EXISTENCE OF PRINCESS URDUJA IN PANGASINAN: STILL A FOLKLORE OR ALREADY A TRUTH?
Despite the researchers’ persuasive arguments that Princess Urduja never existed as a real-life historical character, the legend of the warrior maiden who once ruled Pangasinan is still widely believed to be true. Many people polarize the belief whether it is a reality, a myth, or a window to the reality of myth; a paradox thing. The journey to the Orient, however, would turn out to be the most shocking part of Battuta’s odyssey.
The people of Pangasinan have always been extremely proud and grateful to have contributed to the historical legacy of a spectacular kingdom that was widely regarded as the richest of all kingdoms in the pre-Hispanic Philippines, with Princess Urduja, who was also one of the most stunning and valiant princesses of all time. To be clear, Pangasinenses are more in awe of her beauty than they are of her irrevocably tainted aggressiveness and fighting ability. Children’s literature, comics, and even movies frequently depict her with exotic beauty.
According to legend, Tawalisi in the province of Pangasinan was ruled by Urduja, the fabled warrior princess. At the beginning of 1953, a former governor of Pangasinan, Juan de Guzman Rodriguez, named the official residence of the province governor Princess Urduja Palace as a result of her cultural impact. Important people are welcomed here as well as where the governor holds his numerous meetings. The question is, was there really truth behind this folklore?
CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ‘MYTH’ AND THE CHRONICLE
The stories claim that about 700 years ago when Pangasinan was a kingdom, a great woman ruler presided over that domain. Princess Urduja was known to be a good fighter who had personally led her warriors to the battles. She was young, lovely, and intelligent. Her troop was made up of female warriors, horseback riders, and bodybuilders who were known as Kinalakian, Kalakian, or Amazons. They also had tremendous power and masculine physiques.
As it is recounted in the tale, Ibn Battuta, an Arab traveler, stopped in her realm on his way to China. She arranged for a banquet and invited the ship’s crew as usual. Because they were “infidels,” the Arab refused to go because he could not eat their meal. After being insulted, the princess called him in. He was taken aback by what his ears and eyes had heard and seen. But in real life, was there a traveler named Ibn Battuta?
Ibn Battuta, who was born into a family of highly regarded religious rulers and received his theological education, is the only medieval traveler known to have visited the countries of every Muslim monarch of his time. His account of the expedition, dictated shortly after his return, not only includes vivid stories of an odyssey that carried him to strange locations, but also details great naval activities in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. Hence, there was a traveler named Ibn Battuta.
Moreover, he transcribed a description of his travels toward the end of his life, which was published in 1355 under the title The Travels of Ibn Battuta. His travelogue paints a picture of medieval society that is still frequently referenced today. The following is his entry regarding his trip to the Kingdom of Tawalisi:
Thereafter we reached the land of Tawalisi, it being their king who is called by that name. It is a vast country and its king is a rival of the king of China. He possesses a great number of junks; and with these, he will fight the Chinese, until they offer conditions of peace. The people are all idolaters; handsome and resembling the Turks. They are much inclined to a copper color. They have great bravery and strength. Their women ride on horseback, they excel in throwing the javelin and will fight like men in battle. We put in at one of their ports, at the town of Kaylukari, which is among the finest and largest cities. It was formerly the residence of the son of their king. When we anchored in the port, their troops came down and the captain went ashore to them, taking with him a present for the prince. When he enquired of them about him, however, they told him that the prince’s father had appointed him governor of another district and had made his daughter, whose name was Urduja, governor of the city.
She sent for the persons who were on the ship and entertained them; and when she was informed of me being there, she also sent for me. I went to her and saw her upon the throne of government. On my saluting, she replied to me in Turkish and asked me from what I had come. I said to her “From the land of India.” “From the pepper country?” she asked, and I replied “Yes!” She questioned me about this land and events there, and when I had answered she said, “I must positively make an expedition to it and take possession of it for myself, for the number of its riches and its troops attract me.” She ordered me to be given robes, two elephants, loads of rice, two buffaloes, ten sheep, four pounds of syrup, and four martabans (that is, large jars) filled with ginger, pepper, lemons, and mangoes, all of them salted, these being among the things prepared for sea voyages.
