Namayan

Namayan ᜈᜋᜌᜈ᜔ (Baybayin)
before 1175–1571
Santa Ana (highlighted in blue) and Pasay (highlighted in green) on a detail of the 1819 map "Plano de la ciudad de Manila, capital de las Yslas Filipinas", prepared by Francisco Xavier de Herrera lo Grabó for the Manila Land Survey Year of 1819. According to Fray. Felix Huerta, the district of Santa Ana was raised in a former territory of the pre-Hispanic polity called Namayan.[1]
Status	Precolonial barangay[2] under the house[1] of Lakan Tagkan[2]: 193  Personal union with Tondo through the traditional lineage of Kalangitan and Bagtas (Legendary antiquity)[3]
Capital	Namayan, Mandaluyong or Maysapan
Common languages	Old Tagalog, Old Malay
Government	Feudalism under barangay state led by the house of Lakan Tagkan[1][2][4]
History
• Established	before 1175
• Conquest by Spain	1571
Currency	Piloncitos and gold rings[5]
Succeeded by Captaincy General of the Philippines Manila (province)
Today part of	Philippines

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Namayan (Baybayin: ᜈᜋᜌ or ᜐᜉ (Sapa)), also called Sapa,^[6] Maysapan, and sometimes Lamayan,^[7] was a Luzonian town^{[2]: 193 [8][9]} that is now the Santa Ana district in Manila city proper along the Pasig River in the Philippines.

Namayan is believed to have achieved its peak in 1175,^[10] and to have gone into decline sometime in the 13th century,^[11] although it continued to be inhabited until the arrival of European colonizers in the 1570s.^[2]

It was one of several towns on the Pasig River alongside Tondo, Manila, and Cainta.^[2][3]

Archeological findings in Santa Ana have produced the oldest evidence of continuous habitation among the Pasig River polities, pre-dating artifacts found within the historical sites of Maynila and Tondo.^{[6][11][Notes 1]}

Historians studying Namayan have the advantage of being able to draw both from written sources and from artifacts uncovered in controlled archeological digs.^[8][11]

The most prominent primary written sources regarding precolonial Namayan is "Estado Geográfico, Topográfico, Estadístico, Histórico-Religioso de la Santa y Apostólica Província de San Gregorio Magno", published in 1865 by Franciscan scholar Fr. Felix de Huerta. His description of Namayan included important details such as the extent of Namayan's territories, and the lineage of its rulers.^[1]

Controlled archaeological excavations conducted by the National Museum of the Philippines in the 1960s, meantime, produced artifacts from a pre-Hispanic grave site within the Santa Ana Church complex,^[6][11] providing important information about maritime trade around Southeast Asia and China from 12th to 15th century AD, as well as the elaborate mortuary practices of Namayan's inhabitants.^[11]

Three present-day locations are identified as the political centers of Namayan. Two of these are within the present-day Santa Ana district in Manila, and Barangay Namayan in Mandaluyong across the river from the other sites.

Barangay Namayan in Mandaluyong bears the name of the polity, and was believed to be the seat of power of Lakan Tagkan. However, it would be incorporated into Santa Ana de Sapa as a barrio in 1578.^[1]

The site most associated with the Namayan polity is the town proper of Santa Ana, which grew around Our Lady of the Abandoned Parish. This site did not become the main settlement until 1578, when Franciscan missionaries built the first church some distance from the original town. Local referred to the site as "Maysapan" or "Sapà."

Sapà is the Tagalog and Kapampangan word for a small creek. Nearby bodies of water matching the description include what are now Estero de Tripa de Gallina ("Rooster’s Gut Estuary") and a smaller creek (Estero de Sta. Clara) in the vicinity of the present-day streets of Del Pan, Havana, and Tejerón. However, old Santa Ana was known for being "criss-crossed by brooks and creeks", any number of which could have been obscured by urbanization.

Christianised into Santa Ana de Sapa, the name eventually encompassed the modern Santa Ana district of Manila.^[10] De Huerta notes that "this town takes its name from the titular saint and the addition of Sapa for its having been established in a site immediately upon an estuary or rivulet proceeding from the Pasig River, which the natives call Sapa and the name of the town itself."^[1]

Instead of the Sapa site, local traditions say that an area called Lamayan (Tagalog and Kapampangan for "the place where a wake was held"), on the banks of the Pasig itself. It was said to be the site of the ancient capital from which Lakan Tagkan and Buwan once ruled. It is still recognizable today, as a street in the area still bears its name.^[7]

Namayan's territory has been described bordering Manila Bay, the Pasig River, and Laguna de Bay.^[7][10] A more precise description of Namayan's administrative area is given by Fr. de Huerta, who, noting that Namayan was a confederation of several barangays, identified these component communities as they were named during the mid 19th century.^[1]

Most are now districts or barangays within the modern City of Manila:^[1]

Four settlements are now separate cities in and around Metro Manila:

Administrative and political records of Spanish Manila indicate that these settlements mentioned as territories of Namayan were recorded in 1578 as parts and visitas (satellite settlements) of Sta. Ana de Sapa.^[7]

