A.Paulita Roa EARLY Spanish records show that the 16th century Visayans called gold as “bulawan” and fine gold as “himulawan.” When Ferdinand Magellan came to this country in 1521, they were amazed at the big quantity of the gold that they saw everywhere they went. In fact, it was common to see Visayans wearing heavy gold jewelry and it is said that they could tell where any gold came from by just looking at it. This is not at all surprising because many pieces of archaeological evidence point to the appearance of gold as early as 400-250 BC. The Italian chronicler of Magellan, Antonio Pigafetta, wrote that during their visit to Mazaua island there were pieces of gold like the size of eggs and walnuts. That these are found by just sifting the earth in the island of the king and that all of his dishes of were of gold. The Butuan ruler had three spots of gold on every tooth and his teeth appeared as if bound with gold. Decades later, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the first  Spanish Governor General of the Philippines wrote: “... gold was found in all of these islands; it is obtained from rivers, and in some places, from the mines, which the natives work. However, they do not work the mines steadily, but only when forced by necessity... they do not even try to become wealthy... the land possesses much gold; for much men,whether they be chiefs or not, whether freeman or slave, extract and sell gold...” (Blair and Robertson 1903). So what about the gold in Cagayan de Oro? Most of the visitors to the City Museum asked why is it that “de Oro” is affixed to our city’s old name? Our usual answer is that it was in 1950, when then Rep. Emmanuel N. Pelaez’s bill granting cityhood status to Cagayan was passed and that he added the “de Oro” to our city’s name in recognition of the fact that since ancient times, gold was found in the rivers and hills of Cagayan. Is gold really in abundance in our city? I can only find very few reports in the 1800s that mentioned about the gold in Cagayan de Misamis. The first one is by Agustin de la Cavada who reported that Cagayan’s gold is extracted through placer mining. The second came from the 1879 report of the Agustinian Recollect Missions in Northern Mindanao. It mentioned briefly among others, that a total of 500 taels of gold was traded annually in Cagayan de Misamis. And then, we have in our local lore about a huge golden fish named Oro that supposedly lives under the St. Agustine Cathedral. However, many of our old families here have their share of stories about the gold of Cagayan. First, let me tell you of a pre-war wedding photo that was shown to me where the bride wore a pair of dangling earrings studded with gold nuggets. Her grandfather bought the nuggets from a gold panner in upper Iponan River. During the American colonial period, there were many gold prospectors in Cagayan and most of them were Americans. Among the local prospectors was my uncle, Antonio Chaves Roa. He and his wife, Nene and children, lived most of the time in Dansolihon where they employed Galis to work in their mining area. This was long before World War II broke out. They were fluent in Ginali, a dialect spoken by this group of people that belongs to the Higaunon tribe. Tio Tonio’s son, Oloy told me that as a boy, he earned money by carrying the things of a gold prospector from Luzon named Paul Aquino. He was a brother of Ninoy. Then, there is this story about a wealthy couple in the pre-war days who hired a minerologist to examine the gold that was extracted locally. His verdict? Our local gold is of inferior commercial quality. The couple decided to buy big tracts of land around Cagayan instead of investing in gold mining. Today, their grandchildren have struck a bigger gold--in real estate. Thanks to the present technological advancements that are readily available to us, one can now search for areas where gold is located even in the confines of one’s home with the aid of satellite imaging and other high-tech gadgets. So the lure of gold is stronger than ever and this explains the presence of big and small mining outfits in Iponan, Dansolihon, Tumpagon and other places in Cagayan de Oro. But the dangers that mining brings to our environment are real too-ivers poisoned by mercury and other major environmental problems that are caused by strip mining and other forms of destructive mining activities. What we need do today is to strive  to become good stewards of our hills and rivers for the sake of the future generations of Kagay-anons. Gold in Cagayan is not all about the yellow mineral, the fine gold here or the himulawan is the Kagay-anon and his land. Kagay-anons, let us start to be vigilant and start to care and protect our real “himulawan”--our land. This is our God-given bahandi or wealth that we truly have long after the gold in our rivers and hills are gone.