“Weapons of Moroland” and our Homes
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The "Weapons of Moroland" shield (Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Alternativity)
We all laughed when we first read it here in DC, and it became a portable punchline that we brought with us to each Filipino gathering, like part of a secret list of items we all recited, on cue, along with “giant wooden spoon and fork” and “the Last Supper” painting.
I remember when I saw my first “Weapons of Moroland” in the 1970s. I must have been four or five. My grandparents owned one, and we spent many Sunday afternoons at their place. It was part of our weekend ritual: Sunday morning mass; lunch at my aunt’s; and then the afternoon at my grandparents.’ I loved everything about their house. The wooden interior. The earthenware oven. How the taller people bowed slightly as they moved from one room to another, the door frame being a little low. The capiz shells on the windows. The heavy narra chairs with the rattan weave. My grandmother’s many pet cats, and her plants that looked like cat tails. And then the shield. I remember my terror and excitement when I first saw it, realizing that it was numerous miniature swords on a shield. (In a silly game of one-upmanship with a grade school classmate a few years later, a contest on who owned the most weapons, I might have counted those small swords among our imagined “armory.”)
Until that point in the 1990s, soon after I first left the Philippines to make a new home overseas, I didn’t realize how ubiquitous the shield was, how it was present in so many Filipino homes, and how much I shared in common with my new friends in the States. Despite our having come from different parts of the country, all our families seemed to own one. It was kitsch, a tacky decorative item; but thousands of miles away from our ancestral homes, it made us feel like we belonged.
The shield appears, I found out later, in stories about Filipino American life, both old and new. In Bamboo Dancers, NVM Gonzalez’s 1959 novel, the main character Ernie Rama travels around the U.S. and meets other Filipinos. “There’s a trick to it if you want to know off hand that it’s a Filipino an apartment belongs to,” he says. He describes the scent (“garlic and vinegar”), a few items (“doilies on the backs of the chairs”) and “the inevitable and incorruptible collection called ‘Weapons of Moroland.’” In Vince Gotera’s short story “Manny’s Climb,” set in the 1960s and published in 2003, a San Francisco apartment features “all sorts of Filipino bric-a-brac,” including a “black shield like an interstate sign, with miniature Moro swords and knives arrayed on it like inlaid strips.”[1] And these cultural references and stories are being told in fresh new ways. A few years ago, a group of Filipino American actors staged a comedy sketch about Weapons of Moroland and other pop-cultural icons that come to life and rebel against the homeowners.[2]
Upon entering Filipino American homes, Veltisezar Bautista writes in The Filipino Americans, “you may notice particular objects or sights that reflect the identity of the family and that it came from the Philippines.”[3] Among them – “a shrine of the Santo Niño,” a wood carving of “tinikling dancers” and, of course, “a Weapons of Moroland hanging on a wall.” “These are replicas of weapons used by Muslim tribes in Mindanao,” Bautista writes, “the ethnic groups that were never subjugated by the Spanish or American colonizers.” More generally, references to “US-Philippine colonial relationship” were common among the first internet jokes, according to Emily Ignacio, in her 1998 doctoral dissertation on Filipino identity. After reading thousands of posts in an online forum, she found that “participants drew on…their knowledge of the U.S.-Philippine colonial relationship to articulate Filipino identity.” Weapons of Moroland, Ignacio writes, represented the “resistance to colonialism”.[4] (“The fighting was the fiercest I have ever seen,” Gen. John Pershing, who led U.S. forces in Mindanao, wrote to his wife. The Moro warriors, he said, were “absolutely fearless.”[5])
More than a punchline or an icon of resistance, however, it seems to me now, many years later, a more complicated cultural artifact than I first thought.
The juxtaposition of Weapons of Moroland with the Santo Niño in many homes, for one, is puzzling. One is an artifact from an Islamic region and the other is a Catholic icon, in fact, arguably the Catholic icon from the beginning of the Spanish period, representing as it does the gift from Ferdinand Magellan to Rajah Humabon at the latter’s baptism in 1521. One represents fierce defiance and the other signifies Spanish conquest, and they are either about treason or triumph, depending on who is telling the story. [6] Our cultural icons represent contradictory impulses at the core of the identity we construct, in our Philippine homes and in our homes overseas.
