Queen of Kipit, Mindanao
Retelling Magellan’s Southeast Asia
This story takes place 500 years ago. But if you’re an American, the people of this story were later colonized by your government only 75 to 120 years ago. The same government we vote in. The same military that employs our family and friends. Just 9 years ago the first American drone strike in Southeast Asia killed 15 of them. 4 years ago armed American soldiers were in the Battle of Marawi, Mindanao. This is a distant history. But then again, is it really? Here’s a glance at what these cultures’ lives were like before any Western empire touched them.
500 years ago, the first Europeans in the Philippines wandered to the archipelago’s second largest island: Mindanao. While the expedition’s two surviving ships rested and traded at the mouth of the Kipit River, a Venetian scholar named Antonio Pigafetta accompanied the local Raya two hours upriver to explore and document their royal estates.
Both Sanskrit “raya” / “raja” and French/English “royal” come from the same Proto-Indo-European root word: reg-
Rani Tarhata heard a rooster calling. The room was dark. Another rooster answered. This time Tarhata’s eyes opened and dim gray light was starting to show around the curtain in the nearest window.
The Rani sat up from a sleeping mat and listened to the sounds of footsteps outside.
“Bunso,” Tarhata called, “wake up…”
Across the dark room, one shadow rustled up from the floor and a little girl obediently shuffled toward the curtains and pulled them open. It was hardly any brighter outside the window than inside.
A short time later, wrapped in a soft blue scarf over red and green silk robes, Rani Tarhata climbed down the steep stairs of bamboo rods to the ground below the palace. Along with the roosters crowing, the birds of the forest were also calling out their own whistles, hoots, and chirps. A gintubo mumbled a good morning and lumbered across the yard with jars of water swaying from a rod across their shoulders.
The Rani shivered and pulled the scarf tight. Careful to avoid the grass, the Queen stepped across the dirt towards the animal pen behind the estate. A few young gintubo dressed in long shirts were dropping food for the chickens and goats behind thin bamboo fences. Seeing the Rani approach, the eldest among them straightened up and offered a respectful good morning.
Tarhata nodded, offered a right hand for the youth to accept a blessing, and looked over the livestock. The gintubo raised Tarhata’s right hand against their forehead. And Tarhata noticed that one goat was skinnier than the others.
“Is that one eating?”
“umm yes, Rani,” the boy replied, “That one ate today…” but they turned to their younger companions for confirmation. Several voices replied all at once. They seemed to disagree, though not on whether the goat ate this morning, but whether it was too weak to fight the other goats for its share. Rani Tarhata didn’t care for the details and simply interrupted, “watch to make sure this one eats. Please keep all my animals healthy.”
“Yes, Rani,” all the young gintubos answered — the eldest spoke most clearly while the others muttered the words dryly. But Rani Tarhata was already walking further on.
The sky was turning gray, phasing out of the night-time black. The roosters were a bit quieter while they were being fed. Tarhata passed by the smaller houses on her property. Inside them the Lady’s people were stirring to life in preparation for the day.
Soon Tarhata was standing where the trail passed through the stockades. A glance over the stockades to the right revealed no damages. But then to the left… in a few places the posts had loosened in the dirt, which was inevitable with the rain. They leaned like over like trees on a riverbank, looking they would fall any moment. Loose posts lying inthe mud would make weak defenses. Lady Tarhata turned around and looked at the ridge that enclosed the palace estate from behind: against the sky, which was nearly a dull blue by now, the long grass and the sparse saplings were blowing in a soft morning wind.
It was already summer. Tarhata pondered how long Kipit had until the Visaya raiders would come this season. The estate would have to be well-kept; if not for the attackers who rarely reached this far, then for the subjects who would come inland to wait out the raids.
As Tarhata returned to the palace, the scent of fresh sweet rice rose from the cooking pit. Tarhata shed the scarf at the top of the steps and draped it over a bench; inside the Bahay it was noticeably warmer, though the sun was just barely shining. The Queen sat cross-legged among some cushions in the center of the floor, drank some water from a porcelain jar, and tried not to doze off while waiting for breakfast.
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Eventually, Tarhata’s little bunso came up the steep entryway carrying sweet rice on a small plate. But behind trailed a young boy who looked to be sweating, even though it was still so early in the day. Accepting the plate and putting it to one side, Tarhata greeted the boy and offered a hand for blessing. The boy raised it to their head and reported, almost out of breath, “Good morning Rani. Raya Kalanawa will be coming this morning. With a guest.”
“Ahh,” Tarhata answered, pondering… “who will I be hosting?”
