Origin of the kampilan?

[Jim McDougall]

This is an excellent topic Bill! and a great idea for a thread as it focuses on the kampilan specifically, and addresses not only the development of the weapon and its particulars, but fascinating history associated with it.
The observations and discussion added by everyone here have been really informative, and this is again, the kind of threads I really like seeing, that truly give the most current data available on a certain weapon form.

MiguelDiaz and Mandaukudi, fantastic input with the great illustrations and cites on references! Excellent observations Vandoo, Toeodor, Maurice and Dajak! and Nonoy Tan thank you for addressing the word 'kampilan'. I wondered if the etymology of the word was known, and think arms and armour terminology is a fascinating factor in its study.

Its great really learning more on these weapons, thank you guys!

All the best,
Jim

[migueldiaz]

Jim, thanks

Mandaukudi, thanks too for those wonderful images above!

Originally Posted by Nonoy Tan

Early Spanish records of the Ilongots (Northern Luzon) use the word Campilan to describe a cutlass.

In Zaragoza's Tribal Splendor (1995), we see these 1898 studio pics of Ilongot warriors.

In the four-man pic, what is interesting to me is the leftmost Ilongot's 'sidearm' which looks like a sword with a bifurcated hilt -- would this be the cousin of the Moro kampilan? ... and hence was the one the Spaniards described as a 'campilan'?

Also the Ilongot in the center (standing) seems to be holding what looks very similar to a Moro panabas.

The Ilongots by the way appear to have continued with their headhunting ways, long after the Igorots of the Cordillera have put it to a stop.

See the 1959 police pic below (warning: the picture may be too gruesome to some).

[fernando]

Hi Bill,
Some guy from my home town is now running an exhibition on Fernão Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellanvs) biography and his earth circum navigation.
One of the illustrations shows the Portuguese captain being eliminated by the Lapu Lapu chieftain, after being weakened by an arrow in his leg, among other wounds.
I wonder what is the age of this picture (painting?), and from where he did get it. He doesn't remember it either. But he promised to search his stuff and tell me.
I think this is a sugestive depiction of the weapon used by the native leader ... at least in the author's imagination.
Fernando

[VVV]

Thanks Miguel for posting the pictures of the Luzon-maybe-kampilan-inspired-swords.
A pity that they aren't easier to see from the pictures.
I have this bolo that, based on Hein's old book, is supposed to be tribal and from Luzon?
Do you recognise it from any of your sources?

Michael

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by VVV

Thanks Miguel for posting the pictures of the Luzon-maybe-kampilan-inspired-swords.
A pity that they aren't easier to see from the pictures.
I have this bolo that, based on Hein's old book, is supposed to be tribal and from Luzon?
Do you recognise it from any of your sources?

Michael

Hi Michael,

I'm not familiar with the form as I'm still a budding collector

It appears though, based on the pics earlier posted in this forum (the ones taken at Madrid museum/s), that it's also possible that they are Visayan (i.e., from central Philippines).

But I'm not really sure about that. I'm sure the others more familiar with the nuances of the forms can comment much more competently.

Regards.

[migueldiaz]

I'd like to propose a theory on the probable use of those thingys on the upper tip of the kampilan's blade.

I'm not aware if this had been proposed before, but my theory is that those things are used to deliver poison to the enemy during combat.

My train of thought would be:

[1] Visayans customarily applied poison on their kampilans & krisses [WH Scott, in Barangay];

[2] In the Battle of Mactan, it doesn't come as a surprise thus that Pigafetta reported the use of poison arrows by the natives against the Spaniards;

[3] After Magellan's defeat, Magellan's first native ally, Rajah Humabon, in disappointment over Magellan's failure to defeat Humabon's enemy [Lapu-lapu], reportedly ordered the extermination of the surviving Spaniards via poisoning;

thus once again, chemical warfare really looks like a typical method of defeating the enemy;

[4] The kris being wavy would have a longer total blade length compared to a straight blade of the same overall length -- as such when the kris was laced with poison, more poison can be lodged on the blade as compared to a straight blade; the point is that the kris' wavy blade then becomes an ideal weapon to deliver poison to the enemy;

[5] Now for the kampilan which Scott said was also laced with poison, being a very long sword perhaps it made sense to just concentrate the poison on the blade's tip;

[6] Now on how to operationalize the idea, I thought that those many perforations and jagged edges would make an ideal repository for the poison (normally the sap of a certain tree, per Krieger, when Krieger described how the Luzon tribes source their poison);

the spikelets and other protrusions on the other hand will provide good platform for injecting the poison into the flesh of the enemy.

