Meaning and relevance of History

Lesson
1 and Relevance of History
Meaning

Objectives
Activity

LESSON 1
 How Do You Define History?

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 Teodoro A. Agoncillo

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 Defining history
Etymology

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 ἱστορία

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 Aristotle:
systematic account

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 Scientia

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 History

chronological order

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 Geschichte

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 Defining history
Definition

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 Constantino

people’s efforts to attain a better life

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 How would you know if it’s part of the
past?

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 Historical Method

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 Historian Historiography

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 • detectives

• archaeological digs, manuscripts,

etc.

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Core Protocols in Handling sources

Base
Locate organize
Verify sources

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 What are sources? Where do I get them?

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 Sources are:
• Objects from the past or
testimony concerning the
past (Howell, 2A001)
• Tangible remains of the
past (Brundage, 2001)
• Artifacts

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 Historical Sources
Primary and Non-Written

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 Written Non-written

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 Kinds of Historical Sources
Primary and Secondary

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 Primary Secondary

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 Primary sources
Examples

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 Human
Fossils/Artifacts

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 Royal Decrees/Laws

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 Chronicles/journals/Diaries

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 Maps/Memoirs

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 Personal
accounts/Newspapers

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 Magazines/Legislative
Journals

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 Court Records/Letters

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 Speeches and Blogs

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 Online
database/Documentaries

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 Recorded interviews (Audio, video, and
Pictures)

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 Primary sources
Repositiories

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 Secondary sources
Examples

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Kinds of Secondary Sources

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 References

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 Folklore

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Types of folklore

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Why folklore?

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Internal and External Criticism
Lesson 2
 Lesson Objectives

To know what Historical Criticism is

To be able to identify historical sources that are credible and authentic
Objectives To appreciate history as a branch of science
To become more open-minded and flexible in the changes of our history

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Internal and External Criticism
Distinction

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Historical Criticism

• Historians are not allowed to imagine things and make conclusions based on their imagination

• Authenticity and Credibility of sources are essential to a historian.

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism
 Two Types of Criticism

Problem of Authenticity Problem of Credibility

Also known as External Criticism Also known as Internal Criticism

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 External Criticism

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 External Criticism

• Problem of authenticity concerns:

– Is the artifact fabricated, forged, or faked?
– Is it a hoax or a misrepresentation?

• Why do people create fake things/misrepresentations/etc. ?

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 External Criticism

• According to Gottschalk (1969), artifacts are fabricated for several reasons:

Fame Fortune Power Control/Influence

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 How to distinguish hoax?
How to test authenticity?

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Steps in identifying hoax/testing authenticity:

• Determine the date of the document to see whether they are not anachronistic (e.g. pencils did not exist during
the 16th century)
• Determining the author (e.g. handwriting, signature, seal)
• Look for anachronistic style (e.g. idiom, orthography, and punctuation that don’t belong to that certain period)
• Look for anachronistic reference to events (e.g. is it too late, too early, or too remote?)
• Identifying provenance or custody (e.g. genuineness)
• Determining semantics (the meaning of the text/word; does this word exist during this time?)
• Determining hermeneutics (ambiguities)

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Internal Criticism

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Internal Criticism

• Problem of credibility concerns:

– Is it credible?

• Credibility – Items, artifacts, etc. must be as close to the event/time/person being referred

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 How to know if its credible?

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Steps in determining credible

• Identification of the author (e.g. to determine his reliability, mental process, personal attitudes)
• Determination of the approximate date (e.g. as close to the event as possible)
• Ability to tell the truth (e.g. nearness to the event, competence of witness, degree of attention)
• Willingness to say the truth (e.g. determine if the author consciously or unconsciously tells falsehoods)
• Corroboration (e.g. historical facts – particulars which rest upon the independent testimony of two or more
reliable witness).

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Our Views of History

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 History is not linear.

• Bad historical thinking: History is written by the winners? No, history is written by everyone.

• There will always be numerous perspectives of history.

– “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” (Kadri Rightly)

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 • However, there are dangers in having too many perspectives:
– Misleading Revisionism
– Confusion

• This is where science and research come into the picture.

They test objects, artifacts, documents, etc. to verify
whether these did exist before.

– There is nothing right or wrong in history, but history should, at least, be

accurate and must be factual.

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 History is not stagnant.

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 • Challenges:
– How to think critically towards the changes in our history?

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Effective Historical Thinking

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Effective Historical Thinking

• Historical Significance (why is this significant?)

• Primary Source Evidence (where did I get such information?)
• Continuity and Change (has there been recent news about this?)
• Cause and Consequence (what are the reasons and motivation for such artifact?)
• Historical Perspective (Am I biased? Do I understand socio-cultural settings?)
• Ethical Dimensions (Do I learn from it? Why am I responsible?)

