Tabon Man
September 5th, 2008 by DJB
Here is a little heralded scientific fact: the oldest known fossil remains of Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia — a portion of a human tibia — is from the Tabon Cave near Quezon, Palawan. It was radiocarbon dated to have an age of about 47,000 years. The most amazing discovery about Tabon Man so far is that he was a Tool Maker, with over half of the recovered specimens being Neolithic stone flake tool remnants. But apart from the existence of so-called Tabon Man, the Palawan cave complex is but an entrance to the complex history of ancient Philippines.
I hope more people will visit the ever-improving National Museum at the old Finance Building near Taft Avenue in Manila to see the world-famous Manunggul Burial Jar with its spirit boat handle in the Tabon Cave Gallery and dated to be around 2100 years old. (If you are too indolent the Filipino, you can see this also on the one thousand peso bill). Anthropologist Robert Fox, who excavated Tabon for the National Museum in 1962 writes:
The burial jar with a cover featuring a ship-of-the-dead is perhaps unrivalled in Southeast Asia; the work of an artist and master potter. This vessel provides a clear example of a cultural link between the archaeological past and the ethnographic present. The boatman is steering rather than paddling the ship. The mast of the boat was not recovered. Both figures appear to be wearing a band tied over the crown of the head and under the jaw; a pattern still encountered in burial practices among the indigenous peoples in Southern Philippines. The manner in which the hands of the front figure are folded across the chest is also a widespread practice in the Islands when arranging the corpse. The carved prow and eye motif of the spirit boad is still found on the traditional watercraft of the Sulu Archipelago, Borneo and Malaysia. Similarities in the execution of the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth of the figures may be seen today in the woodcarving of Taiwan, the Philippines, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
From the archaeological and physical evidence, there is thus no doubt that human beings have populated the Philippines for at least 50,000 years. Long before Christianity became the State Religion of the Roman Empire, and long before Muslim sultanates were founded in Sulu and Cotabato by Sharif Kabunsuan, –lumads, for lack of a better name — were making tools and burying their dead on Palawan, which, in those long-forgotten Ice Ages might have been highlands or even mountain tops! No doubt, what would become the islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao when the great glaciers retreated ten thousand years ago, were also high lands where innumerable generations of the true original Filipinos wandered, lived and died in the incessant enterprise of survival and multiplication.
I think this is the time period that ought to inform the much abused phrase “since time immemorial” whenever we speak of ancestors owning lands and domains that descendants now want as juridical homelands. If some would insist on “first nation” status, let us take literally the full and rigorous meaning of “first” — if such a mental feat is at all possible.
The true meaning of “since time immemorial” ought also to illuminate the reflection upon the possible meaning of another phrase: “at the time of conquest or colonization.”
Someone conquered and colonized the lumads and pygmies. It wasn’t the Neanderthals.
September 5, 2008 at 11:49 am
=))
I wonder how Tabon Man relates to the IBM-National Geographic Genographic Project
September 5, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Great link there Cocoy. Thanks!
September 5, 2008 at 12:31 pm
If male, he might belong to Haplogroup Y-DNA K* (M9) which makes him a close genetic relative of North Africa’s Berber tribe, among others.
September 5, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Strictly speaking, there were no ‘Filipinos’ back then since that identity is of more recent vintage dating from the 1870’s. As such, the men and women who wandered these islands cannot be called ‘true original Filipinos’.
September 5, 2008 at 12:55 pm
By Filipinos I mean the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. By ‘original Filipinos’ I mean the ancestors of Filipinos today who were also the first inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. We know that there was always a ‘first inhabitant’ for each and every island because there are no modern human fossils found anywhere here earlier than about 50,000 years, whereas Homo sapiens is much older. So if we are to go by “first nation” principles of the MOA AD, it is impt to be precise and factual about who and when and how do we know?
September 5, 2008 at 1:22 pm
In order for the discussion not to turn ridiculous, ‘first nation’ should be considered a relative term. The timescales involved in the negotiations in Mindanao between indigenes and settlers is not in terms of tens of thousands or thousands of years, but rather, dates from the last fifty to a hundred years when Cotabato was colonized [largely] by the Ilonggos and Davao was colonized [largely] by the Cebuanos. Within this framework, the Maguindanao, Tausugs et.al can claim to have been in Mindanao first.
