The Philippines: Cultural Heritage

[Stormer0628]

Okay. So I originally just wanted to feature the Glimpses of the Old Lady of the Pacific video.

Almost forgot this thread just now, and I realize I could try to expand it to include cultural snapshots of other regions of the whole archipelago from way back. I don't want to harbor overly ambitious direction for this thread, but I do hope to include cultural gems of the nation that we could pass on to the younger generations and make them show more love and appreciation for their homeland.

If you care about what I'm rambling about, you might want to add resources (lalo na yung mga regional lang) you know to enrich this thread. This is not just mine, it's for all those country-loving citizens out there. Mabuhay ka inang bayan. Yan ha.

NOTE: In the course of doing this thread, I would be using materials from many resources that are not mine, unless specifically indicated. Hence, I hope if you like what you saw and you have the time, take time to thank the original sources. I did.

Manila: Glimpses of the Old Lady of the Pacific
This is a snapshot of Manila before the last world war. Let's travel back in time!

 

[Stormer0628]

The Philippines 1898-1930​

This one comes with a haunting background music.

Enjoy!

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[taolaba]

THE FILIPINO-AMERICAN WAR 1898

 

[Stormer0628]

THE FILIPINO-AMERICAN WAR 1898

Thanks, man. I actually thought this article belongs here, too, just as it does in the AA thread. This is also related to some thoughts I've expressed here.

As I've noted, I wanted to expand this particular thread to embrace many aspects of Philippine culture, but I realized I will have to go back a long way, to the time of peopling of this islands (prehistoric), hopefully using the theme of that other thread of mine about genetics to tie things up how we connect with the rest of humanity after Africa.

First thing I notice is the convoluted dataset when we come across the colonial period, and I have in mind first the American occupation era initially. I was struck, first by the views from America itself (remember that video of yours about the Catholic Church?), the views of Filipinos (historians, let's say), and the parallels of the African-American struggles in the US, which brought them back to the traditions of the African heartland itself. I intend to use some of the running thoughts they have come upon, because I realized they kind of speak for the Philippine situation as well as for many countries who went through colonial periods themselves (South America). The task then appeared more daunting than I first realized, highlighted in some way by the controversies surrounding the Ten Bornean Datus that an American historian appears to have junked as pure fictionalizing by a previous overzealous source (let me get back to this later)....

Dito muna, haha. Balikan ko to later.

Update: Finally read it, but skipped the last few paragraphs—for mental health maintenance. My word: this isn't history—this is a grisly horror tale at a level of those Stephen King works.

What to make of it?

The Paris Treaty was a sham. The powers do as they will, even exterminating humanity like ants or roaches while presenting a straight face to the rest of the world. The fate of the weak. Pawns against major pieces. Sacrificial lambs. Native Americans, native Filipinos, native etc., etc. their fates are written in blood as long as they never learn as the Japs or the Swiss: you can be small but bite big so the predators don't always get you. Hell. I'd like a list of those traitors. They live now and flourish even. Surprised a Legarda and Paterno would come out prominently. Can't believe how they'd even composed some of my professional circles for a time.

Be back later. That piece is a major league shaker indeed....

 

[taolaba]

Thanks, man. I actually thought this article belongs here, too, just as it does in the AA thread. This is also related to some thoughts I've expressed here.

As I've noted, I wanted to expand this particular thread to embrace many aspects of Philippine culture, but I realized I will have to go back a long way, to the time of peopling of this islands (prehistoric), hopefully using the theme of that other thread of mine about genetics to tie things up how we connect with the rest of humanity after Africa.

First thing I notice is the convoluted dataset when we come across the colonial period, and I have in mind first the American occupation era initially. I was struck, first by the views from America itself (remember that video of yours about the Catholic Church?), the views of Filipinos (historians, let's say), and the parallels of the African-American struggles in the US, which brought them back to the traditions of the African heartland itself. I intend to use some of the running thoughts they have come upon, because I realized they kind of speak for the Philippine situation as well as for many countries who went through colonial periods themselves (South America). The task then appeared more daunting than I first realized, highlighted in some way by the controversies surrounding the Ten Bornean Datus that an American historian appears to have junked as pure fictionalizing by a previous overzealous source (let me get back to this later)....

Dito muna, haha. Balikan ko to later.

Update: Finally read it, but skipped the last few paragraphs—for mental health maintenance. My word: this isn't history—this is a grisly horror tale at a level of those Stephen King works.

What to make of it?

