BICOL CULTURE 11

THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION

REINA O. HABALO
ASSOC. PROF. V
COLLEGE OF ARTS & LETTERS
The Dawn of Civilization
• The dawn of kabikolan’s civilization goes back thousands of years
before the first Spaniards ever set eyes on the Philippine archipelago.
• Archaeological facts suggest that this was one of the earliest regions in
the Philippines to have a relatively advanced civilization.
• However, the early Spanish chroniclers’ narrow and biased cultural
horizon the thousands of years of Bicol civilization receded to oblivion.
• Most painful is the fact that many people were made to believe that
civilization only arrived with the Spaniards in 1569.
 Peopling of the Region
• Bicol land was believed to have emerged during the Pleistocene or Ice Age
as a result of the tremendous geological activity during that unstable period.
• The Bicol peninsula and the island of Catanduanes once belonged to a huge
elongated land mass which included the present islands of Samar, Leyte and
Bohol.
• Masbate belonged to a separate land mass together with Panay and Negros.
However, toward the end of the Pleistocene, as the water level rose, other
portions of the region were eventually covered with water.
• Bicol was virtually isolated from other regions as its southern portion mostly
parts of Albay, Sorsogon, were submerged and its northern portion was cut-
off from the Bondoc peninsula by a channel which joined the Lamon bay and
the Sibuyan sea.
• Preliminary palaebiological studies conducted by reputed scientists
suggested the possibility that plants and animals in the region could
have been of a much earlier period, perhaps as far back as the
Pleistocene. It is even supported that remains of prehistoric plants and
animals can somebody be unearthed in some part of the region.

• On the basis of the physical characteristics of the natives they

encountered, early Spanish chronicles raised the theory that these
natives descended from the Negritos, the supposed aborigines of the
Philippines.
• This theory was afterwards supported by the studies made by a French
ethnologist, J. Montano on some human remains recovered in a probable
prehistoric site in Cagraray island, in the province of Albay in the later part of
the 19th century.

• In the 20th century this was further strengthened by the studies of Dr. Henry
Otley Beyer, a renowned pioneer in the Philippine anthropology.

• However, this theory is now being challenged by contemporary researchers.

• Nevertheless, whether they were negritos or not cannot be conclusively

decided at the moment what is clear though is a positiv proof that man was
in the region some 4,000 or 5,000 years ago.
• These prehistoric settlers were thought to have reached Bicol from the south
and only by using water transportation as Sorsogon and masbate were
already disconnected from the Visayan islands.

• These two provinces and Albay have yielded earliest signs of prehistoric
civilization in the region.

• The Kalanay pottery complex recovered in the Kalanay cave in masbate is

one of the most interesting evidences of this civilization.

• These pots contain decorations consisting of 15 different designs and

tremendous variations in forms.
• The cultural implications of these pots are indicated by F. Landa Jocano, a
Filipino anthropologist: “It is clear from the manner in which Kalanay pots
were formed and decorated that the technology transcended purely utilitarian
uses.The application of these decorations implies that the ancient people
already possessed culturally defined preferences, attitutdes and values for
what they considered beautiful”

• These were tentatively dated to be be more than 2,000 years old.

• Wilhelm Solheim II, the archaeologist responsible for its discovery, thought
that the Kalanay people who came from Annam and Tonkin began to spread
after 1,000 B.C.
• They reached the Philippines sometime in 400 or 100 B.C. stumbling on the
Visayas and Palawan islands and eventually finding their way to Masbate
where they evolved a distinct culture adapted to environmental conditions.

• The Kalanay people are also thought as among those who has first
introduced the use of iron in the Philippines and in the Bicol region in
particular.

• Evidence of this earliest use of iron in Bicol circa 200 B.C. was found in
Sorsogon.
• The civilization of ancient Kabikolan was greatly affected by the impact of
some neighboring Asian civilizations. In the process of of trade aspects of
these civilizations were eventually integrated into the indigenous culture.
Some discernable ifluences can be traced to the distinctive civilizations of
India, China and the Indo-Malayan.

• The Indian influence was estimated to have percolated in the region

between 900 - 1,200 A.D. at the height of of the flourishing commercial
enterprise between the Indians and the Malays which made us of Java as
its important trading center in this part of Asia..

• It was believed that m Java traders brought their goods to the Philippines
where they were distributed to the trading centers of various islands.
• It is a subject of controversy today as to who brought this Indian influence to
our shores but many believed that the malays engaged in trade were
responsible for this influence.

• Despite this problem we can be certain that there were discernible

concepts, terms and pratices of Indian origins.

• These influences are primarily reflected in the Bicol language.

• Indian influence also strongly affected the development of Bicol religion or

mythology. many scholars claim that the concept of the principal god of the
ancient Bikolanos called Gugurang is a corruption of the Sanskrit term guru
which means a “spiritual preceptor”.
• The Chinese Influence

• Much of our relations with China which were chiefly commercial probably
began in the 10th century or earlier. Commercial relations flourished in the
late 12th and the early 13th century as revealed by the enourmous amount
of archaeologogical materials found in the region alone.

• This suggests that that the Bicol region was perhaps counted by the
Chinese as one of their important trading centers in the an cient Philippines.

• It could also be inferred that a significant contribution of Bicol culture was

made by the Chinese with the introduction of their own pottery technology.
• The Bornean Datus Influence

• The Maragtas, a controversial semi-historical narrative told the story of the 10

Bornean Datus who escaped the tyrannical ule of Sultan makatunaw in the
13th century.

• They secretly sailed in their barangays and finally settled in Panay in which at
that time was inhabited by the Negritos ruled by Marikudo and his wife
Maniwantiwan from whom they bought the land at a cost of a golden slakot
and a long gold necklace.

• There were strong influences of the Malays on the culture of the pre-Spanish
Bikolanos. many Malayo-Indonesian words were integrated in the ancient
Bicol vocabulary, important proofs of a once flourishing cultural interaction.
Activity:

1. Describe briefly how Bicol looks like during the dawn of

civilization and how it was populated.

2. In summary, cite the significant events that happened in the Bicol

region in this period (dawn of civilization).