The ethnological inroads scientists have discovered in recent decades, especially in regard to the Bagobos’ ancient links to the Polynesians have, have created interesting breakthroughs.
First, like a handful of Filipino tribes, the modern genetic profile of the Polynesian people originated from “a small group of Austronesian speaking people in Taiwan.” And second, there are similarities in traditions, language, music and culture between the Pacific islanders and the Filipinos, in particular the indigenous Bagobo, Ifugao, Igorot, Ilocano and Bontoc people.
An interesting facet of this supposed genealogical association is in the Bagobo identity itself. Bagobo is a corruption of two words (bago +obo, meaning ‘newly grown (tribe)’). This presupposes the Bagobo tribe could have been a breakaway faction of the original migrants from Taiwan, some of whom are genetically found in the Polynesia, a cluster of over 1,000 islands scattered in the South Pacific.
In online Jane’s Oceania, the Bagobo people are described as “proto-Malayan features [with] light brown complexion, brown or brownish black wavy to curly hair, dark and widely set eyes, ridge broad nose and full, rounded lips… [They] have ornate traditions in weaponry and other metal arts. They are noted for their skill in producing brass articles through the ancient lost-wax process. They also weave abaca cloths of earth tones and make baskets that are trimmed with beads, fibres, and horses hair.”
Like their genetic forebears, the Bagobo is into body tattooing.
An actual incident in the town of Davao that took place over a century ago was the first recorded incident that raised the possibility of a Polynesian-Bagobo connection. Helen Herron Taft, wife of then American civilian governor-general of the Philippines, in her Recollections of Full Years (New York, 1914) remembered clearly this unusual event:
“At Davao we saw thousands of acres of the highest hemp in the world, and number of beautiful bead-bedecked hill tribes who had come down into the coast civilisation for the purpose, no doubt, of seeing what we looked like.
“These hill tribes are very interesting people. They are, perhaps, more picturesque than any of the other non-Christians, and they have developed to a fine point the art of making bead embroidered clothing. So beautiful and so unusual are these garments that the ladies in the party, forgetting everything else, made a grand rush to purchase some of them from the various tribesmen. Our eagerness, indeed, had finally to be restrained in order that attention might be given to the efforts of the [Second] Commission to enlighten the people as to our mission, but having patiently awaited the termination of business we returned to our search for the bead-work, only to find that the finer specimens could not by any process of cajolery be secured.
“Money meant nothing to the hillmen and we have no substituted in the way of gewgaws to offer them. The only one who succeeded in getting a really good suit was Miss Anne Ide, and her success was the result of a curious incident.
“She met a chieftain gorgeously arrays, and at a venture tried upon him the Samoan greeting and a Samoan song which she had learned in her childhood when her father was Chief Justice of the Samoan Islands. To her great surprise the Bogobo (sic) answered and seemed greatly pleased. He had already conveyed to him the fact that they only thing the ladies wanted was bead clothing, so he indicated to Miss Ide that he would present to her his coat and pants, and without further ado, and much to her astonishment, he began to divest himself of these garments which she accepted with delight.
“The incident awakened natural curiosity on our part as to the relation between the Polynesian language of Samoa and the vernacular of the hill tribes around the Davao gulf.”
The colorful beads sewn to Bagobo attire, meanwhile, is traced by scientists as having provenance in the Chinese culture. The cultural exchange took place thousands of years ago when Chinese trade in coastal regions around the archipelago was at its apex. This is the same reason why all around the islands chinaware items from various Chinese dynasties are discovered in all archaeological sites in the country.
A 2014 article published online in Ancient Origins seems to affirm, in general, that Polynesians actually are descendants of Filipinos, saying:
“Research into the origins and dispersal of Polynesian chickens has helped scientists reconstruct the early migrations of the Polynesians and the animals they carried with them. The results revealed that the Philippines is the most likely ancestral homeland of the Polynesians, whose forebears colonised the Pacific about 3,200 years ago.
“Polynesian seafarers explored vast areas of the Pacific and settled nearly every inhabitable island in the Pacific Ocean well before European explorers arrived in the 16 th century. However, the ancestral relationships of people living in the widely scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean have long puzzled anthropologists. The predominant theory is that the Polynesian people are a subset of the sea-faring Austronesian people who have their origins in Taiwan, having arrived there through South China about 8000 years ago.”
As the Tahitians say: “Nānā!”(Goodbye!)
