Dugong bone mounds found on Persian Gulf coast

A news story at gulfnews.com covers an archaeological find on an inlet off the Umm Al Quwain coast in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Akab site is Neolithic and associated with shell mounds, and pottery fragments from the Ubaid culture, often described as "Proto-Sumerian," have been found at Akab.

The interesting part about the excavation from our view is the discovery of mounds made of dugong bones. The researchers suggest the arrangement of the bones may be symbolic and linked with ritual.

"Traditionally, the dugong has special status in the Indo-Pacific area. The preparation for hunting dugongs is as much the object of propitiatory rites as the transport of their carcasses to shore, their butchering and their consumption," said Dr Sophie Méry of the French Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and director of the French archaeological mission in the UAE.

Méry mentions similarity of the site with sacred totemic dugong mounds on the Australian coast of the Torres Strait across from Papua New Guinea. The researchers also make a connection with finds from around the same period in Oman but which involved the green turtle rather than the dugong:

Méry and Charpentier believe the dugong at Akab held the role attributed in the same period to the green turtle in Ra's Al Hamra in Oman, the subject of impressive deposits between 3700 and 3300 BC, where skulls were placed near the face of the dead, while the body was covered with elements of turtle carapace or pebbles in a formation imitating that of turtle eggs.

Interestingly, the same people along the Torres Strait who practice dugong hunting rituals also have a breeding ritual involving the green turtle.

Another area not mentioned in the article is Palawan in the Philippines. The Neolithic site at Duyong Cave is associated with the bones of at least 5,000 dugong, and the sea mammal is thought to have had ritual significance there. At the cave there is also a jar burial site associated with funerary offerings. Dugong bones have also been found at the 9th to 12th century site at Butuan. In the Philippines, the teeth and bones of the dugong are still thought to have magical qualities bringing good luck and fertility and driving away evil and sickness.

Nearby Duyong Cave at Tabon Cave, an ivory carved turtle has been found, and earthenware turtles were discovered at Taal in Luzon, and in Iloilo in the Bisayan region. At Sinalakan Cave, also on Palawan, a terracotta turtle vessel from the Metal Age was found that apparently was both an inkstand and a burial object.

The present-day Tagbanua of Palawan have a rice wine ritual known as Pagdiwata in which wooden turtles are floated in the mouth of rice wine jars. The ritual takes place before planting and the turtle is considered a divine vehicle.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
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Excavation uncovers ritual site

Archaeologists find dugong bones that prove local tribesmen held fishing rites Aeons ago

• By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter
• Published: 00:00 November 6, 2009

• The bones of dugongs, a large marine mammal, were found symbolically arranged on a mound which experts say was used for ceremonial purposes.
• Image Credit: Supplied

An archaeological excavation held on an islet off the coast of Umm Al Quwain, close to the earlier fishing village of Akab, recently revealed that ancient fishing rites were conducted by tribesmen.

The bones of dugongs, a large marine mammal resembling a sea cow, were found symbolically arranged on a mound which experts believe was used for ceremonial purposes.

Read rest of the article...

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References

Fox, Robert B. The Tabon Caves; Archaeological Explorations and Excavations on Palawan Island, Philippines. Manila: [National Museum], 1970, 176.

Paz, Victor, and Wilhelm G. Solheim. Southeast Asian Archaeology: Wilhelm G. Solheim II Festschrift. Diliman, Quezon City: Univ. of the Philippines Press, 2004, 276-288.

Philippine mtDNA, the Polynesian Motif, and Austronesian expansion

A new study (see below) examines mtDNA in the Philippines, Sulawesi and Taiwan.

The researchers study all the haplotypes tested but focus on the frequent mtDNA haplotypes B4a1a, E1a1a and M7c3c, which they claim support the "Out of Taiwan" model of migration.

Analysis of Hypervariable Segment I sequence variation within individual mtDNA haplogroups indicates a general decrease in the diversity of the most frequent types (B4a1a, E1a1a, M7c3c) from the Taiwanese aborigines to the Philippines and Sulawesi, although calculated standard error measures overlap for these populations.

However, as noted above with each finding the standard error for the comparisons overlapped, so the conclusions are not really meaningful.

What is interesting is the findings on the B4a1a haplotype and particularly those concerning its daughter haplotype B4a1a1, known commonly as the "Polynesian motif."

B4a1a1 is closely associated with Austronesian expansions, in my view specifically with Malayo-Polynesian expansion. While the parent haplotype B4a1a is frequent in Taiwan, the Philippines and Sulawesi, neither its predecessor B4a or the Polynesian motif B4a1a1 were found in the sample of 640 women from Taiwan.

