Goldworking in the Philippines

The Moros [of the Philippines] understand the laws of gold better than we do.

-- Francesco de Sande, 1577


They mix it [gold] with copper so skillfully they will deceive the best artisans of Spain.

-- Hernando Riquel, 1573

Upon their arrival, the Spanish noted the importance of gold in Philippine cultures. Gold was highly abundant in the soil, including native gold of very high grade. The quantity of gold possessed by the people was very great and everyone regardless of their place in society seemed to possess abundant gold jewelry and heirloom gold. The indigenous people were also highly skilled at gold working.

So important was gold trading that the third governor of the Philippines, Francisco de Sande, writes that most people could determine the relative value of gold:

Should a Spaniard buy food or anything else from a native, the Moro immediately takes out the touchstone which he carries with him; and, even if the value be not over two reals, he takes great pains to see if the gold be conformable to the aforesaid standard. Although it may be stamped and assayed, the Indian will trust to no reckoning but his own. Neither is there any rule by which to pay, beyond the weight and value of the gold; this applies likewise to the orejeras or panica, for all the gold which is used in trade is mixed with other substances, to make the other grades of base gold. Although I have intended and tried to remedy this, it is impossible, as the majority of them are silversmiths for this very purpose; and if any restrictions were made, they would think that they were about to be ruined. It has seemed to me that the country is very new for establishing any other currency than gold, which here is like the king's fifth of silver in Nueva Espana.

A good illustration of the abundance of gold in these islands is given by Francisco Alcina in 1664 or about a century after the beginning of Spanish colonization:

I do remember that once when I was solemnizing a marriage of a Bisayan principala, she was so weighed down with jewelry that it caused her to stoop — to me it was close to an arroba or so (1 arroba = 25 lbs.), which was a lot of weight for a girl of twelve. Then again, I also heard it said that her grandfather had a jar full of gold which alone weighed five or six arrobas. Even this much is little in comparison to what they actually had in ancient times.”

By Alcina's time, the craft of goldmaking had deteriorated markedly as he found that ancient works like the kamagi were of "higher gold content and craftmanship than what is being made now," and that "one who knows how to make them today is hard to find." The kamagi was one of the complex types of jewelry found on the islands. William Henry Scott describes the kamagi:

The most spectatular item in the Visayan inventory was the kamagi, a heavy gold chain of such tightly interlocked links it hardly looked like a chain at all, but rather as solid and sinuous as a gold serpent. These included both what are now called "gear-bead" necklaces and multiple "loop-in-loop" chains...A single large kamagi strand called, saay, but the the long thin barbar could reach 4 meters and so swing grandly to the ground even when doubled or tripled...[kamagi] contain hundreds of links and rods and wires.

A royal gold chain of the Makassar Gowa dynasty in Sulawesi is said to have come originally from Manila and is of the kamagi type.

The importance of gold can be seen in the vast terminologies applied to gold and gold-making, and in Marcos de Lisboa's Bicol dictionary alone there are more than 300 such words.


Gold reckoning

There were various systems of valuing gold that existed in the Philippines at the coming of the Spanish. Here are a few examples:

Guinogulan -- 22 carats, not traded
Panica -- 16-18 carats, 5 pesos per tael
Linguingui -- 4 pesos per tael
Bielu -- 3 pesos per tael
Malubai -- 2 pesos per tael

-- Gov. Francisco de Sande (1577)

Ariseis -- 23 carats three granos, 9 eight-real pesos per tael
Guinogulan -- 20 carats, 7 pesos per tael
Orejeras (Panica) -- 18 or 19 carats, 5.5 pesos per tael
Linguin -- 14 - 14.5 carats, 4 - 4.5 pesos per tael
Bislin -- 9 - 9.5 carats, 3 pesos per tael
Malubay -- 6 - 6.5 carats, 1.5 - 2 pesos per tael

-- Martin Castanos, Procurator-General (1609-1616)


Guinuguran -- not traded
Ylapo -- not traded
Panica -- not traded
Linguinguin -- four pesos a tael
Malubay -- two pesos a tael
Bizlin -- two pesos a tael

-- Andres de Mirandaola (1569-1576)

Idelfonso de Santos found the following terminology used in the Tagalog language for reckoning gold purity:

Ginugilan -- 22 carats
Hilapo -- 20 carats
Palambo -- 20 carats
Wasay -- 20 carats
Urimbuo -- 18 carats
Panika -- 16 carats
Panikang bata -- 14 carats
Lingginging -- 12 carats
Lingginging bata -- 10 carats
Bislig -- 8 carats

And from William Henry Scott, also using Tagalog sources:

Dalisay -- 24 carats
Ginugulan -- 22 carats
Hilapo -- 20 carats
Panangbo -- "Somewhat less than 20 karats"
Panika -- 18 carats
Linggingin -- 14 carats
Bislig -- 12 carats

Furthermore, each of the above categories could be divided into "senior" (matanda) or junior (nabata) sub-divisions. Thus, dalisay nabata was less pure than dalisay matanda.

