#precolonial visayas

[arkipelagic]

From Museum × Stories at Museo Iloilo:

In the 14th and 15th centuries, pre-colonial Filipinos practiced secondary burials, a fascinating ritual where the bones of the deceased were carefully cleaned and placed in coffins made of hardwood. Archaeological discoveries in caves across Western Visayas reveal that these burials were often preceded by elaborate rites. The presence of deformed skulls in many coffins suggests that cranial modification may have played a role in these practices.

One remarkable find was a burial containing a skeleton adorned with gold eye and nose ornaments, declared a National Cultural Treasure. Called the Oton Gold Death Mask is now displayed at National Museum Western Visayas right beside Museo Iloilo. Alongside the burial, 15th-century Chinese, Siamese, and Annamese porcelain were unearthed, highlighting the region's thriving trade connections during that era.

Also in the town of Oton, other burials revealed a wealth of artifacts, including trade ceramics, locally made pottery, iron tools, beads, and semi-precious stones. Additional discoveries included glass and shell bracelets, earthen net weights, spindle whorls, and teeth decorated with gold pegs—symbols of status and wealth. These finds provide a window into the vibrant cultural and trade networks of pre-colonial Panay.

[hwspirilovebot]

datu piri in precolonial visayan attire ✨

[thetalesofrosaspandan]

La Cebuana Primadona

The woman behind the clay mask bore the patterns of age-old warriors.

Download the artwork and poem here:

RGB file - patreon link

CMYK file - patreon link

[belleillumina]

Precolonial Philippines (Visayas Region) - Hatsune Miku

Late to the trend and not 100% accurate in terms of the clothing (still researching on them), but something fun to do outside the main projects.

Timelapse

[kalakian]

If you go to the Gold Museum in Ayala, you’ll notice how much of the treasures come from the Visayas or precolonial Bisayan kingdoms in Mindanao. We imagine this is only a small sliver of what brilliant gold was once held in the abundant rivers & waters of the islands. Although we can commiserate together about the loss, we treasure what does remain: the richness of our islander languages preserving our living cultures! ⭐️ We’re starting Bisayan Language Immersions next week, from August 31 - November 6, 2023 ➡️ Learn with us! bababisaya.com

Ang larawan at impormasyon ay mula sa opisyal na Instagram account ng Bababisaya.

[artstar1997]

June means pride month but it also means that the Philippines’s Independence Day is coming up so I wanna start my art line for June by drawing the noodle bois, Veneer and my oc, Gloss, whom I shipped together in precolonial Filipino outfits, complete with jewelry and in Gloss’s case, tattoos since Zircon is the leader and tattoos in the precolonial era are a symbol of high status. It was hard to design the tattoos because the designs vary from the Kalinga, northern Luzon, Visayas, and all over the Philippines.

Plus, while reading the history of my home country, I found out that before the colonizers from Spain arrived with their narrow-minded ideals, homosexual relations in both sexes were common and bore no stigma in pre-colonial Philippines, which was no big deal for my ancestors. I can't believe this part of history was erased by the colonizers and forgotten for many years.

Background: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/gamepictures/expansionpacks/islandliving/1butterflies.jpg

[primalmuckygoop]

These two are endangered but fascinating animals native to the Philippines, the Philippine Warty Pig (Baboy damo) and Visayan Spotted Deer (Kabang binaw) found in as you probably guessed, the Visayas.

As for the writing, pre-hispanic Philippine scripts are usually collectively described as suyat or surat- alphasyllabries which allowed entire islands to be literate. The script itself is descended from Kawi, a brahmic system one used my most Southeast Asian languages before diverging into scripts like Old Javanese and Sumatran.

I wrote Baboy Dano in the precolonial form of Baybayin (Tagalog Script) which drops final consonants and does not have characters for introduced words

Kabang Binaw I wrote in Suwat Bisaya, the specifically bisaya script using the post-colonial panantang pantingog to kill the final vowel.

[kulay-ng-banaag]

“Not all stories etched with ink and blood were on paper. I just think he gets to keep something.”

Physical Appearance (Tattoos) Headcanons for HWS Philippines

CW: war, violence, mentions of sex

(I'm sorry that sounds like clickbait... it's on the topic of feats that merit a tattoo).

UPDATE (03/09/23): Minor revisions to PH script tattoos

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Age of Eligibility for First Tattooing

Manobo: 10-12 years (pre-puberty) Kalinga: 15-20 years (“coming of age”) Visayan: ~20s (adulthood)

Order of Significance

Manobo: N/A; forearms, back, & chest for men (Only women could tattoo their abdomen and calves as well; interestingly among the 3 styles, tattooing on men's abdomens was sparse, if not left completely blank) Kalinga: Wrist —> Back of hand —> Arms —> Chest (+option: sides of torso/legs) —> Back —> Face Visayan: Ankles -> Legs -> Waist -> Chest -> Back -> Face

My idea of tattooing order for Piri would be as such:

Arms, from the wrist (Manobo)

Legs, from the ankles (Visayan)

Chest (Kalinga)

Back (Kalinga)

By tradition, the tattooist decided on the motif, but recipients could also pitch ideas. Piri's script tattoos were his suggestions.

A fully-tattooed arm would take 1 day to complete, while a Kalinga chest whatok was worth 3 days. The tattoo session could even be halted midway, and either the client expressed to resume on another day or simply ended the process altogether. Men would sometimes deliberately hold back on getting tattooed, but this was not without a buildup of peer pressure over time.

Piri got his forearm pangotoeb while young (for a personification) because he wanted to be like the cool, older folks. Poor baby boy would fail to immediately realize how much the process hurt, and he would frequently make up excuses to delay his sessions.

By the time Piri got his leg tattoos, he would gradually fill them up alongside his upper arms, depending on whether he was wandering around the Visayas region or at the Pantaron mountain range down in Mindanao. For sure, Piri received his Kalinga whiing (chest) and dakag* (back) after those parts had been inked.

Notice how I gave him tattoos from Luzon (Kalinga), Visayas, and Mindanao (Manobo)? Hehe.

What constituted getting a tattoo was not exclusive to warfare achievements or headhunting boons. Anything could be a reason for getting a tattoo, as long as the community itself acknowledged it as valid merit.

What exactly did Piri achieve to earn his tattoos? He changes the story every time you ask him.

