 2,500
to 42,000; school and public libraries from a mere 12 to 5,700; school enrolment from
under 300,000 to 1,860,000. Facilities for communication expanded with investments
in public works, transportation, and mass media. There were 41 newspapers in 1903;
there were 313 in 1939. It is estimated that between 1903 and 1918, the number of
newspapers and readers increased by 300 and 300 percent, respectively. In 1935,
Manila outranked any other city in the Far East in the number of telephones and
telephone calls, and the Philippines had one of the best mail services in the world. 13
#globalisation
In 1908, the Philippine Commission rejected a bill providing that teaching in primary
schools be given in the local language. 16
#language policy
The leading Filipino intellectuals directed the National Library & Museum […] and
the Institute of National Language (de Veyra, Lope Santos). 17
#chapter 1
An important site of contestation was language. At a time that saw a late flowering of
Filipino writing in Spanish, Hispanistas defended Spanish as a language more adequate
for conveying native ideas and sensibilities. More important, writers argued for the
primacy of the local language over English. In the phenomenon Virgilio Almario calls
balagtasismo, writers defended Tagalog, and its repertory of poetic forms and
conventions, as a way of resisting Americanization and asserting autonomy and
selfhood [fn]. An instance of this surge of interest in local culture was the invention in
1924 of a “modernized” version of the traditional [17] verse-debate called duplo, the
balagtasan, which became so popular that, at its height, balagtasan performances took
place in Manila and the provinces (under names like bukanegan and crissotan) and drew
audiences of thousands from all classes. [fn] 18
#language ideology
In the Commonwealth era and the years leading to it, Filipinism was not just nostalgia.
It was harnessed as part of civic formation, citizenship training, and “preparation for
nationhood.” National histories were conventionalized; national symbols decreed;
arts-and-crafts museumized; civic rituals enacted. The process of national identity-
formation was hierarchical, selective, and biased in favor of the metropolitan center
where the “nation” was imagined. (For instance, writers in Philippine languages had
to contend with the fact that, in the emerging canon, they had been [22] relegated to
being merely “local” while writers in English – and to a certain extent, Tagalog –
were “national.”) 23
#invented traditions #imagined communities
If we trace the genealogy of the common symbols of what is Filipino, it is remarkable
how many of them have their origin in the American-colonisal period: bahay kubo,
kundiman, tinikling, rondalla, barong tagalog, sarswela, balagtasan, Rizal monuments, Araw ni
Balgtas, National Heroes Day, Juan de la Cruz, Dalagang Filipina, even the country’s
Anglicized name, Philippines [fn]. It was in this time of self-conscious, colonial nation-
building that the trappings of what came to be called “Filipino culture” were invented,
assembled, officialised, and propagated. 23
#invented traditions
There was the sense that native tradition was not “deep” enough. To some extent, the
complaint was uninformed, as in Amador Daguio’s lament:
We do not… possess a literary tradition. Other people’s have their Homer, their Virgil, their
Shakespeare. We have nothing to which we can refer, nothing that serves us as stimulus or a
pattern for autochthonous work… We have no natural fathers; we are like adopted children,
ignorant of whatever inheritance of genius may course through our veins. We have, it is true,
our oral traditions and our songs, but they appear to be trifling. [Amador T Daguio, “The
Malayn Spell and the Creation of a Literature” (Philippine Magazine, September 1934),
Filipino Essays in English, p. 205. Also Carlos P. Romulo, “The Scholarship of Interpretation”
(Filipiniana Reference Shelf, February 1941), Filipino Essays in English, pp. 40-43. 25
Philippine civic nationalism was constrained by the conditions of its production,
complict in the realities of profound political, economic, and cultural dependence that
U.S. rule created. It was a colonial school-house nationalism that affirmed colonialism
at the same time that it sought to negate it. 25
It is arrogance for Hayden to claim that what was done in the Philippines was all to
America’s credit. Filipinism was actively crafted by Filipinos themselves, in ways and
for purposes that did not always coincide with U.S. colonial aims. If it did not quite
suffice for the time (nor does it for ours), this is so for two reasons. It was a nationalism
not quite conscious of the ways in which it was constituted by colonialism itself, and it
was one that was far less inclusive or deeply grounded as its leaders and ideologues
represented it to be. 26
Nation-making in the early twentieth century [Philippines] created the sense, space,
and substance of nationhood more extensive than at any time prior to it, one that
survives to the present day. 27
Mojares, Resil B. 2006. Isabelo de los Reyes. In Brains of the

nation: Pedro Paterno, TH Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de los Reyes
and the production of modern knowledge. Quezon City: Ateneo
de Manila.
Back in the Philippines, a “religious coup d’etat” took place on October 23, 1899
when at an assembly of the Filipino clergy in Paniqui, Tarlac, Filipino priests headed
by Gregorio Aglipay (the Aguinaldo government’s military vicar general) declared
their independence of the Spanish ecclesiastical hierarchy even as they affirmed their
allegiance to Rome. 273
It was then that Isabelo decided to go his own way by proclaiming even without
Aglipay’s consent, the establishment of Iglesia Filipina Independiente. He planned on
making this proclamation at a public meeting organized by Pascual Poblete at Teatro
Zorrillas to demand the expulsion of the friars. This meeting, however, was banned,
Hence, Isabelo gathered Union Obrera Democrata members at Centro de Bellas Artes on
Billalobos Street in Quiapo on August 3, 1902. At this meeting (attended by 42 people
but inflated to “more than two thousand” in later accounts), he announced “without
vacillation that from now on we definitely separate ouselves from the Vatican, forming
a Filipino Independent Church.” He branded the Pope the “caudillo of our eternal
enemies, the friars,” for refusing to name Filipino bishops. While it has been
questioned whether he actually delivered the speech on this day, the text of the speech
was published in Poblete’s Grito del Pueblo on August 8.
In this speech, Isabelo proposed an organizational structure for the new church that
included a lay executive council (composed of Gomez, Poblete, and well-known
nationalists) and a “dogmatic” council of sixteen priests from which the new bishops
would be chosen. He named Aglipay Obispo Maximo of the new church, and, as
honorary presidents, Taft, Aguinaldo, and Pardo. Most of those he named had not
been previously consulted and they (including Pardo, Poblete, and the priests he
named) publically dissociated themselves from Isabelo’s declaration of schism in the
days that followed. 282
Though Aglipay initially dissociated himself from Isabelo’s proclamation, he joined
the movement on September 22 when, assuming the title of Obispo Maximo and
naming Isabelo executive president, he issued the first of six Epistles that gave form
and organization to Iglesia Filipina Independiente. With Isabelo among those in
attendance, the new church was formally inaugurated on October 26 when Aglipay
celebrated a pontifical Mass at a makeshift, open-air altar in Tondo, Manila. 283
The harried composition of these texts [de los Reyes’ doctrinal texts] undermines their
status as canonical documents. Isabelo makes the pretentious (and inaccurate) claim in
Oficio Divino that he is presenting the Gospel on the basis of “very ancient codices
preserved in the libraries of Jerusalem, Rome, England, France and Spain,” and
asserts authority by saying he has visited churches of Roman, Greco-Russian, and
Anglican Christians; the temples of Brahma and Buddha in Colombo, Singapore and
Japan; and the Confucionist temples in Canton, Macao and Hongkong. 328
#article: lumina [compare Jes Tirol to Isabelo de los Reyes]
From Biblia Filipina [1908]:
Iglesia Filipina Independiente. —Biblia Filipina. Primera piedra para un genesis
cientifico, espuesto segun las rectificaciones de Juses. — Por primara vez se traducen
literalmente al Castellano el Hebreo original (esto es, el Caldaico) de la Sinagoga y el
Griego de la Septuaginta, tales como se conservan en la famosa Biblia Poliglota
Complutense de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Barcelona, que fue aprobada por
el Papa Leon X, en 1520 y se completan en notas con otros originales y las tradiciones
analogas de Caldea-Asiria, Persia, Egipto, Syria, Fenicia, India, China y otros pueblos
tan antiguos como el Hebreo. Tambien se da la debida importancia a lays leyenda
cosmogonicas de Filipinas. —La dedica al pueblo Filipino nuestro sabio Obispo
Maximo Emmo. Sr. Gregorio Aglipay y Labayan, Barcelona 1908. 329
#mimicry and rejection #old books #chapter 2 #chapter 9
Holm, Tom. 2007. Code Talkers and Warriors: Native Americans

and World War II. New York: Chelsea House.
He later estimated that more thatn 300 Native Americans fought in the defense of the
Philippines.
One of those 300 who did not surrender was Lieutenant Colonel Edward McClish, a
Choctaw from Oklahoma. McClish had been part of the National Guard since 1940.
In 1941, he was called to active duty and sent to Panay Island to organize the 3rd
Battalion of the Philippine Army. he moved his command to Negros Island, where he
was stationed when the Japanese invaded. McClish crossed to the island of Mindanao
in late December to add the Moro people’s “bolo” battalions to his command. He
established his command in eastern Mindanao, but when the Japanese reached
Mindanao in April 1942, McClish was in a field hospital and so was not with the 3rd
Battalion when it surrendered. As soon as he recovered from his injuries, McClish
organized a guerrilla force of some 300 Filipino and U.S. soldiers who had escaped
captivity. Soon he joined forces with another American colonel who commanded a
large guerrilla contingent in western Mindanao. Together they formed the
fprovisional 110th Division and fought the Japanese until U.S. forces finally landed in
the Philippines in 1945. All together, mcClish’s forces fought in more than 350
engagements with the Japanese. 48
Alburo, Erlinda K. 2007. History and the prewar Cebuano

novel. Philippine Studies 55 (4):479-508.
The role of historical fiction in Filipino society has been acknowledged; in fact, a
Filipino writer in English has said that the Filipino imagination discovered fiction as a
response to history (Gonzalez 1990, 35–62 [Gonzalez, N. V. M. 1990. Interview on 8
September 1980. In Conversations with Filipino writers, ed. Roger J. Bresnahan, 35–
62. Quezon City: New Day.]). 484
#chapter 4
The same orientation should be expected of the historical literature in Cebuano,
which first appeared in the prewar period. Within this period, often called “the golden
age of vernacular fiction,” Spanish was on the decline and English was still to be
mastered. 484
#chapter 9 [PK: comment on intermediate period between two colonial languages]
The newspaper or magazine was affordable and interesting, dealing with current
issues and events that must have been exciting to read for a people unused to a free
press in a previous era. 488
#chapter 9
Osorio himself wrote a Cebuano grammar book (n.d.) as well as tips on writing poetry
in Cebuano (Osorio 1932). His own preface to his novel shows this purpose: “I wrote
this in order to learn the art of writing but with the sincere intentions that my grain of
sand can help my ‘friends of the pen’ who are working hard for the perfection of their
native tongue” (Osorio 1913) 488
The journalistic background of the prewar Cebuano writers was also a deterrent to
the development of a sense of literary aesthetics. Readers of the “fictional
interpretation” of material of current interest, such as disasters, social fads, and
political events of the day, readily believed the factual origins of the narrative. Used to
the literal reading of works with explicit messages, the earliest readers of Cebuano
fiction were not aware of the emergence of the new fictional form. Perhaps what this
shows us is the characteristic naiveté of an audience still being initiated into the
mimetic type of fiction, a characteristic that owes something to the long tradition of
religious-didactic literature to which Filipinos in general were accustomed. Most of
the readers of long fiction—and there were forty-five such novels published in BK
from 1915 to 1941—readily took what they read as factual and not as “works of art.”
489
[Osorio] would have read Historia de Filipinas (Seminario de San Carlos 1900) as a
student at the Seminary of San Carlos, where Spanish was the medium of instruction,
and where it was a textbook. This slim book contains, even if briefly, the historical
event foregrounded in his novel Daylinda, which is an account of Magellan’s
“discovery” of the Philippines and his death in the battle of Mactan; its first chapter is
entitled “Descubrimiento del Archipiélago filipino por Magallanes.” 489
Daylinda (figure 3), which is subtitled Ang Walay Palad (The Unfortunate), starts like
a fairy tale with an opening of “once upon a time,” when there lived two migrant
couples originally from Palembang, Sumatra, but now settled in Kawayan, Dalagit,
Cebu. The first couple, Lumabon and Amoma, and their daughter Daylinda lived on
the side of a valley across the other couple, Haladen and Akitona, and their son
Omanad. Omanad would sometimes see Daylinda on the next hill or by the shore.
Curious, he once approached her with questions of who she was and where she lived,
but the girl lied, mindful of her parents’ warning against strangers. [491]
Omanad started courting her at home. The girl’s parents preferred his suit to that of
the others and Daylinda, after playing hard-to-get and having consulted her parents,
accepted him. At this point, the Spaniards under Magallanes arrived and the men
were asked to prepare to help fight the foreigners, if called by Hamabad the ruler. A
decision on the wedding date was suspended.
While Omanad was away a suitor, Ardabo, appeared on the scene, providing comic
relief to an otherwise melancholic atmosphere. Omanad exchanged letters with
Daylinda and sent her love poems. Meanwhile, Omanad formed a group to join
Lapulapu in warding off Magallanes and his men. Some natives, including Lumabon,
brought their household to the head town to be baptized. Daylinda was now “Maria
Aurora.”
However, Lapulapu’s group, including Omanad, resisted the foreigners. Omanad was
wounded during the attack that killed eight Spaniards and twenty-three natives. He
was brought home and wed to Daylinda on his dying bed. In the end Daylinda
herself pined away, dictating a common epi- taph for both their graves. 492
#chapter 4
[In Florentino Suico’s novel Sa Batan-on Pa Ang Sugbo ‘Cebu of Yester-year’] In
Barangay Subadakon lived the prosperous but childless couple Lo- mitud and
Limunsay. Lomitud was descended of the royal family of Sumatra from where he had
migrated, while Limunsay was a native of Subadakon whose parents had come from
Malaya. 494
#chapter 4
Locsin-Nava (2003, 61) writes on Muzones’s belief “that long before the Americans
came, we had a true democracy under the Bornean datus . . . [that] the Ilonggos had
a pre-Hispanic culture and history of their own which they could be proud of.”
Muzones wrote his historical novels between 1946 and 1973 based on the Maragtas,
whose authenticity as source was questioned much later by Scott (1984). 504
#mimicry and rejection #chapter 4 #chapter 10
Leys, Simon. August 2008. In the wake of Magellan:

globalisation’s forefather. The Monthly.
[Review of Voyage de Magellan (1519-1522): La relation d'Antonio Pigafetta & autres
témoignages]
After a short stop in Guam, where fresh supplies revived the crew, the ships sailed to
the Philippines. There, on the island of Cebu, Magellan established friendly relations
with the local king. After one week, the king expressed his desire to become a
Christian. He was thus baptised, together with the queen and 2000 of their subjects. A
makeshift church was promptly built; big crosses were erected on top of hills nearby.
Magellan then suggested imposing the authority of the “Christian king” over all of his
neighbours. When one of them rebuffed his interference, Magellan decided to punish
him - and to use the opportunity to show the Christian king the invincible military
superiority of his new friends and protectors. Taking only 40 men with him in the
longboat, he landed on the island of the recalcitrants; there, ambushed by a large
army, he was killed with six of his companions after a brief and desperate fight.
The remnants of his little troop re-embarked in disarray. This unexpected rout gave
the Christian king food for thought: these strangers were, after all, only temporary
visitors, whereas he had to live permanently with his neighbours – it would therefore
be wiser to accommodate the latter. He invited to a feast some 26 officers and sailors
and, in a surprise move, massacred them all. He failed, however, to overtake the three
ships; in panic, they lifted anchor and set sail at once, abandoning ashore their dead
and dying. Thus ended the stay in Cebu; it had lasted only 23 days.
One last word, regarding the Christian king (and his subjects, all converted in one
week and baptised en masse): the Western navigators had vested much hope in him, yet
did not seem particularly surprised by his eventual betrayal – after all, Christian kings
in Europe did not behave differently. [n.p. online edition]
Cañete, Aloysius Ma. L. 2009. Tasadayspeak: Elizalde,