The Paris Treaty was a sham. The powers do as they will, even exterminating humanity like ants or roaches while presenting a straight face to the rest of the world. The fate of the weak. Pawns against major pieces. Sacrificial lambs. Native Americans, native Filipinos, native etc., etc. their fates are written in blood as long as they never learn as the Japs or the Swiss: you can be small but bite big so the predators don't always get you. Hell. I'd like a list of those traitors. They live now and flourish even. Surprised a Legarda and Paterno would come out prominently. Can't believe how they'd even composed some of my professional circles for a time.

Be back later. That piece is a major league shaker indeed....

I felt the same way as you when I'd read this and comparing what they want us to think of them today, downright outrageous!

 

[Stormer0628]

Genetics : Peopling the Philippines

View attachment 293813
FROM OUT OF AFRICA TO ASIA

View attachment 293814
PHILIPPINE HISTORY: TIMELINE

View attachment 293815 View attachment 293816
Which set is of Filipinos?​

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Current genetic profiling of the whole human populations on Earth reveals some startling information that defies many age-old beliefs. In the case of the Philippines, it pertains to the following:

• There is basically no Malay stock, as much as we held on to this belief for the longest time from our school/academic days.
• What is true instead is that all Southeast Asian people share many common genes with the general Austronesian, Asian-Denisovan line, Southeast Asian type, and most Pacific Islands type.
• Here's a total shocker: taking into account the current hostility of many Filipinos against China, it should really shake them to the core once they know that their genes point all the way from Taiwan to the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau of China. Yes, you may read that again and then look at the third set of pictures above, because one is of Filipinos, while another one is of Chinese. Which is which, you think??

Updated:
REFERENCES:
Timeline of Philippine History
Philippine mitochondrial DNA diversity: a populated viaduct between Taiwan and Indonesia
Complete mtDNA genomes of Filipinos reveal recent and ancient lineages

 

[Stormer0628]

Ulit, break muna sa depressing parts of Philippine history.

Ito muna...

Detail of video: Philippines (Champion Team) - 2009 World Culture Folk Dance Competition
Division: Adult Large Group
Team Name: The Philippines Performing Arts Company of Tampa Bay
Dance: SINGKIL
Represent: The Philippines
From: Tampa, FL, USA

 

[Stormer0628]

Philippine Culture Before the Spanish: Primitive or Advanced?

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The pre-Spanish history of Philippines is shrouded in mystery. Worse, Filipinos walk the lands of their mothers without bothering to question the traitorous, poisonous mentality injected in their consciousness by their historical abusers. Now the mist around the Philippines is clearing thanks to recent discoveries.

The Spaniards, wherever they went, destroyed the local culture, plundered their gold, and massacred the people, sparing only those who converted to Christianity to drain their energies for life. But recent artifacts and references to the Philippines even by such ancient cultural masters as India, China, and Greece bear testament to the fact that far from being the purely G-stringed animistic natives, Spain arrived in the islands at a time when the native populations were already steeped in the more advanced civilizations of neighbors India and China, and are even genetically related to the great Sa Huỳnh culture that founded the Champa kingdom that included such historical giants as the Khmer and Sri Vijayan Empires.

What transpired in the Philippines parallels the recent shameful overload of evidence that the South Americas were in fact home to civilizations in many ways more advanced than the European powers that unfortunately found them in the lowest transitional periods of their continent, after the great Aztec, Mayan, Incan, and Olmec cultures went down from natural and man-made tragedies long before the smug and culturally ignorant Spanish powers overpowered them with trickery and deadly diseases.

The Philippines is a country of more than 7000 islands. Nobody asked or wondered what those places were called before they named it “ Philippines” just 400 years ago. They had their own names, their own culture, but they were ignored as primitive and uncivilized. Were they correct and justified doing that...?

Philippine Ancient Artifacts

 

[taolaba]

Philippine Culture Before the Spanish: Primitive or Advanced?

http://www.symbianize.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1167969&stc=1​

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The pre-Spanish history of Philippines is shrouded in mystery. Worse, Filipinos walk the lands of their mothers without bothering to question the traitorous, poisonous mentality injected in their consciousness by their historical abusers. Now the mist around the Philippines is clearing thanks to recent discoveries.

The Spaniards, wherever they went, destroyed the local culture, plundered their gold, and massacred the people, sparing only those who converted to Christianity to drain their energies for life. But recent artifacts and references to the Philippines even by such ancient cultural masters as India, China, and Greece bear testament to the fact that far from being the purely G-stringed animistic natives, Spain arrived in the islands at a time when the native populations were already steeped in the more advanced civilizations of neighbors India and China, and are even genetically related to the great Sa Huỳnh culture that founded the Champa kingdom that included such historical giants as the Khmer and Sri Vijayan Empires.

