The Kedatuan of Madja-as or the Confederation of Madja-as was a pre-Philippine polity within the Visayan islands in what is now the Philippines, and was a Śrīvijayan vassal, next to the Sulu Archipelago.[1] It was established by 10 leaders called Datus (Then reduced to 9, since Datu Puti, their leader, disappeared). Datus were high officials (Just rendered high-official during the invasion but before the Hindu invasion, Datus were considered co-equal Paramount Rulers of a Kedatuan). They were connected with the court of Indianized native kingdoms of Brunei and Srivijaya, who were forced to leave that land on account of enmity with the Rajah, who was ruling the land at that time. The datus, together with their wives and children, as well as a few faithful servants and followers; monks, scholars, soldiers were secretly escorted out of the country by the Rajah's Chief Minister, whose name was Datu Puti.[1] The local folklore says that the name of the Bornean Rajah was Makatunao.
They embarked on sailing rafts of the type used by the Visayans (the term used in the Malay settlements, of what is now Borneo and Philippines, to refer to Srivijayans) in Sumatra and Borneo.[1] According to tradition, which survive in the local culture of Western Visayas, this seafaring vessel is called Balangay, from which Barangay - the smallest social unit in the present-day Philippines - came from.
The semi-democratic confederation or Kedatuan was integrated to the Spanish Empire through pacts and treaties (c.1569) by Miguel López de Legazpi and his grandson Juan de Salcedo. During the time of their hispanization, the principalities of the Confederation were already developed settlements with distinct social structure, culture, customs, and religion.[2] Among the archaeological proofs of the existence of this Hiligaynon nation are the artifacts found in pre-Hispanic tombs from many parts of the island, which are now in display at Iloilo Museum. There are also recent discoveries of burial artifacts of eight-foot inhabitants of Isla de Gigantes, including extra-large Lungon (wooden coffins) and pre-Hispanic potteries.[3]Another testimony of the antiquity of this civilization is the longest and oldest epic in the region, the Hinilawod.
It was a pre-colonial Indianized kingdom. According to ancient legends recorded by early Spanish missionaries in the Philippines,[4] the inhabitants of Panay island were originally from North Sumatra; especially from the polity of Pannai of which Panay is named after it (i and y being interchangeable in Spanish) as well as a shortening of the Ati word, "Ananipay".
The polity of Pannai was a militant-nation allied under the Sri-Vijaya Mandala that defended the conflict-riddenStrait of Malacca. The small kingdom traded-with and simultaneously repulsed any unlicensed Chinese, Indian or Arab navies that often warred in or pirated the strait of Malacca and for a small country, they were adept at taking down armadas larger than itself, a difficult en-devour to achieve in the strait of Malacca which was among the world's most hotly-contested maritime choke-point, where today one half of world trade passes through it. They were successful in policing and defending the straights of Malacca for the Mandala of Sri-Vijaya until the Chola invasion of Srivijaya occurred, wherein a surprise attack from behind, originating from the occupied capital, rendered the militant polity ofPannai vulnerable from an unprotected assault from the back flank. The Chola invaders eventually destroyed the polity of Pannai and its surviving soldiers, royals and scholars were said to have been secreted-out eastwards. In their 450 years of occupying Sumatra, they refused to be enslaved to Islam, Taoism or Hinduism after the polity's dissolution. The people who stayed behind in Pannai, themselves, have an oral tradition wherein the high-borne scholars, soldiers and nobles of Pannai, "fled to other islands." [4] This oral account in Sumatra resonates the local account in the Visayan island of Panay, recorded in the Maragtas (book) and popularly known as the journey of the ten Datus from Borneo. It is good to note that the word "maragtas" in the Hiligaynon language means "history".