My grandmother was a strict Catholic. I think she went to mass every day. She wore a veil and a scapular to church. My father used to joke that her favorite song was Tantum Ergo, a popular hymn at our church when I was growing up (and it might have been my first lullaby, as my grandmother sang me to sleep during my mother’s extended stay at the hospital). Why she owned an artifact from Mindanao, displayed at the center of her home, a few feet away from her precious Catholic icons, I never thought to ask.
And when I first saw the shield, I didn’t know where “Moroland” was. We lived in Nueva Vizcaya, some 1,300 kilometers north of Mindanao and separated, I was eventually told, by pretty much everything one could think of: countless islands; language; culture; and religion. (The New York Tribune is one of the first U.S. publications to use the term “Moroland.” “Moroland and the rest Philippines were like different countries, and under Spanish rule, hardly acquainted,” James French Dorrance wrote in 1904.[7])
Author’s grandmother (Photo courtesy of Erwin R. Tiongson)
Some of my older relatives told me stories of “Moroland,” half-truths and lies that I carried around with me for a long time, maybe to this day. All Moros were warriors, they told me, and once they run “amok,” brandishing one of their powerful swords, they were virtually unstoppable. They told me the .45 caliber handgun was a special issue in the colonial U.S. Army to stop them dead, because American soldiers could not do so just by using the more conventional weapons of the period.
The word “Moro,” in fact, has a long, complicated history. “The term ‘Moros’ is Spanish for ‘Moors,’ referencing the North African Muslims who conquered Spain in 711 CE,” according to The Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History.[8] “To gain the sympathy and support of Christianized native Filipinos, the Spaniards infused the term ‘Moro’ with derogatory connotations, such as ‘pirates,’ ‘traitors,’ ‘juramentado,’ ‘enslavers,’ ‘cruel’ and ‘uncivilized’,” Jamail Kamlian, a history professor at Mindanao State University, wrote a few years ago.[9] “Until the emergence of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in 1969,” he said, “the people in Moroland refused to be called Moros.”
These myths and biases persist. The 2005 edition of the Philippine Human Development Report said the majority of respondents in a national survey “think Muslims are more prone to run amok” and nearly half the respondents think that “Muslims are terrorists or extremists,” “harbor hatred toward non-Muslims,” and “do not consider themselves Filipinos.”[10] The report also noted that only 14 percent of survey respondents had actually interacted with a Muslim Filipino. In Filipino homes, then, at the heart of a relic of a shared identity, is conflict: Weapons of Moroland is about ourselves, but it is also about the “other” that is feared or discriminated against in much of Philippine history, or simply not understood[11]—the stranger in our midst. As an artifact of resistance, Weapons of Moroland is, in a sense, both native and foreign, our proud heritage and our enduring colonial prejudice.
The origin of the Weapons of Moroland shield is not clear, although there have been numerous references to it since the end of World War II. A recent pictorial book on Weapons of Moroland begins in 1945.[12] A 1951 issue of the American Chamber of Commerce Journal suggests, seemingly without irony, that it is a “lovely, appropriate” Christmas gift.[13] An issue of a San Francisco newspaper published in 1959 mentions an exhibit at the Gleeson Library, including its “Philippine showcase.” “All of the items are hand-carved and the piece ‘Weapons of Moroland’ is a rare and beautiful work of patience and love,” its editorial said.[14] Various editions of Fodor’s Guide to Japan and East Asia (or sometimes Southeast Asia) from the 1960s through the 1980s point out, helpfully, that “miniature weapons of Moroland are inexpensive and have an exotic touch.”
“The juxtaposition of Weapons of Moroland with the Santo Niño in many homes, for one, is puzzling.”
