Introduction
Early Filipinos were living in coastal villages or near rivers to sustain their basic commodities. Since they were living near coastal areas, boats were linked to many aspects of Filipino life such as fishing, trade, warfare, trade raiding for goods and slaves, travel and communication.
The importance of ‘Balangay’ in the consciousness of every Filipino has urged the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture to approve a bill declaring‘Balangay’ as the oldest watercraft in the country and as the National Boat of the Philippines. The House Committee on Revision of Laws has approved a proposal to declare the ‘Balangay’ as the National Boat of the Philippines. The committee chaired by Rep. Marlyn Primicias-Agabas (6th District,Pangasinan) approved the proposal embodied in House Bill 4879 authored by Rep.Lawrence Lemuel H. Fortun (1st District,Agusan Del Norte) which aims to ensure that future generations of Filipinos will recognize inestimable contribution of their primogenitors in creating and shaping the country’s maritime tradition and in passing on the values of unity, coherence, determination and bravery through the celebration of the ‘Balangay’ as the Nation’s National Boat.
The historical discovery of this wooden boat which was well known historical figures unearthed boast the name of Butuan City. Agusan del Norte Representative Lawrence Lemuel Fortun noted that ‘Balangay’ also known as Butuan Boat was the first ever wooden watercraft to be excavated in Southeast Asia representing early Filipino boat-building intellect and seamanship expertise during the pre-colonial times.In addition, he said “found only in the Philippines where a group of small ships of such pre-historic boat exist throughout the world, the Butuan Boat was utilized by our ancestors to maintain trade relations with neighboring islands around the country and empires around Southeast Asia”.
Fortun also noted that the boat was first mentioned in the 16th century in the chronicles of Pigafetta. Citing that there are nine balangay boats known to be in existence and the oldest of which has been carbon dated around 320 AD.
This wooden boat was excavated in 1979 in North Eastern Mindanao near the city of Butuan at a depth of about two meters. The vessel is a plank boat adjoined by carved-out planks edged through pins and dowels. It is a finely boat designed for long distance navigation without the use of blueprints and was taught to be made from one generation to another using an ancient technique that has been preserved and is still employed by boat makers of Sibutu Island. It is estimated with fifteen meters long and three to four meters wide. The ‘Balangay’ is propelled by sail of buri or nipa fiber or padding and is large enough to capacitate 25seat people. The hull is further made strong by bindings of fiber cords through holes in raise lugs on the inside surfaces of the planks and the planks were made from hard wood like ‘doongan’ (heriteriera littoralis) and was used primarily for cargo and raiding purposes, giving proof that Butuan played a central role in trade. Estimated to be around eight hundred years old, the plank vessel may be centuries older than the ships used by European explorers in the 16th century when they first came upon the archipelago later named after a Spanish King, Las Islas Felipenas.
Today, this historical figure, ‘Balangay 1’ lays at the Balangay Shrine Museum in Ambangan, Libertad which is located five kilometers east of the city proper and so far, nine ‘balangays’ have been documented to exist. Thus, the Butuan Museum is tasked with supervising with care and protection of the ‘Balangay’ excavations and any other artifacts found therein. The National Museum excavated three of these boats while the rest are still water logged in specific sites in Butuan City. The excavation site water logged pending further digging and study. According to National Museum Archeologist,Dr. Mary Jane A. Bulonia, in that state, the artifact is beneficial for its conservation primarily because if it is exposed without proper conservation then it will decompose rapidly.
Therefore,our ancestors are confirmed to the active involvement in healthy commercial activities in Asia as early as the 10th and 11th centuries. Also, this boat is an evidence that early man in the Philippines was seafaring with much more organized and centralized and was relatively technologically advanced. Furthermore,the said declaration serves as a proof to the country’s rich pre-historic maritime history.
BODY
The Balangay (formerly synonymous with Butuan boat) is a plank boat adjoined by a carved-out plank edged through pins and dowels. It was first mentioned in the 16th Century in the Chronicles of Pigafetta, and is known as the oldest watercraft found in the Philippines. The oldest known balangay has been carbon-dated to 320 CE.
The balangay was the first wooden watercraft excavated in Southeast Asia and is evidence of early Filipino craftsmanship and their seamanship skills during pre-colonial times. The Balanghai Festival is also a celebration in Butuan, Agusan Del Norte to commemorate the coming of the early migrants that settled the Philippines, on board the Balangay boats. When the first Spaniards arrived in the 16th century, they found the Filipinos living in well-organized independent villages called barangays. The name barangay originated from balangay, the Austronesian word for “sailboat”.
