Binisaya’ng Talamdagan
Kaniadto, sa wala pa niabot ang mga Katsila sa pulo sa Sugbo, duna na’y talamdagan nga gigamit ang mga Bisaya sa paghibalo sa dagan sa takna ug panahon.
They divide the year into twelve months though they do not name more than seven, and these are lunar months because they count them by the moons. The first month is when the Little Goats [Pleiades] appear, which they call Ulalen. The next month they call Dagankahuy, which is when they clear off the trees to plant. The next they call Daganenan Bulan, which is when they pile up this wood in the fields. The next they call Elkilin, which is when they burn the field. The next they call Inabuyan, which is the time of the bonanzas [fair winds when the monsoon is changing]. The next they call Kaway, which is when they weed the fields. The next is called Irarapun, which is when they being to harvest the rice. The next they call Manululsul, which is when the harvest is finished. The other months they take no account of because they have nothing to do in the fields then.
It is a word with which they also counted the years, but without computing or numbering the months, which from harvest to harvest they would count as eleven or twelve distinct and past, and which they called tuig, and although they now confuse it with the year, it was not a single year but an indefinite time because that word means to them the same as ‘time’ does to us.
“There were three Visayan words for year–taon, tuig, and dag-on. Taon actually meant harvest–”Taon na didto dile [It’s already harvest in their place]“–and was used for calculating age: old folks were those who had seen many harvest (Sanchez 1617, 504v). Tuig was both harvest (for example, tinutuigan, what is ready for the harvest) and any recurring period of time, not necessarily annual. Tinuig na siya was said of a menstruating woman, and panuigan sang olan sang habagat was the coming of the rains either from the south or sang amihan, from the the north. Dag-on was used in the same way: panog-on sa manga kakahuyan was when everything was in bloom. Indeed, it was the flowering of trees and plants which indicated the rotation of the seasons, Katparasan (January-March), Kattaloto (March-May), Katlawaan (June-August), and Katkisiw (October-December) were the months during which tress of these names blossomed. The seasonal behavior of birds was another indicator: when the kahaw bird gave its ‘kahaw’ call in the morning, it was time to plant.
The Visayans divided the daylight hours into a dozen or more specific times according to the position of the sun. Between dawn and noon, they called it nasirakna, shining, and nabahadna, climbing, and then iguritlogna, time for hens to lay, and makalululu, when your bracelets slid down your raised arm if you pointed at the sun. High noon was odto na an adlaw; followed by two points of descent in the afternoon, palisna and ligasna; until midway to setting, tungana. Natupongna sa lubi was when the sun sank to the height of the palm trees seen against the horizon; and sunset was apuna; or natorna, when the sun finally disappeared. Day ended with igsirinto, when it was too dark to recognize other people.
Beyond the day, however they distinguished no time period shorter than one month. This means they did not recognize either the Eurasian seven-day or Javanese five-day week, neither of which, as a matter of fact, was based on any celestial cycle. But they reckoned the days of the month precisely–that is, the days from one new moon to the next. Just as they divided the hours of the day by the movement of the sun, so they identified the days of the month by the appearance of the moon in the night sky.
The new moon was subang the first night it could be seen, or more colorfully, kilat-kilat, a little lightning flash. When it appeared as a full crescent the next night or two, it seemed to have opened its eyes (gimata) or closed its mouth (ungut)–like a baby on a mother’s breast. Then came a “three-day moon” or high new moon, hitaas na an subang, followed by balirig, the fourth or fifth night, and next it was “near the zenith” (odto). When it appeared as an exact half disk–what western calendars call the first quarter moon–it was directly overhead at sunset, and therefore odto na an bulan. Then as it continued to was, it “passed the barrier” (lakad), and when it was lopsided both before and after the full moon, it looked like a crab shell (maalimangona).
The full moon was greeted with a variety of names–paghipono, takdul, ugsar–but most significantly as dayaw, perfect or praiseworthy, fit recognition of its spectacular shape and sunset to sunrise brilliance. And as it began to wane–that is, darken (madulumdulum)–a night or two later, it set on the western horizon just before dawn and so was called banolor, to exchange or take by mistake–like a man who dies just before a son or grandson is born. The fifth or sixth night of waning was parik, to level or flatten, because it then rose so late the witches had many hours of darkness in which to beat down the earth by stomping of their feet during their dances. Katin was the third quarter, so it had crossed this second barrier (lakad na an magsag-uli) by the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth night, and then got ready for the new moon again (malasumbang) about the twenty-ninth. This was the dark of the moon, or what the Spaniards called conjuncion (meaning the conjunction of the sun and the moon) when the moon disappeared for a night or two. To the Visayans, it was then dead, lost, or gone hunting.
