Mait (also spelled Maidh, Ma'I, Mai, Ma-yi, or Mayi; Baybayin: ᜋᜁ; Hanunoo: ᜫᜡ; Hokkien Chinese: 麻逸; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: mâ-i̍t; Mandarin Chinese: 麻逸; pinyin: máyì; Wade–Giles: ma2-i4), was a medieval sovereign state located in what is now the Philippines.
Its existence was first documented in 971 in the Song dynasty documents known as the History of Song, and it was also mentioned in the 10th-century records of the Bruneian Empire. Based on these and other mentions until the early 14th century, contemporary scholars believe Ma-i was located either in Bay, Laguna, or on the island of Mindoro.
Research by Fay Cooper Cole for the Field Museum in Chicago in 1912 showed that the ancient name of Mindoro was Mait. Mindoro's indigenous groups are called Mangyans, and to this day, the Mangyans call the lowlands of Bulalacao, Oriental Mindoro Mait. For most of the 20th century, historians generally accepted the idea that Mindoro was the political center of the ancient Philippine polity. However, a 2005 study by Filipino-Chinese historian Go Bon Juan suggested that the historical descriptions better match Bay, Laguna (pronounced Ba-i), which is written similarly to Ma-i in "Chinese orthography" according to Go Bon Juan's understanding. Although in Hokkien Chinese, the literary reading for the first character, 麻, is "mâ", while the vernacular reading could also be pronounced and read as "bâ" or "môa" but the second character, 逸, has the literary reading of "i̍t", while a vernacular reading of "ia̍k" (Quanzhou) or "e̍k" (Amoy & Zhangzhou) or "ia̍t" (Amoy).
Location
Description
In 1225, the Zhu Fan Zhi noted that "the country of Ma-i is to the north of Borneo" and added that few pirates reach these shores. It also noted that "the people of Ma-i live in large villages (literally "settlements of more than a thousand households") on the opposite banks of a stream".
In the 1349 document Daoyi Zhilüe, it is noted that the settlement of Ma-i consisted of houses arranged on the two banks of a stream. It also noted that "its mountain range is flat and broad", "the fields are fertile," and "the climate is rather hot".
Documentary sources
The Chinese and Bruneian records both describe trade relations with Ma-i.
Ma-i is first mentioned in Volume 186 of the official history of the Song dynasty, which lists Ma-i among the southern sea nations with whom Chinese merchants traded in the year 971 AD (the fourth year of Kai Bao of Song). The document describes the government's efforts to regulate and tax this "luxurious" trade. Historian William Henry Scott describes this entry as "the first positive reference to political states in or near the Philippines."
Ma-i is also speculated to be the older kingdom of Mayd, documented by 9th century Arab geographer and historian Al-Ya'qubi to be allied with kingdom of Muja (Brunei) against the China, which they waged war against.
In 1980, historian Robert Nicholl argued that the nation of "Maidh", referred to in the 10th-century records of the Sultanate of Brunei, refers to Ma-i, although Scott does not recognize this as a positive identification.
Later references to Ma-i, all describing trade, include:
- another mention (in Volume 489) in the History of Song,
- the 1225 AD Song dynasty document Zhu Fan Zhi (Chinese: 諸番志; lit. 'Account of the Various Barbarians'),
- the 1317 AD Yuan dynasty document Wenxian Tongkao (Chinese: 文獻通考; pinyin: Wénxiàn Tōngkǎo; Wade–Giles: Wenhsien T'ungk'ao; lit. 'Comprehensive Examination of Literature'), and
- the 1349 AD Yuan dynasty document Daoyi Zhilüe (simplified Chinese: 岛夷志略; traditional Chinese: 島夷誌略; pinyin: Dǎo Yí Zhì Lüè; lit. 'A Brief Account of Island Barbarians').
Historiography
The majority of these sources only mention Ma-i briefly, either affirming that Ma-i was one of the nations conducting trade in the "south seas" area or repeating hearsay about the supposed location of Ma-i. Scott notes that of the documents describing Ma-i, only the Zu Fan Zhi and the Daoyi Zhilüe provide substantial details. Filipino Chinese historian Bon Juan Go, in turn, notes that only the Wenxian Tongkao and Volumes 186 and 489 of the History of Song provide definitive dates.
