This is not Banawe
Dean Bocobo recently asked whether anyone has carbon-dated the Banawe Rice Terraces yet. That question reminds me again of the Igorot-Chinese connection, which we hope becomes clearer and stronger after all the required DNA sequencing and carbon dating have been made. Does anyone have any updates on this? Inez? Tito? I have a little problem, though, with the Ifugao subset of Igorot tribes. If you look at the Ifugaos, a lot of them don't have chinky eyes at all. An anthropologist I've read in a textbook claims Ifugaos are Indonesian in origin. But then again, there are the other evidences to the contrary.
Did you know that there are rice terraces in the heart of China similar to those in Banawe? Surely the technology evolved from a single cultural source?
And if you notice the names of Cordillerans, there's a preponderance of peculiar (to the average Filipino), Chinese-sounding wording and phrasing; for example, bomod-ok, kankana-ey, etc.
Let's go back to the general question: Are Igorots, in general, Chinese? With the exception of the Ifugaos, there's the chinky eyes and the smooth, yellowish skin as physical evidence. If you think about it, the Eskimos look the same; are Eskimos Chinese in origin, too? The people of Batanes look Chinese, too, despite their dark color and relative height. So do the Incas of Peru, as well as the 'American Indians.' Do these groups have Chinese origin, too?
It would be good if someone could enlighten us on this.
**
I remember a brief exchange in this blog in the past where I assumed the Chinese to be the precursor of other Chinese-like cultures, such as the Japanese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Burmese and Korean, even Thai. Bayi, a Malaysian and coming from a multiracial society, cautioned me not to say that out loud because a lot of people wouldn't take to that thought very kindly. I remember sighing and saying science knows no politics, or science is blind to historical biases, or something to that effect. I hope all that carbon dating and gene sequencing will lay all doubts to rest.
Taiwanese, long-lost cousins of Flips?
Now for a strange twist, take a look at this emailed pic.
Taiwanese jeep: copycat or updated version?
Posts
21 comments:
This official Taiwanese government page on the language of Taiwanese aborigines reveals that most tribes' numbers sound surprisingly Filipino.
Interesting eh?
The original page is found here.
Interesting indeed! Thanks!
Our own rice terraces has the distinction of being created by free men--not slaves. Free men acting for the good of the community.
Yeah, I'm grateful to Inquirer for pointing that out during the centennial. That's something that's very easy to miss because it's found way beneath the physical/engineering spectacle.
Indonesia has also their own rice terraces, just like the Philippines.
Tanong lang. Can you carbon date the terraces? I hear you need something "dead" for that, and for the purpose of determing the age of the bt, something that died when it was first built.
Hello, Cathy, thank you very much. I didn't know that. What I know is that neither the Chocolate Hills are unique to RP. Indonesia has its own version.
Mr. Misantrophe, I suppose the things they used to patch up the rocks were left untouched. I'm not sure... Let's wait for Den Bocobo's blog on it.
Btw, what's your real name? May we know? :)
resty,
I thought this farming system was introduced to us by Indonesians but peru also had their own terraces which dated back 2,000 years ago.
here is the link
http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/terraces/
There is an informative write-up related to this subject in Jojo Malig's blog (refer to the entry "I, Austronesian"):
http://writingthirty.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html
Relevant to your question is this passage from that post:
"It is important to note that the fishermen-farmers who crossed the straits to Taiwan were not the Sino-Tibetan speaking Han Chinese who today make up the great majority of the Chinese population."
So, if correct, the answer to the question on the Igorot-[Han ]Chinese Chinese connection is 'no' while the answer to whether the [native] Taiwanese are our distant cousins is 'yes'.
Thanks for you inputs, Cathy, CVJ. Couldn't access Malig's post, though. (Why is that blog not on my link list. Aargh, the customization affected my original links template!!!)
resty,
there's a growing acceptance that ancestors of Filipinos really came from Taiwan not from Borneo.
that the migration theory is false
don't remember where I read it but probably in one of my yahoogroups
yes, rice terraces not only in the pilipins. even bali, i've read somewhere, have them.
Talaga?
>>there's a growing acceptance that ancestors of Filipinos really came from Taiwan not from Borneo.
>>>that the migration theory is false
oh i just had a ball reading this site.
http://writingthirty.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_archive.html
will link it shortly :)
there was an episode in mummy road show (national geographic) when they went to examine the cave mummies of the Philippines, and one of the professor/host mention that they saw inca bone in the phil. mummy. that made me curious, they must be related! if you will look at the world map, rp and peru is bounded by the pacific ocean, this is just my crazy thought - it's either, our lands wasn't apart then or either w/c tribesmen traveled either ways??? notice the clothing, the weaving and how they offer animal/human to their gods, the terraces, and they look w/ much likeness. not sure if anyone have seen the journey of man in discovery channel before, but what they've discovered is that the redskins/american indians are relatives of the nomads of siberia, so it's possible that the igorots and the incas are related. i wish to know more about the relation of inca-igorot.
found my way again here from bill bilig...i don't know if you've seen the genome mapping project of NGC but it traced the ancestry of all modern men, thru DNA sampling, to a man from Africa, who traveled to Asia, Europe and Siberia. If you read more about austronesians, you'll realized even people from madagascar are related to Filipinos.
recent evidence traced austronesians from formosa then phillies before spreading to madagascar,malaysia, indonesia, may e as far as california
Resty, thanks for the heads up. I've posted about this in my blog:
http://cvjugo.blogspot.com/2007/10/pre-hispanic-philippines-patrilineal.html
Africa was part of the great Atlantis, a civilization that used voodoo or black magic extensively to its very end.
There are two theories expounding on the physical evidence on the DNA thing from Africa: 1) First, the Atlantis thing, 2) Second, that one forwarded by Zecharia Sitchin in his book "The 12th Planet".
By the way, UP Diliman will be holding an international conference about "The Sunken Civilizations," Sept. this year.
And what, may I ask, does Sitchin's theory say?
[Hi, ExpectoRant:
Could you put the ff in lieu of the first comment that I posted earlier? Delete na lang the earlier version. Thanks.]
Geologists' ancient maps say that the Philippine Cordillera was under water for many centuries. That's how scientists partly explain the kind of rock formations in the area, like Sagada for instance.
In my esoteric readings though, author and mystic Harold Klemp said that the rice terraces were part of the peaks of an old continent that sank into the depths of the Pacific Ocean millions of years ago.
That incident has been recorded in many cultures as "The Great Flood."
So that implies that the Philippine Rice Terraces are older than 2,000 years contrary to what history books say.
Complicating this bit of info morevoer is that-- this continent, does not correspond to any geological ages established so far by scientist.
It has been said that the Igorots, as narrated in their oral literature, are one of the few peoples in the world who do not trace their origin from the so-called Lost Tribes of Israel. Some Chinese tribes trace their roots from the latter.
The Igorots have no stories about migration and things of the sort. They trace their origins from the gods, which well...needs more than history to explain.
It could be more esoteric than what we are capable of believing, really.
Sitchin has written a series of books on the matter, go grab then at NBS if you can. It would be difficult to simplify him here.
His theories can be ticklish and outlandish -- "ET-ish," I might say -- and one of my teachers countered it by saying: "There is such as thing as parallel histories."
Post a Comment