September 5, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I think you should use the term ‘original inhabitants’ then. ‘Filipinos’ is a loaded term which we shouldn’t retroactively assign to those who were not even aware that there would be such a concept a couple of hundred or thousand years down the road.
September 5, 2008 at 1:51 pm
cvj,
so to you, the relevant time scale of “since time immemorial” is fifty to a hundred years???
What about “at the time of conquest or colonization?”
September 5, 2008 at 1:53 pm
CVJ,
“Filipino” is a “loaded term”????
What does that make “Filipino Voices” — a loaded sound?
September 5, 2008 at 2:07 pm
DJB (at 1:51 pm), while we’re at it, “since time immemorial” is also an ambiguous term since it is dependent on someone’s capacity to remember which in turn may be dependent on what is politically convenient. A lot of the conflict is due to lack of clarity. It is clear to me that the relevant time scale is the last fifty to a hundred years.
Regarding your question (at 1:53 pm), yes the term ‘Filipino’ is loaded with meaning as it is a designation of national identity that originated a century ago. Weren’t you the one who took pains to change the name of your blog from ‘Philippine Commentary’ to ‘Philippine-American Commentary’. I would’ve thought you would have related to this point. To call the original inhabitants ‘Filipinos’ makes as much sense as calling the Persian’s under Xerxes time ‘Muslims’.
September 5, 2008 at 2:16 pm
cvj,
Let me have my shorthand for “original inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago” in “original Filipinos” please. Unless you want to suggest an alternative to “Philippine Archipelago” using GPS coordinates or something, ahem, ridiculous like that.
There’s bigger fish to fry, in this case your assertion that the relevant time frame is the last fifty to a hundred years. That cannot possibly be right, for the MOA-AD makes mention of the “suzerain authority” of the Moro sultanates, such as Shariff Kabunsuan which subjugated the PUlangi River Basin of Cotabato after being kicked out of the Moluccas by the Dutch, in 1411, nearly 700 years ago.
But the people who made the Manunggul Jar on Palawan surely lived there since at least the day it was BURIED, around the time of Christ.
Are these peoples to be regarded as Bangsamoro, as they unjustly and unfairly are in the MOA-AD?
September 5, 2008 at 2:20 pm
It becomes ever clearer to me that the Moro Sultanates were every bit the conquering, colonizing, converting enslavers of the original Filipinos that the Spanish Taliban, much to their eternal chagrin, suddenly encountered on the other side of the world from Iberia.
They were not the First Nation, but the First Imperialist Colonizers!
September 5, 2008 at 2:32 pm
DJB, you are of course free to use any word as you please but i don’t think such a slopphy shorthand is appropriate since it propagates a myth that the Filipino nation existed before the Spaniards came. In the same way, ‘Bangsamoro’ (Moro Nation) is an even more recent nationalist imagining than ‘Filipino’ dating from the 1920’s. Before that, there were separate Sultanates (e.g. Sulu, Maguindanao) under various strong men (Orang Besar).
September 5, 2008 at 2:38 pm
cvj,
Who is saying that the Filipino nation existed before the Spaniards came? If I wanted to propagate that myth I would surely employ better implements than a slopphy shorthand.
But I hope you will answer the more substantive point regarding the relevant time frame when it comes to juridical principles based on events from “time immemorial” being from the year 1908??
September 5, 2008 at 2:51 pm
DJB, i did explain (at 2:07 pm) that i do not agree with the use of the phrase ’since time immemorial’. It is similarly sloppy.
September 5, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Dean, what’s your take on the so-called Luzon Empire? You think it’s fact or hoax?
September 5, 2008 at 6:17 pm
J (if i may), Paul K. Manansala’s entry on Lusung.
September 5, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Luzon Empire? Never heard of it, J.
cvj,
The question still begs to be answered. What do people actually have in mind when they use the phrase “since time immemorial” when we are discussing ancestral lands and domains in Mindanao? To admit it is sloppy but not questioning how it renders inconsistent the rest of the argument that leads to a Moro Homeland, seems sloppy in itself.