What transpired in the Philippines parallels the recent shameful overload of evidence that the South Americas were in fact home to civilizations in many ways more advanced than the European powers that unfortunately found them in the lowest transitional periods of their continent, after the great Aztec, Mayan, Incan, and Olmec cultures went down from natural and man-made tragedies long before the smug and culturally ignorant Spanish powers overpowered them with trickery and deadly diseases.

The Philippines is a country of more than 7000 islands. Nobody asked or wondered what those places were called before they named it “ Philippines” just 400 years ago. They had their own names, their own culture, but they were ignored as primitive and uncivilized. Were they correct and justified doing that...?

Philippine Ancient Artifacts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn7nqNAoVd4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZM9EH0BKD8​

We are not quite as savage as they thought even before the damned spaniards came we already have a political, justice and trading systems. We even revered women as heroes, homosexuals are well tolerated and the chinese loved trading with our ancestors.

 

[troy macintosh]

Before the spaniards came, Islam was already established.

 

[Stormer0628]

Before the spaniards came, Islam was already established.

Indeed, Islam was here before the Spaniards came with Christianity tagging along.

Recent findings, however, throw support to a more surprising fact: Indian influence had been around since around 1000 BC—which would mean that before Islam reached the islands circa 1240, Indian culture in the islands had been widespread for 2240 years! Read that again, because it means that even if we combine Islam and Christian hegemony in the Philippines, they wouldn't come near the impact of Indian culture, even if only a very few are aware of this right now. Is it any wonder then that much of our language, either Tagalog or Bisayan, are mostly 25% Sanskrit or Indian? Indian presence is also strong in our traditional folklore (even those in Muslim territories), food, music, craftsmanship, dance, even martial arts.

This information is of staggering, epic proportions, which just shows us how much knowledge we had lost with the Spanish penchant for destroying native records just as they did in South America. But we are recovering bit by bit of our former selves, and I'll try to navigate those issues and post here soon as I could. Right now I'll leave with this:

Asia in 200 BC, showing Sa Huynh and their neighbors.
by Talessman at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, here

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[Stormer0628]

A glimpse of what it was back in the day when cameras were just making their way into the world. These are claimed to be the oldest photos shot in the Philippines. These were taken during the 1800s, somewhere in the 1840s–1850s say the sources. The images used daguerreotype cameras, one of the predecessors of the modern-day camera!

Want more? This site features the same pictures, along with more details....

 

[Stormer0628]

Philippine Prehistory: Notable Facts

The First Humans to Settle the Philippines

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500,000 Years Ago: The Cagayan Man (Homo erectus Philippinensis)
Evidence of the presence of the earliest humans in the Philippines goes back 500,000 years ago, from eary types of humans—Homo erectus Philippinensis—in Cagayan Cave.

Homo erectus is an extinct hominid species that dates back from 2.58 million years to 70,000 years ago. The species rose from Eastern and Northern Africa probably as a result of broad desertifying conditions developing then in eastern and northern Africa; it joined the migrations through the "Saharan pump" and dispersed around much of the Old World. The fossil record shows that its development from about 1.8 mya to one mya was widely distributed: in Africa (Lake Turkana and Olduvai Gorge), the Transcaucasus (Dmanisi in Georgia), Indonesia(Sangiran, Central Java and Trinil, East Java), and in Vietnam, China (Zhoukoudian and Shaanxi), and India.

The Cagayan Man is believed to have followed prehistoric animals to the then uninhabited Philippines from another area, through land bridges that connected the islands to the rest of the continent. The Cagayan Valley was then wet and marshy, and Cagayan Man opted to live in the drier forests surrounding the area.

The Cagayan Man settled in communities that consisted of thirty to sixty individuals each, occupying an area of around ten kilometers. Families, composed of close kin and extended relatives, marked out their own territories. The communities settled in areas where food was plentiful and moved to another place when the food supply started to run out.

55,000 Years Ago: The Arrival of Homo sapiens Palawan (Tabon Cave)
These people are part of the OoA (Out of Africa) migration of modern humans around 50,000–70,000 years ago.

40,000 Years Ago: The Arrival of Negritos

8,000 Years Ago: Arrival of Chinese in Rizal, Indians in Laguna spreading throughout other regions
That the Indians and Chinese played a significant role in the prehistoric peopling and cultural development of the Philippines should not be a cause of wonder, considering that these two countries had large ancient populations and achieved great civilization milestones along with Sumeria and Egypt. Their traders carried with them their own religion and other cultural artifacts, planting them to most of Asia and Southeast Asia.