Was his butt also inked? Yes. I won't show it for fear of unwittingly getting the boot from this platform.

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Buhid, Tagbanwa, and Kulitan never had a virama (the sign for canceling the inherent vowel). There had been attempts to introduce it in the latter two scripts, but it was never successfully mainstreamed. In writing syllables with canceled vowels, one must retain the original syllable in Tagbanwa and Kulit while you no longer had to write the syllable itself in Buhid. Viramas for Baybayin and Hanunó’o were introduced after the precolonial era, neither of the attempts accomplished by native Filipinos.

In taking these scriptwriting nuances into account, one should enunciate the script as it was being read to discern the word being referred to. Even though it was written as “wa-nga-ya”, a Buhid native would naturally understand it to be read as “way ngayan.” Although anyone could attempt to write in any language with these scripts, I wanted to stick to the intended native tongues to showcase how to properly interpret them.

After doing a guided tour in the National Museum of Anthropology, I opted out of using the "modernized" writing systems in exchange for the "historically utilized" method of not including viramas or writing out a character altogether to eliminate the vowel.

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TRANSLATIONS

Baybayin: Sumpa Kita (Tagalog) - “I Swear”

Depending on the tone, you could be proclaiming a promise or a curse. I love it. It was also the phrase that the name of the Philippine national flower, (sampaguita) originated from, which was also one of Indonesia's national flowers (melati putih). IndoPhil fans, start taking notes.

Kulitan: Tadtad (Kapampangan) - “To cut to small pieces (minced, diced, pinked, etc.)”

There was a saying: "Tadtaran decoman, ing catadtad a mitalandang, iyang maquiasaua queya." It could be roughly translated as: "They me cut me into a million pieces, but even one of those pieces is still good enough to marry 'the one.'" Morbid but romantic, and reflective of Piri’s love for Indo (he’d be that cheesy, okay?)

Tagbanwa: “Tablay” - “To cross hills and mountains”

It was a 4-verse song that narrated a variety of topics, ranging from household chores to community gatherings to expeditions to sentiments (positive or negative) for others. Penultimately the tablay served to express “what comes out from the heart.” That was so quintessential Piri.

Hanunó’o: “Harampanan” - “Discussion”

What was interesting was that the same term referred to both the conversations held in settling disputes and the moment of convening between the parents of a couple to consent to their marriage (or not). He might be a social butterfly, but he was constantly under pressure to fulfill the role of an intermediary.

Buhid: “Way Ngayan” - “No name”

I initially drew a different word and decided to change it as it didn’t fit for Piri to carry something he could never wield. Among the highland Tau-Buhid, it was common practice to answer “way ngayan” when outsiders of the community asked for their names. Instead, the outsiders would give a name to the Tau-Buhid being addressed to, and only then can the Tau-Buhid be allowed to speak to them. It’s funny how the Philippines was a name* christened by an outsider.

*The same goes for my headcanon name for precolonial Piri.

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The first name in the tattoo styles referred to the specific location of residence of the studied ethnolinguistic group. It was not a strict requirement to note it down at all times, but more often than not these groups identified themselves by their location.

Supposedly the Panay-Bukidnon/Suludnon preserved precolonial Visayan tattooing, but the one source I found online described it to be more of a freestyle practice. I was also unable to find images of the tattoos on the people themselves. Nonetheless, there was the Pintados Festival that paid homage to the titular tattooed warriors.

I wanted to point out the visual similarities because tattooists were also traveling practitioners to find clients for their work. It was a possible explanation for why tattooed people (if not the particular tattoo style) were observed across the Visayan islands as well as parts of southern Luzon. In the late 19th century, some Bagobo people shared that they were tattooed by an outsider practitioner. Whang-od herself used to be a traveling tattooist.

This was speculation on my part but I believed it was also possible that tattooists also took inspiration from other styles. Chest tattoos for men in both the Visayan tattoos and Manobo pangotoeb both had radial designs on the areola (which I did not draw for Piri’s chest tattoos simply because they clashed). Who knows, maybe a Manobo tattooist encountered the Visayans and wanted to create their version? I liked to think that the variations in motifs and pattern combinations could double as a tattooist's signature.

I allowed for a few liberties here and there in drawing some tattoo motifs for Piri because, at the end of the day, inspiration could come from anywhere. One could also say the variation lies in how artists created their visual interpretations of the sources of inspiration. Even the Kalinga tattoos made available for tourists are borrowed imagery from other groups! In the past, one Kalinga warrior had an eagle tattoo on his arm that was based on the image on an American coin.

Tattoos were meant to be unique to the individual. Their value on having to be earned was on the basis that they reflected not just the personal histories (if not necessarily achievements) of the wearer, but such histories must also be acknowledged by the community granting them.

That last bit was important because while anyone could pay to be tattooed (and it would still represent something about you), you would be considered a fake. Hiya (shame) was a thorn that penetrated deeper around these parts. Although only the Manobo did not have a stigma for not being tattooed, the social pressures still left a mark on Piri (literally!)

If one relied only on tattoos as a visual cue, one would be unable to distinguish which groups individuals belonged to from a distance. If every one of the most significant leaders were tattooed in the exact same patterns, it would be impossible to recognize who’s who until they formally introduced themselves (which no one would have the time for in the middle of combat!) The Visayans had a set of tattoos that could be used by all, which implied some designs were restricted only among the best of the best.

This was HWS Philippines. If he’s going to be the star, he needed to stand out from the crowd.

It would, however, be awkward for Piri when he spent time with certain other groups that carried a strong contempt for the ones he received his tattoos under. He would not be exempt from the consequences.

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Now here was one more reason why artists/designers should not be afraid to modify on the tattoo motifs (as long as one familiarized themselves with the foundations they worked with): The Butbut Kalinga believe it was taboo to copy older designs, all the more if the original recipient was deceased. So in letting a character don some Kalinga whatok, think twice about perfectly copying every last detail from reference image/s!

In the present day, tattoos for visiting tourists from Whang-Od had to make a selection from a prepared guide, all of them modified for a general audience v.s. designs exclusive to esteemed warriors of the past. I used the former for Piri’s Kalinga whatok.

This was where I addressed the elephant in the room.

My understanding of cultural appropriation was that the offense is in cherry-picking culturally significant symbols & practices and then using them out of their intended context by transforming them into pieces that fit the aesthetic criteria of the dominant - and often oppressive - group.

