Lakan Genealogies: The Super-Principalia Houses of Matanda, Lakandula, and Soliman, Part I

An artist's rendition of Lakandula,
from Wikipedia's article on Lakandula

In two previous articles I wrote on Philippine royal genealogies, I discussed the impossibility of the descent of the Laurel family from the Sultanate of Brunei and the interrelatedness of the Sultanates of Sulu and Brunei. In this third article on Philippine pre-Hispanic nobility, we will look at the royal houses of Matanda, Lakandula, and Soliman, whose descendants were considered the cream of the principalia crop.

Some writers and researchers have traced the Lakans of Manila and Tondo further than the three big names: Matanda, Lakandula, and Soliman. However, all of these have no archival references making these slightly suspect in terms of its veracity. Some of the sources of these online genealogies were probably from other articles compiled over the years, and while others cite genealogical charts from this and that source these charts themselves do not have any archival basis.

In various Wikipedia entries and some other online articles and family tree sites that would all look authoritative to the uneducated eyes, it is generally accepted that Matanda and Lakandula were either first cousins or brothers and that Soliman was their nephew. It is further written that they were grandchildren of the Brunei Sultan Bolkiah, which these articles also claim was the same as the Rajah Baguinda, whose daughter married the man who began the royal dynasty of Sulu. Some also claim he was the same person as Noble Araw, one of the legendary pre-Hispanic rulers of Luzon.

In the genealogy above, it must be noted that the genealogies scattered online claim that this Noble Araw was the same person as Rajah Baguinda (or Baginda) of Sulu and Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei. Noble Araw's wife, Lady Maylag, was allegedly the same as Putri Laila Menjanai, the daughter of Sultan Amirul-Umara, who reigned from 1505 to 1527, being one of the sons of the founder of Sulu's sultanate, Sultan Sharif al-Hashim. Thus, using this line of thinking, Rajahs Matanda, Lakandula, and Sulaiman III were all descendants of not only the royal houses of Tondo and Manila but also of Brunei and Sulu.

Looking at the official genealogies of the royal houses of Brunei and Sulu would definitely weaken the foundations of the above alleged Lakan genealogy. This article is written in the hope of reconciling the many inconsistencies of the genealogies of the super-principalias of Manila, at least with regard to their ancestry, and to make this article more credible I have culled data from the following:

The Houses of Lakandula, Matanda, and Soliman (1571-1898): Genealogy and Group Identity, written by Luciano P.R. Santiago for the Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, Volume 18, No. 1, published in March 1990. His primary source came from a bundle of 12 folders from the Philippine National Archives called Descendientes de Don Carlos Lacandola, which contains genealogical data on the descendants of Lakandula as well as valuable information on the lines of Matanda and Soliman. (Personal copy of this author).

The History of Sulu, written by Najeeb M. Saleeby and published in 1908 in Manila by the Bureau of Printing. Saleeby's work contained the Sulu tarsila showing the genealogy of the sultants of Sulu. This was shown to him by a former prime minister of Sultan Jamal ul-Kiram II, the last sultan to truly rule with power. He surrendered political powers to the US government in 1915 under the 1915 Carpenter Agreement. (Accessed from the University of Michigan's online library).

Silsilah Raja-Raja Brunei, written by Amin Sweeney and Selesilah of the Rajahs of Brunei, written by Hugh Low. A detailed genealogy compiled from both sources (as well as many other sources) can be found in the Royal Ark, maintained by Christopher Buyers. (Accessed from Buyers' site).

I have shied away from other sources which did not use any archival or traditional Moslem (use of the tarsila) sources as I wanted to make sure that this discussion would truly give the truth of the ancestors of Matanda, Lakandula, and Soliman as well as show how they were truly related to the royal houses of Sulu and Brunei.

How Were Matanda, Lakandula, and Soliman Related?

There is no existing archival document that would truly establish their relationship, but historians now and then, including the Spanish chroniclers who observed the rulers of Manila and Tondo, are almost in agreement that the three were very closely related. It would appear that Matanda and Lakandula were very likely brothers or, if not, at the very least first cousins while Soliman was either the son of their brother or first cousin. For easier referencing we shall follow the genealogy compiled by Luciano P.R. Santiago and treat Lakandula and Matanda as brothers while Soliman as their nephew. (It must be noted here that the genealogy of Brunei only mentions Matanda as the son of the "Raja of Maynilad" and an unnamed daughter of Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei.)

A reconstructed Lakan Family Tree

As the family tree above shows, there were several intermarriages among the royal houses of Manila and Tondo, Sulu, and Brunei, and Matanda, Lakandula, and Soliman were descendants of Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei and Sultan Sharif al-Hashim of Sulu.

