It's Unlikely that the Bisaya Raided China

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Episode 69 (nice) of Amaya begins with a crouching Datu Bagani illustrating on the ground his plan for a pangayaw—a raid. Around him were Bisaya warriors, fully clothed in tattoos except for one, a woman named Bai Binayaan. Their eyes and ears were all focused on what the young datu was trying to convey. Using sticks, Bagani made a diagram of the village they were about to attack, pointing where his men should position themselves at the onset of battle. Later in the episode, they did embark on a pangayaw and made easy work of their target. Their execution was flawless, save for a critical lapse on Bagani’s part where he almost got killed, luckily to be saved by an alert Binayaan who was quick to act. The sheer efficiency by which they enacted their aggression is quite remarkable.

Although Amaya is a fantasy series set in precolonial Visayas, the Bisaya aptitude for violence as depicted on screen falls within the realm of historical certainty. Such was their habit for war that they developed a fearsome reputation for ruthlessness, their terrible tendrils protracted beyond the limits imposed by the seas, spreading fear and trembling even in the hearts of those from afar, like the natives of coastal China who fell victim many times to their swift violence.

Or so they say.

That the Bisaya were violent against each other is well documented. Had Ferdinand Magellan agreed to Raja Humabon’s proposal to enjoin a Cebuano force to fight alongside his men against Cilapulapu, history would’ve been significantly different, and Antonio Pigafetta’s journal would have had included the very first narration of casual mayhem between contending Bisaya factions. Meanwhile, capitan-general Miguel López de Legazpi actually saw with his own eyes the often arbitrary harm the Bisaya were wont to inflict on foes and strangers. “These people declare war among themselves at the slightest provocation, or with none whatever,” he writes in a 1569 relation while he was stationed in Cebu. Even family and familiar faces were not spared for fairness of opportunity reigned: all were equally liable for an assault. In the same document, Legazpi reports that, “[w]henever the occasion presents itself, they rob one another, even if they be neighbors or relatives; and when they see and meet one another in the open fields at nightfall, they rob and seize one another.”¹ Fueled by the exotic violence witnessed in an unfamiliar land, it is hard to fault Legazpi for exaggerating his report, especially when contextualising his account within a larger western canon made around the same time. Other European chroniclers who’ve been to the Visayas in the 16th century corroborate his statements. And although their pens were inked by a specific morality impertinent to the natives of the land they were in, what they wrote cannot be simply dismissed as works of imperial projections, for in them are genuine reflections on unique and alien customs hitherto unknown and ultimately shocking to European sensibilities. Had a literate Bisaya witnessed the carnage of the Crusades, especially the fourth, they would’ve likely written about it in an indignant tone as well—although stylistically different for sure—as the conduct of warfare and massacres in Europe followed different preambles than theirs.

Though the Spaniards were generally chief in tainting the Bisaya as masters of wanton savagery, it seems that they weren’t the first to do so. Apparently, it is believed that two Chinese chroniclers, Chau Ju-kua and Ma Tuan-lin, writing from the 12th and 13th centuries respectively, identified the Bisaya as the terrifying raiders who dealt routine death and destruction on the southern coasts of China from 1174-1190.² The two did not outrightly mention the Bisaya as the culprits, instead, they recorded the name using their native script which when transliterated returns P’i-shö-yé. Later historians and translators, writing centuries after the two Chinese scribes, hypothesised that it was actually the Bisaya that was being referred to because of phonetic happenstance: when vocalised, the word Visayas or Bisaya simply sounded like P’i-shö-yé to them. True to form, popular press abandoned prudence and proceeded to fleece the assertion by retuning the recorded violence into a bombastic nationalist hurrah, and the likes of Esquire went on to popularise the image of Bisaya seafarers sailing to south China and greeting the helpless denizens by “slaying men without number and women too, after they had raped them,” without any serious research and validation.³ Worse, in the academe, where rigour and careful scrutiny of sources are expected, there seems to be a universal acceptance of the association, and scholar Efren Isorena has ostensibly cemented the claim, proving without doubt that the P’i-shö-yé of Chau and Ma were indeed the Bisaya.

If the P’i-shö-yé–Bisaya connection was initially built on mere phonetic semblance, then it stands atop a very weak foundation and is already too unconvincing. A closer reading of the source materials is thus necessary to establish the veracity of the claim or to refute it altogether. Since the relevant documents are freely available online (click here to view Chau’s text and here for Ma’s) anyone can parse them and see for themselves what each had to say. And when one does a meticulous examination of both, it becomes all the more clearer that Chau and Ma were not talking about the Bisaya. Furthermore, Isorena’s “The Visayan Raiders of the China Coast, 1174-1190 AD”, perhaps the most cited study on the matter, contains one egregious error that is enough to collapse his whole argument. Taken altogether, what we’re left with is a persistent nationalist myth where the Bisaya are cast as something they were not.