September 5, 2008 at 6:19 pm
J,
but what do you make of reference to Taiwan carving styles on the Manunggul Jar?
September 5, 2008 at 6:29 pm
DJB, it is clear that the historically inaccurate phrase ’since time immemorial’ is a rhetorical device to support claims of ownership. To me, it’s an unnecessary embellishment that does not help the discussion since these date and time frame of who arrived where and when and under what circumstances can be established using historical records.
September 5, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Unnecessary embellishment? Surely it makes a difference whether we take 100, 1000, or 10,000 year time frame in answering so fundamental a question as who the first inhabitants were.
By the way this terminology comes from the Supreme Court and before them the USIP.
Moreover, the “time of conquest or colonization” seems perversely focussed on 1521 and Spain, but is willing to gloss over conquests and colonization performed by the ancestors of the so called “indigenous Muslim peoples”
Islam is simply not indigenous to the Philippines. It is as foreign as Catholicism.
Whatever the dates, I controvert the claim that the Bangsamoro were “First Nation” — As I said Islamic potentates were conquerors and invaders just like the Spaniards. There were Homo sapiens living here when they set up their theocracies.
September 5, 2008 at 7:14 pm
DJB, i don’t know why you persist on arguing with me when i have been agreeing with you on that point of historical fact.
Where i disagree with you is on your attempt to use the above to establish that there is no distinction between the indigenous inhabitants and settlers in Mindanao. As i said the relevant timeframe is the last fifty to one hundred years. During that time period, a wave of migrants mostly from Western Visayas did settle in the Cotabato area and a similar wave of Cebuanos settled in the Davao area. That’s the demographic and historical backdrop of the ongoing conflict in Mindanao.
September 5, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Well, you see, CVJ, the unavoidable fact, the elephant sitting in the middle of the room you refuse to acknowledge is this. ALL people in Mindanao were settlers, arrivistes, conquerors, colonizers during all the times people have been coming here, since time immemorial!
So you have said it yourself: there IS no distinction between “indigenous inhabitants” and “settlers”. The latter became the former!
To arbitrarily fix upon Sharif Kabunsuan’s Human Trafficking Sultanate as the beginning of indigenous existence is illogical and baseless, given the mute testimony of the Manunggul Jar.
September 5, 2008 at 7:36 pm
DJB, so now you’re the one using that ’since time immemorial’ obfuscation. To extend your logic, if you go by Out of Africa theory of human origins which is supported by the IBM-National Genographic studies (among others) provided by Cocoy above (September 5th, 2008 11:49 am) then everyone who is not born in Africa is a ’settler’.
That may be an elephant in the room but it is ultimately a white elephant. The relevant time scale is the last hundred years and the distinction is between those who inhabited Mindanao before that period (which began with the American occupation) and those who arrived later.
September 5, 2008 at 7:45 pm
BTW, in the interest of historical completeness, side by side with the Sulu and Maguindanao human trafficing Sultanates, there also was, for a time, the United States of America human trafficking Republic. I believe that the USA was also world class in this regard.
September 5, 2008 at 9:24 pm
thanks cvj. will read it later (im in a net cafe, my connection still down).
dean, check my post about it:
http://thenutbox.i.ph/blogs/thenutbox/2008/07/27/boxer-codex-and-the-luzon-empire/
September 5, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Of course slavery was once legal. It was abolished by the US in 1861 and in Mindanao in 1906 or so. The MILF wants to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state.
What justification could there possibly be to limiting considerations to the last 50 or a hundred years? Could it be some inconvenient details about how the Sultanates perhaps treated those Cebuanos and other Bisayans say 200 to 300 years ago?
What happened in that timeframe to justify a whole separate homeland for the self-ascribed Bangsamoro People. Why are no other groups vouchsafed a homeland?
And how wise, ultimately is such an apart-hate tableu. How stable? How peaceful?
And why, oh why, should we accede to such demands at gunpoint? Why should we be held hostage for the alleged crimes of our ancestors, as if we had a monopoly on guilt and transgression in all those vanished centuries, most of which you say we ought to ignore.