In looking at the previous family tree it is very likely that earlier researchers were confused with the interrelationships of the three royal houses and most likely combined some individuals into one. However, it is now clear that the Lady Kalangitan in the first tree was the same as the daughter of the Datu Gamban of Sulu who was the first wife of Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei. This Datu Gamban must have been the basis of the character of Rajah Gambang of Tondo.

Because of their pedigree, the three main focus of this post were all married into the royal house of Brunei. Cases in point were Rajah Matanda, who married a granddaughter of Sultan Bolkiah, his own first cousin; Don Agustin de Legazpi, a nephew of Soliman III, who married another granddaughter of Sultan Bolkiah; and Rajah Soliman III who married still another granddaughter of Sultan Bolkiah, who was the daughter of Bolkiah's successor, Sultan Abdul Kahar.Although it isn't recorded, it is very highly likely that Lakandula, too, married into the royal house of Brunei.

Although Rajah Matanda designated his nephew, Soliman III, as his successor, he had a son, called in archival documents as Ambrosio Mag-isa. Although this son never ruled any part of Manila, he had four children who continued the line of Rajah Matanda.

All the descendants today of Rajah Soliman III come from his daughter, Maria Laran, as his only son, known as Rajah Vago, was killed by the Spaniards.

And of course, the most prolific of the three, Rajah Lakandula had five children, four of which have descendants today. The fifth, Martin Lacandola, entered the Augustinian order to become a priest. Many people throughout the Philippines have, in various points in history, have claimed descent from Lakandula, including the Macapagals of Pampanga, the Salonga family, and some other distant families with surnames with the Dula word in it. So far, none of these claims have archival, verifiable documentation and thus could only be considered as hearsay.

Next article: The later generations of the Lakans of Manila.

The Catalogo and Funny Last Names, Part I

I realized that all my posts so far have been very serious, so today I deviate from my usual ramblings on the serious side of genealogy and explore a funny aspect of the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos. If we recall, the Catalogo was a list of names compiled by Spanish officials which accompanied the Renovacion del Apellido decree of Governor-General Narciso Z. Claveria in 1849. This decree imposed on the native population of the Philippines to adopt a name based on the list provided. Supposedly, the list should have contained only the Spanish surnames they compiled from Spanish directories together with terms from the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, geography, arts, etc. Also included, however, were common Spanish words as well as a sprinkling of native names and terms which undoubtedly tickled the Spanish compilers as they were alphabetizing the final list.

My mom and aunts are always full of stories of classmates with last names like "Malibangco", "Utot", and "Tubol", which are terms that definitely would make any person who speaks Cebuano roll with laughter. I went over the Catalogo in my possession and, lo and behold, these funny last names do exist! So, below are the first batch of randomly selected names listed in the Catalogo which  definitely made the families adopting them at that time the butt of their neighbors' jokes (many of which continue to be a source of people's ridicule today).

• BOGOC, found in the 4th column of page 19 of the catalogue. Bogoc is truly derogatory, which is a sort of superlative for "bogo", which means dumb, stupid, or slow.
• UNG-GOY, 2nd column of page 134. In itself it simply means "monkey". But in Philippine culture being called an "unggoy" is definitely not flattering.
• BOTBOT, 4th column of page 20. It means "lie", but means so much more compared to the tamer term "bakak". 
• CAHOBOAN, 4th column of page 24. It literally means "for undressing" or "can be undressed".
• UNGO, 2nd column of page 134. Meaning "monster".
• AGTA, 2nd column of page 3. Although it might have just referred to the indigenous people of the northern highlands, in Cebuano folklore the agtas were giant, very dark-skinned men who perched on large branches and smoke foul-smelling cigars.
• LIBANG, 3rd column of page 75. Although it means "relaxation" in Tagalog, in Cebuano it means "defecate".
• OTOT, 6th column of page 98. Means "fart".
• TUBUL, 1st column of page 132. "hard stool".
• BABOY, 2nd column of page 10. "Pig".

Imagine having the last name "Ung-goy", and this
is the image that appears in people's minds.

On their own, these surnames are harmless. A person with the last name of Cahoboan would probably go unscathed emotionally if he grew up in Luzon or outside the country. But the cruel fact is many of these names were adopted, or most likely imposed upon Cebuano families in 1849 which definitely made them targets of humiliation and derision. A simple scanning local newspapers would reveal many people with derogatory surnames petitioning the court to allow them to change their last names.  