Traditionally, Filipinos traded only gold at about the panica level and below, with the purer gold kept only as heirlooms to be passed on from one generation to the next.

People carried small portable scales and weights for trading purposes. The base of the Philippine system was the saga or rosary bean (Abrus precatorious), which was the basic weight used to measure gold. The term saga is also found in the Malay system.

There were three palay (rice grains) in a saga, and three saga in a bahay. According to the modern Malay system, there are 3 saga in a kupang, and 12 saga in an amas. Thus, the bahay is the same as a kupang, and there were 192 saga to a tael or to a Chinese liang. In the Visayas, the saga was known as bangati. The term "kupang" may come from the cupang tree, which is also known as the copang, and which produces a large, heavy, dark bean.

Piloncito gold coins may have been patterned after the beans, seeds and stones used to weigh gold.




The gold belts like the one above, and the gold sash below at the Ayala Museum in Manila are made of pure gold.




Gold mining

Natural gold of exceptional high purity could be found in the Philippines. Tomas de Comyn, writing in 1810, says that natural gold of up to 22 carats could be found in the mines of Caraga, a province of Mindanao. Possibly the high quality of native gold was one reason that early European explorers thought these islands might be identical with the Biblical land of Ophir. According to St. Jerome, there were seven grades of gold and the gold of Ophir was the purest.

Most gold mining in the country was placer mining conducted along streams and rivers. Wooden pans, often called dulang, were used to sift through the sand. The gogo vine (Entada purseta) was used to help during the sifting. Gogo contains saponins that cause the soil and other materials to suspend in water. The plant was also used as a soap and shampoo by the local people for bathing purposes.

Sometimes pits or mines were excavated and some on the island of Masbate were said to be up to 15-18 feet deep. The extracted rocks were broken into smaller pieces and then crushed by a sort of stone mill driven by water buffalo. The crushed stone mixed with water became muddy in consistency and was then sifted like alluvial sediment.


Gold refining

Gold was refined in clay crucibles using the salt process. Into the molten gold, the goldsmith added salt, rock salt, and/or saltpeter to form compounds with other metals, including silver, and separate them from the gold. The process could be repeated until the desired purity was reached. A touchstone was used to test for gold levels. However, observers noted that most people, and even children, could estimate the relative value of a gold object by observation alone.

In some cases, the goldsmiths purposely combined gold with other metals including silver, copper, brass and tin. Among some of the names for alloys found in the Philippines are:

tumbaga -- gold mixed with copper
sumbat -- gold mixed with silver
hutok -- gold mixed with copper and silver
malamote -- gold mixed with silver
sombat -- gold mixed with various metals including copper, brass and silver
lauc -- any gold alloy

Ramon N. Villegas notes that to give an outward appearance of gold to alloys like tumbaga, the smiths often used plant acids to burn off the copper at the surface. However, for alloys that contained silver, a metal that is very stable like gold, other processes had to be used to achieve a golden lustre.

Pasaoli -- La ultima operacion que hace el platero para dar color al oro (The final operation of the silversmith in giving a golden color.)

-- Lorenzo Fernández Cosgaya (1661-1731)

The last operation referred to in the Pangasinan term above is the use of red earth mixed with salt to reduce silver on the surface of the alloy. Dampierre, writing in 1687, stated that the smiths of the Philippines would smear gold-silver alloys with a paste of red earth when the metals lost their luster. There are various terms used for this paste mixture in Philippine languages including sangag: salt and tierra roja "red earth" -- Pampanga; and polog: tierra colorada "red earth" -- Bisaya. After being smeared with the paste, the object was heated in fire until red hot and then submerged in water. The red earth is believed to contain ferrous sulphate, which breaks down into sulfuric acid in heat and dissolves the silver. A similar process was used in ancient Peru where they mixed yellow clay containing nitrates and sulphates with salt to remove silver from the surface of tumbaga.

As noted in the previous post, this practice of giving an outward appearance of gold to alloys including tumbaga was already a developed art in the Philippines, as noted by the earliest visitors including Juan de Salcedo and Hernando Riquel. Both of these men accompanied Legazpi's armada, so this technology was not brought by the Spanish Galleons as suggested by Blust.

Red earth or red ochre (porog in Bisayan) was also added to gold alloys to impart a reddish color.


Gold crafting

Filipino goldsmiths used a wide variety techniques to create gold jewelry and other items to include the cire perdue moulding method, annealing, filigree and granulation. In the area of granulation, they were particularly skilled and Scott says that in this technique "ancient Filipino goldsmiths have never been surpassed."