The boy’s face wrinkled a bit. “…It’s… I don’t know, Rani — it’s a foreigner.”
“I see. From… Visaya? Or… Brunei?”
“Um,” the child turned their eyes to the ceiling as if trying to remember. “I don’t know, Rani,” they repeated. “I think it’s… a feren — a falan — “
“…Farangi?” Tarhata offered.
“Yes, Rani. I think it’s a Farangi.”
Tarhata hadn’t yet met a Farangi. They were people from some undiscovered place who had only just come to these islands during this generation. They liked to trade for ginger and cinnamon, according to the merchants from Makassar and Malaku. But Kipit had mostly just gold to offer.
“Thank you, child,” Tarhata said to the boy. “And will they be staying all day? Or for the night?”
The boy didn’t know. But as Tarhata ate her sweet rice, she set her mind to the necessary preparations for making the queen’s estate hospitable.
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Some time later, when the sun had finally taken the sky, the sound of Kalanawa and the royal entourage was carrying up the hill through Tarhata’s bamboo walls. Tarhata’s women had gathered with her to learn how to weave a bed mat from palm leaves. They had been sitting in a circle in the main room of the Bahay and Tarhata ordered them all to pack away their work and clear space for her husband and the guest.
One new rice mat still lay half-finished across Tarhata’s lap; the Queen had been preoccupied guiding, correcting, and encouraging the others.
A hand pushed through the curtain door of the Rani’s bahay. Tarhata’s husband Kalanawa, whom she knew to be lively (if not young), generally well-mannered, and persistently generous entered headfirst. Tarhata smiled to welcome the Raya. Soon several datu and younger warriors had shuffled in. Among them was one stranger wearing dark pants and a worn-out white shirt.
Meeting Tarhata’s eyes, the stranger walked forward and reached out both hands together as if asking for a blessing. Tarhata raised an eyebrow and glanced up at the Raya, who only offered a smug smile. Feeling a little confused yet charmed, Tarhata offered a hand and the Farangi accepted it properly, raising it to their forehead with a small bow.
“Good morning!” Tarhata said to the foreigner and smiled, quite impressed.
“Ma-ayong. Adlaw! Ako. Si… Antonio.”
Even more impressed, Tarhata turned towards the Raya again…
Kalanawa explained, “This man learned some words in Visaya. They spent a month there.”
Nodding gently, Tarhata turned to Antonio and gingerly tapped a hand on the floor to invite the guest to sit. Kalanawa’s entourage of datu and warrior retainers took their seats encircling them, as the ladies had done moments before. Most of the ladies were still in the room, sitting and watching from the walls. Some whispered to each other behind paper fans in their hands. As always, one warrior remained standing and leaned against the doorway with a spear in hand.
Smiling, the Farangi looked all about the room as they sat on the floor; they grabbed their own leg to guide it into the cross-legged sitting position.
Pointing towards a wall with Tarhata’s porcelain jars hanging on it, the Farangi said, “Maayong… mabulok!”
Confusion must have been clear on Tarhata’s face, because seeing it, the man turned to the wall again and gestured emphatically, saying, “Kini! Kini!” These! These!
“Ah, the jars!” She said in her own language. And then, “garapa!” in the Visaya language.
“O o!” Antonio confirmed with a chuckle. “Asa nimo nakuha kini?” Where did you get these?
“Oh, from Luzon,” Rani Tarhata explained, “jong ships go there every year from…” she looked to the Raya sitting across from Antonio, “…from the… Chang-Lai?”
“Yes, Rani,” the Raya acknowledged. “The regulars from China.”
Tarhata nodded and added, “and sometimes ships from Ryukyu too.”
Raya Kalanawa nodded and repeated the Rani’s response for Antonio in Visaya more slowly and with exaggerated gestures so the man could understand. Listening, Antonio the Farangi nodded deeply, then gestured toward the opposite wall where Tarhata’s musical gongs were hanging.
“Agong-agong?”
“Yes!” Tarhata chuckled. “Also from China…” A lady sitting under the gongs met the queen’s gaze. The Rani nodded and pointed at the wall with her lips.
As the Farangi and the Raya seemed to be exchanging Visaya words for types of metal, Tarhata put aside the unfinished mat from her lap and received from the young lady two small gongs with mallets. She played a lighthearted rhythm that rang across the morning air sweetly, or so she thought. Her ladies applauded her and clapped, as they always did. The men praised her music too, and she smiled demurely.