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A number of these settlements' names are no longer used today, but Philippine National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, in his book "Manila My Manila: A History for the Young", says that Namayan's territories included what are now Santa Ana, Quiapo, San Miguel, Sampaloc, Santa Mesa, Paco, Pandacan in Manila; Mandaluyong, San Juan, Makati, Pasay, Pateros, Taguig, Taytay, and Parañaque.^[4]

Huerta describes the original settlement in Santa Ana as a fishing village that had other industries including carpentry, masonry, piña (pineapple cloth) embroidery, tinapá, cigars, bricks, sugar and bread.^[1]

This contrasts sharply with the economic activities of the contemporaneous polities of Tondo and Maynila, which monopolized the influx of goods coming from China, and monopolized the re-sale of the same Chinese goods to other ports in the archipelago, respectively.^[2]

The Namayans, like Tondo, used Piloncitos, small gold ingots some of the size of a corn kernel—and weighing from 0.09 to 2.65 grams. Large Piloncitos weighing 2.65 grams approximate the weight of one mass. Piloncitos have been excavated from Mandaluyong, Bataan and the banks of the Pasig River.^[5]

Other than Piloncitos, the Namayans also used gold rings, or gold ring-like ingots, very similar to the first coins invented in the Kingdom of Lydia in the present-day Turkey. Barter rings were circulated in the Philippines up to the 16th century.^[13]

Fray Huerta also recorded the genealogy of Namayan's ruling family, tracing it to a Lakan Tagkan (also known as Lacantagcan, or Lakan Takhan in some oral histories), and his wife Buan. Under the heading "Santa Ana", he records:

"In origin of the natives of this town comes from a ruler ("regulo") called Lacantagcan, and his wife named Bouan, lords ("señores") of the Namayan territories [...] The first Christian name found in the genealogical tree of this great ("gran") family is a certain Martin in this form. Martin, son of Calamayin: Calamayin, son of Laboy, Laboy, son of Palaba, and Palaba, firstborn son of the ruler ("regulo") Lacantagcan and his wife Bouan."^[1]

Historian William Henry Scott notes that "Rajah Kalamayin" was the name of the ruler of Namayan at the point of colonial contact in the early 1570s,^[2] and Huerta here records that his son was baptized "Martin" upon conversion to Roman Catholicism. Huerta only traces the genealogical tree of Lacan Tagcan back through Martin, and thus only mentions the eldest of Tagcan and Bouan's sons, Palaba. The other four sons of Tagcan are not named, and no daughters are mentioned.

Huerta does go on, however, to mention that Tagcan had another male son, named Pasay, whose mother was a Bornean slave:

"The said Lacantagcan, in addition to five children of his legitimate wife Bouan, had a bastard ("bastardo") with a slave of Bornean lineage ("esclava de casta bornea"), called Pasay, who was the origin of the town known by the same name, for having fixed there his residence as landowner, supported by his father."^[1]

While Huerta thus definitively establishes that the rulers of Namayan and the settlement called Pasay were related, the precise nature of their relationship during the 1500s is unclear: Scott records that during that period, Pasay's rulers interacted with the Spanish themselves instead of "Rajah Kalamayin" speaking on their behalf.^[2]

Some local oral traditions cite Tagkan's child Pasay as a daughter, bestowing her with the title "Dayang-dayang" ("princess").^[10] However, the descriptor "bastardo" (bastard), used by Huerta, is masculine in form.^[1]

Historian Grace Odal-Devora notes that Kapampangan oral histories also mention a "Sultana Kalangitan", described as "the Lady of the Pasig" who ruled the "Kingdom of Namayan." She is said to have been the grandmother of "Prinsipe Balagtas" (or Bagtas), and the legend says that the Kapampangan people are descended from him. Odal notes that this demonstrates the interconnections of the Tagalog ruling elites.^[3]

The rulers of Namayan from the period of colonial contact (the 1570s) back to three prior generations, were documented by Franciscan Historian Fray Felix Huerta in the work Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico- religioso de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno ("Geographical, topographical, statistical, historical and religious state of the holy and apostolic province of St. Gregory the Great"), a record of the histories of Franciscan missions which is now a primary resource for local histories of Philippine municipalities.^[2]

Aside from the records of Huerta, a number of names of rulers are associated with Namayan by folk/oral traditions, as recounted in documents such as the will of Fernando Malang (1589) and documented by academics such as Grace Odal-Devora^[3] and writers such as Nick Joaquin.^[4]

When the parish of Sta. Ana de Sapa was founded in 1578, Franciscan missionaries chose to build their church, and eventually another settlement, some distance away from the ancient town. The result is that the present-day Santa Ana is no longer located at the original site.^[1] This has raised some questions about pre-colonial graves that have recently been excavated near the Santa Ana church.^[7]

• "History of Makati: PRE-SPANISH PERIOD". Makati City Portal. City Government of Makati. Archived from the original on March 28, 2008. Retrieved February 5, 2008.
• Nick Joaquin's Almanac for Manileños
• The River Dwellers by Grace P. Odal
• Quezon, Manuel L. III (May 19, 2008). "An Essential Experience". The Long View. Philippine Daily Inquirer. Archived from the original on July 1, 2013. Retrieved April 1, 2013.