And other memories of our recent and ancient past
The joy and pain of learning is that it never stops. It was only when William, my eldest, now 21, was learning the alphabet that I learned the rules on vowel sounds. I learned the alphabet by memorizing it via the alphabet song. I learned the name of the letters and the sound they made through repetition. I learned words and how to pronounce them because I was told to say them a certain way. I never knew there were rules on when and how letters should sound, depending on their placement in the word, to think I was a broadcast journalist and writer, to whom letters are an indispensable tool.
Every parent can relate that I was learning alongside my son. I remember watching and rewatching DVDs by Leap Frog Letter Factory over and over again, so I learned that the “name” of the letter was pronounced using its “long sound” when we say it as a letter in the alphabet. Its “short sound,” on the other hand, is what you make when you say it as part of a word. The short sound of “A,” for instance, is how we pronounce it when we say the word hat, cat, or mat.
Learning all this with my son was a revelation. For decades, I was able to pronounce words from memorization and exposure. Being taught this way, mostly by the people around you and by observing how others behave or do things, has been going on since the beginning of time.
As archaeologists, we deal with material culture, materials created by man in the past that have survived the test of time. My area of specialization is ceramics or, to be specific, prehistoric decorated earthenware pottery. When we study pottery, we look at form, decoration, and technology. We investigate how its technology has been handed down or how such technology was used—and why.
We attempt to determine the choice of clay used, the kinds of materials added to the clay to create good, sturdy pots, the technique used to form the vessel, the choice of vessel form to create, which might have helped determine the use of the vessel and, in some cases, even what type of decoration was used, just to name a few.
I analyze decorations on pottery to detect design processes that might be attributed to the people who inhabited our islands in our prehistoric past. Detecting design processes consistent despite space and time helps present the argument of the presence of “style.” When this same style is detected in other pots found in a certain geographic area or areas in the vicinity, we may be able to investigate the other what, when, and why. As American anthropologist Pauline Wiessner said, in her paper, “Is there a unity in style?” in the Cambridge University Press 1990 book The Uses of Style in Archaeology, style can help us “understand social groups, social boundaries, individual and group identities (e.g. status, hierarchies) relations between the individual and society, social interactions, its symbolic meaning and so forth.”
Movements of people for migration and trade was rampant in our prehistoric past. The sea was the equivalent of our roads, freeways, and highways. When I get to spend time in the small islands of Luzon and Visayas and come across fisherfolk, I am always taken aback when they casually say they would go to Manila in a banka. But that was how it was—and still is—for maritime people, Pinoys and urbanites like us included.
Because we are surrounded by water, Filipinos are a maritime people, although nowadays we are not so conscious of it (unless going on holiday to Boracay) and even completely oblivious to our dependence on the sea. How do we evoke our maritime past when we find ourselves on the road stuck in traffic every day?
Our current language and dialects were brought to our shores by sea. We are part of the Austronesian linguistic family group, a maritime group of people who sailed the seas from north to south, from Taiwan to New Zealand, or west to east, from Madagascar off the coast of Africa, to Easter Island off the coast of South America. To date, 160 local dialects and languages are still spoken in the Philippines.
Linguists measure how related our languages are to one another based on similarities in the words we still use today. Archaeologist Dr. Peter Bellwood has theorized that about 6,000 years ago people started moving and soon grew an extensive intra-archipelago and foreign exchange movement within the aforementioned areas. These movements and contacts are the reasons Bellwood says the people in these areas have cultural, physical, and linguistic similarities, despite the geographic distance.
On Dec. 30, 2022, we celebrated Rizal Day. When photos of the first family came out raising the Philippine flag at Luneta, I wondered, “How early did they have to get up today for this?” I recall an interview with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. when he and his family, the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, his mom Imelda, and siblings Imee and Irene with Little Aimee, were exiled in the US. He listed a number of very remarkable changes in his life since they were kidnapped by the Americans and flown to Hawaii in 1986. One of the changes he noted was being able to sleep in on Rizal Day. For 20 years, he and his siblings would join their parents for the flag-raising tradition at Luneta Park. While in exile, however, all the siblings found it a novel experience not having to wake up early on Dec. 30, 1986.
Historical commemorations must be injected with personal recollections to resonate with the public. People relate more to historic events storified with something personal. The act of commemoration and the activities on Rizal Day, first commemorated by Emilio Aguinaldo and his revolutionary government on Dec. 30, 1898, should remind the public of Rizal, his works, and what he means to the nation.
Our American colonizers wanted us to follow in the footsteps of Rizal. They wanted a man who opted to fight for change using the pen, instead of the sword.
But what does Rizal represent? I was taught that Rizal was the most peaceful and least controversial among our Filipino revolutionaries. I was also told Aguinaldo did not butt heads with him as Aguinaldo did with his other colleagues like Andres Bonifacio, who was arrested, tried, and executed by the revolutionary government. And the Americans liked the “conservative nationalistic” tendencies of Rizal versus the more radical means espoused by the likes of Bonifacio. Our American colonizers wanted us to follow in the footsteps of Rizal who wanted reforms through more peaceful means. They wanted a man who opted to fight for change using the pen, instead of the sword.
Well, if our social media behavioral patterns can be considered the equivalent of the “pen” Rizal used to fight battles, our American colonizers must have indeed successfully integrated peaceful means of opposition into our value system. Think of all the battles, including the recent presidential elections, fought, lost, or won via the exchange of opinions, welcome or not, on social media in a manner engaged enough to be vociferous and you’ll realize how well-earned the Philippines’ high ranking is among countries with the most hours spent on the internet.
Acts of remembrance and historical commemorations serve a social, political, or economic purpose. We must remain critical in our thinking of these events and traditions, lest we forget its true meaning and value to our community.