GEN 004 - SAS # 1 - 2

• Story


  meaning of the word "history" in European languages.
• The words historia (Spanish), histoire (French), and gesichte (German) all mean the same thing - story.
• From this Western point of view, history is seen as the study or record of past events. It is, therefore, a story of the past.
• A similar thing can be said for the word "kasaysayan," which is the Filipino translation for history. It is also the story of our people and country's past.
• Prominent Filipino historians, however, contend that our understanding of "kasaysayan" is more unique compared to the Western understanding of "history."
• According to the historian Zeus Salazar, the word "kasaysayan" is rooted in the word "saysay" which has two meanings.
• Kasaysayan


  This is composed of the facts and details that we often memorize during classes. This is comprised of the names of our heroes, significant historical places, and important historical events.
• Saysay

  can mean "story" or "salaysay."
• Firstly, "saysay" can mean "story" or "salaysay." This refers to the narrative about past events. This is composed of the facts and details that we often memorize during classes. This is comprised of the names of our heroes, significant historical places, and important historical events.
• Secondly, "saysay" can also be defined as meaning, relevance, or significance. This refers to the wisdom and lessons that we can extract from historical facts and details about our history. This is the part where we analyze our history in order for us to understand its relevance and meaning to our society.
• Putting both meanings of the "saysay" together, "kasaysayan" or history in the Filipino sense means "mga salaysay na may saysay."
• Kasaysayan

  It is a narrative about the past events of our country that has meaning or significance to the people. In simpler terms, it is a story of our past that has a meaning.
• According to another prominent historian, Ambeth Ocampo, these two components of defining "kasaysayan" are crucial in learning our history. The significance of this definition is that history is not about memorizing forgettable dates, speaking unpronounceable names, locating strange historical places, or telling funny trivia.
• Learning history is not just learning a set of facts about the past. It is about making sense of those facts. Facts comprise only a very small part of history, the bigger part of it is the creation of meaning out of those facts that can be used by the people in correcting the present and creating a better future.
• In other words, through this definition of "kasaysayan" we

  can understand that history is a tool for us to learn from the mistakes we made in the past in order for us to create a better future.
• For Ocampo, the two meanings of "saysay" cannot be separated if we really want to learn history. History with just the story (salaysay) is pointless. What can we do with all our memorized facts about history? It will bring us nowhere. Nevertheless, if we inject meaning and significance (saysay) into these facts, history will give us the lessons we need to understand the present and set a better path for the future.
• Another important ingredient for us to learn history is the use of historical sources, which are materials that can be used to understand historical events.
• Primary sources are sources that were created or written by people who were direct participants or eyewitnesses to the historical event being studied. They can also refer to materials that were created during that historical period.
• Examples of primary sources include archival accounts, artifacts, letters, diaries, government records, photos and videos, newspaper articles, and oral history.
• Primary sources

  All of these materials represent original perspective or

  information about the period being examined.
• Secondary sources are materials created by an author using primary sources or other secondary sources. These sources include scholarly articles, history books, or even written analysis by historians. These materials, therefore, are made by individuals who are not directly involved in the event being examined.
• Even before Magellan and his crew arrived in 1521, the archipelago was already inhabited by human settlements. This disproves the notion that Magellan discovered the Philippines.
• In fact, there are three vital archeological discoveries in the Philippines that prove activities of ancestors of modern humans.
• In 2018, a group of archeologists discovered a fossil of a butchered rhinoceros and tools used to butcher it in Kalinga province. The fossils recovered are dated to 700,000 years old. Analysis of the fossils and tools indicate that there was an attempt to cut the meat of the rhinoceros, implying an apparent effort to eat it.
• The next evidence of presence of human ancestors in the Philippines is the discovery of a long toe bone from a new human species found in 2010 in Callao Cave, Cagayan. Scientific analysis of the fossil indicates that the bones gathered are dated 67,000 years old and came from a new human species, Homo luzonensis.
• Thw homo luzonensis fossil predates the human remains recovered in 1962 and 2004 from Tabon Cave in Palawan. In the cave, three sets of human remains were recovered dated to 16,500, 31,000, and 47,000 years old. All these remains belonged to Homo sapiens, the modern humans.
• These archeological findings prove that even during prehistoric period, human species inhabited the archipelago. Until now, scientists continue to research how our ancestors started to populate the archipelago. There have been several competing theories raised to explain this. These theories are called peopling theories.
• The first strand believes that the first inhabitants of the Philippines were indigenous people who inherently lived within the archipelago and had undergone a lengthy process of internal development.
• One of the theories that fall under the first strand was developed by an archaeologist named William Meacham. He believed that there were already people living in the Philippines and the entire Southeast Asia (See Figure 1). These people are called Austronesians.
• For Meacham, these people were connected by trade and other forms of relationships. Throughout time, these people developed differences in culture and language within their own inhabited area. Hence, explaining the current cultural and linguistic differences between the different people within Southeast Asia.
• Archeologist Bennet Bronson and Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano also believed the claims of Meacham. The two, however, did not emphasize on the connection between the people due to the lack of evidence.
• The second strand argues that the people living in the Philippines came from outside regions, implying strongly that there were movements of large numbers of people.
• One of the theories under the second strand is developed by H. Otley Beyer, an American anthropologist. He pointed out that the people living in the Philippines came from different homelands. They arrived in the Philippines through different waves of migration from their own homeland.
• The first group of people who migrated were composed of seafaring and stone tool-using "Indonesians A."
• It was then followed by bark cloth-wearing "Indonesians B." The next wave was composed of terrace-building "Proto-Malays" who came from central Asia.
• Lastly, a wave of "Deutero-Malays" sailed to the current Philippines from insular Indonesia.
• This theory, commonly called as the "waves of migration theory," remains to be one of the most popular theories on peopling in the Philippines.
• Despite waves of migration theory's popularity, this theory has already been debunked by historians and the scientific community due to the lack of evidence.
• Another theory under the second strand was proposed by another American anthropologist and archaeologist named Wilhelm G. Solheim II. He argued that a group of maritime-oriented people called "Austronesians" lived within the edges of the Celebes Sea including northeastern Borneo, the northern Celebes and southwestern Mindanao. These people travelled within the different parts of the region to expand their trading activities, which resulted to the dispersal of "Austronesian" people in the Philippines.
• The movement of "Austronesian" people was also forwarded by another archeologist, Peter Bellwood. However, instead of coming from the south as argued by Solheim, Bellwood argued that Austronesians came from southern portion of China and crossed the strait to reach Formosa (now Taiwan). From there, Austronesians reached Luzon and eventually spread all throughout the region. For Bellwood, rice agriculture led Austronesians to look for new lands to settle in.