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jarburialpractices.blogspot.com
THE MANUNGGUL JAR AS A VESSEL
OF HISTORY
10-13 minutos
by: Michael Charleston B. Chua
"…the work of an artist and master potter."--Robert Fox
27th April 1995—I was 11 years old when I visited the National
Museum -- the repository of our cultural, natural and historical
heritage. I remembered the majesty of climbing those steps and
walking past the Neo-classical Roman columns until I was inside
the Old Congress Building.
Today, if the Metropolitan Museum’s identifying piece was the
painting Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas Al Populacho by Felix
Resurrecion Hidaldo and the GSIS Museum its Parisian Life by the
painter Juan Luna, the National Museum’s, El Spoliarium, Luna’s
most famous piece. Many people come to the museum just for this
painting. But another less-popular but quite significant piece was
the Manunggul jar.
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The Manunggul jar was one of the numerous jars found in a cave
believed to be a burial site (Manunggul, was part of the
archaeologically significant Tabon Cave Complex in Lipuun Point,
Quezon, Palawan) that was discovered on March 1964 by Victor
Decalan, Hans Kasten and other volunteer workers from the United
States Peace Corps. The Manunggul burial jar was unique in all
respects. Dating back to the late Neolithic Period (around 710
B.C.), Robert Fox described the jar in his landmark work on the
Tabon Caves:
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 padding 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 boat 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.
My familiarity with the Manunggul jar was spurred by the image in
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the PHP1,000 bill, circulated in 1995. Viewing the artifact up close
fascinated me tremendously. I saw the artistry of the early Filipinos
reflected in those fine lines and intricate designs. We were definitely
not as dumb as the Spaniards told us we were!
After a few years, when I took a cultural history subject during my
undergraduate course in UP Diliman under Dr. Bernadette Lorenzo-
Abrera, the Manunggul jar was given a whole new meaning. When
an archaeological find was explained anthropologically, it was
imbibed with far-reaching implications in re-writing its history.
The Manunggul jar served as a proof of our common heritage with
our Austronesian-speaking ancestors despite the diversity of
cultures of the Philippine peoples. Traces of their culture and beliefs
were seen in different parts of the country and from different
Philippine ethno-linguistic groups.
It was also a testament of the importance of the waters to our
ancestors. The seas and the rivers were their conduit of trade,
information and communication. According to Peter Bellwood, the
Southeast Asians first developed a sophisticated maritime culture
which made possible the spread of the Austronesian-speaking
peoples to the Pacific Islands as far Madagascar in Africa and
Easter Island near South America. Our ships—the balanghay, the
paraw, the caracoa, and the like—were considered marvelous
technological advances by our neighbors that they respected us
and made us partners in trade. These neighbors later then, grew to
include the imperial Chinese.
Many epics around the Philippines would tell us of how souls go to
the next life aboard boats, passing through the rivers and seas. The
belief was very much connected with the Austronesia belief in the
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anito. Our ancestors believed that man is composed of the body,
the life force called the ginhawa, and the kaluluwa (soul). The
kaluluwa, after death, can return to earth to exist in nature and
guide their descendants. This explained why the cover of the
Manunggul jar featured three faces: the soul, the boat driver, and of
the boat itself. For them, even things from nature have souls and
lives of their own. That’s why our ancestors respected nature more
than those who thought that it can be used for the ends of man.
Seeing the Manunggul jar once more, I was also reminded of the
inventiveness of the early Filipinos as well as the concepts and
values they hold most-- their concept of the soul, for example, are
believed to exist only on good-natured and merciful people. The
belief was that the soul gave life, mind, and will to a person and if
this was what our ancestors valued and exemplified, then our
nation was not only great, but lived by compassionate people.
However, the colonial masters in the past labeled our ancestors no
good and even tried to erase our legacies and values, and despite
the media today showing how shameful, miserable and poor our
country is, from time to time there would be people who echo the
same values that our ancestors lived by.
In the 1890s, the Katipunan movement of Andres Bonifacio, which
spearheaded the Philippine Revolution, tried to revive the values of
magandang kalooban. During the People Power Uprising in1986,
we showed the world the values of pananampalataya,
pakikipagkapwa, pakikiramay, pagiging masiyahin, bayanihan,
pagiging mapayapa, and pagiging malikhain --values that were
deeply rooted in the Filipino culture. It was the country's national
hero, José Rizal, who once wrote, in his essay, Filipinas Dentro de
Cien Años, (The Philippines Within a Century) that:
With the new men that will spring from her bosom and the
remembrance of the past, she will perhaps enter openly the wide
road of progress and all will work jointly to strengthen the mother
country at home as well as abroad with the same enthusiasm with
which a young man returns to cultivate his father’s farmland so long
devastated and abandons due to the negligence of those who had
alienated it. And free once more, like the bird that leaves his cage,
like the flower that returns to the open air, they will discover their
good old qualities which they are losing little by little and again
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become lovers of peace, gay, lively, smiling, hospitable, and
fearless.