Granules of gold (daou in Bisaya, sibug in Pampagan, sinnabug in Ilocano) were created in two ways. In one method, gold and charcoal were placed in alternate layers in a crucible. When sufficiently heated, the gold in the charcoal would melt and form into tiny balls. Later the charcoal is washed off leaving the granules. In the other method molten gold is dropped on a smooth stone or piece of metal. The granules are sorted by size using gauged sieves.

An organic adhesive said to be made from fish was used to attach the granules to a base surface, sometimes mixed together with a copper salt. Metallic materials used for soldering were known as pidal and ampay in Bicol, and as piral in Tagalog. The same glue was used for filigree decoration using tiny wires soldered to a base with heat. In many cases, hundreds of granules could be placed on a square centimeter and in some cases up to 1600 granules could be used on the same surface area.

The smiths also beat gold dust into extremely thin gold foil for gilding, or created "ropes" by intertwining very thin filigree wires.

Using moulds with the lost wax method was known as limbag in Pampanga, bosog in Bicol, bobo and bosog in Hiligaynon, and silog in Waray. Repoussé and chasing were used to create designs on gold surfaces, and a great number of motifs and themes were used.



Gold repousee from the Surigao Treasure at the Ayala Museum.


Medieval accounts tell of gold collars used for dogs and monkeys in this region (Wak-wak), and the Spanish mention gold bowls, and even gold that was used to decorate homes.

Interestingly, Bergano lists the word bascal as a dog collar, possibly used in ancient times, that apparently was made of gold. The related word cabascalan (ca-bascal-an) means the gold sufficient to make a bascal. In connection with this there is also the myth of Apung Sinukuan in which the animals of Arayat were adorned with gold jewelry. Among the many gold artifacts held at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in Manila is a gold bowl weighting between 600 and 700 grams.


Gold bowl from the Surigao treasure

The following condensation by Edward William Lane of notices on the islands of Wakwak from the works of al-Kazwini and al-Wardi is probably exaggerated but also undoubtedly contains a fair degree of truth.

"...navigation to them [Wakwak islands] is by the stars. They are said to be one thousand and seven hundred in number, and governed by a woman, named Demharah, who wears a robe woven with gold, and has shoes, (or sandals) of gold. No one walks in all these islands with any other kind of shoe : if he wear any other kind, his feet are cut. The Queen rides amid her slaves and troops with elephants and standards and drums and trumpets and beautiful female slaves. The place of her abode is an island called Amboobeh, the inhabitants of which are skillful in manufactures, so that they weave shirts of one piece each, sleeves and body together, and make great ships of small pieces of wood, and make houses of wood that move upon the face of the water.

'Eesa (or Moosa), the son of El-Mubarak, Es-Seerafee, relates, " I went in to this Qneen, and saw her sitting naked upon a couch of gold, with a crown of gold upon her head, and before her were four thousand maid-servants, beautiful virgins....No one knoweth what is beyond it save God. From one of these Islands of Wak-Wak there issueth a great torrent like pitch, which floweth into the sea, and the fish are burnt thereby, and float upon the water.—The islands of Wak-Wak contain gold in such abundance that the inhabitants make the chains of their dogs and other beasts, and the collars of their apes, of that metal; and the great men make bricks of gold, and build with them palaces and houses, well and skilfully

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento


References

Alcina, Francisco Ignacio, Cantius J. Kobak, and Lucio Gutiérrez. History of the Bisayan people in the Philippine Islands: evangelization and culture at the contact period. Manila, Philippines: UST Pub. House, 2002.

Bergaño, Diego. Vocabulario de la lengua pampanga en romance. Reimpreso: Manila: Impr. de Ramirez y Giraudier, 1860.

Carro, Andrés. Vocabulario de la lengua ilocana. Manila: Establecimiento tipografico del Colegio de Santo Tomas, 1849.

Encarnacion, Fr. Juan Felix de, and Fr. Jos Sanchez. Diccionario Bisaya-Español. 1885.

Fernández Cosgaya, Lorenzo. Diccionario Pangasinan-Español (y Vocabulario Hispano-Pangasinan). Manila: [s.n.], 1865.

Ganzenmüller, Wilhelm, Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie, System Nummer 62, GOLD, Lieferung 1 und 2, Verlag Chemie GMBH, Weinbaum, 1950.

Jagor, Fedor. The Former Philippines Through Foreign Eyes. Teddington, Middlesex: The Echo Library, 2007.

Lane, Edward William. The Thousand and One Nights', Commonly Called The Arabian Nights' Entertainments. A New Translation from the Arabic, with Copious Notes, vol. 1. New York: Bigelow, Smith & Co, 1900. Lisboa, Márcos de. Vocabulario De La Lengua Bicol. 1865, , 480-1.

