More on millenarian Spain at time of Columbus

In the article Columbus, Magellan and the "Hidden King,"  the millennial environment that existed in Spain during the time of Columbus and Magellan was discussed.

The kingdom of Valencia, where I have suggested that Sayabiga elements had settled during Moorish times, turns out to be an epicenter of influence that created an environment in Spain favorable both the expeditions of both Columbus and Magellan.  Not only did Valencia host the Sayabiga, but it was also a center of post-Templar influence in Spain.

According to the theory presented here earlier, the "Gypsy" peoples known as the Zutt, who were possibly a Jat group from the Sindh in South Asia, and the Sayabiga from Zabag moved along with their rice farming and buffalo herding through the Middle East.  Probably they were the ones that introduced both rice and the buffalo to Egypt, and from there on to southern Spain.  The rice culture there involves a tidal wet system and the Japonica strain, and I have suggested this rice was farmed by the Sayabiga.


Adoration of the Magi, Northern Spain, 1125-40 (Source: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/50921)

Much of the agriculture in Moorish Spain did come from Egypt both dry and irrigated types.  Tidal rice was also planted by the Sayabiga in southern Mesopotamia, but they would have used regular wet rice agriculture in the Nile Valley before leapfrogging across North Africa to use the tidal system again in places like Lake Albufera in Valencia.

These Sayabiga in Spain, I have suggested, were an important link in the diplomatic efforts of "Prester John" of Zabag in Europe.  They would have been the "Indians" or "fairy people" mentioned by Wolfram von Eschenbach and other medieval writers, and linked with the Plantagenet family and the Holy Grail.


Gypsies in Spain 

The Gypsies in Spain are known as Gitano, a word that had been suggested to have been derived from "Jat," but most likely is a shortened form of Egyptiano "Egyptian."

Like the Romani Gypsies in other parts of Europe, the Gitano show linguistic traces of their origin from India.  Therefore it is quite likely that they are descendants at least partly of the aforementioned Zutt.  At one time, it was widely thought in Spain that the Gitano were descendants of Moriscos -- Muslims who had been converted to Catholicism.  However, after the language relationship with the Romani was discovered, many suggested that the Gitano had migrated into Spain after the Romani appeared in Eastern Europe.

However, researchers like Susan G. Drummond have shown that the evidence suggests two streams of Gypsies into Spain.  A Romani one in the north, and an older Gitano one in the south that dates to Moorish times.  The Calo language of the Gitano displays a large number of Hispano-Arabic words, and their Flamenco music shows similar influence, both of which are absent among the Romani.


Adoration of the Magi, Fuentiduena Chapel, Castilla-Leon, 1175-1200 (Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterjr1961/2937556978/sizes/l/)

The presence of the Gitano can be seen as evidence of the migration of Zutt during Moorish times, and their ethnonym would agree with the suggestion that they came directly from Egypt.  Also the fact that they show no signs of Orthodox Christianity would suggest that they converted in Spain, i.e. that they were Moriscos or conversos.

Quite possibly the Gitano were once Zutt buffalo herders, which could explain their wandering ways.  The Zutt and their buffalo were moved to Syria and Anatolia to deal with the lion populations there -- a job that might have required a lot of movement from place to place.  Since the Zutt and Sayabiga tended to move around together, they probably migrated from that region to Egypt with the Sayabiga engaged mainly in farming.  The Sayabiga in Spain would have been rice farmers, and thus sedentary.  Also, the literary evidence would suggest, according to theory suggested here, that they were less endogamous as compared to the Gitano and freely intermarried.


Royal Morisco link from Valencia

Interestingly, both Ferdinand and Isabella, the monarchs of Spain who supported Columbus' voyage, both descend from a Morisca from Valencia.  Her name was Zaida, the daughter-in-law of al-Mutamid, the emir of Seville.  Zaida is sometimes referred to as the daughter of al-Mutamid in latter works, but contemporary Muslim sources state that she was his daughter-in-law of unknown ancestry. She lived in Denia in the Alicante, which was then part of the Kingdom of Valencia but now forms its own province. Like Valencia, Alicante is noted for its rice production.

Zaida, a contemporary of the first "fairy" count of Anjou, Fulk IV,  converted to Christianity and was either married to or was the concubine of Alfonso IV, king of Castile and Leon.  Both Ferdinand and Isabella descend from Zaida through Alfonso Fernandez, King of Castile, who descends through Constance de Hohenstaufen from Constance de Hauteville, the daughter of Elvira Alphonsez.  The latter was in turn was the daughter of Zaida.

Both monarchs may also descend from Zaida through Henry II's mother, a descendant of Zaida's other daughter Sancha Alfonsez,  but this genealogy is less secure.

A Valencian clan that claimed royal descent was the Borgia family, which rose to great heights during the Renaissance.   Accounts beginning in the early 17th century claim that the Borgias descend from King Ramiro of Spain, but the genealogies differ.  The actual documentation from Valencia and Aragon suggests instead that the Borgias trace their origins to one Gonzalo de Borja, who had no formal title.

The surnames Borja, Borge, Borgia, etc. come from the name of the Moorish town, and the surname is found on lists of Morisco surnames.  Evidence suggests that the Borgia clan, or at least their paternal ancestors, came originally from Borja in Aragon, but had been settled in the huerta of Valencia for some time before rising to prominence.

The first Borgia to gain fame was Alfonso from Canals, Valencia who became Pope Callisto III (Callixtus III) in 1455.  Alfonso had once served as an ambassador for the Aragonese kings.  He and the rest of his family became famed for their corruption and he appointed his nephew Rodrigo de Borgia, from Jativa, Valencia, as cardinal.

Rodrigo would become Pope Alexander VI in the same year that Columbus sailed on his first voyage.  As Pope, he granted the coveted rights to the Americas to Spain after a request from King Ferdinand, who had helped bring Rodrigo to power.

The children of Alexander VI and others in the Borgia clan quickly gained titles of nobility including Duke of Gandia in Valencia, and a number of titles in Italy.  Alexander VI's son Cesare Borgia became Duke of Valentinois, and inspired Machiavelli's work "The Prince."

Annio of Viterbo, possibly with the consent of Alexander VI, created a genealogy for the Borgias that claims the family descends from the Egyptian god-king Osiris -- interesting given the Zutt and Sayabiga's Egypt connection -- although Annio makes these links ancient and extends them to Italy.



The Borgia coat of arms with the bull representing Apis as an aspect of Osiris. (Source: Wikipedia)


Templars in Spain

When the Templars were disbanded, those in Portugal took refuge among the Order of Christ.  The Templars in Spain joined the Order of Montesa in Valencia.  Both of these orders play a part in the navigation to the Indies and the voyages of Columbus. Earlier in this blog, I suggested that the Templars had a political relationship with Prester John via Sayabiga/Assassin intermediaries. 

The Order of Christ knights were used by Prince Henry of Portugal, himself the Grandmaster of the organization, during his voyages of discovery.

An interesting possible direct connection between the Order of Montesa, which was located in the Kingdom of Valencia, and Columbus comes through Carlos de Viana (Charles of Viana). 

Carlos was a prince of Aragon, the son of the future John II, and himself the heir to the crown of Navarre. He also held the title of Prince of Viana.  According to one theory, Prince Carlos was actually Christopher Columbus' father!   A team of geneticists lead by Jose A. Lorente and Mark Stoneking had set out to test whether this theory was valid and they were expected to release results in 2005.  However, I have not seen anything further published on this research.

One of Prince Carlos' sons, Felipe, Count of Beaufort, and possibly a half-brother of Columbus, quit his position as Archbishop of Palermo in 1485 to become Grandmaster of the Order of Montesa.

A member of the Borgia family -- Don Pedro Luis Galceran de Borgia -- would become the last Grandmaster of the Order of Montesa in 1572.


