Kapampangan people


The Kapampangan people, Pampangueños or Pampangos, are the sixth largest ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines, numbering about 2,784,526 in 2010. They live mainly in the provinces of Pampanga, Bataan and Tarlac, as well as Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Zambales.

Distribution

The province of Pampanga is the traditional homeland of the Kapampangans. Once occupying a vast stretch of land that extended from Tondo to the rest of Central Luzon, huge chunks of territories were carved out of Pampanga so as to create the provinces of Bulacan, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, Aurora and Tarlac; Pampanga also included Novaliches and Valenzuela, which was formerly known as Polo, then towns in Bulacan and now included in Metro Manila. As a result, Kapampangans now populate a region that extends beyond the political boundaries of the small province of Pampanga. In the province of Tarlac, the indigenous population of Tarlac City and the municipalities of Bamban, Capas and Concepcion are Kapampangans, while the municipalities of Victoria, La Paz, have a significant Kapampangan population.
In Bataan, Kapampangans populate the municipalities of Dinalupihan and Hermosa, and the barangays of Mabatang in Abucay and Calaguiman in Samal. Kapampangans can be found scattered all across the southern barrios of Cabiao and the municipalities of San Antonio, San Isidro, Gapan and Cabanatuan in the province of Nueva Ecija and in the western section of the province of Bulacan. Kapampangan enclaves still exist in Tondo and other parts of the National Capital Region. Kapampangans have also migrated to Mindoro, Palawan and Mindanao and have formed strong Kapampangan organizations called aguman in Cagayan de Oro, Davao City and General Santos. Kapampangans also settled Ilocos Region and Cagayan Valley, with largest concentrations in Pangasinan, Cagayan, and Isabela.
Agumans based in the United States and Canada are active in the revival of the Kapampangan language and culture. California-based organizations promoted Kapampangan language and culture and raised funds for charitable and cultural projects in California and in Pampanga.

Languages

Kapampangans speak Kapampangan language, which belongs to Central Luzon languages of Malayo-Polynesian languages. They even speak other languages within the environment of other ethnic groups in areas they settled and grew up in, like Sambal, Pangasinan, Ilocano, and Tagalog.
Kapampangan settlers in Mindanao can also speak Cebuano, Hiligaynon as well as Tagalog and various indigenous Mindanaoan languages in addition to their native language but their descendants only speak Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Tagalog and various indigenous Mindanaoan languages with varying fluency in Kapampangan or none at all.