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Have an open mind.

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Be in control of your biases.

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

 Always check for facts.

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 Refer to primary/secondary sources.

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 Seek to be well-informed.

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 REFERENCES

Claur, A. (2018). The Importance of Credible and Authentic Primary Sources. The Source.

Sacco, N. (2016). Bad Historical Thinking: “History is Written by the Victors”. Retrieved on 7 July 2020 from
Wordpress: https://pastexplore.wordpress.com/2016/02/15/bad-historical-thinking-history-is-written-by-
the-victors/

Lesson 2 Internal and External Criticism

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• Including satire in a typology
about disinformation and
misinformation, is perhaps
surprising. Satire and parody
could be considered as a form
of art. However, in a world
where people increasingly
receive information via their
social feeds, there has been
confusion when it is not
understood a site is
satirical.
• When headlines, visuals or
captions do not support the
content, this is an example of
false connection. The most
common example of this type of
content is clickbait headlines.
• This type of content is when there
is a misleading use of information
to frame issues or individuals in
certain ways by cropping photos,
or choosing quotes or statistics
selectively. This is called Framing
Theory

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One of the reasons the term ‘fake
news’ is so unhelpful, is because
genuine content is often seen being
re-circulated out of its original context

“A lot of posts using old photos of Typhoon Sendong in

2011 are shared on social media with hash tags
#CagayanValleyNeedsHelp #rescuetugeugarao
#rescuePH and #duterte. These kind of posts and other
variants are circulating now in social media, many even
ask people to share it.”
• There are real issues
with journalists having
their bylines used
alongside articles they
did not write, or
organizations' logos
used in videos or
images that they did
not create.
• This type of content can be text
format, such as the completely
fabricated ‘news sites’, see
image
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Pre Hispanic Period
Philippine Area Studies
Learning Outcomes

● Identify our origins back from

our Austronesian roots
including its language down to
its Kinship
● Describe the development of
the Pre-Hispanic communities
starting from its Spatial and
Spiritual Arrangement to its
Social Stratification
● Critique the Trade, Tribute, and
Warfare system of the
Pre-Hispanic Philippines
Localities and Leadership
 Language

Most languages in the maritime region belong to the

Austronesian family of languages
Language
some major examples of Austronesian languages today are the national
languages of

● Indonesia
● Malaysia
● Tagalog
● Visayan
Language
This linguistic affinity stems from the probable dispersal through the
region more than 4,000 years ago of people from today’s southern China
who became the ancestors of most Southeast Asians. (A separate group
populated mainland Southeast Asia, speaking languages of the
Austroasiatic family.)
Kinship and Family
Another characteristic of the region from early times was the widespread
practice of cognatic kinship-in contrast to patrilineal kinship-, in which
families trace descent through both the male and female lines.

● both sons and daughters may have inheritance rights and

that neither “disappears” from the family tree upon
marriage
● Children grow up and marry but continue to be part of their
natal family, and sibling relationships are significant
throughout life. People who are not biologically related can
make new claims on each other through fictive kinship,
which creates ritual brothers, godmothers, and godfathers.
● political alliances are typically confirmed through marriage,
creating larger family networks.
Kinship and Family
Family also played an important part in religious life. The earliest
religions in Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, were animistic, seeing and
worshipping divinity in the surrounding environment, which had the
power to give life (e.g., a good harvest, a successful hunt) or bring harm
(death in childbirth, a shipwreck).
Kinship and Family
● interaction between people and the geography they inhabited led to
distinctive settlement patterns through most of Southeast Asia. With the
exception of certain large plains, such as the Red River delta in northern
Vietnam and the central plain of Java, the region features central mountain
ranges that were once thickly forested.
● Natural resources were abundant, especially from the sea,
○ but travel over land was often difficult; rivers running from mountain to
coastline were separated by difficult terrain.

These factors, combined with a low population density, yielded a patchwork of

human settlements, often along rivers and initially isolated from one another,
rather than concentrated population centers.
 “Every center was a center in its

Oliver Wolters
own right as far as its
inhabitants were concerned,
and it was surrounded by its
described this own groups of neighbours.”
multicentrality of early
Southeast Asia:
Statism?
● the Weberian lens,
○ an early state would emerge from and exist above a growing population engaging in trade
and other economic activities
● The classical Chinese-
○ defined state would feature dynastic succession within defined territorial boundaries

But we find neither in early Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines

 Datu Bulon, Chief of the Bagobo Tribe
Statism?
The person capable of mobilizing people
to achieve these goals has been described
in various ways: “chief” or “big man” in
anthropological studies, “charismatic
leader” in Weberian political scholarship,
and “man of prowess”in Southeast Asia.

