The cultural achievements of pre-colonial Philippines include those covered by prehistory and early history of the Philippines archipelago and its inhabitants, which are the indigenous forebears of today’s Filipino people.
These early Filipinos possessed a culture and technology that were quite advanced considering the timeline of history of science when it flourished. Waves of migrants who came to settle in the islands contributed to the development of ancient Philippine civilization. Prehistoric aborigines, a cross of Afro-Asiatic and Austro-Aborigines, now called Negritos (Aeta, Agta, Ayta) reached the islands by way of land bridges around 15,000 to 30,000 BC, and they were excellent hunters and food gatherers. In its midst, other ancient civilizations were also thriving and evolving. The Proto-Malays, a Mongol-Asiatic race, arrived around 2500 BC using oceanic vessels called balangays, and they brought with them their knowledge in seafaring, farming, building of houses from trees and creation of fire for cooking. The next to arrive were the Duetero-Malays, of India-Asiatic race (Indian, Chinese, Siamese, Arabic), that prevailed with a more superior and advanced culture. They possessed their own systems of writing, knowledge and skills in agriculture, metallurgy, jewelry-making as well as boat-building. When the Spaniards came to the islands in the 15th century, industries such as mining, agriculture, fishing and pottery were already in place and contacts with other Asian nations had been long established.
Peopling of the
Pre-Colonnial Philippines
The Negritos were early settlers but their appearance in the Philippines has not been reliably dated ; and they were followed by speakers of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, a branch of the Austronesian languages, who began to arrive in successive waves beginning about 4000 B.C.E, displacing the earlier arrivals.
By 1000 B.C. the inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago had developed into four distinct kinds of peoples: tribal groups, such as the Aetas, Hanunoo, Ilongots and the Mangyan who depended on hunter-gathering and were concentrated in forests; warrior societies, such as the Isneg and Kalingas who practiced social ranking and ritualized warfare and roamed the plains; the petty plutocracy of the Ifugao Cordillera Highlanders, who occupied the mountain ranges of Luzon; and the harbor principalities of the estuarine civilizations that grew along rivers and seashores while participating in trans-island maritime trade.
Pre – Colonial Culture
During the early period thousand years ago, the early Filipinos were composed of different groups that came from different part of Asia. With different groups they form their own community, system of education and religious belief.
They group into different communities composed of 50 to 2,000 individuals and they construct their shelters in different areas according to their lifestyle and source of living. Usually they were situated along the seashores, streams, rivers, forests, fertile land areas and even in caves.
In water areas they look for fish, shells and pearls as their source of living. They also used boat and craft as there means of transportation for an easier travel and carrying their goods for trade from one place to another. For those people located in land areas they cultivate the land and plant rice, bananas and crops. After the harvest they no longer use the area indeed they just move to another place with less grass and fine soil and abundant of trees where they can start farming again. Perhaps this gives an idea that the Philippines is very rich of resources for a bountiful living.
During the pre-colonial time there was already an indigenous spiritual traditions practiced by the people in the Philippines. Generally, for lack of better terminology prehistoric people are described to be animistic. Their practice was a collection of beliefs and cultural mores anchored in the idea that the world is inhabited by spirits and supernatural entities, both good and bad, and that respect be accorded to them through nature worship thus; they believed that their daily lives has a connection of such beliefs. These spirits are said to be the anito or diwata that they believed to be good and bad. The good spirits were considered as there relatives and the bad were believed to be their enemies. Some worship specific deities like Bathala a supreme god for the Tagalog, Laon or Abba for the Visayan, Ikasi of Zambal, Gugurang for the people of Bicol and Kabunian of Ilocano and Ifugao. Aside from those supreme deities they also worship other gods like Idialao as god of farming, Lalaon of harvest, Balangay god of rainbow and Sidapa god of death.
Pre – Colonial Writing Systems
During the early period almost everyone in the society-male or female knows how to read and write. They have their own method of writing which they use sharp-pointed tools, leaves, bamboo and trunk’s skin. They write from top to bottom and read it from left to right.
Accordingly they have their Alibata which script is different from China, Japan and India. This account was told by one of the first Spanish missionaries who came in the Philippines, Fr. Pedro Chirino.
Another account proved after the discovery of a jar in Calatagan, Batangas. This system of writing came from the alphabet of Sumatra.
The first Visayan, Tagalog, Ilocano and some ethic groups have their own dialect and form of writing too. They have an alphabet composed of 17 letters; 3 of which are vowels and 14 are consonants.
The Muslims have also their own system basing on there dialect. This is called kirim of Maranao and jiwi of the Tausug, which they are still using until this day.
Group 6 (2CS2) 