Trade and Commerce

EmmelouCarpio Anton Jubay Dorothy Navabos Daisy Monreal Jolly Paradiang

History 17 MTW 830-930

Pandaysaputhaw was considered as to being the noblest profession because only the wealthiest datus had the means to import raw materials. As father Alcina has said, It is certain that no profession among the Visayans is more profitable than this and so it is honoured and esteemed among them since the greatest chiefs are the best iron workers.

It was difficult to extract the metal from the ore by primitive methods, thus it was highly economical to trade local forest products for ore. The most important tool manufactured, repaired, or retampered by the panday was the bolo.

Carpenters cut their own timber, carefully observing accepted nature lore in selecting it. Different species were felled during the different phases of the moon; some were believed to be more solid on the eastern side and the male trees always stronger than the female of the same species. There were basically three different types of houses, permanent wooden structures might be called town houses, cottages built from light materials near the field and tree houses. Houses were elevated off the ground by posts and dominated by steep roofs, both features appropriate to a tropical environment characterized by heavy rains. While the datus live in the town houses, the non-datus on the other hand lived in cottages, and so did datu farmers live in such houses seasonally. Tree houses were only occupied during war. But either in actual trees 15 or more metres above the ground, or on tall posts. If intended for male warriors, they were reached simply by a vine.

The panday preferred lawaan for boat building because it grew large enough for a baroto 120cm wide to be hewn out of a single trunk. A good panday could make a canoe 9 metres long and 1.5 metres wide, working by himself in just 10 days. Although a baroto could have board added to increase its freeboard, real ships intended for cargo capacity or seagoing raids were built on the square keels with stem at both sides. All the different vessels were designed for coastal seas full of reefs, rocks, and inter-island passages with treacherous currents.

The Visayan potter s craft was dihoon, and it was practiced by female potters using not a potter s wheel but the paddle and anvil technique. Fine porcelain, along with gold jewelry and bronze gongs constituted the heirloom wealth of the Visayans called Bahandi. Status symbols, both jars and plates were displayed in a kind of wickerwork holders on the house beams.

The Spaniards seem never to have seen a Visayan without gold on his person, and said that all of them could tell where any gold came from by just looking at it. The Spaniards were surprised at how low intensity of the Visayans mining operation, Visasyans only went to get what they needed. They would rather keep it in the ground than in the cash boxes because since they have wars, they cannot just easily steal it in the houses but not in the ground(Juan Martinez). Cebuanos weighed out the 20 pesos in gold in which they paid Magellan for 6 kilos of iron.

The weights were various kinds of seeds or beans, based on a little red one called bangan, but convertible to standard Southeast Asian weights of time. The local custom of interring such gold-work with the deceased, and the universal custom of robbing graves, have provided representative samples for examination in modern museums and collection. As more and more elegant gold-work would later be unearthed, the opinion came to be expressed that low level of pre-Hispanic Philippine technology would have prevented Filipinos from providing sophisticated jewellery.

Weaving was a normal part of housekeeping, and women supplied all their men folk s clothing. The most elegant textile, considered a monopoly of Visayan weavers was pinayuusan, which was the strict prerogative of men who had personally killed an enemy.

Suluan, is one of the most remote bits of the land in the archipelago, and the alacrity with which its inhabitants initiated trade with the unknown foreigners reflected a common feature of the Visayan life.