The secondary burial jars

A. Paulita Roa

NATIONAL artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose wrote that “History is racial memory.” Very True. But in our case, much of what we know about Philippine history is mostly began in 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan and his men came to our shores and onwards. It is unfortunate that we hardly know about the prehistoric and the prehispanic periods of our country. While many of us think that without the Spaniards, we would not have been “civilized.” This is so far from the truth!

Weeks ago, I wrote about P’u-tuan or Butuan that has the distinction of being the first Philippine state that opened diplomatic relations with Imperial China in year 1001. It was able to send a tribute mission to the Chinese emperor through its trading partner, Champa (Vietnam). P’u-tuan was mentioned several times in the Chinese imperial records Sung Shih or the Sung History.

Fast forward to mid-1970s, when big wooden boats known as balanghais were discovered in Butuan City.Three of the boats were carbon-14 dated and the oldest was 320 A.D., the next two were dated to the 10th century and A.D.1250, respectively. The boats measured 15 meters in length and three meters in width. These are big boats that were capable for long distance voyages. The balanghais were what the early Butuanons and other inhabitants of the archipelago rode when they conducted a thriving maritime trade around Southeast Asia for many centuries. But note that this was not just limited to trading for the early Filipinos brought home several cultural influences that they imbibed from other lands. Foremost of this was the jar burial that was extensively practiced in the entire Southeast Asian region during the Metal Age (500 B.C. – A.D. 800).

Many jar burial sites were discovered in Luzon and the Visayas ad quite a few here in Mindanao. This burial custom was observed by early Filipinos who first buried their dead on the ground. After a certain time has elapsed, the skeletal remains were retrieved from the grave. This was then followed by a ceremonial bone washing that was usually done on a nearby river.Then the bones were placed on a big covered jar probably accompanied by rituals. The jar was then deposited in a cave as its final resting place.This funerary practice is known as secondary burial or jar burial.

A prime example of a secondary burial jar is the famous Manungul Jar that is now a national cultural treasure. This jar was discovered by Dr. Robert Fox at the Tabon Cave complex in Quezon, Palawan. A drawing of this is in our one thousand peso bills. The jar cover has two figures riding on a spirit boat–one is an oarsman and the other is the deceased with both of his arms crossed over his chest. There is an exceptional assemblage of secondary burial jars that were found by archaeologists in Ayub Cave in Maitum, Sarangani Province. The jar covers has the faces of the dead sculpted in clay while the other half of the jars showed the sex and age of the deceased.

Here in Cagayan de Oro, there is a jar burial site that is considered the first of its kind in Northern Mindanao. It is located in Upper Barangay Balulang in a site known as the Kros Rockshelter. It was Angel Bautista, an archaeologist of the National Museum, who first reported this in 1992 during his archaeological survey of the city. He reported that several sacks of human bones and different kinds of earthenware vessels. In 2004, a team from the Archaeological Studies Program of the University of the Philippines-Diliman went to Kros upon the advise of Bautista. To their dismay, they found that half of the rockshelter collapsed due to a landslide and there was a treasure hunters’ pit in the area. The team collected samples of human bones and earthenware sherds from different vessel forms with designs. They agree with the observations of Bautista that Kros had no settlement features. That the vessels were non- utilitarian and may have been used for ritual purposes only and the big pieces could have been for the jar burials. So the Kros rockshelter was a ceremonial area for the dead (Hukay Vol. 7 2005). Also, thousands of years ago, the Cagayan River was only several steps away from the rockshelter so it was where the bone washings were done.

More information could have been gathered from this rockshelter but it is lost now due to the disturbed condition of the site. However, one tantalizing fact remains–that thousands of years ago, the early inhabitants of Cagayan de Oro practiced jar burials and this could mean that like the rest of the people in the archipelago, they have had dynamic cultural and trade exchanges with other people groups in Southeast Asia. (to be continued)