anthropology and the politics of speaking. Philippine Quarterly
of Culture and Society. 37 (2009): 35-54.
One of the reviewers of Headland’s book saw the Tasaday controversy on this very
same ground: “The controversy arose in the first place because the Tasaday never had
their own ‘real’ ethnographer to authenticate and legitimize them to the scientific
community” [Headland, The Tasaday controversy, p14]. 45
More generally, by objectifying the Tasaday whether by Pratt or by Headland, they
are transformed into muted artifacts whose value depends upon the degree to which
they can be measured statistically. By articulating the Tasaday as artifacts, they are
constituted by anthropologists as “unspeaking objects.” Moreover, anthropologists
have inflicted an epistemic violence on the Tasaday, both by reducing them as
evidence of the human past while at the same time effacing them as “historical
beings.” Or, put differently, anthropologists have seen the Tasaday less as producers
of their own history than as objects whose own voices have been necessarily (and
conspicuously) absent from the Tasaday controversy debate. No wonder we hardly
heard the voice of the Tasaday in the controversy that is ironically about their
historical authenticity; their presence and voice were either erased in the process of re-
inscription, or just plainly silenced by the discourse of others, in this case, Elizalde and
anthropologists. 47
#chapter 10
In the courtroom, Dul, on of the representatives of the Tasaday, uttered the following
words before affixing her thumbprint to the complaint: “We are the forest… We are
the Tasaday. We are as real as the forest and the flowers and the trees and the
stream… We are as strong as the stone of the cave of the Tasaday.” (fn) 49
[Michel-Rolph Trouillot]:
Minorities of all kinds can and do voice their cultural claims, not on the basis of explicit
theories of culture but in the name of historical authen-[49]ticity. They enter the debate not as
academics—but as situated individuals with rights to historicity. They speak in the first person,
signing their arguments with an ‘I’ or a ‘we,’ rather than invoking the ahistorical voice of
reason, justice, or civilization. [fn, but cut off in pdf] 50
Bulloch, Hannah. 2009. In pursuit of progress: Narratives of

transformation on a Philippine island. Canberra: The
Australian National University PhD thesis.
We need to be cautious of simple models of domination from above and resistance
from below. 48
#mimicry and rejection
But “Parang bisaya siya”, meaning “He/she is like a Bisaya” has the same connotation
and, as Kobari (2006: 7) points out, “does not necessarily refer to one’s ethnic origin
or place of birth”. In other words, Bisaya is used to represent “The Provinces” and is
often posited in dualistic terms in [55] contrast with Tagalog as an ethnic category;
north and south are polarised. Thus the regional stigmatising of Siquijor as a
backwater is replicated on a national scale with Bisaya. 56
#prologue #faking it in visayan
Fn: The terms Binisaya/Bisaya and Cebuano are sometimes used differently in other
parts of Philippines. for example, Johnson (1997: 47) notes that in Joso, Sulu, “The
term Bisaya’ is used in opposition to Muslim to refer to any Christian Filipinos,
whatever part of the Philippines they are from and what ever sect of Christianity they
adhere to. Moreover, not only does the term Bisaya’ have historical connotations of
slavery, servitude and colonization, but also, and perhaps more importantly, is
associated with the continuing presence of the Philippine armed forces in the town of
Jolo itself” (also see Hassan & Ashley, 1994; Kobari, 2006: 6). 55
#prologue #faking it in visayan
Aswang are humans with supernatural powers, often compared to witches, who
typically live undetected among regular people. one of the most feared varieties
discards her lower half at night and flies to rooftops, using her long tongue to suck the
viscera from her victims. Wak-wak and sigbin are animals, which frequently serve as
aswang’s familars. The wak-wak is a bird-like creature while the sigbin is a cat or similar
innocuous animal during the day which transmogrifies into a vicious kangaroo-like
creature at night. 79
#chapter 7
[Aljas, 1999: 3]:
Wishing to know more about the mysterious island, the Spaniards visited the place.
Upon their arrival, they met a native who was fishing. They asked him in Spanish
what the name of the place was. The native thought he was asked his name and
responded “Si Kihod,” liming around to demonstrate how he got his name [Si Kihod
meaning “Mr Limper”]. Because Spaniards found it difficult to pronounce the “d”
eventually “Si Kihod” was changed to Siquijor. 81
#folk etymology #toponyms
Aguilar (1998: 72) suggests that prior to the arrival of the Spanish one’s fate (kapalaran)
was preordained and immutable, written onto the palad, the palm of the hand. The
palad disclosed whether one was to become a datu (chief) or an ordinary person (ibid.).
Through the introduction of the concept of suwerte, indigenous perceptions of destiny
were radically altered during the Spanish era. Suwerte could be negotiated with the
spirits, and destiny thereby rewritten. Like a wheel, the palm could rotate, an image
evoked in the Tagalog phrase gulong ng palad (ibid.: 72-75). 129
#epistemology
For example, I was sitting one day with my research assistant, Sharon, on benches
outside a store in the main street of Tulapos, interviewing Mirafel. A few other
residents joined the conversation and the discussion flowed without obvious restraint.
After some time another woman joined us. I continued posing questions to the group
but the dynamics immediately changed in response to her presence. The discussion
had been in Cebuano but the new woman began answering my questions in English;
the others deferred to her, and withdrew from speaking. When I later asked Sharon
why this had happened, when the woman was not even a member of the local elite,
she told me that the others were ashamed (ulaw) because the woman was well
educated and they were not; in her presence they felt they had no authority to speak.
160
#language prestige
Fn: Johnson (1997: 47, 55) suggests that in Sulu, in the Southern Philippines,
‘America’ is seen as more than just a place to which people aspire to go for
employment, but as a source of “knowledge-power or potency (ilum’)” (ibid: 47)
associated with education, while the Arab world is associated with the knowledge
power of Islam. After the birth of a child, the placenta is placed in a coconut shell
along with a piece of English language newspaper and a piece of paper with scripture
from the Qur’an written upon it in Arabic, in order that each form of knowledge-
power will be instilled in the child. 168
#folk literacy
[Jean-Paul Dumont:]
We were, from their viewpoint, the United States they had always ‘known’, at once
experienced and imagined. Since, in a sense, they had invented us, any intercourse with us had
to remain absolutely unchallenging and ultimately was only a form of association among
themselves. (Dumont, 1992: 30-31) 177
Or perhaps more accurately an “intimate alter” [177] – a term which Bashkow (2006:
14) adapts from Ashis Nandy’s (1983) “intimate enemy”, that is, “the West
internalised by its non-western others” (Bashkow, 2006: 14). 178
Amerikanos are typically perceived in the Philippines as being more physically attractive
than Filipinos. ‘European’ form – what my informants described as ‘white’ skin, ‘long’
noses, ‘heart-shaped’ faces, and ‘slim’ (curvy) bodies – are prized over more
quintessentially Malay characteristics of ‘Morena’ skin, ‘flat’ noses, ‘square’ faces and
‘skinny’ bodies (see below). 181
#chapter 2 [PK: Tirol, ‘looking just like ordinary Filipinos’, the ‘good shaped face’,
mention phenotypic conceptualisation of race]
The American production of ‘truths’ about the Philippines proliferated, as it was
studied, depicted and its fate debated: truths which made statements like McKinley’s
possible [“uplift and civilize and Christianize them”], even practical and which his
words remade. 186
#chapter 1
Far from discovering the empirical properties of a natural entity, Orientalism
constructs, even invents, its object. As “an accepted grid for filtering through the
Orient into Western consciousness” (Said, 2003 [1978]: 6) it sets the boundaries and
maintains the tropes of the Orient. And in doing so it circumscribes what can be
thought and what can be said about the Orient. Encumbered by this bulky mental
structure, actions too become constrained and directed. 187
Indeed, the magazine [National Geographic] carried no fewer than 39 articles about
the archipelago in the 15 years from 1898, when the first such article appeared on its
pages; compared to none in the subsequent 15 year period by which time initial
fascination with the remote islands was superseded by other issues […] 187
#chapter 1
Taft, who coined the term “our little brown brothers” to describe Filipinos, positioned
them as children incapable of fending for themselves: “No one denies that 80 percent
of the Filipino people are densely ignorant. They are in a state of Christian tutelage.
They are childlike and simple with no language but a local Malay dialect spoken in a
few provinces; they are separate from the world’s progress” (Taft, 1908: 142). 190
#chapter 1
[…] the U.S. colonisation of the Philippines took place at a time, later than most
European colonisations, when ideas of social evolution were at their peak. Thus ideas
of the backward Other had more scientific legitimacy when applied during the
colonisation of the Philippines than ever before – a circumstance in which
anthropology played a large part. 193
#chapter 1
Fn: In recommending a large budgetary appropriation for schools General Arthur
McArthur said that it was meant “primarily and exclusively as an adjunct to military
operations calculated to pacify the people” (quoted in Constantino, 1982 [1966]: 3).
195
#chapter 8
Fn: Filipino scholar Arnold Molina Azurin (1993: 20) notes that colonial social
evolutionary categories have become embedded in the “Filipino heritage”, persisting
in school text books and the mass media. He states (although falling back on the very
narratives he criticises): “Quite unfortunate that at this late stage in our cultural
development, the ethnocentric viewpoints of the colonial era have remained
interwoven in the prevalent texts and discourse on Philippine ethnography … The
predominance of this racist ideology among Filipinos has become more glaring to this
researcher in the course of data-gathering for this study. Even university teachers and
personnel have expressed concepts such as, ‘the Igorots belong to another race, and
this is evident in their physical characteristics and posture’ or that ‘the Muslims in
Sulu are more Malayan than Filipinos; even their manner of speaking is different from
ours’” (ibid.). 195
Schoolchildren were taught from an elementary level that humanity is made up of
races carrying innate behavioural characteristics. For example, by grade seven the
student learnt that the average Filipino is a composite of different races and that this
accounts for the Filipino personality. While his 40 per cent Malay blood confers on
the Filipino a freedom-loving quality, his 5 per cent Hindu blood explains his fatalism,
and so on. Furthermore, aside from blood and the innate qualities that it embodies,
foreigners collectively endowed the islands with culture. The Filipino barangay system,
ancient writing, much of the Tagalog dialect, superstitions and more flowed from
India, while other sets of arts and customs came from China and Japan respectively
(Mulder, 1990). But it was the Spanish who first truly uplifted the Filipino. As one
textbook explains:
Christianity is Spain’s lasting heritage to our people. Christian virtues have elevated our way of
life and our ideals. The Spaniards enriched our culture. By absorbing the best and the beautiful
of Spanish culture, we have become the most socially advanced of the Asiatic peoples who
have shaken off Western rule. (Leogardo and Navarro, quoted in Mulder, 1996, 189). 196
#article: virgin birth #chapter 10

Firstly, we see that Filipinos have acquired all of their culture from others. The
Filipino is presented as an empty vessel, filled by foreign cultural characteristics. 197
Thus we meet an ambivalence concerning the authenticity of Filipino culture. Either
substantive Filipino culture is shrouded by a thin veil of foreign culture or what
appears to be Filipino culture is nothing more than a flimsy version of foreign culture.
No allowance is made for more complex cultural articulations.
Elements of Western culture, both American and Spanish, have influenced culture in
the Philippines in profound ways. But this has always involved a process of
articulation. 199
#chapter 10
The diffusion of ideas takes different forms in different situations tending towards an
unconscious indoctrination in some and a conscious appropriation in others. 200
#articulation
[Bashkow (2006: 14-15):]
the ‘indigenization of modernity’ (Knauft 2002a; Sahlins 1992, 1997; Sivaramakrishnan and
Agrawal 2003), does not make the particularization of modernity an unequivocally positive or
even redemptive form of globalization. A modernity constructed as an answer to the self’s
problems is highly effective at insinuating itself into local cultural processes and tapping into
the dynamics of the local moral order, exploiting its weaknesses and leading people to devalue
the traditional culture to which it seems antithetical. In this way, the inevitable problems that
beset life in any society become central motivations driving people’s desire to reforge their
society in the image of the modern other. 200
#chapter 10 [see also ‘native modernity’]
Depending on the perspective taken , Siquijor is free from [modernisation’s] civilising

influence or its corrupting effect. 207
Like the difference between not believing in Santa Claus and not believing in violence,
on Siquijor ‘not believing’ doe not always equate to having a conviction that
something simply does not exist. 218
#epistemology
By disassociating themselves from sorcery, Siquijodnon can still accept its existence in
the world while denying it a place in their lives. Thus it is possible that in some cases
there is no contradiction at all in saying at one moment that one does not believe and
in the next seeming to suggest that one does. 218
#epistemology
“Performances of modernity” Schein (ibid.: 386) explains, “were less subversions than
they were disidentifications … They contested not the dominant ordering of the
‘socius’ into hierarchies but, rather, the particularities of how Miao as a group were
interpellated within that order”. Indeed, somewhat paradoxically, “their practices
could not but simultaneously reiterate the prestige and superiority of modernity as the
hegemonic cultural system that stigmatised them” (ibid.: 373). 222
Indeed, as Butler (1997a: 40) contends, such speech “remains enabled precisely by the
contexts from which it breaks … the very terms of resistance and insurgency are
spawned in part by the powers they oppose (which is not to say that the latter are
reducible to the former or always already coopted by them in advance)”. It does,
however, suggest room for resistance within discursive structures. 223
In part by virtue of their perceived close [223] association with animism, Siquijodnon
are interpellated into a backward position in the national hierarchy. Their
constitution in discourse enables them to constitute Others through the reiteration of
that discourse which exceeds and enables. Siquijodnon seek to negotiate the social
order, to reformat the Self by disidentifying with backwardness, by displacing it onto
Others, by performing modernity. However, Siquijodnon’s myriad and continual
attempts to disrupt the hierarchy of identities that others them, typically constitute
only and (often fleeting) rearrangement of that order, through a reassertion of the
terms that structure it. By performing modernity, they do not subvert but rather
sustain the framework with which they contend. 224
While Western sensibilities might see the two as aesthetically opposed, for
Siquihodnon infrastructure enhances the natural landscape. 243
The pageantry of development becomes development itself. 246
Furthermore, while discussion during participatory development exercises and
speeches are usually in Cebuano, written information such as project brochures are
often in English. For example, at a KALAHI Participatory Situation Analysis (PSA) in
Tulapos, while discussions proceeded in Cebuano, almost everything the facilitator
wrote on the board was in English. She would frequently convert aloud what
participants said into English before writing it down (and this did not appear to be for
my benefit); when someone said “limpyo” she would echo “clean-up drive”. When
asked to conduct an activity that involved participants writing things down, one
woman sheepishly asked if they were allowed to write in Cebuano. 246
#chapter 3
Meñez Coben, Herminia. 2009. Verbal arts in Philippine

