Bayan (settlement)

In early Philippine history, a bayan (sometimes simply called a "large barangay")[1] was a political entity which consisted of several social groups called barangays.[2] The term's etymology can be traced back to the word "bahayan", meaning a "community", or literally "a place with many households."[3] The majority of these early "bayan" were economically complex communities situated river deltas where rivers exit out into the ocean, and featured a compact community layout which distinguished them from inland communities, thus the name.[4]

After the various polities of the Philippine archipelago were united into a single political entity during colonial times, the term gradually lost its original specific meaning, and took on more generic, descriptive denotations: population center (poblacion) or capital (cabisera); municipality; or in the broadest sense, "country".[Notes 1]

Among the most prominent of these bayan entities were those in Maynila, Tondo, Pangasinan, Cebu, Bohol, Butuan, Cotabato, and Sulu.[5][6]

Etymology and historiography

Grace Odal-Devora traces the etymology of the term "Bayan" to the word "bahayan," meaning a "community", or literally "a place with many households (bahay)." She notes that its root word, "Ba-y" or "Ba-i", is linguistically related to other Philippine words for shoreline and perimeter (both "baybay"), woman ("babai" or the Visayan term "ba-i" meaning great lady), friend (the Visayan term "bay"), and writing (baybayin).[3] She also notes that these terms are the basis for many place-names in the Philippines, such as Bay, Laguna and Laguna de Bay, and Baybay, Leyte.[3]

The earliest documentation of the term "Bayan" was done by early Spanish missionaries who came up with local language dictionaries to facilitate the conversion of the peoples of the Philippine archipelago to Roman Catholicism. Among the most significant of these dictionaries was the Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala by the Augustinian missionary Fray Pedro de San Buenaventura, who described it as a large town with four to ten datu lived with their followers, called dulohan or barangay.[7]

Model of rulership

Although popular portrayals and early nationalist historical texts sometimes depict Philippine paramount rulers as having broad sovereign powers and holding vast territories, critical historiographers such as Jocano,[1](pp160–161) Scott,[6] and Junker[4] explain that historical sources clearly show paramount leaders exercised only a limited degree of influence, which did not include claims over the barangays and territories of less-senior datus.

For example, F. Landa Jocano, in his seminal work "Filipino Prehistory:Rediscovering Precolonial Heritage",[1](pp160–161) notes:

"Even if different Barangays entered into alliances with one another, there was no sovereign datu over them. Each datu ruled his barangay independently. The alliances were limited to mutual protection and assistance in times of need. It did not entail permanent allegiance. The grouping was based on consensus. Whoever was chosen by the groups as their leader exercised leadership and asserted authority over them. It was a living democracy...Barangay alliances were loosely defined. These were often based on kinship and marriage. Each Barangay remained independent and enjoyed freedom from external control. That was why Lapulapu resisted the attempt of Magellan to make him acknowledge the lordship of Humabon. The same was true of the other datus who resisted coercive efforts of the Spaniards to make them subservient to other Datus."

Keifer[8] compares this situation to similarly-structured African polities where "component units of the political structure consist of functionally and structurally equivalent segments integrated only loosely by a centralized authority dependent on the consensual delegation of power upwards (sic) through the system." Junker,[4] expounding further on Keifer's work, notes:

..."While political leadership followed an explicitly symbolized heirarchy of rank [...] this leadership heirarchy did not (sic) constitute an institutionalized chain of command from center to periphery. Political allegiance was given only to the leader immediately above an individual with whom a kin group had personal ties of economic reciprocity and loyalty."[4]

This explanation of the limited powers of a paramount leader in cultures throughout the Philippine archipelago explains the confusion experienced by Martin de Goiti during the first Spanish forays into Bulacan and Pampanga in late 1571.[9] Until that point, Spanish chroniclers continued to use the terms "king" and "kingdom" to describe the polities of Tondo and Maynila, but Goiti was surprised when Lakandula explained there was "no single king over these lands",[9][6] and that the leadership of Tondo and Maynila over the Kapampangan polities did not include either territorial claim or absolute command.[6] Antonio de Morga, in his work Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, expounds:

