Indigenous ‘indio genius’

Friends who have been to SM malls the past few days report long lines at the entrances that have nothing to do with a mall-wide sale. Rather the “blue guards” are now doing their jobs more “seriously” and, in the Philippines, that means doing things slowly to inconvenience customers.

As you enter the Manila airport driveway, blue guards’ flag you down and ask to see the glove compartment just for the heck of it. I wonder whether they will recognize a bomb when they see one. Not to make light of the recent fatal shootings in SM malls, but each time I pass a blue guard security check the metal detector is seldom used because they prefer to physically frisk customers in a manner unacceptable in other countries where physical contact is rarely resorted to. However, I am quite proud of the Filipino anti-terrorist device that consists of a barbecue stick used to poke into one’s belongings. It is supposed to detect firearms, bombs and ammunition. Pure indigenous invention. Pure “indio genius,” as filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik puts it.

When early man in the Philippines sharpened the edge of a stone to make a cutting tool, it was a technological advance that we cannot appreciate today. This is what attracts me to prehistoric stone tools, proof of indio genius. In a previous column, I said that if you encounter a prehistoric stone tool in a gravel parking lot, you would not notice it, but some stone tools fashioned by our ancestors would stand out anywhere because they are made of jade.

Often a deep and beautiful green, jade or nephrite is a stone associated with the Chinese who have prized jade for thousands of years, carving this hard stone into exquisite pieces of art or jewelry. Jade is given as a christening present because it is believed to have healing or magic powers. The stone is believed to absorb the essence of the person who wears it close to the skin. The Chinese were so enamored of jade that in the Song and Yuan periods, from the 10th-14th centuries, potters used a green glaze to simulate jade. Archaeological excavations in the Philippines over the last century have yielded jade tools and ornaments, some believed to have been used as far back as 3,000 years ago.

Pioneering prehistorian of the Philippines, H. Otley Beyer, collected hundreds of jade objects before the war, mostly from Batangas. After studying them, he concluded that there was a so-called “jade cult” in the Philippines between 800 and 200 B.C. While Beyer’s work is currently being reviewed in the  light of present knowledge and many of his conclusions have been debunked, he must be credited for the systematic study and appreciation of our prehistoric past.

Some years ago, I acquired hundreds of stone tools from Beyer’s grandson, hoping to  study them some day. These have remained in storage for many years and I intend to loan them to the National Museum or the UP Archaeological Studies Program where they can be displayed and studied. The late Alfredo Evangelista, former director of the National Museum, went over these tools and as he classified them according to type, shape and source, he recalled Beyer jealously guarding these. Evangelista was thrilled to sort them out because in Beyer’s time they were not allowed to touch any of these artifacts.

An outstanding piece from this hoard is a big jade adze measuring 22.6 centimeters. Another is of a cylindrical shape described by W.G. Solheim who remembered a visit to the Beyer collection as follows:

“In the afternoon, Beyer might have a visitor or two. If a visitor had any interest in Philippine prehistory, Beyer would put us in the library, disappear for a while, and then return with his treasures, some of the best Batangas jade tools and a big, polished rectangular adze of jade, which had been dredged from the Pasig River in Manila. The tiny jade adzes, chisels, gouges, and the long cylinder of a beautiful green jade that had the beginnings of longitudinal boring (someone had began making it into a bead) were Beyer’s joy. He simply glowed when he showed these specimens.”

Beyer concluded that the jade cult originated from China. He noted that all raw jade was imported and reworked in the Philippines by Filipinos. But much later, Beyer’s student Robert Fox asked, “Why would immigrating people who were carrying raw jade reach and settle only in one area of the Philippines?” Since most of the jade artifacts were found in Batangas, were there local sources of jade within or around Batangas? Using jade artifacts found in controlled archaeological excavations, unlike the surface finds or those bought from pot hunters by Beyer, Fox dated jade tools to the Late Neolithic Age (circa first millennium B.C.) while the jade ornaments largely belong to the Early Metal Age (circa 500-200 B.C.). Our archaeologists have since come up with better conclusions.

Modern Pinoys use jade for jewelry, for ornament instead of something more useful, unlike our ancestors who had yet to discover metal and used jade for tools. Jade looks fragile to us but it is hard enough to resist scratching from a steel knife. It was used to fell trees that were dug out into rude boats. Prehistoric jade tools are a reflection of our ancestors merging form and function, proof of indigenous “indio genius” that deserves serious study.

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