M .

O C H I N A N G

Philippine Literature
Precolonial Period ( ???? – 1564)
Contents
Oral Lore From Precolonial Times (_____ – 1564)
1. Introduction
2. Riddles
3. Proverbs
4. Short Poems
5. Ambahan
6. Songs
7. Myth
8. Folktales
9. Epic
I N T R O
I N T R O
 I N T R O
And how pre-colonial Filipinos – both
men and women – adorned themselves!
Before Magellan came, everyone in the
archipelago must have looked like
strutting jewelry stores!

They wore diadems, necklaces, neck

chains, cuffs, bracelets, pectorals
over their chests, anklets, belts and
brooches.
Paragraph 1 (slide 1/2)
The first period of Philippine literary history is the longest.
We often lose sight of this fact because circumstances of our
history had forced lowland Filipinos to begin counting the
years of our history from 1521, the first-time written records
by Westerners referred to the archipelago later to be called
"las islas Filipinas." However, the discovery of the "Tabon
Man" in a cave in Palawan in 1962 has allowed us to speak
now of a prehistory that goes as far back in times as 50,000
years ago.
Paragraph 1 (slide 2/2)
…The stages of that prehistory show how the early Filipinos
grew in control over their environment enough until, at the
beginning of the Christian era, "they knew the use of gold and
textiles, and how to smelt iron and make glass, and probably
spoke a language or languages from which all modem Filipino
tongues are derived. Thus, are we now in a better position
than Filipinos 20 years ago to gauge the breadth and depth of
cultural traditions on which rested the colonial cultures
brought by Spain in by the United States in 1898.
Thought Questions:

Para 1 – The first period of Ph lit history is the longest.

1.List the important events mentioned in the
paragraph.
2.What is our advantage from the Filipinos who lived
20 years ago?
3.What significant discovery that leads to realization
of the vast prehistory of the Filipino?
Paragraph 2 (slide 1/1)
A historian writing about the "Hispanization of the Philippines"
concludes this study by noting that what transpired could be more
accurately summed up as "'Philippinization' of Spanish
Catholicism.”John L. Phelan's remark is actually a recognition of the
tremendous bulk of prehistoric Filipino culture with which a
transplanted culture came into contact. The impact of Western culture
was to grow in intensity with the passing of time spent under Spanish
and American control, but the pervasiveness of the oral lore of the
early Filipinos would continue, surfacing at certain historical
moments, but most of the time remaining unobserved because
submerged in the culture of the colonizing power.
Thought Questions:

Para 2 – “Hispanization of the Philippines.”

1. What do you mean of the first statement of the
paragraph?
Paragraph 3 (slide 1/1)

The scholar William Henry Scott observes "a considerable

discrepancy between what is actually known about the prehispanic
Philippines and what has been written about it." Scott is referring to
the fact that much that has been said about precolonial Filipinos is
misleading, when the amount of verified information turned up by the
studies of archaeologists, ethnologists, and anthropologists has
certainly been corsiderable.
Thought Questions:

Para 3 – The Observation of the scholar William Henry

Scott.
1. What is it about the observation of William Henry
Scoot about the prehispanic Philippines?
Paragraph 4 (slide 1/1)

From accounts-by chroniclers writing during the early years of the

Spanish conquest, we learn that the early Filipinos lived in villages
frequently found along seacoasts and riverbanks, close to the major
sources of food and the most convenient transportation routes. They
were fishermen, jungle farmers, and hunters, a folk versatile at finding
their livelihood where they could. When they chose to live in the
interior, their houses were built on stilts for security and health reasons
on promontories and ridges, in widely scattered communities.
Thought Questions:

Para 4 – The Chroniclers' Account.

1. What is it about the account written by the
chroniclers during the early years of Spanish
colonization makes us know about the early
Filipinos?
Paragraph 5 (slide 1/2)
Describing the extent of cultural development of early Filipinos on the eve of
colonization, Scott says:
Filipinos Were wearing bark and woven cloth, and gold, bronze, stone
and shell hair ornaments, earrings, pectoral disks, bracelets, finger rings and
beads, and mind and worked gold for jewelry and iron for tools and weapons;
they filed, stained, blackened or chipped their teeth and decorated them with
gold, and had been chewing betelnut for 3,000 years; they owned tens of
thousands of valuable Chinese porcelain jars anu plates but cooked in a type
of local pot with a history going back to 1,000 B.C., they deformed skulls,
removed them, preserved them, and buried their dead supine, prone oi flexed
in caves, graves, jars or coffins, and disinterred them, reburied and venerated
their bones.'"
Thought Questions:

Para 5– William Henry Scott’s Account.

1. How would you describe the life and the lifestyle of
the early Filipinos during the prehispanic era?
Paragraph 6 (slide 1/1)
Present-day students of Philippine literature are fortunate in that they no
longer have to go by "myths" of precolonial Philippines, thanks to researches and
writing about Philippine prehistory which have appeared during the two decades.
Through these studies, much can be reliably inferred about precolonial Philippine
literature from an analysis of collected oral lore of Filipinos whose ancestors
were able to preserve their indigenous culture by living beyond the reach of
Spanish colonial administrators and the culture of sixteenth-century (1600)
Europe. These Filipinos—variously referred to "natives," "ethnic minorities,"
"tribal Filipinos, etc. —have been able to preserve for us epics, tales, songs,
riddles, and proverbs that are now our Windows to a past with no written records
we can study.
Thought Questions:

Para 6– Present-day students of Philippine literature

were fortunate.
1. Why do you think you as present-day student of
Philippine literature are fortunate according to the
texts?
2. Would you agree to it? Explain why.
Paragraph 7 (slide 1/1)

As literary works created in the setting of a society where the resources

for economic subsistence—land, water, and forest—were communally
owned, the oral literature of the precolonial Filipinos bore the marks of
the community. The subject matter was invariably the common
experience of the people constituting a village— food-gathering,
creatures and objects of nature, work in the home, field, forest or sea,
caring for children, etc. This is evident in the most common forms of oral
literature like the riddle, the and the song, which always seem to assume
that the audience is familiar with the situations, activities and objects
mentioned in the course of expressing a thought or emotion.
Thought Questions:

Para 7–bore the marks of the community

1. What marks bore by what? Explain the idea being
mentioned in the paragraph.
https://ovelynflores.weebly.com/aeta-riddles.html

https://www.coursehero.com/file/48307831/Bagobo-Riddlesdocx/
 Faculty Meeting Aug 23, 2021 6 -6:49 pm
OBE
Provide activities for the students:
1. that will enhance students’ skills
2. provide interactive activities.. ask questions that will
3. record classes for monitoring
4. more qualitative activities (in line with the relevant objectives)
5. grading flexibility (discernment - give clear instructions for the students; finding time to
answer student’s questions)
6. instead of GW we’ll put INC for the incomplete.. remind the students to comply within
a semester
7. recordings and documentation of modular
8. Flexible Monitoring Report will be applied
9. Students’ evaluation
10.Learning Management System.

orientation sched
11.mon -
12.tue -
13.wed –

virtual meeting about research on tue 1pm

The Completion Certificate and the Amendments of grades should be Address to the
Dean of Dep’t.