In fact the first notable prehistoric period of the Philippines involved its own jade culture—mostly identified with Chinese influence—which covers a period from 2,000 BC to 1,500 BC!

Next topic: The Philippine Jade Culture

 

[Stormer0628]

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Rethinking Human Civilization​

The latest archaeological findings suggest that there is a need to rethink the emergence of global culture and civilization. Nowhere is this more evident in the discovery of the Varna Culture in Bulgaria, which challenges the long-held belief that Sumeria, the Indus Valley, Egypt, and China hold the oldest known high civilizations in the ancient world. Then there is the Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which questions the model that agriculture came first before any known large-scale cultural structures appeared in human history.

A rather tantalizing thought is this: were the Africans who left Africa (circa 50,000 to 70,000 years ago in the so-called Out of Africa—OoA—model) to populate the world possessed of higher cultural knowledge than any of our current understanding say, becoming the very seed of sudden emergence of high civilizations in many parts of the world?

The Jade Culture of the Philippines (From at Least 2000 BC–1500BC)​

The oldest jade artefacts in Asia (6000 BC) were found in China where they were used as the primary hardstone of Chinese sculpturing. In 3000 BC, jade production in the Hongsan and Liangzhu cultures of China reached its peak. During this period, the knowledge of jade craftsmanship spread across the sea to Taiwan and eventually to the Philippines.

The artefacts discovered in several sites in the Philippines were made from nephrite.

Nephrite, otherwise known as Jade, is a mineral widely used throughout Asia as ornaments or for decorative purposes.

Nephrite excavated in the Philippines were of two types: white nephrite and green nephrite.[SUP][3][/SUP] Imported jade from Taiwan sparked artistic and technological innovations during the first millennium AD in the Philippines. The jade trade between the two countries lasted for at least 2,000 years, from 500 BC to AD 1000. Eventually, native Filipino artisans added a great amount of styles and techniques to the international jade industry. These skills and styles reached other parts of the world such as New Zealand.


Philippine Jade Artifacts or Jade Culture made from white and green nephrite and dating as far back as 2000–1500 BC, has been discovered at a number of archeological excavations in the Philippines since the 1930s. The artifacts have been both tools like chisels, and ornaments such as lingling-o earrings, bracelets and beads.

"Jade culture" in the Philippines is supported by evidence of tens of thousands of exquisitely crafted jade artifacts found at a site in Batangas province. Other locations in the Philippines where an extensive amount of nephrite artifacts were found include: Rizal, Quezon, Bulacan and Laguna; Baha and Ulilang Bundok in Calatagan; Ille Rock shelter in northern Palawan and the Siargao island in Surigao del Norte. Green nephrite artefacts were also uncovered at sites in Cagayan Valley, Cagayan, Isabela, Batangas, Masbate Island, Sorsogon and Central Palawan.

In 2004, an Anaro nephrite workshop was discovered by Peter Bellwood and Eusebio Dizon at Itbayat Island in Batanes. Several green nephrite artefacts such as adzes, ornaments and fragments were found at the Anaro workshop, as well as sites on the neighbouring islands of Sunget and Savidug. The site is believed to be where nephrite tools and ornaments were manufactured, hence the name.

The oldest green nephrite artefact is a pair of bracelets recovered from the base of Nagsabaran in the Cagayan Valley.[SUP][5][/SUP] The mineral composition of these artefacts are consistent with that of Fengtian nephrite and have been dated to be around 3500–4000 years old.

Jade and Language Traveled Together​

The widespread exchange through trading of jade and other articles in Asia-Southeast Asia also introduced the use of a common language to facilitate these trade transactions and other activities. This is the reason many of these nations show a shared linguistic heritage.

Hsiao-Chun Hung, at the Australian National University in Canberra, suggests that this trading carried language with it. Today, Austronesian languages are spoken by about 350 million people in Southeast Asia and Oceania. The languages are thought to have started spreading as a people migrated from Taiwan to the Philippines 4,000 years ago. And the distribution of these languages closely mirrors the distribution of Fengtian jade, says Hung.

5,000 Years Old Jade Earrings Betray Long-Route Seafaring​

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The Asian-Southeast Asian Jade Culture implies that a lot of things were going on during this period. A picture of lively town centers and prolific cultural exchanges emerges, running parallel with what’s going on in other cultural heartlands in other parts of the world during this time.