Alonso de Méntrida, and Joaquín García-Medall. Vocabulario de la lengua bisaya, hiligueina y haraya de la isla de Panay y Sugbú y para las demás islas : 1637. Tordesillas (Valladolid): Instituto Interuniversitario de Estudios de Iberoamérica y Portugal, Universidad de Valladolid, 2004.

Sánchez de la Rosa, Antonio. Diccionario Español-Bisaya (y Bisaya-Español) : para las provincias de Sámar y Leyte. Manila: [s.n.], 1914.

Scott, William Henry. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City, Manila, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1997.

Villegas, Ramon N. Ginto: History Wrought in Gold. [Manila]: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Gold Collection, 2004.

__. Hiyas: Philippine Jewellery Heritage. Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines: Guild of Philippine Jewellers, 1997.

__. Kayamanan: The Philippine Jewelry Tradition. Manila: Central Bank of the Philippines, 1983.

More on Tumbaga

I received a message drawing attention to Robert Blust's theory on tumbaga, an alloy of copper and gold, written about here in previous posts.

Blust's theory is published in the following article:

Blust, Robert. "Tumbaga in Southeast Asia and South America," Anthropos 87/4-6, 1992, 443-457.

He argues that the tumbaga word traveled from the Philippines to the Americas, and that the gold-copper alloy technology traveled the opposite direction from the Americas to Southeast Asia. In the Americas, the word "tumbaga" replaced previous words or was adopted alongside of them by many different Amerindian cultures and by the Spanish. In Southeast Asia, the gold-copper alloy was adopted by native peoples and the local word "tumbaga" or its cognates, referring to copper or copper alloys, was attached to the new metal.

Blust suggests that all this happened during the "Manila Galleon" trade, which he says starts in 1565.


Blust's evidence

I won't present all of the arguments offered by Blust here, but the main thrust of his article as I see it depends on the following points:

• The tumbaga alloy, involving gold and silver, and sometimes together with other metals, did not exist in Southeast Asia before the Spanish colonization of the Philippines.
• The word "tumbaga" or its cognates did not exist in the Americas before the Spanish discovered the Philippines, whence Pigafetta first records the word in written form.
  

Now, these points can quickly be refuted right off the bat:

• Tumbaga has been discovered at pre-colonial sites in the Philippines. For example, barter rings made of tumbaga and dated to the 15 century and the pre-colonial part of the 16th century have been found at Samar. Ramon N. Villegas also mentions tumbaga from pre-colonial sites in Malaysia and Indonesia.
• Columbus in his diary as preserved by Las Casas mentions tuob -- suggested as a cognate of tumbaga -- during his first voyage.
  

In addition to the discovery of tumbaga at pre-colonial sites, there is some textual evidence suggesting the presence of this alloy since at least the Sung Dynasty.

Zhao Rugua (Chau Ju Kua) mentions the use of huojin "trade gold" in the kingdoms of Mayi, Poni and in the islands around Poni. Now Mayi is almost certainly the island of Mindoro, which till this day is known as Mait by the indigenous people of southern Mindoro, and by the fishermen in nearby Aklan on the island of Panay. According to Zhau Rugua, Mayi was south of Sanfotsi (Sanfoqi) and north of Poni.

The same text by Zhao Rugua tells of huoyin "trade silver" that was made in the kingdoms of Sukitan and Toupo, the latter asserted by me to refer to kingdoms around modern Cotabato. The type of money in both places was the same and was called Toupo-jin "Toupo money." An alloy of silver, copper, "white copper" (copper-nickel) and tin was cut into small bits the size of "dice."

These coins were stamped with a seal and sixty were said to equal in value a "tael of gold." A tael or tahel is the Chinese ounce. However it took only six of these coins to equal a tael of "trade gold." Obviously the "trade gold" or huojin of Mayi, Poni and the nearby islands was not pure gold, and we can suggest that it was a gold alloy just like "trade silver" or huoyin of Toupo and Sukitan.

Toupo money sounds like the piloncitos -- the tiny coins found in Java but especially in the Philippines at locations in Samar, Leyte, Marindique and Mindanao, and dating possibly from the 10th to the 12th century based on the inscriptions on the coins. These inscriptions or stamps are thought to represent the character ma possibly standing for Mayi or for the weight of the coin.

Now when Juan de Salcedo accompanied the Spanish invasion fleet to the Philippines in 1565, he mentions the making of impure gold -- apparently tumbaga -- at Mindoro for he mentions seeing the people had "given two hundred taels of impure gold, for they possess great skill in mixing it with other metals. They give it an outside appearance so natural and perfect, and so fine a ring, that unless it is melted they can deceive all men, even the best of silversmiths." The "ring" mentioned by de Salcedo is apparently a barter ring like the ones found on Samar that were made of tumbaga.

