[2014] Re-examining the Butuan Boats: Pre-colonial Philippine watercraft (original) (raw)
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The Journal of History: History and Cultural Heritage, 2020
First recovered in the floodplains of Butuan in the 1970s, the Butuan Boats are a remarkable assemblage of a distinct boatbuilding practice known as the lashed-lug tradition. Evidence of lashed-lug watercraft have been found throughout Southeast Asia and beyond, and evidence of their use extends from as early as the 3rd century until late in the 20th century. The Butuan Boats, which have been re-dated to between the 8th and 10th centuries, exhibit the obvious characteristics of lashed-lug boats, as well as clear differences from one another, from the variety of wood used, as well as stylistic and technical execution, as shall be discussed in this paper.
Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology, 2022
As part of its extensive mandate, the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) carries out archaeological field research on land and underwater in addition to overseeing a network of museums throughout the Philippines. Among its most significant projects are its archaeological studies of Butuan boats starting in the 1970s, which have since been declared National Cultural Treasures. The remains of three of the boats have been recovered. They are presently on exhibition or in storage in Butuan and Manila. With at least two other Butuan boats that might yet be fully excavated and recovered, this paper recounts earlier actions related to their documentation, recovery, conservation, and exhibition, which might properly inform future measures. Errata: Table 1, row 6, column 3 should read "Excavated in 1985, recovered in1986"
While the earliest descriptions of Southeast Asian watercraft written by Chinese and European observers were generally brief, many noted that they were constructed without using a single metal nail. Another trait mentioned in only the most detailed historical accounts, but recognisable in the material evidence, is the series of drilled lugs protruding from the insides of the boats’ planks. The lugs functioned to secure frames and thwarts to the hull by means of lashing rope or rattan strands through the lugs’ holes. Published research provides confirmation that edge-joined and lashed-lug boats are the oldest plank-built watercraft in the region’s archaeological record. The earliest is the Pontian Boat found in Peninsular Malaysia, dating to between the third and fifth centuries A.D. Contemporary sources suggest such boats may still be in use today by a communityon the remote island of Lembata, Indonesia. In 1976, looters unearthed the incomplete remains of what is now referred to as Butuan Boat 1 buried under approximately 1.5 m of flood deposits in Barangay Libertad, Butuan City, Philippines. According to various reports, looters have since that time come across between nine and 11 Butuan Boat remains in an area less than 1 km in radius. Archaeologists from the National Museum of the Philippines examined the remains of seven of these boats and recovered three. Excavations revealed that construction features of the Butuan Boats were characteristically Southeast Asian, as described in historical documents. The planks were edge-fastened with wooden dowels, and carved along the length of the planks of all but one of the boats were a series of rectangular lugs drilled with holes, some which still bore fragments of rope. Unfortunately, much of the early reporting of the Butuan Boat sites and related archaeological activities was unclear, and details such as locations, dimensions, and wood identification, were presented inconsistently. Construction features were only discussed in general terms, and early attempts to radiocarbon date the first three recovered boats in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in widely disparate results of fourth, thirteenth, and tenth centuries A.D., respectively. The research undertaken for this dissertation involved recording the Butuan Boats, identifying the timbers used, and obtaining more reliable radiocarbon dating results. In examining the construction of each Butuan Boat more closely, atypical features that were previously unreported or downplayed began to emerge. Using this data, along with other archaeological, historic, and ethnographic evidence from throughout Southeast Asia, broadens our understanding of lashed-lug boat construction, a practice that survived more than 1,500 years. This study aids in revealing possible reasons for the loss, persistence, or development of certain aspects of boat construction and adds significantly to the knowledge of Philippine and Southeast Asian boatbuilding technology and practices.
Timon The Proceedings of the Philippine Maritime Heritage Forum Volume I
2020
In accordance with the vision of the Asian Institute of Maritime Studies or AIMS to become the Home of Maritime Knowledge Exchange, the AIMS Museo Maritimo annually organizes the Philippine Maritime Heritage Forum since 2015. This initiative aims to build up the overall knowledge and facilitate the continuous dialogue on Philippine maritime heritage and industry. Since 2015 the forum gathered respectable historians and academicians, industry leaders, and maritime professionals to share their knowledge regarding the maritime heritage and industry of the Philippines. In celebration of this achievement, AIMS Museo Maritimo established <b><i>Timon: The Proceedings of the Philippine Maritime Heritage Forum</i></b> which <b><i>publishes annually</i></b>. A proceedings that summarizes the content of the forums into a research material is necessary to facilitate further research relating to maritime heritage and industry. This endeavor support...
