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The pre-16th C. Philippine gun ("baril")
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The Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in the Philippines on 1565. On 1567 he sent the king of Spain a sampling of the local weapons:
"It seemed to me that Your Highness would be pleased with specimens of the weapons with which these natives fight; accordingly they are bringing to Your Highness a Chinese arquebus of which there are some among these natives. Although they are very dexterous in handling these guns, when on the sea, aboard of their paraus, they carry them more to terrify than to kill. And likewise they bring you a half-dozen lances and another half-dozen daggers, a cutlass, two corselets, two helmets, and a bow with quiver and arrows, all of which they use."If somebody knows where in Spain these are stored, then I'll drop everything and will be on the next plane to Madrid. In the meantime, would anybody have info or photos of an Asian gun from the 16th century or older? Thanks in advance! PS - Thanks to Nonoy Tan for the pic of Legazpi's said letter. |
here's more info, from william henry scott's 'cracks in the parchment curtain' (pp. 3 & 4), an excellent book on philippine history -
"especially interesting [in the spanish archives/accounts] is the reference to artilleria which is made by most of the witnesses, and even more so the word ARCABUSES which appears in one of the testimonies:i'll post next filipino terms for gun, as found in old spanish-filipino dictionaries ... |
from san antonio's 1624 filipino[tagalog]-spanish dictionary:
ASTINGGAL. pc. Cierto genero de arcabuz de que estos usaban antiguamente, viene de Burney [Borneo], es como pieza.to this day, we in manila still use 'baril' to refer to any firearm, and 'ponglo/punglo' to refer to the cartridge. 'astinggal' is not used anymore. kindly note that the author thought that the philippine firearm came from borneo/brunei. hence it will be very helpful if we can see what a 16th century bornean firearm looked like ... |
here are the terms from san buenaventura's 1613 spanish-filipino[tagalog] dictionary (there are typos, as i merely copied-and-pasted the text from an old doc) --
ALCABUZ: Astingal pp : de que estos usavan antiguamente en sus guerras, y eran venidos de Burnay, agora ya le llaman todos alcabuz, maalam cang magpapotoc nang alcabuz? saves disparar alcabuz? Vi. Arcabuz : nag aastingal, 2.ac. tirar con alcabuz.the same terms again of course ... baril, ponglo, astinggal ... |
from another spanish-filipino-spanish dictionary, by ruiz, 1630:
Astinggal. pp. Arcabuz. Vide: baril.the historian scott thought that the 'baril' then was a handgun, as differentiated from artillery which is a 'lantaka' ... |
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