Why “Balangay”?
“Balangay,” the theme for this year’s Gabii sa Kabilin on May 25 is meant to remind the public and celebrate the pre-colonial roots of Visayan culture. To the popular imagination, it brings images of a huge wooden boat with outriggers and people on board. This is not far from what the theme wants to bring across. In that image is encapsulated the two meanings of the word: the boat and the group of people bound together by kinship and communal bonds.
Antonio Pigafetta was the first European chronicler to mention the word “balangay” (he spelled it “balangai” and “balanghai”). Early Spanish explorers took note of the exceptional boat building and seafaring skills of Visayans. They built many types of boats of which the balangay was only one. There was the small canoe-like baroto which was dugout from a single tree trunk. And there were various types of vessels built out of wood planks: the “bidok” or “biray,” the “yahit,” which was type of baroto that used planks, and the “paya.”
According to William Henry Scott, the noted Filipinologist, the most awe-inspiring of these sailing vessels was the “karakoa,” a war cruiser. It could mount up to 40 paddlers on one side, not counting the crew amidships. The balangay, on the other hand, was made for more mundane use – to transport people and goods. For this reason, Visayan seashores were likely crowded with numerous balangays in those days. Pigafetta was asked to mount a balangay in Limasawa when he was allowed to converse with the local chieftain. Even during the Spanish colonial period, its smaller version – the “bangka” – was a preferred mode of transport in Cebu to get from one town to another as roads were only extensively built in the 19th century.
The “balangay,” as a term referring to a group of people, is the Bisaya equivalent to the Tagalog word barangay. It is interesting that both the sailing vessels and the demographic unit are called by the same, as if they are inseparable. This conveys not only the kinship ties that characterized local villages, but also the constant need to travel – to island-hop – as a reality of life for the inhabitants of the Visayan islands. As noted historian Resil Mojares observed, the sea, unlike for modern-day Visayans who see it as a hindrance, served as the main thoroughfare in the pre-colonial Bisaya world.
That sea-born, semi-nomadic way of life was manifested in other aspects of their culture. Their view of death, for instance, was that of a continuation of earthly life rather than an end. They saw it as a starting point to another journey towards another reality. Thus, the presence of boat coffins in some areas in Bohol, Cebu and Panay that are believed to have come from the pre-colonial period. That these boat coffins are found in cliffs and caves near or facing the sea is not a matter of convenience but an expression of the pre-Hispanic Bisaya’s affinity to the sea.