The Manunggul jar was a symbol of the National Museum’s
important role in spearheading the preservation the cultural
heritage—pamana—using multi-disciplinary techniques. It was a
testament of how art can be a vessel of history and culture with the
help of scholars. In this light, a simple jar became the embodiment
of the history, experiences, and aspirations of the people and how
the values of maka-Diyos, makatao at makabansa became part the
value system of the Filipinos.
I have visited the manunggul jar numerous times since that April of
1995 at the Kaban ng Lahi room of the National Museum II—The
Museum of the Filipino People (former Department of Finance
Building). Everytime, I look at it I am reminded of how great and
compassionate the Filipinos are and how I could never be ashamed
of being a Filipino. Everytime I look at the Manunggul jar, I see a
vision that a new generation of Filipinos will once more take the
ancient balanghay as a people and be horizon seekers once more.
REFERENCES
Abrera, Bernadette Lorenzo. "Ang Sandugo sa Katipunan," in
Ferdinand C. Llanes, ed, Katipunan: Isang Pambansang Kilusan.
Quezon City: Trinitas Publishing, Inc., 1994, p. 93-104.
ADHIKA ng Pilipinas, Inc. Kasaysayang Bayan: Sampung Aralin sa
Kasaysayang Pilipino. Manila: National Historical Institute, 2001.
Bautista, Angel P. Tabon Cave Complex. Manila: National Museum,
2004.
Bellwood, Peter. "Hypothesis for Austronesian Origins," Asian
Perspectives, XXVI, 1984-85, pp. 107-117.
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__________. "The Batanes Archaeological Project, and the Current
State of the ‘Out of Taiwan’ Debate with Respect to Neolithic and
Austronesian Language Dispersal." Lecture delivered among the
faculty of the UP Department of History, Palma Hall 109, UP
Diliman, 28 March 2006.
Covar, Prospero R. Kaalamang Bayang Dalumat ng Pagkataong
Pilipino (Lekturang Propesoryal bilang tagapaghawak ng
Kaalamang Bayang Pag-aaral sa taong 1992, Departamento ng
Antropolohiya, Dalubhasaan ng Agham Panlipunan at Pilosopiya,
Unibersidad ng Pilipinas. Binigkas sa Bulwagang Rizal, UP Diliman,
Lungsod Quezon, Ika-3 ng Marso, 1993).
EDSA 2000: Landas ng Pagbabago, a documentary of the People
Power Commission, narrated by Vicky Morales and Teddy Benigno,
directed by Maria Montelibano, broadcast date: February 2000 at
NBN-4 and ABS-CBN 2.
Fox, Robert B. The Tabon Caves: Archaeological Explorations and
Excavations on Palawan Island, Philippines. Manila: National
Museum, 1970.
Maceda, Teresita Gimenez. "The Katipunan Discourse on
Kaginhawahan: Vision and Configuration of a Just and Free
Society," in Kasarinlan: A Philippine Quarterly of Third World
Studies, 14, Num. 2, 1998, pp. 77-94.
Quibuyen, Floro C. A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony
and Philippine Nationalism. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila U. P.,
1999, p. 215-216.
"Rules and Regulations Implementing Republic Act No. 8491,
series of 1998, The Code of the National Flag, Anthem, Motto,
Coat-of-Arms and Other Heraldic Items and Devices of the
Philippines" in The Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines
illustrated (Manila: National Historical Institute, 2006).
Salazar, Zeus A. "Ang Kamalayan at Kaluluwa: Isang Paglilinaw ng
Ilang Konsepto sa Kinagisnang Sikolohiya" in Rogelia Pe-Pua, ed.,
Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Teorya, Metodo at Gamit. Quezon City:
Surian ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, 1982) pp. 83-92.
Scott, William Henry. Filipinos in China Before 1500. Maynila: China
Studies Program, De La Salle University, 1989.
Solheim, Wilhelm II, G. "The Nusantao Hypothesis: The Origins and
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Spread of Austronesia Speakers," Asian Perspectives XXVI,
1984-85, pp. 77-78.
Michael Charleston B. Chua is currently an instructor and a
graduate student of the Department of History, University of the
Philippines at Diliman, where he also finished his BA in History
(2005). He is a member of the Bagong Kasaysayan (BAKAS), Inc,
Philippine National Historical Society (PNHS) and the Asosasyon
ng mga Dalubhasa, May Hilig at Interes sa Kasaysayan (ADHIKA)
ng Pilipinas, Inc. Had lectured on different topics in different places
and had been interviewed a number of times for local and national
television.
Source: Artes de las Filipinas, THE ARTS OF THE PHILIPPINES
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