The authors suggests that the Polynesian motif may have originated in the Philippines where it is present in small quantities in Mindanao. However they also conclude that because of the higher diversity of B4a1a in Taiwan that the haplotype must have migrated from there to the Philippines where it is found at the lower diversity. However, the estimated ages of 9,500 BP �4,600 for the haplotype in Taiwan and 7,900 BP �2,400 for the Philippines show an extensive overlap in the standard error calculation.

What seems more important is the presence of the parent B4a, which is present in small quantities in the Philippines but absent from Taiwan.

The estimated ages for the frequent haplogroups that the study focuses on i.e., 7300 BP for B4a1a, 7900 BP for E1a1a, and 11,400 BP for M7c3c, all seem to early to0 correspond to the commonly given dates for an Out of Taiwan expansion of Proto-Austronesian, which is generally place more in the range of 5000 BP.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
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Mol Biol Evol. 2009 Sep 15. [Epub ahead of print]

Philippine mitochondrial DNA diversity: a populated viaduct between Taiwan and Indonesia?

Tabbada KA, Trejaut J, Loo JH, Chen YM, Lin M, Miraz�n-Lahr M, Kivisild T, De Ungria MC.

DNA Analysis Laboratory, Natural Sciences Research Institute, Miranda Hall, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines.

Relatively little is known about the genetic diversity of the Philippine population, and this is an important gap in our understanding of Southeast Asian and Oceanic prehistory. Here we describe mtDNA variation in 423 Philippine samples and analyze them in the context of the genetic diversity of other Southeast Asian populations. The majority of Philippine mtDNA types are shared with Taiwanese aboriginal groups and belong to haplogroups of post-glacial and pre-Neolithic origin which have previously been identified in East Asian and Island Southeast Asian populations. Analysis of Hypervariable Segment I sequence variation within individual mtDNA haplogroups indicates a general decrease in the diversity of the most frequent types (B4a1a, E1a1a, M7c3c) from the Taiwanese aborigines to the Philippines and Sulawesi, although calculated standard error measures overlap for these populations. This finding, together with the geographical distribution of ancestral and derived haplotypes of the B4a1a sub-clade including the Polynesian Motif, is consistent with southward dispersal of these lineages "Out of Taiwan" via the Philippines to Near Oceania and Polynesia. In addition to the mtDNA components shared with Taiwanese aborigines, complete sequence analyses revealed a minority of lineages in the Philippines which share their origins - possibly dating back to the Paleolithic - with haplogroups from Indonesia and New Guinea. Other rare lineages in the Philippines have no closely related types yet identified elsewhere.

Evidence of tumbaga from the Sipan royal tombs, Peru

Earlier in this blog I mentioned that word tumbaga is used both in the Philippines and across the Pacific in the Americas to refer to a gold-copper alloy.

At one time it was thought that both the word and technology had crossed the seas from the Philippines to the Americas during Spanish times with the trade galleons. Tumbaga involves depletion gilding or electrochemical replacement to make the alloy appear as pure gold on the surface -- on both sides of the Pacific

However, the archaeological evidence clearly shows that tumbaga technology was known in the Americas long before Columbus sailed to America.

An abstract of a recent study (below) of the royal tombs of Sipan in Peru shows that there was evidence of tumbaga among the Moche between between 50 and 700 CE.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

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Appl Radiat Isot. 2009 Sep 12. [Epub ahead of print]

Pre-Columbian alloys from the royal tombs of Sipán; energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis with a portable equipment.

Cesareo R, Calza C, Dos Anjos M, Lopes RT, Bustamante A, Fabian S J, Alva W, Chero Z L.

Dip. di Matematica e Fisica, Università di Sassari, via Vienna 2, 07100, Sassari, Italy.

On the north coast of present-day Peru flourished approximately between 50 and 700 AD, the Moche civilization. It was an advanced culture and the Moche were sophisticated metalsmiths, so that they are considered as the finest producers of jewels and artefacts of the region. The Moche metalworking ability was impressively demonstrated by the objects discovered by Walter Alva and coworkers in 1987, in the excavations of the "Tumbas Reales de Sipán". About 50 metal objects from these excavations, now at the namesake Museum, in Lambayeque, north of Peru, were analyzed with a portable equipment using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence. This portable equipment is mainly composed of a small size X-ray tube and a thermoelectrically cooled X-ray detector. Standard samples of gold and silver alloys were employed for quantitative analysis. It was determined that the analyzed artefacts from the "Tumbas Reales de Sipán" are mainly composed of gold, silver and copper alloys, of gilded copper and of tumbaga, the last being a poor gold alloy enriched at the surface by depletion gilding, i.e. removing copper from the surface.

Sinawali comes to America

Here in California it is officially Filipino American History Month. The celebration is also observed by Filipino organizations throughout the United States.

One important contribution of Filipino Americans to American culture is in the area of martial arts. And there is an interesting link here that we can tie in with the subject of this blog specifically to the towns of Macabebe and Masantol in Pampanga. Both these towns were previously one town known as Macabebe.