Unintelligible Language

Chau begins his description of the P’i-shö-yé by emphatically declaring that their language “cannot be understood, and traders do not resort to the country.”⁴ This does not bode well for the accusations set against the Bisaya. Scores of historical texts highlight the fact that the Chinese were known to trade with the Bisaya, especially in Cebu. Pigafetta recounts that the nephew of the Cebuano king took them to see young women playing some percussive instruments, and one of which was a metal tabourin from grand Sine, that is, China.⁵ Among the commodities available for purchase in the markets of Cebu were slaves. It is there where the Chinese bought some of the surviving members of the Magellan expedition for pieces of metal.⁶ The earth is also a willing witness to the secrets of this enterprise. Excavations of a 12th to 13th century burial site in Cebu have unearthed Chinese porcelain dating back to the Sung Dynasty.⁷ Archaeological data also suggests that trade between China and the Philippines began, with a level of certainty, “during the late T’ang Dynasty, at least by the late 10th century A.D. and possibly earlier.”⁸ It is extremely implausible that Chau would describe the Bisaya language as something that “cannot be understood” when for centuries before the events in his record even transpired the Chinese already had business dealings with the Bisaya. This flourishing economic relationship could not have been possible if even a basic degree of understanding between the two did not exist.

But Cebu alone does not constitute the Visayas. Isorena believes that if the P’i-shö-yé were from the region, then they must’ve been based on the eastern side of the archipelago, possibly in “Samar, Leyte, and Bicolandia.”⁹ It is difficult, impossible even, to approximate just how different the languages in Cebu were from those in eastern Visayas at the time. But they could not have been so drastically distinct that Chinese voyagers experienced in trading with Cebuanos would not be able to comprehend them. As Cebu is situated conveniently in the middle of the archipelago, the island became a prosperous entrêpot accessible from multiple sea routes, welcoming ships and languages from all directions. And indeed, there exists a linguistic diversity in the Visayas, but this would not have barricaded cultural and economic exchanges as Visayan languages are mutually intelligible with each other.¹⁰ In fact, it can be argued that this vast outgrowth helped protect and at the same time promulgate the interests of multiple parties. Bisaya from other islands spoke in a tongue that was different enough to help them distinguish themselves among others and sufficiently similar with those from Cebu that it facilitated negotiations whenever they came to the island to trade. So a Chinese merchant who’s had many previous dealings in Cebu would not be at a total loss of understanding when bargaining with a Waray speaking pedlar.

Terror from Taiwan

In favourable conditions, when both tides and breeze are at peace, traveling from one Visayan island to another takes little time and effort because the islands are only separated by thin membranes of sea that are easily navigable. This proximity is a key factor as to why the languages scattered across the region remain mutually intelligible with one another. So if the language of the P’i-shö-yé cannot be understood, then their home must be located somewhere far from the Visayas. Indeed, both Chau and Ma concur: the P’i-shö-yé came from somewhere else.

According to Chau, the country of the P’i-shö-yé was near “an island in the sea by the name of P’öng-hu”, and so near in fact that from the said island “smoke on it may be discerned.”¹¹ P’öng-hu is an older designation for the Penghu archipelago or the Pescadores islands situated in the Taiwan Straight. It is uncertain whether the name P’öng-hu was used in Chau’s time to encompass the whole archipelago or if it only referred to a single member island. But what is clear in either instances is that the P’i-shö-yé came from a place somewhere around the sea intermediate Taiwan and China. Furthermore, Chau says that their territory was beside the kingdom of Liu-k’iu, a kingdom based in northern Taiwan.¹² Ma agrees with this ordering, writing in his description of Liu-k’iu that “[u]n autre royaume appelé Pi-che-ye existe à còtè de celui qu’on vient de décrire” (“another kingdom called Pi-che-ye exists next to the one just described”).¹³

For a place to be rightfully designated as the province of the P’i-shö-yé, it has to satisfy the two conditions set by Chau and Ma. First, it needs to be “next” to Liu-k’iu; and second, it needs to be close enough to P’öng-hu that “smoke on it may be discerned” from the archipelago. Since nature positioned the Visayan islands elsewhere, they fulfill neither of these requirements, effectively disqualifying them from contention. This leaves the Taiwanese coast facing Penghu as the only plausible location as it south of Liu-k’iu, hence “next” to it, and it is less than 50 kilometres away from the closest island of the archipelago, close enough for large billows of smoke to be seen on a clear day without the aid of artificial oculars. Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys, translator of Ma’s text, is of the same opinion, writing in a footnote that:

“La texte explique nettement que ces barbares Pi-che-ye habitaient à côté du royaume dit de Lieou-kieou, et non pas dans une île séparée.”

