One way of understanding history is by linking it with the rivers where villages are started. Access to waterways is an indispensable aspect of convenience and survival, and it is always near riverbanks that potable water sources can be found. Early migrants, in exploring the interior regions or reconnoitering coastal areas, used the streams in discovering new areas for settlement.
For an archipelagic country, waterways are the ‘liquid highways’ linking islands. In modern times, the watercourses continue to function as vital channels for naval, marine, and maritime activities even with the construction of spans that connect parted lands. It is also the riverbank communities that inspire the adoption of placenames as identified of certain locations.
Many placenames get their IDs from the denizens that live near waters and source their food from them, the plants that thrive near waterways, the insects and animals found in riverbank settlements, and the phenomena observed while living in these communities. Three terms best explain the evolution of placenames, namely, etymology, orthography, and onomatopoeia.
Let’s see how these terms are defined: (i) Orthography is ‘the study of spelling and how letters combine to represent sounds and form words’; (ii) Etymology is ‘the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout’; and (iii) Onomatopoeia is ‘the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named.’
Orthographically, Kialeg, which means ‘a pool of water formed by landslide,’ is a combination of two Tagacaulo terms, ‘kia’ and ‘leg.’ On the other hand, Cuambog, named after a tree, has etymologically evolved to Kolambogan, meaning ‘a place where the cuambog plant thrives.’ You have also Kaputian, derived from potian, a rattan species. The best example of onomatopoeia is Kokak, inspired by the sound produced by a frog.
Outside the strictures, there are placenames that are inspired by geography (i.e., Pantukan, or place for short route; Balut, Maguindanao for island), religious custom (i.e., Badas or Islamic flogging), spices (i.e., Tandag, the Maguindanao laurel), tribe (i.e., Talaingod and Samal), fish (i.e., Baganga and Batuto), water color (i.e., Malalag, Bagobo term for yellowish), activities (i.e., Digos, Bagobo for ‘taking a bath in the river’), and springs (i.e., Bugac and Tubod), among others.
Names of places also afford a researcher better and deeper understanding of how site identities affect the progress of an area. By knowing the exact origin of a placename, a case build-up can be made in limiting the original settlers of a place and understand why certain monikers have been adopted as appellations of communities and settlements.
Rivers, due to their movements, also lend inspiration to the naming of locales. Places like Mati (‘easily dried up riverbed’), Maragusan (‘washed-out river’), and Lupon (‘inundated area’) are so named after the effect waters make on land, particularly during floods. Some names are derived from the river fishes that populate them or in recognition of the abundance of certain species thriving in specific watercourses.
Moreover, rivers also carry the nutrients that turn lands into fertile agricultural estates. Without rivers, survival becomes more difficult given that people have very limited food supply to get and are forced to source drinking water from plants, rain, and precipitation. Minus the rivulets and streams, people are forced to away with washing, bathing, and rinsing.
Outside etymologies, ancient mariners, in determining their daylight position while out there at sea, look for natural contours and markers and at night measure their location using astronomical bodies. In colonial times, they reasonably depended for lighthouses to keep them on track during starless nights, and on distant terrains to fix their setting.