"There were no kings or lords throughout these islands who ruled over them as in the manner of our kingdoms and provinces; but in every island, and in each province of it, many chiefs were recognized by the natives themselves. Some were more powerful than others, and each one had his followers and subjects, by districts and families; and these obeyed and respected the chief. Some chiefs had friendship and communication with others, and at times wars and quarrels. These principalities and lordships were inherited in the male line and by succession of father and son and their descendants. If these were lacking, then their brothers and collateral relatives succeeded... When any of these chiefs was more courageous than others in war and upon other occasions, such a one enjoyed more followers and men; and the others were under his leadership, even if they were chiefs. These latter retained to themselves the lordship and particular government of their own following, which is called barangay among them. They had datos and other special leaders [mandadores] who attended to the interests of the barangay." [10]

Titles of rulers

Because the peoples of the Philippine archipelago had different languages, the highest ranking political authorities in the largest historical Bayan polities went by different titles. In Muslim polities such as Sulu and Cotabato, the Paramount ruler was called a Sultan.[6] In Tagalog communities, the equivalent title was that of Lakan.[6] In communities which historically had strong political or trade connections with Indianized polities in Indonesia and Malaysia,[11] the Paramount Ruler was called a Rajah.[11][6] Among the Subanon people of the Zamboanga Peninsula, a settlement's Datus answer to a Thimuay, and some Thimuays are sometimes additionally referred to as "Thimuay Labi,"[12] or as Sulotan in more Islamized Subanon communities.[13] In some other portions of the Visayas and Mindanao, there was no separate name for the most senior ruler, so the Paramount ruler was simply called a Datu,[11][6] although one Datu was identifiable as the most senior.[1][14]

Scholarship

Because of the difficulty of accessing and accurately interpreting the various available sources,[11] relatively few integrative studies of pre-colonial social structures have been done - most studies focus on the specific context of a single settlement or ethnic group. There are only a handful of historiographers and anthropologists who have done integrative studies to examine the commonalities and differences between these polities.

One of the earliest such studies was conducted by Jesuit missionary Francisco Colin, who, in the middle of the seventeenth century,attempted an approximate comparison of the social stratification in Tagalog culture with that in the Visayan culture, which would become a reference for many later scholars.

In the contemporary era of critical scholarly analysis, the more prominent such works include the studies of anthropologist F. Landa Jocano[1][4] and historian-historiographer William Henry Scott.[6][4] More recently, anthropologist Laura Lee Junker[4] conducted an updated comparative review of the social organization of early polities throughout the archipelago, alongside her study of inter and intra-regional trade among Philippine coastal polities.[5]

Feudalism

The organization of pre-colonial Philippine states has often been described a or compared to Feudalism (see Non-Western Feudalism), particularly in light of Marxist socioeconomic analysis. Specifically, political scientists note that political patterns of the modern Republic of the Philippines, supposedly a liberal democracy, can more accurately be described using the term "Cacique Democracy"

Cacique Democracy

Present-day political scientists studying the Philippines have noted that the reciprocal social obligations that characterized the pre-colonial bayan and barangay system are still in place today, albeit using the external trappings of modern liberal democracy. The term "Cacique Democracy" has been used to describe the feudal political system of the Philippines where in many parts of the country local leaders remain very strong, with almost warlord-type powers.[15]

The term was originally coined by Benedict Anderson[16] from the Taíno word Cacique[17] and its modern derivative "caciquismo" (sometimes translated as "Bossism"),[18] which refers to a political boss or leader who exercises significant power in a political system.