“The text clearly explains that these Pi-che-ye barbarians lived next to the kingdom called Lieou-kieou, and not on a separate island.”¹⁴

Boats to Behold and Fold

It is possible that the P’i-shö-yé might have inhabited one of the many islands of Penghu and from there launched their raids. This makes sense in the context of continued attacks on the Chinese coast, as their closeness to the Asian mainland makes it easier to reach and ravage. But distance would not have mattered if the P’i-shö-yé were indeed the Bisaya because they were known seafarers of superlative merit and the formidable quality of their boats would have easily withstood the challenges tendered by the high seas. It is not water, then, that stands in the way of the Bisaya to attain undisputed recognition as the P’i-shö-yé; it is historical data, data that do not, when closely examined, point them as the suspects.

Rather than marshalling the mighty balangay and the swift paraus, the trademark Bisaya vessels attested by western chroniclers, the P’i-shö-yé, says Chau, “do not sail in junks or boats, but lash bamboo into rafts, which can be folded up like screens, so, when hard pressed, a number of them can lift them up and escape by swimming off with them.”¹⁵ This mode of maritime offensive is unlike the known and recorded practices of the Bisaya. It also doesn’t make much sense for them to do so for if they had come from the Visayas, they would have exhausted all energy to steer their rafts and keep themselves afloat, leaving them with little physical will to carry on with their brutal business. The fact that the attacks persisted for a decade further weakens the case.

But the Bisaya might have devised a more efficient and less physically strenuous way to proceed to their target, and Isorena provides a possible scenario how they could have done so. He writes that they could have used the balangay to reach the Taiwan straight, then stopped and anchored safely from a distance at sea, and from there rode on smaller auxiliary vessels to reach the shore.¹⁶ This is plausible, but it fails to acknowledge one important detail mentioned by Chau. The balangay were known for their imposing size, so at a distance, even if the Bisaya paddled to shore on their rafts, the bigger ship would’ve been visible to the people on the shore. One of the frightening aspects of these raids was the fact that they happened so suddenly that those living on the shore had no time to bolster their defenses, for, according to Chau, “their coming cannot be foreseen”.¹⁷ So for them to be completely invisible from the shore, the balangay would have to be kept extremely far from land.

Another problem posed by Isorena’s solution is that of extra luggage and added weight. The specifics are unclear as to how many raiders these bamboo rafts could accommodate but Ma offers a clue. He writes:

“Ils prennent le soin de porter ces radeaux sur leurs épaules, et se ménagent ainsi un moyen de fuir en gagnant la mer.”

“They take care to carry these rafts on their shoulders, and thus provide themselves with a means of escape by reaching the sea.”¹⁸

If, as Chau says, these rafts could be folded like screens and be carried on the shoulders, as per Ma, then these portable transports would have been quite cumbersome, large enough to sustain at least one fully grown adult while at the same time just rightly sized to be foldable for easy handling and deployment. These rafts were presumably made of many sturdy and robust bamboo shoots, each with the length of at least half the height of the average raider, and tied side by side with others of the same length to expand the raft’s width. Where did they stow these extra vessels in the balangay if each raider carried their own raft? Could it be that they were actually much larger and could accommodate more than two bodies? After all, Chau did say that “a number of them” lifted these rafts, which would’ve been unnecessary if these were lighter and smaller. Another reason to suppose they were built bigger was the necessity of having extra space to carry what booty they had seized, be it iron or even slaves, whenever they had to escape after being repelled. Problem is, if they were larger they would’ve occupied precious space inside the balangay, reducing room for bodies and loot. A simple workaround to this difficulty is to have these rafts tied and be left floating on the water, dragged on as they navigate the seas. However, wouldn’t that have slowed their mothership by having to pull extra weight? Not to mention that it would also have disrupted the ship’s stability especially when the tides turned ferocious. It’s also possible that a fleet of smaller paraus followed the balangay, and these lighter and more agile boats carried the rafts. But if they did, they would not have any need for these rafts anymore because they could simply sail to shore with the paraus, saving them more time and energy.