On how to prove or debunk the theory, these are the things that can be done --

[a] if Pigafetta had a post-battle account, we should find out whether those wounded by the "large cutlass, which looked like a scimitar" were noted as having experienced symptoms of poisoning (e.g., nausea, vomitting, etc.);

[b] it should also be established whether the Visayans' kampilans had those spikelets and perforations in the first place;

[c] for those in the US and Europe who have access to crime laboratories, those spikelets and perforations on the kampilan should be swabbed and the sample taken for analysis of traces of poison, a la CSI

now if you have etched your kampilan and obliterated any chemical trace on the blade's tip, shame on you!

[d] given that kampilan must have been first developed in Borneo, and then it went up to Mindanao first before reaching the Visayas and then Luzon, it will help if we can find out whether those original users of the kampilan laced their blades with poison also.

Back to the subject on whether in the first place the Visayans had kampilans similar to the ones used by the Moros of Mindanao (i.e., with spikelets and perforations), I think that's the case.

Because Pigafetta described the fighting style of the men of Lapu-lapu as -- "When our muskets were discharged, the natives would never stand still, but leaped hither and thither, covering themselves with their shields."

Now earlier, the Europeans and later the Americans described the Moro fighting style as exactly like that. So if the movements were the same, it stands to reason that the weapons used must have been very similar if not the same.

Admittedly, all of the above are highly speculative.

But hey, to echo Vandoo, let me end by saying that "That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!"

Attached are pics of various spiked tips, as collated randomly from pics in the forum.

[VVV]

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

...It appears though, based on the pics earlier posted in this forum (the ones taken at Madrid museum/s), that it's also possible that they are Visayan (i.e., from central Philippines)...

Thanks for the comment and the pictures.
The pictures just indicate Philippines to me.
But maybe Visayas, as well as Mindanao, is an alternative to Luzon (from Hein)?
Any forumites in Madrid who knows how it's described at the museum?

Michael

[Nonoy Tan]

Hi Michael,

The "bolo" you posted is used by people from the extreme east of Luzon (along the coast and the mountains near the coast). They call it "Katana" - probably a loan word.

Nonoy

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by fernando

Hi Bill,
Some guy from my home town is now running an exhibition on Fernão Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellanvs) biography and his earth circum navigation.
One of the illustrations shows the Portuguese captain being eliminated by the Lapu Lapu chieftain, after being weakened by an arrow in his leg, among other wounds.
I wonder what is the age of this picture (painting?), and from where he did get it. He doesn't remember it either. But he promised to search his stuff and tell me.
I think this is a sugestive depiction of the weapon used by the native leader ... at least in the author's imagination.
Fernando

Hi Fernando,

I often see that painting in various publications here in Manila, but I'm still to find out who the painter is.

On a related matter, I'm now reading this book published by the local National Historical Institute, entitled Fernando Oliveira: Viagem de Fernao Magalhaes [The Voyage of Ferdinand Magellan].

Oliveira is a Portuguese linguist and maritime expert who between 1550 and 1560 interviewed one of the survivors of Magellan's crew who reached the Philippines.

The only existing original manuscript of the interview is kept in a library in Leiden, Holland. The copy of the first page and the two pages from where the quote below was lifted, are attached below.

The manuscript's French annotated edition was authored by Pierre Valiere in 1976. Then the transliteration and the English translation was done by Peter Schreurs in 2002.

I was looking for a description of the weapons Lapulapu and his men used against Magellan but Oliveira's interviewee didn't say anything about it:

"And so it came to pass that on the next Sunday, through the goodness and grace of God, the king [Humabon, of Cebu] and his wife the queen with some of the leading citizens were converted and asked for baptism.

During the next week, most of the inhabitants of the kingdom [in Cebu] were also converted. And because Ferdinand Magellan considered this a good opportunity for the conversion of the other kings, he informed them that they must either become Christians or obey the authority of the newly converted king. If they refused, he would make war on them and burn their villages and their palm plantations which served them for their sustenance.

Two of them pledged obedience to the Christian king when hearing what damage he might do to them. But the third [Lapulapu] let him know that he would do nothing of what he had ordered him to do and that if he would wage war on him he would defend himself.