These phases of the moon were common time markers known to all. They would say, for example, “Duldulman an bulan [The moon begins to wane today]” or “Paodtononta an bulan [Let’s wait for the quarter moon]” (Sanchez 1617, 37, 188). And nasubang nga tao was a newcomer or upstart. But the Visayan month was a lunar month–a 29 and a half days and 43 minutes to be exact–so twelve of them did not add up to a year, but only added up to 354 days like seen in lunar calendars used today such as the Islamic Calendar. They were therefore not the equivalent of months in the Western calendar, which are arbitrary divisions unrelated to the moon, approximately one-twelfth of a solar year of 365 days. Thus, unschooled Visayans–plebe imperita, as Father Alcina said–calculated months in the Christian calendar as beginning with a new moon, and observers familiar with the twelve-month year, both 16th century Spaniards and 20th century Filipino’s, tend to equate the two: the use of a moon-based calendar with lack of education. But Miguel de Loarca (1582, 164, 166) wrote more carefully in 1582. — asoy sa balayan’g Pinoy-Culture
Moderno’ng Talamdagan
Gikan sa karaan’g talamdagan ug kini gipalaktud. Ato’ng lantawon ang moderno’ng talamdagan, kini pinamubo gikan sa karaan’g talamdagan nga gigamit sa mga Bisaya kaniadto. Kini’ng moderno’ng talamdagan gipamubo aron masunod ang talamdagan nga gigamit na karon sa tibuok kalibutan.
Ang moderno’ng talamdagan sa Bisaya. Ubos sa Binadlit (karaan’g kasulatan sa mga Bisaya) imoha’ng makit.an ang gangkap nga Binisaya’ng talamdagan.
Tingbukad — Monday
Dumason — Tuesday
Ducutducut — Wednesday
Bailobailo — Thursday
Danghus — Friday
Hingot-hingot — Saturday
Ligidligid — Sunday
Ug kini ang kasayoran sa mga adlaw sa Bisaya, sulod sa usa ka pitlaw (week). Sa wala’ng bahin sa mga adlaw, imoha’ng makit.an ang listahan sa ngalan sa mga bulan sa Binisaya.
Ato’ng tan.awon ang paghubad sa Binisaya’ng talamdagan ngadto sa Katsila, kini gisulat sa mga Katsila nga miduaw sa Sugbo kaniadto.
Pakli sa buwan;
Ulalong — January
Dagangkahoy — February
Dagangbulan — March
Kiling — April
Himbabuyan — May
Kabay — June
Hidapdapon — July
Lubadlubad — August
Kanggurulsol — September
Bagyubagyo — October
Panglot.diyotay — November
Panglot.daku — December
Kibag.anon — 13th month
Ang Kibag.anon wala naapil og butang kay ang talamdagan sa mga Katsila, wala sila’y 13th month. Imoha sa’ng mabantayan nga lahi sad ilaha’ng paghubad sa adlaw. Tungod kay sa talamdagan sa Katsila, Domingo ang una’ng adlaw sa ilang pitlaw, apan sa atoa, ang Tigburukad o Tigbukad (Monday) ang una’ng adlaw sa pitlaw.
Hinaot unta nga mahatagan kini og pagtagad sa atong local nga kagamhanan (LGU) aron magamit kini, ang inato ug lintunganay’ng Binisaya sa kalendaryo (talamdagan sa Binisaya), kay kini gigamit pa man sa mga katigulangan’g Bisaya, ilabi na sa taga Negros, ug bukiran’g bahin sa Mindanao. Angay jud nga kita magkat.on aron dili mamatay ang paggamit sa atoa’ng kaugalingon’g talamdagan.
Sources:
Museo sa Sugbo
University of San Carlos Historical Research library
University of San Jose Recoletos Historical Studies
University of Mindanao library
University of Bohol
Additional sources:
Lumpunid:
Akademiya’ng Bisaya
The Remnants of the Great Ilonggo Nation
Glimpses in History of Early Cebu
A Symposium on the Maragtas
The Philippines since pre-Spanish times
Philippine Social Life and Progress
The Journal of History
Tagsulat:
Diosdado G. Capino
Edgar S. Godin
Gregorio F. Zaide
Prof. Lina Quimat
Jes Belarmino Tirol
Eufronio Melo Alip
Balayan:
https://bismag.pbworks.com
https://www.binisaya.com
The Visayan’s Timekeeping in Pre-colonial Times