● Datu

https://philippinehistoryincolor.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/datu-bulon/
 Princess Urduja
Statism? -
Women Datus?
While the phrase “man of prowess”
signifies male leadership, there are
indications that women were central to
community life as well. These are most
obvious in the origin myths that feature
women and highlight the
complementarity of male and female
roles. We cannot rule out the existence of
female datus, but women were more
likely to be prominent as ritual specialists
with power to access and influence the
spirits existing in nature.

https://wonder.ph/visuals/the-future-is-female/
EARLY COMMUNITIES IN THE
PHILIPPINE ARCHIPELAGO
Spatial and Spiritual Arrangement
Spatial and Spiritual Arrangement
● An early settlement in the Philippines was
referred to as barangay, a Tagalog word
originally meaning “boat,”
● The barangay settled together in a community
ranging from thirty to one hundred
households
● Settlements were arranged along rivers, as in
other parts of Southeast Asia
○ Those at the river’s mouth were oriented
toward the sea
○ But they were intimately connected with
upriver settlements that grew rice and had
access to the forest
○
Spatial and Spiritual Arrangement
Permanently settled upriver farmers practiced swidden cultivation, in
which parts of the forest were cut down and cultivated and then allowed
to lie fallow to regenerate secondary growth while alternate sites were
sown

In these settlements, the products of the land could be owned and sold:

● enabling coastal communities to buy mountain-grown rice and

cotton, root crops, medicinal herbs, and other forest products
● In exchange, people upriver obtained fish and salt from the sea and
manufactures such as pottery and cloth
Spatial and Spiritual Arrangement
spirituality in the archipelago were interwoven
in an animistic world permeated with religious
belief

● Visayans had a pantheon of divinities

■ Diwata
● Tagalogs
■ Bathala (principle deity)
■ Anito (Diwata)

Divinity was found in the sun and the moon, the

rain and the fields, in very old trees, and in
crocodiles.
Spatial and Spiritual Arrangement
Offerings, sacrifices, ceremonies, and feasting
were the modes of worship

● Offerings were made routinely and

individually to wooden diwatas or anitos
● Spirit ritualists are employed
● At crucial times in the agricultural cycle, or
before commencing a voyage or raid, the
datu would sponsor a feast
●
Spatial and Spiritual
Arrangement
Spirit Ritualists:

● baylan in Visayan and

● catalonan in Tagalog

was typically an elderly woman of

high status or a male transvestite
(therefore female by gender), who
learned her profession from her
mother or other female relatives.

She cultivated contacts among the

friendlier spirits who possessed
her in a trance as she interceded
for the community, family, or
individual who sought her
services.
EARLY COMMUNITIES IN THE
PHILIPPINE ARCHIPELAGO
Social Stratification
Social Stratification: Datus
● Datus were part of a hereditary class (maginoo in Tagalog) that
married endogamously.
● Datuship was also a political office that included military,
judicial, religious, and entrepreneurial roles
● Success and power always depended on an individual’s charisma
and valor, a combination of diplomacy and military prowess
resulting in wealth that was used to attract and support more
followers
● Datus according to Pigafetta: know more languages than the
other people
● datus were self-made men
●
Social Stratification: Timawa
● Below the datu class in social rank were the warrior-supporters:
the people who formed the datu’s entourage, served him as aides
and bodyguards, fought with him as warriors and oarsmen, and
surrounded him at feasts
● They were quite often related to the datu and included the
offspring of his various wives
● In the Visayas, this class was called timawa and never did
common agricultural labor
● For the Tagalogs Timawa is divided into two classes
■ Lower Timawa
■ Maharlika
● A man of timawa birth might rise to datuship if he had the right
qualities and opportunities; likewise, he could fall in status
through indebtedness or capture
Social Stratification: Tao
The mass of society was the tao (common people)—farmers,
fishers, and artisans—who owed tribute to the datu and service
in general to the upper classes.

Many of these people spent some portion of their lives in

servitude. This is the most complex and least understood aspect
of early Philippine society

The Spanish called many of those in servitude “slaves”

(esclavo), though there was no such single word in any
Philippine language for the many degrees of labor obligation
that existed
Social Stratification: Becoming a “slave”
The judicial system consisted solely of the datu, who heard
witnesses, rendered judgment, and handed down punishment

● Most crimes, including theft and often murder, were

punished with a fine, often a heavy one inflicted on the
criminal’s whole family
● If unable to pay, all responsible parties owed labor to
the wronged party (or to the money lender they
borrowed from) until the debt was paid off
● People could also be purchased or captured in warfare
● Anyone could become a slave in this way (even
Europeans)
Social Stratification: Becoming a “slave”
Indebtedness was perhaps the most common way people fell
into servitude.

