When we contemplate the concept of a warrior; we often conceive a person who is training in the martial arts, engaged in the thick of battle, or being celebrated for conquering his foes. And when we think of the ancient warrior (or even the present), the professional soldier comes to mind. These warriors come in various images; from the Roman gladiators or legionnaires, the Japanese samurai, or the medieval knight.
We often romanticize these people in their exploits and most especially with their warrior codes such as Bushido for the samurai and Chivalry for the knight.
However, in my research on ancient/traditional* Philippine cultures I discovered that the concept of the warrior is completely different from what we would expect. There are many historical accounts, as well as mythical epics of warriors and their exploits in battle, from our national heroes (such as Andres Bonifacio), to early chieftains (such as Lapulapu), and even epic legends (such as Lam-Ang).
However, if you delve deeper into their stories, they are not professional soldiers. Apparently, there warriors/heroes would lead completely different lives when there was no war. In the pre-hispanic times, the warriors were also landowners who were greatly respected not just for their martial prowess, rather for their leadership in administering to the care of the land. In other words, they were also farmers. They were also the patrons of the various rituals that would govern the daily lives of the people under their tutelage. Yet in times of war, these men would raise their arms and defend their homeland to the death.
This I have observed with a Bagobo man, whom I have met. To their clan, he was one of the chieftains in the council of elders, but he was also their chief
magani, or warrior. Yet, on an ordinary day, he was a farmer, with several families under his care. On special occasions, he was a poet and a musician.
This is a warrior who is a far cry from the professional soldier we often think about.
I can also say this for a whole range of people of traditional cultures, whom I have met in the course of my research and journeys around our archipelago.
There were the
Tausug MNLF (Muslim National Liberation Front) soldiers, whom I met up in the mountains of Patikul, in Sulu. Having recently come from skirmishes with the Philippine Marines, they immediately transformed into
Pang-alay dancers in a wedding ritual.
There was the
Mumbaki (shaman) of the Ifugao, whom I met in the hinterlands of Banaue, who was a farmer by trade, yet a seasoned warrior in clan wars of the past. In fact, in the ancient headhunting practices among the Cordillera cultures (
Ifugao,
Kalinga,
Bontoc, etc), they would only start their forays after the planting or harvesting season was over.
There were the
Aeta of the Subic area, who practiced their martial arts in a dance that is also a ritual of fertility.
In other civilizations (and it seems to be continuing in the present), the professional soldier was created not in defense of the homeland, rather for conquest. They had no other duty but to be warriors, and were sustained by taxes from the common people. However, to augment their salaries and give justification to their existence they needed to go to war and collect loot by pillaging others. Its just common sense not to pay taxes for an army, if there was always peace, thus a war is needed.
In fact, the popular warrior codes such as Bushido, were guiding principles among the samurai and their daimyo, anyone lower than these were treated as lesser people and not treated with respect as dictated by the code of honor. Among the European knights, Chivalry was 'drafted' to curb the barbaric acts of the knights against other people. This code of the Cavalier (the mounted knight) has been overly romanticized, yet hardly enforced in the Dark Ages.
No matter how idealized were their codes of conduct, their lives revolved around the killing of others and not the defense of the people.
Looking back again at our ancient warriors, their lives revolved around creating, as in the tilling of the land and managing the lives of the families under his tutelage, rather than destroying through war.
And this is also how we view our heroes, as builders rather than destroyers. In fact, the name hero or bayani, is derived from the ancient name for warrior; the
magani for the
Bagobo or the
bagani for the
Manobo. Thus the warrior/hero was more than just a fighter, he was a defender of the way of life, in battle or in the daily participation and administration of duties; such as farming and ritual. And in my opinion, if they ever rose up in arms, it was not just to defend their lands and people, but to defend their way of living, their culture.
To summarize this concept, I have come across an ancient
Tagalog word, ‘
Lakan’, which means warrior, the freeman/landowner caste, or even chieftain. This seems to cover the range of responsibilities of the warrior/hero, from
madirigma (warrior) to
magsasaka (farmer) to
mamanmanhala (leader).
Yet there is also another word,
Lakandiwa, which is commonly described as a judge. Yet, if you breakdown the word into its components, you get
Lakan (warrior) and
Diwa (spirit). Thus, Lakandiwa may also mean the spirit of the warrior or the way of the warrior. And from this word, we can derive our own code of the warrior: a hero who, in times of war or times of peace, leads us in our maintaining the very essence of our lives, our culture.
*In this paper, the Traditional Cultures are those ethno-linguistic groups whose cultural identity and practices are still very much the same from before Spanish, American, and Modern colonization
*2009 June
*I wrote this as a Father's Day gift to the men out there, to be the warriors of their families.