indigenous communities: Poetics, society, and history. Manila:
Ateneo de Manila University Press
Colonial projects following pacification revolved around the control of subject
peoples, imposing “Order,” in an attempt to integrate into an imagined nation-state
politically fragmented, highly diverse ethnolinguistic groups. Creating a new
geography and new ethnic identities meant carving territorial units, imposing political
boundaries and classifying the population primarily according to linguistic affiliation.
[fn: On the problem of classifying populations according to language gropuing, see,
for instance, Resurreccion 2000, 43, and Hamilton 1998, 172n4. Ethnicity, the
affiliation, or membership with one particular group, by virtue of real or mythical
shared origins, language, and culture developed probably in lare part because of
government-initiated inventories of the population by ethnonyms and territorially
bound political divisions. See Resurreccion 2000, 303n12]. Ethnonyms meant to
replace site-specific names (e.g., Taga-Ilog) people called themselves (eponyms)
prevailed at least in official records, but ethnic identity defies classification systems and
territorial borders, and changes according to context ofuse, so that one can have
multiple ethnic identities.
Hamilton, Roy. 1998. From the rainbow’s varied hue: Textile style regions of Mindanao and
Sulu. In From the rainbow’s varied hue: Textiles of the sourthern Philippines, ed. Roy. W. Hamilton, 15-
102. Los Angeles: University of California Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
Resurreccion, Babette. 2000. The social construction of ethnic names. In Old ties and new
solidarities, ed. Charles J-H Macdonald and Guillermo Persigan, 41-52. Quezon City: Ateneo
de Manila University Press.
4
The concept that words possess magical potency—“that intangible, mysterious, and
divine energy which animates the universe” (Anderson 1972, 7)—prevails throught
island Southeast Asia and constitutes the bedrock of indigenous poetics in the
Philippines. To the Ifugao of the Luzon Cordillera words, like spears, can kill. So
powerful are spoken words that imaginary [4] walls are built in Taubuid villages to
bounce off curses from their enemies. Curing spells, likewise, are predicated on a
similar notion that artful chanting releases therapeutic properties of herbal plants, and
that gods can be persuaded to grant good health only if the petitioneres are skilled
artists of the spoken word.
For the Tausug of Sulu, words are “inherited talismans,” pusaka, which in a ritual act
of transfusing creative energy, “the knowledge power of manhood” (Johnson 1995,
51-52), from older to younger male relatives, are uttered, sung, or spat out. During
their apprenticeship, Sama Dilaut shamans, who share a similar belief, inherit the
power of ritual chants like talismanic heirlooms, pusaka, to cure illness and even alter
future events. Shamans and warrior-chiefs, men and women of verbal prowess,
embody generative potency, like the Bagobo epic hero from “the land of songs” whose
singing makes the flowers bloom.
Across the archipelago, different societies also share similar ideas about the beauty
and rhetorical power of the spoken word. The Isneg of Apayao in northern Luzon
specify in their poetry that “to beautify your speech” by “strengthening, straightening,
tightening, deepening, bettering and privileging” it with stylistic and rhythmic
flourishes (prosody), or by “twisting one’s words from their true meanings” (metaphor)
is to produce an empowering performance.[fn] Beautifully crafted speech engages the
imagination, makes the heart (or, in indigenous terminology, the “liver” ) tremble, and
stirs the mind with new thoughts. A vegetal model of creative process is manifest in
the image of verbal art performance as the flowering of a flame tree, or as orchid
petals falling with the breath of the wind, or a rattan’s inflorescence emitting its
fragrance. 5
#language ideology #chapter 10 #urasyun
Ritual language, a kind of interspecies communication, requires the recitalist to speak
in metaphor, the language of dissimulation, to engage in indirection, to hide one’s
meaning in a “forest of symbols” (Turner 1967), because negotiating with spirits is “a
dangerous business” (Fox 1988, 12). 9
Fox, James J., ed. 1988. To speak in pairs: Essays on the ritual languages of eastern Indonesia.
Cambridge: University Press.
Turner, Victor. 1967. The forest of symbols. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
#unintelligibility
More importantly, all [chapters] contribute to the thesis that the centrality of verbal
art in social life is linked closely with the leadership roles of verbal artists as arbiters of
cultural change. Repositioning verbal artists as active agents in the making of history
also reconceptualizes oral performance as a historical process that is open-ended for,
like history, tradition exists in “a constant state of reconfiguration” (Glassie 1994,
962). 12
#article: literature #chapter 10
A recurring phenomenon in Bukidnon [13] and other Manobo villages since at least
the first decade of the twentieth century, millenarian movements, in reaction to
periods of intense cultural stress, were launched by shamans whose important
qualifications for leadership included expertise in the verbal arts, particularly, the
ability to chant the epic. Blending myth and migration history, the olaging, the charter
of millenarians, provides a Bukidnon vision of global kinship and of end-times as a
journey to eternal life without first experiencing death. 14
#article: literature #chapter 8 #messianism
A recurring phenomenon in Bukidnon and other Manobo villages, the first recorded
millenarian movement dates back to the mid-eighteenth century[fn], but occurred
with greater intensity and frequency in subsequent periods [230] of great cultural
stress. Nativistic movements,[fn] described as “a convulsive attempt to change or
revivify important cultural beliefs and values, and frequently, to eliminate alien
influences” (Coben 1964, 55), arose, in the case of the Bukidnon, primarily as a
violent reaction to political oppression especially during the American colonial era
(1898–1936), the Japanese occupation (1941–1946), and the years immediately
preceding the proclamation of marital law in 1972. The millenial vision as depicted in
the ulaging [Bukidnon epic] recorded in the late 1960s, however, also anticipated a
peaceful coexistence among the presently fractious ethnicities in Mindanao. War and
violence, along with ethnic-religious separatism, on one hand, and reconciliation and
unity on the other, constitute the contradictory though not altogether irreconcilable
themes in both the oral tradition and history of the Bukidnon. 231
#chapter 8 #article: literature
Apart from their aesthetic significance, dress and ornament were believed [by
Bukidnon people] to be amuletic. Catholic missionaries, recognizing the prevalence of
this notion, readily integrated it into their strategies for religious conversion by making
their targets relinquish their jewelry for Catholic rosaries, medals and scapulars. In
defiance, the Bukidnon continued to wear their own clothing and ornaments. Since
the use of applique, which actually derived from European dress styles, was
considered a mark of “a true pagan” by Christians (Cole 1956, 24), they turned it into
a symbol of resistance (Hamilton 1998, 56). Moreover, those who surrendered to the
priests their decorative paraphernalia in order to put on, instead, religious scapulars
and medals, simply substituted one set of amulets for another. 234
#antinganting
In the 1920s, the Bukidnon joined a Manobo sect, called langkat, to protest their
children’s forced attendance in settlement schools started by the Americans. Their
leader, son of a village chief, made it known that their gods had spoken through him
(Maquiso 1977, 140-143).[fn] 236
Other [Bukidnon] cult leaders—Mampuruk in 1920, Mangkumapay in 1927, and
Langgan in 1932—claimed that they were the shamans who were to lead their people
to paradise, as decread in the ulaging. That was why, in order to assume the role of
designated shaman, one had to demonstrate his ability to chant the epic. 238
#chapter 8
Among the most important criteria for [Bukidnon] chiefdom, as noted, was a
demonstrated competence in the performance of verbal art. 239
At the heart of this historical proces of resistance and accommodation lies the pivotal
role of verbal artists as arbiters of cultural change. Their hybridizing strategies
ensured, and continue to ensure, thus far, a historically coherent yet adaptive poetics.
360
2010-2019
Bautista, Julius J. 2010. Figuring Catholicism: An ethnohistory of the
Santo Niño de Cebu. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University
Press.
This attentiveness to the hermeneutic potential of the episode is a prevalent
characteristic of Vicente Rafael’s work (2000, 2006). For him (2000, 4), the usefulness
of an “episodic history” “lies in its ability to attend to the play of contradictions and
the moments of non-heroic hesitation, thereby dwelling on the tenuous, we might say,
ironic constitution of Philippine history” [...] “[i]rony forestalls and interrupts the
establishment of a single overarching narrative about the nation”. 10
#methodology: history #chapter 1
“Señor Santo Niño Hymn”
[...]
Ang sakayan nila The ship You were sailing
Midunggo dinhi Arrived at our shores
Aron magmando To conquer this land
Ni-ining yuta namo. The pearl of the seas;
Apan nagbuot ka But you had decided
tipon kanila To stay in this soil
Aron ka maghari To conquer our people
Imong pinili And give us a name.
69
#chapter 4 [PK: Adamic naming]
[Joaquin, Nick. 1988. Culture and history: Occasional notes on the process of Philipine becoming.
Manila: Solar Publishing. pp. 68-69:]
In the whole Orient, only here did the Church display its old genius for using and
transforming the material it found .... And [70] the Church could not do otherwise, because
there was one ahead of it to show them the way. Again, it was merely following the lead of its
Lord. For the Child was here before the missionaries, the Child was here before the Church.
The Child was willing to join our pagan idols, if only to defeat and demolish them. The Child
was willing to live a pagan among us, and to become a rain god before us, and to bless our
heathen ceremonies. But all the time it was preparing us for the Faith. When Legazpi and
Urdaneta arrived, they found it so much easier to convert us because we had, unkowingly,
been tempered for conversion by the Child.
71
What becomes clear, as we examine US colonial policy and Protestant missionary
discourse, is the perception that the kind of religion being practiced in the islands
before the Americans arrived fell somewhat short of a prescribed ideal. For in essence,
McKinley’s statement, while politically expedient as Father Schumacher (1987) and
Bolasco (1994) have observed, brought to the fore the notion of Filipino religious
authenticity. For all its political convenience, McKinley’s statement suggested, in effect,
that Filipino Catholics were not real Christians, and that their inauthenticity was very
much premised upon the legacy of Spanish Catholicism which, among other things,
encouraged the worship of idols like the Santo Niño. 77
#chapter 1
It is my argument that the period between the Spanish and American regimes
determined to a great extent the Santo Niño’s contemporary prominence. 78
#chapter 4
Cannell [2006] interprets this as: [82] “Idolatrous religions produce idolatrous politics
full of leaders who set themselves up as false gods; and religion that permits of
‘confusion’ between the real and the false in this way is also a religion of concealment
which hides a treacherous heart” (169). 83
The passage is significant because it points o a widely held belief in Cebu’s primacy
over neighboring provinces [silingang lalawigan] as a bastion of the Catholic faith in the
region. In Cebu’s religious primacy, the Santo Niño stood as tangible signifier,
pointing not only to its long historical legacy, but to the continuance of a tradition of
blatant, open festivity [piyestahan] that was held every January. 84
#chapter 4
The collaboration of the colonial administration with the Vatican was made in spite of
Protestant missionary mistrust of Roman Catholic priests, reiterating that the doctrine
of (Protestant) church-state separation was manifested beyond its rhetorical
articulation. It suggests that McKinley’s “re-Christianize” statement was an instance
of political pragmatism that appeased the Protestant lobby that thought of American
expansionism as divinely providential. 92
#chapter 1
Syncretism as a concept is one with a particular history of debate and scholarship.
Defined as the fusion of two discrete religious systems, it has been applied to many
contexts from Africa to the Pacific, such that it may well be argued that every religion is
syncretistic inasmuch as they draw upon heterogeneous elements. To this extent, it
becomes almost impossible for scholars or theologians to draw discrete boundaries
between systems of belief. As the various contributors to Steward and Shaw’s
Syncretims/Anti-Syncretism (1994) pont out, for [126] example, merely stating that a
ritual or tradition is syncretic has very limited heuristic or intellectual benefit since all
religions have composite origins and are continually undergoing processes of
syntehsis, erasure, and reconstitution. One could therefore argue, as many in the field
of religious studies have, that syncretism is a useless or redundant concept in analyzing
various religious icons.
This chapter aims to show that syncretism remains a very interesting and relevant
concept when seen as part of an active process of religious discourse. Instead of treating
syncretism as a mere descriptive category, the focus here is upon what people from
various walks of life actually say about religious syntehsis, which in turn actively
conditions how events such as the demotion edict of the Santo Niño is experienced by
Filipinos as a “religious” (read: morally legitimate) truth. 127
#urasyun
Another scholar, McAndrew (2001), draws the example of a farmer who engages in
rice harvesting practices while saying the Lord’s Prayer, imbuing the corp with
spiritual power in order to ensure a successful harvest (ix; see also Jocano 1981, 22). In
this context, the continued propitiation of Christian figures like the Santo Niño in the
manner of anitismo spirits is set against the consequences of material loss from those
forces beyond mortal control. In either case, the suggestion is that Filipinos do not see
syncretic religiosity as problematic particularly in situations where there is immediate
material benefit. 130
#urasyun
Mulder (1996, 17), for example, rejects the term “syncretism” to describe Filipino
Catholicism because it implies that Southeast Asian thought is “hopelessly heterodox
and exemplary of concrete thinking which they are unable to transcend ... it smacks of
derogation and observers’ conceit and missionary arrogance.” 135
#urasyun
Th existence of the devil through the worship of idols operated not to undermine the
Truth of the Christian mission, but rather to underscore their noblesse oblige. Then,
as now, the initial inconsistency of these two attitudes, of rejection or tolerance of
anitismo practices, is resolved by the authoritative power by which the Church assigns
them meaning. 149
#urasyun
Furthermore, the autonomous partisanship of the Santo Niño finds allegorical
contextualization in the independent actions of a child from its parentage. The Bible
refers to a young Jesus wandering wasy from his parents only to be found preaching to
the Pharisees. While not explicitly evoked in what is now remembered as the Tres de
Abril [156] revolt, Christ’s prodigious independence at such an early age was not an
unfamiliar notion to Cebuanos. In the context of the revolution, it was this connection
that facilitated the metaphorical and semantic leap into the notion of a sovereign
Filipinas subsisting without Mother España. 157
#chapter 4
As an icon invoked during a Tagalog-initiated campaign against Spanish authority,
furthermore, it [the Santo Niño] constituted a distinctly Cebuano statement of the
people’s involvement in a countrywide effort. 158
#chapter 4
Many Cebuanos will tell you a story of the Santo Niño’s origins that is neither based
upon the chronicles of Pigafetta, nor upon any other documentary evidence or
scholarly sources. It tells of a Cebuano fisherman who, after casting his net onto the
sea on three separate occasions, kept catching the same charred piece of wood. [...] As
he slept, he dreamt that the object had metamorphosed into a figure of a little child.
Upon awakening, the wood had indeed begun to take the shape of a boy before his
very eyes. The process continued for several days until that black piece of wood
became the image of the Santo Niño as it is known today.[fn]
This is a legend that posits a local lineage of the Santo Niño, one that is autonomous
from and resistant to the official account of the figures arrival and dual discovery. In
this sense, it seems amenable to a project that seeks to “erase” the figure’s Spanish
associations. Far from conceiving of the icon as an introduced deity—one whose
acceptance amoung Cebuanos framed their Divine conversion/salvation—the Holy
Child in the legend had miraculously formed from a burnt piece of wood signifying
that it was “always already” in Cebu, albeit in a different form. [...] [179] It is for this
reason that the legend of the fisherman is often evoked as a text that inscribes the
Santo Niño’s organic relationship with the island, subverting the “myth” of its
European origins and legitimizing its status as a native Cebuano deity. 180
From a pantayong pananaw perspective, indianization provides a conceptual framework
upon which an autonomous, “local” lineage of the Santo Niño can be posited. In
Vano’s description, the figure itself is removed from a European tradition of
Carmelite worship in order to argue that “even before the Spaniards came, Cebuanos
may have had already started the cult of the Prodigious Child” (108). As Vano (108-9)
describes it:
Devotion to the Prodigious Child is both ancient and universal. Since time immemorial, it was
already practiced in ancient Egypt (Horus), and ancinet Mesopotamia (Tammuz) and India
(Iswara). [The Santo Niño devotion in Cebu] was probably due to the Indian influence during
the earlier Centuries [sic], for there are at least 150 Philippine terms identified to have
originated from Sanskrit.
It is, then, by virtue of Cebuano devotion to a tradition of child worship since “time
immemorial” that the Spanish origins of the Santo [191] Niño de Cebu are here
rendered less plausible. The Santo Niño arrived in the archipelago through agents
who were relatively more “local” and more “Asian” than the European purveyors of
Christianity. In this sense, Cebuanos had construed the figure within an existing
practice of venerating a pantheon of child figures, of which the Santo Niño was but
the latest one. Indeed the very “acceptance” of the Santo Niño during the baptism of
the Queen of Cebu is explained as a process of recognition, rather than one of
“conversion.” After all, argues Vano, “The Queen knew nothing of Christiantiy”
(102).
192
Vano cites Cebuano author Quimat (1980) in describing this event:
[S]ometime in 1970 when some Cebuano scholars told the Spanish Augustinian priests of the
Cebuanos’ belief that the image of the child Jesus was in Cebu long before Magellan came,
these priests immediately painted the black image of the Child Jesus pinkish white; later on,
the Spanish priests admitted to having hired a good Spanish sculptor who narrowed the base
of the nose and heightened the nose bridge and made the tip very pointed to make the image
look Spanish, and furthermore, thei hired sculptor tried to deepen the shallow eyes, but this
could not be done so, at present, the left side of the left eye bears the mark of this attempt.
192
In this vein, Vano’s agenda is clear:
I assert that the cult of the Holy Child did not come from Spain because, besides the fact that
there is no evidence of the existence of the belief in the miraculous child in Europe and the
burden of proof lies in any one who affirms its existence, the Protestant reformation which
was raging in Europe would militate against the cult of the Child separate from its Mother. In
addition, I would argue that the image of the child presented to the Queen of Cebu did not
come from Spain ... Pigafetta did not say where it came from. Most probably, the Spaniards
found it in Cebu or, knowing the popularity of the proditious Cebuanos [Child?], they carved
an image of the child. (fn123)
193
The aim here is to demonstrate that regional renderings of histories can often outstrip
and even contradict the project of fostering a “national discourse.” 194
#methodology: history #chapter 1 #article: counter-canon
The story of Cebuano (dis)connection is represented most prominently through an
association with an entity known as “Bata nga Allah” (literally, “Allah as Child”). 196
“Visaya” is the patronymic of “Sri Visjaya.” When the Spaniards came, the natives
mentioned that their realm is “Visjaya” and was written down by the Spanish chronicler as
“Visaya” people. (Abellana 1960, 2)
197
#folk etymology #article: etymology of Visayas
To [the Cebuano ruler] Tupas and his constituents, the image was but the “bathoy” for short
of [sic] “batang pathoy” or child puppet in English, but there were many taguhuming [miracles]
that the bathoy manifested to then [sic] so they changed the name to “Bata nga Allah” and
shortend to “bathala” the infant god. (Abellana 1960, 82)
199
The Aginid and the “Bisaya Patronymesis” converge in the philosophy that
Christianity did not constitute a shock to indigenous belief systems but was, instead, a
familar and acceptable addition to it. The link drawn between the Santo Niño and
“Bata nga Allah” facilitates the conception that Christianity is not anathema to the
resurgence of a pre-Hispanic Bisayan “soul.” It was, at least in the tradition of child
worship in the Bisayas, “always already” there to be used as a means by which the
memory of Sri Visjaya can (and indeed should) be resurrected. 203
It is true, as Mojares claims (2002, 302), that “even as we need greater understanding
of a dynamic of identity-creation, or ‘soul formation,’ we cannot afford to romatnicize
or gloss it with facile nativist claims of creativity.” Yet if there is an overarching value
to the “Bisaya Patronymesis” and the Aginid, it lies not in their statement of the facts
about the Santo Niño or about the colonial encounter for that matter. Rather, the
significance of the texts lies in their pointing to modern remembrances of the past that
are premised and articulated in discursive realms outside the national—
conceptualized, that is, from perspectives that do not have the nation as the normative
frame of reference. To be sure, claims to authenticity and connections with the Lost
Eden are reliant upon shaky pilological slippages—from “Santo Niño” to “Bata nga
Allah” to “Bathala,” from “Luwason” to Luzon, from “Vijaya” to “Visjaya” to
“Bisaya,” to name the more prominent ones. 204
#chapter 10 #article: counter-canon
[...] as Azurin (1995, 127) demonstrates (in Tagalog):
[...] [Tagalog text]
How many times has it already been declared in the writings and discourse of a
number of historiographers based in greater Manila mentioning “nationalism” or
national literature, if not “the Filipino masses,” that almost all that they refer to are
the experiences and creations of their own region? It is as though the dreams and
thoughts of the nation are only propagated in the Tagalog regions. Other (outlying)
regions are but shadows if not background settings. 205
#article: counter-canon
The efforts at creating a “national history” may well be an interpolation onto the
burgeoning of a Bisayan pantayong pananaw (if not Ilocano or Bicolano). As such, one
need not dismiss texts such as the Aginid or “Bisaya Patonymesis” as merely facile
“nativist” petitions for autonomous lineage. For in the very devotion to the Santo
Niño in Cebu is inscribed a resistance to the naturalizing calls for nationality or
“national identity”—campaigns that actually subsume the “regional” and the “ethnic”
beneath its polemic agendas, even while they aim to do the very opposite. 206
#chapter 10 #article: counter-canon
[References:]
Abellana, Jovito S. 1960. “Bisaya Patronymesis Sri Visjaya.” Unpublished MS. Archived at
the Cebuano Studies Center, the University of San Carlos, Cebu City
Azurin, Arnold Molina. 1995. “Bakit Naitsapwera ang Mga Ilokanong Katipunero sa
Kasaysayan ng Rebolusyon?” In Reinventing the Filipino Sense of Being and Becoming: Critical
Analyses of the Orthodox Views in Anthropology, History, Folkore and Letters. Quezon City: University of
the Philippines Press.
Cannell, Fenella. 2006. The Anthropology of Christianity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Joaquin, Nick. 1988. Culture and history: Occasional notes on the process of Philipine becoming. Manila:
Solar Publishing. pp. 68-69.
McAndrew, John. 2001. People of power: A Philippine worldview of spiritual encounters. Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Mojares, R. B. 2000. The woman in the cave: Genealogy of the Cebuano Virgin of
Guadalupe. In Bisayan knowledge, movement and identity: Visayas maritime anthropological studies 1996–
1999, 7-30. Quezon City: Third World Studies Center.
Mulder, Niels. 1996. “Religious syncretism or Southeast Asian Change?” In Inside Southeast
Asia: Religion, Everyday Life, Cultural Change, 17-27. Kuala Lumpur and Amsterdam: The Pepin
Press.
Quimat, Lina. 1980. Glimpses in history of early Cebu. Cebu: The University of San Carlos.
Rafael, Vicente L. 2000. White love and other events in Filipino history. Durham and London: Duke
University Press; Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. PK: Note, no ‘2006’
reference]
Vano, Manolo O. 1998. “Folk religion and the revolts in the Eastern visayas.” In Kasaysayan
at Kamalayan: Mga piling akda ukol sa diskursong pangkasaysayan, ed. N. M. R. Santillan
and M. P. B. Conde, 101-21. Quezon City: Limbagang Pangkasaysayan.
Pacudan, Jonathan D. 2010. History of Anda: A religious profile