The old chronicles of Zhao Rugua (Chao Ju-Kua) mention cotton and silk material that was imported into Sanfotsi, but does not tell us how these fabrics were used. In Ma Tuan-lin's geographical encyclopedia of the Sung Dynasty, he mentions several instances of fabrics sent to the Chinese emperor as gifts from Sanfotsi.

In 962, the king Li-si-lin-nan-ni-ji-lai sent "beautiful fabrics" along with his envoys to the emperor. In 975, hats, belts and silk garments were sent as gifts, and in 1082, the Sanfotsi king's daughter sent textile gifts to the maritime prefect who refused to receive them until he had permission from the imperial palace.

Zhao Rugua mentions mats coming from Sanfotsi, Sansu and Tanjungwulo. The mats from Sanfotsi were considered the best in quality. These mats were said to be made from a plant resembling the rattan palm.

Macabebe was a famous center for the silk and cotton weaving and for the production of mats and sugar sacks (bayones). The town held a monopoly on the production of rayadillo military uniform. The Philippines in general has long been famous for mats, and Macabebe was considered a prime source of high quality mats that were made of the fiber of the wild banana, known as abaca, of sasa palm leaves, and other materials. The sasa palm may be the rattan-like plant mentioned by Zhao Rugua. Abaca was also spun into thread for clothing and such cloth was called sinamay and was very popular with the natives but too coarse for most foreigners. Weaving in Macabebe was done with a native loom made of wood and cord.



A rattan palm (Source: Hort Log, http://hortlog.blogspot.com/2009/04/thorny.html)



Sasa palms (Source: Mongabay.com, http://travel.mongabay.com/indonesia/images/kali8915.html)


According to Hugo H. Miller in the late 20th century, the Macabebe cloth traders, mentioned by Leo Giron in the video above, were often small landowners whose families 'tended the farm' while they were gone. Only a minority had any investments in their own business and most borrowed money at high interest rates from a few wealthy Macabebe families. Some also took loans, often unsecured, of goods from Chinese merchants.

When my father was young in Masantol, the children would help make mats from sasa leaves that my grandmother would sell to supplement the income of my grandfather, who was a Philippine Scout. So, this activity was still thriving up until World War II.

The fabrics, mats and other products were traded all over the Philippines from northern Luzon, where Giron hailed from, to Mindanao in the South. The merchants usually sold the materials to families with whom they had developed special relationships who in turn sold them to others in the area.


Giron and Filipino martial arts in America

Giron created his own style of Filipino martial arts that incorporated the two-handed Estilo Macabebe and Sinawali forms of fighting. The rods used for this martial art form in the Philippines were often made from fan palm trees. The first graduate of Giron's style was Dan Inosanto.

Inosanto was one of the few students of the fighting style of famed martial arts star Bruce Lee, which is known as Jeet Kune Do. He was the only student granted the right to teach the highest third level of Jeet Kune Do. But Inosanto is also famed as the man who taught Lee "how to wield the chuks," i.e., the Okinawan weapon known as the nunchaku. Inosanto used the nunchaku in a two-handed style known as double nunchaku.


Inosanto uses double nunchaku starting at 0:27 in the video.


Inosanto had many noteworthy students including his daughter Diane Lee Inosanto, who is also a martial arts star; the late Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee; Paul Vunak; and even Denzel Washington trained with Inosanto for the movie "The Book of Eli." The stick fighting organization known as The Dog Brothers was formed at the Inosanto Academy in Marina Del Rey.

Often when one sees any type of double weapon fighting in Hollywood movies there is an influence from the double sinawali or "weaving" style of Macabebe. For example, Filipino martial arts were used as models for the Star Wars franchise through the influence of Roel Robles and Jonathan Soriben. The use of two blades in Star Wars is known in the story as Jar'Kai.



Anakin Skywalker uses double light sabers briefly against Count Dooku (starting at 1:40) in Star Wars Episode II.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Hamm, Margherita Arlina. Manila and the Philippines. London: F.T. Neely, 1898, 59-60.

Mendel, Bob. "The Nunchaku," Black Belt Aug. 1994, 19.

Ma, Duanlin, and Léon Hervey de Saint-Denys. Ethnographie des peuples étrangers à la Chine: ouvrage composé au XIIIe siècle de notre ère. Atsume gusa, 4. Genève: H. Georg, 1876, 559-564.

Maclennan, Marshall S. The Central Luzon plain. 1980, 78.

Miller, Hugo Herman. Economic Conditions in the Philippines. Boston: Ginn and Co, 1920, 423.

Philippines, Ignacio Villamor, and Felipe Buencamino. Census of the Philippine Islands Taken Under the Direction of the Philippine Legislature in the Year 1918. Manila: Bureau of printing, 1920, 236.