● A family that borrowed rice, for example, was given a

whole agricultural cycle to repay the debt in kind, but an
unpaid debt doubled every year.
● If ultimately unable to pay, the whole family became
debt slaves to their creditor.
● voluntary bondage
●
TRADE, TRIBUTE, AND WARFARE
IN A REGIONAL CONTEXT
Relations between Settlements
Relations between Settlements
In this locally focused world, attachment to one’s own group and village was strong

● This can be seen in the attitude toward outsiders

○ no strangers were allowed in a village while ceremonies were conducted for
a productive harvest
○ a family engaged in harvesting rice would allow no outsiders into the house
○ Upon pain of death, strangers were warned away during the funeral of a datu
○ Slaves born within a household were considered part of the family and were
rarely sold
○ when a life was to be sacrificed—for instance, when a slave was to be buried
with a great datu to serve him in the afterlife—someone captured in war or
purchased from outside would be chosen
Relations between Settlements
● Travel for the purpose of trade was common and had an impact on the growth of
settlements and the way they were governed
● Evidence of traded Chinese porcelain were excavated in Tanjay, Negros
● Also had evidence of metal production
● the datus who controlled harbors, collected trade duties, and imported goods
● Aside from trade, there were also evidence of warfare among the Datus, this is
particularly for the benefit of expansionism
● Common reasons for going to war included avenging a killing, mistreatment,
or abduction; there were also customary times of year to plunder and capture
slaves
● Alliances were made, often through marriage, for friendship and help against
mutual enemies
●
TRADE, TRIBUTE, AND WARFARE
IN A REGIONAL CONTEXT
Connections within and beyond the Archipelago
Connections within and beyond the Archipelago
we have increasing evidence of economic, linguistic, and political connections within
maritime Asia

● boat relic dated to 320 C.E. that was found in northeastern Mindanao
● ceramic tradeware from China, Siam (Thailand), and Vietnam dated several
centuries earlier

There is also the important evidence of the Malay-Sanskrit titles powerful coastal datus
gave themselves

● Rajah (Ruler),
● Batara (Noble Lord), . . .
● Salipada, Sipad, and Paduka (His Highness)
Connections within and beyond the Archipelago
Philippine contact with China almost certainly began during the Tang dynasty

● currency and porcelains from this period have been found from Ilocos in the
north to the Sulu Archipelago in the south
● Chinese records refer to “Ma-i,” probably Mindoro, which brought goods
directly to Canton for the first time in 982
●
 Anthony Reid
Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450–1680
Connections within and beyond the Archipelago
Product commonly exchanged particularly during the Sung government (960–1279)

aromatics, rhinoceros horn and ivory, coral, amber, pearls, fine steel,
sea-turtle leather, tortoise shell, carnelians and agate, carriage wheel rims,
crystal, foreign cloth, ebony, sapan wood, and such things

Another Philippine place name appearing in Sung trade records is that of Butuan, a gold
mining and trading center in northeastern Mindanao that sent its first tribute mission to
China in 1001

From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries,Butuan was known for manufacturing metal
tools and weaponry (blades, knives, and projectiles), musical instruments (bells,
cymbals, and gongs), and gold jewelry (earrings, buckles, and rings).
Connections within and beyond the Archipelago
During the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), Chinese contacts with Philippine trade centers
proliferated, especially with Visayan settlements such as Butuan, Tanjay, and Cebu

Malays from Brunei, a north Borneo port, first settled in Tondo (part of present-day
metropolitan Manila) and intermarried with the local population

● In Tondo, the native Tagalogs adopted Malay social customs and Malay words.
Around this time, a new religion—Islam—was beginning to spread through
the trading
TRADE, TRIBUTE, AND WARFARE
IN A REGIONAL CONTEXT
Laguna Copperplate Inscription
In 1986, an inscribed copperplate measuring about 8 12 inches was found in Laguna
province near Manila. It was later carbon-dated to 900 C.E., making it the oldest
document found in the Philippines to date.
“Hail! In the Saka-year 822 [900 C.E.] in the month of March–April, the 4th day of the
dark half of the moon, on Monday, Lady Angkatan together with her relative, Bukah, the
child of His Honor Namwran, was given, as a special favor, a document of full acquittal by
Jayadewa, Chief and Commander of Tundun, to the effect that His Honor Namwran was
totally cleared of a debt to the amount of 1 kati and 8 suwarna, in the presence of His
Honor Kasumuran, the Leader of Puliran; His Honor Ganasakti, the Leader of Pailah; and
His Honor Bisruta, the Leader of Binwangan. And on orders of the Chief of Dewata
representing the Chief of Mdang: because of his loyalty as a subject of the Chief, all the
descendants of His Honor Namwran have been cleared of the whole debt that His Honor
owed the Chief of Dewata. This document is issued in case there is someone, whosoever,
some time in the future who will state that the debt is not yet acquitted of His Honor. . . .”