Female cranium dated AD 377 found in Huluga and on display at Museo de Oro, Xavier University.

AGAYAN DE ORO AND ITS SURROUNDING were occupied by people around 377 AD. Signs of ancient habitation were discovered in 1970 by field researchers of the National Museum. The researchers were exploring Huluga, a place eight kilometers south of the present Cagayan de Oro City.

Huluga is a promontory** with two main sections: a set of caves and an Open Site . The Open Site appears to be the village of the original people of Cagayan de Oro.

Inside the cave were skeletons, pots, potsherds, tools, possibly Indian glass beads, Chinese pot fragments, and vestiges of possibly Annamese and Thai wares -- indications of overseas trading. The Open Site yielded potsherds, Chinese celadon sherds, and obsidian flakes.

Researchers sent a skull fragment to Dr. Jeffrey Bada of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, where it was subjected to acid racemization, a dating technique. Bada then wrote a letter to anthropologist Dr. Linda Burton of Xavier University, indicating that the sample came from 377 AD,*** the Late Neolithic Period.

Spanish Arrival

In 1622, two Augustinian Recollect missionaries first came to Huluga, then called Himologan. Here they met a mixed stock of Bukidnons and Visayas who lived in a settlement perched on a cliff, overlooking a river. The men had massive tattoos, like those of the Visayan pintados, and the women wore intricate jewelry, some made of gold.

The priests were Fray Juan de San Nicolas and Fray Francisco de la Madre de Dios. According to their journals, the natives were polytheistic animists, not Muslims. But they paid tributes to Sultan Kudarat through his emissaries.

Stone tools found in Huluga and on display at Museo de Oro, Xavier University. Photo by Elson T. Elizaga, Nazca Graphic Design & Photography.

Etymology

Spanish documents in 1500s already referred to the area around Himologan as Cagayan. On January 25, 1571, the Spanish government granted this area, including what is now Northern Mindanao, as an encomienda to Juan Griego. There is also a Cagayan in Luzon and another in Sulu. What is the origin of this name?

According to Father Miguel Bernad, S.J. of Xavier University, "cagayan" comes from the Malayo-Polynesian word ag, which means "water". Ag is present in words like agus, agusan, and kagay. Agus means "flowing water", and agusan "place of flowing water". Kagay means "river" and kagayan is "place with a river".

But according to Dr. Lawrence A Reid, Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai`i, "cagayan" comes from an ancient Philippine word *kaRayan, which means "river". In an email sent to the Ancient Baybayin Scripts Network of Yahoogroups, Reid explained:

"The evidence for the Proto-Philippine word reconstructable for river, *kaRayan, comes from the Ilokano karayan, Central Agta kahayan, Itawis kayan, etc.. Note that in all the languages that have a reflex of this form, it simply means 'river'. It is not a morphologically complex form. There is no language that reflects a form kagay. Nor is there any evidence that either the final -an was a suffix, or for that matter that the initial ka- was a prefix …. " [ See details of Reid's email.]

Conversion to Christianity

In 1626, a 26-year old Augustinian Recollect friar arrived in Cagayan. His name was Fray Agustin de San Pedro, a Portuguese. Before his priesthood, he studied mathematics, architecture, gunnery, and military strategy at the University of Salamanca.

Fray Agustin persuaded the leader of Himologan, Datu Salangsang, to transfer his settlement down river, to the area of today's Gaston Park and San Agustin Cathedral. Here, Fray Agustin built a church of native materials. Inside, he baptized Datu Salangsang and his wife, and later his people.

Fortification of Cagayan

In response to the conversion, Sultan Kudarat sent a fleet of warriors to drive away the Spanish missionaries and to regain the lost tributes.

Kudarat's attacks prompted Fray Agustin to build a wooden fortress and watchtower in Cagayan to protect Salangsang's people. He called the fortress Fuerza Real de San Jose, and it occupied an area now filled with Gaston Park and San Agustin Cathedral. Fray Agustin's defense of Cagayan earned him the title "El Padre Capitan".

The fortress was rebuilt with stones in 1730. But Lt. Col. Jose Carvallo, the Spanish politico-military governor of Misamis, demolished it in 1875 and used the stones to pave the streets of the town.

Church Construction

The Recoletos made Cagayan their mission center in 1674. But only on August 28, 1780 did they declare San Agustin the patron saint of Cagayan.

In 1845, Fray Simon Loscos de Santa Catalina reconstructed the church, using marine stones from China. It had protruding buttresses and a single belfry. Inside were a magnificent altar and sanctuary with carved wooden niches and paintings.

This church was destroyed during the Japanese bombing of Cagayan in 1945, exactly a hundred years later.

On display at Museo de Oro, Xavier University. Photo by Elson T. Elizaga, Nazca Graphic Design & Photography

Cagayan de Misamis

In 1818, the Manila Spanish divided Mindanao into politico-military districts, one of which was the Segundo Distrito de Misamis, the largest district in Mindanao. This area was composed of today's Misamis Oriental, Misamis Occidental, Camiguin, Bukidnon, Lanao, Zamboanga del Norte, and the northern part of Cotabato.

The capital was the town of Misamis, today called Ozamis City, where a fort and garrison bigger than those in Cagayan were constructed.

On February 27, 1872, the Spanish Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre issued a decree declaring Cagayan the permanent capital of Segundo Distrito de Misamis. All Spanish politico-military governors of Misamis, who were all lieutenant colonels, lived at the Casa Real de Cagayan, built in 1831, the site of today's city hall of Cagayan de Oro. During this era, the name of the town was "Cagayan de Misamis".

In 1888, the Recoletos erected a wooden cross -- "Santa Cruz" -- outside the San Agustin Church. It still stands today. [To page 2]

*Antonio J. Montalvan II is a Mindanao anthropologist and ethnohistorian. He is a Ford Foundation scholar for the doctorate in anthropology on Mindanao Studies with the Mindanao Anthropology Consortium. Montalvan has written articles about Mindanao history and culture in academic journals, and contributes a monthly column to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Montalvan is also the author of "A Cagayan de Oro Ethnohistory Reader", launched on March 8, 2004.

** A promontory is "a high ridge of land or rock putting out into a body of water; a headland" -- The American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition.

*** The letter from the Dr. Jeffrey Bada stated that the Huluga bone sample was 1600 years old before the present -- the present being 1977, the time the letter was written. The number 377 is arrived at by deducting 1600 from 1977.