History

The oldest artifact ever found in the Province of Pampanga is a 5000-year-old stone adze found in Candaba. It is said to be a tool used in building boats. Earthenware and tradeware dating back to 1500 BC have also been found in Candaba and Porac. Farming and fishing were the main industries of the Kapampangan people.
Kapampangans, along with Sambal people and the Sinauna, originated in southern Luzon, where they made contact with the migrating Tagalog settlers, of which contact between the Kapampangans and Tagalogs was most intensive. After this, the original settlers moved northward: Kapampangans moved to modern Tondo, Navotas, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, Pampanga, south Tarlac, and east Bataan and Sambals to the modern province of Zambales, in turn, displacing the Aetas. Tagalogs from southern Luzon, most specifically Cavite, migrated to parts of Bataan. Aetas were displaced to the mountain areas by the end of the 16th century. Kapampangans settled Aurora alongside Aetas and Bugkalots.
The growth of the Malacca as the largest Southeast Asian entrepôt in the Maritime Silk Road led to a gradual spread of its cultural influence eastward throughout insular Southeast Asia. Malay became the regional lingua franca of trade and many polities enculturated Islamic Malay customs and governance to varying degrees, including Kapampangans, Tagalogs and other coastal Philippine peoples. According to Bruneian folklore, at around 1500 Sultan Bolkiah launched a successful northward expedition to break Tondo’s monopoly as a regional entrepot of the Chinese trade and established Maynila across the Pasig delta, ruled by his heirs as a satellite. Subsequently, Bruneian influence spread elsewhere around Manila Bay, present-day Batangas, and coastal Mindoro through closer trade and political relations, with a growing overseas Kapampangan-Tagalog population based in Brunei and beyond in Malacca in various professions as traders, sailors, shipbuilders, mercenaries, governors, and slaves.
Kapampangans have played a dynamic yet conflicting role in Philippine history. The Kapampangans of Macabebe, who were formerly Muslim, were the first to defend the Luzon Empire from Spanish domination in 1571. Yet it was the Kapampangans that the Spaniards relied on to defend their new colony from the Dutch. It was at this time that "one Castillan plus three Kapampangans" were considered as "four Castillans" as long they gallantly served in the colonial armed forces. Such behaviour earned them the stereotype of being quislings in exchange for personal wealth and self-aggrandisement all throughout the archipelago. After their successful battle against the Dutch in 1640, only Kapampangans were allowed to study side by side with the Spaniards in exclusive Spanish academies and universities in Manila, by order of Governor-General Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera. When the province of Bataan was established on January 11, 1757 out of territories belonging to Pampanga and the corregimiento of Mariveles, Tagalogs migrated to east Bataan, where Kapampangans assimilated to the Tagalogs. Kapampangans were displaced to the towns near Pampanga by that time, along with the Aetas.
When the British occupation of Manila happened in 1762, many Tagalog refugees from Manila escaped to Bulacan and to neighboring Nueva Ecija, where the original Kapampangan settlers welcomed them; Bulacan & Nueva Ecija were natively Kapampangan when Spaniards arrived; majority of Kapampangans sold their lands to the newly-arrived Tagalog settlers and others intermarried with and assimilated to the Tagalog, which made Bulacan & Nueva Ecija dominantly Tagalog. The same situation happened in modern Aurora, where it was repopulated by settlers from Tagalog and Ilocos regions, with other settlers from Cordillera and Isabela, and married with some Aeta and Bugkalots, this led to the assimilation of Kapampangans to the Tagalog settlers. Kapampangans were the native residents of the northwest areas of Nueva Ecija; Pangasinan settlers moved there during early years of Spanish territorial period until the Kapampangans assimilated to the Pangasinan settlers. In 1896, Kapampangans were one of the principal ethnic groups to push and fuel the Philippine revolution against Spain. Yet it was also the Kapampangans of Macabebe that fiercely defended the last Spanish garrison against the revolutionaries.
With the outbreak of World War II, Japanese planes invaded the main province of Pampanga and attacked the United States Air Base at Clark Field in Angeles, Pampanga on December 8, 1941. Later Japanese soldiers entered the province of Pampanga in 1942 and the Japanese Occupation formally began. Many Kapampangans joined a group of stronghold soldiers that survived the invasion and officially trained under the 31st Infantry Division, Philippine Commonwealth Army. USAFFE was stationed in Pampanga on July 26, 1941, before the surrender by the Japanese to April 9, 1942. After the Battle of Bataan in 1942, some Kapampangan soldiers of the USAFFE 31st Infantry Division fought four years of battles against Japanese troops. After the fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942, many Kapampangan soldiers of the USAFFE 31st Division surrendered to the Japanese and then participated in the Bataan Death March from Mariveles, Bataan, to Capas, Tarlac.
Many Kapampangans joined the guerrilla resistance fighters of the Hukbalahap Communist resistance. Many Kapampangan guerrillas and Hukbalahap communist groups fought for more than three years of insurgency during the Japanese Occupation and also fought side by side with allied forces in the main province of Pampanga, helping local troops of the Philippine Commonwealth Army and incoming Philippine Constabulary 3rd Constabulary Regiments stationed at the general headquarters in Pampanga in operations in Central Luzon from 1942 to 1945 against the Imperial Japanese troops.

Culture

Festivals

Many Kapampangan festivals display an indigenous flavor unique only to the Kapampangan people. Consider the Curaldal or "street dancing" that accompanies the Feast of Santa Lucia in Sasmuan or the Aguman Sanduk were men cross-dress as women to welcome the New Year in Minalin or the Batalla Festival to re-enact the battle between the native Muslim Moor and the new colonist Native Capampangan Christians, the historical battle between the two religious native Kapampangans. They start the battle in Ugtung-aldo or afternoon and they end it in Sisilim or sunset with the tune of what Macabebeanons and Masantuleñios called BATTALA Masantol, Macabebe and Lubao.
The Pistang Danum of the barrios of Pansinao, Mandasig, Lanang and Pasig in Candaba, where food is served on floating banana rafts on the waters of the Pampanga River was originally a non-Christian holiday that is now made to coincide with the baptism of Christ. The Kapampangan New Year or Bayung Banwa that welcomes the coming of the monsoons and the start of the planting season is made to coincide with the feast of John the Baptist. The colourful Apung Iru fluvial procession of Apalit, once a thanksgiving celebration in honour of the river, has become the feast of Saint Peter.
The most dramatic festivals can be witnessed during the Mal ay Aldo, which is the Kapampangan expression of the Holy Week. These include the erection of a temporary shrine known as the puni where the pasion or the story of Christ's suffering is chanted in archaic Kapampangan. The melody of the Kapampangan pasion was said to have been taken from their traditional epic, whose original words were lost and replaced by the story of Christ. The highlight of the Mal ay Aldo celebration is the procession of the magdarame or sasalibatbat penitents covered in blood from self-flagellation. Some of them even have themselves crucified every Good Friday at the dried up swamp of barrio Cutud in San Fernando.