Because all of these are Chinese imperial documents, historiographers have to consider the Sinocentric nature of the sources whenever conducting their analysis.
As noted by Zandro Vasquez Villanueva in 2009:
These tenth to fifteenth century tributary records provide significant information on the Chinese perceptions of how Philippine local polities were governed, the political landscape of the time, and the trade goods offered and desired by Philippine polities. Chinese travellers' accounts from the early second millennium AD are considered rich sources of information on the political economy of the early polities. However, they are heavily biased because of the traditional worldview of the Chinese Empire as the center of the universe, where all non-Chinese people are considered to be "barbarians" (Junker 1998). The context of these Chinese sources about the nature of Philippine polities must be analyzed carefully.
Economic activities and trade practices
Since all the documents describing Ma-i were primarily concerned with trade, its economic activities and trade practices are the most documented aspects of Ma-i culture.
Exported products
Both the Song dynasty records (specifically the Zhu Fan Zhi) and Yuan dynasty records (specifically the Daoyi Zhilüe) describe the local products as "kapok cotton, yellow bees-wax, tortoise shell, medicinal betel nuts and cloth of various patterns." The 1225 Zhu Fan Zhi lists "yuta cloth" while the 1349 Daoyi Zhilüe lists "cloth of various patterns."
Barter items accepted as exchange
The Zhu Fan Zhi notes that in exchange, the locals accepted products such as "porcelain, trade gold, iron pots, lead, colored glass beads, and iron needles." The Daoyi Zhilüe later lists "caldrons, pieces of iron, red cloth or taffetas of various color stripes, ivory, and 'tint or the like'" as accepted items of exchange.
Administration of trade
The Zhu Fan Zhi notes that Ma-I's official plaza is its official venue for barter and trade and that officials have to be presented with white parasols as gifts:
"When trading ships enter the harbor, they stop in front of the official plaza, for the official plaza is that country's place for barter and trade and once the ship is registered, they mix freely. Since the local officials make a habit of using white umbrellas, the merchants must present them as gifts."
The Zhu Fan Zhi further describes the process of the transactions as follows:
The method of transacting business is for the savage traders to come all in a crowd and immediately transfer the merchandise into baskets and go off with it. If at first they can't tell who they are, gradually they come to know those who remove the goods so in the end nothing is actually lost. The savage traders then take the goods around to the other islands for barter and generally don't start coming back until September or October to repay the ship's merchants with what they have got. Indeed, there are some who don't come back even then, so ships trading with Mai are the last to reach home.
Similarly, the Daoyi Zhilüe says that:
"After agreeing on prices, the barbarian traders carry off the goods for bartering the native products and bring these products back to the Chinese in the amount agreed on. The Chinese vessels' traders (Filipinos) are trustworthy. They never fail to keep the agreement of their bargains."
Possible use of trade gold
The discovery of small gold ingots (referred to by modern numismatists as Piloncitos), presumed to have been used as currency and "stamped with what looks like the pre-Spanish Baybayin character 'ma'", has led some historians such as Ambeth Ocampo to theorize that the writing may be a reference to Ma-i, although numerous other interpretations have also been suggested.
Culture
Religion
While documents did not definitively describe the religious beliefs of the people of Ma-i, the Zhu Fan Zhi did note the presence of unspecified religious artifacts in Ma-i, supposedly as of 1225 AD:
"There are metal images of unknown origin scattered about in the tangled wilds."
Contemporary historiographers do not draw conclusions about the religion of Ma-i's residents based on this text. In his book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History, Scott notes that a literal translation of the Zhu Fan Zhi text describes "metal buddhas." However, he and Chinese Scholar I-hsiung Ju translated this in 1968 as "metal images" to correct for the linguistic bias of the text.
In his seminal 1984 book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History, Scott particularly questioned whether the presence of these images reflected actual beliefs by the people of Ma-i:
"The people in Ma-I sound like newcomers [to this port] since they don't know where those metal statues in the jungle come from."
