Early Peoples of the Philippines

When I moved here in Italy, I became more and more interested in history. Every time I plan to visit interesting places here, I always read about them before the actual visit. I realized that I became more interested in their history than in the history of my own country. In the Philippines, we were taught about it in elementary and high school. I admit that some of the lessons taught were forgotten as you attended college to acquire your bachelor's degree since Philippine history is no longer included in the curriculum in some courses, and perhaps we might forget it as time passes by as well. Then I searched for some books on the internet, and I found this book titled The Story of Our Country by Leandro Hernandez. It is so ridiculous because the book is tailored for primary school children, and I had a second thought about whether I was going to read it. I still read it because I wanted to look back. The book was concise and easy to understand. I summed them all up and rewrote them to share with you our history, and I will tackle them below.

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It is stated that the sole inhabitants of my country (the Philippines) hundreds of years ago were Aetas. Aetas were described as having short stature, black skin, flat noses, and kinky hair. For hunting, they used bows and arrows. Afterwards, the Indonesians from Southeast Asia arrived. Indonesians were not very dark like the Aetas, had high noses, long and wavy hair, were tall in height, and were slim. They used spears for both hunting and fighting. Indonesians lived along the coast of the sea and in the river valleys. Then, years later, the Malays, another different race, arrived. They were distinct from Aetas and Indonesians. Malays had straight black hair and brown skin. They were taller than the Aetas and more intelligent than the Indonesians. They were courageous and had no fear of the ocean. In their large boats, they sailed a great distance across the seas.

A Malay

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It was not written in the book about how the Indonesians landed in the Philippines. Only the arrival of Malays was mentioned there. It is believed that Malays reached the Philippines with their ships, they arrived on Panay Island (the western part of the Visayas), to be specific. In their boat, there were datos (chiefs) and their families, as well as some other people aboard. Among those datos, the greatest chief was Dato Puti. Then, the chief of the Aetas on that island, named Marikudo, and his tribesmen approached the Malays and asked what they desired. Dato Puti negotiated to buy some land, claiming that the soil in the Philippines was beautiful and fertile. Marikudo then summoned his entire people. They welcomed the Malays to their island with a feast, and they danced with them. Following that, they discussed the sale of the previously mentioned land, and Marikudo was willing to sell the lowland. Dato Puti accepted and paid for it with a gold necklace and a gold hat called sadok. The new land owners cleared their purchased land by cutting down the trees, built their houses, and settled down there along the rivers. For the living, they planted rice, coconuts, bamboo, nipa, and other plants. This is how the Malay made their first home on Panay Island.

A Malay ship

Later, many more boats arrived, bringing more Malays to Panay and to other islands. As stated, they first lived in the lowlands near the sea and the rivers, and then, after a while, they began to build their homes further up the rivers. The Malays usually had trouble with both Aetas and Indonesians, but they drove them into the mountains and forests. However, some of the Indonesians remained there and lived in peace with the Malays. And then they became one people. Almost all the people of the Philippines belong to the Malay race. Therefore, we are from the Malay race, but now we call ourselves Filipinos.

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I ended it here because some of you might get bored reading long texts. I myself hate reading long passages either. So, I will continue my writing maybe in my next post.

Thank you for reading!