Save for that one taboo, I did not find any other explicitly recorded statement from either the Butbut Kalinga or the Pantoron Manobo forbidding outsiders from using their tattoos. (Mind you, this was all via resources I could access online - screw this pandemic!)

There was also the lingering question regarding the cultural preservation of PH tattooing practices. In the case of the Kalinga whatok, considering that we could not simply reintroduce headhunting in the present day for morality reasons, did that not mean the tattoos had essentially lost their cultural context? If that rendered them invaluable objects, would it not be self-defeating to the purpose of cultural preservation to just let the practice die out?

I sincerely believed it was just as patronizing to assume that even indigenous peoples could adapt and re-contextualize their traditions because it did not fit the (outsider) ideal of preserving their [I am knocking on wood here] "pristine, primitive forms."

Sometimes even good intentions/aspirations could still take away the platform from the ones it was built for.

(I know I just sounded like a hypocrite in saying that so I'm beating you all to it and calling myself out on it.)

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My biggest motivation for manifesting this headcanon at all was because I did not swim with the fanon of amnesiac Piri. 😭💦

I was at odds with what constituted as a collective (national) memory, all the more when not only was the Philippines as the nation we knew today was a far cry from the "nation" (bayan) that existed 1500+ years ago (and that was if you happened to go there, which I do because I also did not swim with chibi Piri by the time Magellan showed his ass up on our shores).

It sucked that we lost much of the perishable writings from that time, but written works were not the only means of cultural/historical preservation. I also disagreed with the implication that only written works counted as a valid archive.

The pen might be mightier than the sword, but efforts to improve literacy skills were a double-edged sword in itself. While it was important to teach people to be better communicators*, measuring intellectual capacity by literacy skills could get problematic. I condemned this assumption because I sincerely did not believe that precolonial Filipinos being unbothered to keep written records was a sign of their “backwardness.” What if they never felt the need to?

Because why bother writing it all down when you could say it out loud instead! We might not have books and written histories, but we got oral histories! Epics, ballads, hymns, riddles, folklores, you name it! People passed down traditions through storytelling, all the more for all the indigenous natives* residing in the nation that resisted imperialistic rule (not just colonial) for centuries! We were a nation of songbirds! And that was why "Piri chronically online on Twitter" was absolutely valid.

Although it was easy to justify the amnesia take because the colonizers massacred so many people, and without the people, you also lost the very guardians of those memories...in my most honest opinion that...registered poorly in my head.

What of the ones who survived? What of the people who lived to tell their tales?

When did we stop listening?

*More often than not, people grew up to be swayed to unwittingly support imperialistic/capitalist/fascist agendas because very subtle propaganda was discreetly inserted into the lesson plans in their formative education. Criticisms on colonial education deserved their own talk for another day.

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What constituted a memory was the affection, the emotion that came with certain experiences. It was why some memories persisted while others were easily forgotten. It was why even memory recollection (which indicated an active search) might not necessarily be true or not. Memory, both in itself and the processes surrounding it, did not follow a linear & and straightforward path (and that was already without taking the complexity of neurobiology into account).

While the merits for a tattoo were generally prescribed through specific or notable acts, I noticed that majority of them seem to share one common affection: Passion. The feeling of an intense, compelling desire for something (or someone).

Among the Manobo (today), most of them were compelled by aesthetic reasons in getting a tattoo. The desire to maintain an appearance that would equally leave an impression on others.

Headhunting/warfare was just the easily cited method, but the Kalinga appraised any act that denoted an individual’s bravery & valor. Bravery in fighting the frontlines, fueled by the compelling desire to defend one’s homeland.

Violence** born out of vengeance is also a thing, and vengeance was just passion manifesting negatively.

Precolonial Visayans had names for tattoos that marked an individual’s first-time experience in war…or love (sex, I guess). Two polar forces treated as equals. I think of how Aphrodite/Venus was also a goddess of war. A goddess of passion.

Headhunting could also have gendered notions that display the "mutual dependence" in the dichotomy of "male/female bloodshed." In a study of the Huaulu people (Seram, Indonesia*), they had a taboo where the men could not participate in headhunting if their wives were menstruating or giving birth. This reinforced the idea that women as "bleeding humans" were as powerfully influential as men who were "bleeders of humans."

On a similar note, there was a pervasive belief in certain other groups that headhunting blessed communities with fertile lands (alongside fertile women). Blood as life essence. Blood as a source of vitality.

Sometimes passion is comparable to being a force of vitality. The driving force of life and death.

Hades game Achilles was onto something when he wrote that Aphrodite "may be the mightiest of all [the Olympians]."

It got complicated, however, because headhunting and warfare were also a means of state violence**. The precolonial Visayans were engaged in and subjected to slave raids, born out of the need to harvest labor for trade motivations (fuck capitalism, am I right?). If all the battle experience from such activities counts as a merit for tattoos, what did that make of Piri?

I thought of how even blood was shed during the process of tattooing. In a way, Piri’s tattoos also functioned as a reminder of all the blood that was shed for him. A reminder of all the people who died for their passions.

Whether it was a price worth paying or not is a conflict he may never find a resolution for.

*They were comparable to the Buaya (Kalinga) in the shared gendered aspect in headhunting. While this implies a cultural backing to Beyer's Wave Migration Theory, the latter was contested by W.H. Scott. In the cited studies below that concentrated on Kalinga tattooing, there were no further details given regarding any connected symbolisms to headhunting.

**Just so we’re all clear, me conducting frank discussions on the topic of violence DID NOT equate to me condoning violence. Remember that Kalinga tattooing diminished because headhunting was outlawed for its nature as an act of violence.

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Fortunately, there was always the option to negotiate out of a fight (nail that persuasion check, Piri!!).

This was where tattoos as an indicator of one’s place in a community came into play: the more tattooed an individual, the more highly regarded they were. It was they who act as the primary mediator for any conflicts that arose.

It was a huge burden to bear for an entity that encompassed so many communities when he was not (exactly) a part of any of them. While his tattoos provided an opportunistic signal for Piri to be treated as someone due equal respect, it also made him vulnerable to open contempt. Righteously so when the community in question had been victims of the same state violence that advocated for a united nation.