of a parish on its 125th Jubilee.
When barrio Quinale [of Guindulman] became a town in 1875, its name was
changed to Anda. 3
[Guindulman’s] church was burned down during the raid in 1827 by the followers of
Francisco Dagohoy, who were living in the hills of Guindulman. [fn: Regalado Trota
Jose, Visita Iglesia Bohol: A guide to Historicl Churches, National Commission ofr
Culture and the Arts, Manila, 2001] 7
#article: dagohoy
Gundiulman is indeed a “mother” because it gave birth to the parishes of Canidjay
(1857), Duero (1863), and lastly Anda (1885). 7
As early as November 8, 1856, a high decree acknowledged the petition of the chief
barangay leaders(los principales cabezas de barangay), the local aristocrats of Quinale
requesting the erection of an independent town.
On January 5, 1875, another acknowledgement was issued on the petition of the
leaders of Quinale. This time, the petition was not just for an independent town to be
erected, but an independent parish as well. 8
[...] on March 12, 1875, the Governor General of the Philippines approved by a
decree that the visita of Quinale be created into an independent town with the name
of “Anda”, separating it from the mother-town of Guindulman. 8
The rest of the town officials [after the gobernadorcillo and capitan] included the
teniente mayor (chief lieutenant) [See, for instance “A lieutenant of the town of Biaba,
pueblo of Guindulman...] 9
Padre Narciso Hernandez served as parish priest of Guinduman for as long as 45
years (1820-1865). 10
According to official records in extant baptismal registers, the following were the
pioneering priests of Anda from its erection in 1885, up to the time when all the
Recollects left in 1937:
1885-1888 Fr. Julian Cisneros
1888-1890 Fr Esteban Echenojauregin
1890-1890 Fr Eustquio Litago
1890-1891 Fr Meliton Martinez
1891-1897 Fr. Ysidoro Musito
1897-1898 Fr. Joaquin Yurgueria
1898-1898 Fr Ysidoro Musitu
1898-1899 Fr. Hilario Lopez
1899-1899 Fr. Calixto Gaspar
1899-1904 Fr. Leoncio Jimenez
1904-1904 Fr. Pedro Jimenez
18
Bohol, Hubag. 2011. Limahong’s treasure and the mermaid of

Sual, From the Saltbeds by Restituto C. Basa,
http://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/history/limahong-notorious-
chinese-pirate-during-spanish-time-in-the-
philippines/#.Vz1n15N96Ho
LIMAHONG, who was dubbed by his enemies, the Spanish authorities, as a “blood-
thirsty pirate”, built his fortress in Domalandan.
Here he tarried for over seven months from December 8, 1574 up to August 4, 1575.
In 1989, Professor Cesar V. Callanta, a native of Dagupan, wrote a book – “The

Limahong Invasion”. In this book, Professor Callanta wrote:
“Limahong carried enough treasures to buy an empire.”

What happened to this treasure?
No one knows for sure. Some writers speculate that Limahong brought this treasure
along with him, when he left Domalandan for freedom in the high seas on August 4,
1575.
Professor Callanta is one of those who hold this view.
Others believe he hid it in a cave underneath the sea on Cabalitian island in Sual.
This treasure is said to being protected by a mermaid.
To this day, some of us, Pangasinenses believe that there truly is a mermaid in the
deep waters around Cabalitian island.
Recently, the Villamil-Jovellanos clan of Dagupan had an outing in Cabalitian. They

went there primarily to do swimming and have a picnic at lunch time.
One of them, a young physician, disappeared quietly. When the family decided to
pack up and go home, he was nowhere to be found.
The family consensus was that he may have been taken by the mermaid. She found
the doctor very handsome and took fancy of him.
The family could not believe that he drowned. He was a good swimmer.
-- http://peoplesdigest.prepys.com/
#lost treasure
Ileto, Reynaldo C. 2011. A Tagalog awit of the ‘Holy War’

against the United States, 1899-1902. In Keith Thor Carlson,
Kristina Fagan and Natalia Khanenko-Friesen (eds.), Orality
and literacy: Reflections across disciplines. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press.
[PK: In the same volume see ‘Unstable Texts and Modal Approaches to the Written
Word in Medieval European Ritual Magic’ by Frank Klaasen, p217]
#urasyun #rural ilustrados
Current Philippine scholarship has tended to essentialize the ilustrado as a super-elite
whose thinking is almost diametrically opposed to the unlettered tao, or masses. Yet it
can be argued that the warehouseman Andres Bonifacio, credited with fomenting the
‘revolt of the masses’ in 1896, was himself an ilustrado in that he had read Rizal and
European writings, even though he wrote exclusively inTagalog. 249
#chapter 9 #article: bio of anoy
[Dimatigdtg] would have been an organic intellectual, someone who could articulate
as well as reshape the thinking of ‘hi speople’ – in this case, his kapatid, or siblings,
fighting the Americans. We might thus label Dimatigtig, for want of a better term, a
rural ilustrado. This category of elites, which played a crucial leadership role during the
revolution and the Philippine-American war, is also the least appreciated on its own
terms by current scholarship, which has been content with labels such as patron, cacique
(chief, boss), principál, or middle class. 250
#chapter 9 #article: bio of anoy
As a poet located ‘in the middle,’ Dimatigtig was engaged in the activity of translation,
comprehending late-nineteenth-century concepts of history and nation through the
meaning matrix of Tagalog and rendering them into verses comprehensible to his
audience. This was not a one-sided process, however, as ‘middleness’ implies. The
awit evidences, as well, the resistance to and limits of the imposition of notions of
modernity in their raw, alien forms. In order for ‘history’ and ‘nation’ to make sense,
popular ideas of community, of self and others, of the past and the future, and of the
interaction of human and divine agency, needed to be articulated and translated into
‘modern’ yet localized discourses. 250
#chapter 9 #article: bio of anoy [PK: compare my discussion of ‘native modernity’]
As we shall see, however, the awit story exceeds this simplistic opposition, drawing
substantially on notions of kinship, the moral order, and biblical time in its matrix of
meaning. 250
Numerous studies have shown how, since the U.S. conquest, the interests of the
Filipino political elite have generally been inharmony with American economic and
military aims. But it has also become increasingly clear that at the regional and
provincial levels, in particular, the state – whether colonial or national – has not been
able to impose its hegemony. Unrest in various forms was a striking feature of
twentieth-century Philippine history. To what extent did such unrest stem from the
events of the revolution and the traumatic war with the United States? 251
Noah’s descendants repopulate the world. His three sons beget its three primary
spaces: Asia (from the ancestor, or nunong, Sem), Greater China (from the ancestor
Cham), and Europe (from the ancestor Jafet):
Ang mga tagalog ay kay Sem na ibig
ang kay Cham naman silang mga intsik
ang mga Kastila sa bunsong kay Jafet
na anak ni Nueng amang matandang giliw
Ang sa Nunong Sem ang parte ng Asia
na kasama niya, asawang familia
sa Nunong kay Cham yaong Gran china
sa kay Nunong Jafet ang parting Europa
The Tagalog stem from beloved Sem

those Chinese people from Cham
the Castilians from the youngest, Jafet
all children they are of Noah, beloved elder.
To Ancestor Sem went that part called Asia
he was accompanied by his wife's family
to Ancestor Cham went Greater China
to Ancestor Jafet the part called Europe.
254
#chapter 4 #lost tribes of Israel
Mula niyaon’t ngayon nagkawatak watak
sa dating estado naciones na lahat
codicia at interés ang siyang sumambulat
tres mil seiscientos ang nagdaang guerras
Since that time until today the world has

disintegrated into a multitude of nations
desire and profit smashing it to pieces in
three thousand six hundred years of warring.
#lost tribes of Israel