The Farangi Antonio beamed with excitement at the sound and gave a few claps too. Tarhata offered a mallet to the man, but Antonio waved a hand and shook his head with a smile. Kalanawa laughed and patted the man’s shoulder.
Tarhata asked, “Raya… can this man tell us about where he comes from?”
Kalanawa quieted and raised an eyebrow, then leaned toward the Farangi. In some Visaya words, the Raya posed the question in as simple and direct a manner as he could.
Antonio, who had been listening, seemed to pause and think. Then began to give a response mostly in gestures, and again in some garbled Visaya words…
Listening and watching, Kalanawa said aloud, “Antonio says they’re from a city that’s…”
Antonio’s hands were wiggling in the air. “Sa tubig…”
“On water!” Kalanawa answered, and Antonio nodded and smiled. The Raya and the Rani each nodded with no change in their faces.
Antonio glanced back and forth between the two, apparently surprised. “…Si chiama: VENEZIA,” he said in a strange language.
“…Farangi?” Tarhata asked Kalanawa.
“Farangi language, yes …I guess,” Kalanawa answered. And then repeated to Antonio, “Bee Nets Sya.”
Antonio’s face wrinkled slightly for a moment… but then smiling he nodded and exclaimed, “Venezia! Sì! È fatto di pietra… uhh…”
Kalanawa and Tarhat both leaned their heads forward and glanced between each other and Antonio. “Uhh…” the man’s hands floated about desperately. “…bato!” he added. Stone.
“…Hinimo sa bato?” Kalanawa asked. Made of stone? Now the royals were surprised.
“Imagine if Cotabato was entirely on the water,” Tarhata said jokingly, but then the thought settled and Tarhata tried to picture it. How would a house in such a city be shaped? How would you hold that much stone together? And… why would you choose stone for that?”
Kalanawa and Antonio were still in animated discussion with their hands and their half-familiar languages. Maybe they had moved on to another subject, but she interrupted, “They have trees in Benetsya, right?” Again she was partly joking and partly imagining as best she could.
Kalanawa seemed to relay the question with great effort. Soon they were discussing boats. Kalanawa told her the Farangi paint their boats all black, and that’s how their people had identified these ones at the mouth of the Kipit River.
The conversation carried on through the morning, traversing the many subjects that this Farangi of Venezia endeavored to investigate. The boats, house, the animals, the forest, the gold in the hills, the rice and other food, the gintubo and the datu, the raya and rani. Antonio Pigafetta of Venice left from the Queen of Kipit with memories that he would immortalize in his 1525 publication of the first voyage around the world. A voyage which at this point had not yet found the treasure it was really after: the source of the spices.
This is part 4 of Retelling Magellan’s Southeast Asia
Next Chapter: Land of Promise, Palawan
Previous Chapter: The Indigo City: Manila
Pigafetta didn’t record the real name of the Queen of Kipit. But in searching for royal Mindanao female names I discovered Princess Tarhata Kiram, who grew up in the American Philippines. As in, when The🇵🇭Philippines was an unincorporated territory of the United🇺🇸States just like Puerto🇵🇷Rico. Under the “pensionado” program, she was chosen to receive a college education in the States. She left after 2 years, saying that the American education system failed to make her a slave. Back in the Mindanao province, she married a Datu who was wanted for rebellion against the US. She continued to advocate for Mindanao until she passed away during the 1980’s Marcos dictatorship, which commemorated her with a postage stamp:
The Southeast Asian Muslim cultures that greeted this Venetian explorer are the same cultures that resisted the Spanish empire for 300 years, then the American empire for 50 years, then the Japanese empire during WW2. And even today they continue to advocate for their place in predominantly Catholic cultures and administrations of the Philippines. In 2019 on January 21, modern warfare and peace talks finally brought about the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The word “gintubo” is one of several pre-Philippines words that is generally translated to “slave.” In this narrative I avoid the word “slave” because pre-modern Southeast Asian slavery has certain nuances that are quite different from American slavery. For one thing, it is not enmeshed in constructs of race and skin tone. And this is not for lack of contact with people of darker pigmentation — black native Filipinos have always been in the archipelago (and still are). They are relatives of Australian aborigines and are now called Negritos. Many slaves in the Pre-Philippines were captured in war or raids, but the majority were debt-slaves who could pay off their debts (or else their children or grandchildren could pay off their debts at a discount). Additionally, many of these slaves only served their master for a set number of months out of the year (such as harvest season) or a set number of days out of the week. Even so, the masters were in a separate ruling class that was exclusive by bloodline. A warrior caste in-between also developed in many parts of SE Asia.