Rise in millenarianism

In Columbus' "Book of Prophecies" (Libro de las profecias), the discoverer claims that he had found the Biblical lands of Tarshish, Cathyr and Ophir.

Likely one of the main reasons that both Columbus and Magellan were able to find fertile ground in Spain while failing elsewhere lies in the millennial environment that existed in the area at the time.  The Valencian alchemist Arnold of Villanova (1235-1311) was probably the first person responsible for popularizing the millenarian views of Joachim of Fiore in Spain.

He modified Joachimite prophecies combining them with earlier material from Pseudo-Methodius and others, and claiming that the Last Emperor who would reconquer Zion would come from Spain.  After Arnold of Villanova, another Valencian, Francesc Eixemensis further popularized these millennial views both in Valencia and throughout Spain.  Peter of Aragon, a member of the royal family and a Franciscan also helped promote the idea in the late 14th century that the King of Aragon would retake Jerusalem.

During the period of King Ferdinand V, the belief that this monarch was the prophesied one were widespread throughout Spain.  Given that Columbus himself was also deeply interested in prophecy, and also apparently considered himself a divine instrument in prophetic fulfillment, he was destined to eventually come to the monarchs of Aragon and Castile.

In the introduction to the Book of Prophecies, Columbus also mentions that the islands he had discovered were the same archipelago of 7,448 islands off the coast of South China (Manzi) mentioned by Marco Polo.  In the millenarian views of the time, islands were seen as important elements in the fulfillment of prophecy.  The conquest of the islands at the end of the earth was widely seen as an important mission of the millennial king in the last days.


Message from Prester John

The millenarian environment helped fuel the thirst for exploration, but it was information from the far east that provided the geographic knowledge necessary for Columbus to set off on his journey.

Nicolo di Conti and the eastern ambassador who came together with the entourage of papal envoy Alberto de Sarteano provided that knowledge.  Previously, I have suggested that the eastern delegate came from the kingdom of Prester John, which Conti claimed to have spent much time at during his Asian travels.  The ambassador claims to have come from a Nestorian kingdom in "Upper India" about 20 days from Cathay, i.e., the kingdom of Prester John.

The knowledge they provided completed a set of influences that appear to have convinced Columbus and others of the feasibility of the western voyages.  The other influences were:

• Marco Polo's account of the eastern islands off South China and their richness in gold, which Columbus apparently equates with Biblical gold of Ophir.
• The book attributed to John of Mandeville in the mid to late 14th century suggests that circumnavigation of the world is possible.  Columbus refers to Mandeville's work as having a great influence on him. Mandeville described Prester John's eastern realm as follows:
  
  

  "Toward the east part of Prester John's land is an isle good and great, that men clepe Taprobane, that is full noble and full fructuous...Beside that isle, toward the east, be two other isles. And men clepe that one Orille, and that other Argyte, of the which all the
  land is mine of gold and silver. And those isles be right where that the Red Sea departeth from the sea ocean."

  Orille and Argyte are the Chryse and Argye, the islands of gold and silver mentioned by Ptolemy who  locates them beyond the Golden Chersonese (Malaya Peninsula).
  
  At the extreme east of the kingdoms was the land of Eden:
  
  
  

  "And beyond the land and the isles and the deserts of Prester John's lordship, in going straight toward the east, men find nothing but mountains and rocks, full great. And there is the dark region, where no man may see, neither by day ne by night, as they of the country say. And that desert and that place of darkness dure from this coast unto Paradise terrestrial, where that Adam, our formest father, and Eve were put, that dwelled there but little while: and that is towards the east at the beginning of the earth. But that is not that east that we clepe our east, on this half, where the sun riseth to us. For when the sun is
  east in those parts towards Paradise terrestrial, it is then midnight in our parts on this half, for the roundness of the earth, of the which I have touched to you of before."

  Mandeville then describes the journeys on the 'other half' of the globe that involve "coasting" from the lands of Prester John:
  
  

  "From those isles that I have spoken of before, in the Land of Prester John, that be under earth as to us that be on this half, and of other isles that be more further beyond, whoso will, pursue them for to come again right to the parts that he came from, and so environ all earth. But what for the isles, what for the sea, and what for strong rowing, few folk assay for to pass that passage; albeit that men might do it well, that might be of power to dress them thereto, as I have said you before. And therefore men return from those isles above said by other isles, coasting from the land of Prester John."

Columbus learned of the testimony of Conti and the eastern ambassador at least from the letter of astronomer Paolo Toscanelli to Fernao Martins in 1474.  If the second letter of Toscanelli to Columbus is authentic, Columbus was also told to expect to find Christians on a journey to the East Indies.  Francis Millet Rogers has suggested that Columbus was additionally familiar with Conti through the work of Pero Tafur. If so, then he might easily have connected Prester John as mentioned in Tafur with the eastern ambassador from the Nestorian kingdom in Upper India.  Conti also mentions Nestorians in India, and in Tafur's account he describes the subjects of Prester John saying that "they know nothing of our Romish Church, nor are governed by it."

Tafur suggests that Prester John had an interest in the Christian world: "I learnt from Nicolo de' Conti that Prester John kept him continuously at his court, enquiring of him as to the Christian world, and concerning the princes and their estates, and the wars they were waging, and while he was there he saw Prester John on two occasions dispatch ambassadors to Christian princes, but he did not hear whether any news of them had been received."  Since the king was interested in making contact with Christendom logically he would have sent an ambassador along with Conti.

Upon analyzing the itinerary of Conti as supplied to papal secretary Poggio Bracciolini, Columbus probably noted that Conti's long sojourn with Prester John must have taken place sometime after the former had visited Champa.  That was the period before Conti began his journey back to India and Europe, and the one in which he spent most of his time in Asia. 

Therefore, Columbus quite logically would place Prester John's kingdom somewhere in Southeast Asia, in the same eastern archipelago mentioned by Marco Polo as lying off the coast of South China.  In this location, Columbus, venturing to an unknown part of the world, could expect to meet the friendly Nestorian Christians of Prester John's kingdom.   And Conti's testimony appears to have convinced many including Toscanelli and Columbus that the East Indies could be reached by sailing west from Europe around the globe.

Thus, Columbus' sailing course toward the equatorial latitudes, of which he expected to land in the East Indies, is not surprising.  Magellan also folllowed a similar course, and we know from his notes that he also appeared to be searching for the islands of Tarshish and Ophir.

By the time of Columbus, Valencia had become the commercial capital of the Crown of Aragon, and it was through the city's port that Spain controlled much of the trade that occurred in the European part of the Mediterranean.  Valencia provided the first round of funding for Columbus voyage as financiers like Jewish converso Luis de Santangel responded to Queen Isabella's call for financial backing.

After Prester John of Zabag sent letters to Western Christendom in the latter part of the 12th century, he became relatively quiet.  Maybe the conquests of the Mongols eased the urgency of dealing with expanding threats along the trade routes. However, by the mid-15th century Islam began to expand quickly in Southeast Asia with the establishment of the Sultanate of Aceh, and with Islamic kingdoms already existing in Kedah and Pasai by 1380.  At this time, the remnants of old Zabag were now consolidated into a kingdom known widely as Luzon. So the interest that "Prester John" showed Nicolo di Conti in the goings on of Christian nations in the West is logical.

Spain, for reasons that extend back to the original Prester John of Zabag, was the natural kingdom to have supported Columbus' millenarian plan to reach the fabled islands of Tarshish and Ophir.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Columbus, Christopher, Kay Brigham, and Kay Brigham. Christopher Columbus's Book of Prophecies. Barcelona, Spain: Editorial Clie, 1991.

Constable, Olivia R. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500. Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought, Ser. 4, 24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Dandelet, Thomas James. Spanish Rome, 1500-1700. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Lorente, Jose A. DNA challenges posed in attempting to solve Christopher Columbus misteries [sic], http://www.promega.com/GENETICIDPROC/ussymp14proc/oralpresentations/Lorente.pdf, 2003.