Sa atin desendencia nagbuhat si Kristo
Hindi sa kanilang idolatriang tao
saka kung matapos at manalo tayo
ipatatalastas ang dinaanang tribo
Kristo descended from our lineage
not from those idolatrous people
so when this is over and we are victorious
the life story of our tribe shall be proclaimed.
The Tagalogs are directly linked to the Kristo of the age of wholeness, when the tribes
were all of Noah’s family. This crucially differentiates ‘us’ from the tribe of those
idolaters – a reference to the yet-unnamed Americans. 255
#construction of indigeneity [PK: dinaang tribo] #lost tribes of Israel #chapter 4
[PK: proto-Christianity, compare discourse on Santo Niño]
The Spanish occupation is narrated in the following manner. Because Rajah Matanda
has died, the Spanish envoys decide to stay. They establish a ‘tiny government’ based
on an ‘agreement’ with the rajah’s followers that could be dissolved at any time. One
might be tempted to read into this episode a contractual relationship between the
Spanish and the inhabitants of the islands, who surrender some of their rights, their
individual sovereignty, to the European power. However, here not only is the Spanish
state ‘tiny’ but there is no surrender of sovereignty in the aftermath of ‘conquest.’ The
awit does not admit ofcolonial domination but instead deploys alternative strategies to
incorporate Spain into the narrative. 258
#chapter 4 [PK: Also find discussion of Bonifacio or Mabini’s(?) manifesto in which
Spaniards broke the contract of the blood compact. Also, continuity of Dagohoy etc]
In the first place, the word conquest, which designates the event, is considered ‘theirs,’
not ‘ours’: ‘What they call the first conquista.’ The so-called conquest is depicted as an
almost casual encounter between the conquistador and an old man (matanda),
accompanied by Luzon.The man could be Rajah Matanda himself, and Luzon seems
to prefigure Mother Filipinas. ‘The conquistador asked him, what place is this?/The
answer was spelled out:Luzon.’And so the Spanish called it Luzon. 259
#toponyms #chapter 4
Because of the failure to know or ‘capture’ the name, and thus the essence or inner
being of the place, there has not really been a conquista. Colonial rule may have
resulted in the presence of the Spanish, but an autonomous realm survived
throughout those 350 years. 259
#chapter 4 #toponyms
Kung sa inyo ay walang na mapagturing
lupang Paraiso ang siyang sasabihin
na pinagdadayo ng sino ma’t alin
kahit anong hirap gumiginhawa rin
Kaya alisin na ang Isla Filipina

ang itawag nating Paraisong baga
kahit hacutan mang maraming gracia
hindi na papatdan nang ibinubunga
If you yourselves don’t know the answer
‘land of Paradise’ is what you should say
a land that attracts all sorts of people
to relieve them of their every hardship.
So let’s do away with ‘Isla Filipina’

and simply call it Paraiso
Even if its blessings are carted away
it continues to bear bountiful fruit. 260
#toponyms
In Dimatigtig’s awit, however, this land of ours now is Paradise. It is the centre of the
world, ‘a land to which all sorts of people are attracted.’ 260
#chapter 9
Itong ating Reyno’y di namang talunan
nang alinma’t sinong dito’y sumalakay
kay Raja matandang pinakamagulang
ano’t lulupigin Mericano lamang
Our Kingdom was, after all, never vanquished
by anyone who attacked this place
that belonged to Rajah Matanda our ancestor,
how can mere Americans conquer it?
270
#chapter 4 [PK: continuity of Dagohoy, blood compact etc]
Mula ng magharian baring culig colig
lahat ng kalabaw, nagsisingitngit
na ang haring Leon dito nananangis
sa pinagtago-an nalonod sa tubig
Ever since the Lord of the pigs reigned
the carabaos [water buffalo] have all been raging in fury
the king Lion who was weeping here
drowned in his place of hiding.
[...]
The carabao, or water buffalo, represents the Filipinos. This animal was mentioned
previously when the awit asked, [273]
Hinihintay mo pa na siyang marating
lagyan ta hikaw mga ilong natin
sa habang panahon hihilahilahin
mistulang kalabaw ang siyang kahambing
Why wait for the time

when rings are attached to our noses
and we are perpectually dragged around
becoming just like the carabao [water buffalo]?
274
#article: grimm
[PK: finish copying and pasting highlighted notes over from the pdf]
Nery, John. 2011. Revolutionary spirit: José Rizal in Southeast Asia.

Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
[PK: no notes]
Thomas, Megan C. 2012. Orientals, propagandists and ilustrados:

