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History of Siquijor

Legends

Legend has it that long ago, a massive limestone rock rose up from the ocean, coated in clouds and a shroud of mist. Lightning and odd noises punctured the sky. When these clouds finally dissipated, there lay Siquijor, and once the island had cooled off, the people who would later become the Siquijodnons moved in.

 

In reality, Siquijor is the product of geological processes. Yet farmers in the highlands still find shells in their fields to this day, and the island contains a fair amount of coral rock, so this tale may indeed be closer to the truth than it might appear.

 

What is known more concretely is that precolonial Siquijor was known as Katugusan, named after the tugas (molave trees) that dominated the landscape.

 

Three centuries of Spanish rule began when Estéban Rodriguez and Juan Aguirre discovered the island in 1565 during Miguel López de Legazpi’s expedition to conquer the Philippines. They called it la Isla del Fuego for the fireflies they saw illuminating it in the night. As for its current name, according to folklore, when the Spanish landed, they were greeted by King Kihod (about whom virtually nothing is known), who introduced himself as “si Kihod.” However, the Spanish thought that he was giving them the name of the island. They found “si Kihod” too difficult to pronounce, so they changed the d and Hispanicized the other letters. The Spanish language does not use the letter k, while the letter h is always silent, so the hard h sound in Kihod translates to a j (such as in jalapeño). The end result: Siquijor.


That is only one possible source–and a fairly mythological one–for the island’s name, however. Another cites the Bisaya word quidjod (“the tide is going out”). A third tentative explanation says that the Spanish asked the natives how best to reach Siquijor and recorded their response in Latin as sequitur fluctus (“follow the waves”), which gradually transformed into the current name. Exactly which theory is correct will likely never be known.

Precolonial Siquijor

Etymology

Most of the towns of Siquijor had existed as villages long before the Spanish arrived. Folklore explains the etymology of their pre-Hispanic names, listed below:

* For more information, see New Findings on Canoan and Larena.

Enrique Villanueva was not created until 1925, when it was split from Larena. The town was formerly known as Talingting, named after an endemic fish species.

 

Canoan, which was later absorbed into Larena, has always had the island’s best harbor, and consequently, sailors could take refuge from stormy weather there. They would often rest and eat there and could take advantage of the clean water flowing from Cawasan Creek. The place therefore became a kan-anan (“eating place”), which morphed into Canoan. Another story focuses on the area's corn production, for which it was once famous. People would come to the town, help harvest the crops, and buy it for their own consumption. Under this explanation, Canoan therefore derives from “kan-onan” (“abundance of food.”)

 

Lazi was originally known as Tigbauan/Tigbawan, a name derived from a plant known to grow along its bays. In the 1850s, the Spanish renamed it after Governor-General Manuel Pavia Y. Lacy. At some point, "Lacy" became "Laci," and then the Americans Anglicized it to "Lazi."

 

Maria's pre-Hispanic name, Kangminya/Kangmenia, paid homage to a prominent woman in the village: Minya/Menia. The Spanish later Hispanicized it as Camiña before adopting the current name in 1880 in honor of the Virgin Mary.

 

San Juan’s old name–Macapilay/Makapilay–was derived from an old chieftain known as Capilay. He and his wife were the first baptized Christians in the village.

 

Finally, the town of Siquijor, bearing the same name as the island, shares its etymology.

Spanish Name

Enrique Villanueva

Larena*

Lazi

Maria

San Juan

Siquijor

Old Name

Talingting

Canoan*

Tigbauan/Tigbawan

Kangminya/Kangmenia

Macapilay/Makapilay

Siquijor

  • Ango, J. D. (2010). The Cebu-Acapulco Galleon Trade. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 38(2), 147–173. www.jstor.org/stable/29792703.

     

    Bacus, E. A. (1996). Late Prehistoric Chiefly Polities in the Dumaguete-Bacong Area and Central Philippine Islands. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 24(1/2), 5–58. www.jstor.org/stable/29792193.

