CALBAYOG CITY—History books do not tell much, but long before the Spaniards came to invade through the introduction of Christianity, some parts of the country already had a thriving civilization-trading with other countries, had their own system of writing and reading and even a concept of beauty.
The proof is not an oral history passed from one generation to the next, but an extensive collection of artifacts dug or found in various caves, rivers, in many other unexpected places all over Samar.
While Samar island is not mentioned much in history books, except, perhaps, for the landing of Magellan in Homonhon or maybe a bit about the Sumuroy Rebellion, artifacts discovered in the last few decades, as well as chronicles of Spanish historians indicate a relatively well-off place.
“It tells us that ancient Visayans were already literate because they already had these shell bracelets, ornaments and an idea of what is beautiful with the discovery of skulls that have flattened heads,” said Carl Bordeos, curator at the Samar Archeological Museum.
“These artifacts tell us these are ancient places where people lived long before the Spaniards came,” he added.
Museum turns 50
MANY locals are not aware that it exists, but right at the heart of this city inside a Catholic school is an important archeological museum that recently celebrated its 50 years of existence.
The Samar Archeological Museum, the only archeological museum in Eastern Visayas found at Christ the King College, celebrated its golden anniversary on August 29 with a tribute to the priest who started it all—Franciscan priest Fr. Cantius J. Kobak, OFM.
“Father Kobak is undoubtedly the greatest historian of Samar and the Visayan region,” Bordeos said. “His contributions to our current understanding of our ancestors is unparalleled. His works allowed us to understand the life and culture of early Samareños and the Visayans.”
His greatest scholarly achievement is the tracking down from different museums and archives in Europe and America the manuscripts of Jesuit missionary priest Francisco Ignacio Alcina’s Historia de las islas e indios de Bisayas 1668, which he also transcribed and translated from Spanish to English. Father Alcina was a missionary in Samar, Leyte and the Visayan islands from 1637 to 1668.
Father Kobak established the Christ the King College Archeological and Ethnographic Museum in 1967, now renamed the Samar Archeological Museum, and cofounded with Society of Divine Word priest Fr. Anthony Buchcik the Leyte-Samar Museum and the Leyte-Samar Studies journal of the now closed Divine Word University in Tacloban.
Mission life of a historian
FATHER Kobak was born Zdislaw Kobak in Torun, Poland, on June 29, 1930. His father went to America at the time of the Great Depression in 1931. He went to Saint John Cantius School for his elementary education and later transferred to Franciscan-operated Saint Bonaventure High School and Minor Seminary in Wisconsin.
Upon graduation, he entered the Order of Friars Minor and became a novice on August 14, 1949, taking the name Cantius. He continued his theological studies at Christ the King Seminary in Illinois and was ordained priest on June 1, 1957.
Bordeos said two years after his ordination, Father Kobak requested for an assignment in Samar in response to the plea of then bishop of Calbayog for missionary priests and to save the Catholic school Colegio de San Vicente de Paul (now Christ the King College or CKC) from bankruptcy. He arrived in Calbayog City on August 28, 1959, and was assigned to teach at CKC.
The scant published materials about the history and culture of Samar island prompted him to do an extensive research and even archeological expeditions to different areas of the island.
“He collected and compiled the histories of Samar and Leyte towns, Visayan songs, poetry, dramas, riddles and Bisaya-Spanish dictionaries,” Bordeos said.
In 1967 public-school teachers brought him stoneware jars found in Gandara, Samar that triggered his interest to visit ancient burial sites around the island. Taking cue from the works of Father Alcina on how and where the ancient Visayan people buried their deceased, Father Kobak planned some expeditions during semestral breaks.
The priest gathered a group of college students and began his first archeological expedition in Oras, Eastern Samar, where the caves yielded pottery shards and bones. In later expeditions in different areas of the island, he found Chinese porcelain, broken stoneware and porcelain shards, human bones and teeth and other artifacts.
His expeditions in Northern Samar resulted in some important relics, like a log coffin of a datu, and his son found in San Antonio, religious icons from Capul island and a dragon jar from Laoang. The dragon jar, called by early Visayans as inalasan nga tadyaw, is said to be a secondary burial jar for a royal child and was carbon dated to have originated sometime in 960 AD. Bordeos said there are only three known dragon jars in Asia, including the one in the museum.
Local researcher Charo Cabardo, who wrote a coffeetable book on the history and culture of the Calbayog diocese, said the jars, plates, bowls, potteries and skulls that Father Kobak found were from 13th to 15th century in Samar.
“Today we can never fully express our deep gratitude to Father Kobak for his persistence in looking for our cultural and historical artifacts, despite the complaints of his brother Franciscans for his supposedly spending too much money and time for his trips,” Cabardo said. “Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was systematic looting by treasure hunters of our cultural artifacts that found their way into collectors and rich culturati.”
Saving the works of Alcina
APART from gathering important relics from the past, the greatest achievement of Father Kobak was his painstaking efforts to gather, translate and publish the works of Jesuit priest Father Alcina.
Father Alcina was a 22-year-old Jesuit missionary when he was assigned to Samar in 1634. In his 34 years of spreading Christianity and administering the Jesuit Order in the islands, Father Alcina also documented the history, stories, ancient customs, traditions and beliefs, the oral literature, songs, epics and even the flora and fauna found in the island.
“He wrote down our heritage in nine books, entitled Historia de las islas e indios de Bisayas 1668,” Cabardo said. “This is the most valuable source of our history and heritage, not only for Samar Island, but for the Philippines.”
In 1672 Father Alcina sent his manuscripts to Spain for publication and two years later, he died. Nothing has been heard of the manuscripts until 1784 when some pages were discovered by Dr. Juan Bautista Muñoz being used to wrap powders and ointments in a pharmacy in Spain. Dr. Muñoz saved what remained of Father Alcina’s manuscript.
The manuscripts were kept at the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid and never saw print until the 1950s, when the Philippine Studies program of the University of Chicago published a Spanish transcript and an English translation of the first part of the compilation.
In 1965 Father Kobak acquired copies of Father Alcina’s manuscripts from the Central Jesuit Archives in Rome. After two years, he was able to secure copies of microfilms from the Academia de la Historia and Biblioteca de la Palacio in Madrid, Spain.
Father Kobak spent over 30 years in research, writing, editing and annotating Father Alcina’s monumental work with the help of Dominican scholars Father Pablo Fernandez and Father Lucio Gutierrez.
Father Alcina’s grand contribution to Philippine History and Culture finally saw the light in 2000, with the publication of the Part One with Spanish and English translation, after 332 years of waiting.
“Father Alcina’s Historia 1668 provide the most complete and extensive ethnographic account of any regional group in the Philippines in the 17th century,” Bordeos said.
Father Kobak also made a research and wrote on the Sumuroy Rebellion in 1649-1650 that started in Palapag, Northern Samar, and spread across the southern part of the country.
He collaborated with University of the Philippines Professor Rolando Borrinaga in translating Manuel Artigas y Cuerva’s Reseñe dela Provincia de Leyte to English. Their book The Colonial Odyssey of Leyte (1521-1914) won the 2006 National Book Awards for Translation from the Manila Critics Circle.
Father Kobak died of cancer of the lymph glands on August 15, 2004, at the age of 74.