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Pedro A. Monteclaro's "Foreword to the Readers" of
Maragtas
Maragtas was written by Pedro
Alcantara Monteclaro in 1907 as a collection of the legends of the island
of Panay in the Philippines. He wrote it
in a mixture of Hiligaynon and Kinaray-a, the languages of his birthplace,
Miag-ao in the south of Panay.
However, many translators of the book have selectively mistranslated or
omitted parts in order to make it appear that the book was an ancient
manuscript written at the time of the events described in it.
The full title of the book is:
Maragtás kon (historia) sg pulô nga
Panay kutub sg iya una nga pamuluyö, tubtub sg pag-abut sg mga taga
Borneo nga amó ang ginhalinan sg mga bisayâ, kag sg pag-abut sg mga
Katsilâ. (Note: sg
should be written with a tilde (~) above the word. It is short for sang.)
“Maragtas or (history) of Panay Island
from the first inhabitants, until the arrival of the Borneans from which
the Bisayans are descended, to the arrival of the Spaniards”.
The Original Preface to Maragtas
Here is Pedro Monteclaro’s own foreword
to Maragtas. It is a corrected translation taken from William Henry
Scott’s Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine
History (Revised Edition, 1984). The underlining and bold typeface are
added by the present author.
Foreword
to the Readers
I wrote this Maragtas, a history of the first inhabitants of the
island of Panay, with great reluctance for fear I might be considered
too presumptuous. I would therefore have refrained from writing it but
for my burning desire to reveal to the public the many data which I
gathered from records about the first inhabitants of the island of
Panay, the arrival of the Datus from Borneo, their possession and
settlement of our land, their spread to different parts of the Island,
and their customs and habits until the Spaniards came and ruled the
Philippines.
In order that readers of this Maragtas should not accuse me of
having merely composed this book from imagination, I wish to mention
two manuscripts I found. One of these was given to me by an 82 year
old man, who had been the first teacher of the town and who said it had
been given him by his father, who in turn got it from his father, the
old man’s grandfather. The long years through which the manuscript
must have passed wore out the paper so much that it was almost
impossible to handle. Worse yet, it was only written in a black dye and
smeared with sap which had burned the paper and made it almost
useless.
The other manuscript I found in a bamboo tube where my grandfather used
to keep his old papers. This manuscript, however, was hardly legible at
all, and was so brittle I could hardly handle it without tearing it to
pieces. Having located one manuscript, I concluded there would most
likely be another copy somewhere, so I decided to inquire of different
old men and women of the town. My search was not in vain for I then came
across the afore-mentioned old man in the street, who even gave me the
manuscripts dealing with what happened in the town of Miag-ao from the
time of its foundation. I copied these records in a book on 12 June
1901, as a memoir for the town of Miag-ao, but did not publish them for
the reasons stated. Besides, I was waiting for someone better qualified
to write a history of the Island of Panay from the time of its first
inhabitants.
I should like my readers to know that my purpose in writing this Maragtas
is not to gain honor for myself but to transmit to others what I read in
the records I collected.
This corrected translation was prepared
after Scott consulted with the eminent Ilonggo anthropologist, Felipe
Landa Jocano; Trinidad Molavin, granddaughter of Pedro Monteclaro; and Dr.
Juan C. Orendain. It was based on the following English translations:
- H. Otley Beyer Collection:
Visayan ethnography paper No. 25 by Encarnacion J. Gonzaga, Natividad
Rosado, Ramón P. Locsin and Ismael Golez, 1916.
- A pre-Spanish history of the Island
of Panay, translated for the Research Commission from the
vernacular version of Pedro Monteclaro, Philippine Executive Commission,
Department of Education, Health and Public Welfare, Manila,
typewritten, by Manuel Carreon, 1943.
- A pre-Spanish history of the Island
of Panay, Philippines Review, , vol. 2, No. 4 and No. 5 by
Manuel Carreon, July and August 1944. Reprinted as Maragtas:
pre-Spanish history of the Island of Panay in Encyclopedia of
the Philippines, by Zoilo M. Galang, 2nd edition, revised, Vol.
15, 1950 .
- Maragtas by Eva M. Bayoneta in Supplementary
readings on A short history of the Filipino people by Teodoro
Agoncillo, 1960.
Sins of Omission
None of the translations listed above
included the last chapter or the epilogue of Monteclaro’s book where he
gave a list of Spanish officials from 1687 to 1808 and mentioned various
dates from the 1700’s in the town of Miag-ao. The 1916 translation made
for Otley Beyer (#1) did not include Pedro Monteclaro’s foreword
either.
The second work on this list did include
these chapters in its original typewritten form but the final chapters
were suppressed when it was actually published in the Sarawak Museum
Journal, Vol. 8, 1957 under the misleading title, Maragtas: the
Datus from Borneo (the earliest known Visayan text). An introduction
was added by the journal’s editor, anthropologist Tom Harrison, where he
referred to Monteclaro not as the author of Maragtas but merely the
transcriber of an ancient Philippine legend.
Deceptive Translations
Even when translators did include
Monteclaro’s preface, they often took great liberties with the text
which only served to mislead readers. For instance, the phrase shown
above in bold lettering, ...I wish to mention two manuscripts I found
– is a faithful translation of the original phrase:
...akon diri igasambit
nga duha ka talamdan ang akon naayap.
However, in Manuel Carreon’s article of
1957 this is translated as “the two manuscripts on which I based my
work”. And in The Ten Datus of Madiaas (1963) by Juan C. Orendain
it reads, “I am here presenting two writings which I have been able to
find.” The truth is that Monteclaro wrote in the foreword that one manuscript was “almost
useless” and the other was “hardly legible at all”. Thus he could
not have “presented” or “based his work on" either of these
documents.
Orendain went on to write in the preface of
his 1963 book that, “He [Monteclaro] claimed he copied the Maragtas.”
However, when William Henry Scott interviewed Orendain in 1966 he admitted that
Monteclaro’s foreword did not actually make that claim.
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Paul Morrow
16 December 2001
Latest update: 8 July, 2003
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