Earlier writers, including José Rizal and Ferdinand Blumentritt, accepted the "buddhist connection" more readily. For example, in supporting Blumentritt's proposition that Ma-i was somewhere on Luzon Island, Rizal cites the use of the word "Buddhas" by the Zhu Fan Zhi as evidence:
"The gentleness of Tagalog customs that the first Spaniards found, very different from those of other provinces of the same race and in Luzon itself, can very well be the effect of Buddhism." (There are copper Buddha's images)."
Precluded from finding any Buddhist artifacts in Ma-i, Henry Otley Beyer, an American archaeologist, was able to excavate from Palawan (an island southwest of Mindoro that is presumably Ma-i) a clay medallion of a Buddhist Bodhisattva. The presence of this Buddhist religious item, along with the incorporation of Tantric philosophical and religious ideals in Tagalog vocabulary, may be proofs that indeed Ma-i was practicing Buddhism before the advent of Islam.
Food
The Chinese records made no specific note of the solid food the people of Ma-i ate, but the Daoyi Zhilüe did describe their process for making alcoholic beverages:
"The people boil seawater to make salt and ferment treacle (molasses) to make liquor."
Clothing
The Zhu Fan Zhi describes the people of Ma-i as covering themselves "with a cloth like a sheet or hide their bodies with a loin cloth." And the Daoyi Zhilüe, written a century later, describes the clothing and coiffure of the people of Ma-i, saying "In their customs they esteem the quality of chastity and uprightness. Both men and women do up their hair in a mallet-like tress. They wear a blue cotton shirt."
Funerary practices
In 1349, the Daoyi Zhilüe also made observations of funerary practices, describing them thus:
When any woman is burying her husband, she shaves her hair and fasts for seven days, lying beside her dead husband. Most of them nearly die. If after seven days they are not dead, their relatives urge them to eat. Should they get quite well they cherish their chastity by not marrying again during their whole lives. There are some even, who, when the body of their dead husband is burning, get into the funeral pyre and die.
At the burial of a great chief, two or three thousand (sic. could be twenty or thirty) male or female slaves are put to death for burying with him.
Diplomatic relations
Relationship with China and Brunei
Scott 1989 notes that Ma-i's relationship with Song and Yuan Dynasty was defined by trade, not by diplomacy:
Ma-i never sent a tribute mission to China and probably never needed to: it flourished during the Sung Dynasty when the imperial government was encouraging Chinese merchants to carry their goods abroad in their own ships."
The nature of Ma-i's relationship with Brunei is less clear because of scant documentation, but there is no indication of any relationship other than possible trade. However, in the 1300s the Chinese annals, Nanhai zhi, reported that Brunei had invaded or administered the Philippine kingdoms of Butuan, Sulu and Ma-i as well, which would regain their independence at a later date.
Possible sites
Early theories for the location of Ma-i include locations in Central Luzon or the Southern Tagalog regions. An early theory put forward in 1914 by Austin Craig and asserted by local historians, suggested Malolos in Bulacan as a potential site for Ma-i.
For many years, scholars believed that Ma-i was likely to have been on the island of Mindoro within the municipality of Bulalacao, as there is an old settlement there named Mait. However, this has been questioned on the basis of physical evidence and an analysis of Chinese orthography. Recent scholarship casts doubt on this theory, arguing that historical descriptions better match Bay, Laguna (whose name is pronounced either Ba-e[h] or Ba-i), which once occupied a large territory on the eastern coasts of Laguna de Bay.
Both sites have names that sound similar to Ma-i. The pre-colonial name of Mindoro was "Ma-it", whereas historical variants of the name of Bay, Laguna include "Bae", "Bai", and "Vahi".
Mindoro as Ma-i
Mindoro being equated to Ma-i or Mait was first mentioned in Spanish records, when Chapter 36 of Juan Francisco de San Antonio's Chronicas de N.S.P. Francisco en las Islas Filipinas, China y Japón 1738 is called De la Provincia y Isla de Mait o Mindoro ("The Province of the Island of Mait or Mindoro"), showing that the term Mait and Mindoro were once interchangeable.