Error: No Ink Found

Descriptions of ships and their uses illuminate the maritime culture of the people that built them. There is much to say about the Ming Dynasty’s expansionist and economic ambitions when it launched its mighty fleet to police the seas and straights of Southeast Asia.¹⁹ Isorena’s auxiliary bamboo rafts of supposed Bisaya craft, on the other hand, can only cast a hazy refulgence that prompts confusion rather than clarity. It’s also worth noting that Isorena’s conjecture comes from his reading of James Francis Warren’s “The Prahus of the Sulu Zone”, which mostly deals with the raiding practices of southern Mindanao groups. This leaves the jury still at a loss, with nothing significant to work with, for what has been presented thus far to argue for Bisaya guilt have been inconclusive at best and imaginary at worst. So what else can be admitted in the court of history to concretely implicate the Bisaya? There is one decisive and convincing evidence that the prosecution has yet to submit to salvage their arguments: a physical description of the P’i-shö-yé themselves. If the records testify that they looked like the Bisaya, then the jury might be convinced to deliver a guilty verdict on them for utmost violence in foreign shores.

Etched on the skin of many Bisaya were public records of martial exploits, glory, violence, survival, victory, and personal valour. Like walking canvasses of exotic art, the Bisaya bore tattoos that enthralled and enraged the imaginations of outsiders with the stories that came embedded with the ink. The practice was so prevalent across the Visayan islands that the Spaniards later baptised the region Islas de Pintados, literally islands of the painted. Writing from Panay in the 16th century, the Spanish soldier Miguel de Loarca says that the barones in the Visayas were tattooed all over their body, like the warriors depicted in Amaya.²⁰ It is unclear if Loarca meant to exclude women in using that gendered and class category. But a contemporary text with coloured illustrations of the Bisaya, the Boxer Codex, shows both men and women covered in tattoos.

Though the practice has suffered a debilitating decline at the hands of colonial rule, what Bisaya tattoos wanted to declare have been transferred, albeit incompletely, to paper and parchment. Among those irrecoverably eroded in decomposing skin might have been tales of terror inflicted on Chinese shores. But the Spaniards arrived at a much later time, centuries after the carnage in coastal China. So if the P’i-shö-yé were, as alleged, the Bisaya, then those who saw and experienced their violence would’ve beheld the terrifying traces of ink boldly displayed on alien skin, that is, their tattoos would’ve certainly drawn widespread attention. Indeed, Isorena cites Chau when he wrote that the P’i-shö-yé “covered their bodies with tattoos.”²¹

This ideally would’ve finally incriminated the Bisaya, but instead of Isorena emerging out of the courts as the triumphant star witness, a more careful scrutiny of his study reveals a flagrant scholarship instead. Isorena cites page 85 of a 1965 English edition of the Chu-fan-chï as the source for his claim. The problem is, following his lead directs to a section not on the P’i-shö-yé, but on the Central Javanese. More damning is the fact that the word tattoo can neither be found nor inferred on the said page, but mention of it only occurs on the previous leaf, page 84. And even if he did his references properly, there is no mention of tattoos in either Chau or Ma’s account of the P’i-shö-yé.

A Chief Concern

A charge as serious as regular bloodbath demands only the most accurate and openly verifiable set of data for consideration. When anything less is welcomed without careful scrutiny, then there is cause for concern as irreparable damage can be done. This has been the case so far with the Bisaya. Further injury done to their repute by erroneously fastening Javanese attributes to them is a paramount offense not just to the aggrieved parties, but also to the already much maligned practice and study of history itself. And what little history there is woven into arguments for Bisaya guilt is slowly coming undone, its linings continue to thin exposing a naked poverty, a bare admittance that an absent reason is tasked to handle an empty set of data. With all hope seemingly lost for the prosecution, imminent Filipino historian Ambeth Ocampo summons the 14th century Chinese traveler Wang Ta-yuan to testify. In one of his Looking Back column entries for The Inquirer, Ocampo quotes a portion of Wang’s Daoyi zhilue which explicitly mentions the P’i-shö-yé as having tattoos. The rest of the text also resembles most of what Chau and Ma have written, injecting needed strength to the expiring charges hurled against the Bisaya, so much so that whoever translated the text into English went ahead and changed all iterations of the P’i-shö-yé to Visaya:

“The Visayas live in a remote land in the eastern sea, where the hills are flat and deserted and the fields are little tilled. There is not much planting. The climate is scorching hot. The natives are fond of pillaging. The males and the females both tie their hair in a topknot, tattoo their bodies here and there with ink, and wrap their heads with a piece of red silk to which a piece of yellow cloth is tied to make a tail. Their country has no chief, and the land produces nothing. At times they prepare dry provisions, row in a small boat, go to other barbarians, lie in ambush in wild mountains and remote valleys where no man lives, capture fish-catchers and fuel-collectors whom they happen to meet, and bring home and sell the prisoners to other countries, in which transactions they get two ounces of gold apiece. Men of that country make their living by this custom from generation to generation, for which reason the people of the eastern sea, upon hearing the name of Visaya, are all terrified and flee”

