Namayan

Territory

Namayan's territory has been described bordering Manila Bay, the Pasig River, and Laguna de Bay. A more precise description of Namayan's administrative area is given by Fr. de Huerta, who, noting that Namayan was a confederation of several barangays, identified these component communities as they were named during the mid 19th century.

Most are now districts or barangays within the modern City of Manila:

• Namayan (Lakantagkan's seat of power; modern-day Namayan, Mandaluyong)
• Sapa (now the district of Santa Ana)
• Meycatmon (which literally means "a place with Catmon (Dillenia indica) trees")
• Calatondongan
• Dongos
• Dibag
• Pinacauasan
• Yamagtogon
• Meysapan (now within Ususan, Taguig)
• Malate
• Dilao (Paco)
• Pandacan
• Quiapo
• Sampaloc
• San Miguel

Four settlements are now separate cities in and around Metro Manila:

• San Juan del Monte (now San Juan)
• San Felipe Neri (now Mandaluyong)
• San Pedro de Macati (now Makati)
• Taytay, Rizal

Administrative and political records of Spanish Manila indicate that these settlements mentioned as territories of Namayan were recorded in 1578 as parts and visitas (satellite settlements) of Sta. Ana de Sapa.

A number of these settlements' names are no longer used today, but Philippine National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, in his book "Manila My Manila: A History for the Young", says that Namayan's territories included what are now Santa Ana, Quiapo, San Miguel, Sampaloc, Santa Mesa, Paco, Pandacan in Manila; Mandaluyong, San Juan, Makati, Pasay, Pateros, Taguig, Taytay, and Parañaque.

Economic activities

Huerta describes the original settlement in Santa Ana as a fishing village that had other industries including carpentry, masonry, piña (pineapple cloth) embroidery, tinapá, cigars, bricks, sugar and bread.

This contrasts sharply with the economic activities of the contemporaneous polities of Tondo and Maynila, which monopolized the influx of goods coming from China, and monopolized the re-sale of the same Chinese goods to other ports in the archipelago, respectively.

Gold as currency

The Namayans used Piloncitos, small gold ingots some of the size of a corn kernel—and weighing from 0.09 to 2.65 grams. Large Piloncitos weighing 2.65 grams approximate the weight of one mass. Piloncitos have been excavated from Mandaluyong, Bataan and the banks of the Pasig River.

Other than Piloncitos, the Namayans also used gold rings or gold ring-like ingots. Barter rings were circulated in the Philippines up to the 16th century.

Rulers

Fray Huerta also recorded the genealogy of Namayan's ruling family, tracing it to a Lacantagcan or Lakantagkan, (also spelled Lakan Tagkan or Lakan Takhan, separating Lakan and Tagkan), and his wife Bouan. Under the heading "Santa Ana", he records:

In origin of the natives of this town comes from a ruler ("regulo") called Lacantagcan, and his wife named Bouan, lords ("señores") of the Namayan territories [...] The first Christian name found in the genealogical tree of this great ("gran") family is a certain Martin in this form. Martin, son of Calamayin: Calamayin, son of Laboy, Laboy, son of Palaba, and Palaba, firstborn son of the ruler ("regulo") Lacantagcan and his wife Bouan.

Historian William Henry Scott notes that "Rajah Kalamayin" was the name of the ruler of Namayan at the point of colonial contact in the early 1570s, and Huerta here records that his son was baptized "Martin" upon conversion to Roman Catholicism. Huerta only traces the genealogical tree of Lacantagcan back through Martin, and thus only mentions the eldest of Lacantagcan and Bouan's sons, Palaba. The other four sons of Lacantagcan are not named, and no daughters are mentioned.

Huerta does go on, however, to mention that Lacantagcan had another male son, named Pasay, whose mother was a Bornean slave:

The said Lacantagcan, in addition to five children of his legitimate wife Bouan, had a bastard ("bastardo") with a slave of Bornean lineage ("esclava de casta bornea"), called Pasay, who was the origin of the town known by the same name, for having fixed there his residence as landowner, supported by his father.

While Huerta thus definitively establishes that the rulers of Namayan and the settlement called Pasay were related, the precise nature of their relationship during the 1500s is unclear: Scott records that during that period, Pasay's rulers interacted with the Spanish themselves instead of "Rajah Kalamayin" speaking on their behalf.

Some local oral traditions cite Lakantagkan's child Pasay as a daughter, bestowing her with the title "Dayang-dayang" ("princess"), such as the one cited by Dery (2001), about a princess named Pasay, who married Rajah Sulayman of Maynila. However, the descriptor "bastardo" (bastard), used by Huerta, is masculine in form.

Historian Grace Odal-Devora notes that Kapampangan oral histories also mention a "Sultana Kalangitan", described as "the Lady of the Pasig" who ruled the "Kingdom of Namayan." She is said to have been the grandmother of "Prinsipe Balagtas" (or Bagtas), and the legend says that the Kapampangan people are descended from him. Odal notes that this demonstrates the interconnections of the Tagalog ruling elites.

Documented rulers of Namayan

The rulers of Namayan from the period of colonial contact (the 1570s) back to three prior generations, were documented by Franciscan Historian Fray Felix Huerta in the work Estado geográfico, topográfico, estadístico, histórico- religioso de la santa y apostólica Provincia de San Gregorio Magno ("Geographical, topographical, statistical, historical and religious state of the holy and apostolic province of St. Gregory the Great"), a record of the histories of Franciscan missions which is now a primary resource for local histories of Philippine municipalities.

Legendary rulers of Namayan

Aside from the records of Huerta, a number of names of rulers are associated with Namayan by folk traditions, as recounted in documents such as the will of Fernando Malang Balagtas (1589) and documented by academics such as Grace Odal-Devora and Luis Camara Dery, as well as writers such as Nick Joaquin.

After colonization

When the parish of Sta. Ana de Sapa was founded in 1578, Franciscan missionaries chose to build their church, and eventually another settlement, some distance away from the ancient town. The result is that the present-day Santa Ana is no longer located at the original site. This has raised some questions about pre-colonial graves that have recently been excavated near the Santa Ana church.