Filipino scholarship and the end of Spanish colonialism.
Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
There is good reason to be suspicious of these words and of the vision of history that
they paint where revolutionary action in the Philippines is caused by European ideas
via the thoughts and writings of a few elite [2]Filipinos. Neither Jesuits nor
Dominicans could imagine that the revolutionary Katipunan, the secret plebeian
organization whose discovery by officials in August of 1896 had sparked the
revolution, could possibly have acted without the instigation of more educated elite
leaders. But the finger of blame (or credit, if you will) points more distantly to Europe,
as if even the thought of Filipino elites acting autonomously as historical agents was
too much to bear. 3
#chapter 1
This study treats the ways those scholarly practices traveled outside Europe and were
sometimes put to anticolonial ends. When seen at this distance, the contours of the
story look similar to those outlined by Partha Chatterjee’s Indian nationalists. In
Chatterjee’s [3]telling, Indian nationalist thought first had to accept the terms and
form of colonizing knowledge before revaluing those terms, thus changing the valence
of the forms of knowledge, and finally transforming the forms themselves [fn]. As we
will see in the Philippine case, colonial subjects also constructed conceptions of history
and society using knowledges often associated with colonial projects. 4
#mimicry and rejection #chapter 4 #chapter 10
These young colonial subjects positioned themselves as modern scholars and
intellectuals in a broader field in which their colonizers, the Spanish, often lagged
behind [fn]. The intellectual practices that we associate with colonialism, then, were
here importantly not of the colonizer before these colonial subjects took them up.
Instead, they represented a world that Rizal described as the “free sphere of scientific
facts,” a world that recognized no political boundaries or authority, but only the
authority of reason and evidence. [fn] 4
We know that nineteenth-century European nationalisms, for example, were bolstered
by the “energetic activities” of “lexicographers, philologists, grammarians, folklorists,
publicists, and composers,” whose work promoted the idea of the tangibility,
grandeur, and antiquity of individual linguistically based nations but also the idea that
each of these nations was part of a world filled with other nations, each of similar type
yet unique in content.[fn] 5
#chapter 4 #chapter 10 #imagined communities
To the previously given list of nineteenth-century nation-makers, then, we might add
not only poets, novelists, and philosophers but also historians, numismatists,
archeologists, ethnographers, and ethnologists. These scholars studied the seemingly
endless variety of humanity and its products—coins, buildings, tools, jewelry, customs,
or clothing—and organized this variety into the cubbyholes of nations or peoples,
each with its own particular content. Such studies collectively portrayed a world
divided into nations or peoples, each with its own qualities but similar in type; they
related to each other horizontally.
However, many of these nation-making social sciences employed narratives,
languages, and tropes that were at odds with the idea of a world divided into nations
of roughly equal status. For example, while it is clear that folklore studies were often
integral parts of emerging intellectual nationalisms, less attention has been paid to, or
explanation given of, how these folklore studies saw peoples organized hierarchically as
well as horizontally: some beliefs are more advanced than others, more modern than
others, better than others. These contradictory tendencies—to organize [5] peoples
hierarchically as well as horizontally—were common to practices of ethnology,
history, and linguistics as well: some peoples, histories, or languages were more
advanced than others. Any particular political use of such scholarly practices, then,
depended in part on whether it avoided, incidentally employed, or indeed actively
promoted its vertical organizational logics as well as horizontal ones. Vertical logics
provided particular dilemmas for marginally European or extra-European
nationalisms, which could rarely claim their people to be at the pinnacle of such
hierarchically organized schemes. 6
#progressivism #imagined communities #chapter 4 #chapter 10
Does nationalism always take sovereignty to lie at the level of the “nation”? What,
then, to do with thought in which self-sovereignty as such is rarely articulated as a
principle? What other kinds of political futures might “peoples,” “cultures,” or “races”
be thought to have? 8
Take, for example, the word “Filipino.” In 1880, filipino could mean “Philippine-born
Spaniard,” or it could more broadly refer to someone or something “of the
Philippines,” as an adjective that could stand in for a noun in the Spanish language.
But at that time there was no “Filipino” ethno-national identity such as that indicated
by this word today. By the end of the decade, however, “Filipino” would come to be
used in a new, seemingly proto-national sense.[fn] 16
In the emerging practice of folklore, Filipinos hewed more closely to Spanish models,
but in doing so they could both distinguish Filipinos from, and also incorporate them
into, a world of Spanish folklore that had political analogues. 17
#article: grimm
Both Orientalism and anthropology have treated, at their core, the tension between
ideas of the universality of “Man” and the specificity of peoples, whether understood
as “races,” “nations,” or another kind of grouping. Those tensions have enabled the
colonial histories of both Orientalism and anthropology; they also enabled some kinds
of nationalist sentiments and could issue challenges to an ideology that would justify
colonial rule. 18
#methodology: anthropology #general vs. particular #imagined communities
However, we find that elsewhere, too, the Orientalist and anthropological projects of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries not only condoned forms of colonialism
but could be used to challenge them. They were the languages through which peoples
and nations could be articulated. 20
Students of intellectual history need to attend not only to the ideas that resonate with
the contemporary world but also to those that do not, not only to the references to
works whose reputation has been deeply engraved in intellectual history by repeated
tracings, but also to those whose names were only lightly etched on its surface before
they were forgotten. The extraordinary range of references in the works we will
consider, and the myriad ways that they are invoked and put to work, shows how
broad are the possibilities of making meaning and, to some extent, how arbitrary is
the selection of meanings that survive any particular moment or travel outside of any
particular context. 21
#methodology: anthropology #methodology history
The advent of modern Orientalist studies, however, marked a decisive shift in which
the languages and literatures of Asia were for the first time approached by European
scholars “totally independent of the biblical and classical traditions.” The new
approach marked the beginning of both the “history of languages and history through
languages,” as Raymond Schwab has remarked of A. H. Anquetil-Duperron’s
pioneering translation of the Zend Avesta. [fn] 23
#methodology: history #prologue
For Chatterjee, colonial subjects’ borrowing and appropriation of Orientalist
frameworks becomes a step in the dialectical development of nationalist thought that
truly overcomes colonial logics.[fn] 28
More generally, we should recognize that whether the context is colonial or not,
intellectual borrowings ought not to be confused with validations of a political order.
To engage in a discourse is not necessarily to be dominated by it (or, alternatively, to
be dominated by those who have used that discourse before). As Andrew Sartori has
recently argued, “surely there is no moment in intellectual history that is not
derivative in some fundamental sense. How would one formulate an argument or an
analysis without drawing from a preexisting repertoire of concepts? As such, there
seems no prima facie reason to treat an act of intellectual appropriation as
substantially different from an act of conceptual innovation.”[fn] 29
#chapter 4 #chapter 10 #mimicry and rejection
Chatterjee argues that what he calls the early moment of nationalist thought,
exemplified by the writings of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838–94), “accepts
and adopts the same essentialist conception based on the distinction between ‘the
East’ and ‘the West’” and adopts a framework that is “exactly the reverse of that of
Orientalism. That is to say, the ‘object’ in nationalist thought is still the Oriental, who
retains the essentialist character depicted in Orientalist discourse. Only he is not
passive. . . . He is seen to possess a ‘subjectivity’ which he can himself ‘make.’ . . . His
subjectivity, he thinks, is active, autonomous, and sovereign.”[fn] 30
#chapter 4 #chapter 10 #mimicry and rejection
In Orientalism’s classic moments, the focus on ancient texts worked in part to
establish the authority of the (European) Orientalist over that of the “native” keepers
of the text. That is, the existence of a written text, and knowledge of the language in
which it was written, allowed the (European) scholar to interpret its significance
without reference to the readings or interpretations of any indigenous scholarly or
priestly institutions or authorities.[fn] Thus Orientalism’s focus on ancient texts
performed work analogous to Protestantism’s emphasis on the Bible: access to the text
itself allowed for traditional institutional authority to be usurped. Further, the
particularly ancient quality of the texts on which the Orientalists lavished their
attentions was important in part because it confirmed their authenticity. For Schlegel,
Müller, or Jones, for example, the more ancient the text, the closer it was to the true,
untainted original, unpolluted by the [32] decay of the latter-day Orient, with the
perversions of the Persian (read: Muslim) translation or the influence of Dravidian
(read: dark-skinned) cultural practices.[fn] The theme of Oriental decay emphasized
both the greatness of the ancient and the need to rescue it from the present-day
Orientals, which simultaneously authorized European scholarly work and political
rule. 33
#chapter 4 #primacy of writing
The lack of ancient textual documents itself threatened to consign pre-Hispanic
societies of the Philippines to the heap of the premodern and primitive, because to
ascend to the pedestal of the “classical,” an ancient society needs to be able to show
evidence of its grandeur, usually in the form of texts. 34
And while even neighboring Java contained rich materials—temples, statues,
chronicles, and literary traditions—with which its precolonial history might be
studied, “in the Philippines,” as T. H. Pardo de Tavera lamented, “we have neither
monuments, nor statues, nor literature that tell us anything.” [fn] 34
#chapter 1
This general theory of racial migration held that the diversity of the Philippines could
in part be explained by discrete waves of past immigration. It had long been
speculated that the dark-skinned “Negritos” of the Philippines represented an earlier
era of human settlement, hailing from Australia or New Guinea, and that they had
been pushed to the interior by later-arriving peoples from the Malay peninsula, whose
descendents the Spanish found on the islands’ shores and called indios. Such a
narrative had by 1878 made it into the Compendium of the History of the Philippines, a
textbook for use in the Ateneo, the Jesuit’s secondary school in Manila, by Father
Francisco Baranera who had even adopted the term “Malay” as an ethnographic,
racial term to describe the later inhabitants.[fn] The ethnologists, however, attempted
to work out more precisely than did Baranera the origins and histories of the peoples
of the Philippines, and Blumentritt and other scholars produced detailed versions of
the theory of racial migration, citing and synthesizing as much ethnological data as
they could gather. Ethnologists agreed that the first people to arrive on the islands
were the “Negritos” and that they were followed by later waves of migration, which
pushed the Negritos off the coasts, into the interiors, and up the interior mountains of
the islands. However, scholars disagreed about whether there were two or more waves
of migration and whether all the [61] waves after the original Negrito were “Malay”
or whether one or more were of another race. 62
#article: virgin birth #second-wave migration theory #chapter 1
The second section, however, organizes the “races” into two major headings: “infidel
tribes” and “Christian peoples.” Only the “infidel tribes” are broken down into the
racial subdivisions of Negrito, Indonesian, and Malay, with a small part of the
“Malay” section devoted to “Moros,” or Muslims.[fn] In other words, the primary
“racial” point of distinction, for Ruíz, was religious: Christians versus all others
(including Muslims). 64
#article: virgin birth #second-wave migration theory
Quoting “the celebrated French Orientalist Rémusat,” Pardo de Tavera wrote that
“the language of a people is the most faithful mirror of its civilization, the most
complete picture of the social revolutions that have marked its existence.”[fn] 67
#article: rizal #lexical archeology
This distinction between “Filipinos” (the ancients) and their presentday descendents is
nearly consistently made in the piece, but there is an important exception that
suggests that Pardo de Tavera’s conception of “Filipinos” could indeed transcend
historical time and include his contemporaries: in one place in the text, “Filipinos” act
in the present as speakers who “confuse” (in the present tense) the sounds of “o” and
“u,” and “e” and “i.”[fn] Here, the meaning of “Filipinos” is more likely closer to
“people from the Philippines” than it is to a sense of unified peoplehood. 68
#phonotactics
Drawing on conclusions from his earlier work on alphabets, Pardo de Tavera
concluded that Hindus had dominated in those parts of the archipelago “in which
today the most cultured [cultas] languages are spoken, like Tagalog, Visayan,
Pampangan and Ilocano, and the greater refinement [mayor cultura] of these languages
originates precisely from the influence of that race of Hindus on the Filipinos [aquella
raza de hindus sobre los filipinos]”; for, from the language of the Hindus, Filipino
languages had obtained words with which they could express “more elevated
concepts” and “abstract ideas without using circumlocutions.” [fn] 69
#language ideology #chapter 7
[Pardo de Tavera] explained that while the Philippine archipelago had felt the
influence of both the Arab and the Hindu civilizations, “she” had felt them only
superficially, “as if she had wanted to keep herself a virgin not only to be able to adopt
. . . the civilization of the Christian world, but also to be able to contribute to its
further development in science, arts, industry and commerce.”[fn] 71
The question of delineating this relationship drove Pedro Paterno’s writing about the
ancient history of the Philippines, in which he found [71] a glorious Tagalog
civilization that had usurped an earlier and more primitive culture but also had taken
the best from it. 72
Paterno’s Ancient Tagalog Civilization (1887) and The Itas (1890) engaged in complicated
and innovative appropriations of scholarly and theoretical discourses, combining ideas
from quite distinct traditions in novel ways. [fn] 73
The “Tagalog” for Paterno was characteristically filipino (as in “of the Philippines” but
also ambiguously marked as the ontological center of a broader “Filipino” civilization-
race, as addressed later in the chapter), and this greater Tagalog was both the
culmination of pre-Hispanic Philippine history as well as the agent of future Philippine
advance. Paterno told a story in which the Ita were racially and culturally both other to
the Malayan peoples of the Philippines, and of them; the Tagalog people, in turn,
were the epitome of the Malayan peoples of the Philippines, and inherently
progressive. [fn] 74
The descendants of this ancient civilizational ancestry, however, were not always
clearly identifiable: Paterno did not make clear precisely where the boundaries
between those included and those excluded lie.
Most of his focus was on a rich and somewhat fanciful explication of that civilization
and, in particular, its religion, which he called alternatively “Tagalism” (Tagalismo) or
“Bathalism” (Bathalismo), the latter deriving from Bathala, the pre-Hispanic Tagalog
divinity.[fn] Arguing that pre-Hispanic Tagalog religion was neither animist,
“spiritist,” nor pantheist, he wrote that Bathalism was a religion on par with
Catholicism, equally inspired by truth. He proved this by finding in Bathalism
institutions, concepts, and figures that paralleled those of Catholicism, including the
Catholic idea of God (Bathala) but also equivalents for Catholic saints, priests,
cathedrals, heaven, hell, bishops, confession, friar orders, and even for the virgin
mother.[fn]
Paterno’s attempts to show the equivalence between Catholicism and Bathalism (or
Tagalism) went so far as to argue not just that Bathalism was as good as Catholicism;
he said that Bathalism was Catholicism. Catholicism, he wrote, was present in the
Philippines before the arrival of the Spaniards, albeit in a subtle, Oriental form.[fn]
Though he noted that Spaniards had, “with arms in hand, brought to us knowledge of
the True God,” he posited that the seeds of Catholicism had indeed already been
planted in the Tagalogs.[fn] 75
#mimicry and rejection #chapter 4 #chapter 10 #article: literature
[Paterno] positioned the Philippines, more specifically the pre-Hispanic Tagalog
civilization, as a kind of missing link between the great civilizations of the West and
the ancient ones of the East, and as the culmination of all of them. 76
#progressivism #imagined communities
In the 1890 work, Paterno’s version of the familiar migration-wave theory imagined
the migrations as a series of cultural-civilizational interactions and transformations, in
which each succeeding wave of immigrants gratefully and enthusiastically received the
hospitality of those they encountered and in turn raised their level of civilization. [fn]
76
#second-wave migration theory #article: virgin birth
Elsewhere, Paterno borrowed the exact language of a Jesuit textbook of Philippine
history, which held that the aboriginal Ita had been “conquered by invaders of more
robust constitution and endowed with a higher degree of culture.” [fn] 77
Paterno negotiated the difficult terrain on which he both claimed the Ita as ancestors
and claimed the status of the civilizationally advanced, in part through adopting this
model in which those who were advanced appreciated the contributions of primitive
“others.” 81
#progressivism
What is significant about Paterno is that he embraced the concept of race-as-culture,
that is, a version of how evolutionary biology was thought to apply to social and
political life in which “race” was the unit of analysis, but it was a race’s cultural
features—its civilization—that were most meaningful. Those features were mutable
and adaptable, yet they significantly belonged to a race. [fn] 83
[De los Reyes:] Authors call “Tagalogs” only those that populate the central coasts of Luzon;
but for those [people], this denomination [Tagalog] is common to all Filipino-Malays [malayos
filipinos] including Ilocanos, Bicolanos, etc. And in truth this denomination would be more
[88] proper than that of “Indios” (because they are not from India), “indigenous” (because
this word means “natives” and is applicable to any child of a resident), and “Filipinos”
(because this word does not distinguish between races and can be given to a child of Europeans
born in the Philippines, just as to an Aeta of Ilocos). [fn]
89
#chapter 1 #second-wave migration theory #article: virgin birth
Blumentritt’s “Indigenous Races of the Philippines” (1890) 91
When explaining the distance between contemporary [94] civilized Filipinos and their
primitive “others,” then, these authors often participated in prejudicial formulations of
race and civilization, similar to those of which they complained when they were on
the receiving end. [fn] 95
Folklore was a particularly precious resource for the Philippines, which had otherwise
relatively few sources with which to reconstruct its own past, especially the pre-
Hispanic Philippines and Filipino.
De los Reyes’s folklore works in ways common to folklore projects elsewhere: it
legitimizes an idea of a nation by seeking commonality and history in the practices
and beliefs of the Volk, or the rural, the peasant, the figure supposedly untainted by
modern cosmopolitan capitalism with its urban-metropolitan cores and provincial-
colonial tentacles. 98
#chapter 4 #imagined communities
This chapter also considers the lesser-known second volume of the two-volume El
Folk-Lore Filipino, which de los Reyes edited but to which other authors contributed. 98
Folklore was used as a tool to recover knowledge about the pre-Hispanic peoples of
the Philippines and establish their unity on the basis of shared pre-Hispanic cultural
patrimony, one version of the nationalist bent of folklore studies elsewhere. The beliefs
and practices of peoples of the Philippines were studied in comparison with each other
and with those of Spain in order to disentangle pre-Hispanic cultural influences from
Spanish ones. Ultimately, however, the pre-Hispanic was difficult to completely
isolate, and much of the writing also shows great attention to Catholic syncretic
practices and beliefs. 99
#article: grimm
In both Spain and the Philippines, folklore was an imperfect but precious tool that
could root an idea of a nation when its boundaries were both politically and culturally
ill defined. 100
The emergence of folklore as a field of study and its connections to nationalist thought
are generally considered to belong to the era of European, especially central
European, nationalism. The roots of folklore studies are often understood to be found
in German Romanticism, which turned to the German language, and the Volk who
spoke its variants, as a source of wisdom and spirit to counter the cold rationality of
some versions of Enlightenment thought, and the political domination of the French
empire. 102
#article: grimm #imagined communites #chapter 4
El Folk-Lore Español was composed of “as many centers as there are regions that
constitute the Spanish nationality [nacionalidad española],” including, in addition to
eleven peninsular regions, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cuba, Puerto
Rico, and the Philippines, “all of these regions [being] true members of the Folk-Lore
Español,” in Machado’s words.[fn] 106
#article: grimm
Here, though, Machado found himself in something of a bind and again revealed his
Castilian-centered sense of the Spanish nation: “notwithstanding this [the stories’
foreign origins], as they circulate on the lips of our people or of the nations and lands
that speak our language, they receive a Spanish stamp, whose historical value it is very
important to study and understand.” [fn] 110
#article: grimm
However, to see Filipino folklore in this light is only part of the picture. The theory
and practice of El Folk-Lore Filipino diverge from the Spanish model. First, “Filipino”
was itself a multicultural, multiprovincial denomination, and so, while Filipino folklore