Hernando Riquel, the government notary of the same armada, makes clear that the gold alloy was tumbaga when he says in 1573: "They mix it [gold] with copper so skillfully they will deceive the best artisans of Spain."


Tuob of the Caribs

Blust mentions native words for tumbaga from the Arawakan languages like guanin and karakoli, but he misses one important word that could easily have been derived from "tumbaga" or its cognates.

Columbus' journal of his first journey is known only from the abstract published by Las Casas who had witnessed the discoverer's return from that voyage. Here is Las Casas summary of Columbus' entry for January 13 of his first voyage:

The Admiral asked him about the Caribs and he made signs to the east, near there, which the Admiral says he saw yesterday before he entered that bay: and the Indian told him that there was a great deal of gold in that country, pointing out the poop of the caravel which was very large and indicating that there were pieces as large as that. He called gold tuob and did not understand it by caona as it was called in the first part of the island nor by nozay as it is called in San Salvador and in the other islands. On Espanola they call copper or a base quality of gold tuob. That Indian told of the island of Matinino and said that it was all settled by women without men and on it there was a great deal of tuob which is gold or copper, and that it is farther to the east of Carib. He also told of the island of Goanin where there is a great deal of tuob.

Now the "gold" referred to that is called caona (guanin) and nozay (nucay) on the other islands was in fact tumbaga.

Blust argues that the word tumbaga is not used in Spanish to refer to a gold-copper alloy until 1817 using as his source the Spanish etymological dictionary of Corominas and Pascual written in 1983. However an article in Anuario de lingüística hispánica (v. 12, no. 1 - v. 13, no. 1 - 1996) suggests that tumbaga and tumbagas referring to gold-copper alloy was already common in Seville and also apparently in the Americas by the 1700s: "Fue familiar pues, el uso de la voz tumbaga en Sevilla -- y, al parecer, tambien en America --, a durante la primera mitad del siglo XVIII..."

A number of examples are given including the early reference to the choir screen in the Mexico City Cathedral made by Geronimo de Balbas in 1730 of tumbaga, an alloy described as consisting of equal parts of gold and copper, together with silver. The tumbaga in this case was made in Macao and shipped through Manila.

These examples indicate that either Corominas and Pascual are incorrect, or Blust has not interpreted them correctly. As I do not have a copy of their etymological dictionary, I'll have to leave that as an open question.

Of course, nothing definitive can be said as to the first occurrence of tumbaga or similar words in Spanish until an exhaustive study of the vast hoards of documents in the Archivos Espanoles is conducted.


Manila Galleons

Blust suggests that the metal tumbaga and apparently also the technology to manufacture the metal only crossed over to Southeast Asia with the Manila Galleon trade starting in 1565, albeit from Cebu and not Manila.

However, as noted above neither Juan de Salcedo or Hernando Riquel, who were members of the armada of 1565 make any mention of such a cargo of tumbaga, and furthermore they both testify that this technology was already known in the Philippines.

Riquel, as the government secretary, would have handled all the documents of exchange, including valuing trade items, and would have been quite familiar with cargo going to and fro. However, both he and de Salcedo appear unfamiliar with tumbaga coming from the Americas, and both make it clear that the natives in the islands were already skilled at making gold alloys.

Governor Francesco de Sande adds his voice in 1577 saying: "In this island [Luzon] there is much gold, in sheets, among the natives; and, although they trade but little, they understand the value of the gold, and know how to adulterate it by mixing it with silver, tin, copper, brass, and other metals brought from China."

So it is quite clear that the peoples of the Philippines were already familiar with gold alloys including those involving copper. Piloncitos or barter rings made of tumbaga were probably the "trade gold" or huojin mentioned in medieval texts describing Sung Dynasty trade. These barter rings were probably similar in form to the rings used for trading known as panica by the locals and orejeras (earrings) by the Spanish that were made of gold from 16 to 19 carats in purity.


Origin of tumbaga

The suggestion that tumbaga is borrowed from Sanskrit tamra "copper" is problematic at best. First the supposed Prakrit form of the borrowing is only speculative. And the sound changes from that Prakrit form are not clear at all.

Indeed, there may be only a coincidental resemblance between these words. Firstly, tumbaga often is only a secondary word for "copper" in Southeast Asian languages.

While Blust gives many examples of where the word means "copper" the earliest definitions favor the suggestion of a copper alloy of one kind or another.

Blust, for example, mentions the word tambaycke recorded in British sources from Sumatra dating to 1602 for gold-copper alloy. The earliest Portuguese example dates to 1603 mentioning tambaca or tambaque as an alloy of copper with zinc or tin.