Pinatubo and Arayat (3 of 3)

Rituals and Practices

The peoples in the regions around Arayat and Pinatubo considered these mountains sacred and they had various ritual and practices concerning the mountains that are known to an extent.

• Animism -- certain trees, stones, caves, streams, etc., were thought to harbor special spirits called Anito. Aduarte in 1640, for example, mentions a sacred speaking stone among the Sambals. Certain black rocks were considered to be remnants of Sinukuan's great bridge before it was demolished.

  Every valley, river, rock, outcrop, or tree in Pinatubo had a significance in Aeta lore. (Elder and Wong 1996:280)
  

• Careri states that fruit and other products of Arayat should only be eaten while on the mountain. It was taboo to carry them to the lowlands. According to Serrano, one should first ask permission before taking any fruit of the mountain:

  Apo dinan mo ku pu, ke pung mangan darening tanaman mo "Lord, please grant this to me which I would like to eat from your fruit trees."

• One should not commit acts of greed on the mountain like excessive logging (Dominador G. David, Pampangan Folklore Stories, 1917) or gold mining (Manuel Carreon, Pampangan Legends, 1917). One should not even have greed in one's heart in case you should come upon Sinukuan or his daughters, who often test people in this regard.
• The bathing pool of Sinukuan on Arayat was considered a place of healing where the sick could come and bathe to free themselves of illness.
• Both Pinatubo and Arayat, or their deities are believed to control the weather, especially when angry. Prayers are made to these mountains/deities for help during inclement weather. Hiromu Shimizu relates an incident in which Pan Bangay, a Pinatubo Ayta, made an offering to appease Apo Pinatubo. The pair had come close to the mountain and it suddenly became dark and started raining. Pan Bangay lit a straw from Shimizu's hat and uttered the following appeal:

  Pakida-ep mo Apo Pinatubo, agmo kay kik oranan
  Apo Pinatubo, kapapa-ingalo ya kik nabaha
  ang! (Grandfather Pinatubo, please smell the
  smoke. Don't expose us to the rain, have pity
  for we will get wet!)

  When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, the Ayta held a manganito seance in which they said that they were informed that Apo Namalyari was angry due to modern commercial encroachment on Pinatubo. They conducted the talbeng ritual to appease Pinatubo and to ask Apo Namalyari to bring back the forest.
• Be kind to animals, insects, plants, etc., on Arayat and do not even point at them unnecessarily for fear of angering Sinukuan. (Eugenio 1993:180)
  

Batung Maputi, the White Rock of Arayat. Legendary location of Sinukuan's palace.

Source: Ronnie Muring, http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3274534


Recurring themes

One way of reconstructing the original motifs and themes of the local legends is to ascertain which ones are found independently from at least a few sources. In practice though, it is often easy to discern when outside myths and legends are mixed into those of local origin.

Here are some of the recurring themes and motifs involving Pinatubo and Arayat:

• Power of mountains/deities to control weather, earthquakes
• Deities of mountains involved in creation of land formations
  
• Excessive logging, mining angers mountain deities
• Deities live inside their respective mountains. Sinukuan has a underground palace of gold or bronze.
• Sinukuan's daughters, usually three in number, like to interact with humans trading gold for pig's feed (darac "rice husks")
• Sinukuan was very rich with gold and generous giving away gold and magical items.
• Malyari is associated with Moon and Sinukuan with Sun. Many of their children are also associated with the heavenly bodies or locations in the sky where the Sun sets, crosses the zenith, etc.
  
• Sinukuan and Malyari are associated with a bridge to each other's mountain or to some other mountain or area.
• Marital and courtship relations existed between the gods of Pinatubo and Arayat. However, they also engage in land-altering battles.
• Both mountains have many taboos and restrictions against desecration. The sacred mountains are meant to remain in a natural and unspoiled state as much as possible.
• Anything that originates on the mountains is sacred.
• The White Rock (Batung Maputi) is the location of the entrace to Sinukuan's palace.
  
• A future eruption from Pinatubo was expected.

  There is the myth recorded by Beyer, and also a warning before the last eruption that Ayta elders gave their children that Apo Pinatubo Namalyari would awake and throw stones if they did not behave. (Rodolfo 1995:88)
  

  
  

Rainforest in southern Zambales

Source: http://keishastech.blogspot.com/2008/01/exploring-rainforest-in-subic.html


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Elder, John, and Hertha Dawn Wong. Family of Earth and Sky: Indigenous Tales of Nature from Around the World. The Concord library. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.

Rodolfo, K. Pinatubo and politics of lahar. Eruption and Aftermath, 1991, University of the Philippines Press, 1995.

Shimizu, Hiromu. Pinatubo Aytas: Continuity and Change. Quezon City, Metro Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1989, 50.