I was just fascinated reading this morning a book by William Henry Scott: Barangay 16th century Philippine Culture and Society. Wow, our ancestors. Unreal. Philippines, a land of plenty, too much bounty. Filipinos living in abundance. They had too much free time for tatoos, for drinking, for feasting, and sexual stuff. But on to food.
Honey. Lots of it, lots and lots of it. There was no sugar. But there was lots of honey. A honey hunter is expected to gather some 50 bee hives a year!!! Lots of really good wild honey during those times.
Fish. Over 221 words and different varieties. Tons and tons of them. In the streams, in the rivers, in the lakes, in the mangroves… absolutely no need for deep sea fishing, the fish were all there.
Domesticated animals: pigs and chickens. Sabong is an indigenous Filipino pastime.
Wild game. Our ancestors had hunting dogs and would easily catch fat wild pigs, fattened by all the tons of falling fruit. There were also deer, bayawak, pythons, turtles, turtle eggs, dugongs, eel, clams, crabs, etc.
Fruit. Tons of it, more so than the tons of fruits we have today. And in greater variety. All picked and eaten fresh, tree ripened and unripe.
They had a budding rice production at that time but relied more on root crops.
They got drunk, often, for socials, just like Filipino society these days. The traditional alcoholic beverages we know today like basi and tuba are Filipino indigenous inventions. And all this boozing about were indigenous Filipino culture.
16th century Philippines was a land of plenty. Too plenty. Biologically diverse. Too good. And it was all true.
Buy yourself a copy of the book. It’s got more… a lot more.