He cites Marcos de Lisboa's Bicol dictionary that was compiled by 1618 and states for the entry tumbaga: "a metal more refined than brass, (somewhere) between brass and gold; it is said that gold can be extracted (from it) through a great deal of refining."

Lorenzo Fernández Cosgaya's dictionary of Pangasinan compiled between 1661 and 1731 mentions under its definition for gambang "copper":

Gambang: Cobre: de este metal derretido mezclado con oro, hacen el llamado "tumbaga: que otros llaman "Champurado"

Gambang: Copper: this metal mixed with gold is called "tumbaga"...

From 1727, there is tambac and tambaqua from Siam referring to the gold-copper alloy. And Bergano's Kapampangan dictionary that was first published in 1732 gives the definition "bronze, like copper but harder."

In fact, the oldest listing Blust gives for a cognate of tumbaga (tambaga) that simply means "copper" is from Hardeland's dictionary of Dayak dating to 1859. However, Henry Ling Roth and Hugh Brooke Low give "brass" as the definition for tambaga among the Sarawak Dayak. Blust states that Pigafetta gives the definition of "copper" for tumbaga in the earliest reference to the latter word but in fact Pigafetta uses al metalo "metal" and not al rame "copper" in defining tumbaga. The Old Javanese tambaga means not only "copper" but also "bronze."

Such evidence would suggest that tumbaga and its cognates are more likely originally words for copper alloys rather than pure copper. Among the alloys covered by such terms are gold-copper, bronze, brass, bronze-like metal, and copper-colored metal.

While the sound changes for a borrowing from Malay as suggested by Blust do not jibe in most cases, tumbaga does make sense as an inheritance from *tembaga "copper alloy" in which the /e/ may be the schwa sound, and would have been inherited as schwa in Malay, as /a/ in Javanese, and as /u/ or /o/ in most Philippine languages.

Blust has the Sumatran form tambaycke from 1602 as borrowed from Spanish traders, but most likely at such an early date a borrowing would have involved the word guanin -- as found in many early Spanish documents -- and not any cognate of tumbaga. If we assume that the Sumatran word was inherited from speakers of Philippine languages then it should have had an /u/ or /o/ in the initial syllable rather than an /a/. Clearly the Sumatran along with the Thai words are inherited from the forms in western Insular Southeast Asia like Javanase tambaga "copper, bronze."

Suggesting a very wide diffusion during the Renaissance age of both a word on the one hand, and a metal technology on the other, without any observers noting and documenting this diffusion is a complex explanation. However, Blust does not fully consider the major alternative and much simpler explanation -- that both the tumbaga word and technology were already in place in both the Americas and Southeast Asia at the time of European contact.


Pre-Columbian explanation

Suggesting Pre-Columbian contacts across the Pacific is almost taboo in some mainstream circles, but fortunately it has been discussed.

Wilhelm Solheim stand as one of today's most outspoken advocates for such contacts between the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay culture and the Valdivian culture of South America. He basically follows the late James Ford on this issue, both of them modifying the earlier views on transpacific contacts held by Betty J. Meggers, Clifford Evans and Emilio Estrada.

Links between the cultures may have began as early as 3000 BCE according to Solheim and Ford, and lasted until 1000 BCE or 500 BCE. The correspondences include many similarities in design, motif and form found in Sa-Huynh-Kalanay and Valdvian pottery. Also the use of shells for tools, fish hooks, ornaments, etc. was prominent. In Valdivian culture, the Spondylus and Strombus were widely used, and both also feature in Austronesian cultures.

Such links were not one way cultural highways. Indeed, the earliest dates for tumbaga in the New World actually predate those in Southeast Asia. However, it seems likely that the first contacts would have been made by Austronesian seafarers, whose transoceanic abilities are well-documented, I think, even for the dates like 3000 BCE. Obviously a lot more research needs to be done to piece together the details of the transfer to tumbaga but I feel the evidence strongly points to Pre-Columbian contacts.

However, my next posting will deal with the level of goldworking in the Philippines when the Spanish arrived, which is also pertinent to the subject of the current posting.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Fernandez Cosgayam, Lorenzo . Diccionario Pangasinan-Espanol and Vocabulario Hispano-Pangasinan, Colegio de Santo Tomas, 1865.

Roth, H. Ling, and Hugh Brooke Low. The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo: Based Chiefly on the MSS. of the Late Hugh Brooke Low, Sarawak Government Service. London: Truslove & Hanson, 1896, cxxxiv.

Thacher, John Boyd, and Samuel Eliot Morison. Christopher Columbus: His Life, His Work, His Remains As Revealed by Original Printed and Manuscript Records, Together with an Essay on Peter Martyr of Anghera and Bartolomé De Las Casas, the First Historians of America. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1903, 643-4.

Villegas, Ramon N. Hiyas: Philippine Jewellery Heritage. Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines: Guild of Philippine Jewellers, 1997.