Even prejudice could exist within the same group of people: between those who were content interacting with “lowlanders”/”outsiders” and those who adamantly remained isolated, with the latter even denying the “Filipino” identity. However, a people’s resistance in identifying as subjects of an oppressive government should not be cause to disregard their (co-)inhabitation of spaces. Mediation became a necessity to maintain harmonious relations.

It was a struggle that remains a constant throughout Piri’s history. Juggling the roles of the mediator between communities and the warrior who defended these communities.

The tattoos served as an eternal reminder of Piri’s passions to uphold all these narratives. A reminder of his purpose to maintain the fine threads between peace and war.

HA! I REALLY CAME BACK FULL CIRCLE TO THE FLAG SYMBOLISM!

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Speaking of flag symbolism, allow me to end this brainrot essay on a funny note.

Imagine telling HWS Philippines that the sun on his flag was inspired by his ASS TATTS.

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Sources

Abbacan-Tuguic, Lalin, and Lunes Marnag. “Whatok (Tattooe): The Aesthetic Expression of Traditional Kalinga Beauty.” International Journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences 5, no. 6 (2016): 725-939. https://garph.co.uk/IJARMSS-vol5-no6.html. Bergaño, Diego. Vocabulary of the Kapampangan language in Spanish and dictionary of the Spanish language in Kapampangan: The English Translation of the Kapampangan-Spanish Dictionary. Translated by Fr. Venancio Q. Samson. Angeles City, Philippines: Holy Angel University Press, 2007. Boxer Codex: A Modern Spanish Transcription and English Translation of 16th-Century Exploration Accounts of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Edited by Isaac Donoso. Translated by Ma. Luisa Garcia, Carlos Quirino, and Mauro García. Quezon City, Philippines: Vibal Foundation, Inc., 2016. Bramhall, Donna. “Exploring Kalinga culture, tattoo artistry, tribal traditions,” Rappler, July 9, 2016. https://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/138427-kalinga-culture-tribal-traditions-tatoos/. Calano, Mark Joseph. “Archiving bodies: Kalinga batek and the im/possibility of an archive.” Thesis Eleven 112, no. 1 (2012): 98-112. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0725513612450502. Clariza, Ma. Elena. “Sacred Texts and Symbols: An Indigenous Filipino Perspective on Reading.” The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion 3, no. 2 (2019): 80-92. https://doi.org/10.33137/ijidi.v3i2.32593. Cultural Center of the Philippines. “Tagbanwa.” Encyclopedia of Philippine Art. Accessed December 6, 2021. https://epa.culturalcenter.gov.ph/1/2/2374/. De Las Peñas, Ma. Louise Antonette N., and Analayn Salvador-Amores. “Enigmatic Geometric Tattoos of the Butbut of Kalinga, Philippines.” The Mathematical Intelligencer 41, no. 1 (2019): 31-38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00283-018-09864-6. Garlitos, Rhandee. “Great Elder.” Panyaan: Three Tales of the Tagbanua. Accessed Dec 7, 2021. https://www.canvas.ph/catalog/panyaan-three-tales-of-the-tagbanua. Hoskins, Janet. “Introduction: Headhunting as Practice and as Trope.” In Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia, edited by Janet Hoskins, 1-49. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1996. Krutak, Lars. “The Last Kalinga Tattoo Artist of the Philippines.” Lars Krutak: Tattoo Anthropologist (blog). WordPress. May 30, 2013. https://www.larskrutak.com/the-last-kalinga-tattoo-artist-of-the-philippines/. Miyamoto, Masaru. 1988. “The Hanunoo-Mangyan: Society, Religion and Law among a Mountain People of Mindoro Island, Philippines.” Senri Ethnological Studies, vol. 22. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology. Ocampo, Ambeth R. “Who owns Whang-Od and her tattoos?,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 11, 2021. https://opinion.inquirer.net/142977/who-owns-whang-od-and-her-tattoos. —. “Heritage: More heat than light,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 13, 2021. https://opinion.inquirer.net/143039/heritage-more-heat-than-light. Pagador, Renan. “The Philippine Scripts.” Baybayin Archives (blog). Blogspot. August 26, 2020. http://rapcom-archives.blogspot.com/2020/08/. Ragragio, Andrea Malaya D., and Myfel D. Paluga. “An Ethnography of Pantaron Manobo Tattooing (Pangotoeb): Towards a Heuristic Schema in Understanding Manobo Indigenous Tattoos.” Southeast Asian Studies 8, no. 2 (2019): 259-294. https://doi.org/10.20495/seas.8.2_259. Rosales, Christian A. “Sorcery, Rights, and Cosmopolitics Among the Tau-Buhid Mangyan in Mts. Iglit-Baco National Park.” Aghamtao 27, no. 1 (2019): 110-159. Salvador-Amores, Analyn “Batek: Tradition Tattoos and Identities in Contemporary Kalinga, North Luzon Philippines.” Humanities Diliman 3, no. 1 (2002): 105-142. https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/humanitiesdiliman/article/view/32. —. “Batok (Traditional Tattoos) in Diaspora: The Reinvention of a Globally Mediated Kalinga Identity.” South East Asia Research 19, no. 2 (2011): 293–318. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23750924.

—. “Burik: Tattoos of the Ibaloy Mummies of Benguet, North Luzon, Philippines.” In Ancient Ink: The Archaeology of Tattooing, edited by Lars Krutak and Aaron Deter-Wolf, 37-55. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017. —. “Re-examining Igorot representation: issues of commodification and cultural appropriation.” South East Asia Research 28, no. 4 (2020): 380-396. https://doi.org/10.1080/0967828X.2020.1843369. Scott, William Henry. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994. “Visayan Tattoo Design.” Akopito (blog). Weebly. February 18, 2014. http://akopito.weebly.com/blog-naacutekocirc/visayan-tattoo-design.

Final Note

While they were interconnected, the emphasis of my headcanon was on tattoos as (national) memory over tattoos as (national) identity. I know it's paradoxical of me to separate them but it did make you think twice about what built identity. What built character! It's a question I cannot answer through one headcanon or one comic even. ☼ BANAAG ☼ would be my attempt at a personal answer to that question.

