Kulaman Burial Jars at Silliman University

I’ve been to the Silliman University Anthropological Museum a few times now, and my main purpose in going there is, of course, to see the limestone burial jars from Kulaman Plateau, my hometown. The first time I saw the jars, I was not as awed as I was when I saw the jars in the University of San Carlos Museum in Cebu. It must be for two reasons. First, the ones in San Carlos were the very first Kulaman jars I saw in person, and second, the pieces in the Silliman collection are fewer and less ornate. Nonetheless, the Silliman collection has its own charm. It contains items that cannot be found in other museums.

I counted 15 items in the Silliman collection—5 large jars with lids, 4 small jars with lids, 1 small jar without a lid, and 5 lids. Since picture taking is not allowed inside the museum, I decided to sketch the jars. I was able to do the large ones only since the museum was about to close when I did it, and I was not so enthusiastic about my output. I do not and cannot draw.

The large-sized Kulaman jars in Silliman University Anthropological Museum. These jars, more or less one meter high, are normally used to contain the bones of adult dead persons. I'm sorry for the awful illustration; picture taking is not allowed inside the museum.

If I may digress a little, I used to draw when I was a kid. I could draw fairly well. I won a municipal-level poster-making contest or two when I was in elementary, and I reached the regional schools press conference in high school as an editorial cartoonist. I stopped, however, when I was fifteen, when I was old enough to gauge that my outputs were just decent at best and it would be better if I channeled my creativity into other mediums, though that time I had not yet fully realized that the medium should be writing.

Back to sketching the burial jars, I’m glad I did it because I noticed that one jar has curved engravings. Usually, the bodies of Kulaman jars are adorned with straight vertical or diagonal lines, sometimes forming large diamonds. The patterns on this one jar look like fat intertwined 9’s and 6’s.

In my quest for the burial jars, I discover more things than I expect and do things I won’t in other circumstances. Of course, those things are not really bucket list–worthy, but I’m having fun. I wonder what I’ll do next.