The right side of the historical hagabi
It’s been a busy year for historians; and I am happy to say — as a member of the board of the National Historical Commission — that our country’s history has never seemed so vital.
Who knew that Philippine history would be so contentious and controversy-ridden? Certainly not this little dormouse who thought that the still waters of the National Historical Commission would be a placid occupation, clucking over markers or plowing through letters about this or that decrepit building.
Not on your life.
The minutiae of history would loom large. Was the first Mass said in Limasawa — or in distant Butuan? A panel of experts led by the National Artist Resil Mojares confirmed the location written in every schoolboy’s history book. However, a multimillion-peso suit was filed by the Butuan partisans and one began to feel like Johnny Depp to Amber Heard when a barrage of threatening text messages was sent out to board members. On such decisions, after all, rests the tourism industry and the Catholic Church narrative.
There was plenty of other drama: Was our first hero Lapulapu even a “Filipino” as the Instituto Cervantes maintained? After all, the Spanish declared, King Philip II, who would give his name to our emerald isles, had still not been born when Magellan was cut down on our shores. The short answer: Lapulapu certainly knew the name of his homeland and he needed nothing more than his bravery to fight off a foreign interloper. (By the way, if you’re still hyphenating “Lapulapu,” you are asking for trouble.)
This June, appropriate to the flag-waving month of Independence, I’ve had the privilege to have a front-row seat as the venerable Ramon Tapales Jr. and Floy Quintos, the country’s leading experts on all things tribal, discussed a magnificent hagabi or prestige bench. (It’s a highlight of the upcoming León Gallery Spectacular Mid-Year Auction this June 11.)
This hagabi, once in the Tapales collection, was originally acquired from William “Bill” Beyer, whose father Otley was as close as you can get to a demi-god of Philippine anthropology. It was last seen as part of a trove bought by a third collector, the elusive Angel Lontok Cruz of Hagonoy, Bulacan. Cruz would have the reputation of turning up unexpectedly at antique stores, deliberately under-dressed in shorts and slippers, the better to strike a good old-fashioned bargain.
For many decades, the whereabouts of this hagabi was in the wind. It was whispered gingerly: Had it been sent to Europe? Sold next to a well-known French collector? Or had it gone to Berlin? All was speculation until one day Jaime Ponce de Leon of León Gallery received a call from an anonymous number. It was the Mr. Cruz and he simply said, “It is time to pass on the torch.”
Why are hagabis the stuff of legend? The short answer: Because they are made of ancient trees to be found in forests that no longer exist, by men from a culture that is equally near extinction.
“The hagabi is meant for the most powerful man in the Ifugao village but even the most powerful man cannot simply conjure one up,” says Floy Quintos. “It is the product of a ritual — and the Ifugao is a creature of ritual — that takes nine long years to fulfill.”
“It begins,” says Tapales, “with the careful selection of the right narra tree, which is in itself considered sacred because its sap is blood-red.”
Floy interjects, “And you have to remember, there were no saws to be found in the Cordilleras. Those were introduced by the Americans. The hagabi makers would have to fell the tree, carve it out, and make all the decoration, hacking at it with only primitive axes or adzes. You can see by the rough-hewn markings that this hagabi is at least 19th century, probably earlier.”
Tapales continued: “Bill Beyer would say that once the hagabi had been made, it would make a dramatic entrance to the home of the owner on a carpet of boiled rice. That’s how wealthy you had to be to have a hagabi. After nine years of the yearly feasting of the entire village, this would be the high point.”
Very few of these mythical benches have survived since they would commonly be placed under an Ifugao house — that would be the modern-day equivalent of a lanai. No matter how wealthy the home, the hagabi would be beaten down by the elements on all sides. Because of their behemoth size, only a few would make it out of the mountains of Ifugao; fewer still are known to be outside of the country, one being at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
Despite being over a hundred years old, this hagabi is curiously modern, in a sculptural, minimalist way.
There are other objects of our Filipino-ness to be found at the June auction, this time from the South: an ivory hilt for a Maranao ceremonial sword called the danganan and a golden mask from the kingdom of Surigao.
Floy writes, “Maratabat is the Maranao word that encapsulates the ideas of both personal and clan honor, prestige, character, integrity. It is a code of personhood that all Maranao aspire to live by even to this day. From the mid-19th to the early 20th century, the sultans and datus ruled the polities around Lake Lanao. The traditional concept of personal honor and social prestige was reflected in the objects that they stored in the Torogan, the residence where they lived with their retainers.”
He continues: “The hilt of such a faux-sword was the most impressive part. The pommel was often carved from ivory, horn or hardwood. The distinctive S-shape was said to be influenced by the kakatua or cockatoo bird. The rest of the hilt was covered in brass and silver gilt, sometimes embellished with precious stones.”
Just as exquisite is a mask fashioned of 22-karat gold, of a fineness that seems diametrically opposite to the hagabi. It has been mounted by collector Mark Wilson on a curtain of sterling silver chain mail. In this way, he says, it deliberately combines the eternity of gold as well as the fluidity of silver: a philosophical combination of the sun and the moon. The face-covering dates from as early as the 10th century and comes from the collection of renowned scholar of historicity Ramon Villegas.
And finally, the historian must ask, which of these touchstones represent our “true” selves as Filipinos, coming from as many parts of the country and as many tribes? For that, there will be no short answer as to which will be on the right side of history.