[arkipelagic]

as nice as the message is, this falls into the “feel-good” trap of precolonial history-telling.

this person is homogenizing the multiple and distinct polities of the prehispanic philippine archipelago with the language of “our culture.”

the gender relations throughout southeast asia may have valued women’s labor more than our contemporaries in, for example, south asia at the time, but that does not make precolonial philippines—nor most of southeast asia—a matriarchy.

not all shamans were called babaylan (this is a visayas-specific term) and not all babaylan, catalonan, and other shamans were of a third gender.

i’d like anyone interested in philippine and southeast asian histories to check out barangay by william henry scott, the flaming womb by barbara andaya, and southeast asia in the age of commerce (vol. 1) by anthony reid. there’s lots of information about the positions of women and feminine persons in pre- and early colonial southeast asia! and let’s not forget, plenty of gender variants exist among modern southeast asians such as in bugis society, albeit suppressed by rising religious bigotry.

[hoshianaarts]

Finally, I managed to finish another comic panel preview for my comic series, "Ang Handuraw ni Hoshiana". Is there a relationship between warriors with tattoos and a monitor lizard in the precolonial Visayas? You will discover this in the upcoming month of June! Be sure to stay posted for upcoming information! I plan to be more active between June and August. Expect to see new artwork(s) or content(s)!

[randomshenaniganery]

He has clothes now

spent a couple of hours gathering filipino traditional full body tattooes

there are a few hidden at his thighs 

no i cant draw feet or hands

the tatts aren’t even finished yet but here’s some of the details that got hidden

[pinoy-culture]

What's the best way to be able to study multiple mythologies from different parts of the Philippines?

I'm an artist who has a story idea that mainly involves gods of different mythologies and finding information on anything outside of greek and norse is difficult.

I want to learn more about ones from the philippines since they're the main cast. The main cast is tagalog and I'm planning to study more mythologies from other parts of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao but I only have acess to online. ;w;

Hi there! So there are only a minor few books that talks about the different deities and mythologies of the Philippines. One book I highly recommend getting is Ancient Beliefs and Customs of the Tagalogs by Jean-Paul G. Potet. It discuses various beliefs, deities, and practices of the Tagalog. The first part is brief descriptions of various topics, from witchcraft, the spirits, deities, beliefs in having more than one soul, what they believed and did for the afterlife and mourning, offerings, the type of music and songs they played during ceremonies/rituals to the anito which were called pandot, some prayers, taboos, etc. The majority of the book however is in a dictionary format, where he lists terms and describes them and refers to and lists the original historical written source from Spanish manuscripts and records as well as the earliest Tagalog dictionaries when the beliefs and practices were still being practiced.

The book also lists several Tagalog deities that were known and worshiped in the Laguna Bay area based on the Spanish record by Felipe Pardo, the archbishop of Manila from 1680-1689. He wrote about the different beliefs and practices of the area and listed many deities that are not well known today compared to lets say Lakapati and Diyan Masalanta to name a few. These deities included:

Anatala = the supreme deity (another name for Bathala Meykapal, the creator deity)

Alagaka = protector of hunters

Balakbak and Balantay = two deities who guarded Tanguban, the realm of the dead souls (very similar to the 2 guardian giant deities of Sulad in Bisayan mythology)

Bingsol = the god of ploughmen

Biso = a type of police officer in the heavens

Bulak Pandan = deity of pandan

Bulak Tala = deity of the morning star, Venus (other name for the goddess Tala)

Dalagang nasa Buwan/Dalagang Binubukot = names for the Tagalog moon goddess (there is no historical record or evidence that Mayari was known to the Tagalog until fairly recently through one mention by Jocano). The actual name of the Tagalog moon goddess was Kulalaying based on one of the oldest Tagalog dictionaries.

Ginuong Dalaga = goddess of crops

Kampungan = a god of harvests and sown fields

Kapiso Pabalita = the protector of travelers

Lakapati = same deity mentioned by Loarca and in the oldest Tagalog dictionary, the intersex deity of agriculture, giver of food.

Lampinsaka = the god of those who are crippled

Makapulaw = god of sailors

Makatalubhay = god of bananas

Siyak Matanda = god of merchants

Ang Maygawa = owner of the work (not really sure what this meant)

Paalulong = god of the sick and dead (most likely the Tagalog counterpart of the Bisayans deity, Magwayan, who ferried the souls of the dead)

Paglingniyalan = another god of hunters

Ginuong Pagsuutan = goddess of women in labor

Pagwaagan = god of the winds

Ginuong Panay = a deity who resided in the kalumpang tree (Sterculia foetida).

Lakang Pinay/Lakan Pinay = goddess of midwives

Pusod Lupa = god of the fields

Sirit = a servant of the anito

Sungmasasandal = the one that keeps close (again not really sure what he meant for this deity).

I go more into depth on the Tagalog deities on my blog post here.

https://thepinaywriter.com/the-tagalog-deities-who-are-they/

As for Bisayan mythology, there is no modern book discussing the practices and mythologies. All the information is scattered from the various historical records and dictionaries. One of the main records on Bisayan precolonial culture, their beliefs, and practices is Francisco Alcina's Historia de las islas e indios visayas (1668). You can find volume 3 online in English.

Other records where you can find information on the deities and practices of the Philippines you can find listed here.

https://thepinaywriter.com/resources/

I actually need to update this list, but this is a good start.

Also another highly recommended book to get is the English translation of the Boxer Codex Manuscript. You can get it on Amazon for like $23. It discusses several beliefs and deities in the chapters for the Tagalog. There is also info on the Bisayans and other groups in the Philippines.

[kulay-ng-banaag]

Yeah, it’s technically inaccurate to talk of a “precolonial Philippines” because the name itself literally came in at the onset of colonization. That’s on top of the modern geographic confines of the archipelago we know now as the Philippines.

I feel that this will be PhD-level research (because I need to look for resources in languages I have absolute zero fluency in, and in places that need me spending a lot to travel to and from there), but as far as I could mindlessly look up online, I bumped into Panyupayana as a supposed name.

Joefe B. Santarita, “Panyupayana: The Emergence of Hindu Polities in the Pre-Islamic Philippines.” In Cultural and Civilisational Links Between India and Southeast Asia: Historical and Contemporary Dimensions, ed. Shyam Saran (Singapore: Palgrace Macmillan, 2018), 94.

The same version of the map was in K.M. Panikkar’s Survey of Indian History, but as far as I got to quickly scan through it, the author doesn’t discuss the specific Indian literature they sourced the name from, nor even mentions Panyupayana anywhere else in the same book. The only other (secondhand) source cited doesn’t exist — in the sense that if it was accessible online, that’s been obliterated. Basically, I’m in a dead end in terms of reading more into this. The other thing to note is when these claims were published — which was a time of burgeoning Asian unity. Not bad in itself, just understand that nationalism can get ugly real quick.