     

    Barretto-Tesoro, Grace. A local discourse on the early belief system from the Philippines using evidence from the Guthe collection | Isang diskursong lokal sa sinauang kosmolohiya sa Pilipinas gamit ang Guthe Collection. Journal of the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Archaeology and the Fine Arts, 4. www.spafajournal.org/index.php/spafajournal/article/view/616.

     

    Baumgartner, J. (1975). Cotton—A Pre-Spanish Cebuano Industry. Facts and Problems. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 3(1), 36–50. www.jstor.org/stable/29791186.

    Brief History. Municipality of Lazi. lazi-siquijor.gov.ph/history/.

    [Ming double duck porcelain water dropper; cobalt blue paint under transparent glaze] [porcelain]. Late 15th century, UMMAA 35551. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

    [Olive jar, ceramic with interior white glaze, Spain] [stoneware]. 16th-18th centuries, UMMAA 35512. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

     

    Solheim II, Wilhelm G. (1959). Further Notes on the Kalanay Pottery Complex in the P. I. Asian Perspectives. Sa-huỳnh Pottery Relationships in Southeast Asia, 3(2), 157-165. www.jstor.org/stable/42928914.

     

    Solheim II, Wilhelm G. (1957). The Kulanay Pottery Complex in the Philippines. Artibus Asiae20(4), 279-288. www.jstor.org/stable/3249420.

    Worcester, Dean C. (1899). The Philippine Islands and Their People: A Record of Personal Observation and Experience, With a Short Summary of the More Important Facts in the History of the Archipelago. The Macmillan Company. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000002088532&seq=7.


    Yao, A. (2013). Investigations into the Elemental Composition of Earthenware Vessels from the Guthe Collection using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis. Asian Perspectives, 52(1), 12–27. www.jstor.org/stable/24569879.

Archaeological Findings

Very little about precolonial Siquijor survives in the written historical record. Nevertheless, scholars have been able to learn more about the island’s distant past through archaeological excavations.

 

In the 1920s, American anthropologist Carl E. Guthe led an expedition from the University of Michigan to the central and southern Philippines. They found 20 sherds of early ceramics in Siquijor, containing evidence of solar, bird, and fish motifs.

 

Later scholars found that those motifs and others provide evidence for a tripartite cosmological belief system during the postclassical era that Siquijodnons shared not only with other groups throughout the Visayas but also in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Adherents believed in Kaitaasan (zenith/vertex; Upperworld; heaven), Lupa (ground; Middleworld, where the living exist), and Kailaliman (abyss; Underworld; underground, not hell). Sun and bird motifs symbolized Kaitaasan, while fish motifs symbolized Kailaliman. The presence of certain motifs over others influenced Filipinos’ decisions to acquire certain ceramics, as many came from elsewhere in Southeast Asia and even from China.

In fact, one ceramic sample from Tulapos, Enrique Villanueva, contained earthenware sherds from the Ming Dynasty, dated to sometime in the 15th or 16th centuries. Another sample from Lumangcapan, Larena, contained more Ming porcelain, this time from the 14th to mid-16th centuries. These indicate that Chinese traders were visiting Siquijor long before the Spanish arrived.

 

One more sample recovered from Solangon, San Juan, contained white stoneware, glass beads, and iron, dated to the 11th century. Siquijodnons were evidently capable of primitive manufacturing in the precolonial era.

Designs from the Kalanay pottery style

Examples of incised and impressed designs from the Kalanay pottery style.

All three samples contained evidence of the Kalanay pottery style, which was dominated by wavelike curves, triangles, and dashes. Occasionally, shells would be pressed into the clay before firing it to produce distinct patterns (see the eighth line of the image).

 

One last sample from Maite, San Juan, turned up more earthenware remnants and an iron knife. These were dated to between the 11th and 15th centuries and once again provided evidence of the Kalanay style.

Below are archaeological artifacts that have been extracted from Siquijor. Click each image for additional details.

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