Reeves, Marjorie. The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages A Study in Joachimism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.

Rogers, Francis Millet. The Quest for Eastern Christians. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.

Tafur, Pero and Malcolm Letts (translator). Pero Tafur: Travels and Adventures (1435-1439), New York: Harper and Brothers, 1926.

Tompsett, Brian. Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, http://www3.dcs.hull.ac.uk/genealogy/GEDCOM.html, 2005.

Watts, Pauline Moffitt. "Prophecy and Discovery:  On the Spiritual Origins of ChristopherColumbus's 'Enterprise of the Indies'," American Historical Review, Feb. 1985, 73-102.

West, Delno C. "Medieval Ideas of Apocalyptic Mission and the Early Franciscans in Mexico," The Americas vol. XLV, Jan. 1989, no. 3, 292-313.

Seafaring in the Philippines

In previous writings and blog posts, I have discussed ancient sea exploration, and also specifically Austronesian navigation and seafaring techniques. Now I would like to touch upon the subject of the seafaring culture in what is now known as the Philippines.

In 1540, Portuguese royal agent Bras Bayao recommended hiring the capable pilots from Luzon whom he describes as "discoverers."  At the time, Luzon merchants, mercenaries and seamen were widely in use throughout Asia.  Luzon merchants like Surya Diraja controlled the pepper trade in the South China Sea.  The admiral of the Sultan of Brunei's fleet was a prince of Luzon according to Pigafetta, and in 1525 a "captain" from Luzon commanded the flagship in the exiled Sultan of Malacca's attempt to retake the city from the Portuguese.  Luzon mercenaries were in the service of the Sultan of Aceh in holding the island of Aru, and in 1529 and 1538 they fought for the Batak-Menanagkabau kings who were battling Muslim enemies.  In 1529, Luzon forces were also in service with the Muslim fleet of Aceh.

Bras Bayao's recommendation of Filipino seafarers came at the beginning of a long legacy in which the Filipino played a major role in nearly all the merchant fleets, and many of the armed navies of the world.


Indigenous navigation techniques

One of the early notices of the outstanding abilities of Filipino seafarers came in Alexander Dalrymple's description of the Sulu navigator Bahatol, whom Dalrymple estimates was more than 100 years old when they met:

Amongst the authorities of this kind, I cannot omit mentioning a very extraordinary Chart, of the Sooloo Isles, and Northern part of Borneo; it was formed by the description of Bahatol, from the reflected experience of almost a Century: particular Observation was made some use of, in limiting the Islands adjacent to Sooloo, and mistakes, in these, were the source of some confusion; but, though it cannot be supposed a draught, made from memory, and delineated by the hands of another, should be free from very material error and omissions; I need not be afraid of exceeding, in my Applause of so remarkable a Work of Natural Genius! when I consider also, that his descriptions were conveyed through means of an Interpreter, and in a few days, which period did not admit a recollection of those inaccuracies, which are found in Works executed by the rules of Science. To confirm my sentiments of this Person's Genius, I have presented a faithful Copy of part of his Performance, even without his latter Corrections...

Bahatol had the ability to create charts of the region from memory that were the only ones Dalrymple considered accurate -- to include those made by Western navigators and cartographers.  Another indigenous navigator of the same period, Tupaia of Tahiti, also had the ability to create modern maps based purely on mental references.  Also, like the Tahitians encountered by James Cook, weather prediction played an important part in the indigenous navigation of the Sulu mariners.  Dalrymple states:

Perhaps the conclusion of this chapter, which are signs of weather and land, communicated by Bahatol, the old Sulu, may expose me to ridicule. However, few are so ignorant of human nature, as not to know that experience exceeds the deepest reasoning, and that an illiterate fisherman shall often be found, better acquainted with the signs which indicate changes of the weather, than the most acute philosopher with his barometer. Bahatol informed me, that these signs have passed down from father to son, through many successions, and that his long experience has warranted their veracity: However, I only present them, to be confirmed, or refuted, by observation and experience. These signs are chiefly taken from lightning. When lightning explodes upwards, it shews there will soon be wind, though it does not denote a storm.

A storm is predicted, by a woo-ing sound in the water.
Tremulous lightning very high, is a sign of rain.
The same not so high, indicates a hill.

When the lightning is red and fiery, it shews the hill to be rocky.
When yellow, it is a sign the hill is earth.
Low flashes upon the surface of the water, denote a shoal under
water.

A shoal above water, has an atmosphere hanging over it, which appears like an island.

Low long lightning, upon the surface, shews an island with trees; and when an island, or hill, is high at one end, and low at the other, the lightning will be in an inclining line like the hill.

Use of the compass

Upon the arrival of Europeans, native seafarers were quick to obtain the latest mariner's compasses and telescopes from Europe, but mainly as prestige items.  Most evidence suggests that the compass, at least, was rarely used.

However, there is some evidence of the use of the medieval floating needle that was commonly mentioned in writings concerning the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.

William Barlowe's Navigator's Supply, written in 1597, mentions encounters that Thomas Cavendish -- most popular for having pirated the Manila galleon Santa Anna -- had with two "East Indians" from Asia:

Some fewe yeeres since, it so fell out that I had severall conferences with two East Indians which were brought into England by master Candish [Thomas Cavendish], and had learned our language: The one of them was of Mamillia [Manila] in the Isle of Luzon, the other of Miaco in Japan. I questioned with them concerning their shipping and manner of sayling. They described all things farre different from ours, and shewed, that in steade of our Compas, they use a magneticall needle of sixe ynches long, and longer, upon a pinne in a dish of white China earth filled with water; In the bottome whereof they have two crosse lines, for the foure principall windes; the rest of the divisions being reserved to the skill of their Pilots.

Dead reckoning using stars, currents, winds, etc.

James Francis Warren, who personally observed the indigenous navigational techniques of the Iranun and Balangingi peoples of Mindanao, states:

Sailing directions of other kinds were used when the Iranun struck off across expanses of open sea; bearings were taken from the direction of the winds, the currents, and the position of the sun.  At night they were guided by the stars, the moon and weather signs.  Even in the sky, the Iranun and Samal raiders saw the sea; every type of star, wave and current, every rock and navigational landmark had been given a name.  There at least a dozen words to describe the color of the sea and the varying tides.  In deep haze and fog the Iranun and Samal navigated by reading the currents, swells and sounds as if hunting a living creature.

The ability to navigate in haze and fog -- when no visible means of orientation are available -- using only the action and sound of the waves and currents mirrors the practice of navigation used by Micronesian Mau Piailug and other Pacific navigators.

Eric S. Casino conducted a study of navigational bearing stars and the use of currents and winds for navigation among the Jama Mapun, a Samal "sea gypsy" people of Mindanao.  When visible, the Jama Mapun use the stars, Sun and Moon to guide them.  However, during storms and other conditions of limited visibility, they depend only on the currents and winds to know what direction they are traveling in, and how far they have traveled toward reaching their destination.


The Jama Mapun know the difference between prevailing winds and currents, and those kicked up by storms and other weather conditions.  One method they use to detect an original current as opposed to a current that arises, for example, from a squall, is to dip their legs or paddles into the water so that they can feel the old current under the surface.  In this way, they are able to calculate the boat's drift and changes in bearing. These seafarers have an advanced vocabulary for winds, currents, swells, etc.


Dante L. Ambrosio, who studies indigenous star lore, notes the following regarding Samal navigators:

My Sama Dilaut informants said that the position of the stars, which form the rope used to pull up the bubu out of the sea, indicated the strength of the current. These stars form the handle of the Big Dipper. When they are in the east, the current is strong but when they are in the west, the current is weak or there is no current at all.