Anyway, I roll with having a precolonial Piri for shipping excuses. 😭 Personally, I treat historical accuracy as a tool to supplement whatever themes & ideas I want to entertain in storytelling.

Otherwise, I’m entertaining — for lack of a better term — Philippine OCs. I’m obsessed with how ethnolinguistic groups are also called nations. I just don’t have the (luxury of) time to develop them, let alone draw them. I wouldn’t call them a “family” either, in the strictly biological sense. Maybe, at least, not all of them have that particular relation. But I will say that the general dynamic they have with one another, including Piri, is more or less the kind of chaos and drama that can happen during family reunions. I know my Filipino homies should get this.

Btw, for resources on precolonial history of the Philippines:

William Henry Scott is your token guy. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society is pretty much textbook material, but he also has Looking For The Prehispanic Filipino and Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History.

The Boxer Codex

Antonio Pigafetta, The First Voyage Around the World, 1519-1522: An Account of Magellan's Expedition

F. Landa Jocano, ed., The Philippines at Spanish Contact: Some Major Accounts of Early Filipino Society and Culture

Blair & Robertson is research-beginner-friendly, but it's not only 53 volumes (plus 2 as indices), it's not the most reliable either because it's compiled and edited by Americans, so biases might have twisted things here and there.

P.S. Keep in mind that most of them are concentrated within the Visayas and central Luzon areas!

ive been wondering about how philippines childhood would be lately because while i think its not lore-accurate or historically accurate for him to represent the entirety of the archipelago precolonially, the "england-america" route of spain raising him also feels inaccurate in a way

my personal hc is that he appeared after spain arrived on the islands, but there were other nations inhabiting it beforehand doing funny and crazy history stuff. it might be fun to explore the topic through ocs, but there is so little info i could find about precolonial ph :(

idk, filipinos and phili-fans, what are your headcanons? 🤔

[thetalesofrosaspandan]

Balahala'ng Kaptan

Balahala'ng Kaptan (The lord Kaptan), is the Visayan's supreme diwata (deity) of the heavens. He is the primordial father of the old pantheon and bears the power of lightning and fire.

More about him on my Patreon!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/hulagway-study-73934126?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator

[awesome-cookies-and-cream]

time for a history lesson kids

Iso anyway after 9 years of waiting (oh god) my dreams came true and hetalia finally has my country featured. And my first instinct is to draw a precolonial Philippines and then headcanon the shit out of it based on all my readings

i knew an Anthropology degree was gonna be useful someday

so anyway head canon history lesson time. gather round kids. I took this college program for a reason:

I feel like the recent Philippines would be born post 1565 after Miguel Lopez de Lagzpi. That boy must be a considered Mestizo ( mixed-race individuals, who were born from intermarriages of the Spaniards and merchants with the indigenous Filipino (Austronesian/Malay/Malayo-Polynesian) natives)

But let’s assume he is an Indio (who somehow lost all his tattoos?? oh well) then there’s an angsty and slightly badass headcanon that he actually killed absorbed all the other representatives from other tribes. they don’t die easily (unless harmed by economic struggles/or i guess hurt by fellow representatives) so it kinda explains the whole Bayani concept of undefeatable heroes. (we love our epics about heroes don’t we?)

That said! (our precolonial ancestors’ history is pretty badass tbh and very brutal. i wouldn’t put it past him to actually have killed all the other reps. We literally have a headhunting sport haha) let’s get on to the cultural aspects shall we?

I based most of this from the Boxer Codex’s illustrations which probably is centered around Visayas and Manila settlements for obvious reasons that they were found first. (they deteriorated first too :’) but since I’m from Visayas, the info i can give you are better off being in Visayas (also he has a tarsier lmao. mostly found in bohol. i hc him to be in Visayas. I’m sorry)

the obvious parts here are the tattoos which if you think looks kinda like the one in Moana, you’re right. it is (somewhat) we may also have descended from the same Austronesian ethnicity from Taiwan or China (most SEA countries did actually. there are many conflicting theories for this and most of you guys learned the Otley-Beyer’s wave migration theory WHICH IS WRONG PLEASE FORGET ABOUT THAT SHIT. IT’S VERY RACIST. something about calling negritos inferior because of the technology sits very wrong. throw that multi linear cultural evolution thoughts away and say fuck you to Morgan and Lewis and also say fuck you to DepEd for not changing it. anyway

the point is virgin Otley Beyer, chad Peter Bellwood. Listen to Austronesian Wave Migration theory (you’d find this evident in the way southeast asians to melanasia and pacific islanders share linguistic similarities. i can’t find that teletubbies salamat meme

but let’s talk about pre-col culture because I’m rambling now. everyone probably knows that tattoos are a symbol of social roles from your HEKASI lessons. they are the Pintados. It’s a sacred tradition where you earn them at every achievement. you start at your legs and trail up to your face. the ones on the chest that look like breastplates are awarded after you win a head from the head hunting (which yeah they think of the head as a holy place too so they eat it, thinking they’ll consume its holiness) the face tattoos are for the greatest warriors (and seeing he’s an immortal country, he would have face tattoos) different tribes have different patterns, but you usually either see snake patterns or sea patterns (thus the zigzag)

fun fact: cebuanos were very ruthless pirates haha. we are voyagers my dude. we devised long ranged boats way before sailing was a major thing. much like in moana. you can see traces of it in the traditional fishing boats with those braces on the side to keep balance. it’s cool. point is, water is a very large way of life. (i think you also earn a tattoo from sailing but I’m not sure)

the deep red dye is an honor given only to the bravest warriors. the longer your putong or headdress is,the braver you are. we also used gold like it was nothing. (magellan had to stop his crew from trading their stuff into gold haha) we used it everyday and even placed them in our teeth. (YES WE HAD DENTISTRY BACK THEN) our art and aesthetics believe in the pride of our bodies thus we decorate it, believing we are past primitive thoughts by modifying the human body. so we didn’t care about property, we cared about our appearance. we are also culturally expected to strut our new tattos and piercings with pride. speaking of piercings men and women were expected to pierce their ears and wear large ass earrings.