Most probably, these high-borne scholars, soldiers and nobles of Pannai as well as the Datus and their famlies, have gone to some parts of Borneo before finally reaching and deciding to settle in the Visayan Island, which later took the name of their original home. The local Panay tradition recounts that sailing northward from Borneo along the coast of Palawan, the ten Datus from Borneo crossed the intervening sea, and reached the island of Panay. They landed at the point, which is near the present town of San Joaquin. They had been able to reach the place directly because their small fleet was piloted by a sailor who had previously visited these regions on a ship engaged in commerce and trade.[1]
Soon after the expedition had landed, the Borneans came in contact with the native people of the island, who were called Atis. Some writers have interpreted these Atis as Negritos, other sources present evidence that they were not at all a dwarfed primitive people of Negrito type, but were rather tall, dark-skinned Indonesian type. These native Atis lived in villages of fairly well-constructed houses. They possessed drums and other musical instruments, as well as a variety of weapons and personal adornments, which were much superior to those known among the Negritos.[5]
Negotiations were conducted between the newcomers and the native Atis for the possession of a wide area of land along the coast, centering on the place called Andona, at a considerable distance from the original landing place. Some of the gifts of the Visayans in exchange of those lands are spoken of as being, first, a string of gold beads so long that it touched the ground when worn and, second, a salakot, or native hat covered with gold.[6] The term (which survive in the present Hiligaynon language) for that necklace is Manangyad, from the Hiligaynon term sangyad, which means "touching the ground when worn". There were also a variety of many beads, combs, as well as pieces of cloth for the women and fancifully decorated weapons (Treaty-Blades) for the men. The sale was celebrated by a feast of friendship between the newcomers and the natives, following which the latter formally turned over possession of the settlement.[6] Afterwards a great religious ceremony and sacrifice was performed in honor of the settlers' ancient gods, by the priest whom they had brought with them from Borneo.[6]
Following the religious ceremony, the priest indicated that it was the will of the gods that they should settle not at Andona, but rather at a place some distance to the east called Malandog (now a Barangay in Hamtik, Province of Antique, where there was both much fertile agricultural land and an abundant supply of fish in the sea. After nine days, the entire group of newcomers was transferred to Malandog. At this point, Datu Puti announced that he must now return to Borneo. He appointed Datu Sumakwel, the oldest, wisest and most educated of the datus, as chief of the Panayan settlement.[6]
Not all the Datus, however, remained in Panay. Two of them, with their families and followers, set out with Datu Puti and voyaged northward. After a number of adventures, they arrived at the bay of Taal, which was also called Lake Bombon on Luzon. Datu Puti returned to Borneo by way of Mindoro and Palawan, while the rest settled in Lake Taal
The descendants of the Datus who settled by Lake Taal spread out in two general directions: one group settling later around Laguna de Bay, and another group pushing southward into the Bicol Peninsula. A discovery of an ancient tomb preserved among the Bicols refers to some of the same gods and personages mentioned in a Panayan manuscript examined by anthropologists during the 1920s.[8]
The original Panayan settlements continued to grow and later split up into three groups: one of which remained in the original district (Irong-irong), while another settled at the mouth of Aklan River in northern Panay. The third group moved to the district called Hantik. These settlements continued to exist down to the time of the Spanish regime and formed centers, around which the later population of the three provinces of Iloilo, Capiz, and Antique grew up.[8]
The early Bornean settlers in Panay were not only seafaring. They were also a riverine people.They were very keen in exploring their rivers. In fact, this was one of the few sports they loved so much.[9] The Island's oldest and longest epic Hinilawod recounts legends of its heroes' adventures and travels along the Halaud River.
An old manuscript Margitas of uncertain date (discovered by the anthropologist H. Otley Beyer)[10] give interesting details about the laws, government, social customs, and religious beliefs of the early Visayans, who settled Panay within the first half of the 13th century.[8] The term Visayan was first applied only to them and to their settlements eastward in the island of Negros, and northward in the smaller islands, which now compose the province of Romblon. In fact, even at the early part of Spanish colonialization of the Philippines, the Spaniards used the term Visayan only for these areas. While the people of Cebu, Bohol, and Leyte were for a long time known only as Pintados.[11] The name Visayan was later extended to them because, as several of the early writers state, their languages are closely allied to the Visayan dialect of Panay.[12] This fact indicates that the ancient people of Panay called themselves asVisayans, for the Spaniards would have otherwise simply referred to them as "people of the Panay". This self-reference as Visayans manifests a strong sign of their identification with the precursor civilization of the Srivijayan Empire.