Several stars, together with the wind, are used in direction finding. Samas know that the morning star Lakag or Maga is in the east, Bubu and Mamahi Uttara are in the north, while Bunta is in the south. The western direction is reckoned with stars Tunggal Bahangi and Mamahi Magrib. Unfortunately, I failed to identify these stars. The same goes with Mamahi Satan, the south star. Of course, the east-west direction is easily identifiable with the aid of the sun which is also a star. For the same directions, the Samas also observe Batik and Mupu which traverse the sky from east to the zenith to the west.

Together with stars, winds are also used to mark direction. Satan or salatan, the south wind, is associated with Bunta, the asterism named after a puffer fish. The heavenly fish releases the air from its puffy body once it ends its seasonal appearance in the night sky. That air is satan or salatan.

When Anakdatu, which follows Bunta, has come and gone, the north wind called uttara replaces the south wind. Another marker for uttara is the appearance of Mupu in the east at nightfall. It is also uttara that blows when the northern stars of Batik get dimmer. Its southern stars dim when it is satan’s turn to blow.

Ambrosio states that the North Star -- Mamahi Uttara -- was prominently used by Sama Dilaut navigators.  The North Star is also important among the Jama Mapun who know it as Sibilut.  Using Iman Yasin as a source, Ambrosio gives an example of how a Sama navigator would set a course using the stars:

Using this [North Star] as a guide, one may reach Cotabato and Zamboanga by sailing northeast, Sabah northwest, Celebes or Sulawesi and Balikpapan in Kalimantan southeast with some necessary adjustments along the way.

Bunta is used in crossing the Sulu Sea from Mapun near Palawan to the capital town of Bongao on the Tawi-tawi mainland. To reach Bongao, the pilot with an outstretched arm must keep Bunta one dangkal — from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the middle finger — to the left of the boat’s prow. If the prow veers to the left by a dangkal, it will reach Languyan instead which is at the northern end of Tawi-tawi. But if it veers to the right, the boat will land at Sibutu which is at the southern end of the archipelago.

According to Aspalman Jalman, an expert navigator from Tawi-tawi, by knowing the "position of Mamahi Uttara and Mamahi Satan and the relative position of one’s destination, one could readily lay down the path to be taken by the boat."   The idea that one can always correct one's bearings by knowing the "relative position" of one's destination gives an important clue as to how the local navigators projected their own vessel's position upon their mental maps of the region. Similar types of navigational techniques have been preserved among other peoples in Insular Southeast Asia such as the Bugis to the south in eastern Indonesia.

In addition to possessing excellent navigational capabilities, the peoples of the Philippines were also expert boat builders.  According to Fr. Francisco Combes (1667, 70): "The care and technique with which they build them makes their ships sail like birds, while ours are like lead in comparison."



Filipinos as hired seafarers

When Europeans arrived in the area at the start of the colonial period, the kingdom of Luzon was heavily involved in the regional trade that included sending ships to Timor for sandalwood, and distributing pepper throughout the trade routes. Luzon merchants had a special relationship with the ports of China that allowed them to be the primary and at times exclusive middlemen in the commerce between South China and other countries using the maritime trade routes.

After colonization, Filipino seafarers continued to work on Spanish and other ships in the region.  Francisco Leandro de Viana (1751-1765) writes:

There is not an Indian in these islands who has not a remarkable inclination for the sea; nor is there at present in all the world a people more agile in maneuvers on shipboard, or who learn so quickly nautical terms and whatever a good mariner ought to know. Their disposition is most humble in the presence of a Spaniard, and they show him great respect; but they can teach many of the Spanish mariners who sail in these seas. In the ships of Espana there are sure to be some Indians from these islands, and investigation can be made to ascertain what they are. The little that I understand about them makes me think that these are a people most suited for the sea; and that, if the ships are manned with crews one-third Spaniards and the other two-thirds Indians, the best mariners of these islands can be obtained, and many of them be employed in our warships. There is hardly an Indian who has sailed the seas who does not understand the mariner's compass, and therefore on this [Acapulco] trade-route there are some very skilful and dexterous helmsmen. Their disposition is cowardly, but, when placed on a ship, from which they cannot escape, they fight with spirit and courage.

By the 19th century, Filipinos had established themselves as highly sought seafarers for crews on international ships.  According to Conrad Malte-Brun writing in 1827, the "natives of Manilla are almost universally employed as gunners and steersmen in the intercolonial navigation."

The importance of the Filipino seafarer has continued into present times.  In 2009, for example, about 40 percent of the world's container vessel and oil tanker crews were Filipino.  In the same year, about 70 percent of all Japanese shipping used Filipino crews.


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Ambrosio, Dante. "Mamahi:’ Stars of Tawi-tawi," Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1/26/2008.

Casino, Eric S., "Jama Mapun Ethnoecology: Economic and Symbolic,"  Asian Studies, 5, 1967, 1-32.

Logan, James Richardson, and George Windsor Earl. The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia: Singapore, 1847-1855. Nendeln, Leichtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1970, 514.

Malte-Brun, Conrad. Universal Geography, Or A Description of All Parts of the World, on a New Plan, According to the Great Natural Divisions of the Globe. Philadelphia: A. Finley, 1827, 336.

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

Warren, James Francis. Iranun and Balangingi: Globalization, Maritime Raiding, and the Birth of Ethnicity. Singapore: Singapore University Press, National University of Singapore, 2002, 264-5.

More on Anglo-Israelism and the Philippines

In the the article "British-Israelism, America and the Philippines" and other posts, I have discussed the issue of how Anglo-Israelism helped influence America's decision to colonize the Philippines.

Throughout this blog, I have suggested that the region now known as the Philippines and the surrounding areas were thought of by various cultures far and wide as the location of cosmically important sites including the axis mundi, navel of the sea, world tree, paradise and the like.  Nusantao seafarers and later the medieval kingdom known Sanfotsi and Zabag helped to spread such ideas.

When Columbus and Magellan sailed for the East Indies and Cathay, they hoped to find the biblical lands of Tarshish and Ophir.  Columbus appears to be the person who sparked the idea that the acquisition of the gold and "almug trees" of Ophir were important prophetic requirements leading up to the reconquest of Jerusalem and to the Second Coming.

Shortly after the Spanish colonization of the Philippines had begun, most European writers believed that Tarshish and Ophir were located in the East Indies. 

Sir Walter Raleigh, the founder of Virginia for Queen Elizabeth I and the architect of England's colonization in the "New World," wrote in 1614:

And by the length of the passage which Solomon's ships made from the Red Sea (which was three years in going and coming [to Ophir]), it seemeth they went to the uttermost east, as the Moluccas, or Philippines. Indeed, those that now go from Portugal, or from hence, finish that navigation in two years, and sometimes less; and Solomon's ships went not above a tenth part of this our course from hence....Neither was it needful for the Spaniards themselves (had it not been for the plenty of gold in the East India islands, far above the mines of any one place of America) to sail every year from the west part of America thither, and there to have strongly planted and inhabited the richest of those islands, wherein they have built a city called Manilla. Solomon, therefore, needed not to have gone farther off than Ophir in the East to have sped worse; neither could he navigate from the east to the west in those days, whenas he had no coast to guide him.

However the English were not particularly happy with Spanish claims to prophecy nor their denial of  non-Catholics of the empire that became known as the "Spanish Main."   The Ophirian Conjecture started as a debate largely between the English and the Spanish over proper interpretation of biblical prophecy.


Anglo-American Israel

In the mid 19th century, Americans began to strongly embrace the idea that their nation was included in the prophecies of the Bible.  They largely drew on the older ideas of British Israelism that had been percolating for some time.

One can sense in the early writings on this topic, a continued antagonism with Spain.   The Methodist minister Samuel Davies Baldwin, for example, admitted that the Spanish represented the biblical "ships of Tarshish" that according to him were prophesied to discover the Americas.

However, the main purpose of Spain's discovery, according to Baldwin, was "opening the way to the emigration of God's people," i.e., the Anglo-Saxon settlers of the United States.  Fountain Pitts, another Methodist minister, stated that the Spanish were only interested in gold and silver, but that the Anglo-Saxon colonists came to claim the 'New World' for God.