the precolonial cebuano is a showman (and we still are). you show off these accessories with finesse. you need to live the art. walk and make those golden bracelets jingle. so if you feel like being dramatic, that’s the spirit of your ancestors encouraging you to be dramatic hahaha

(funny enough the ye olden people thought the spanish were poor and backward for not ornamenting their bodies.only a monkey would have white teeth like that and undecorated skin! yeah love how we chismis like that way back then too)

one last side note. we wore cock rings/piercings too as status symbols okay bye

anyway I have more to talk about pre-col phippines. we haven’t touched gender roles (pre-col philippines would also be very chill about gayness and transwomen are even venerated into priestess positions. it’s all cool so pre-col philippines is definitely not cis haha and probably chill about not being straight yay indophil)

anyway yeah

[zephycluster]

Precolonial HWS SEA Rant Post, feel free to ignore

If you're still reading, then you're probably looking for evidence or some juicy tidbits to throw back at me or to try and find dirt to cancel me, like typical Tumblr/Twitter. Go ahead, I don't really care.

First off, let me just say that If you like Precolonial South-East Asia AUs, feel free to keep enjoying them. I will respectfully support your passions from afar. This post is just to explain why I don't like it, especially the way they keep insisting/portraying PH in it.

Still here? Then let me begin.

Since the recent confirmation that the ASEAN Six Majors (Can't really say ASEAN 10 atm since it's still missing some people) Were completed and the Ma-Phil-Indo Trio was included, there has been a large surge in 'Precolonial' fanarts and portrayals of South East Asians, those three especially.

Even long, long before, circa 2010's ish, a rather well-known fan universe known as 'Maaf' dealt with their story and how their Author thought their intertwined histories went. Written by (my best guesstimate) an Indonesian writer who wants to explore the old, SEA bond.

When I first stumbled across Maaf (I was in Highschool at the time, around age 16-ish), I took a casual interest in it and tried to read it through. But, I will wholeheartedly admit that at the time, Pre-Colonial cultures of South-East Asia in general, let alone Philippine, did not really interest me that much. The focus (I think) was mostly on Indonesia, a country I didn't really know back then, and the liberal use of 'ancient' names and artwork just made it feel like an entirely Original Work (that needed a degree in History to really appreciate) and not something from Hetalia. I also completely disagreed with what I could gather was the story's portrayal of PH but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Do I hate 'Maaf'? No, I don't hate it. Do I wish I never came across it or that it didn't exist? Of course not. Just because I didn't enjoy it or appreciate it that well doesn't mean I wish any ill toward it, its fans, or its creator.

Fast forward to April 2021, the long awaited inclusion of South East Asia to the canon Hetalia verse. I was happy, the other fans were happy, all was good.

Then started the questionable fanarts, fan theories and fan pairings.

Especially the expansion of Precolonial! PH.

Let's go back to Maaf for one moment. From what I understood of Maaf, PH there was a character who once was like all the other South East Asian cultures, trading with them, all around being a nice family.

But all that changed when the Spaniards attacked, so cry the precolonial buffs. They destroyed everything, ransacked and marginalized the tribes, erased everything that PH was!

Did that happen? ABSOLUTELY. The Spaniards had this vision in mind that they must spread Christianity to all of the 'savage, unchristian heathens' of their realm. :V /s

But back up a second, back to PH's portrayal in Maaf. The way she (yeah, she) was portrayed there was that she was slowly losing her memories of being a 'true' South East Asian and grew more and more westernized in the process, like some sort of Culture-specific Alzheimer's or something.

Firstly, that is seriously depressing, and secondly, I just really don't see that happening.

Here's why.

Point 1: Even before Colonial Masters, Filipinos as a people cannot agree on anything.

I'll just begin this segment with a Philippine proverb that outlines what Filipinos call 'Crab Mentality' or 'Crab Bucket Mentality'.

"You don't need a lid for a container when you're keeping multiple crabs. If you keep at least two crabs together, they will just pull each other down instead of helping each other up."

I don't know how it goes with Indonesian or Malaysian history class, but what I know of my homeland, both pre- and post-colonial history, we were never really 'united' or 'together' in the sense that Indonesia and Malaysia were (from what I assume).

Let me pull up a somewhat related question on r/AskHistorians.

The reason I brought this up as it shows the reasons why, in my opinion, a single entity that is 'Precolonial Philippines-tan' is an impossibility.

The answers are long and would extend this already long post to stupid proportions, so I'll just quote relevant sentences. The link is here for those that wanna deep-dive into the answer.

"All this to say that there wasn't a name used for the entire Philippine islands before the Philippines that people now would agree to. An interesting comparison would be the Holy Roman Empire, which might also be characterized as disparate politico-geographic groups of relatively small size that had a history of relations between each other, but one thing they had that the Philippines did not was a common language, or at least a family of mostly mutually intelligible languages, so that the name Deutschland or Germany isn't terribly offensive to anyone. If you called the Philippines the 'Lupang-Tagalog' or even 'Lupang-Tao' the other ethnic groups would protest."

For those in need of translation, 'Lupang Tagalog' means 'Land of the Tagalogs' and 'Lupang Tao' means 'Land of People', specifically. The first one is already exclusive and offensive, as the Tagalog peoples are but one of many ethnicities here.

And for the 'Lupang Tagalog' suggestion specifically, it's even more offensive as they are the majority ethnicity (not by much, just around 28%) From this chart from Geography Now! It would basically be alienating everyone else in the 72% remainder that isn't 'Tagalog'.

And even 'Lupang Tao', the most generic name in a local language you can think of, would be met with contempt because the name itself is in the Tagalog language.

Just travelling between two individual island groups today would sometimes require a translator because the words can change very rapidly and very drastically. Here's a sample of some differences coming from a friend living in Visayas (in Red) vs. the words I know living in Luzon (In blue).

Ate vs. Manang = Older Sister

Ibon vs. Pispis = Bird

Tumawa vs. Kadlaw = To laugh

Takot vs. Hadlok = Fear

Kain vs. Kaon = To eat

Ngayon vs. Subong = Now, at this point in time

Iyak vs. Hibi/Gibi = to cry

Talampakan vs. Tiil = Foot (in Tagalog, the word retains its 'body part AND unit of measurement' meaning)

Tulog vs. Tuyo = to sleep (Tuyo in Tagalog is either a dried salted fish or 'to dry')

The kicker is that just like Tagalog is just one of many languages here, so too is the language my friend speaks. Ask an entirely new person, like someone from Mindanao, they'll probably have an entirely new set of words.

