The document discusses the provenance of three pre-Hispanic source manuscripts - the Maragtas, Povedano, and Pavon Manuscripts. It finds that the provenance of all three manuscripts is virtually unknown, with inconsistencies in dates, authors, and contents that call their validity into question. Key points made are that the manuscripts have issues of anachronism, were not evaluated by relevant experts to verify authenticity, and their origins could not be reliably established. The document concludes that based on historical method, the manuscripts appear to be hoax documents and not authentic sources for Philippine pre-Hispanic history.

1. From:
William Henry Scott. A Critical Study of thePreHispanic
Source Materials for the Study
of Philippine History.

2. 1: origin, source
2: the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art or
literature
3: the origin or source of something
Origin or etymology of the word:
French, from provenir to come forth, originate, from
Latin provenire, from pro- forth + venire to come — more
First Known Use: 1785(1)
1. "Provenance", Merriam-Webster, accessed May 10, 2017

3. Garraghan divides criticism into six inquiries (2):
1. When was the source, written or unwritten, produced
(date)?
2. Where was it produced (localization)?
3. By whom was it produced (authorship)?
4. From what pre-existing material was it produced
(analysis)?
5. In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
6. What is the evidential value of its contents
(credibility)?
2. A Guide to Historical Method

4. MARAGTAS PAVON
MANUSCRIPT
POVEDANO
MANUSCRIPT
• Unknown
• Manuscript was an
orgininal work based
on various data
Monteclaro has
collected
• Collection of many
different passages
• Unknown
• As for Marco, he got
the manuscripts from
an old convent cook
who stole the
manuscripts in 1899.
• Two leather bound
volumes were
published in 1838 and
1839.
• Translation was
published in 1572 but
the real document was
undated
Las Isla de Negros y
Which regards to the provenance of the manuscripts which
concern to its pre-Hispanic origins—it is virtually unknown.

5. MARAGTAS PAVON
MANUSCRIPT
POVEDANO
MANUSCRIPT
• Panay
History of Panay from the
First Inhabitants and the
Bornean Immigrants from
which the Bisayans
Descended to the Arrival
of the Spaniards (1907)
• Book was published
during the American
Period
• Negros
Las Antiguas Leyendas de
las Isla de Negros (The
Old Legends of the Islands
of Negros)* and
Los Cuentos de los Indios
de esta Isla (The Stories of
the Natives of the
Islands)*
• Books were published
during the 19th Century
• Negros
La Isla de Negros y las
Custombres de los
Visayas y Negritos (The
Island of Negros and the
Customs of Visayas and
Negritos)
* Translation mine

6. MARAGTAS PAVON
MANUSCRIPT
POVEDANO
MANUSCRIPT
• Pedro Alcantara
Monteclaro
• Rev. Jose Maria Pavon • Diego Lope Povedano
Which regards to the two documents (Pavon and
Povedano) it were only distributed to the National
Library of the Philippines by Jose E. Marco

7. MARAGTAS PAVON
MANUSCRIPT
POVEDANO
MANUSCRIPT
• None
• Compilation of
ethnographic,
linguistic and historic
detail.
“… is of great importance
as a collection of many
different passages which
hereto before have been
scattered.”- Introduction
to The Maragtas as cited
by William Henry Scott
• Unclear and unknown
but however, the
author Jose Maria
Pavon was first
mentioned in the Guia
de Forasteros (Guide to
Strangers) for 1839 as
Catedratico de Sintasis
y Retorica ( Professor
of Syntax and
Rhetoric) in conciliary
seminary in Cebu.
• Nevertheless, he was
the parish priest of
Himamaylan in Negros
• Straight ethnography
(17 pages of legends
about the origin of the
world and local place
names, 14 marriage
customs, religions and
calendars, and a ten-
page description of the
Visayan language)

8. MARAGTAS PAVON
MANUSCRIPT
POVEDANO
MANUSCRIPT
• First chapter:
compilation of
customs, clothes,
dialect, organizations
of the Aetas in Panay
• Second chapter: The
coming of the Ten
Bornean Datus
• Third Chapter:
Romance of Sumakwel
• Fourth chapter:
Concludes the tale of
the Ten Datus
• 25 chapters of legends
and myths, 11
superstitions, and 26 of
straight forward
ethnography: list of
weapons, musical
instruments, a native
calendar, 10 translated
documents between 1137
and 1661.
• 25 different informants
on 22 different dates
between 1830 and 1840.
• Among the documents
translated were 6
prehispanic dates
• Povedano Map of
Negros 1572
• The Povedano
Manuscript
• (17 pages of
legends about the
origin of the
world and local
place names, 14
marriage customs,
religions and
calendars, and a
ten-page
description of the
Visayan language)
The Pavon Manuscripts in preHispanic sources: 1137
account of old forts; the 1239 narrative of King
Maranhig; the 1372 list of extinct animals; 1433 Code
of Calantiao; and 1489 Formulary for making
talismans and charms