Grabiel Ribera, captain of the Spanish royal infantry in the Philippine Islands, also distinguished Panay from the rest of the Pintados Islands. In his report (dated 20 March 1579) regarding a campaign to pacify the natives living along the rivers of Mindanao (a mission he received from Dr. Francisco de Sande, Governor and Captain-General of the Archipelago), Ribera mentioned that his aim was to make the inhabitants of that island "vassals of King Don Felipe... as are all the natives of the island of Panay, the Pintados Islands, and those of the island of Luzon..." [13]
Miguel de Loarca's reference to the Confederation[edit]
During the early years of Spanish colonization of the Philippines (c. June 1582), Miguel de Loarca made a brief reference to the Confederation. Writing a report about the people of the Philippines, Loarca was describing the various beliefs in the archipelago regarding the dead. After indicating where the Pintados say they would go when they die, he went on to note that "... the "Arayas" (which is a certain alliance of villages), they say, go to a very high mountain in the island of Panay, called "Mayas",[14] where their god Sidapa "possesses a very tall tree"... "There he measures the lives of all the new-born, and places a mark on the tree; when the person's stature equals this mark, he dies immediately." [15]
Sidapa is indeed one of the deities in the pantheon of gods and goddesses of ancient Panay, whose memories are preserved in the folklore of the secluded Suludnon of this island. "Mayas" is nothing but a corrupted name of Mt. Madja-as used by early Spanish settlers in the Archipelago; and the word Arayas is most probably a Spanish misconception (as they often misinterpreted what they heard from the natives) of the Hiligaynon words Iraya or taga-Iraya, or the current and more popular version Karay-a (highlanders - people of Iraya [highlands]), in contrast with the people of the coasts or people of the Ilawod ("los [naturales] de la playa"), whom Loarca called Yligueynes [16] (or the more popular term Hiligaynon, currently referred to as "Siná").
By this time, the Hiligaynons (people of the coasts) were mostly reduced as vassals of Spain, either by the so-called "pacts of peace" or by force.[17] In the hinterlands or "Sulod" of Panay (Ilaya), the "Karay-a" or "Araya" people (Karay-a-speaking) of the remnant villages of the Confederation managed to preserve their autonomy and culture, far from the reach of the Spanish canons and muskets. In their oral tradition and epics there still remain traces of the times of their close interaction with their confederate allies in the coastlands, especially in the revered cultural treasure of theTumandok of Panay hinterlands, the Hinilawod.
The fact presented by the observations of Loarca is: there was indeed a confederation of barangays that was existing when the Spaniards began to take control of Panay, which centuries earlier the first settlers from Borneo referred to as the island of "Madya-as".[18]
The Visayan Settlement during the Confederation Era[edit]
Before the advent of the Spaniards, the settlements of this confederation already had a developed civilization, with defined social mores and structures, enabling them to form an alliance, as well as with a sophisticated system of beliefs, including a religion of their own.
The Datu Class was at the top of a divinely sanctioned and stable social order in a Sakop or Kinadatuan (Kadatuan in ancient Malay; Kedaton in Javanese; and Kedatuan in many parts of modern Southeast Asia), which is elsewhere commonly referred to also as barangay.[19] This social order was divided into three classes. The Kadatuan (members of the Visayan Datu Class) were compared by the Boxer Codex to the titled Lords (Señores de titulo) in Spain.[20] As Agalon or Amo (Lords),[21] the Datus enjoyed an ascribed right to respect, obedience, and support from their "Oripun"(Commoner) or followers belonging to the Third Order. These Datus had acquired rights to the same advantages from their legal "Timawa" or vassals (Second Order), who bind themselves to the Datu as his seafaring warriors. "Timawas" paid no tribute, and rendered no agricultural labor. They had a portion of the Datu's blood in their veins. The above-mentioned Boxer Codex calls these"Timawas": Knights and Hidalgos. The Spanish conquistador, Miguel de Loarca, described them as "free men, neither chiefs nor slaves". In the late 17th century, the Spanish Jesuit priest Fr. Francisco Ignatio Alcina, classified them as the third rank of nobility (nobleza).[22]
To maintain purity of bloodline, Datus marry only among their kind, often seeking high ranking brides in other Barangays, abducting them, or contracting brideprices in gold, slaves and jewelry. Meanwhile, the Datus keep their marriageable daughters secluded for protection and prestige.[23] These well-guarded and protected highborn women were called "Binokot",[24] the Datus of pure descent (four generations) were called "Potli nga Datu" or "Lubus nga Datu",[25] while a woman of noble lineage (especially the elderly) are addressed by the inhabitants of Panay as "Uray"(meaning: pure as gold), e.g., Uray Hilway
No comments:
Post a Comment