I was going through this blog and I noticed that the most-read entry was about the iron age/pre-colonial Philippine funerary pottery. I guess a lot of people are indeed interested in something so mysterious and so unknown.
Back in school, Philippine history curriculum would generally start during the era of Magellan and Pigafetta as if their arrival heralded our own origins. Such a notion belies the fact that we do have a civilization before the Spaniards- one that has a written language in the form of the baybayin script and a well-developed artistic expression. They simply disappeared when Spanish priests burned almost all of the remaining objects like anitos and bamboo manuscripts. Anyhow, it's simply sad that we as a nation has passively chosen to exclude our pre-colonial past- a timeline that may well have extended back to the days of the Srivijayan and Madjapahit empires.
These pottery, excavated from the islands of the interior, are a stark reminder of that lost civilization, one that predates the the Age of Contact. They are here with us now because they can neither degrade nor decompose with the march of time. Yet, even if they do see the light of day with a handful of collectors scrambling over them, not a lot of Filipinos covet them. Maybe because they look ordinary and utilitarian as compared with the gorgeous Swatow wares from China or the green celadon plates from Thailand. Really, which of the two would scream Old Rich? A roomful of Blue & White wares or a roomful of precolonial pottery?
A lot of collectors
are familiar with the Age of Contact because there are many objects imported from ceramic-producing states like China, Annam, and Siam. Hence, the quantity helped fuel the passion in this field for they have been quite accessible.
The irony with collectors is that we tend to celebrate, study and analyze the excavated ceramic finds of imported wares and spout off expert opinions on mundane details like their ceramic glazes as if we were Roxanna Brown, but we are faced with a blank wall if we are asked about lifestyle and history of the
native Filipinos who used them. Moreso, we collectors are faced with a bigger blank wall when faced with indigenous precolonial iron-age pottery (apart from the Maitum anthropomorphic artifacts). These pots should have been given a larger share of attention because these are evidence of our early Philippine civilization. These are our own, not imported from some highly developed civilization. Hence, they must be studied intensively. There are several highly specialized books on its archaeology like the recently published tome on the Lemery diggings. Seriously, it would take more than this handful of books to spark a frenzy, or at least an interest, among newbie antique collectors. Seriously people.
