Pre-Colonial Period

PRE-COLONIAL
PERIOD
Philippine literary history is the longest. Certain events from
the nations history had forced lowland Filipinos to begin
counting the years of history from 1521.
• The first time written records by Westerners referred
to the archipelago later to be called “Las Islas
Filipinas”. However, the discovery of the “Tabon
Man” in a cave in Palawan in 1962, has allowed us to
stretch our prehistory as far as 50,000 years back.
Through the researches and writings about Philippine
history, much can be reliably inferred about pre
colonial Philippine literature from an analysis of
collected oral lore of Filipinos whose ancestors were
able to preserve their indigenous culture by living
beyond the reach of Spanish colonial administrators.
• The oral literature of the pre colonial Filipinos
bore the marks of the community. The subject
was invariably the common experience of the
people constituting the village-food-gathering,
creature and objects of nature, work in the
home, field, forest or sea, caring for children,
etc. This is evident in the most common forms of
oral literature like the riddle, the proverbs and
the song, which always seem to assume that the
audience is familiar with the situations, activities
and objects mentioned in the course of
expressing a thought or emotion.
• In settlements along or near the seacoast, a
native syllabary was in use before the Spaniards
brought over the Roman alphabet. The syllabary
had three vowels (a, i-e, u-o) and 14
consonants (b, d, g, h, k, l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, t, w,
and y) but, curiously enough, had no way of
indicating the consonantal ending words. This
lends credence to the belief that the syllabary
could not have been used to produce original
creative works which would all but be
undecipherable when read by one who had no
previous contact with the text.
• The language of oral literature, unless the
piece was part of the cultural heritage of
the community like the epic, was the
language of daily life. At this phase of
literary development, any member of the
community was a potential poet, singer or
storyteller as long as he knew the language
and had been attentive to the conventions
of the forms.
When the syllabary fell into disuse
among the Christianized Filipinos, much
valuable information about pre colonial
culture that could had been handed
down to us was lost. Fewer and fewer
Filipinos kept records of their oral lore,
and fewer and fewer could decipher
what had been recorded in earlier times.
2 ways by which the uniqueness of indigenous
culture survived colonization.
 by resistance to colonial rule. This was how the

Maranaws, the Maguindanaws, and the Tausogs of
Mindanao and Igorots, Ifugao, Bontocs and Kalingas
of the Mountain Province were able to preserve the
integrity of their ethnic heritage. The Tagbanwas,
Tagabilis, Mangyans, Bagobos, Manuvus, Bilaan,
Bukidnons, and Isneg could cling on the traditional
way of life because of the inaccessibility of
settlements. It is to these descendants of ancient
Filipinos who did not come under the cultural sway of
Western colonizers that we turn when we look for
examples of oral lore.
Oral lore they have been preserve like epics, tales, songs,
riddles, and proverbs that are now windows to a past with
no written records which can be studied.
Ancient Filipinos possessed great wealth of
lyric poetry. There were many songs of great
variety in lyrics and music as well as meter.
Each mountain tribe and each group of
lowland Filipinos had its own. Most of the
may be called folksongs in that there can be
traced in them various aspects of the life
and customs of the people.
Pre-colonial poetry were composed of poems
composed of different dialects of the islands. The
first Spanish settlers themselves found such
poetry, reproduced them, and recorded in their
reports and letters to Spain. Although pre colonial
poems are distinct from the lyrics of the folksongs
the said poems were usually chanted when
recited, as is still the custom of all Asiatic peoples
and Pacific Ocean tribes.
It is true that many of the pre colonial poetry is
crude in ideology(set of ideas and beliefs) and
phraseology(group uses words) as we look at it
with our present advanced knowledge of what
poetry should be. Considering the fact that early
Filipinos never studied literature and never had a
chance to study poetry and poetic technique, it is
surprising that their spontaneous poetic expression
had some rhythmic pattern in the use of equal
syllabic counts for the lines of stanza, and have
definitely uniform rhyming scheme.
Drama as a literary from had not yet begun to
evolve among the early Filipinos. Philippine theater
at this stage consisted largely in its simplest form,
of mimetic dances imitating natural cycles and
work activities. At its most sophisticated, theater
consisted of religious rituals presided over by a
priest or priestess and participated in by the
community. The dances and ritual suggest that
indigenous drama had begun to evolve from
attempts to control the environment. Philippine
drama would have taken the form of the dance-
drama found in other Asian countries.
Prose narratives(ordinary) in prehistoric
Philippines consisted largely or myths, hero tales,
fables and legends. Their function was to explain
natural phenomena, past events, and
contemporary beliefs in order to make the
environment less fearsome by making it more
comprehensible. There is a great wealth of
mythical and legendary lore that belongs to this
period, but preserved mostly by word of mouth,
with few written down by interested parties who
happen upon them.
The most significant pieces of oral literature
that may safely be presumed to have
originated in prehistoric times are folk epics.
Epic poems of great proportions and lengths
abounded in all regions of the islands, each
tribe usually having at least one and some
tribes possessing traditionally around five or
six popular ones with minor epics of
unknown number.
Filipinos had a culture that linked them with the Malays in
the Southeast Asia, a culture with traces of Indian, Arabic,
and, possibly Chinese influences. Their epics, songs, short
poems, tales, dances and rituals gave them a native Asian
perspective which served as a filtering device for the
Western culture that the colonizers brought over from
Europe
Pre-colonial inhabitants of our islands showcase a rich past
through their folk speeches, folk songs, folk narratives and
indigenous rituals and mimetic dances that affirm our ties
with our Southeast Asian neighbors.
The folk narratives, i.e. epics and folk tales are varied,
exotic and magical. They explain how the world was
created, how certain animals possess certain
characteristics, why some places have waterfalls,
volcanoes, mountains, flora or fauna and, in the case of
legends, an explanation of the origins of things. Fables are
about animals and these teach moral lessons.
Our country’s epics are considered ethno-epics because
unlike, say, Germany’s Niebelunginlied, our epics are not
national for they are “histories” of varied groups that
consider themselves “nations.”

Pre-Colonial Period

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Pre-Colonial Period

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Pre-Colonial Period

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

PRE-COLONIAL

 by resistance to colonial rule. This was how the

You might also like