Tasaday

The Tasaday (tɑˈsɑdɑj) are an indigenous people of the Philippine island of Mindanao. 

They are considered to belong to the Lumad group, along with the other indigenous groups on the island. 

They attracted widespread media attention in 1971, when a journalist of the Manila Associated Press bureau chief reported their discovery, amid apparent "stone age" technology and in complete isolation from the rest of Philippine society. 

They again attracted attention in the 1980s when some accused the Tasaday living in the jungle and speaking in their dialect as being part of an elaborate hoax, and doubt was raised about their isolation and even about being a separate ethnic group. 

Further research has tended to support their being a tribe that was isolated until 1971 and that lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. 

The Tasaday language is distinct from that of neighbouring tribes, and linguists believe it probably split from the adjacent Manobo languages 200 years ago.

Limahong

Lim Ah Hong (a.k.a. Limahong or Lin Tao Kien) was a Chinese pirate who invaded the northern islands of the Philippines and tried to seize the City of Manila from the Spanish in 1574.

Origin

Limahong was born as Dim Mhon to parents with questionable morals, in a province of China called Cuytan. Exposed to vices, he resorted to criminal activities, including robbery, at an early age.

He met and became a protege of an old pirate, Tial-lao. When Tial-lao died, Lim became his heir, inheriting the old pirate's fleet and around 2,000 pirates. His numerous attacks on ports and ships throughout southern China made the authorities issue a warrant for his capture. This brought him to pursue his criminal activities on higher seas, far from China's reach.

He was able to accumulate 40 ships which increased to 95 ships when he took over the fleet of another pirate, Vin To Quiam. He came to be the notorious king of the waters of southern China.

Arrival in the Philippines

It was in late 1573 that an army of 3,000 outlaws, bandits, and pirates led by Limahong arrived at the island of Luzon. There, they established a kingdom and waged war against the Spaniards.

In early 1574, their fleet fled to Ilocos Sur and had a run-in with its Spanish commander, Juan de Salcedo. The pirates were driven away by the Spaniards.

Attempts to take over Manila

When they fled from Ilocos Sur, Limahong learned that Manila was an unprotected city though already occupied by the Spaniards. He decided to take over Manila and make it his kingdom. He attacked the city in 1574 with 64 ships but failed. However, he was able to kill Martin de Goiti of the first Spanish expeditionary force and several Filipinos under the leadership of Rajah Lakandula. He also burned the city.

From this unsuccessful attempt, he led his fleet to what is now Pangasinan. He was trailed by a ship under Governor-General Guido de Lavezaris, who found him settling a colony in Lingayen, Pangasinan. The people of Pangasinan became hostages in their own province as Limahong fought against a seven-month siege by Juan de Salcedo's army. He was defeated and fled the province in 1574.

The "Limahong Channel," dug over six months, served as the pirate's escape route. According to Restituto Basa, author of Footnotes on Pangasinan History and The Story of Dagupan, Limahong married a certain Princess Kabontatala who helped him dig this channel. Local historian wants Urduja House renamed to Prinsesa Kabontatala. . A marker has been placed at the channel commemorating his failed attempts to occupy Manila.

Legend of the Ten Bornean Datus

The Ten Bornean Datus Epic refers to the ten chieftains who allegedly ventured to the Island of Panay boarding a boat called balangay (or barangay) to evade the tyrannical ruler of Borneo, Datu Makatunaw. The datus, believed to be the fathers of precolonial Philippines, were the following: Datu Puti (and wife, Piangpangan), Datu Sumakwel (and wife, Kapinangan), Datu Bangkaya (and wife, Katurong), Datu Paiborong (and wife, Pabilaan), Datu Paduhinogan (and wife, Tibongsapay), Datu Dumangsol, Datu Libay, Datu Dumangsil, Datu Domalogdog, and Datu Balensuela.

According to the legend, upon the arrival of the datus, the local inhabitants of the islands, the Aeta, grew terrified but the diplomatic Datu Puti said to Marikudo, the chief of the natives, that they had peaceful intentions. Later both parties entered into a trade alliance. Marikudo invited the datus to a feast, during which the ten chiefs negotiated the purchase of Panay Island for a golden salakot. Since the Aetas found the land overwhelmingly vast for them, they retreated to the forest, leaving the Datus with the land which they divided among themselves (namely Aklan, Irong Irong and Hamtik), leading to the birth of Philippine population and culture.

Battle of Mactan

The Battle of Mactan (Cebuano: Gubat sa Mactan; Tagalog: Labanan sa Mactan; Spanish: Batalla de Mactán) was fought in the Philippines on 27 April 1521, prior to Spanish colonization. The warriors of Lapu-Lapu, a native chieftain of Mactan Island, overpowered and defeated a Spanish force fighting for Rajah Humabon of Cebu, under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, who was killed in the battle.

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan (/məˈɡɛlən/ or /məˈdʒɛlən/; Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, IPA: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w ðɨ mɐɣɐˈʎɐ̃jʃ]; Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes, IPA: [ferˈnando ðe maɣaˈʎanes]; c. 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Castilian ('Spanish') expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Born into a Portuguese noble family in around 1480, Magellan became a skilled sailor and naval officer and was eventually selected by King Charles I of Spain to search for a westward route to the Maluku Islands (the "Spice Islands"). Commanding a fleet of five vessels, he headed south through the Atlantic Ocean to Patagonia, passing through the Strait of Magellan into a body of water he named the "peaceful sea" (the modern Pacific Ocean). Despite a series of storms and mutinies, the expedition reached the Spice Islands in 1521 and returned home via the Indian Ocean to complete the first circuit of the globe. Magellan did not complete the entire voyage, as he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines in 1521.

Ferdinand Magellan, traveling west from Europe, in 1521, reached a region of Southeast Asia (the Malay Archipelago), which he had reached on previous voyages traveling east (from 1505 to 1511-1512). Magellan thereby achieved a nearly complete personal circumnavigation of the globe for the first time in history.

The Magellanic penguin is named after him, as he was the first European to note it. Magellan's navigational skills have also been acknowledged in the naming of objects associated with the stars, including the Magellanic Clouds, now known to be two nearby dwarf galaxies; the twin lunar craters of Magelhaens and Magelhaens A; and the Martian crater of Magelhaens.

Philippines Under Spanish Rule, 1571-1898

Miguel López de Legazpi’s (b. 1502–d. 1572) conquest of Manila in 1571 ushered in a 327-year epoch of Castilian rule in the Philippine Islands, but his actions also created unintended historical by-products that made the undertaking dissimilar to any other colony in the Spanish empire. Most notable were that the archipelago was located in Asia, it consisted of many islands inhabited by a variety of Malay and Austronesian peoples, and Chinese cultural and economic influences, which had been developing since at least the Tang dynasty, competed with Castilian/Mexican.