Barangay, or Balangay, was one of the first native words the Spaniards learned in the Philippines. When Antonio Pigafetta went ashore to parley with the ruler of Mazua, they sat together in a boat drawn up on shore which Pigafetta called a balangai.This word appears as either balangay or barangay, with the same meaning, in all the major languages of the Philippines, and the earliest Spanish dictionaries make it clear that it was pronounced “ba-la-ngay.
On the other hand, when the Spaniards reached Luzon, they found this word for boat also being used for the smallest political unit of Tagalog society.
This article is restricted on the terms Balangay or Barangay referring to the boat only and not the ‘barangay’ as community.
As in Northern Luzon particularly in the province of Cagayan, balangay is used as a medium in getting food for the Ibanags. The Cagayan river system and the Babuyan Channel provided the Ibanags with fish as well as avenues of trade as far as Ilocos coast, so that boats were an ordinary part of daily life. The common word for boat was barangay, a term sometimes extended to the crew. Large vessels were called Birayor Biwong.
The Visayans and Mindanaons had a different way of using balangay compared to that of the people of Northern Luzon. Large ones were used for carrying cargo and were called bidok, biroko, balutu, baroto, biray, or lapid.
With the balangay size, it was used for cargo and raiding purposes giving proof that Butuan played a central role in trade throughout the region of the Philippine islands and with neighboring area. Today, Balanghai Festival is a celebration in Butuan, Agusan Del Norte, it is to commemorate the coming of the early migrants that settled in the Philippines, on board the Balangay boats.
It is also held that the balangay also helped spread the settlement of the Austronesian people around the Philippines and neighboring regions of Maritime Southeast
Asia. The Tao people of Taiwan have traditionally been adept at crafting balangays, a tradition that still continues in modern times. Balangays are held as a symbol of their people. They are regarded as descendants of the vessels used by the ancestors of the Tao people when they settled Orchid Island from Batanes at approximately 1200 CE.
The balangay was the first wooden watercraft excavated in Southeast Asia. The well known barangay was an edge-pegged, plank-builtboat constructed on a keel.
The balangay was basically a plank boat put together by joining the carved out planks edge to edge, using pins or dowels. The planks, which were made from a hard wood called doongon in the Philippines (Heritiera littoralis),were fastened together every 12 centimeters, also by hardwood pin measuring some 19 centimeters long, which were driven into holes on the edge of each plank. On the inner side of the boat the planks were provided, at regular intervals, with raised rectangular lugs, carved from the same plank, through which holes were bored diagonally from the sides to the surface.
Rib like structures made of lengths of wood were then lashed against these lugs to provide a flexible bulkhead, to reinforce and literally sew the boat together.Cordage known as cabo negro (Arenga pinnata) was used for the purpose. The hull,measuring about 15 meters long and 4 meters wide, was ordinarily semicircular in cross section and with no marked keel. Provided with huge outriggers, the boat was propelled either by a sail or by paddling.
The boats were finely manufactured without any blueprints and were taught to be made from one generation to another and uses a technique still used by boat makers of Sibutu Island in the Southern Philippines.
Since the 10th century, Butuan appeared to have been in good relations with the Srivijaya. Being located on the coast of Mindanao, balangays were often docking at Butuan bay keeping good business between the local people of Butuan and traders from the neighboring empire and neighboring islands.Various goods, extending to the statue of Avalokiteśvara and the Golden Tara of Butuan, were traded across Maritime Southeast Asia.
The balangay boats were discovered in the late 1970s in Butuan City, Agusan Del Norte. A total of nine wooden boats were accidentally found by locals searching for alluvial gold on land near the Masao River. The site was in Sitio Ambangan, Barrio Libertad within an older dried-up river channel, perhaps a former tributary of the Masao River.
Three of the nine balangays discovered have been excavated by the National Museum and are currently preserved. The first balangay or Butuan Boat One, was discovered in 1976 and is now displayed in Balangay Shrine Museum in Libertad, Butuan City. It was radiocarbon tested and was dated to 320 CE. The Butuan Boat Two was dated to 1250 CE, and is now located at the Maritime Hall of the National Museum in Manila. The Butuan Boat Five, excavated at Bancasi, Libertad in1986, has been dated to 1215 CE and was transferred to the Butuan Regional Museum and is undergoing preservation. The six other boats, which are yet to be excavated, remain in their original waterlogged condition which is proven to be the best way to preserve the said artifacts.
