Looking Back
‘Tribute missions’ to China
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:27:00 08/27/2008
Filed Under: history, Human Interest
London will be hard-pressed to outdo the opening of the Beijing Olympics. But then the United Kingdom has four years to bite its nails and cough up something relatively memorable. Aside from the ads that kept flashing on the screen during the television broadcast of the Olympics, what added to my irritation were the put-down commentaries by Westerners who seemed to have forgotten that China already had a marvelous civilization when Europeans were still living in caves.
China asserting herself reminded me of a previous column I wrote about the “tribute missions” from various parts of the then insular Southeast Asia. The missions went to China offering gifts. At the time I wrote the column, I was interested in missions from the Philippines and, according to Chinese records of the 11th century, there were missions from Butuan.
In 1003 A.D., a mission from Butuan brought “exotic goods and red parrots.” We will never know what these “exotic goods” were or their quantity, but the fact that the Chinese side gave “copper cash” in exchange for them is a small clue. The following year, 1004, the same generic “exotic goods” are recorded in the annals with the following note: “Members of missions bought gold and silverware, banners and flags in contravention of the regulations.” Not a very flattering footnote to our history.
In 1011, we have a bit more detail on the gifts presented by the Butuan mission: “Used a sheet of gold for a letter. Gave cloves; white Borneo-camphor, turtle shells, red parrots, also a Kun-lun slave.” I’ve always imagined pearls, bird’s nest and abalone would be a staple from the Philippines. Now I see that red parrots were considered valuable enough to give as gifts. Always a skeptic, I even think the birds might have been dyed in any color the buyer desired.
It is the Kun-lun slave that made me curious. What was this? Kun-lun was used to describe people from Southeast Asia, and an old Tang dynastic history has a line that reads, “From the south of Lin-yi (North Vietnam), all the people were curly-haired and black in color, they were called Kun-lun.” Then, as now, the people from Butuan were neither curly-haired nor black. Could this Kun-lun slave be a Negrito or Aeta captured in a slave raid? Or, perhaps, purchased along the way from Butuan to China?
What is significant in terms of value and racial preferences was that the Chinese refused the slave given as a present and returned her/him to the Butuan mission. The leader of the mission asked for armaments and flags which were later granted. Surely the Chinese annals have much more detailed tribute lists and inventories, and Filipino historians can go through these seemingly boring lists and come up with some interesting ideas on pre-Spanish life.
The Philippines was definitely a bit player, even if there were tribute missions from Butuan and Sulu and an undetermined place in Luzon listed in the annals as Ma-i or Ma-yi. Compare the Philippine gifts with those from Jiao Zhi, which is believed to be part of Northern Vietnam. In 990, the Jao Zhi mission presented one chair with dragon and phoenix motifs and other precious things; 12 sedan chairs decorated with turtle shell; one parasol made of red silk embroidered with dragon and phoenix motifs and with a golden handle decorated with turtle shell; 30 pieces of rhinoceros horn; 40 ivory tusks; 10,000 rolls of silk; 1,000 rolls of cotton; and 1,000 rolls of woven silk. Now that definitely is a king’s ransom compared to the red parrots and spurned Kun-lun slave from Butuan, thus the title “King of Jiao Zhi” was granted to the head of the mission.
In 1055, the Jiao Zhi mission presented “ten domesticated elephants and other things.” While the other items that came with the elephants were not listed, we can deduce their worth from the goods given in exchange by the Chinese: “500 rolls of silk and 500 rolls of cloth; 50 sheep; 50 stones of flour. A title was bestowed on the new king and members of the mission were given purple garments and money, silver belts, rolls of silk, silverware, headdresses, and horses with saddles.” If the Chinese had to give in return for the goods from these tribute missions, they had to get smart and start to count their gains and losses. Thus in 1182, the goods brought by a Vietnamese tribute mission were not specified except for an interesting note on record: “the gift of elephants was declined. They were said to be useless. Only 1/10 of the total number of gifts were accepted.”
Champa in the central coastal area of Vietnam was also a regular tribute giver and sent precious things that were keenly reciprocated. It is recorded, however, that in 1167 the Champa people “plundered the ships of the Arabian merchants and sent their goods to China as tribute. The tribute mission was rejected because of this.”
The “grandness” of the reception of tribute visitors depended on the importance and size of the country that was sending the mission. Some visitors were asked to stay at port while others were received at court by the Emperor. Sometimes elaborate gifts were exchanged, sometimes with cash or with goods of equivalent value, so neither of the parties would lose out. In some cases the Chinese only paid for half the tribute and the balance was sold to recoup the losses.
What were mere accounting records a thousand years ago are today a source for social history.
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Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
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