Indigenous People's Day
** Please be aware the following article contains extremely biased material and information about the injustices of indigenous people. **
In Los Angeles, Indigenous People's Day is officially declared a holiday! Living in America, it is important to remember the strife and injustices that were placed upon the Native Americans. Their culture and traditions were washed away in blood, all for the purpose of colonization and to fulfill the idea of "Manifest Destiny"; the belief that the newly established United States of America was fated to colonize and extend its borders all along North America.
Ironically enough, the holiday is declared in place of Columbus Day, as more and more schools and university within America are starting to tell the true tale of how he came to the US and the years of continuous struggle indigenous people face today. All of the deaths that should have been mourned during their massacre, from foreign diseases, and from unfair treatment and relocation are now rightfully shared and are continuously fighting to obtain a platform for racial and ethical discussions.
As Filipino Americans, we are able to empathize with Native Americans with remembrance to our own heritage's indigenous cultures. Unknown to most, this "Destiny" was not inherit only to Northern America but was also applied to Pacific, where the Philippines lay, ruled by the Spanish.
The destruction of our ancestors was a joint effort, hidden by the impulse to claim the islands under the name of the Abrahamic god. Because for what reason do countries try to monopolize, except for the three G's: "Gold, Glory, and God"?
While there are several accounts of human right violations within indigenous communities both domestic and abroad, the most we can do at this moment to move forward is to quit glorifying the colonizers and recognize the lives and cultures lost to time.
The Philippines pre-Spanish is extremely hard to define as their history has literally and figuratively been burned to the ground. Magellan, the man often cited in American textbooks as the "discoverer" of the Philippines in a similar way Columbus is cited for "discovering" America, never was the first non-native to set foot on the Philippine soil. Long before the Spaniards knew of the islands' existence, there had been migration and trade routes among the surrounding countries and island entities (there have been findings of Hindu, Islamic, and Chinese art within the Philippines, which hints to the interaction of religion, culture, and tradition).
When Magellan and his people finally did arrive at the islands, one of the first things they noticed asides from the heavily inked tribes was the gold. The Philippines was a considerably fertile land in both crops and the valuable metal. Pieces that have been excavated from Pre-colonial times show that gold was used for a variety of traditions- they were sculpted into the idols of different tribes and religions, used as a funerary mask, and simply decorated men, women, children, and elders alike from head to toe. Their method and additional uses for gold can only be hinted at, as any ancient text or narratives were saved on bamboo, and consequentially burned down by the Spaniards when they came to deal with what they considered ungodly savages.
Similar to the relocation of Native Americans, when tribes and groups of people refused to convert to Catholicism, as hinted above, they were moved away from their homelands. The best places on the island were reserved for the Spanish and all art that was made was dedicated to the Church. Anything that was not done under the name of God was irrelevant and unuseful, and thus natives were forced to assimilate with people, tribes, and cultures they may have never even known about despite being a few islands away.
The United States of America, despite knowing all this, eventually intervened and promised to help the Philippines become independent. Their "liberation" and settlement is often a paragraph in textbooks to brush over their own infractions on human rights. Almost as if an under-the-table trade, the Philippines battled and fought the Spanish with little help from the American army, and after winning could only celebrate for a minute before hearing the word that the American military would not leave the country and that they essentially negotiated with Spain to hand them the islands.
While the story continues on, with the Battle of Manila that erupted with ~3000 casualties and continuous trials for insubordination executed by Americans against Filipino nationalists, the blurred line of the indigenous cultures in the Philippines and the country itself ends around there. After 333 years of Spanish colonization, tribes that barely knew each other were forced to gather and forget to be reborn as Filipinos. Their story is far more detailed, messy, and tragic that has been briefly described here, and few are alive today to make up for their missing narratives. However, I hope you one day find the time to learn and read up on indigenous cultures of people long forgotten yourself.
Previous essays used as references
[Written 2015] To what extent did the colonization of the Spanish influence the art and culture of the Philippine islands?