In2012, National Museum archaeologists discovered what seems to be a massive balangay “mother boat”,estimated to be 25 meters long, versus the average 15-meter length of the other balangays at the excavation site. The leader of the research team, Dr. Mary Jane Louise A. Bolunia,reported the tree nails or wooden pegs that were used in the construction of the mother boat to be around 5 centimeters in diameter. As of June 2013, excavations of the find are still ongoing.
The first wooden watercraft excavated in Southeast Asia, the balangay is only found in the Philippines where a flotilla of such prehistoric wooden boats exists.Nine specimens were discovered in 1976 in Butuan, Agusan Del Norte, Mindanao, and 3 have already been excavated.
The balangays of Butuan was declared by President Corazon Aquino as National Cultural Treasures by virtue of Presidential Proclamation No. 86 on 9 March 1987 and the vicinity of excavation as archaeological reserves.
In November 2015, the Balangay was declared as the National Boat of the Philippines by the House Committee on Revisions of Laws. The Balangay was chosen so that the “future generations of Filipinos will recognize the invaluable contribution of their forefathers in shaping the country’s maritime tradition and in passing on the values of solidarity,harmony, determination, courage and bravery.
House Bill 6366 declares the Balangay as the National Boat of the Philippines.
In 2009, the Kaya ng Pinoy Inc. that conquered Mt.Everest in 2006 announced plans to re-construct the Balangay boat, with the help of Badjao and other tribal members. The Balangay will be sailed,tracing the routes of the Filipino Ancestors during the waves of
Austronesian settlement through Maritime Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The special wood for construction came from the established traditional source in southern Philippines, specifically Tawi-Tawi. The team have pinpointed Badjao master boat builders, whose predecessors actually built such boats, and used traditional tools during the construction. The balangay was constructed at Manila Bay, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex.
The Balangays, named Diwata ng Lahi, Masawa Hong Butuan, and Sama Tawi-Tawi, navigated without the use of modern instruments, and only through the skills and traditional methods of the Filipino Sea Badjao people. They Journeyed from Manila Bay to the southern tip of Sulu, stopping off at numerous Philippine cities along the way to promote the project. The journey around the Philippine islands covered a distance of 2,108 nautical miles or 3,908 kilometers.
The second leg saw the balangay navigate throughout South East Asia through to 2010, then Micronesia and Madagascar the following year. The Balangay then ventured across the Pacific onward to the Atlantic and all the way around the world and back to the Philippines in 2012 to 2013.
The balangay was navigated by the old method used by the ancient mariners – steering by the sun, the stars, the wind, cloud formations, wave patterns and bird migrations. Valdez and his team relied on the natural navigational instincts of the Badjao. Apart from the Badjao, Ivatan are also experts in using the boat. The organizers say that the voyage “aims to bring us back to the greatness of our ancestors and how colonialism robbed these away from us and produced the Filipino today”. Their vessel, named “Ngandahig” can also be compared to the Hokulea voyages, and the voyages of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
According to an updated article of GMA News last August 13,2013, GMA News visited the site on August 14, and found the excavation site waterlogged pending further digging and study. However, Bolunia assured that keeping the artifacts in this condition for now is actually beneficial for their conservation. Bolunia told GMA news that they just let the water seep in and leave it at that because it’s more protected than if you dry it because if it is exposed without proper conservation then it will disintegrate.Jorge Absite, officer-in-charge of the Butuan Museum, is hopeful that the new discovery will yield more insights about our Filipino ancestors. The Butuan Museum is tasked with supervising the care and protection of the balangay excavations and any artifacts found therein. It is the answer to a ‘missing link’ in our culture, on what kind of life our ancestors really had according to Absite. “(Filipinos’) ability to construct or build big boats is not something new… Even before the Chinese came to the Philippines, the Filipinos went to China through the Butuanons,” Bolunia underscored.It has long been established that Filipinos traveled across Southeast Asia as early as the 10th century, reaching as far as Champa –what is now the eastern coast of Vietnam – in groups of balangays.These groups or flotillas have always been thought to consist of similarly-sizedsmall vessels, an idea perpetuated by the term “barangay” – the smallest administrative division of the present-day Philippine government.But, according to Bolunia, this new discovery suggests that these may just have been support vessels for a much larger main boat, where trade goods and other supplies were likely to have been held for safekeeping. The discovery also suggests that seafaring Filipinos were much more organized and centralized than previously thought. Abrera told GMA News that this balangay reinforces the findings of the earlier excavations about the role of Butuan as a commercial and population center in precolonial Philippines. Via Facebook chat, historian Arnold M. Azurin told GMA News that Butuan seaport had long-time trade links with Champa and Guandong (China). You can retrace the importance of (the newly-discovered boat) by utilizing it as an archeological key to that period when Butuan was a busy link to the pan-Asiancultural and commercial intercourse. In fact, Filipino seafarers from Butuan were already exploring Asia over a thousand years ago, well ahead of our Chinese neighbors: as early as 1001, the Song Dynasty recorded the arrival of a diplomatic mission from the”Kingdom of Butuan.” Azurin added that in 1003 AD, a Butuan chieftain petitioned the Chinese Imperial Court to allow it to bring its products direct to Guandong—instead of using Champa as the entrepôt (main trading post).
