Philippine weapons in Spanish museums

migueldiaz · 19th September 2010, 11:39 PM

One room in Museo Naval is dedicated to the salvaged items of the Spanish ship 'San Diego', which sank in 1600 off Luzon, after a sea battle with Dutch ships.

At the national museum of the Philippines, another room is also dedicated to the recovered artifacts of San Diego.

Anyway, the pics below are from Museo Naval. An intriguing thing was the presence of Japanese katanas. One theory thus was that Spain used Japanese mercenaries then. Yet perhaps another possibility is that some of the Filipinos who joined the Spanish military then were armed with imported katanas.

In San Buenaventura's 1613 and Ruiz's 1630 Spanish-Tagalog dictionaries, they used "katana" to refer to a sword in the Tagalog dialect. It's a loan word of course, as there's no native "katana" word in Tagalog.

But the presence of katanas in the Philippines then, and the usage of the term to refer to the common sword actually makes a lot of sense. And that's because the Philippines then has been trading with China, Japan, Siam (Thailand), etc., long before the Spaniards came.

The complete San Diego pics are HERE.

19th September 2010, 11:39 PM	#5
migueldiaz Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Manila, Phils. Posts: 1,042	One room in Museo Naval is dedicated to the salvaged items of the Spanish ship 'San Diego', which sank in 1600 off Luzon, after a sea battle with Dutch ships. At the national museum of the Philippines, another room is also dedicated to the recovered artifacts of San Diego. Anyway, the pics below are from Museo Naval. An intriguing thing was the presence of Japanese katanas. One theory thus was that Spain used Japanese mercenaries then. Yet perhaps another possibility is that some of the Filipinos who joined the Spanish military then were armed with imported katanas. In San Buenaventura's 1613 and Ruiz's 1630 Spanish-Tagalog dictionaries, they used "katana" to refer to a sword in the Tagalog dialect. It's a loan word of course, as there's no native "katana" word in Tagalog. But the presence of katanas in the Philippines then, and the usage of the term to refer to the common sword actually makes a lot of sense. And that's because the Philippines then has been trading with China, Japan, Siam (Thailand), etc., long before the Spaniards came. The complete San Diego pics are HERE. Attached Images