It is almost certainly a U.S. colonial souvenir and likely from the early 1900s, during the “Moro campaigns,” despite the mid-to-late 20th century references. “Lantakas [small cannons], armor and all sorts of bladed weapons are also stored in museum bodegas in the United States,” the historian Ambeth Ocampo writes, “many of them captured during the American expeditions to Mindanao in the early 20th century or brought home as souvenirs.”[15] In a 1926 report on the collection of Philippine weapons in the Smithsonian, Herbert Krieger wrote, “Many individual collections of Philippine weapons contain shields displaying miniature weapons of the types ordinarily produced by the Moro, also by the Luzon Island and Visayan tribes.”[16] A few years ago, I visited the ancestral home of William Atkinson Jones, after whom the landmark 1916 Jones Law promising Philippine independence is named, and I found a Weapons of Moroland shield from among his possessions. An important reference, Robert Cato’s Moro Swords, features a Weapons of Moroland shield from “circa 1910.”[17]
It might not have been the first colonial souvenir shield, as other decorative shields with weapons from other parts of the country are also featured in the Smithsonian, as Krieger reported. In a December 1904 letter to Col. Walter Loving, the African American conductor of the Philippine Constabulary Band, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “I am very much pleased with the shield of miniature Filipino weapons. It was very kind of you to think of sending them.”[18] It was late 1904 and Loving, along with the rest of the Philippine Constabulary Band, likely had just performed at the St. Louis Exposition in the middle of racial tensions and the live exhibits of Filipinos as savages.[19] At that notorious 1904 exposition, these miniature weapons—from Samar, in particular—were on display.[20]
The swords might have been once the symbol of resistance, the struggle for independence against an invading army. But in their miniaturized form, they had become a tourist souvenir[21], an imperial power’s exhibit on its decisive victory in the brutal campaigns of the period. At the battle of Bud Dajo in 1906, over 600 men, women, and children were slain by American forces.[22] (“Women and Children Killed in Moro Battle. Nine Hundred Persons Killed or Wounded—President Wires Congratulations to the Troops,” the New York Times announced.) The battle of Bud Bagsak in 1913—“the last great battle in a fourteen-year campaign to pacify the Moros,” according to Ronald K. Edgerton’s new book on Gen. Pershing, who was then military governor of the region— was a “terrible slaughter.”[23] “Pershing estimated that some 500 warriors had defended the mountain,” Edgerton wrote, “and it appears likely most of them perished.” (In contrast, there were 15 casualties on Pershing’s side.)
I don’t own a Weapons of Moroland shield. I would rather not, even as an ironic display. I have other Philippine souvenirs though. In our household we have paintings, some placemats, and some table runners from the Philippines. There are almost no religious icons, except in one quiet corner, and I sometimes think about what my grandmother would have said about my otherwise secular home. (I do have a small, black and white photograph of my grandmother and I, taken during one of those Sunday afternoon visits many years ago. It’s a souvenir I have carried with me for over a quarter century.)
I have never looked at any of the items our household has accumulated over many years with the same critical eye with which I now look at my grandparents’ ornaments. But I am certain our household has cobbled together new contradictions that my children and their generation can choose to reject one day, as they construct their own homes and Filipino American identities. I wonder what they will remember of this home, its pieties and prejudices, its capitulations and compromises, its half-truths and its own symbols of love and violence. What will they keep? What will they discard?
The other day I remembered my grandmother and imagined being in her home again, wandering around their rooms, the muffled voices of my parents, my brother, and my grandfather in the background. I imagined standing in front of the Moroland shield, a few feet away from the narra chairs that are now in our house right outside of DC. I imagined her walking into the room, and I asking her where the shield was from, a souvenir from Mindanao, a place they had never visited.
And maybe the answer is not important. It would have been enough just to be there again, one more time, and ask. There are homes that we are given, homes that we leave behind, and those that we choose. In unguarded moments, against all our impulses, they are one and the same.
for Magdalena T. Ramos (1906-1987)
Sources:
[1] Brainard, Cecilia Manguera, ed., 2003, Growing Up Filipino: Stories for Young Adults (Santa Monica: PALH), p. 86.
[2] Gonzalves, Theodore S., ed., 2007, Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists (San Francisco: Meritage Press, 2007). See interview with Allan Manalo, p. 92.
[3] Bautista, Veltisezar, 2002, The Filipino Americans: From 1763 to the Present (Farmington Hills, MI: Bookhaus Publishers), p. 146.
