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Physical Activities in the Philippines

During the Pre-Spanish Period

byJANICE ANN BERAN

Iowa State University

Filipinos are a fun loving, joyous people and through recorded history sports, games,and dance have been integral to their life. The Filipinos are a blend of the various stages oftheir history which has included contacts with Indonesians, Malays, Japanese, Chinese, andArabs and the Islam religion long before Magellan of Spain reached the islands in 1521.

This polychromatic past is forever returning to color the activities of the present as it has inthe past.

Any discussion of Philippine physical activities must start with dance. Dances of thepre-Spanish period could be classified as being of these types: religious, festival, courtship,and marriage, mimetic, and war. Religious dances were integral to various rites associatedwith recovery from illness, funerals, and life after death. Festival dances centered aroundwork related activities such as hunting, planting, and harvesting, and sometimes lasted fordays. They were characterized by elaborate footwork and hand movements accompanied bymusic from gongs, drums, flutes, jews harp, along with chants. Courtship dances usuallyinvolved exchange of goods as well as flirtation. Equality existed between men and women

prior to the arrival of the Spanish so neither of the dancers played a submissive or oppressiverole.

Mimetic dances, often humorous in nature, included the familiar Tinikling and danceswherein the suffering antics of someone who has stepped into an ant hill or has been stung bybees, as in the Pinuhag, are enacted, or the Irik-itikwherein the dancer imitates ducks.

These were quite different in temperament than the war dances wherein a quick tempo wasused to accompany quick turns, distinct body elevations, and body quiverings. Dueling wasoften simulated using bolos or long swords. Many of these dances still exist unspoiled todayin the upland regions of Mindinao and Mountain Province.

A wide variety of childrens games involving strategy, physical skill, and chance

existed. These often included chancing or gambling. Many of the games of individual skillinvolved shells, seeds, pebbles, and later, marbles. Skill games involving strategy includedtag games such as tubig-tubig, dodging games such as bulan-bulan, jumping games such asluksong tinik, spinning of tops, and kite flying.

Pre-Spanish sports were not always highly sophisticated. The Igorots of MountainProvince played Bagbagto or stone war. During the dry season they assembled at a dryriver bed and drew a line in the center. Opposing teams faced each other across the river andproceeded to throw stones. The object, of course, was to cross the line in a hail of stones.

Losers and victors alike received wounds and lost teeth but a bloody battle was thought toensure a good crop of camote (sweet potato). Curiously, no victim became angry even if all

teeth were lost. No revenge was taken and the maimed were helped by the victors to get upand get assistance from the local herb doctors to stop the bleeding.

The game ofsipa, cousin of the sepak rakraw of Thailand and Malaysia, was playedwith a hollow rattan ball. The object of the game was to keep the ball in the air by hitting itwith the feet. The Maranaws played in colorful sarongs with a colorful musula (handker-chief) in one hand which was snapped as the ball was hit. The object of Maranaw sipa was tokick high with grace and beauty of movement and to keep the ball in the air. Current day

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records show that one team kept the ball in the air for three hours, another championshipteam holds the record of three thousand continuous kicks on one toss. Traditionally. sipavaried from locale to locale. It could be played with a net, by points, or just for exhibition

purposes with fancy steps. The primary object was enjoyment with victory being of littleimportance. This sport was often played at weddings and fiestas and also figured in selection

of marriage partners.

An ancient combative sport, arnis, was used to train boys in self-defense. A longwooden bolo, or sabre, was utilized in different skills, parries, and hits. It involvedmemorization of specific movements according to a complicated numbering system. Othersport activities designed to teach self-defense were the many variations of wrestling such asarm, little finger, and leg.

Cockfighting, sabong, was an important activity of the early Filipinos. A Spanishchronicler observed that the natives raised cocks for fighting and bets were often placed onthe outcome. It involved fast and exciting action and often bloodshed because of the keen

slasher knives that were attached to the legs.These activities so enjoyed by the Filipinos were to undergo major curtailment with the

arrival of the Spaniards in 1521 when the only physical activities permitted had to bepracticed under the guise of religious celebration.

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