Unfinished Businesses in the Visayas

The charming Rizal Boulevard of Dumaguete, where I stayed for seven months

Before coming back here in Sultan Kudarat Province, I spent 14 straight months in the Visayas, about half of which was in the big bustling city of Cebu and the other half in the charming little city of Dumaguete. With such a length of time in those places, you’d think I was able to do there everything that I wanted to that was related to the Kulaman burial jars. No, I wasn’t able to. Though I had gathered plenty of materials for this blog, I failed to accomplish a few very important personal missions.

First on the list is conducting research at the Silliman University Library. The library surely has copies of the Silliman Journal, in which Edward B. Kurjack and Craig T. Sheldon published papers on their excavation of limestone burial jars in the village of Salangsang, Lebak town. The excavation took place in 1967 and 1968, and the papers were published in the journal in 1970 and 1971. Here are the complete publication details:

“The archaeology of Seminoho Cave in Lebak, Cotabato.” E. Kurjack, C. Sheldon. Silliman Journal. Volume 17, Issue No. 17. 1970

“The urn burial caves of Southern Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines.” E. Kurjack, C. Sheldon, M. Keller. Silliman Journal. Volume 18, Issue No. 18. 1971

I had access to Silliman’s library, of course. I drifted to Dumaguete primarily to be a graduate teaching fellow at the university. I was a full-time graduate student and a part-time lecturer, in a manner of speaking. I did not, however, go to the library to research for the classes I was attending or teaching. I relied mostly on online resources, courtesy of the Wi-Fi of the place I was staying in. Plus I had no time to while away the hours inside the library. I was also working as a home-based technical editor for a company in Cebu, and drinking almost every week with my newfound friends, mostly young aspiring poets and fictionists.

In Cebu, I failed to visit the Southwestern University Museum, which also has limestone burial jars in its collection. Though the official website of the school does not contain a page about the museum, a Cebu travel site comprehensively features it, and it is indicated there that the “limestone jar[s]” are from “Sultan Kudarat.”

For three weeks last May, when the regular semester was over, I went back to Cebu form Dumaguete to work full-time again. I’d been making plans to visit Southwestern University—the trip by taxi and the museum tour would not take more than two hours of my time—but the plan was never pushed through. I often felt stressed, and whatever time I didn’t spend working I had to spend sleeping (and Facebooking, I admit).

Again, though, I was able to do a lot, both for this blog and other matters, so I won’t spoil the whole experience by griping about the few kinks. Besides, I believe I will be able to accomplish those self-imposed missions in the future. Cebu and Dumaguete are places I can never say goodbye to with finality. I will go there again and learn more about the Kulaman burial jars.

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.

Kulaman Burial Jars in Dumaguete

Perhaps I’m really fated to see the burial jars of Kulaman with or without much effort. I am now based in Dumaguete City, specifically at Silliman University, which happens to be one of only two universities that conducted studies on the burial jars (the other one being University of San Carlos in Cebu City). Since November last year, at the start of the second semester, I’ve been a graduate teaching fellow at Silliman. I’m on something like a scholarship. I’m taking up masteral classes for free, and in exchange, I have to teach two undergraduate subjects.

I learned that Silliman was in need of a graduate teaching fellow on the third week of November. In a hurry, and without really expecting to be accepted, I sent my resume through email. As I’ve said, it must be fated. I was asked to come here in Dumaguete that very week. I asked permission from the company I’m working for in Cebu City, and after some serious negotiations, I was allowed to keep my job and work from home. So here I am now, walking inside the campus of Silliman on weekdays, just a few hundred meters away from a group of Kulaman burial jars.

The burial jars, along with other artifacts from other parts of the country, are housed on the second floor of Kalayaan Hall, which serves as the Silliman University Anthropological Museum. The jars were taken away from Kulaman Plateau in the late 1960s. In 1965–66, Samuel Briones, a graduate student at Silliman, led the exploration. Manuel Maceda of the University of San Carlos had gone to Kulaman Plateau first, but Briones went to a different spot. While Maceda conducted his study in the hamlet of Menteng, which is part of the municipality of Senator Ninoy Aquino today, Briones went to Salangsang , a village in the municipality of Lebak.

Kalayaan Hall, perhaps the most iconic building in Silliman University,

houses the Kulaman jars on its second floor.

In 1967–68, two foreign anthropologists conducted further research in Salangsang: Edward B. Kurjack, of the University of Miami, and Craig T. Sheldon, of the University of Oregon. They were the ones who, through carbon dating, found out that the jars are about 1,500 years old. Kurjack and Sheldon were affiliated with Silliman, but I’m not sure what role the university specifically played in their research. They might be graduate students enrolled in Silliman or just conducted their thesis through the help of the university. I will find out in the next months, for Kurjack and Sheldon had some papers about the jars published in Silliman Journal. I’ll look for copies of those papers in the school library.

I was able to visit the museum on the first or second week of December. Too bad, taking pictures is not allowed there. I had a digital camera with me, and truth be told, I was tempted to steal some shots. The CCTV camera, however, was just two or three meters away from the limestone jars and its red dots menacing, so I kept my hands where they should be. Besides, I don’t mind waiting for the right time for me to take pictures. I believe time will come when circumstances will allow me to openly say to people, “Hey, I’m writing a book on the burial jars. Allow me access to this and that.” For now, though, I’m happy enough as an obscure blogger.