September 6, 2008 at 12:24 am
Because the conflict is between those who settled in Mindanao during this time period (i.e. the settlers) and those who were already there before (i.e. the indigenous groups).
This didn’t even cross my mind. Using historical grievances to fan ethnic conflict between Filipinos is not my style.
You have to take up this question (and the ones that follow) with those who are in favor of the MOA as i’m not in favor of the Bangsamoros separating from the rest of the Philippines.
BTW, did you know in what context i first heard the line of reasoning that you’re now using? It was when, as a kid, i watched this movie called The White Buffalo. The character played by Charles Bronson (Wild Bill Hickok) explained to Chief Crazy Horse that it was fair game for the white man to take the land of the Native American tribes because the latter also acquired their territories via conquest.
September 6, 2008 at 12:45 am
What of the armed struggle CVJ? Do you approve of it?
September 6, 2008 at 12:58 am
No, i don’t. I did blog my opinion on what the State should do to pursue the war.
September 6, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Wow. I’m almost fearful to jump into this mano-a-mano guys, but doesn’t “immemorial actually mean ‘beyond memory’ in the strict sense and would the original GPS longtitude/latitude ‘ locate-able Philippines be that which was accessed by the original ‘walking’ immigrant using those legendary ‘land-bridges’ that linked our archipelago all through tp the larger Indonesian continental ‘plates to the South and even the Chinese mainland?
At this point, the hair splitting can almost reach insane proportions, methinks, and our ancestors would then be the animist would-be Filipinos whose concept of a supreme being could then be closer to the sun-god Ra, right?
September 6, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Ding, i think DJB and i both agree (correct me if i’m wrong DJB) that phrases like ’since time immemorial’ don’t help the discussion. The start of the current round of violence is much more recent and can be dated to the time of the Jabidah Massacre in 1968. In turn, the build-up to this conflict was a result of the migration of [mostly] Visayans into Mindanao in the preceding fifty years and the resulting competition for resources and misgovernance by the Manila-based Marcos admin. Where i disagree with DJB is in his denial of the distinction between indigenous inhabitants and settlers.
Nevertheless, political stuff aside, i like DJB’s blog entry since i find history and anthropology fascinating. Currently, there are at least two competing theories of the origins of our island’s inhabitants. One is the Out-of-Taiwan hypothesis (supported by the IBM-National Geographic website as linked to by Cocoy above at September 5th, 2008 11:49 am) and Oppenheimer’s Sundaland flooding hypothesis which i blogged about here.
The latter means that the Austronesians (aka our linguistic group) may actually be refugees from Sundaland, a sub-continent the size of India, which was submerged as the sea level rose at the end of the last Ice Age.
September 6, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Ding,
Hahaha. CVJ and I are old manos at arm wrestling with each other. We are whetstones to each other, I think, and the friction is mutually beneficial.
CVJ locates the present conflict from the time of Marcos and the Jabidah Massacre, which is true enough since the MNLF and MILF were the products of that era. Although Nur Misuari was always Joma’s Lil Muslim Brother, he has arguably been more successful. But Hashim Salamat studied in Jedda, not Diliman, and his movement is more ideologically inspired than the MNLF, amounting to the same level of fanaticism of the Stalinesque Maoist, Joma and his ever dwindling Party.
Nonetheless, all THREE armed insurgencies (CPP/NPA, MNLF/ASG and MILF/ASG) present a common challenge. Each adopts both legal and illegal methods to achieve their political objectives.
My central thesis has always been that Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehab and Reintegration of all rebel forces ought to be central, official objective of the government.
It is time to reject the idea that peace and development might be attainable through some kind of arrangement with a group that holds the country hostage at gunpoint.
I think what happened here is that weak-willed, feeble minded people like Jess Dureza and Rodolfo Garcia are suffering from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, since they have been so close to the peace negotiations all this time, which PGMA, idiota, forced them to conduct in secret.
What I am chipping away at here is the foundation of the USIP-inspired solution path for Mindanao, which also happens to be based on the ancestral domain innovations introduced by IPRA, and specifically aggrandized into the far more radical concept of a homeland to be run by that armed group! This is the evil that the US Congress and the State Dept can do when it suffers from a lost command, a rogue operation which I place squarely on the principals of the Philippine Facilitation Project, like Astrid Tuminez.