9. MARAGTAS POVEDANO and PAVON MANUSCRIPT
The Maragtas is an
original work of Pedro A.
Monteclaro in 1907 which
was based in written and
oral sources—containing
folk customs, description
of ideal political
confederation (which
proves no evidence), and
the migration of Bornean
settlers.
Good memories of an
actual event but
impossible to date the
events.
Both the Povedano and Pavon Manuscripts have an
issue to its ortography (in which the words and
language are spelled), ex.: the use of k instead of c and
q employed in other Spanish accounts (I will explain
later) which is unlikely to the Bisayan alphabet.
The Bisayan alphabet in Marco’s manuscripts is crude.
Like Povedano, the Pavon has no c, o, or, r and used
the letter k instead of c.
There are even more confusing issues regarding to the
two manuscript—its anachronisms

10. Jose Marco’s next significance in Philippine Historiography came after the 2nd
World War through a young History student—Ms. Rebecca P. Ignacio.
Other versions of the Povedano Manuscripts were produced:
 1578 which was different to the 1572 Povedano which stated that Povedano
was an officer along side Christopher Columbus at the Siege of Granada in
1491 making Povedano over a 100 years old at the time of appointment as an
encomendero. It is still ethno-graphic.
 123 leaves of 21 x 32 cm.
 Povedano Manuscripts of 1577 and 1579
 The former is measured as 299 leaves of 21 x 32 cm and the latter is measured 83 leaves
28 X 41 cm

11. The contribution of Marco’s contribution to Philippine Historiography is
absurd. To W.H. Scott, he stated some points in regards to its absurdity in the
validity and reliability of the pre-Hispanic Manuscript
 The provenance of Datu Kalantiaw was not established;
 The 1572 map of Povedano does not look like 16th century Spanish
document;
 Some of Marco’s works were fraudulent;
 Diego Lope Povedano and Jose Maria Pavon and their contributions to the
manuscripts were not validated as well.
 The Kalantiaw Code of 16 laws was promulgated in 1433 (which is no
reference to Panay) were written by the Datu of the same name and
built a fort in Gagalangin, Negros which was destroyed by an
earthquake in 1435 but the Pavon text turned over to Dr. Robertson in
1914 calls the owner of the calendar was an 81 year old man by the name
of Kalantiaw and gave Panagbiloan as his birthplace which was
identified as a mountain in Cebu and no written account of the fortress
being built and destroyed

12.  It was initially mentioned the Kalantiaw has 16 laws as 18 but Marco
calls them 17.
 The use of the letters k instead of c as claimed by Marco to which
the Bisayan language does not contain the letter k. Nonetheless,
according to Scott, Marco weren’t able to produce reliable evidences
toward his claim.
 The use of the letter k in the Bisayan language was validated by
Scott in his later work Barangay and quote Fr. Francisco Ignacio
Alcina’s Arte de la Lengua Visaya (3), to quote:
Their letters, then, are these: a. e. b. c. d. g. h. l. m. n. p. r. s. t. nga. All these
characters or letters without any dot are pronounced with a– eg. ba, da, ga,
etc…
3. Barangay, p.96

13. Based on the claim of Scott that the: Maragtas, Povedano, and
Pavon Manuscripts, all of which were hoax documents in
Philippine history would be attributed to the main central idea of
authenticity of historical documents.
The inconsistencies common among the documents were which as
to determine its validy based from the methods of Gottschalk(4):
 Anachronistic reference of events (too early or too remote)
 Because of different copies of the Povedano (1572, 1577, and 1578),
then it becomes a product of garbled documents which led to
deliberate intention to modify (which was done by Marco)
 In the restoration of the documents, changes in hand writing,
anachronism in style, grammar, ortography, or factual detail reveals
additions

14.  There was no attempt to integrate “Sciences auxiliary to History,”
to which both Monteclaro and Marco blatantly committed as a
primal error—both of them did not refer the validity of the
sources to experts– orthographer for the letters, a critical
assessment of an expert ethnographer.
 Further, both Monteclaro and Marco were not trained in the
practice of historical method or perhaps related methods in the
field of Social Science—they were only collectors of historical
artifacts and sources.
 Lastly, the provenance of the documents were not established as
it is evident to its anachronism. Further, there is no
approximation of date of the documents and credible
identification of its authors.

15. Provenance", Merriam-Webster, accessed May 10, 2017,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/provenance
Gilbert J. Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method. Princeton: Princeton
University Press
Louis Gottscalk. Chapter VI: The Problem of Authenticity or External
Criticism. Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method.
(New York: A. A. Knopf, 1969), pp. 122-128.
William Henry Scott. A Critical Study of the PreHispanic Source Materials
for the Study of Philippine History. (Manila: University of Santo
Tomas Press, 1968), pp. 135.
William Henry Scott. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and
Society. (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1994), p. 96

16. THANK YOU!