Filipino swords and axes in the 13th Century?

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by wilked aka Khun Deng

Steve not too much to add to the excellent info Miguel has supplied other than the second question you had about Muslim convert tribes in the 13th century. Islamic missionaries are not recognized as having reached Mindanao (Sulu specifically) until late in the 14th century.

One other point of interest. Several years back as I went through the National Museum there in Manila, they had an exhibit that tracked all the historical trade routes from the different trade eras. What struck me was that the only two ports that every era (Chinese, Arabic/Southeast Asian and Spanish) had in common were Cotabato and Jolo City (I would have thought Manila would also be a constant but it wasn't).

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your comments.

Browsing the forum archives, I have read your earlier posts with great interest. It's good that you can write again.

Next time you're back in Manila, please drop me a note beforehand. If it's ok with you, I'll take care of the beverage and you take care of the stories and I'll be all ears

On which Philippine ports were most active then (prehispanic), yes Sulu would be it. And then next in line would be Cebu and Manila, but I'm not sure which is busier between these other two. Mindoro for a while was a trading center, too, according to Ms. Beyer's article above.

[migueldiaz]

Following the extrapolation idea I mentioned, here now would be the description of warfare in the prehispanic Philippines, as described in WH Scott's excellent book, Barangay.

Once again, this is not 13th century. But I think that from 13th century till the early 1500s when the Spaniards first started documenting what they saw, things may not have changed much as far as weapons design is concerned (that's just a hunch though).

There will be three locales described -- warfare in the Visayas (central Philippines), in Bikolandia (southmost portion of Luzon, and Luzon would be in northern Philippines), and in Tagalog region (present day Manila and surrounding areas).

[Note: I'll post the pages one at a time. If I post them in one 'go', the sequence gets jumbled.]

[migueldiaz]

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