The captain told that this princess has in her army women, female servants, and slave girls, who fight like men. She goes out in person with troops, male and female, makes a raid on her enemies, takes part in the fight, and engages in single combat with picked warriors. He told me too that during a fierce engagement with certain of her enemies, many of her troops were killed and they were all but defeated, she dashed forward and broke through the ranks until she reached the king against whom she was fighting, and dealt him a mortal blow on her lance. He fell dead and his army took to flight. She brought back his head at the point of a spear, and his relatives redeemed it from her for a large sum of money. When she returned to her father he gave her this town, which had formerly been in her brother’s marriage to various princesses, but she says, “I shall marry none but him who fights and overcomes me in single combat,” and they avoid fighting with her for fear of the disgrace that would attach to them if she overcame them.
We then left the land of Tawalisi and after seventeen days at sea with a favoring wind, sailing with maximum speed and ease, reached the land of China.
In the story published by the San Nicolas Municipal Library, Princess Urduja talked to the Arab and said, “I greeted you with the usual salutations of courtesy in the Turkish tongue and had one of my attendants fetch ink and paper so I could write for you in Arabic characters that you recognized as the name of the merciful and compassionate God. Are such tokens of culture common among barbarians?” Then, she ordered to be given to him, robes, two elephant loads of rice, two buffaloes, ten ships, four pounds of syrup, and four marbatans filled with ginger, pepper, lemons, and mangoes, all of them salted, these being among the things prepared for sea voyages.
As people would notice, these gifts can be found in the land of Pangasinan. The historic alliance of lowland and highland communities in Pangasinan and the nearby province of Benguet was ruled by a woman by the name of Udayan, according to oral legend among the closely related Ibaloi people. Additionally, Ibn Battuta mentioned Urduja’s knowledge of a Turkic language, which suggests communication with outsiders. The Turkic language may have been Mongolian because Tawalisi was allegedly in communication with Yuan China under Mongol authority.
According to Ibn Battuta’s travelogue, he may have also seen elephants in the Urduja-ruled territory. Elephants are still present in Borneo and may have formerly been given as gifts or traded in Pangasinan. Thus, there is a connection and resemblance between the story being spread through children’s books and the published chronicle of Ibn Battuta.
THE CALCULATION, ARTIFACTS, AND PAPERS
The only piece of documentary support for the existence of this woman comes from Ibn Battuta’s account. To prove the story’s veracity and to demonstrate the analysis of the narrative is necessary. Jose Rizal, a national hero of the Philippines and a renowned scholar, hypothesized that Tawalisi was located in the northern part of the Philippines in the late 19th century based on his calculations of the time and distance Ibn Battuta traveled to sail to China from Tawalisi. In addition, the territory of Tawalisi and Princess Urduja was traced to Pangasinan by American historian Austin Craig of the University of the Philippines in 1916’s “The Particulars of the Philippines Pre-Spanish Past.” The Turkic language may have been Mongolian because Tawalisi was allegedly in communication with Yuan China under Mongol authority. This theory was unquestioned and quickly accepted in “Stories About Great Filipinos” (1925) by Francisco and Conrado Benitez as well as subsequently in Zoilo M. Galang’s “Encyclopedia of the Philippines” (1953).
The elusive Kingdom of Tawalisi has supposedly been founded based on these commentaries; it currently refers to the northwest province of Luzon, which is the former Caboloan and is now Pangasinan. Furthermore, as was already indicated, Craig’s confirmation of Rizal’s estimations demonstrated the veracity of Tawalisi and Princess Urduja, allowing for their inclusion in the anthology. Dr. Zafra claims that because the Story of Princess Urduja, which is based on Ibn Battuta’s story was included, many people were persuaded that the assertion was true.
Local academics zealously defended the feisty Princess during one of the Princess Urduja conferences held in Pangasinan, and they tried to persuade the detractors of her historical status with evidence culled from a wealth of resources and papers. Professor Antonio del Castillo energetically presented sixteen known pieces of evidence that were intended to demonstrate the historical authenticity of the Princess’s account. His book, Princess Urduja, Before and After Her Time, is where these examples are taken from (1986). According to del Castillo, the language reference to objects assumed to be present in the precise location is one of the pieces of evidence.
