The Philippines

Traditional Life and Culture

Map

Map

Pre History

• In 1962 Dr Robert Fox found a skull that was 22 000 years old. The skull belonged to a homo sapien whose kind migrated to the Philippines some 50 000 to 45 000 years ago.

• Tools dated to the palaeolithic period have been found and dated back some 150 000 years.

Pre History

• The Negritos, small dark Pygmies who lived by hunting, fishing and gathering are known as the aborigines of the Philippines.

• They arrived via the land bridges between 30 000 and 25 000 years ago.

• They are the forbearers of tribes still known today.

Pre History

• Thousands of years later, great migrations of people swept across the seas and settled in the Philippines’ islands.

• The Indonesians arrived between, 3 000 and 500 BC.

• The Indonesians brought Neolithic culture: polished stone tools and later copper and bronze tools and agriculture.

Pre History

• The Malays followed between 300BC and AD500.

• The Malays brought Iron Age culture: The smelting and manufacture of copper and iron tools and weapons, potery, cloth weaving and glass beads for ornaments.

Foreign Influence

• The location of the archipelago, between the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf made it a convenient stopping place for Indian, Chinese, Arab, Japanese and Siamese merchants, missionaries, seamen and adventurers.

Foreign Influence

• Indian cultural influences filtered into the Philippines between the late 7th and early 16th C. via immigrants and traders from Siam, Malaya, Sumatra, and Java where Indian culture had spread.

Foreign Influence - China

• It is believed that contact with China may go as far back as the Zhou Dynasty (1066BC-221BC).

• It is certain that by the early Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) the Philippines was trading with China and this continued to flourish through until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Foreign Influence - China

• Philippine products such as gold, pearls, tortoiseshell, betel nut, edible birds nests, cotton, hemp, and yellow wax were exchanged for silk and brocade textiles, coloured beads, fans, umbreallas, porcelain, bronze gongs, iron, tin and lead sinkers for fish nets.

Foreign Influence - Arab

• Arab influence arrived at the end of the 9th C. or beginning of the 10th CE when Arab traders expelled from central and southern Chinese ports, sought a new route and place to obtain Chinese goods.

• During the Yuan Dynasty there was active trade with Chinese Muslims and Mongols, it was not until the end of the 13th C. and the beginning of the 14th C. that Muslim converts were made.

The Spanish

• Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer in the service of the Spanish king, came upon the islands on 16 March 1521 looking for a western route to the Spice Islands.

• The beginning of almost 450 years of Spanish control.