In religious circles, the idea that America would evangelize the world as a prelude to Armageddon became widespread.

So when the Spanish-American War broke out, whatever the real cause of that war might have been, church writers quickly brought up the old antagonism between England and Spain in relation to the Ophirian conjecture and to prophecy.  Now the Anglo-Israelists had departed from the old Catholic ideas that the "Far East" harbored the Garden of Eden, Prester John's kingdom, and golden Tarshish and Ophir.  Again, they considered that Spain represented the nation known as Tarshish in the Bible.  Of course, the also rejected Spain's old claim to be the nation that would reconquer Jerusalem and herald the return of Christ.

"Thou brakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind"

Religious minds of the time were quick to see America's defeat of Spain as a fulfillment of prophecy, and as a final settling of an old score with their Ophirian rival.

A. Maurice Low, an American working for the London Chronicle described 1898, the year of the Spanish American War, as "annus mirabilis in American history."   While Martin Lyman Streator extended this "wonderful year" not only to American history but to the entire history of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Streator was a pastor of the Disciples of Christ, who worked as Pennsylvania State Evangelist for that organization before becoming chief missionary of the Christian Women's Board of Missions for the state of  Montana.  He was a prolific writer and two of his books, The Anglo-American Alliance in Prophecy in 1900 and The Hope of Israel in 1903 became very popular and favorably reviewed in Protestant religious circles. He writes in the former work:

The providential victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, and the war in the Philippines, projected the American Republic in spite of ourselves into the great world of European and Asiatic nations. This should teach us that the God of nations and the ages intends that "the Company of Peoples" in the " strong nation " of prophecy in the United States shall have an influential voice in determining the destiny of the world in "this great epoch in the history of man." We cannot shirk this duty and avoid this destiny even if we desired to do it. The God of our fathers has set before us an open door in the Orient which no man can shut. He has given us a coign of vantage for the impending crisis.

In the conclusion of his sketch of one phase of our diplomacy before and after the war with Spain," Mr. Low says:

" It explains in a measure why those in authority have now, as they have had for the last two years, a feeling of gratitude toward England; it explains how, when in our extremity we needed a friend, the only friend we found was England, who stood by us loyally, manfully, and courageously, braving the displeasure of all the world because of the ties of blood ; it explains why there is to-day a solidarity of the English-speaking people: a union stronger, better, more powerful than any other union the world has before known; which does not exist by the favor of treaties or the grace of rulers, but which has come into being because it is a union that makes for the peace, the progress, the civilization of the world, which lends encouragement to the people still struggling for liberty and who know that to the Anglo-Saxon they must look for their inspiration and their deliverance.

"So long as the Blood endures,
I shall know that your good is mine, ye shall feel that my strength is

yours:

In the days of Armageddon, at the last great fight of all,
That Our House stand together and the pillars do not fall." (P. 261.)

Men of thought and discernment already are perceiving that we are entering "the days of Armageddon," and that Our Race must stand together in " the last great fight of all." This we will do if we are the elect race of Israel. If we are not the House of Joseph, to whom the God of the covenant promised the dominion of the world, then we will fall never to rise again in the impending war of nations and races. If you accept the Bible as a revelation from the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, then open your eyes and see what he declares concerning the origin, the course, and the destiny of Our Race. He is fulfilling day by day in the chosen people of Our Race, now scattered over the world, the promises which he gave of old to the fathers concerning the dispersion, the expansion, the gathering, and the triumphant and glorious destiny of the children of Jacob and Joseph. The manifestations of sympathy and harmony between the two great branches of Our Race, which are the most notable characteristics of recent years, are the development of the eternal purposes of the living God towards his people.

John Patrick Brushingham, A Chicago Methodist pastor, wrote an article "American Protestanitism and Expansion" in The Methodist Review that connects the American victory with Isaiah's prophecy about the far off isles of the Gentiles.  The Methodist Review was at the time the nation's oldest religious review, although a different publication tham the journal of the same name that exists today.  Brushingham wrote in 1899:

"The isles shall wait for his law," sang Isaiah. "America is the world's evangelist," said Senator Davis, of the Peace Commission.

When Captain Gridley of the good ship Olympia tired that first gun at Cavite, by permission and order of the great admiral on May 1, 1898, it was heard round the world and became a revelation and a prophecy. When Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fleet and cut the cable to Hong Kong, there was placed upon the shoulders of our American republic a new burden of responsibility, and there was opened up before it a wide door of opportunity to give the blessings of a modern form of government and Anglo-Saxon civilization to islands hitherto considered to be at the ends of the earth. The distant echo of Dewey's guns was a prophecy that under God, and baptized by the divine Spirit, we are equal to the responsibility of this great providential opening. Let us take counsel of our hopes rather than our fears, believing that the genius and virtue of our American Christianity are adequate to the emergency. Dr. John Henry Barrows in a personal note says: " Those who have courageous hearts and the Christian spirit of missions, and the spirit of a world-wide evangelism, see God's hand and hear God's voice in recent events."

In another important religious journal of the time, The Homiletic Review, the editorial section in the July 1898 edition connects Dewey's victory with another prophecy of Isaiah that tells of the defeat of the ships of Tarshish, the nation that again was interpreted by Anglo-Israelists as referring to Spain.  These sentiments were also echoed in other writings of the time.

The naval battles have been marvels that would almost be pronounced miracles, and incredible by skeptics, if found written in the Bible. In the days of the Invincible Armada there seemed to be a literal fulfillment of the divine Word, in Psalm xlviii. 7: "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind." The providential interpositions of the recent months have been almost as wonderful. In a little over one hundred days of actual war, most of which time has necessarily been devoted to preparation, everything for which this country contended has been gained—and more. Assuredly there is reason for peculiar gratitude and special thanksgiving. And now begins the greater task of the nation in carrying out unselfishly and to the end the purposes of humanity and freedom for which the war was entered upon. It will need wise statesmanship and the sustaining influence of a tremendously powerful moral and Christian sentiment to keep the nation from being swept into the unrighteousness of a mad ambition for territorial expansion and imperialism. It will require just is potent moral and Christian forces to lift the nation up to the comprehension and attainment of the new destiny in the world's future, markt out for it by the events of the year 1898.

Philippines as 'ends of the earth'

Columbus believed that Spain would fulfill prophecy as the chosen nation of God by carrying the Christian faith to the farthest corners of the world -- that in his mind meant the far east where Cipangu and Cathay were located.   To this end, the most important geographical goal of his journeys was the island of Ophir.

Anglo-Israelists appear to have co-opted Columbus idea but with America bringing "true" Protestant Christianity to the 'ends of the earth.'  In this sense, the Philippines was again linked with biblical prophecies speaking of the far east and the rising of the sun -- the last place on earth to be evangelized.

Here is how Streator interprets statements by President William McKinley on the "just war" with Spain and the colonization of the Philippines.

President McKinley characterized our recent war with Spain as "A just war for humanity." Concerning it, and the new issues growing out of it he said :

"Some things have happened which were not promised, nor even foreseen, and our purposes in relation to them must not be left in doubt. A just war has been waged for humanity and with it have come new problems and responsibilities. Spain has been ejected from the Western Hemisphere, and our flag floats over her former territory. Cuba has been liberated, and our guarantees to her people will be sacredly executed. A beneficent government has been provided for Porto Rico. The Philippines are ours, and American authority must be supreme thruout the archipelago. There will be amnesty broad and liberal, but no abatement of our rights, no abandonment of our duty. There must be no scuttle policy. We will fulfil in the Philippines the obligations imposed by the triumphs of our arms and by the treaty of peace; by international law; by the nation's sense of honor; and more than all by the rights, interests, and conditions of the Philippine peoples themselves. No outside interference blocks the way to peace and a stable government. The obstructionists are here, not elsewhere. They may postpone, but they cannot defeat the realization of the high purpose of this nation to restore order to the islands and establish a just and generous government, in which the inhabitants shall have the largest participation for which they are capable. The organized forces which have been misled into rebellion have been dispersed by our faithful soldiers and sailors, and the people of the islands, delivered from anarchy, pillage, and oppression, recognize American sovereignty as the symbol and pledge of peace, justice, law, religious freedom, the security of life and property, and the welfare and prosperity of their several communities."

