PalawanScript

| culture VANISHING SCRIPT |

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Long before the Spanish colonists arrived, the scattered indigenous populations of the modern-day Philippine archipelago were using complex written languages. But as the influences of the modern world encroach on the isolated communities on islands such as Palawan, their palaeographical traditions are slowly dying out.

Report and photographs by Katherine Jack

O

n a quiet hillside on Palawan Island in the western Philippines, 71year-old Antonita Bibas sits in the shade outside her bamboo house. Surrounded by her many grandchildren, she recounts how her husband, Sambring, proposed to her.

‘He was 16 then and lived a whole day’s walk from my village. He was very shy so he sent a message in Pala’wan script written on a banana leaf; I replied straight away.’

Antonita is a member of the Pala’wan, an indigenous people who traditionally subsisted as shifting cultivators and hunters using blowguns, and are now known for their intricate basketry. She grew up near the village of Mäkagwaq, where she lives today, on the island’s southern foothills.

Known to few, the mountains and coastlines of Palawan are home to rich and fragile indigenous traditions. The Pala’wan script tells of the intricate cultures that once thrived on the island.

The Pala’wan use a syllabary script – a set of characters representing syllables – similar to that of the Tagbanua people of central Palawan.

Antonita recalls how, as young children, she and her brother Jose were taught to write by their uncle, who demonstrated how to etch the characters onto bamboo slats and banana leaves. ‘There were no old texts for us to refer to, so we just copied the way we saw it written by our relatives,’ she says.

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According to palaeographers, Philippine scripts are part of a wider family of Southeast Asian scripts that stem from the Brahmi writing of ancient India and can be traced back to around 300 BC. When Spanish colonisers arrived in the Philippines in the mid-16th century, they reported that the islanders used scripts similar to those of the Malays. The writing varied from tribe to tribe and was so widespread that Spanish evangelisers printed a number of Christian books using the native syllabaries.

But as the colonial hold on the Philippines strengthened, the Latin

alphabet came to dominate. Today, only four out of a documented 17 Philippine scripts are still in use – those of the Pala’wan and Tagbanua people of Palawan Island, and the Hanunoo and Buid Mangyans of the island of Mindoro.

FROM SCRIPT TO SMS Dr Nicole Revel, a French linguist and anthropologist, has spent decades living with the Pala’wan. According to her, the script is disappearing not only because of the impermanence of the materials on which it’s written, but also because of the nature of its

ABOVE: Antonita Bibas, an elderly Pala’wan woman, engraves a message on a piece of bamboo, as she was taught by her uncle when she was a young girl. She now contacts her grandaughter via mobile phone text messaging; OPPOSITE: Ribitu Matuar, a respected Tagbanua elder, sits at the entrance to his house, writing in the ancient script

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| culture VANISHING SCRIPT |

ABOVE: Tagbanua elder Ribitu Matuar reads from his notebooks as his sons, who refuse to learn the ancient and complex Tagbanua script, look on. But while the scripts are disappearing from everyday use, some young Filipinos are showing an interest in their heritage and helping to keep them alive: script characters appear in modern graphic design, while some Filipinos even have tattoos featuring them; RIGHT: old writings from Ribitu Matuar’s notebook. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish colonists, who brought with them paper, pens and ink, the ancient Philippine scripts were engraved on perishable materials such as leaves, palm fronds, bark, fruit rinds and, in particular, bamboo (BELOW), so there are few surviving pre-Hispanic texts

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use. The Pala’wan traditionally use their writing as a vessel for speech – a means of sending messages between scattered communities. ‘As the function of the script is so specific, it will most likely be replaced by text messaging and the use of cell phones,’ says Revel.

In 1996, the National Museum of the Philippines began a project to preserve the scripts. It surveyed much of southern Palawan and found more than 60 writers. Individuals were then selected to become teachers and were given the task of passing their skills down to the younger generation.

For project director Leo Batoon, the objective was to incorporate the script into the national curriculum.

But when funding came to an end in 2002, this objective was still far away.

‘Cell phones are having a big impact,’ he says. ‘It is difficult to persuade people that the script still has a use.’

Teaching through families may still be the most effective way for the script to be passed on. Antonita has taught the art to all of her eight children and more than 30 grandchildren. ‘It is a tradition that we treasure,’ she says. ‘I want to pass it on so that my knowledge and skills remain long after I am gone.’ But perhaps Antonita is an exception – as Westernised Philippine culture has begun to reach even remote areas of Palawan, preserving indigenous traditions isn’t an easy task.

Ribitu Matuar is a Tagbanua elder who lives with his sons on the isolated west coast of Palawan. He is known for his deep knowledge of Tagbanua culture but is unable to pass this on to his children. ‘I have tried teaching my sons the script,’ he laments, ‘but they show no interest – they complain that it is too complicated. We Tagbanuas used to have our own identity, but nowadays everyone wants join the mainstream.’

Pala’wan and Tagbanua scripts are listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register, which highlights their value and the need for preservation.

But disappearing scripts are just a fraction of Palawan’s vanishing traditions. As modern culture and global communications take over, skills and knowledge that have been learned over hundreds of years are G slipping into oblivion.