When Ferdinand Magellan heard that answer, he thought that he might yet be able to change his mind by inflicting some damage on him, and he decided to go ashore with some men to attack his territory [in Mactan Island, where Lapulapu ruled]. He did so indeed and landed with sixty arquebus soldiers and started to burn huts and felling palm trees.

Then the king [Lapulapu] and many of the native came rushing out to prevent it and started to fight with them. But as long as our men still had gunpowder, the natives did not come near them, but when their powder was consumed, they started to surround them from all sides. And because they were incomparably greater in number, they were also much stronger.

Our men, unable to defend themselves or get away, fought to exhaustion, and some of them were killed, among them also Ferdinand Magellan.

Before when he was still alive, he had refused that his friend the king [Humabon] come to help him with some men whom the latter held ready just for that purpose. He had said that the Christians, with the help of God, were strong enough to beat all that scum.

But as soon as he had been killed, the king came to help the others who had been badly wounded. He ordered that they be brought to the boats because he was afraid that the whole rest of this enemies would unite and make them prisoners ..."

The words in brackets are my own annotations.

The other person who recounted the events was the Genoese pilot, Juan Bautista, who was with Magellan also. If anybody has the text of his account, then that might provide another lead on whether it was indeed the kampilan that was also used against Magellan.

[VANDOO]

THERE ARE MANY MISTAKES IN AMONG THE GOOD WRITTEN REFRENCE INFORMATION AS WELL AS DISPLAYS IN MUSEUMS. WHAT WE HAVE TO DO IS USE LOGIC AND OUR KNOWLEGE TO SORT THRU ALL OF IT AND DISCOUNT THAT WHICH DOES NOT FIT AND COMPILE THAT INFORMATION THAT DOES APPLY. THERE ARE MANY PICTURES AS WELL AS LOTS OF GOOD INFORMATION AND IDEAS ON VARIOUS SWORDS HERE IN THE FORUM POSTS.
PERHAPS SOMEONE WOULD LIKE TO GO THRU IT ALL AND SEPARATE THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF AND PURSUE SOME OF THE GOOD IDEAS TO SEE IF NEW INFORMATION COULD BE GAINED IN THAT WAY. THE INFORMATION COULD BE CONDENSED AND THEN FORM THE CORE FOR FURTHER STUDY.
AS TO WHAT THE SWORD LOOKED LIKE THAT KILLED MAGELLAN THOUGH AN INTERESTING TOPIC I FEAR IT WILL NOT SHED MUCH LIGHT ON THE KAMPILIAN AS IT WILL DEAL PRIMARILY WITH THE DEATH OF THE GREAT MAN FIRST AND THE ONE WHO DISPATCHED HIM SECOND THE SWORD WILL RECEIVE LITTLE ATTENTION.
A FRIEND OF MINE IS EXPERIMENTING WITH A NEW TYPE OF MACHINE THAT IS ABLE TO DETERMINE AGE AND ESTABLISH PROVENANCE WITHOUT DAMAGEING THE OBJECT. HE IS CURRENTLY WORKING WITH POTTERY ,STONE AND GOLD ARTEFACTS AS THERE IS A LOT OF GOOD ARCHELOGICAL INFORMATION ESPECIALLY ON THE POTTERY. PERHAPS WHEN IT IS ESTABLISHED TO WORK WELL AND THE BENCHMARKS ARE SET UP IT MAY BE POSSIBLE TO GAIN MORE ACCURATE INFORMATION ON SWORDS AS WELL AS OTHER ITEMS.