__. Kayamanan: The Philippine Jewelry Tradition. Manila: Central Bank of the Philippines, 1983.

Wicks, Robert Sigfrid. Money, markets, and trade in early Southeast Asia: the development of indigenous monetary systems to AD 1400. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell Univ, 1992, 285-90.

Tumbaga and Alchemy

Men marvel at the alchemy which converts copper into gold; regard the copper that every instant fashions alchemy!

-- Rumi

Although ancient alchemy involved attempts to change all types of base metals into gold, the transmutation of copper into gold stood out as the alchemist's ultimate goal.

Changing copper into gold was important in both metallurgical and spiritual alchemy. Democritus mentions such transmutations, but it was during the medieval age that the phrase "copper into gold" became closely equated with alchemy.

The Daoists of China, the Tantrics of both India and China, the Arabs, and the European alchemists during medieval times all used the copper to gold transmutation to stand for the highest accomplishment in their science. Even into modern times, many practitioners in yoga claim that their perfection of the art is proven by their ability to change the metals copper into gold -- apparently a sign of their spiritual transformation.

From the metallurgical standpoint, we know that such transmutation was impossible. Therefore many theories have been put forth as to what the alchemists were trying to achieve. The most frequent explanation is that "gold" had different meanings in early times and alchemists were simply attempting to make other metals appear like gold -- something known as "aurifaction."

However, I think the case of tumbaga needs to be examined quite closely in relation to alchemy and especially to the idea of changing copper into gold.


Tumbaga, gold-copper alloy

Tumbaga is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and copper, and also often of silver. What is unique about tumbaga is that goldsmiths in Insular Southeast Asia and across the Pacific in the Americas did perform a transmutation "trick" with tumbaga.

The process known as depletion gilding made it seem like non-gold was transmuted into solid gold. Basically tumbaga was an early form of gold plated object. The depletion gilding on both sides of the Pacific was accomplished using the acidic juices or saps of certain plants that dissolved the copper from the surface of the tumbaga. The coating was then burned away in the furnace leaving a pure or near pure gold surface.

Writing in 1577, then governor of the Philippines Francesco de Sande mentions that "there is a very base gold that has no name, with which they deceive." In fact, latter Spanish chroniclers mention the name as "tumbaga" or by related cognates. In "Relation of the Voyage to Luzon," (1569-1576) Juan de Salcedo mentions witnessing the local people had "given two hundred taels of impure gold, for they possess great skill in mixing it with other metals. They give it an outside appearance so natural and perfect, and so fine a ring, that unless it is melted they can deceive all men, even the best of silversmiths."

In his dictionary of the Kapampangan language, Bergano mentions this art:

Belatan -- Oro falso, alquimia, ó cosa mal dorada...(False gold, alchemy, or something of poor gold.)

Maŕcos de Lisboa's dictionary of the Bicol language of southern Luzon (1628) gives another related term:

Sombat -- hacer uno como oro de alquimia mezclando una parte de oro fino, otra de calongcaqui, y otra de tumbaga...(to make like the gold of alchemy mixing one part of pure gold with another of calongcaqui, and another of tumbaga.)

Sinombat -- este oro asi de alquimia...(this is the gold of alchemy.)

Whether tumbaga was made to actually deceive is unlikely. The fact that tumbaga was used to make barter rings as found on the island of Samar suggests the product was highly-valued.


Barter rings and coins used in the pre-Hispanic Philippines (Source: http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/page2.asp)


In the Americas, the production of tumbaga was thought to awaken the camay, or living spirit of inanimate objects, which was seen in the form of the gold that appeared to rise to the surface. Tumbaga stood for the sacred and temporal power in both objects and people.

The fact that the word alquimia "alchemy" is used in the above definitions rather than the more ordinary definitions for metallurgy mentioning mixing or smelting of metals can be seen as indication that the process was considered magical or sacred in these regions. Unfortunately, there is little other information in this direction that I've been able to find so far.

In the Philippine context, two words may be related to the concept of transmutation -- mutya and tubo. Grace Odal-Devora in noting the different physical forms related to the word mutya states:

These forms of the mutya give birth to a concept of the mutya as an unusual natural occurrence. This concept seems to spring from a collective perception of something extraordinary emerging from nature, functioning as an offspring, a child, an outgrowth and an excrescence from nature. However, though it comes as basically a natural emergence from nature there is usually something unusual about its coming into being, something like a freakish appearance, a unique , rare and unusual phenomenon. It variously comes in the form of a round or spherical outgrowth, an excrescence, a seed, a kernel, a grain, a fruit, a child, a flower, a boil, a cyst, a bezoar stone, a fragment, piece, a pulverized or powder form of a whole stone, rock, plant, tree, animal, person or thing...the inherent powers and virtues of the various mutya objects can be the basis for conceptualizing on the nature of the self – that starts from discovering the innate powers and inherent virtues within and using them to transform oneself and one’s society – like the transformation of the pearl from slime, mud, sand or dirt into a gem of light , beauty, healing and purity.

