1. What is the historical narrative of the document?

MARAGTAS

The Maragtas is written by Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro. Maragtas is all about the

history of Panay from the first inhabitants of the Bornean immigrants from which are

descended to the arrival of the Spaniards. The work is written in mixed Hiligaynon and

Kin-iraya languages. Monteclaro have been a native border between the two Visayan

dialects.

The word Maragtas is equivalent to the Spanish word “Historia”. Present-day

speakers of Visayan, know only the word as the title of the book or some Pre-Hispanic

manuscript believed to be its origin. It is consideration of the latter opinion that the

provenance and contents of the book must be examined in detail.

The provenance of Maragtas begins with the author’s own statement in his

“Foreword to the Readers” wherein he stated that he wrote Maragtas with great

reluctance or unwillingness due to the fear that he might be considered too presumptuous

or arrogant. He even refrained from writing it but he still did it for his burning desire to

reveal to the public the data which he gathered from the records about the first inhabitants

of Panay which was the arrival of the Datus from Borneo and their settlement in the lands,

their spread to different parts of the island and their customs and habits until the

Spaniards came and ruled to the Philippines.

Contents:

 The first chapter describes the former customs, clothes, dialect, heredity,

organization and others of the Aetas of Panay.

  The second chapter begins a narrative of ten Datus flight from Borneo.

 The third chapter tells the romance of Sumakwel, Kapingan and her lover Gurung-

gurung.

 The forth chapter concludes the tale of ten Datus.

 The fifth chapter describes language, commerce, clothing, customs, marriages,

funerals, mourning habits, cockfighting, timekeeping techniques, calendars and

personal characteristics.

 The sixth and final chapters give a list of Spanish officials between 1637 and 1808.

 The epilog contains a few eighteenth century dates.

The Maragtas was not much of use by the Philippine historians due to the fact that

it was based on various data which he was able to collect and there were different

passages. They were mainly based on written and oral sources available back then which

needs to be examined.

His book should not be considered as containing facts, all which are accurate and

true, because many of his data did not tally with what we hear with the old men.

2. What are the sources and methodology used?

Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro indicated in his provenance the two manuscripts that

he had found in order for the reader not to accuse him of having merely composed the

book from just imagination. He made a compilation of ethnographic, linguistic and historic

detail.
 One is given to him by an 82 year old man, who had been the first teacher in the

town. It was given by the old man’s grandfather. The long years which the manuscript

must have passed wore out the paper so much that it is impossible to handle. The other

manuscript he found in a bamboo tube where Monteclaro’s grandfather used to keep his

old papers. The manuscript was so brittle that he could hardly handle it without tearing it

to pieces. He copied these records in a book on June 12, 1901 as a memoir for the town

of Miag-oa, but did not publish them for the reasons stated.

There were also shortcomings in his book. He gives no information about any of

his sources, oral or written, except to say that two of them where rotten and almost

unreadable. He makes no comment or speculation on their date or provenance, no direct

quotations or hints of incorporation them into the text and disavows any claims to “clarity

or comprehensiveness”. The Maragtas, therefore, gives no reasonable grounds for

supposing the existence of any Pre-Hispanic Confederation of Madiaas.