This language of the President of the great Republic is in harmony with the teaching of the oracles of God concerning the mission and work and destiny of his chosen people Israel. The Messianic King of Israel breaks in pieces the oppressor by arming his chosen people who hate oppression with the weapons of war whereby they break in pieces the feet of the image of Gentile empire, and break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. American Israel has been doing this on a stupendous scale since the beginning of this era of crisis in 1898. Compare the language of our President with the following oracle in Isaiah:

"According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay,

Wrath to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies (such as the Spaniards) ;

To the islands he will repay recompense.

So shall they fear the name of Jehovah from the west (as in the West Indies),

And his glory from the rising of the sun (as in the East Indies):

When the adversary shall come in like a flood (as in the Boxer revolt in China),

The spirit of Jehovah shall lift up a standard against him." (13a.59:18,19.)

What standard is this but the standard of the chosen people appointed of God to execute his will? I do not claim that the instances cited as above in the parentheses exhaust the meaning of the prophecy, but select them as notable examples of its fulfilment. The context shows that the oracle relates to events belonging to the time of the end. It was not the design of American statesmen to take possession of the West Indies and the East Indies at the beginning of this crisis, for as President McKinley said: " Some things have happened which were not promised (in the political platform), nor even foreseen (by the wisest statesmen)." But they were foreseen of God, and they were promised by his holy prophets. The marvelous things in the great naval victories in Manila Bay and off Santiago were foretold in these words of the prophet Micah:

"As in the days of thy coming forth out of the land of Egypt Will I show unto him marvelous things.

The nations (Gentiles) shall see and be ashamed of all their might."

(Mi. 7:15, 16.)

Those victories arrested the attention of the world, and filled the Gentiles with astonishment and dismay at the might of the American Company of Peoples. The war in the Philippines is accurately described in the next sentences. I quote the language from Lesser's Translation as more definite in meaning.

"They shall lay their hand upon their mouth,
(In token of their astonishment at the victories of Israel),
Their ears shall be deafened (by the roar of Israel's cannon).
They shall lick the dust like a serpent;
Like those that crawl on the earth,

Shall they come forth trembling out of their close places
(As they are doing in the Philippine Islands):
Unto the Lord our God shall they hasten in dread,
And shall be afraid of thee." (Mi. 7: 16, 17.)

Biblical interpretation in the Philippines

While America had one interpretation of events in relation to biblical prophecy, the revolutionaries of the Philippines had their own view of the same writings.

The Philippine Revolution had begun two years before the Spanish American War, and one of the chief propagandists of the movement, Pedro Paterno, had reintroduced older views like those of Father Colin and Antonio Galvão that the Philippines was the location of Tarshish and/or Ophir to which the navy of Solomon ventured.

Paterno's interpretation would be repeated frequently by Filipino writers over the decades up to the present times, especially in popular publications.

Similar views also seemed to have penetrated into the Iglesia ni Cristo, the largest independent church of the Philippines and a powerhouse in politics.  Due to their ability of delivering a solid block vote, the Iglesia ni Cristo has been credited by many local experts with electing a number of Philippine presidents.

Felix Manalo, the founder of the church in the early part of the 20th century, used biblical passages like Isaiah 43:5-6 and Isaiah 46 to claim that the "true" church of God would be reborn in the Philippines.  He claimed that the Philippines was the location referred to as the "east" or "far east,"  and as the "end of the earth"  in these prophecies. According to one school of thought, Manalo was influenced by the Disciples of Christ, who were also known as the "Church of Christ."   The name "Iglesia ni Christo" translates to "Church of Christ."  If this view of Manalo's influences is correct, then his views may have been directly influenced by the writings of Streator, a Church of Christ minister, with some reinterpretation of course.

So to this day, in important intellectual and religious circles in the Philippines, these old ideas still play a major role in shaping the national identity of the country.


Anglo-Israelism today

As discussed in earlier postings, Anglo-Israelism survives today in the United States as the movement known as Christian Zionism.  Indeed, the Anglo-Israel movement has played no small part in shaping the present day Arab-Israeli conflict.

On the other side of the pond, Queen Victoria had shown a penchant for Anglo-Israelism.  Streator quotes a news article published in the Pittsburgh Daily Post of Sept. 10, 1899 in which the queen claims to be a descendant of King David:

London, Sep. 10th. Queen Victoria, it is reported, has sent to Emperor William a prized copy of her family tree, showing King David at the top.  A pet idea entertained by the Queen is that she is descended from the Psalmist thru Zedekiah's eldest daughter, and it is said that Emperor William's conviction of his divine origin is greatly due to his grandmother's foible."

Just as the Spanish had used extra-biblical works like Pseudo-Methodius to bolster their claims as heirs of prophecy, the Anglo-Israelists used works like the Celtic Book of Tephi to support their own arguments. According to that work a prophet arrived in Ireland in ancient times with a daughter of King David to continue the royal lineage.

Queen Victoria's favorite prime minister Benjamin Disraeli was the nation's first and only person of Jewish ancestry to hold that office. He was raised by Victoria to the peerage becoming the 1st Earl of Beaconsfield.  Although baptized as a teen into the Anglican Church, Disraeli wrote what was probably the first modern Zionist novel.

When Theodor Herzl, generally considered the father of modern national Zionism, was asked to give a list of profiles to the newspaper Die Welt of "representative exponents of the Zionist idea," he placed Disraeli's name at the top.

The First Zionist Congress took place in 1897, the year following the start of the Philippine Revolution and the year preceding the Spanish-American War.  In 1899, near the end of Queen Victoria's reign, the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland  was established.

Decades later in 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour would send the Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild for conveyance to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Balfour Declaration, of course, declared the British policy of establishing a homeland for Jews in Palestine.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Raleigh, Walter. The History of the World.: In Five Books. Viz. Treating of the Beginning and First Ages of Same from the Creation Unto Abraham. Of the Birth of Abraham to the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Time of Philip of Macedon. From the Reign of Philip of Macedon to the Establishing of That Kingdom in the Race of Antigonus. From Settled Rule of Alexander's Successors in the East Until the Romans (Prevailing Over All) Made Conquest of Asia and Macedon. Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. and sold by all Booksellers, 1820, 99.

Streator, Martin Lyman. The Anglo-American Alliance in Prophecy: Or, the Promises to the Fathers. London: Werner, 1900.

The Methodist Review vol. LXXXI. New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1899, 585.

The Homiletic Review vol. 36, July 1898. New York: Funk & Wagnalls], 286.

Sumatra site may have oldest megaliths, relief

A new megalithic discovery in South Sumatra has been tentatively dated to 5000 BCE along with a relief showing a woman along with two children riding an elephant, and people under attack by crocodiles and snakes.

If the dating is confirmed, this will be the oldest megalithic site and the oldest relief found in Southeast Asia. Possibly also the earliest evidence suggesting the use of tamed elephants.

Although there is no identification of the culture involved mentioned in the article, the period of 5000 BCE would fit into Wilhelm Solheim's suggested chronology for the dispersion of the Nusantao. The latter people used megaliths especially dolmens according to Solheim.

Megalithic site found in South Sumatra

Wed, 02/17/2010 2:13 PM | The Archipelago

PALEMBANG, South Sumatra: A megalithic settlement has recently been unearthed at Skendal village, 10 kilometers from the town of Pagaralam in South Sumatra.