A more prudent translation from Yang Shao-yun, which retains the name of the P’i-shö-yé, is reproduced below:

“They live in a remote corner of the eastern sea. The land is mountainous and has little land for farming, so they rarely plant crops. The climate is extremely hot. By custom, they are fond of raiding and pillaging. Both men and women tie their hair up in chignons and tattoo their bodies with black ink up to their necks. They wear turbans of red silk on their heads and decorate them by tying on yellow cloth. This country has no chiefs and its land produces nothing of value. The people often pack supplies of dry food and row small boats to other foreign countries. There, they lie in wait in uninhabited mountains and valleys, and when fishermen or woodcutters pass through, they immediately capture them and take them back to sell to other countries. Each captive is sold for two taels of gold. Presumably, the people of this country have taken up such a practice via imitation, to the point that it has become their traditional profession. That is why the people of the eastern ocean all flinch in fear whenever someone mentions the Pisheye.”

A cursory survey of Wang’s account suggests an undeniable link that binds the identity of the Bisaya with the P’i-shö-yé, that they are one and the same. However, a more judicious review proves otherwise, as there is one crucial point made by Wang that completely contradicts what Chau and Ma have outlined about the P’i-shö-yé and is discordant with well established ancient Bisaya customs: and that is the line, “[t]his country has no chiefs”. How could Wang be describing the Bisaya when a multitude of texts attest to the fact that Bisaya societies were headed by chiefs called the datu?²² When Bisaya chiefs descended from the line of Dumaguet die, they are accompanied to the afterlife by a live slave of the lowest order, who is shortly killed, preferably in the same manner as the way the chief died if by unnatural causes. This practice is said to have its roots in antiquity, “mas de diez mil años”—more than ten thousand years old.²³ The count may be inexact, obviously exaggerated, but the range is a testament to the ancient age of the practice. Thus, if Bisaya societies already had chiefs far back in time, they could not have been the freelance combatants recorded by Wang.

Raiding the Records

The true identity of the P’i-shö-yé continues to be a puzzle, with pieces forever lost, leaving posterity to fit the gaps with the most plausible conjectures. The people described by Chau, Ma, and Wang have features similar to the Bisaya, similarities that tempt the imagination to make flimsy webs just to establish connections even if none should actually exist. The P’i-shö-yé are in-themselves an interesting group that deserve their own unique space in history. So why do historians continue to define them in terms of their possible identity as the Bisaya? Why can’t they be allowed to have their own?

When carefully read as exclusive and specific descriptions of the P’i-shö-yé, the narratives of the three Chinese chroniclers seem not to depict a single group, but most likely an intimate scattering of closely related communities that collectively formed the P’i-shö-yé province. Most had chiefs. Some didn’t. A few had tattoos. The Atayal, one of the many indigenous communities of Taiwan, practice a form of tattooing that cover their bodies and faces.²⁴ It is said that only Atayal men who have partaken in headhunting activities are allowed to be inked.²⁵ But since this grim severing of the neck had long been outlawed, younger Atayals are free of any markings, and those that do may not necessarily have forcibly removed any heads. So it is reasonable to suppose that this rigid criterion for inking has roots far back in time. But this is not to say that the Atayal were the P’i-shö-yé. It only shows that the practice of dressing the body in tattoos was and is not exclusive to the Bisaya.

But what is undeniably common to both is their custom for chaos. Raiding and plundering was a prominent feature of the hazardous life of the Bisaya and P’i-shö-yé. Admittedly, therefore, there is still a small possibility that the P’i-shö-yé were indeed the Bisaya. Perhaps Isorena was right, that they came from Eastern Visayas. Maybe they had reached the Taiwan Straight and got stranded there, choosing to stay and do what they do best in the new frontiers instead of heading back home. The possibilities are endless, but only one can be true, and that is the task of history to uncover. For this monumental mission, a fresh vitality from a youthful spirit is needed, vigour that will mostly come from “young Filipino historians” who, Ocampo wishes, “will do this long overdue task.” Here’s to hoping that the generation who grew up watching Amaya will take up the call and commit to serious historical study. Glory and honour can certainly be achieved when local libraries, archives, and various data repositories are raided—minus the unnecessary violence, of course.

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