could be considered in some sense to be a subset of Spanish folklore, it was at least as
complex a conglomeration as was peninsular Spanish folklore. The regional diversity
of Filipino folklore suggested that it might better be seen as a peer to, rather than
subset of, Spanish folklore. Within the structures of folklore, comparison with Spain
made the Philippines’ diversity seem not a liability but, perhaps, an asset. 111
#mimicry and rejection #chapter 4
That common inheritance was derived from the ancestral people (or raza, or
civilización) from which all contemporary indígenas of the Philippines, in all of their
diversity, sprang. That original people’s religion remained in bits and pieces in
present-day beliefs and practices. Folklore could recover those remnants and use them
in the scientific pursuit of the study of mythology, which, as de los Reyes put it,
“endeavors to determine whether [the materials folklore has gathered] are native or
exotic, to study them in the light of history and in a word, to use them to reconstruct a
Religion that is now completely or in part extinct.”[fn] 113
“As I see, many folklorists and future anthropologists are appearing in Ilocos. There is
[or such is] a Mr. Deloserre [Isabelo de los Reyes], with whom you correspond. I note
one thing: Since most Filipino folklorists are Ilocanos, and because they use the
epithet Ilocano, anthropologists will designate traditions and customs that are properly
Filipino as being Ilocano.” [fn] 114
#general vs. particular
For de los Reyes, reconstructing the ancient religion of the Philippines by investigating
current beliefs required careful comparison with Catholicism and other beliefs and
practices with origins in Spain or elsewhere. Once those foreign impurities were
identified, the scientist could remove them to distill the ancient religion of the
Philippines […] 114
[De los Reyes:] Only a few and vague notes about that primitive [primitiva] religion are
conserved in the annals of the country, and in the memory of the indigenous, indefinable
remains enveloped in superstitions and fables [consejas], of which some are vitiated with many
European beliefs [that have been] introduced, some diminished or mixed with the sacred ideas
of Christianity. In order to be able to distinguish the genuine Filipino superstitions
[supersticiones filipinas], it is necessary to possess profound knowledge of Universal Folklore,
and of the prehistory of the country. Otherwise we risk accepting as a Filipino belief [creencia
filipina] one that is of Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, American, or . . . even German
filiation.[fn] 115
#article: grimm
As others have noted, the comparisons between folklore in the Philippines and folklore
in the peninsula, and especially the implication that superstitions of the Philippines
originated in the peninsula, poked fun at the Spaniards—and at friars in particular,
who held their forbearers’ superstitions strongly enough to pass them on to their flocks
in the Philippines.[fn] This allowed de los Reyes to note that “the most absurd beliefs
were in fashion in the [Iberian] Peninsula during the first days of Spanish
domination,” adding that his “long literary sketch, titled ‘The Devil in the Philippines,
As Stated in Our Chronicles,’” which he had [115]l aready published, showed
through its readings of early friar accounts that the friars were superstitious and that
they were likely the origin of many superstitions in the Philippines.[fn] 116
#article: grimm
De los Reyes also noted that the aswang’s actions in harming fetuses resembled those of
an inquisitorial confessee (maléfico, male witch) of fifteenth-century Lausanne.[fn] It
was impossible to disentangle completely the origins of the mangkukulam, bruja, and
aswang; what was clear was that there were relationships among them and that neither
indígenas nor peninsulars (nor others of Europe), neither friars nor pre-Hispanic
Filipinos, were clearly more or less superstitious than the other. 117
#article: grimm #chapter 7: aswang
De los Reyes did this work when he speculated that while the duende (a mythical
creature) seemed to be of peninsular origin, it also “seems to me true, what various
authors have said about how in Universal Folk-Lore it is observed that all peoples
have an idea of child-demons,” proceeding to note the names for “child-demons” in
Asturian and Catalan, Irish, Breton, ancient Greek, Ilocano, and Tagalog
mythologies.[fn] 119
#article: grimm
Like other pieces of Filipino folklore, however, the text performs the authority of the
native intellectual, carefully balancing its claim to nativeness with a self-consciously
European perspective. 120
#chapter 4
Mondragón began his work with a long list of the reasons why the Philippines was
backward, reasons he thought his readers should keep in mind before tackling the
[121] question of religious beliefs in the Philippines, writing, “It would offend the
intelligence [ilustración] of readers if I would proceed to demonstrate that the English
used to be Visayan or pintados [‘painted ones,’ referring to conquest-era Visayans,
who were tattooed], that the Gauls and Germans, as well as all of Europe in the most
distant past, lived like the Aetas, in the style of the barbarians of the north.” [fn] 122
#chapter 3 [PK: reference to ‘Picts’ as Cummins’ translation of pintados in Morga]
Yet other contributors demonstrated their authority, or their familiarity with the
science’s method, by using the same techniques that were practiced among folklore
gatherers elsewhere. The science of folklore privileged data whose origins were
demonstrably old (e.g., oral data from old people or texts that recorded the oral
accounts of people no longer living).[fn] Filipino folklorists sometimes emphasized the
authenticity of their data in these terms. One of the sources that Ponce cited most
often, for example, he first described as “a Tagalog manuscript (none could assure me
of having seen it) that an educated native [ilustrado indígena] of the province, who was
one of the first students of the University of Santo Tomás of Manila, had. . . . It is of
note that the elders that supply me with these data only know this by tradition,
transmitted from [125] generation to generation by their ancestors who have read said
manuscript.” [fn] 126
#ideology: antiquity #oral history #primacy of writing
Serrano Laktaw, too, established the authenticity of his sources by noting that they
came from old people via oral tradition. For example, he identified the source of a
story as an old man, “an old octogenarian, as he normally called himself, a man that
was in the twilight of life, and who was there to watch over his children and
grandchildren who worked in a nearby hacienda.”[fn] This old man told Serrano
Laktaw things that “he [the old man] said that, when he was young, he had been told
by an old man who by reputation was the only one that had managed to penetrate the
bowels of the enormous mountain” that was the subject of the legend.[fn] 126
#ideology: antiquity #oral history #primacy of writing [PK: compare to Povedano
manuscripts (?)]
[the narrator in de los Reyes ficional allegory:] “Cantu has already proven, with the
universal history of humanity in his hand, that indolence or indifference is often the
effect of tyranny. . . . Concede to them [the people], then, more rights [derechos]; do
not limit those that they have, and only then can you judge their exaggerated
inertia.”[fn] 135
#indolence
At this moment, Isio receives news that he is being sentenced to labor for his supposed
crimes, and flees to the mountains.[135] There, armed with his magic tricks (courtesy
of time he spent in Manila’s amusements), Isio becomes one of the charlatans of which
de los Reyes has written: he tricks the Igorot tribespeople into believing that he is a
spirit of their ancestors, and he rules for some time as a sort of benevolent despot,
taking only what he can use, promoting useful knowledges like medicine and
agriculture, and managing “to civilize [civilizar], relatively, those people [gente]; with
the liberty and justice that he obtained for his inferiors, they were stimulated to work
zealously; with the sincere brotherhood [fraternidad], forgetting of grievances, and
mutual aid that he preached, he abolished the daily fights of village against
village.”[fn] He is also briefly successful in leading the people to resist the authorities.
Eventually, however, Isio’s forces are overwhelmed by the Spanish, and as the story
ends we are told that they returned to their prior mode of living.
Toward the end of the story—when Spanish authorities learn of Isio’s little mountain
republic and attack it—the tone of the story shifts. Here, the narrator gives dates of
military operations and the name of a Spanish captain, seeming to link the fictional
story even more clearly to actual fact. But another voice warns the reader in a
footnote: “As the historical truth relating to those names and dates cannot harm
[perjudicar] the administrative problems that constitute the object of this article, we’ll
thank our readers not to check it [the historical truth], because it could have been
disfigured by the imagination [loca de cosa].”[fn] This voice simultaneously reinforces
that the problems of government are “the object of this article,” having just tied the
fictional story to concrete places, dates, and names, and yet slyly reminds the reader
that the story comes from his imagination—that is, it is fictional. The statement, with
its seemingly conflicting messages, simultaneously affirms the story’s basis in fact, and
also its status as fiction. 136
#chapter 9 #chapter 10 [PK: could open chapter 10 with this? Link it to Datahan’s
folklore about himself, he has become legend that no amount of empirical historical
investigation will be able to unravel]
Continuing, [Ferdinand Blumentritt] asked, “How can this ignorant [man] [Pablo
Feced] speak with disdain of the Malayan languages [idiomas malayos], if he knows (or
does he not know . . . ?) that the majority of the branches of the Malayan race [raza
malaya] had their own alphabets? Where are the Spanish, French, English, or German
alphabets? Were not the Malayans superior in this respect to the majority of the
European nations that now march à la tête [at the head] of civilization?” [fn] 141
#chapter 5 #primacy of writing
The first result of the colonial interactions of the Spanish and Tagalog languages was
what Pardo de Tavera described as effectively the birth of a new language that “has
been formed in the Philippines, called ‘kitchen Spanish’ [español de la cocina] in Manila,
a language that has a Tagalog grammar and a Spanish vocabulary.”[fn] This
language of street, market, and household, also known as “parián Spanish” (español del
Parian, parián referring to part of the city where Chinese were obliged to live, but also
meaning simply the market area), was a medium of communication between people of
different native tongues.[fn] As was commonly the case for pidgin languages, kitchen
Spanish was considered vulgar, impure, and inauthentic. For example, it was derided
by Pascual Poblete, a native speaker of Tagalog, newspaper writer, editor, and
translator, as being “confused gibberish,” neither “the sweet and poetic Tagalog
language” nor “the rich and sonorous Castilian language.”[fn] Pardo de Tavera did
not place the [142]same premium on purity, for he offered a different way of
considering the significance of the language’s origin. He noted that kitchen Spanish
had emerged in the Philippines “[i]n the same way” that Kawi had in Java, which
used a Sanskritic vocabulary within the structures of indigenous grammar.[fn] Rather
than seeing kitchen Spanish as a decayed version of a purer original or as a corrupted
version of either Spanish or Tagalog, Pardo de Tavera compared it to the sacred,
classical language of Java, the language on which Humboldt had based his pioneering
study Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java (On the Kawi Language of the Island of Java),
and the language in which the “most beautiful monuments of the national literature”
of Java were written.[fn] 143
#prologue #chapter 1 #national language #kitchen spanish
The question of language in the Philippines was central to (but troubling for) the
search for pre-Hispanic unity, significant for claims to dignity and refinement, crucial
to contemporary political struggles over education in the islands, and loomed as a
question and problem in any imaginable political future. 143
#chapter 1 #prologue
For while Pardo de Tavera was cited as an Orientalist scholar who had used and
promoted the orthography, Rizal was not—he was already a controversial figure, and
his name would not have been permitted by the censors to appear in the press in
Manila. 153
#article: rizal
The interloping letter “k” became, in the Catholic Review, the focus of especially strong
criticism. The writers repeatedly claimed that “k” was particularly German and
definitely not Spanish (and therefore not Tagalog). They gleefully reminded their
readers of the supposed German origins of the new orthography, signing one of the
articles with a pseudonym hindí aleman (not German) and demonstrating a point about
the conjugation of Tagalog verbs by using the Castilian word for “German” (aleman) as
if it were a [156] Tagalog verb root, coining words for “to do German” (umale-aleman),
“was made German” (inaleman), and “to be made German” (alemanin).[fn] 157
#article: rizal #chapter 9 #article: writing system
[small quote] [Rizal:]When you were attending the town’s school to learn your first
letters, or when you had to teach them to the younger ones, your attention must have
been drawn, as mine was, to the great difficulty that the children encountered when
they got to the syllables ca, ce, ci, co, ga, ge, gua, gue, gui, etc., because they did not
understand the cause for these irregularities or the reason that the sounds of some
consonants change. Whips rained down, punishments abounded, canes broke when
the little hands did not become cracked, the first pages fell to pieces, the children
cried, and sometimes even the decurions [head students] had to pay, but these terrible
Thermopylae could not be passed.[fn] [end small quote] 160
Figure 4.3. Three of the many different Katipunan flag designs. The figure in the
middle of the bottom flag is the pre-Hispanic Tagalog script for “ka.” (Author’s
drawings, with help from Robeson Bowmani, based on those in Agoncillo’s Revolt of
the Masses [1996]. Reprinted with permission from Cambridge University Press.) 165
#chapter 9 #article: writing system
Even more particularly, however, the shift to the letter “k” not only changed the
shape of Tagalog words, but it helped obscure the Spanish origins of some Tagalog
words.[fn] 165
By severing the very real links between Castilian and Tagalog that had been visible in
the shapes of words, the new orthography enacted a separation between the two
languages. In this sense, the new orthography was indeed a “traitor” orthography, a
traitor to Spain and to the Spanish language.[fn] 166
Perhaps most intriguing about Anderson’s piece is his suggestion of the missed
opportunity—what might have been—of a national language “to which everyone can
contribute in her or his own wild way.”[fn] Anderson suggests that Rizal trumped his
own “call for a single pure language”[fn] by exhibiting the mixed street language of
kitchen Spanish in its cross-ethnic, cross-class, and thoroughly urban use. As
Anderson puts it, Rizal “was aware of the possibilities of a domestic lingua franca . . .
understood completely by Spaniards and the nationalist elite, as well as the masses, in
multiethnic and multilingual colonial Manila.”[fn] 168
#chapter 1 #national language
La solidaridad, for example, called the Blood Compact the “sole legal historical foundation
of the Spanish intervention in the Government of the Archipelago of that era,”
challenging the legality of any Spanish sovereignty that exceeded the terms of that
particular contract. [fn]171
#chapter 1: blood compact
In ilustrado hands, then, the blood compact became symbolic not as the foundation of
a valid and moral Spanish sovereignty that lived forever after but as a moment of
contract between equals in which the sovereignty of the Spanish crown depended on
the assent of the indigenous ruler. The blood compact symbolized the status and
sovereignty of the islands’ natives, and their recognition by early Spanish emissaries.
Sikatuna was the sovereign who had conferred some privileges and responsibilities
upon Legazpi and so, by extension, upon the Spanish crown. By implication, those
privileges could be revoked should Legazpi or the crown fail to fulfill their obligations.
172
#chapter 1: blood compact
“Moro” was, alongside “Filipino,” a term that could describe unity among peoples.
But the terms were used as if they were mutually exclusive. 175
In his footnotes to Morga’s text, Rizal described a pre-Hispanic society with relatively
advanced technologies, robust production, and elegant and effective systems of
religion, morality, and governance. Overall, as Ambeth Ocampo has put it, “Rizal
argued that the pre-Hispanic Filipinos had their own culture before 1521, and thus
were not saved from barbarism, and did not require ‘civilization’ or a new religion
from Spain. Rizal insists that the flourishing pre-Hispanic Philippine civilization,
obliterated by Spain and the friars, could have developed on its own into something
great.”[fn] In comparison with contemporary Filipino society, Rizal wrote, the pre-
Hispanic world seemed in many respects to be more noble, harmonious, and
advanced. Through these comparisons, Rizal condemned Spanish colonization as
having brought not progress, but decline. 177
#chapter 4 #chapter 10 #mimicry and rejection #imagined communities
Emphasizing law and morality on the one hand and technology on the other, Rizal’s
comparisons of past with present functioned in two important ways. First, they
articulated with common Orientalist themes in unusual ways that ennobled the
ancient past, despite its textual lack. Laws, morality, and religion—the subjects of
some of the most ancient and ennobling texts elsewhere in the Orient—were figured
as having functioned so effectively in practice that written codifications were
superfluous. This captured the value of ancient (Oriental) grandeur while eliding the
lack of texts (the source of admiration of the ancient Oriental elsewhere). 182
#chapter 4 #chapter 10 #mimicry and rejection #imagined communites #primacy of
writing [contra]
First, race was the language of what was called “prehistory,” or the history of human
collectivities without written record. Those “prehistorical” histories were of migration,
conflict, contest, mingling, adoption, and adaptation; sometimes bellicose, sometimes
peaceful, but regardless the peoples acted—not as individuals, but as peoples (or races).
The language of race invited a kind of historical imagination in which the inhabitants
of the islands before the arrival of the Spaniards were collective protagonists and
actors, rather than occupants of an ahistorical pagan world that would only be
brought into history by Catholicism’s arrival. As we have seen, such a narrative did
not always dislodge Catholicism from history’s apex, but it allowed for indigenous and
popular historical agency. 201
#agency #general vs. particular #imagined communities
Pre-Hispanic people had not just acted or spoken; they had a religion, morals,
industry, technology, and medicine. 202
#chapter 4 #chapter 10 #imagined communities #mimicry and rejection
The data and methods of linguistics suggested a new way to spell old languages, which
emphasized their difference from Spanish. This controversial move became a subject
of public debate in which the status of the local’s relationship to Spain and to the
wider world was at issue. Though not the explicit subject of debate, the new spelling
in fact hid Spanish roots incorporated into modern languages. 202
So long as we try to classify their knowledge production in terms of “Western” versus
“native,” we will miss its meaning. Even if conceived of as a matter of hybridity and
interaction (transculturation), models of the appropriation of “Western” knowledge
generally presume too clear a break between indigenous and foreign knowledge to be
helpful in thinking about the late nineteenth-century Philippines. [fn] 204
Further, the political lives of scholarly ideas, principles, and methods are worked out
as much by minor figures as major ones. 206
#chapter 1 #chapter 10 #rural ilustrados #article: bio of anoy
So it was not just the absence of Spanish scholarship in these areas that encouraged
Filipinos to step in; the relative fluidity between amateur and scholarly authority—a
fluidity enabled in part by the prior exclusions of class—was a medium through which
Filipinos could pass from insular to universal, or from indio to scholar. 206
#chapter 1 #chapter 10 #rural ilustrados #article: bio of anoy
In contradistinction to (the Enlightenment of) Napoleonic France, German Romantics
asserted particular national genius and quality and sought its substance in the
remnants of a glorious past. 207
#article: grimm
On the one hand, the nation was always conceived of as ancient—predating the
empire from whose belly it was emerging—and yet it was also understood to be
emerging from the antiquated and into the modern. This national modern was one
that used cosmopolitan science toward the ends of national development and
regeneration, developing national orthographies in the service of both documenting
the fading traditional stories of the elders and educating the youth for a literate,
learned, and modern future citizenry.[fn] 208
#chapter 1 #chapter 4 #chapter 10 #imagined communities #chapter 8: native
modernity
Any intellectual history, whether of the colonial or colonizing world, ought to
approach its subject with attention to how different local contexts have global links,
without assuming the nation-state to be the most relevant unit of analysis. 210
[From footnotes to Chapter 3]:
5. Benedict R. O’G. Anderson, Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-
Colonial Imagination (London: Verso, 2005), chap. 1; Resil Mojares, Brains of the
Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de los Reyes and the
Production of Modern Knowledge (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press,
2006), esp. pp. 304–13. Anderson and Mojares both have built on William Henry
Scott, Cracks in the Parchment Curtain (Quezon City: New Day, 1982), 245–65. I
follow these scholars in reading de los Reyes’s folklore as reconstructing the pre-
Hispanic Philippines and as a vehicle for social commentary, but I treat why folklore
as a genre was particularly conducive to social commentary and how folklore is
related to the ethnological sciences that were the subject of the last chapter. In looking
at de los Reyes’s folklore in comparison with peninsular folklore, I see more
commonalities than have others.
6. Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino, El folk-lore filipino: Colección comentada y
publicada bajo la dirección de D. Isabelo de los Reyes, vol. 2 (Manila: Imprenta de
Santa Cruz, 1889).
[From footnotes to Chapter 4:]
96. José Rizal, El filibusterismo (novela filipina) (Quezon City: R. Martínez & Sons,
1958); Anderson, Counting Counts, 70–79. We might also note that Evaristo Aguirre
wrote a postcard to Rizal in this Spanish-Tagalog language when Rizal was living in
Germany (postcard is dated May 15, 1887, in Rizal, Epistolario Rizalino, vol. 1).
#kitchen Spanish #national language #chapter 1
Fernández Rodríguez, Rebeca. 2013. Lexicografía de la lengua