It's not just Luzon vs. Visayas vs. Mindanao, either. Here's a map listing some of the ethnic groups here.

Even the way they're written differs from location to location.

While we're on the subject of Island divisions, a casual skim across Twitter and Tumblr has shown that their Precolonial PH has been one of the following ancient civilizations: Tondo, Butuan, Sugbu, Namayan. There may have been others but that was what I have found.

Notice how even today, the posters of Precolonial PH can't seem to agree on what he's supposed to be? With Indonesia it's either Majapahit or Srivijaya and Malaysia it's usually Malacca iirc.

What is the big deal? Well, let's go back to the Ask Historians post. "Why didn't the Philippines ever change its name to remove the colonial mark that being named after a Spanish King has?" The answer: "If you suggested something dating to precolonial times, the other ethnic groups would protest."

Since we're on a roll with maps, let me bring this up.

As you can see, the precolonial PH posts have a reason to not be able to agree on one thing, as there is a LOT of options. Do you also see how THAT list is also split up?

It's split up into those aligned with China (Sinified), aligned with India (Indianized), aligned with the Middle East (Islamicized), and no alignment (Animist). Now, let's go back to the main suggestions for which Kingdom/Polity/Civilization/whatever Modern Philippines used to be.

If the Filipino peoples' couldn't agree on something as simple as WHAT TO CALL THE LAND THEY'RE LIVING ON, what more a living, breathing, walking, talking entity that is supposed to be a beacon of all of their 'unified' culture? ESPECIALLY if that entity used to be a currently existing Kingdom/Polity/Rajahnate/Sultanate/whatever.

Tondo? "Of course, always the damn Tagalogs. Tagalog this, Tagalog that. First the capital city, then the language,* THE REST OF US EXIST, YOU KNOW! What about us in Visayas? Mindanao?"

*The national language known as 'Filipino' is just standardized Tagalog*

Butuan? "Wait, you want Butuan to represent us? They're they only Indian-aligned city in the Islam-majority Mindanao! They're not even that many of them! I'm not gonna change my religion!"

Sugbu, the other name for the Rajahnate of Cebu on the map? Lemme bring back my Visayan friend again. According to her, she hails from the Hiligaynon part of Visayas.

"Sure :v and the other islands are what?

Chopped liver?

Not to mention the language and writing barrier helloooo"

And Namayan? Well. I'll let this pic speak for itself.

To summarize, no matter who you pick as Modern PH's previous identity, it will not end well nor be accepted by the other Kingdoms at the time.

"So where does that leave Modern PH, he had to have been ONE of them, right?"

Well, not really. He doesn't HAVE to be one of the Ancient Kingdoms that lasted till the modern day. I mean, predecessor representatives exist in Hetalia canon, after all. Like Modern Greece is a different character from Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and Modern Egypt, heck even England and his brothers have a canon mother that was the rep before them.

Or you could even use the same logic that Germany does, in that each specific region has/had its own representative and that Modern!PH is just the 'mediator' between them (cause gawd does PH need one). There could be a Tondo, a Namayan, a Butuan, and a Sugbu, all arguing and this Proto-PH is just trying to make headway in making them all satisfied.

But, even after all this, there is another reason why I personally don't subscribe to the 'Precolonial PH' idea, and by tangential extension, the Indo x Phil pairing.

Point 2: Even without intending to, Precolonial Indo x Phil just comes off as patronizing

This second point is just ENTIRELY personal preference and barely has any facts to back it up.

Again, if you like the pairing and disagree with me, You do you. I will respectfully support you and your passions from a distance.

But for me, Indo being Phil's seme/bae/boyfriend and consistently bringing up precolonial times just comes off as patronizing.

Just one more time, I'd like to point out that I am NOT bashing Indonesia, its people or the subscribers of Indo x Phil. This is just how the pairing feels to ME specifically.

The way I see it, Indo x Phil as a pairing, especially if it extends back into precolonial times, reads the same way as a long-since married couple where the husband/wife CONSTANTLY brings up that ONE outing you had together, or that ONE prom night where you kissed while dancing, even it happened like 30 some-odd years ago and so much more happened since then.

Even in a platonic sense, It reads like two besties where one ALWAYS mentions stuff like 'Yeah but you looked so much cooler back in High School' or 'Back in Grade School you would've known that', or 'Remember back in Pre-school we did X? How could you forget that?'

How does one respond to the notion that no matter what you do now, it will never compare to a past you've already forgotten or barely remember? That the best version of 'you' is already long gone?

"That's because the westerners made you forget your culture! You gotta take it back!"

While it is true, yes, as a collective we barely remember the Kingdom that commissioned the Laguna Copperplate, or created the Banaue Rice Terraces, or created the millennia old bonds that we still share with Indonesia and Malaysia.

But to keep pushing the precolonial identity would be to neglect and cast aside the one REAL binding belief and culture that spans the entirety of these islands we call the Philippines.

We take on all the bad stuff that happens to us, conquer it, and make it our own. Be it natural disasters, foreign powers, or negative stereotypical mentalities.

Yes, we've forgotten the ancient kingdoms of old and are just now digging through the closet for those remnants of the past. Yes, the colonizers imposed that on us, and made us forget. But in the process we've also taken everything that they left behind, everything that they threw at us, and created something that can only come from us.

The lanterns that the Spaniards used to light the way to the morning masses they made us attend became our globally known symbol of Christmas. The junked vehicles that the Americans left behind in World War 2 are now rolling works of art that announce themselves loud and proud on the streets (for better or for worse). The iced dessert recipe that the Japanese forced us to learn while they were occupying the country is now so distinct and famous it is synonymous with us, and is so delicious even Italy has taken notice.

Even after all this? Even after all the 425-ish years total we have been under a foreign power, with all the progress we've made as a country, a people, and a nation, you would still imply our fragmented, jigsaw puzzle state of being in the past was better just because it was pure 'South East Asian' like everyone else?

We might not be as well put-together as Indonesia or Malaysia, but we made this melting pot of angry, leg-pulling, dogpiling, Native, Mestizo, Chinoy, and Fil-Am crabs OURS, damnit!

It's now 4:30 AM and I have work in 5 or so hours. I'll be going to sleep now.