Furthermore, Catalino Catanaoan, an anthropologist who dabbles in journalism and another local expert, vouch for the historical authenticity of Urduja and her kingdom. He emphasized that there were items discovered in Bolinao, Pangasinan in 1969 that did bear a striking resemblance to Battuta’s depiction of the kingdom. The dates of these objects fall somewhere between the 11th and 12th centuries, roughly matching the time frame mentioned in the story. Before the arrival of colonial power, Bolinao, which is now an archaeological site, is thought to have been a hub of culture and trade connecting Luzon to China. According to Catanaoan, Bolinao is the long-lost ancient Kingdom of Tawalisi.
However, all the assertions made by del Castillo and Catanaoan in that conference were refuted by Pangasinan historian Dr. Rosario Cortes, a professor at the University of the Philippines’ Department of History and the first to conduct extensive research and write a history of the province. Cortes and Professor Rose Maria Icagasi declared the tale of Princess Urduja to be more “fakelore” than history, reiterating the points stated by Dr. Nicolas Zafra. The majority of the papers given at the same conference examined the actual location of the Kingdom of Tawalisi. Some of the old debates have come up again. Ibn Battuta’s account was therefore carefully examined. But very few were able to examine the roots of such a tale and cast doubt on its truth. Until now, Filipinos have a penchant for appreciating Princess Urduja’s Kingdom as Philippine history.
THE TRUTH IN MYTHS
The Princess Urduja story has a structured narrative, making itself a complicated labyrinth of literary codes to decipher that a conscious reader would have to interpret. Its discussion transcends time categories and has the power to validate, defend, or change a specific social structure. Princess Urduja offers a solution to the issues that patriarchal ideology causes. It responds by offering an alternate amazonian realm where female warriors are highly valued and admired for their skill and strength in combat. This is done through cultural negation or symbolic inversion. By rejecting or inverting phal logocentrism, it affirms the feminine persona (Nelmida-Flores, 1999).
When Princess Urduja said she would only marry a man who could defeat her in combat, she issued a challenge to the man. The fight for gender equality has been compared to patriarchal ideals like power, victory, and honor. As a discourse, the idea that Princess Urduja lived in the Philippines is the unfiltered expression of a common reaction to patriarchal culture’s excesses. It represents a different milieu while undermining the current patriarchal system through elucidating the tale of the Kingdom.
In case historical categories fall short of highlighting the truth of Princess Urduja and the Kingdom of Tawalisi, the reality of our colonial past and patriarchal culture cannot be ignored or hidden by other discourses. If there is only one thing that people can learn from it, every woman has both sufferings and strengths then and now. Many Filipinos, perhaps out of deep admiration for the character, yearned for a courageous woman who lived in the kingdom of the Philippines before to serve as an example today of how women can lead and thrive while gender inequality has been continuing to exist. Just as Lewis conceived a possible world, the truth can be excised from fiction. // Shayne Ashley Sudiacal
REFERENCES:
Catanaoan, C. (1990). The Bolinao Archeological Sites. [mimeo- graph]. In Proceedings from The Urduja National Conference, Lingayen, Pangasinan.
De Raedt, Jules (1989). Folklore Analysis. In Diliman Review Quezon City: College of Arts and Letters and College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman.
Del Castillo y Tuazon, Antonio (n.d.) Princess Urduja: Amazon ruler of the Amazon Dynastic Kingdom of Tawalisi or Talamasin, Pangasinan-Caboloan.
Galang (n.d.). Encyclopedia of Philippines, p. 179–181.Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, A.D. 1325–1354, vol. 4, trans. H. A. R. Gibb and C. F. Beckingham. London: Hakluyt Society.
Lee, S. (2004). The Travels of Ibn Battuta: in the Near East, Asia and Africa, 1325-1354. [Paperback]. Dover Books on Travel, Adventure.
Nelmida-Flores, M. (1999) Princess Urduja: A Symbolic Subversion. Review of Women’s Studies. Miriam College, Katipunan Road, Quezon City.
San Nicolas Municipal Library (n.d.). The Story of Princess Urduja. http://snml.weebly.com/princess-urduja.html The Researcher, Vol. II, №2, November 1969, p. 133–168.
Visperas (2015). Revisiting the Land of Urduja. The Philippine Star.
Zafra, Nicolas (1977) Jose Rizal: Historical Studies. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press