[4] Ignacio, Emily Noelle Sanchez, 1998, The Quest for a Filipino Identity: Constructing Ethnic Identity in a Transnational Location, PhD Dissertation, University of Illinois. See also Ignacio, Emily Noelle Sanchez, 2004, Building Diaspora: Filipino Cultural Community Formation on the Internet (Rutgers University Press).
[5] Kolb, Richard, 2002, “’Like a mad tiger’: Fighting Islamic Warriors in the Philippines 100 Years Ago,” VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine, May: p. 30.
[6] Magellan was of course an explorer. Spanish conquest was led by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi beginning in 1656. See Ocampo, Ambeth, 2019 “Lapu-Lapu, Magellan and blind patriotism,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 13.
[7] Dorrance, James French, 1904, “Uncle Sam Laying Cables,” New York Tribune, July 31.
[8] Tucker, Spencer, ed., 2009, The Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO).
[9] Kamlian, Jamail A., 2012, “Who are the Moro people?” Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 20.
[10] I first saw these numbers cited by Patricio Abinales (“What You Should Know About the Sabah Conflict,” Positively Filipino, March 13, 2013.)
[11] “A major reason behind the inability to come up with a lasting peace plan for Mindanao,” historian Patricio Abinales wrote, “has to do with an orthodox explanation that promotes a historical narrative of an unceasing resistance by a unified Muslim minority against the state and the Christian majority.” (“The Moro struggle as myth and as historical reality,” Rappler, February 28, 2015.) The Weapons of Moroland shield arguably promotes this narrative.
[12] Jenkins, Bruce, 2016, Souvenir Weapons Plaques of Moroland Museum (Moroland Museum).
[13] Print ad, American Chamber of Commerce Journal, October 1951, p. 350. A 1952 issue indicates that its selling price then was about PhP1.90.
[14] “Gleeson goes around the world,” San Francisco Foghorn, April 3, 1959, p. 3.
[15] Ocampo, Ambeth, 2011, “Deadly weapons, objects of beauty”, Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 30.
[16] Krieger, Herbert W., 1926, "The collection of primitive weapons and armor of the Philippine Islands in the United States National Museum." Bulletin of the United States National Museum, No. 137 (Washington: Government Printing Office), p. 68.
[17] Cato, Robert, 1996, Moro Swords (Singapore: Graham Brash), p 88.
[18] Theodore Roosevelt Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Series 2, December 2, 1904. Loving and Roosevelt had a long history (Cunningham 2007 and Yoder 2013). Loving spent many years in the Philippines, died during the liberation of Manila in 1945, and was said to have been beheaded by a Japanese soldier. Loving, the son of former slaves, who gave Roosevelt a miniature set of Philippine swords as a souvenir after performing on a racist stage with Filipinos, who effectively chose to become Filipino the rest of his life, and who reportedly died by the sword of another colonial power – I leave this for a future essay.
[19] Talusan, Mary, 2004, “Music, Race, and Imperialism: The Philippine Constabulary Band at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.” Philippine Studies Quarterly 52(4): pp. 499-526.
[20] Official Catalogue, Philippine Exhibits, Universal Exposition, St. Louis, U.S.A., 1904 (St. Louis: The Official Catalogue Company). The exhibit included “miniature models of dagger, kris, bolo and spears of the Visayans” from Samar (p. 266).
[21] In a 1914 issue of the Philippine Craftsman, there is a section on a “miniature weapon set” that had generated, in one year, “cash returns” of “more than PhP600” (p. 145). Miniature swords not only represented the triumph of the colonial power; they also represented the triumph of its capitalist production processes.
[22] McKenna, Thomas N., 1998, Muslim Rulers and Rebels (Berkeley and Los Angeles: UC Press), p. 89.
[23] Edgerton, Ronald K., 2020, American Datu: John J. Pershing and Counterinsurgency Warfare in the Muslim Philippines, 1899-1913 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press). I am aware that singling out these two battles, which are outliers in the U.S. colonial period, also promotes the narrative about the “unceasing resistance by a unified Muslim minority against the state and the Christian majority” (see previous reference to Abinales 2015).
Erwin R. Tiongson
Erwin R. Tiongson is an economist and teaches at Georgetown University. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, the Washington Post, and Washingtonian.