Irfan Wintarto, an official at the Lahat Culture and Tourism Agency's Historical and Archeological Preservation Department, said local residents had discovered around 36 types of rocks on a 150-by-300-meter plot in the middle of a 2-hectare coffee plantation. The site is currently being investigated by the Archeological Region Conservation and Heritage Center (BPPP).

"The findings are believed to date back to around 5,000 B.C.," Irfan said.

"The types of rocks and megaliths found are quite diverse."

Among the items are a mortar and a 1-by-1.3-meter relief showing a woman riding an elephant with two children, and people being attacked by crocodiles and large snakes, as well as several altars believed to have been used for offerings. - JP

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Red Gold of Alchemy

According to the Chinese historical text Shiji, the 2nd century BCE wizard Li Shaojun advised the Qin Emperor to make food vessels of cinnabar turned into gold to help prolong life.

Li Shaojun learned the formula for "cinnabar gold" from Master Anqi of Penglai. According to later texts, cinnabar gold was "red gold." The Shiji states that when emissary Xu Fu was sent as an emissary to find Master Anqi, he encountered a 'great spirit' at sea that led him toward the southeast toward Sandao "Three Islands" of which Penglai was the most noteworthy.

Some 1800 years later, we hear of Japanese merchants who traveled to Mishima 三島 由 (Chinese: Sandao 三島), where they sought highly-prized jars. Mishima or the "Three Islands" at that time consisted of Luzon, Taiwan and Macau. Of these, Luzon was the most important in terms of its highly prized Ruson-tsubo wares.


Golden bird ornaments at Ayala Museum


While many years had passed between these two periods, I believe there is a connection between the cinnabar gold food and drink vessels of Master Anqi of Penglai, and the Ruson-tsubo wares used for tea ceremonies by the Japanese shoguns and emperor.

Now in terms of the location of Sandao and Penglai, as noted Xu Fu was lead by sea to the southeast and I discuss Penglai's location and related geographic areas in the post Qingtong, Lord Lad of the East.

Penglai continues to figure in historical and semi-historical texts into the late ancient period in which it is directly related to the region of Fusang -- a connection that was indirectly hinted at in earlier sources. In the Tang Dynasty, the area was known as Foshi, and in the Sung Dynasty, Sanyu (三嶼) and Sanfotsi were probably equated with Sandao.

The placename Sandao appears again in historical records during the Yuan Dynasty, as a kingdom along the Eastern Ship Route.



Transmuting to gold

In my post on tumbaga and alchemy, I suggest that the "transmutation" of metals like copper into gold may have been an ancient reference to depletion gilding. In the last posting on goldworking, I discuss the practice in the Philippines of using red earth mixed with salt for depletion gilding at the last stage to remove any silver at the surface.

We cannot assume that the ancients understood the chemical processes at work, and it may be that they actually viewed depletion gilding as a transmutation of an alloy into pure gold. As noted, early Europeans like Juan de Salcedo and Hernando Riquel commented that even the most skilled silversmiths during the Renaissance period could not distinguish such alloys. The touchstone assay did not work, and de Salcedo says that only melting down the objects, i.e., the fire assay, could reveal the truth.

The red earth, then, could have been seen as the Philosopher's Stone, the magical material that transmutes base metals into gold.

In reality, it is believed that the red earth contained ferrous sulphate that when sufficiently heated releases its sulfur. The sulfur combines with silver to form silver sulfate. The metal is cooled and the silver sulfate is polished off leaving a pure gold surface.

During the medieval period, the Philosopher's Stone was generally thought of as a red substance. Many Chinese alchemists believed that cinnabar was the Philosopher's Stone, while the Muslims used the name al-Kibrit al-Ahmar الكبريت الأحمر "red sulfur."

The idea of the red color may come from the notion of cinnabar changed into gold during the Qin Empire. What this may refer to is the process of depletion gilding in Penglai that was taught by the Master Anqi. The technique may have used the same red earth that was mentioned some 2,000 years later in the same region.

Red earth gets its color normally either from the presence of iron or cinnabar in the soil or clay. In many cultures, red earth or red ochre is viewed in relation to blood, the fluid of life. In ancient China, it was cinnabar-rich earth rather than red ochre that was thought of in this manner.

So, the ancient Chinese alchemists may have viewed the red earth used for depletion gilding as cinnabar -- the Philosopher's Stone that transmutes base metals into gold.



The color red

Red ochre, red clay and the red color have a very important role in Philippine archaeology and ethnography. The archaeologist Jesus T. Peralta wrote a book" "The tinge of red: prehistory of art in the Philippines," the title of which highlights the importance of this color.

Red ochre was used in some of the earliest burials in the country such as those found at Tabon and Arku caves. The ochre was used to paint burial pottery, and skeletons were painted with red ochre before secondary burial. In some cases, skeletons were completely buried in red ochre. In Pila, Laguna, basins of red ochre (adobe) were used for cremation rites.

The color red was used for the clothing of warriors and their wives, and for the clothing of chiefs and nobles. To this day, indigenous peoples in the Philippines still use red as an important ritual color. The Kalinga see red as the color of health, strength and power. José Semblante Buenconsejo writes concerning the Manobo of Mindanao that the color red represents ritual blood, which in turn gives "fire, life, vitality to those persons and objects" involved in the ritual. The ancient Bisayans were said to have painted their bodies with red clay.

Blood of sacrifices was often smeared on sick people by the local healers due to its perceived health-giving property. And blood along with clay have an important role in the stories of creation in the Philippines and throughout the Southeast Asian region.

Damiana Eugenio gives 15 examples of Philippine myths in which humans, animals or other living things are formed out of clay. In one of these, the clay is mixed with blood. Among the Igorots of Sagada, red clay receives its color from mixture with human blood. In nearby Borneo, there are many myths in which blood is used as a temper for the clay used to form humans and other living things.



Volcanic clay and blood

Mt. Pinatubo's name can be interpreted as the "One that causes birth, sprouting, growth, conception, originating, beginning...," as opposed to Mt. Arayat to the east, also known as Mt. Sinukuan. The latter name comes from suku, which refers instead to death, surrender and ending.

The name of Pinatubo's deity (Apo Namalyari) can be interpreted as "One who enables" or "One who makes possible," and is in-keeping with the idea of Apo Namalyari as the creator god. In many regional myths, creation takes place after catastrophic events. For example, in a Bontoc Igorot myth, Lumawig creates the plants, animals and humans after a great battle between the Earth and Waters in which great stones are hurled through the air and the world is covered by a great flood. In a Bukidnon myth, the great Magbabaya gods allow themselves to be killed so their bodies and blood can be used for creation. A great rain of blood from one Magbabaya sinks into the ground and becomes animals, fish and plants.

Pinatubo's eruptions, I have suggested, were seen by ancient observers as a type of cosmic birth pangs and delivery -- originally of the entire creation and subsequently of the new golden age. The volcanic ash and lahar would then be the cosmic afterbirth.

Volcanic ash slowly weathers into clay at the rate of about 1 meter every 200 years, but the process begins immediately. Thus, witnesses to an ancient eruption could see thin layers of clay arising from weathered volcanic ash. Such clay was considered the building block of living things and this may not be too far from the scientific truth. A recent theory suggests that life, or at least the amino acids necessary for life, may have originated in volcanic clay. Such clay usually contains all the elements necessary to create life plus a volcanic gas, carbonyl sulfide (COS), that may have acted as a catalyst for the formation of amino acid chains.

Ancient observers would have been particularly interested in red clay, since they could have seen the red color as representing the cosmic uterine blood, the life fluid of red-blooded creatures like humans. In this red clay, one could reasonably expect to find the "secret ingredient" to health and longevity.

The red clay on its own was significant enough, so that if we add the added quality of its apparent ability to transmute other metals into gold -- the most stable of metals -- we can see how easily this red earth could be interpreted as the Philosopher's Stone. And how jars and other vessels made from this red clay would have certain "magical" qualities.