Their solution basically thinks of the MILF as if they were the American Indians, Al Hadj Murad as Crazy Horse!
But I hope you will note CVJ that the present majority Christians are also descendants of those original inhabitants. You cannot deny this! Unlike in the US where the majority Christians are NOT descendants of the Native American Indians.
We are ALL indios. The discriminator used by IPRA–whether or not our ancestors were conquered by Spain — is utterly absurd and disdainful.
Either we all deserve homelands, or none of us do! The logic to this conclusion is inexorable.
I prefer the idea of one Homeland for all with one System. Democracy. That I think is non-negotiable as far as this non-indigenous person is concerned.
September 6, 2008 at 7:42 pm
We are on the very same page, Dean.
That’s why @ At Midfield, I’ve been hammering away at that blasted BJE, with my unresolved disgust simmering just below the surface. This is the reason why, you will recall I posted several days back the very words of ambassador Kenney with her poker-faced denial of the American meddling in Mindanao through the USIP.
And now we have banner news of those overstaying US Special Forces troops in Zamboanga, not to mention the de facto operation of US military forward-deployed military base facilities with out-soirced private US contracters.
I almost expect to next hear about Blackwater mercenaries landing in Sulu and Basilan courtesy of George W’s global war on terror.
September 6, 2008 at 7:44 pm
The present majority Christians are descendants of the settlers (from the past 50 to 100 years) who originated [mostly] from the Visayas.
September 6, 2008 at 8:10 pm
cvj,
Just because they were Visayans does that mean they had no right to move to Mindanao? What about all the Moros who live in Quiapo and other places. I think we cannot operate from the assumptions of a future apartheid, which would surely come if we go down this road.
Are you really for 110 separate homelands for the IPs? and none for the Catholics?! Or is it just the Moros who deserve one because they are the ones pointing guns to our heads?
September 6, 2008 at 11:22 pm
DJB, don’t get me wrong. I believe the settlers have every right to be in Mindanao. I’m just saying that your assertion that “the present majority Christians are also descendants of those original inhabitants” is not historically correct.
Moreover, i also don’t believe it’s correct to say, as you have, “We are ALL indios” because that label was used by the Spanish to designate their subjects, of whom the Moro’s never were. A more accurate term would be ‘Austronesians’ (as an ethno-linguistic group) or even the outdated ‘Malay’ (also as a ethno-linguistic designation).
September 7, 2008 at 7:29 am
CVJ,
“We are ALL indios” is meant to appropriate the word “indios” from its Spanish origins and establish it as a word that succinctly refers to a perfectly well designed set of human beings: those who have at least one biological ancestor who lived and worked within the geographical boundaries of the Philippine Islands.
This definition has several merits. First, it strips the emotion-laden aspects of the previous uses of indio as a pejorative, though perhaps you attribute a bit too much malevolence to the Spaniards. Since Magellan thought he had arrived in the Indies, what perforce is so wrong with calling the inhabitants he found there “indios”?
Second, you realize of course that the degree of indioship scales proportionately with the number of such ancestors a given human being has.
In prehistoric Philippines (“before written history) we can assume that the concepts of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao may have been just a lil different than they are today.
But if one chooses any particular year in history, one will find that the definition of “indio” I have given still works fine, if by “indio” one simply means inhabitants whose ancestors were also inhabitants.
Indeed, the Constitutional basis for acquiring Philippine citizenship has a bearing on indioship. Under the principle of JUS SANGUINIS, any human being born to a father or mother either of whom is a citizen of the Philippines is a natural born Filipino citizen.
This is contrasted with the US principle of JUS SOLI: Any human being born in American territory is a natural born citizen.
My sense of the term INDIO is much simpler than these though it combines them. Before Islam and Christianity, before the Sultanates of Sulu and Cotabato, before Spain and America, there is no doubt there were INDIOS already in the Philippines, let us call them the prehistoric indios.