Hans Brandeis - Boat Lutes in the Visayan Islands and Luzon. Traces of Lost Traditions (2012, 2022)
In: Musica Jornal 8, pp. 2-103. (Note: this is the manuscript version with different page numbering), 2022
This is the revised and considerably extended version of a paper published in 2012. This version is from June 2022. The paper deals with the claim of some people that boat lutes could once be found all over the Philippines, including Luzon and the Visayan Islands. Trying to find evidence for or against this claim, the paper examines early Spanish colonial sources as well as recently collected data from this area. As a result, we can state that the name "kudyapi" refers to boat lutes only in a few areas of the Visayas and Luzon, while in other areas it often refers to small lutes with coconut bodies that are definitely no boat lutes. The first page of the original printed publication from 2012 can be found here: http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/musika/article/viewFile/3433/3170"
[2015] The Butuan Boats of the Philippines: Southeast Asian edge-joined and lashed-lug watercraft
2015
Within regional boat studies, edge-joined and lashed-lug plank boats constructed without metal fastenings are widely understood to characterise Southeast Asian boats. The earliest written accounts of Southeast Asian boats were largely brief but often remarked on this trait. Archaeological remains of these boats from throughout the region confirm this and show that this was accomplished in several ways. The boats' planks were edge-joined either by using stitching supplemented by dowels, dowels supplemented by stitching, or exclusively by dowels (Manguin 1993; McGrail 2001). Another trait only occasionally remarked upon in historical accounts, but is most obviously recognisable in some of the material remains, is the series of drilled lugs protruding from the insides of the boats' planks. The lugs, as described in the most detailed accounts, functioned to secure frames and thwarts to the hull by means of lashing rope or rattan to the lugs' holes.
In the archaeological record of Malayo-Polynesian Philippines, the absence of monumental structures in the basic architectural forms of either the tower or earth/mountain, and the presence of boat-shaped burial markers laid out low to the ground in stones or coral slabs, are two sides of the same collective cosmological coin. In the Philippines archipelago, the sense of the cosmic cannot be materialized in monumental structures that either defy the earth or that identify with the cosmic. Rather, the sense of the cosmic is imposed by and is immanent in the weather and seismic events. The fickle and frequently powerful and destructive natural environment defines the cosmological, which can only be highlighted or pointed out, not mastered or made a home of. Thus the boat-shaped markers appear to flow and disappear into the farther landscape. The Annales concept of the longue duree helps clarify these architectural peculiarities of the various Malayo-Polynesian peoples of the Philippines archipelago, who shared in the region-wide Austronesian ethnic and linguistic heritage, but who more peculiarly shared in their own archipelago’s distinctive combination of weather and seismic activity. In the instances of the boat markers, these peculiarities concretely manifest the coming together of the purpose and concern of monumental architecture with the archipelago’s collective world view.
Maritime Trade in the Philippines during the 15 th Century CE
The period from the 15th to the 17th centuries CE in the Southeast Asian region has been termed as the ‘Age of Commerce’. It is characterised by marked delineation of societies, unprecedented urban expansion and the formation of states largely derived from a vibrant sea-borne trade not only within the countries of the region but also with China in the east and India and the Arab states in the west. Historical and archaeological sources indicate that the 15th century set the stage for the entry of Southeast Asia into the maritime economy that linked east and west prior to the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century CE. What was the impact of this regional trade in the Philippines? Recent archaeological research has generated a significant corpus of data from terrestrial and submerged sites during the Philippine protohistoric period (c. 9th – 16th centuries CE). This paper will present the archaeological investigation results of three shipwrecks (Pandanan, Lena Shoal and Santa Cruz) and three terrestrial sites (Tanjay, Cebu, Calatagan) in an attempt to elucidate the process of how foreign archaeological materials were brought into the Philippines and if these materials used by the existing local societies during that period.