I SUSPECT THE KAMPILIAN EVOLVED FROM A SHORTER WEAPON SUCH AS THE MANDAU WHICH IS PRESENT IN BORNEO OR THE SIMULAR SWORDS USED BY THE TIBOLI AND BAGOBO IN MINDANAO. THERE ARE PROBABLY OTHER SIMULAR WEAPONS FROM MALAYSIA, INDIA, INDONESIA, ECT. THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHOPPING STYLE OF BLADE MAY HAVE ORIGINALLY CAME IN FROM ANOTHER AREA DURING THE VARIOUS WAVES OF IMIGRATION. BUT MOST EXAMPLES OF THE LARGE FORM KAMPILIAN WE RECOGNIZE AS A WAR SWORD SEEM TO BE MOSTLY IN THE PHILIPPINES AND BORNEO AREA. FOR THAT REASON I SUSPECT THE LARGE WAR SWORD KAMPILIAN ORIGINATED IN THAT AREA. GIVEN THE LARGER SIZE OF MORO WEAPONS (PANABAS, KRIS, KAMPILIAN) IN RELATION TO MOST OTHERS IN THE AREA IT IS LIKELY THEY HAD A ROLE IN ITS DEVELOPMENT.
THE MURUT SWORD IS ALSO LARGE BUT I SUSPECT THE FORM WAS INFLUENCED FROM ARABIC OR INDIAN SWORDS AS THE BLADE IS SO MUCH DIFFERENT FROM OTHER TRIBES IN BORNEO SO WILL DISCOUNT IT FROM THIS DISCUSSION. THE PISO PODANG ALSO FALLES INTO THIS CATEGORY WITH THE PAKAYUN BLADES, BOTH LIKELY WERE TRADE ITEMS ORIGINALLY.
AS TO THE FANG DAGGER AND THE TWO MOROCCAN DAGGERS YEP WE RECOGNIZED THEM BUT AS THE DISCUSSION IS ON KAMPILIAN I IGNORED THE MISTAKE AS IT IS NOT UNUSUAL TO SEE SUCH MISTAKES IN MUSEUMS.

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by VANDOO

... AS TO WHAT THE SWORD LOOKED LIKE THAT KILLED MAGELLAN THOUGH AN INTERESTING TOPIC I FEAR IT WILL NOT SHED MUCH LIGHT ON THE KAMPILIAN AS IT WILL DEAL PRIMARILY WITH THE DEATH OF THE GREAT MAN FIRST AND THE ONE WHO DISPATCHED HIM SECOND THE SWORD WILL RECEIVE LITTLE ATTENTION ... I SUSPECT THE KAMPILIAN EVOLVED FROM A SHORTER WEAPON SUCH AS THE MANDAU WHICH IS PRESENT IN BORNEO OR THE SIMULAR SWORDS USED BY THE TIBOLI AND BAGOBO IN MINDANAO. THERE ARE PROBABLY OTHER SIMULAR WEAPONS FROM MALAYSIA, INDIA, INDONESIA, ECT. THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHOPPING STYLE OF BLADE MAY HAVE ORIGINALLY CAME IN FROM ANOTHER AREA DURING THE VARIOUS WAVES OF IMIGRATION. BUT MOST EXAMPLES OF THE LARGE FORM KAMPILIAN WE RECOGNIZE AS A WAR SWORD SEEM TO BE MOSTLY IN THE PHILIPPINES AND BORNEO AREA.

Thanks Vandoo for your usual informative and thought-provoking comments

Indeed on the one hand these blades tend to have a standard form.

Yet on the other hand, the form tends to be dynamic as the sword is continually made more responsive to its new environment (which environment happened to be dynamic also).

On the type/s of sword used by Lapulapu and his men against Magallanes, I have to agree that it will be difficult to definitively establish that.

But let's see if the indirect ways (e.g., studying what the prehispanic blades of the Visayans were in general, etc.) can at least bring us to something very plausible.

PS - On the idea of somebody collating all the previous discussions on the kampilan, it occurred to me already that maybe I can draft the kampilan FAQ. But problem is, my job gets in the way!

Anyway, it's in my to-do list. But if somebody can beat me to it, then that's even better.

[fernando]

Hi Lorenz

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

Hi Fernando,
I often see that painting in various publications here in Manila, but I'm still to find out who the painter is ...

This is the reason i didn't come back here with any helping info. The exhibition author confessed he picked the picture from a website and also ignores who the painter was.

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

Oliveira is a Portuguese linguist and maritime expert who between 1550 and 1560 interviewed one of the survivors of Magellan's crew who reached the Philippines.

The only existing original manuscript of the interview is kept in a library in Leiden, Holland. The copy of the first page and the two pages from where the quote below was lifted, are attached below..

Fascinating stuff ... quite readable, even having being handwritten five centuries ago.

Fernando

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by fernando

Hi Lorenz
... Fascinating stuff ... quite readable, even having being handwritten five centuries ago.

Hi Fernando,

Yes, going over these firsthand accounts is fascinating all right.

Here's more quotes from the book I mentioned, yet still no clue as to whether anything resembling a kampilan as we know it figured in the battle:

"Here we have arrived at the fatal day: that on which Magellan meets with death. After the refusal of the other kings to obey the Christian king and pay the required tribute to Magellan consisting of three goats, three pigs, and three sacks of rice, the latter organizes a punitive expedition on 27 April 1521 (some authors say 28 April).