However,according to Azurin, the petition was declined because the Court insisted on regulating trade via Champa. He also says that Butuan may also have played a major role in the spread of culture and religion in the Philippines long before Christianity and even Islam came to the islands. The boat’s possible deeper significance is that it may be one of the carriers of Hindu-Buddhist cultural influence in the Philippine Archipelago long before Islam and Christianity arrived here. Many scholars also say that the baybayin script arrived here through the same connection with Champa. Hence, you can deepen the cultural legacy of our ancestors according to Azurin. While the newfound boat has yet to be accurately dated, its construction and position directly alongside a balangay from the 1200’s strongly suggest that it is also a balangay from the same time period. If so, then the boat predates by hundreds of years Magellan’s arrival, and death, in the Philippines in 1521 and even the Chinese explorer Zheng He’s expedition across Asia in 1400.For more than a thousand years, the trade and settlement patterns and routes across Asia connected certain islands (of the Philippines), especially those with good harbors and steady supply of local products. Highly interesting is the mention of slaves-for-sale in (Magellan’s chronicler) Pigafetta’s account of the first circumnavigation: Raja Humabon boasted to Magellan that some boatloads of slaves had just left Cebu for Cambodia and Champa—likely in need of warm bodies for their wars of succession, or for new stone cutters for their megalithic shrines as said by Azurin. Could Filipino craftsmen, sent abroad on balangays,have helped build ancient Asian monuments like Angkor Wat? Azurin said that it’s a possible conjecture, considering that archeologists like Robert Fox, H. Otley Beyer and others have pointed out that some islands in southern Philippines had communities linked to (these places). In any case, the “mother boat” and the smaller balangays in Butuan were definitely made for exploring the high seas, according to Dr. Bolunia. She says their overall shape and construction are suited to navigating deep ocean waters more than shallow rivers. The presence of a quarter rudder and sails would also indicate a sea-going vessel, although these have yet to be found, Dr. Bolunia says.Even today, the Sama-Badjao of Sulu still practice boat building techniques that are strikingly similar to those used in constructing the Butuan boats. In 2010, replica balangays built by Sama-Badjao craftsmen and manned by Filipino adventurers completed a 14,000-km journey across Southeast Asia, proving the seaworthiness of the original balangays and the traditional woodcraft used to construct them. One of the boats, the15-meter-long “Diwata ng Lahi,” is now on permanent display outside the National Museum in Manila. Villegas believes it was only a matter of time before a boat of this size was found, pointing out the historical accounts about similarly grand Filipino vessels. For example, Pigafetta also documented the existence of a boat fit for a king: “We saw come two long boats, which they call Ballanghai, full of men. In the largest of them was their king sitting under an awning of mats,” he wrote. Native boats “intended for cargo capacity or seagoing raids” could be “as long as 25meters,” said noted historian Dr. William Henry Scott in his book,”Barangay: Sixteenth – Century Philippine Culture and Society“. Scott also hinted at the existence of even more impressive vessels: “The most celebrated Visayan vessel was the warship called karakoa, (which) could mount forty (meter-long oars)on a side.”