ilocana: Estudio de una obra manuscrita del siglo XVIII: El calepino
ilocano. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid PhD thesis.
[PK: unread]
#lexical archeology (see also peer review comments on Mintz paper, in email to
Carolyn Brewer]
Robinson, Laura C. 2013. Microphone in the mud. Honolulu:

Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication
No. 6.
#lost treasure
I knew that Ilokano men came by the camp frequently. Most of their business was
shady—small-time illegal logging and fishing using electricity. They took the resources
from the land and the river and soon there would be none left for the Agta. But the
four Ilokanos on that particular morning were looking for a different resource. The
men carried axes, picks, and a long-handled metal detector. As they talked to each
other I could see greed in their eyes and hear a religious fervor in their voices. They
believed that there was buried treasure nearby.
There is a legend that General Yamashita, the commander of the Japanese forces in
the Philippines in the final days of World War II, buried tons of looted gold in
locations scattered throughout Luzon Island. Everybody in the Philippines knew that
General Yamashita, whose last stand was in the same Cagayan Valley where we now
sat, killed the troops who buried the gold so they couldn’t reveal its location, and then,
unfortunately for Yamashita, he died before he could dig up his hidden fortune. In
1970 a farmer unearthed a one-ton golden Buddha on his property. A short while
later, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ federal troops confiscated the Buddha in an
early-morning raid, and the farmer was jailed and later disappeared. The golden
Buddha was never seen again, nor was the rest of Yamashita’s buried gold. You can
ask almost anyone in the streets of Manila or Santa Ana and be told that the Marcos
clan, who hold several offices in the current government, still have the statue and
whoever digs up the remaining hidden treasure, now that the dictator is gone, will be
fabulously wealthy.
One man, tall, skinny, in his mid-forties, was less secretive about his pursuits than the
other gold-seekers. “George Marius, Treasure Hunter,” he printed on a piece of
paper the size of a business card, along with his temporary Santa Ana address, and
thrust it into my closed hand. The Treasure Hunter asked, his teeth showing, “Will
you marry me? Just to get into the United States. I’ll pay you. Make it worth your
while.” I laughed, and so did he, without mirth. 126
Borchgrevink, Axel. 2014. Clean and green: Knowledge and

morality in a Philippine farming community. Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila University Press.
#lost treasure
Another indication of Junior's unsuitability as barangay captain had apparently come
when he had been caught digging for gold at night on the school grounds. With the
risk of overgeneralizing, it must be noted that Filipinos have a thing about hidden
treasures, whether the fabled Yamashita gold[fn] or valuables from other sources.
Tales of such treasures abound, from Marcos' explanation of where his wealth
stemmed from, to the fantastic [103] story of the "Golden Buddha."[fn] Stories of
treasures and treasure hunters would also appear in the Bohol newspapers from time
to time. The Bohol Times, for instance, carried an indignant front-page story about
illegal and clandestine digging for a gold treasure under che flagpole of Valencia High
School during school holidays. The paper's columnist, a self-declared enemy of the
Valencia mayor, more than hinted that the mayor was the one behind this
reprehensible treasure hunt (Bohol Times, April 7, 1996). That particular story quickly
died, however, after it was discovered that the digging was really routine maintenance
work carried out some distance from the flagpole.
In Ginopolan, people are fairly certain that Yamashita's gold had been hidden in their
barangay as this was where the Japanese contingent in Bohol made their final stand
during the war.[fn] Whether it is still there is more doubtful, however, as a Japanese
company had been carrying out a reforestation program in the surrounding hills.
Everybody believes this to have been nothing but a cover for searching for the
treasure, and stories are cold of helicopters landing in the hills at night. Thus, many
assumed that the treasure had already been found and smuggled out of the country,
although no one could be completely certain. The theme of outsiders, particularly
foreigners, looking for treasure under the cover of other purposes and, it was implied,
stealing it from the rightful owners was recurrent in many treasure stories. Foreigners
were seen as having clear advantages, as the local people lacked the sophisticated
equipment, like metal detectors, seen as necessary for such searches. In fact, some of
the stories undoubtedly had a solid foundation; for instance, one of the villagers had
been hired to assist a German who was looking for treasures in the area around
Ginopolan as well as in che interior of the island. The only results, however, had been
a couple of old coins.
A month or two after I left, a large hole was discovered below the flag pole (flagpoles
apparently being favored spots for hiding treasures) of the Ginopolan school when the
teachers came to work one morning. It was established that Junior and another
villager had been digging there at night. Although it seems that permission had been
given by the head teacher, this permission was withdrawn and the barangay council
reprimanded Junior, claiming that he could not do a thing like that without
permission from the Department of Education, the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources, and the Department of Mines; Malacañang (the Office of the
[104] President ) was also mentioned. When I asked Junior why he had done this he
said that they thought there might be a treasure there, without going into any further
details. Clearly, that incident provided further material for "murmuring."
This murmuring also implicated me. The idea of foreigners looking for treasures
under the cover of other purposes naturally made me an obvious suspect. As
mentioned, there were doubts about my real purposes for being in Ginopolan. I was
actually confronted by the question of whether I was really looking for treasures on
one of my first visits to the barangay. I realized that my laughing denial on that early
day might not be sufficient to convince people. Nevertheless, I did believe that in the
course of the year, my persistent interest in agriculture and the general life of the
farmers had dispelled those suspicions. Upon my return, however, I found that the
idea had probably never gone away and that at least after Junior's treasure hunt the
suspicions were back with renewed vigor. People had always been interested in the
small rucksack I always carried, and when they asked, I had told them that it
contained my notebook, my lunch, and my raincoat and sometimes also my camera.
Perhaps I sometimes showed them the contents, although I am not sure as I never
understood the reason for their interest. Upon my return, however, it became clear
that people had been wondering whether I carried electronic equipment to pinpoint
any treasure as I was moving around the barangay. When Junior was discovered
digging shortly after I had left, it was only natural to assume he was in cahoots with
me and that after I had discovered the location of the treasure, he was now digging it
up. Apparently, some stories even had me secretly back to Bohol at the time. 105
The very fact that this discourse is not brought out into the open, that the authorities
against which it is directed are never openly confronted, allows stories to grow
unchallenged; thereby becoming even better vehicles for expressing indignation. 106
Luspo, Marianito. 2014. Facebook post. 4 October.

WTF! What Teaching Failure is this? Naa kuno’y Tourism Teacher sa usa ka inilang
government university dinhi sa ato nga miingon sa iyang estudyante with a
pronounced Jagna accent: better lose your accent while in Tagbilaran. Ang iyang
rason? Kay taga-bukid ra kuno ang moingon ug “gajod.” Mao ba, Ma’am? Wa ko
kahibawo taga dis-a ning maestraha, but this is what I would like to tell her:
1. It was only around 1992 that we found the courage and enlightenment to accept
the fact that we have our own unique Boholano way of expressing our language. This
was after the Torralba administration put up signs at the pier announcing “Maajong
Pag-abot!” At first there were embarrassed murmurings. We have been taught for
generations the Cebuano version of Binisaya was superior to any other variations, so
we were taught to be ashamed of our real selves and tried to imitate the Cebu way of
speaking. But in the year the pier sign was put up people started to realize,”Why not?
Why should we be ashamed of who we really are?” From that time on, our sense of
cultural identity soared, AND WE HAVE NOT LOOKED BACK EVER SINCE,
thanks God. So, Ma’am, dili ni jaga-jaga; dili ang nag-Binol-anon ang backward.
Maybe your teaching IS Jurassic.
2. Taga-bukid ba ang mo-ingon ug “gajod?” Unsa diay ang sakto- gayod? Kinsa’y
nag-ingon, taga-Cebu? Why should we let outsiders teach us how to express our
culture? In all my classes in Cultural Heritage Tourism development, I always tell my
students: Culture is our own unique way of doing, thinking, speaking, etc. ; culture is
part and parcel of our identity; there is no such thing as superior culture because every
culture is unique and valid within its parameters. Lastly, since Cultural Heritage
Tourism aims at providing travelers with up close experience in the culture of a place,
we locals should endeavor to provide visitors with exposure to what we are and really
are, not to what we are not.
3. “Angay Ika-uwaw ang mosulti ug gajod?” Why should we feel shame? Shame for
your information is a feeling emanating from the realization that one had done
something immoral, from having violated the Moral Law. The “j” sound may grate
against your sense of aesthetics but definitely, it does not violate any of the Ten
Commandments. Jamo jod, Ma’am.
4. I have nothing against Cebuano. This is our mother language. I love to hear our
people speaking good and upright English, but I take greater pleasure in hearing our
young people speak their own language, our own dialectal variation. Sometime ago,
when I was asked to critique the musical production of the cultural collective of Punta
Cruz, Maribojoc( the play was about life during the piratical raids of the 18th century)
I insisted that they use their endemic Maribojoc accent. Ingon sila, “Lain man
paminawon, sir.” Akong gitubag, “ Mas lain paminawon kon mogamit mo’g tono sa
taga-Mambaling imbis nga taga-Maribojoc.”
Mao ni, Ma’am. To paraphrase our beloved Dr. Jose Rizal, “ Ag mauwaw molitok sa
kaugalingong sinultihan,ubos pa sa bitok ug isdang kina-anghitan.”
#chapter 3
Serena I. Diokno, Maria. 2014. “Keynote address. Exchange and

change: The Philippines and Filipinos in the world.” The
Australian National University, 12 Septemeber, 2014.
[Powerpoint slides of school textbooks:]
Sa pangkat na ito tinatayang nagmula ang lahing kayumanggi. May katamtaman ang taas, tuwid at
maitim ang buhok, balingkinitan, at matipuno ang pangangatawan. [“With this group came the
brown race. With medium-long, straight, dark-haired, slender, and muscular
physique.”] (Yr 1, p.47)
#chapter 1 or #chapter 3
Tingnan ang mga bata sa larawan [Igorot and Aeta]. Kakaiba ang kanilang kasuotan. Iba rin
ang wika nila. Pati ang ugali nila ay iba. [“Look at the children in the picture [Igorots and
Aetas]. Their dress is different. Also, they have a different language. Their behaviour
is different too”.] (Gr. 1, p. 216)
Maraming Aeta ang naninirahan sa Gitnang Luzon. Kilala rin sila sa tawag na Agta o Ata at
sinasabing pawang hango sa salitang “it” na ang kahulugan ay itim (Tagalog) o itum (Bisaya).
[“Many Aeta live in Central Luzon. They are also known as Agta or Ata and it is
claimed that this is the derivation of ‘it’ as in itim (Tagalog) and itum (Bisaya) [‘black’]
](Gr. 4, p.76)
[image of fish] Sinasagisag ang bangus ang tapat ng pakikisama ng mga Pilipino [“The
milkfish symbolises the constant friendship of the Filipinos”] (p. 149)
[image of bird] Sinasagisag ng haribon ang lakas ng Pilipino [“The haribon symbolises the
strength of the Filipino”] (p. 145) [PK: Note that the ‘national’ bird changes from year
to year]
[image of carabao] Sinasagisag ng kalabaw ang sipag at tiyaga ng Pilipino [“The buffalo
symbolises the hard work and dedication of the Filipino.”] (p. 148)
[image of house] Sagisag ng bayah-kubo ng simpleng pamumuhay ng mga Pilipino” [“The
bahay-kubo symbolises the simple life of the Filipinos”] (p.145)
[image of flower] “Ang sampagita ang sagisag ng mabuting kalooban ng mga Pilipino” [“The
jasmine is the embodiment of the good will of Filipinos”] (p. 146)
[image of tree] Sinasagisag ... [ng narra] ang tibay ng loob ng mga Pilipino (p.149) [...is the
symbol of the courage of Filipinos”]
[image of nipa] “Sinasagisag ng anahaw ang pagkamalikhain ng mga Pilipino. [“The palm
tree symbolises the creativity of the Filipinos”] (p. 146)
[image of dancing] Ipinakikita sa sayaw na ito [cariñosa] ang pagiging magiliw ng mga Pilipino
[“This dance (cariñosa) shows the hospitality of the Filipinos”] (p.147)
[image not clear] “Sinasagisag ng larong sipa ang liksi ng mga Pilipino sa anumang
gawain” (p. 147) [trans unclear]
[image of mango] “Sinasagisag ng mangga ang pagkamaunawain at matamis ng
pakikisama sa kapwa ng mga Pilipino” (p. 149) [trans unclear]
Si Nanay ay nagtatrabaho sa bahay. Siya ang naglalaba ng aming damit. Siya ang nagluluto ng
pagkain. Siya ang naglilinis ng bahay. Siya rin ang nagaalaga sa aming magkakapatid. Malaki ang
bahaging ginagampanan ni Nanay sa pagkamit ng aming pangangailangan. [“Mother is working
at home. She is washing our clothes. She cooks food. She is cleaning the house. She
also looks after my brothers and sisters. Mother has a big role in looking after us. "]
Nagtayo ng krus si Magellan sa Cebu. Tanda ito ng _____________. [“Magellan planted the
cross in Cebu. This marked...
Pagtatagumpay ni Magellan [“Magellan’s triumph”]
Pagsuko ng mga katutubo sa dayuhan [“Surrender of the local people at the hands of the
foreigners”]
Pasimula ng kapangyarihan ng Español [“The introduction of Spanish power”]
Pagkakaibigan ng mga Pilipino at Español [“Friendship between Filipinos and Spanish”]
[Pk: This is the ‘correct answer]
(page not recorded)
[PK: Note that these are the only options. Elides the fact the Magellan was defeated
and killed by the Filipinos]
#chapter 10
Nagkaroon ng linaw ang pangarap na kalayaan noong mapasailalim ang Pilipinas sa ilalim ng mga
Amerikano ... Ang Batas Tydings-McDuffie o Batas Pangkalayaan na pinagtibay ng Kongreso ng
United States ay naglalayong mabigyan ng pagkakataon ang mga Pilipino na makapagsanay sa
pagsasarili. (Yr. 1, p. 129)

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#acculturation #aglipay, #ambiguity, #anthropology of language #antinganting [see

#bio of anoy #boholano-eskaya traditions

#dance , #definition: indigenous, #definition: visayas #deliberate language change

#messianism, #methodology, #methodology: ethnographic history, #methodology:

#nakedness and authenticity #narrative intersections #national language #nativism

#reincarnation, #ritual languages, #ritual registers, #route to biabas #rural ilustrados

#sapir-whorf, #second-wave migration theory, #suno, #symmetrical schismogenesis

#the fantastic #tingguianes, #transcendence, #translation

#unintelligibility, #unrepresentability, #urasyun [see also Eskaya bibliography],

#visayan dictionaries #visayan literature

Loarca, Miguel de. [1582] 1903. Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas. In

Chirino, Pedro. [1604] 1979. Relation of the Philippine Islands.

de Morga, Antonio. [1609?] 1979. Relation of the Philippine

de Morga, Antonio [?]. [1609?] 1979. The manners, customs

Alcina, Ignacio Francisco. [1668] 2002. History of the Bisayan

de la Concepcion, Juan. 1792. Historia general de Philipinas:

15 ,,Pedro Báguio se explicó Pedro Baguio explained himself by saying

23 ,,Subsistiendo en su infidelidad Lingering in their unhappiness, they

22 ,,En quanto al estado actual de As regards the present state of the

Buzeta, Manuel, and Felipe Bravo. 1851. Diccionario geográfico,

Manual para uso de los párrocos y demas que desempeñan el

Zueco de San Joaquin, Ramon. 1884. Método del Dr Ollendorff

Rizal, José. [1886] 2008. Noli me tangere. Barcelona: Linkgua

Sanchez de la Rosa, Antonio. 1887. Gramatica hispano-visaya, con

de los Reyes y Florentino, Isabelo. 1889. Las Islas Visayas en la

Rizal, José. [ca. 1884] 1972. Reflections of a Filipino

Rizal, José. [1888] 1972. Ma-Yi. In Encarnación Alzona (trans.),

Rizal, José. [1889] On travel [Los viajes] La Solidaridad, 15 May.

de los Reyes y Florentino, Isabelo. 1889. El folk-lore Filipino.

Rizal, José. [1893] 1961. Nueva ortografía del lenguaje Tagalog.

Rizal, José. [n.d.] 1972. The people of the Indian archipelago. In

Retana, Wenceslao Emilio. 1894. Supersticiones de los indios

Augustinian Recollects, records, 1898

RPC 1900 [1900], vol. 1.

RPC 1900 [1900], vol. 2.

RPC 1900, vol. 3, 403

RPC 1901, vol. 3.

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Kayme, Sargent. 1901. Anting-anting stories: And other strange

Pardo de Tavera, TH. 1901. Etimología de los nombres de razas

Brown, Arthur Judson. 1903. The new era in the Philippines.

United States Bureau of the Census. 1905. Census of the

#folk literacy #writing systems #chapter 1 [PK: consider when baybayin

Miller, John Maurice. 1904. Philippine folklore stories. Boston:

Fourth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission: 1903. 1904. 3

Jimenez, Pedro. 1904. English-Bisaya grammar in twenty eight

Conciliar seminaries. 1904. In The Philippine Islands 1493–1898,

Annual Report of the Commissioner of Public Health: covering

Blair and Robertson, Phil. Is, Vol 29 p283.

RPC 1905 [1906], vol. 3.

Willis, Henry Parker. 1905. Our Philippine problem: A study of

Dauncey, Campbell Mrs. 1906. An Englishwoman in the

Millington, WH and Maxfield, Berton L. 1906. Philippine

RPC 1908 [1909], vol. 1.

Couturat, Louis and Léopold Leau. 1907. Compte rendu des

Starr, Frederick. 1909. A little book of Filipino riddles. Yonkers,

Ferrándiz, Jose. 1912. Prólogo. Catequesis de la Iglesia Filipina

Aglípay y Labáyan, Gregorio. 1912. Catequesis de la Iglesia

Blunt, Mason Cpt. 1912. An army officer’s Philippine studies.

Osorio, Amando. n.d. [1913?] Ang Walay Palad: ang Sugbu sa