Did the Nation's ancient history originate from Southern Mindanao?

The country's mainstream history lessons vaguely narrate about its people's ancestry dated to as far as 50,000 BC. The remains of a skull cap was discovered however, in the Tabon caves of Palawan and was carbon dated at about 22,000 BC. Centuries later, waves of migrants with their swift wooden boats called 'balangays' (from which came the basic government unit termed as "barangay") then settled in the archipelagic islands where they established small towns and colonies. But informations relative to these were not as preserved, owing to the fact that most of the legacies were destroyed due to religious bigotry exhibited by Spanish colonizers who arrived by the 16th century.

More extensive informations however, were made available primarily from documents by the colonizers and from whose sources most of the country's conscious history had based itself. In the Filipino psyche the making of the nation's history were mostly dependent on Spanish documents, and conventional national consciousness dictated that the nation's extensive history began in the islands of Visayas and Luzon (although some historians argue that first mass held between the locals and the Spanish explorers began somewhere in Masau, Butuan in Mindanao and not in Limasaua, Leyte in the Visayas).

Still, the country's pre-colonial history remained vague. However, there were research that among the earliest migrants, a wave of settlers had arrived in the southern shores of Mindanao, in present day Palembang, Sultan Kudarat (ironically, Palembang was also the name of ancient Sri-Vijayan Empire's capital city based in Sumatra, Indonesia) from as early as 500 AD. From there the early peoples spread towards the whole of the island. It was only later that other waves of migrants arrived in other parts of Visayas and Luzon during the 11th and 13th century by small groups that resisted the Islam faith and political systems of the mainlands, or seeking freedom and better sustenance.

However, the history of Southern Mindanao may even be much older than that. As if plucked out from myths and legends, old tales narrate of ancient tribes of giants known as Dinagats that once lived in Samal island that now faces the modern city of Davao, south of Mindanao. Except that these enigmatic, extinct race were neither myths or legends, for archeological evidences and skeletal excavations were documented even by foreign French and German scientists, and local resarchers as well, and even by construction workers. Despite an otherwise gem of history that any self-respecting nation would have treasured, these did not register much to the national consciousness, probably because some mediocre Filipino historians and closeminded academicians bluntly stifled it off.

The giants were eventually eliminated through poisoning by neighboring groups (they drifted a raft filled with delectable food) in retaliation for their misdeeds (which the giants mistook as offerings in submission to their 'superiority'), for the giants would often raid and steal from these villages, and kidnap their women. Some children borne out of it retained the gargantuan features and they were assimilated with the tribe, while those borne of small stature were given less attention and segregated with the women. These however, proved fatal for the giants as they were the only ones allowed to feast on the poisoned food. Eventually the giants died, leaving only the smaller people as survivors. To differentiate from the giant Dinagats, they called themselves Samal, meaning "leftovers" or "dregs."

These giant races had been mentioned in Biblical passages and known as "Nephilims," or by more historical sources, from the documents of the Sumerians, the most ancient of civilizations in Post-Deluvian human history that were once based in present day Iraq and dated to as far as 6000 BC but mysteriously vanished about 2000 BC. It should also be noted that the creation mythology of the Samals was intriguingly similar with that of the ancient Sumerians.

The giants were known to be hybrid offsprings, being borne out from the union of "gods" and humans. there were also other giant skeletal remains excavated in many parts of the world such as the Euphrates Valleys and in Europe.



("Human" skeletal femur found in Turkey and exhibited in Texas)




(A part of my personal research about the Samal giants were sourced from a narrative by Maria F. Mangahas, the others were from actual accounts narrated by an acquaintance who met with the natives of Samal, but both accounts confirmed similarities)