Thus, we find that the Philippine goldsmiths also used red earth to give gold a reddish tint, and maybe also with the idea that the red earth could help preserve golden heirlooms. The purer types of gold were handed down as heirlooms and relics. These heirlooms were considered sacred and were connected with the ancestors, and one's fate on the earth.

Even lowland Christianized Filipinos have kept such heirlooms until recent times. In Pampanga, heirloom jewelry is usually called tumbaga, interestingly enough, regardless of what it was made of. My paternal grandmother had a tumbaga heirloom that she had melted down and turned into rings for her children.

Red gold must have been ancient because one of the Proto-Austronesian reconstructions for "gold" *bulaw-an suggests a metal of a reddish color (bulaw "reddish, reddish gold"). Indeed, in the Philippines, the term pula in Ilocano and Tagalog refers primarily to tinting gold into a reddish color with red ochre (Tag. gintong pula "red gold"). Givin that there is another suggested Proto-Austronesian word for gold *emas, it may be that *bulaw-an referred originally to an ancient gold that was colored with red earth. The oldest archaeological gold in the Philippines is estimated to date to at least 450 BCE to 250 BCE, although the actual sites involved, like those at Duyong Cave were not dated. We will probably have to wait for further discoveries to get the oldest dates for gold in the country.

Possibly ancient Chinese alchemists confused the use of sacred red clay jars and symbolic red gold, for the idea that metals changed into gold with red earth, i.e. cinnabar, could be used to create live-giving vessels for food and drink. Or the original practice drifted in this direction. At a latter date, this idea morphed into a belief that the "elixir of life" was colloidal gold made with mercury extracted from cinnabar.


Sacred jars

Earthenware jars were among the ancient heirlooms kept in Pampanga and the surrounding region. Among the Kapampangans, these were known as balasini, and they were still being kept during late Spanish times. However, the people were beginning to lose the old ways, and the balasini were often sold at spectacular prices to merchants from Japan and elsewhere. As people became "modernized," they no longer shared the values that motivated their ancestors to keep these heirlooms. In the same way, many tumbaga jewelry heirlooms, which tended to last longer because of more practical value, were eventually sold or melted down.

The "Luzon Jars" were known for their unique ability to preserve tea leaves and tea stored in them. Jean Mallat, writing in the 1840s, tells of the red clay water jars in Cebu that "impart great freshness to the water they held."

Indeed even many people still alive today can attest to how the old clay water jars seem to keep water fresher and sweeter than other sources. In ancient times, when there were no water purification plants, refrigerators, etc. such a quality could not be underestimated.

Now, the red clay jars high is sulfur would be the best types in this regard since sulfur is a natural preservative agent and would inhibit the growth of microbes, fungi and mold. Thus the red clay used for depletion gilding, known in Pampanga as sapo, would be the very best because of its high sulfur content. Some volcanoes, like Mt. Pinatubo, release high sulfur volcanic ash that becomes high sulfur volcanic clay. However, red clay containing ferrous sulphate would have been valued for use as sangag, the mixture of red earth and salt, used for "transmutation" purposes since ferrous sulphate has a fairly low combustion point. At about 600°C or well below the melting point of gold, ferrous sulphate releases sulfur as sulfur trioxide gas, which reacts with silver allowing the resulting compound to be polished off from the surface.

With these qualities, the red clay jars would indeed match the spiritual and mundane significations of the color red and the primordial clay ingredient of life. Such jars would have been highly valued and never traded originally, but instead handed down as heirlooms.


Gold elixir

In China, alchemy took two directions. One was toward "aurifiction," the creation of an artificial "gold." Interestingly, the related gold alloy was actually known as "purple sheen gold" and had a purple or violet surface rather than a gold-colored one. The outward tinting was created by a patina consisting of a coating of various substance including cinnabar, mercury and realgar that is pickled in vinegar (acetic acid) and copper salts.

The other type of metallurgical alchemy involved the creation of colloidal suspensions of gold particles and other elixirs of colloidal minerals. These elixirs used mercury to dissolve gold and other metals, and the practice apparently developed in China from whence it spread throughout Asia into Europe and Africa.

Most of this diffusion happened during the "Tantric period" of the Middle Ages when there was a great exchange of culture between South Asia and East/Southeast Asia. With the Muslim conquests, many ideas were absorbed by the Muslim invaders and transmitted by them to Europe and Africa. The Muslim alchemist Geber apparently was primarily responsible for relaying the alchemy of gold elixirs into Europe.


Diane de Pointers, mistress of 16th century king Henry II of France died of poisoning from gold elixirs, scientists have discovered (Source: Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6865939/French-kings-mistress-poisoned-by-gold-elixir.html)


The alchemist "Nagarjuna" who is said to have imported the goddess Tara and mercury from "Mahacina," into India may have come originally from Vietnam or somewhere else on mainland Southeast Asia.

In addition to the metallurgical alchemy, aspects of "inner alchemy" also arose during this period of Tantric exchange. Some ideas originated from Daoist meditation practices. Aspects of hatha or kundalini yoga might be termed "volcano yoga" in that they use volcanic imagery in describing the efforts to generate internal "heat" through meditation. In Tibet, this is known as tummo yoga and was imported by Naropa at around the same time that the Kalacakra doctrine arrives in that country.

The inner union of "mercury" and "sulfur" may be compared to the geologic co-mingling between Pinatubo and Arayat before an eruption. In the myths of the battles between these two mountains, the fighting always accompanies courtship between the gods of the two peaks. The eruption creates the clay of Sun (Arayat) and Moon (Pinatubo) providing the substance for the creation of life or the start of a new golden age. The red clay represented the substance that unites all living things with the Earth (and Sky).

In internal alchemy, the union of the two principles creates "heat" sometimes symbolized as a fiery pearl. In Kapampangan parlance, we can call this pearl Mutia (Mutya, Mukti), the fire or spirit that creates life or drives the New Age on the cosmic scale, and on the personal level helps the practitioner unite with the pantheistic whole.

Serlingpa, the king of the "Golden Island," included elements of internal alchemy in the Kalacakra Tantra, and also possibly in the Vimalaprabhu commentary, which according to John Newman he may also have authored. The Kalacakra promoted pluralism and universalism by focusing on the interconnection and interdependence of all things, particularly as revealed by the cycles of time.



Philosopher's Stone for sale

As the people of the Luzon adopted a new religion, the value of the ancient clay jars became limited to their practical usage as water or beverage containers. The importance of ancestral heirlooms faded as the culture changed. Certainly the jars in their mind were not worth the astounding sums offered for them.

However, the indigenous people along with groups from afar still seemed to recognize the ancient value assigned to these jars. In many cases, it is otherwise impossible to explain the fact that owners would not part with these jars for any price, or that buyers would offer to pay extravagant prices for wares that were old and fragile.

The most valued Luzon Jars in Japan were the old ones made of earthenware described as reddish-brown, brown, red or dark in color.

Interestingly, the sulfurous products have again become prominent in local commerce after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. Pinatubo Lake is rich in sulphates and tour guides advertise the healthy benefits of bathing in the sulfurous waters. At a nearby Korean-owned spa, facials or full body treatments in sulfur-rich ash and mud are offered to tourists, again for their claimed benefits to skin and health.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento


References

Buenconsejo, José S. Songs and Gifts at the Frontier: Person and Exchange in the Agusan Manobo Possession Ritual, Philippines (Current Research in Ethnomusicology, Outstanding
Dissertations, vol. 4), Routledge, 2001, 147-8.

Gerrard, John. Mountain Environments: An Examination of the Physical Geography of Mountains. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1990, 201.

Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 5, part 2. London: C.U.P., 1974.

Raedt, Jules de. Kalinga Sacrifice. Cordillera monograph, 04. Baguio City: Cordillera Studies Center, University of the Philippines College Baguio, 1989, 92.

White, David Gordon. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

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.