I now propose my ONE HOMELAND PRINCIPLE:
The entire Philippine Islands of Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, including Sulu and Palawan, are forever the undivided homeland of the PREHISTORIC INDIOS and their descendants, without regard to sex, creed, color, language, or other further distinction imposed by Religion, Conquest, Colonization, or Culture.
The term “Bangsamoro” itself is less than 50 years old! It was a word and slogan invented by Nur Misuari in the 1960s.
September 7, 2008 at 12:19 pm
If it is true that Philippines was inhibited my human as early as 50,000 years ago,then could it be that the origin of the asian people are from the Philippines hmmmm….
September 7, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Edgar,
Not if the “Out of Africa thesis” is correct, which posits that about 60,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens sapiens (3 words) spread out from Africa to Europe, Asia and America. This is supported by worldwide genetic studies which have developed a kind of clock based on the number of mutations observed in given local populations. The more mutations, the older a given group of human beings.
The fact that the oldest specimens in SEA are from the Philippines however, might indicate that indeed Asia populated Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, etc) via the Philippines when Tibetan/Chines/Mongols crossed land bridges from Taiwan and the mainland to the archipelagoes here.
September 7, 2008 at 3:55 pm
If you use the term ‘Indio’ in that manner (i.e. differently from the way the Spanish used it), then it does not have any basis in history. In the same way that the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of these islands did not identify themselves as ‘Filipinos’, neither did they identify themselves collectively as ‘Indios’. So why use a term that in a manner that does not have any linguistic, genetic (racial) or historical basis?
How do you propose to build such a scale? Isn’t this an uneccessary complication on top of the qualifications for Filipino citizenship? As it is, there is no such ’scale’. Either you’re a Filipino citizen or you’re not.
That in itself is meaningless because in place of ‘INDIOS’, you might as well have used the term ‘PEOPLE’ without altering the factual content of your sentence. Your use of ‘Indio’ straitjackets these people into a category you’ve invented and glosses over the specifics of which group lived in which area of the Philippine archipelago, which is precisely the issue under contention. There clearly was a distinction between the Sultanates of Sulu, Sultanates of maguindanao who remained free of Spanish domination and the inhabitants of luzon and Visayas (i.e. Ilocanos, kapampangans, Tagalogs, Cebuanos, ilonggos, Boholanos) who were under the Spaniards. Even during the American period, there was a separate entity called the ‘Moro Province’.
That all these different ethno-linguistic groups have somehow come together under the ‘Filipino’ identity is, to me, a remarkable achievement by the Spaniards and Rizal (and company), the Americans and Quezon (and company) and, more recently, Marcos and Ople. I think the way that the Filipino identity can be strengthened is if we are clear about our origins. I don’t think declaring ‘ah basta indio tayo lahat’ clarifies anything. Quite the opposite.
No, it’s a little older than that. It dates from the 1920’s, i.e. the time of US President Calvin Coolidge which makes it almost 90 years old.
September 7, 2008 at 4:15 pm
DJB (at 2:00 pm) i agree with your explanation in the first paragraph although, as shown in the link i provided above (at September 6th, 2008 6:48 pm), there was no land bridge connecting Taiwan to Mainland Asia or the Philippines. Any land bridge would have gone through the Sundaland sub-continent which passes through Borneo and terminates at Palawan (refer to the map ‘Sundaland 10,000 to 30,000 years ago’). If the competing Taiwan origins hypothesis is correct (which is supported by the finding that closest genetic relative of Filipinos is the Ami Tribe of Taiwan), they would have gone here by boat.
Edgarv (and others), fyi here’s previous blog entry on the Genetic Demography of pre-Hispanic Philippines. BTW, it is also possible that the ancestors of the Mongols (who are related to the Australian Aborigines), were here first before they moved on to and settled in Mongolia, not the other way around.
September 7, 2008 at 8:18 pm
CVJ,
You are getting too hung up on the emotions normally associated with the use of the word indio, especially in modern Filipino revolutionary cinema.
Yes “INDIOS” is my way of referring to the undifferentiated prehistoric inhabitants of these islands, whom Spain and Islam both encountered when they arrived, the former calling them INDIOS. BTW, I don’t agree with you that the term “since time immemorial” is “useless”–I just think the Bangsamoro don’t have a right to say they have been here since time immemorial.
