Ma-i


Mait, was a medieval sovereign state located in what is now the Philippines.
Its existence was first documented in 971 in the Song dynasty documents known as the History of Song, and it was also mentioned in the 10th-century records of the Bruneian Empire. Based on these and other mentions until the early 14th century, contemporary scholars believe Ma-i was located either in Bay, Laguna, or on the island of Mindoro.
Research by Fay Cooper Cole for the Field Museum in Chicago in 1912 showed that the ancient name of Mindoro was Mait. Mindoro's indigenous groups are called Mangyans, and to this day, the Mangyans call the lowlands of Bulalacao in Oriental Mindoro Mait. For most of the 20th century, historians generally accepted the idea that Mindoro was the political center of the ancient Philippine polity. However, a 2005 study by Filipino-Chinese historian Go Bon Juan suggested that the historical descriptions better match Bay, Laguna, which is written similarly to Ma-i in "Chinese orthography" according to Go Bon Juan's understanding. Although in Hokkien Chinese, the literary reading for the first character, 麻, is "mâ", while the vernacular reading could also be pronounced and read as "bâ" or "môa" but the second character, 逸, has the literary reading of "i̍t", while a vernacular reading of "ia̍k" or "e̍k" or "ia̍t".

Location

Description

In 1225, the Zhu Fan Zhi noted that "the country of Ma-i is to the north of Borneo" and added that few pirates reach these shores. It also noted that "the people of Ma-i live in large villages on the opposite banks of a stream".
In the 1349 document Daoyi Zhilüe, it is noted that the settlement of Ma-i consisted of houses arranged on the two banks of a stream. It also noted that "its mountain range is flat and broad", "the fields are fertile," and "the climate is rather hot".

Possible sites

Early theories for the location of Ma-i include locations in Central Luzon or the Southern Tagalog regions. An early theory put forward in 1914 by Austin Craig and asserted by local historians, suggested Malolos in Bulacan as a potential site for Ma-i.
For many years, scholars believed that Ma-i was likely to have been on the island of Mindoro within the municipality of Bulalacao, as there is an old settlement there named Mait. However, this has been questioned on the basis of physical evidence and an analysis of Chinese orthography. Recent scholarship casts doubt on this theory, arguing that historical descriptions better match Bay, Laguna, which once occupied a large territory on the eastern coasts of Laguna de Bay.
Both sites have names that sound similar to Ma-i. The pre-colonial name of Mindoro was "Ma-it", whereas historical variants of the name of Bay, Laguna include "Bae", "Bai", and "Vahi".

Mindoro as Ma-i

Mindoro being equated to Ma-i or Mait was first mentioned in Spanish records, when Chapter 36 of Juan Francisco de San Antonio's Chronicas de N.S.P. Francisco en las Islas Filipinas, China y Japón 1738 is called De la Provincia y Isla de Mait o Mindoro, showing that the term Mait and Mindoro were once interchangeable.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, scholars such as Ferdinand Blumentritt and Dr. Fletcher Gardener found out that the Hampangan, otherwise known as the Hanunoo of southern Mindoro, called the island as Mait or Mayit. This was corroborated by another research by Fay Cooper Cole for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 1912, when he too discovered that Mindoro was once called Mait.
To add further, while the Hanunoo Mangyans were considered by the Spaniards and other European writers as "half savages" with low levels of culture, yet Hanunoo were revealed to have had a script of their own. Blumentritt himself, who commented on Dr. Adolf Bernhard Meyer and Dr. A. Schadenberg's work, expressed:
"From the materials given.... we can only see that the Mangyans are on a very low level of culture and civilization. One was therefore very little prepared to discover a script in such a people."
Historian William Henry Scott in 1984 wrote that "there no reason to doubt that Ma-i or "Ma-yit" is Mindoro, for Mait was the old name of the island when the Spaniards arrived, and that name is still known to its hill tribes and fishermen", referring mainly to fishermen from Aklan. Scott places the location of Ma-i specifically around the Mauhaw River in Bulalacao.
While contested in contemporary scholarship by historians such as Go Bon Juan and Zeus Salazar, textbooks containing this assumption are still widely in use.