"I think [ancient Southeast Asian cultures] were more advanced than we thought. These are very widespread connections. We really had no idea that this jade from Taiwan was traveling so far." said co-author Peter Bellmore, an archaeologist at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.

The jade artifacts were found in 49 sites in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, the majority close to ancient skeletons buried in jars or on the sides of skulls, pointing they were earrings, most probably used by noble class members and wearing marks of having been worn.

The ratio of iron, magnesium and zinc chromite in the jade revealed that 116 artifacts coming from 38 different sites was extracted from the Fengtian jade deposit (eastern Taiwan). The origin of the other 28 artifacts is still unknown.

"Archaeologists have noticed the jade artifacts had similar styles and shapes across different Asian regions since the 1940s. But we never thought it was from the same source until we tested it," said lead author Hsiao-Chun Hung, also at ANU.

Jade is very tough and hard to process, requiring high carving skills and tools. "Only a few highly skilled craftsmen would have the expertise. Most likely, these craftsmen exported the jade as a raw material and then manufactured it into jewelry locally. The jade comes from Taiwan, but a lot of artifacts are not made in Taiwan." said Bellmore.

This is "an important contribution to a matter that deserves more attention: the navigational skills of early Southeast Asian societies," said anthropologist Charles Higham of the University of Otago in New Zealand.

REFERENCES
4000 Years of Migration and Cultural Exchange
5,000 Years Old Jade Earrings Betray Long-Route Seafaring
Jade and language travelled together
Philippine Jade culture

 

[Stormer0628]

blast from the past

REVISITING PHILIPPINE PRECOLONIAL LIFE

or alternatively, read here:


10 Reasons Why Life Was Better in Precolonial Philippines
​

 

[puyasbuto]

nice thread

 

[Alodia143]

Gusto ko din ang Philippine culture natin. Kapag pagpipilian ako kung primitive or advance ay pagdating sa culture, yeah, I choose primitive... primitive na tipo sina-una talaga dahil matriarchal culture raw ang atin. Yeah.

Ang mga homosexual at ang mga babae ay meron talaga sila role bilang spiritual leader. Hawak talaga nila iyon. Ang mga lalake ay role nila is nasa war. Evertime meron war, ang mga sasabak sa war mismo ay dumadaan muna sila sa high priestess para basbasan sila or bigyan sila ng blessings. Magkaiba ang role pero equal.

E nang dumating ang mga espanyol, culture shock sila so binago lahat. Espanyol din ang nagdala ng Catholicism sa mismo kinakatayuan natin at pagkatapos nun, naging contemporary roles na ang lalake at babae kung saan ang babae ay nasa likod ng lalake. Sa present time na ito panahon ngayon, kung saan advance na ang larangan ng siensya at teknolihiya ay majority of the religious leaders are puros men, pagdating sa political at war ay puros men and even lesbian at gay ay hindi na allowed maging spiritual leader in any religious community... Ganun. Nasa patriarchal culture tayo ngayon pero pagdating sa sinasabi Philippine cultural heritage na ipinamana sa atin ng espanyol, well, good naman siya at magaganda nga tingnan ang mga panahon ng espanyol na sinakop tayo for how many years pero... minsan kase ay nakakagalit kapag espanyol ang naririnig sa taenga.

Maganda siya sa maganda pero ang pagtrato ng espanyol sa Filipinos kase ay hindi maganda. E ang Philip nga coming from the spaniard iyon na ang pangalan ng lalake espanyol ay si Philip na una nakakita ng island natin.

Pagkatapos, nagtayo-tayo na sila ng mga buildings sa island mismo na wala ata pasabi-sabi, na basta lang ata nagtayo ng buildings.

Siyempre, ang mga ninuno natin ay nakita kung kagaano kaganda ang benefit na galing sa espanyol. Ang sabi ay magpa convert raw ang ninuno natin as a Christian Catholic para makabenefit sila mismo sa sistema ng mga espanyol so, majority ng ninuno natin ay nagpaconvert.

Maganda sa maganda pero hindi natin malaman kung ma aadmire ba tayo o hinde o ano, e kase, narinig lang na galing spaniards ay nagdadalawang isip na ako. Parang nakakagulo sa isip kung blessed ba tayo dahil sinakop tayo ng espanyol o sadya curse iyon.

Then... dumating ang Amerikano ay sila naman ang nag influence ng Protestantism... iyon ata ang Christian na sinasabi ng iba tao pero hindi Catholic.