Indeed I propose to define “time immemorial” as the period before any written history, during which we can be fairly certain that human beings (“indios”) did live on these islands on the sea.
It is thus possible to define in a very precise way the Original Inhabitants, the true First Nation, as that collection of people who were here just before Islam and Spain (the first and Second Conquerors) arrived. Before “conquest or colonialisation” differentiated us by religion and ethnicity.
I am sure there are senses in which the word indio was not used in a pejorative manner, but translated more or less as “indigenous”!
But let us quit this dancing around and lance the boil as it stands: you are for upholding so called ancestral domain rights on behalf of the Bangsamoro. I wonder now where you stand on the hundred or so other IPs.
September 7, 2008 at 8:56 pm
DJB, my issue is not with the ‘emotions normally associated with the use of the word indio’, but rather, the lack of scientific rigor in assigning the term ‘indio’ to refer to the undifferentiated prehistoric inhabitants of these islands. As a classification, it is incongruent, being too broad in some aspects (as a linguistic or cultural grouping), too narrow in others (as a genetic or racial grouping) and does not correspond to any pre-historic political demarcations. It’s as sloppy as that since time immemorial phrase.
As a scientist, i would have expected you contribute to clarity rather than muddle further it with arbitrary categories (such as pre-historic ‘indio’) and tiresome metaphors (such as ’since time immemorial’).
I wonder how you can be so sure about where i stand when i haven’t made up my mind on the issue.
September 8, 2008 at 7:40 am
cvj.
If I may butt in, realize that indio, when the Spaniards tacked it on our race did so pejoratively and also going by the mistaken notions of Magellan and his ilk that they had somehow reached India, in the same mistaken notion of Columbus that he had landed on Indian there by calling the native there Indians.
So all these ‘conquering’ pale faces who were ‘hired’ hans of the crown they served (Portugal and Spain) simply immortalized their ignorance through the class names they used to ‘brand’ us and the original First Nation, the native ‘red skins’.
September 8, 2008 at 8:37 am
cvj,
the term “Indian” seems perfectly alright in referring to the Native Americans. I use the term “indio” to refer to Native Filipinos.
I’m sorry, but I’ve every right to use the term in this manner. It happens to be the sense in which Jose Rizal uses it in the Noli and Fili, too, fyi!
September 8, 2008 at 8:43 am
“INDIOS = INDIGENOUS PEOPLE”
Further, by “undifferentiated” I do mean before we got differentiated into Christians and Muslims and lumads, and thence to indigenous and nonindigenous peoples. The simple, scientific fact that I believe Tabon Man demonstrates, physically and paleologically and irrefutably, is that we are ALL indios who are descendants of that group that inhabited these islands just before “conquest or colonization” by Islam, Spain and America.
Islam and Christianity are both foreign to those original indios. Why should some of us become non-indios or non-indigenous?
Science is on my side! (Well at least paleoanthropology anyway).
September 8, 2008 at 9:05 am
How are you able to determine that we are all descended from Tabon Man? That sounds like a premature conclusion given that our Y-DNA Haplogroups O1 and O3, to which most present day Filipinos belong to, did not exist 50,000 years ago.
September 8, 2008 at 9:21 am
cvj,
Bad sentence construction on my part. I was attempting to define who the modern indios are: they are those human beings who are descendants of the inhabitants of these Islands before the coming of Islam or Spain. Tabon Man merely proves that there WERE inhabitants here before the time of conquest or colonization by Islam or Spain.
Thus the word INDIO perfectly captures both the past and present meaning of indigenous people and leads to a vastly different conclusion than IPRA or the apartheid-supporters (like you?)
September 8, 2008 at 9:48 am
DJB, so defined, ‘INDIO’ confuses two time periods. It categorizes pre-Hispanic inhabitants stretching back 50,000 years by your definition) on the basis of a political entity that only came into existence in the late 19th century. How scientific is that? For all we know, Tabon man may have been part of a group that was just passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Rather than compound the error of that since time immemorial phrase on the part of USIP, let’s focus on what the sources of dispute are, which is between those who settled Mindanao during the American, Commonwealth and subsequent periods versus those who were there before that.