The pre-16th C. Philippine gun ("baril")
 

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:

'in the said journey and exploration, he passed through many hardships, wars, hunger, and deprivations, and was observed to have really risked his life both by sea, sailing along the opposite coast which is rough, and by land among many enemies [filipinos] who took up arms against him and gave attack, GENERALLY WITH ARQUEBUSES, poisoned arrows, spears, and other offensive hand arms.' [archivo general de indias seccion patronato, 75 no. 2, ramo 2]

by artilleria we are presumably made to understand such weaponry as the well-known moro lantakas, but by ARCABUSES some sort of handguns must be meant, if not actual arquebuses - that is, large-bore, unrifled muskets ignited by matchlocks. published accounts establish the presence of such firearms in muslim-controlled areas of the philippines - e.g., the 1613 san buenaventura tagalog dictionary defines astingal as 'arquebus, of the kind they used to use in olden times in their wars and which came from borneo' - but this appears to be the first reference to them in northern luzon. of course both chinese and japanese traders and corsairs, who were armed with such weapons, were frequenting the area in juan de salcedo's day, so there is no reason why filipinos should not have had firearms there, too."

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.

BARIL. (l. Badil HM [Hanunuo Mangyan]) pc. Cualquier pieza que lleva polvora

PONGLO. pc. Pelota, o bala de alcabuz, o el acto de cargar con ellas.

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.

ARCABUZ: Astingal pp : de burney, ungmaastingal. I. l. nag aastingal .2.ac. tirar con arcabuz, inaastingal .1.P. ser tirado ansi, imp : umaastingal ca, tira con el arcabuz, mag astingal camo, tirad los arcabuçes .|. y astingal ninio ang iniong manga astingal.

BALA: Ponglo pc : de alcabuz mosquete o otra pieça, nagpoponglo .2.ac. haçer balas, pinoponglo .1.P. ser hecho bajas el estaño, pinopongloan .|. ser cargado el alcabuz con ellas, napopongloan .8. aver le cargado, imp : magponglo ca, haz balas, pongloin mo itong tinga, haz balas deste estaño, pongloan mo ang baril mo, carga tu alcabuz, napogloan co na, ya le e cargado.

MOSQUETE: Moscqite pp : C. ya vfan todos este bocablo yno baril, anhin mo ang moscqite cun valan cang obat? deque te firue el mofquete fin polbora?

MOSQUETE: Baril pc : tenian bien pocos antes.Vi.Disparar : maybaril ca? tienes mofquete? nagbabaril.2.ac.lleuar mofquete para algo, magpahiram ca nang baril, pide vn mofquete prestado.

PELOTA: Ponglo pc : de alcabuz omofquete, bibigian cqita nang dalvag poglo, darete dos peltas.

PIEZA: Baril pc : de artilleria, valang calacqing baril [walang kalaking baril] es vna gran pieça de artilleria.

VERSO: Astingal pc : o alcabuz grande .Vi. Alcabuz : mayastingal ca rao, diçen q tienes un verso.

the same terms again of course ... baril, ponglo, astinggal ...

from another spanish-filipino-spanish dictionary, by ruiz, 1630:

Astinggal. pp. Arcabuz. Vide: baril.

Baril. pc. Arcabuz o menosquete (mosquete) b. en. m. tirar con el. in: lo que fue arcabuzcado, aunque no lo acertasen, nabaril: lo que fue acertado, nacabaril: el que acerto, y tambien el que acabo de tirar ô el que pudo tirar, namamaril: el que anda a caza con escopeta, ô arcabuz, ô el que tira con frequencia a los tiros de artilleria, llaman: mañga baril na malalaqui; namamaril nang malalaqui: tirarlos, pamamaril: la obra.

Arcabuz. Baril.

Escopeta. Baril, astinggal.

the historian scott thought that the 'baril' then was a handgun, as differentiated from artillery which is a 'lantaka' ...