Mandala

In the late 20th century, European historians who believed that historical Southeast Asian polities did not conform to classical Chinese or European views of political geography began adapting the Sanskrit word "Mandala" ("circle") as a model for describing the patterns of diffuse political power distributed among Mueang or Kedatuan (principalities) in early Southeast Asian history. They emphasized that these polities were defined by their centre rather than their boundaries, and it could be composed of numerous other tributary polities without undergoing administrative integration.[19]

This model has been applied to the historical polities of Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia which traded extensively with various Bayan polities in the Philippines. However, Southeast Asian historians such as Jocano, Scott, and Osbourne are careful to note that the Philippines and Vietnam were outside of the geographical scope of direct Indian influence, and that the Philippines instead received an indirect Indian cultural influence through their relations with the Majapahit empire. Philippine historiographers thus do not apply the term "Mandala" to describe early Philippine polities because doing so overemphasizes the scale of Indian influence on Philippine culture, obscuring the indigenous Austronesian cultural connections to the peoples of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Another word, bansa or bangsa, is translated "nation".

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Jocano, F. Landa (2001). Filipino Prehistory: Rediscovering Precolonial Heritage. Quezon City: Punlad Research House, Inc. ISBN 971-622-006-5.
  2. ↑ "Pre-colonial Manila". Malacañang Presidential Museum and Library. Malacañang Presidential Museum and Library Araw ng Maynila Briefers. Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office. 23 June 2015. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 Odal-Devora, Grace (2000). The River Dwellers, in Book Pasig : The River of Life (Edited by Reynaldo Gamboa Alejandro and Alfred A. Yuson). Unilever Philippines. pp. 43–66.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Junker, Laura Lee (1990). "The Organization of IntraRegional and LongDistance Trade in PreHispanic Philippine Complex Societies". Asian Perspectives. 29 (2): 167–209.
  5. 1 2 Junker, Laura Lee (1998). "Integrating History and Archaeology in the Study of Contact Period Philippine Chiefdoms". International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 2 (4).
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Scott, William Henry (1994). Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. ISBN 971-550-135-4.
  7. ↑ Buenaventura, Pedro de San (1613). Vocabulario de lengua tagala: el romance castellano puesto primero. Pila.
  8. ↑ Keifer, Thomas (1972). The Tausug: Violence and Law in a Philippine Muslim Society. New York: Holt, Rineheart and Winston. ISBN 0881332429.
  9. 1 2 Blair, Emma Helen; Robertson, James Alexander, eds. (1903). Relation of the Conquest of the Island of Luzon. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898. 3. Ohio, Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company. p. 145.
  10. ↑ Morga, Antonio de (1609). Succesos de las Islas Filipinas.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Scott, William Henry (1984). Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History. Quezon City: New Day Publishers. ISBN 978-9711002268.
  12. ↑ Imbing, Thimuay Mangura Vicente L.; Viernes-Enriquez, Joy (1990). "A Legend of the Subanen "Buklog"". Asian Folklore Studies. 49 (1): 109–123. JSTOR 1177951.
  13. ↑ Buendia, Rizal; Mendoza, Lorelei; Guiam, Rufa; Sambeli, Luisa (2006). Mapping and Analysis of Indigenous Governance Practices in the Philippines and Proposal for Establishing an Indicative Framework for Indigenous People’s Governance: Towards a Broader and Inclusive Process of Governance in the Philippines (PDF). Bangkok: United Nations Development Programme.
  14. ↑ Scott, William Henry (1992). Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino and Other Essays in the Philippine History. Quezon City: New Day Publishers. ISBN 971-10-0524-7.
  15. ↑ Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Cacique Democracy'
  16. ↑ Benedict Anderson, 'Cacique Democracy in the Philippines: Origins and Dreams', New Left Review, I (169), May–June 1988
  17. ↑ The Catastrophe of Modernity: Tragedy and the Nation in Latin American Literature. Bucknell University Press. 2004. pp. 136–. ISBN 978-0-8387-5561-7. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  18. ↑ Robert Kern, The caciques: oligarchical politics and the system of caciquismo in the Luso-Hispanic world. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press [1973]
  19. ↑ Dellios, Rosita (2003-01-01). "Mandala: from sacred origins to sovereign affairs in traditional Southeast Asia". Bond University Australia. Missing or empty |url= (help); |access-date= requires |url= (help)
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