From Africa's Adam to Argao: The Genetic History of the Lucero Family

Finally, my genetic genealogy report, at least for one of the possible thousands of my ancestral lines, has become available. Thanks to my mother's older brother, my uncle Dario in the US, I am now able to chart the journey of my Lucero ancestry through the male line. Or in the case of genetics, using the Y-chromosome.

I wanted to trace my Lucero genes first because, personally, I have always been more attached to my maternal family. And since my Lucero ancestry is maternal, I had to make use of an uncle to provide the sample for genetic testing as the Y-chromosome, if we remember our basic genetics class in college, is passed through the male line only. Thus, my Lucero grandfather, Jesus Birondo Lucero, passed on his Lucero Y-chromosomes to all my mom's brothers but not to his daughters, which include my mom. Finally, since among all my familial lines it is the Lucero history that I have fully documented so it has become obvious which line I should begin with.

The Lucero history spans several generatiions, and I am in the 9th generation if I count from the oldest historically verifiable ancestor we have, while I am in the 12th generation if I add the three ancestors that are purely based on oral history. US social historian Michael Cullinane, who has read my history of the Luceros, has always insisted that the Lucero Hispanic line is paternal, while I have always subscribed to the family lore that it is maternal. Here is what I know of my Lucero ancestry:

I am the son of Fely D. Lucero, who is the daughter of Jesus Birondo Lucero, whose father was Isidro Ceballos Lucero, whose father was Bonifacio Jose Bayot Lucero, whose father was Jose Francisco Cabrera Lucero, whose father was Justiniano Francisco de Sta. Cruz Lucero, whose father, Hermenegildo Francisco Lucero, was the son of Francisca Yldefonza. The only record that shows the farthest traceable Lucero is the death certificate of Justiniano's sister Mauricia Francisca Lucero vda. de Taguenca-Cabrera where Francisca Yldefonza is listed. No surname is given and the husband is written off as padre de noconocido (father not known).

Family lore has always claimed that Francisca Yldefonza was a Lucero who married an indio principalia and thus passed on her surname to her descendants. Indeed, at least 4 documents show that the Lucero surname has existed in Argao years prior to the Claveria surname decree of 1849, a clear indication that the Lucero name, at least in the town of Argao, is a last name that has been passed down and was not adopted based on the surname decree.

Because of these I have always believed in the family legend, and now that I have the result of our genetic genealogy I can now say with certainty that Francisca Yldefonza's husband was not Spanish at the very least. 

The journey of my genetic heritage, from Africa to China, then later down to the Philippines

Whatever the name of Francisca Yldefonza's husband, he was descended from a long line of males belonging to the Austronesian family. The genetic history of this unnamed husband of my ancestor is traced from the earliest known ancestor, back to a "genetic Y-chromosome Adam" who probably lived in Africa. Although he is given the name "Adam", he was not the only man at that time but this genetic Adam was the only one among the other males whose Y-chromosome has been passed down to all of mankind today. He was also not the first man and in fact geneticists believe that even this Adam had his own ancestors, only that we no longer have any way to trace the genetic lineage beyond this genetic Adam. From this genetic Adam I can trace my ancestry down to the modern times through several Y-chromosome markers.  These are:

M168 > P143 > M89 > L15 > M9 > M214 > M175

A marker, simply put, is a random, naturally occurring, usually harmless mutation in the Y-chromosome, making one branch of a genetic family tree unique from the rest. Because the Y-chromosome remains virtually unchanged through many generations then these markers can be traced easily as they, too, are passed from father to son.

M168, also known as the Eurasian Adam, lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethiopia, Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 79,000 years ago. It is generally accepted that this first man who gave rise to the M168 marker lived about 50,000 years ago. He is called the Eurasian Adam because all modern males today who are not African descend from him.

Then about 5,000 years later one of Eurasian Adam's male descendants gave rise to the M89 marker, a marker which is present in 90 to 95% of all non-African males. This person lived somewhere in Northern Africa or the Middle East, and aside from stone tools people were already using wooden and ivory tools. 

My next ancestor, a man born around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia, gave rise to the M9 genetic marker which marked a new lineage diverging from the M89 Middle Eastern Clan. His descendants, of which I am one, spent the next 30,000 years populating much of the planet. This was already during the Upper Paleolithic era.

And then, about another 5,000 years after the birth of my M9 ancestor, a descendant gave rise to the M214 marker. This man was born and lived in Eurasia, likely east of the Aral Sea, and was most likely a hunter-gatherer. This man carrying M214 has become the direct patrilineal ancestor of a very large percentage of present-day humans.

