Commentaries On 16th Century Maritime Southeast Asia & the Pacific

 

I often ask why the narratives about human expeditions via sea travel were somehow dominated by Europeans in the last few hundred years -- like that of Magellan or that of Columbus? Of course, the circumnavigation of the world belongs solely to Magellan, an offshoot of the Iberian quest to get a real image of the globe and dominate it. Yet other cultures and people had also, before, dared ask and ventured further. Take for example Malay seafarers from the Sunda to Sumatra, who for many centuries had reached the coast of Africa, that even today clear traces of Malay culture, language, and DNA are still evident in some areas like Madagascar.

When the Portuguese conquered Malacca in 1511 they did not only get a first-hand look at the lucrative Spice Trade they also saw the vibrant world of maritime Southeast Asia. There were sea routes, quasi invisible sea passages only the seafaring natives knew how to navigate with their own simple tool as that of experience of tides and winds, above all Malay innovation and cunning. The Chinese would not dare venture further south to the Moluccas so they left the natives to handle the trade and sea lanes -- Sailing a week to reach the port of Malacca where the price of the precious spices was set. From there, Arab, Indian and Chinese traders will ship them to their respective homeports via the Strait of Malacca. Those that need to be sent further West would then crossed the Indian Ocean, reaching the Arab Peninsula where caravans will carry the goods until it reaches the Levant ports, the Mediterranean to Europe where for years, its origin was a mystery.

Why then did the Europeans define their landing in what was then the Philippine archipelago as their "discovery" when all throughout the region people were already interconnected with knowledge of their neighbors? Sea trade and commerce was booming that the mapping of the regions by its inhabitants had given them also, above all, this understanding of how varied or how very similar they were -- In some areas Islam was spreading and so does dynasties like that of the Bolkiah of Borneo, reaching as far as the mouth of the Pasig River to dominate trade with Luzon

A look into the evolution of languages in Maritime Southeast Asia would then lead us to the role of classic Malay and its intermingling with other influence as that of Sanskrit and Javanese. How deep was its influence in the region at that time? The Malay loanwords are ever noticeable in many Philippine languages, they came as the sea lanes were chartered and migration became possible. Then it was greatly enhanced by its unique maritime economy, whereby other influences came. Sanskrit enriched such language as Tagalog and it came via Malay. Interesting to point out here -- Magellan was said to have brought a Malay slave as an interpreter who was somehow understood by the Visayans of Cebu, that a plot against Magellan's remaining crew was later hatched with the said slave -- communicating with the Cebuano with a touch of Malay?

Meanwhile the 16th-century natives of the Philippine archipelago were a mere hodgepodge of people of different yet interrelated languages, some practicing a form of animism, some were followers of the Muslim faith -- Cultures and races, which at a certain time, had more similarities with the people living in the islands further to the Pacific than that of Southeast Asia. From language to customs, beliefs, and even culinary traditions, similarities, and familiarities are ever-present up to now. Is it hardened proof that the early inhabitants of our islands had also once ventured further to the Pacific?