"Let us listen to the Genoese pilot: “In the morning of 28 April 1521, Ferdinand Magellan ordered three sloops to be armed with some sixty men. These went to the island where they came face to face with three or four hundred men who fought so furiously that Ferdinand Magellan was killed together with six of his men”.

"Gomara gives more details: “Magellan was killed when he had been hit in the face by an arrow after he had lost his helmet which had fallen off after being hit by stones and lances. He was also wounded in the legs, and after falling down he was pierced by a lance.”

"Herrera is even more precise: “Magellan had wished to attack immediately, but the king [Humabon], his friend, advised him to wait for daybreak, because he knew that they [Lapulapu’s men] had been digging several trenches wherein they had they had planted sharpened sticks and he thought that they should not take such a risk. When daylight had come, some of the men were ordered to remain behind in the sloops to guard them, after which he took off with 55 of his men. Upon arriving at the village, they found no people, but as soon when they had started to put fire to the houses, a group of Indios attacked them on one side, and while they were fighting, they were also attacked on the other flank by a second group of natives. The Spaniards were now split up in to groups, but they resisted the enemies with such force that they succeeded in closing ranks again. They continued fighting during a great part of the day, till the musketeers had no more powder and the crossbowmen no more arrows. Magellan was hit by a rock which knocked off his helmet. Then he was also wounded in one leg and hit by more rocks, and fell down. Lying on the ground he was pierced by one of the long bamboo lances which the natives used with great courage. That’s how the great captain died because he was too courageous and had tempted fate far too much. His death was a great blow to his men. Cristopher Rabelo, the captain of the Victoria, died also with six of his companions. This killing occurred on 27 April of that year wherein the Philippines were discovered for the first time.

"Jeronimo Osorio betrays a Portuguese viewpoint when giving Magellan a peculiar post mortem: “During that expedition, he encountered a lot of dangers, because the Spanish captains and the soldiers wanted to get rid of him and plotted his death, on which occasion some of these men were executed, and this happened finally also to him. He had helped a certain local leader who had asked for it, but after a fight he was treacherously killed by that man on an island named Mata. That’s how one traitor punished another because of his treachery”

"On the other hand, the words of Pigafetta reflect a real affection for Magellan: “I hope that Your Illuster Lordship will see to it that the fame of such a courageous and noble captain will not be effaced in our times. Among his other virtues, he was more firm than anybody else ever was in the middle of the greatest hardships and before important occasions. He endured hunger better than all the others, and he understood sea charts and navigation more accurately than any man in the world. This was clearly seen, for no other had so much natural talent nor the boldness and expertise to circumnavigate the world as he had almost done. But his magnificent plan ended for him in this battle.

"Gaspar Correia, like Jeronimo Osorio, writes that Magellan was killed during the banquet on 1 May 1521, but we know this to be mistaken."

I think I should buy the modern translation of Pigafetta's book, as he appears to be the most astute observer among those that with Magallanes at the time ... for sure we can find there more info as to what edged weapons the native Filipinos carried then ...

PS - For instance this is how Pigafetta described one Mindanao rajah he met:

"And he [Rajah Calambu, of what is now Agusan del Norte province in Mindanao island] was the most handsome person we saw among those peoples. He had very black hair to his shoulders, with a silk cloth on his head, and two large gold rings hanging from his ears. He wore a cotton cloth, embroidered with silk, which covered him from his waist to his knees. At his side he had a dagger, with a long handle, and all of gold, the sheath of which was of carved wood. Withal he wore on his person perfumes of storax and benzoin. He was tawny and painted all over. His island is called Butuan and Calaghan."

[migueldiaz]

Here's more speculation on my part ...

In all of the eyewitness accounts of the Battle of Mactan, all mentioned about lances and bamboo spears. But it was only Pigafetta who mentioned a scimitar/cutlass-looking sword as having been used. And the mention of that sword specifically referred to Magellan being inflicted with a blow from one, just before he died.

Thus it looks to me that the use of swords among the Visayans then was not prevalent (at least in Lapulapu's men).

Perhaps this would be because metals and steel were hard to come by.

Which would then mean that only Lapulapu and some of the nobles would have had swords.

Hence, I cannot help but conclude that it must have been Lapulapu himself (or one of his royalties) who personally inflicted one of the fatal blows to Magellan.

Now as to whether it was a kampilan or a kris (per WH Scott's Barangay), we still have to establish that ...