Bay, Laguna, as Ma-i

The idea that Ma-i was located somewhere in the Tagalog region was proposed early on by scholars such as Blumentritt and José Rizal. Eventually, though, it became popular during the middle and late 20th century to believe that it had become Mait, a place now located in Mindoro.
In 2004, Chinese Filipino scholar Go Bon Juan questioned this common belief, citing the lack of physical evidence for a large, prosperous settlement on the island of Mindoro. He suggested that Chinese orthography equally allows for the possibility that Ma-i became Bay, Laguna, whose name is pronounced "" by locals. He notes that Bay is also a match for the physical characteristics of Ma-i, and that numerous artifacts found in the area suggest the presence of a prosperous pre-colonial settlement. Grace P. Odal-Devora notes that this region was the place of the taga-ilaya, whereas the taga-laud who settled downstream on the banks of the Pasig River.
Go suggests that Ma-i, as Ba-e, became less important as the riverine settlements of Namayan, Tondo, and Maynila rose to power, but also noted that it still nonetheless served as the capital for the province of Laguna de Bay, which would later be split into the provinces of Laguna and Morong.
The possible readings of in Hokkien and Mandarin:
The Chinese and Bruneian records both describe trade relations with Ma-i.
Ma-i is first mentioned in Volume 186 of the official history of the Song dynasty, which lists Ma-i among the southern sea nations with whom Chinese merchants traded in the year 971 AD. The document describes the government's efforts to regulate and tax this "luxurious" trade. Historian William Henry Scott describes this entry as "the first positive reference to political states in or near the Philippines."
Ma-i could be possibly mentioned earlier since the Arabic author Al Ya'akubi, writing in 800, recorded that the kingdom of Musa was in alliance with the kingdom of Mayd, against the Chinese Empire, which they waged war against.
In 1980, historian Robert Nicholl argued that the nation of "Maidh", referred to in the 10th-century records of the Sultanate of Brunei, refers to Ma-i, although Scott does not recognize this as a positive identification.
Later references to Ma-i, all describing trade, include:
  • another mention in the History of Song,
  • the 1225 AD Song dynasty document Zhu Fan Zhi,
  • the 1317 AD Yuan dynasty document Wenxian Tongkao, and
  • the 1349 AD Yuan dynasty document Daoyi Zhilüe.

    Historiography

The majority of these sources only mention Ma-i briefly, either affirming that Ma-i was one of the nations conducting trade in the "south seas" area or repeating hearsay about the supposed location of Ma-i. Scott notes that of the documents describing Ma-i, only the Zu Fan Zhi and the Daoyi Zhilüe provide substantial details. Filipino Chinese historian Bon Juan Go, in turn, notes that only the Wenxian Tongkao and Volumes 186 and 489 of the History of Song provide definitive dates.
Because all of these are Chinese imperial documents, historiographers have to consider the Sinocentric nature of the sources whenever conducting their analysis.
As noted by Zandro Vasquez Villanueva in 2009:

Economic activities and trade practices

Since all the documents describing Ma-i were primarily concerned with trade, its economic activities and trade practices are the most documented aspects of Ma-i culture.

Exported products

Both the Song dynasty records and Yuan dynasty records describe the local products as "kapok cotton, yellow bees-wax, tortoise shell, medicinal betel nuts and cloth of various patterns." The 1225 Zhu Fan Zhi lists "yuta cloth" while the 1349 Daoyi Zhilüe lists "cloth of various patterns."

Barter items accepted as exchange

The Zhu Fan Zhi notes that in exchange, the locals accepted products such as "porcelain, trade gold, iron pots, lead, colored glass beads, and iron needles." The Daoyi Zhilüe later lists "caldrons, pieces of iron, red cloth or taffetas of various color stripes, ivory, and 'tint or the like'" as accepted items of exchange.

Administration of trade

The Zhu Fan Zhi notes that Ma-I's official plaza is its official venue for barter and trade and that officials have to be presented with white parasols as gifts:
The Zhu Fan Zhi further describes the process of the transactions as follows:
Similarly, the Daoyi Zhilüe says that:

Possible use of trade gold

The discovery of small gold ingots, presumed to have been used as currency and "stamped with what looks like the pre-Spanish Baybayin character 'ma'", has led some historians such as Ambeth Ocampo to theorize that the writing may be a reference to Ma-i, although numerous other interpretations have also been suggested.

Culture

Religion

While documents did not definitively describe the religious beliefs of the people of Ma-i, the Zhu Fan Zhi did note the presence of unspecified religious artifacts in Ma-i, supposedly as of 1225 AD:
Contemporary historiographers do not draw conclusions about the religion of Ma-i's residents based on this text. In his book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History, Scott notes that a literal translation of the Zhu Fan Zhi text describes "metal buddhas." However, he and Chinese Scholar I-hsiung Ju translated this in 1968 as "metal images" to correct for the linguistic bias of the text.
In his seminal 1984 book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History, Scott particularly questioned whether the presence of these images reflected actual beliefs by the people of Ma-i:
Earlier writers, including José Rizal and Ferdinand Blumentritt, accepted the "buddhist connection" more readily. For example, in supporting Blumentritt's proposition that Ma-i was somewhere on Luzon Island, Rizal cites the use of the word "Buddhas" by the Zhu Fan Zhi as evidence:
Precluded from finding any Buddhist artifacts in Ma-i, Henry Otley Beyer, an American archaeologist, was able to excavate from Palawan a clay medallion of a Buddhist Bodhisattva. The presence of this Buddhist religious item, along with the incorporation of Tantric philosophical and religious ideals in Tagalog vocabulary, may be proofs that indeed Ma-i was practicing Buddhism before the advent of Islam.