“The care and technique with which(Filipinos) build them makes their ships sail like birds, while ours are like lead in comparison,” Scott quoted a Spanish priest as having written in 1667. However, no large Filipino vessels have been discovered and excavated– until now, if the Butuan “mother boat” is indeed of ancient origins. Villegas stated that historians have always known there were other (large) boats. We should expect to find big boats because (we know) they existed. It’s just that the National Museum only now has the funds to do the excavations. There’s a lot to be found even just in Butuan.Dr. Bolunia and her team plan to return to Butuan in September to complete the excavation, and hopefully to date the massive new find. They also plan to take a core sample from the ground in the hopes of answering one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Butuan balangays. Dr. Bolunia explains that the archeological site, although now inland, was once an alcove that opened out to the sea. She says that all the balangays were found “dry docked” on what was once the Butuan seashore. That the vessels were so well preserved is largely because they were buried intact, and the submergence of the area over succeeding centuries kept the wood from decaying. But exactly how did the Butuan balangays get buried there in the first place?
Dr. Bolunia says there are two competing theories: either the boats were intentionally buried, or they were left behind after a sudden cataclysm – such as a landslide from an earthquake.
If the boats were purposely abandoned, why did the builders take the trouble of burying them? But, on the other hand,where is the evidence of any natural calamity that might have befallen the boats and their builders? These are among the many remaining questions that face probers of the Philippines’ ancient past. If Dr. Bolunia’s hunches are correct about the latest find in Butuan, the mother boat could be the key to unlocking answers about how our Filipino ancestors lived, explored, and fought. — with Howie Severino/ELR, GMA News
CONCLUSION
We all know that not everyone feels a connection with their cultural heritage. Some people may think traditions and cultural heritages are archaic and no longer relevant and that they are not necessary during this modern time. However, there are people who feel to give a connection to our cultural heritages primarily because it offers a robust variety of benefits. Cultural heritage can provide an automatic sense of unity and belonging within a group and allows us to better understand previous generations and the history of where we came from.
Cultural heritage stores the historical memory of human societies. It contributes to national identity and its scientific and cultural value which makes the country recognizable and improves its image.Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations
Likewise, historical heritage creates a certain emotion within us, or because they make us feel as though we belong to something – a country, a tradition, a way of life.
The significance of ‘Balangay’ boat as cultural heritage in our country is a great factor in our country’s tourism development. In order to develop and promote ‘Balangay’ boat we must understand the nature and importance of this cultural heritage for making strategic decisions ensuring the proper implementation in promoting the heritage to other people.
Tourism is a sector using the cultural heritage of mankind and bearing its contribution to its enrichment. In this case, we are hitting two birds with one stone, in which tourism promotes and develop their activities and programs regarding tradition and cultural heritage as well as the ‘Balangay’ will be promoted to the people.
By promoting, it has positive socio cultural effect on local production of goods and services here in Butuan. There are many ways in promoting our ‘Balangay to the people. Firstly, we can support to the existing groups for the promotion of ‘Balangay’ boat by purchasing‘Balangay’ mini boat toys. In addition, we can create and offer hand-made‘Balangay’ mini boat toys for tourists in our local community especially if there are fairs, festivals or even gatherings.
Secondly,by spreading awareness around about ‘Balangay’ and its importance.Moreover, we can create pages,groups or even blog sites in virtual community to promote ‘Balangay’. Above all we are living now in a virtual community in which everything can be run and administered through information technology.
Lastly, we can share to our children, grandsons and granddaughters or even to our relatives how important the ‘Balangay’ is.
Again, we need to protect ‘Balangay’ boat as our local cultural heritage. Well, the protection of ‘Balangay’ boat is under the function and responsibility of authorities and institutions in the locality of Butuan. We can protect our own historical heritage by defending its contribution and significance to the society nowadays. Equally important, we must respect and promote the preservation and development of ‘Balangay’ boat.
As a matter of fact, cultural heritage can be in the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the religions we follow and the skills we learn. Sometimes we can touch and see what makes up a culture, other times it is intangible. All of these of which had happened to the past generations has a great effect and contribution to our present society. It shapes us of who we are as well as in our community we are living.
Every historical site has an important story to tell and these stories have inspired many people to strengthen their convictions and commitment to fight in justice and oppression. After all, “history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own”, according to Michelle Obama.
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Balangay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balangay
GMANews. (2013, August 16).
BALANGAY 