While mutya refers to more unusual types of transformations, the words tubo or tubu as found in derived words like Pinatubo "causing to be born, grow," or tibuan "place of conception, birth, origin," speak toward the more natural concepts. Both mutya and tubo involve a form of vivification in which the life spirit arises.

Certainly, the apparent transmutation of tumbaga to gold, that would pass the test of a touchstone, could have been viewed in a manner similar to what was found in the Americas. Gold after all was among the most durable of metals -- resistant to corrosion and chemical reactions and dissolved mainly with mercury. Gold thus is a prime metal symbolic of longevity and immortality.


Tumbaga trail

Tumbaga has been found at pre-colonial sites in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. In the Americas, tumbaga seems to appear first with the Moche culture that lived along the coast of Peru. And the coastal bias of the distribution of tumbaga in the Americas has led some researchers to suggest a mainly maritime diffusion to other countries throughout South and Central America.

Wilhelm Solheim has proposed that the Nusantao seafaring network extended to the west coast of the Americas staring in 3000 BCE and that voyages across the Pacific occurred periodically for "hundreds of years." Whether this would take us to a date for the transmission of tumbaga is not clear, but in earlier works Solheim has discussed Heine-Geldern's theory that tumbaga, along with the mise en couleur technique (depletion gilding), cire-perdue casting, and granulation were carried across the Pacific by Dongson seafarers.

Actually the dates of tumbaga might be older in the Americas than in Southeast Asia, but the practice of gold granulation appears to originate from early pottery practices in the latter region. In both regions, small gold balls or spheres were used to create decorations or designs on a gold base plate. These gold balls may be the origin of the piloncitos, tiny gold coins that like the barter rings were used as a type of currency in the pre-Hispanic Philippines. As depletion gilding is not archaeologically attested for Dongson culture, and granulation was a characteristic of both the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay and the entire Philippine goldworking tradition, the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay culture would seem to be a better candidate as an agent for this cultural transmission.



Piloncitos, gold coins from pre-Hispanic Philippines. (Source: http://www.bsp.gov.ph/about/history/story2.asp)



Alchemy Isles

According to the Shiji, the Qin Emperor sent missions to Penglai in search of alchemists skilled in the "transmutation of cinnabar and other substances into gold." I have tried to show that Penglai was an island nation located to the southeast or south of South China. The Biblical and Muslim traditions place the origin of alchemy in Nod or Mount Budh to the east of Eden where it was brought by Adam.

I have suggested earlier that alchemy was originally linked with a "yin-yang" type of philosophy that sought to harness the creative or life-giving principle to extend longevity or to attain immortality. Seafarers and merchants in the Nusantao network came to connect these concepts on a cosmic scale with the volcanoes Pinatubo and Arayat, which I have suggested constitute the alchemical Mt. Penglai of Chinese texts.

The seeming transmutation of a metal like copper -- subject to corrosion and reactive to the acids of plants -- into gold, the durability and stability of which can be equated with long life and immortality, may have been seen as a fitting allegory for the process of vivification. The vivifying or revivifying concepts of mutya and tubo could have been viewed as symbolized by the transmutation of tumbaga.

At a latter date, this symbolism may have evolved into an idea that transmuted metals themselves conveyed immortality through a confusion with what I suggest was the Nusantao belief that volcanic ejecta from the sacred mountains was a form of life-giving cosmic placenta.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Far-Eastern Prehistory Association. Asian Perspectives v. 22, 1979. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1957, 179, 194.

Hosler, D., 1988, Ancient West Mexican Metallurgy: South and Central American Origins and West Mexican Transformations, American Anthropologist, 90(4), pp. 832–55.

The Philippine Islands 1493-1803: Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and their Peoples, their Hist. and Records of the Catholic Missions, as related in contemporaneous Books and Ms., showing the Political ... Conditions of those Islands ... ; Transl. from the originals : With maps, portr. and other ill. Cleveland, Ohio: A. H. Clark Co, 1903, vol. 3, 81.

Miksic, John N. Earthenware in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of the Singapore Symposium on Premodern Southeast Asian Earthenwares. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003.

Shimada, Izumi. Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture. Austin, Tex: Univ. of Texas Pr, 1994, 105.

Villegas, Ramon N. Hiyas: Philippine Jewellery Heritage. Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines: Guild of Philippine Jewellers, 1997.

__. Kayamanan: The Philippine Jewelry Tradition. Manila: Central Bank of the Philippines, 1983.

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.