Then finally, about 35,000 years ago my most recent ancestor, the one who gave rise to the the haplogroup O or the genetic marker M175, was born somewhere in Southeast or East Asia. This guy lived during the Ice Age and as I was reading the report by National Geographic's Genographic Project I can distinctly recall my history 1 lesson where a discussion was made about waves of migrants who crossed land bridges to the Philippines but were later unable to return home as these bridges melted or were submerged with water. One of them was my male-line ancestor, whose line continued on until it reached the coastal town of Argao, Cebu, and in the early 1700s one of their descendants married a Hispanic woman, Francisca Yldefonza Lucero, whose son Hermenegildo Jose Lucero married Florencia Visenta de Sta. Cruz and had a son, Justiniano Francisco Lucero, who married Casimira Manuela Hernaez Cabrerz, who were the parents of Jose Francisco Lucero, who married Ambrosia Villarde Bayot and had Bonifacio Jose Lucero, who married Severina Tiburciana Ceballos and who produced Isidro Ceballos Lucero, who married Anacleta Tan Birondo and whose son Jesus Birondo Lucero was the father of Fely Jesus Dolloso Lucero, my mother.

As I delve deeper into my genetic genealogy I can feel the echoes of my distant ancestors cheering that I am taking the time to tell their story. I am in awe of God's obvious hand in the history of my genetic ancestry. And I am further convinced that the wars and conflicts in the world are pointless as we all come from the same line. 

I can't wait to do genetic testing on my other lines soon!

Lakan Genealogy: Connection of Sulu and Brunei

My passion for genealogy initially began because of my avid interest in royalty watching. Since 1993, I have studied the histories of almost all royal dynasties in the world. Because genealogy is an integral part of royalty and monarchy it did not take me long to also want to trace the genealogy of my own family.

One interesting aspect of royal genealogy in the Philippines is that of the Sulu Sultanate's. As I mentioned in a previous article, the Sultanate of Sulu in the south of the Philippines was closely related to the royal houses of Manila as well as that of Brunei's. Many Muslim families in the Philippines are able to recite their genealogy up to 15th century because of their tarsilas. These tarsilas, or silsilas, are genealogical and historical records which started in the 1300s when Islam was introduced in Mindanao. The word itself means "chain", which exemplifies the purpose of genealogy, which is a "chain" or link of people and events throughout various times in history. 

The earliest relations between the royals of Brunei and Sulu date back to the early 1400s when an unnamed daughter of Paduka Sri Sultan Ahmad, who reigned as sultan of Brunei from 1406 to 1425, married Ratu Mambang Awilis, recorded in Brunei royal genealogies as possibly from Sulu who was later created by the Brunei sultan as Pangiran Kusuma Negara.

This unnamed princess's sister's grandson, Sri Paduka Baginda Sultan Bolkiah Shah Alam ibni al-Marhum Sultan Sulaiman, married two royals from Sulu. His first wife, another unnamed princess, was the daughter of Datu Gamban of Seluang, which is a part of Sulu. Sultan Bolkiah's second wife was Putri Laila Menjanai, the granddaughter of Paduka Maulana Maha Sri Sultan Sharif al-Hashim, Sulu's first Sultan. This union between a Brunei sultan and a Sulu princess cemented the family relations of the two royal houses. And because of this marriage all succeeding sultans of Brunei, including the current, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, are descendants of the first Sultan of Sulu and a distant cousin of the current members of Sulu's royal family.

Years later, a granddaughter of Sultan Bolkiah, Putri Brunei, was married to her 3rd cousin, Sultan Shah Muhammad al-Halim Buddiman of Sulu. In the late 1580s Sultan Bolkiah's grandson, Paduka Sri Sultan Muhammad Hassan ibni al-Marhum Sultan Saif ul-Rijal Nur ul-Alam, followed in his footsteps and took as one of his wives another princess of Sulu, Putri Sulu, who was also his cousin several times over and the daughter of Putri Brunei and Sultan Shah Muhammad of Sulu. Although the marriage of Putri Sulu and Sultan Muhammad Hassan was the last grand union between the two royal houses, the current royal families are still connected by blood because one of the sons of Muhammad Hassan and Putri Sulu later became Sultan of Sulu and his descendants today are the Kirams, the reigning family of the Sulu sultanate.

The Sulu and Brunei connection. Click to enlarge.

If only the tradition of keeping a tarsila wasn't limited to our Muslim brothers and sisters in the south, Philippine genealogy would have been more complete today.

Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim brothers and sisters!

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The family tree above came from the Brunei genealogies as well as the Sulu Sultanate website.