Tiangues in the Philippines before 1898©
Bruce Cruikshank, 10 August 2014
The only study of the tinague in the Philippines that I am acquainted with is Serafin Quiason’s 1985 study published in Philippine Studies.[1] Quiason tells us that this Mexican term was applied in the Philippines to “a weekly market” (22). The most striking initial points in his comprehensive and suggestive overview are his brief observations on “the inadequacy of information” (22) and “the unavailability of ample documentary sources” for studies of this institution. Indeed I would strike his use of the term “ample.” Very little has been written about the tiangue and its “important position in the rural economy” (22).
Lack of sources notwithstanding, Quiason makes some promising assertions. He asserts that tiangues were the economic focus for three vectors of goods and traders:
· Uplanders exchanging gold, wax and other forest products for salt and a variety of lowland products (23-24);
· Those who traded maritime products, “mainly in the fish trade” (24)
· Local farmers from smaller settlements who came to the población and its tiangue to exchange harvests of crop and animals or handicrafts for goods found only in the población (perhaps brought there from larger towns) (24).
He concludes that the “process of interaction and interpenetration among these three distinct groups of dealers through the vehicle of the tiangui continued far beyond the termination of Spanish colonial rule, despite major alterations in the pattern of land ownership, despite the exploitative use of native labour [sic], and despite dislocations suffered by the indigenous social system” (24). He comments as well that
· “In time, the tiangui dealers, mostly women, formed themselves into a small but active class of enterprising peasants and fishermen tied to the rural market economy. They were unschooled, yet their market intelligence and business acumen were quite astonishing. Traditionally, trading by the women marked a logical differentiation of roles from the more laborious farming and arduous fishing activities of the men. Besides, attending the tiangui also created a social outlet for the women.” (24-25)
He concludes (38)
… tiangui dealers performed the essential task of suppliers of basic agricultural and marine products to the town areas where they were wanted most. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the growth of the regular market system or palengke, brought about a gradual decline of the tiangui, especially in towns where Spanish money had taken firm roots [sic] and where the local population had shown a market increase.
And the “tiangui, and later the regular Mercado, constituted the heart of the internal economy and an understanding of them is essential to an understanding of the mainstream of rural commercial life in the Spanish Philippines” (38).
This essay by Quiason represents a tour de force, weaving together a sketchy set of references into a convincing exposition. There are some weaknesses in his presentation, due both to the very lack of sources that he identified as a problem as well as perhaps to the attempt to claim too much for the tiangue. Here are three areas that I think are weak:
· First, upland/lowland interaction and exchange is indeed referred to in a variety of sources. What we do not know, but which Quiason assumes, is how much of this exchange was carried out in public, in the tiangue; and how much was carried out privately, between uplanders and prominent families in the pueblos, who might have had privileged or near exclusive rights to trade with the uplanders.
· Secondly, inputs from the maritime world into the tiangue make sense, of course, but since tiangues were held only once or twice a week in a municipality, fresh fish and other products would have been exchanged other days in other venues or by other methods.
· Third, the speculation regarding the women, which I quoted earlier in full, is useful and illuminating for the often unremarked role of women in all aspects of Philippine history. However, Quiason posits the tiangue as the locus for the “small but active class of enterprising peasants and fishermen tied to the rural market economy” (24). Quiason does not document such a linkage. Jagor, writing around 1860, writes of an example involving women traders moving from the province of Quezon to that of Camarines Norte and back. As we can see, no tiangue linkage is apparent nor necessary:[2]
In Mambulao the influence of the province on its western border is
very perceptible, and Tagalog is understood almost better than Bicol;
the Tagalog element being introduced amongst the population by
women, who with their families come here, from Lucban and Mauban,
in the pursuit of trade. They buy up gold, and import stuffs and other
wares in exchange. The gold acquired is commonly from fifteen to
sixteen carats, and a mark determines its quality. The dealers pay on
the average $11 per ounce; but when, as is usually the case, it is offered
in smaller quantities than one ounce, only $10. They weigh with small
Roman scales, and have no great reputation for honesty.
My argument is that the tiangue was important but it was neither ubiquitous nor the only manifestation of Filipino mercantile activities in the province. Depending on the context, it may or may not have been “the heart of the internal economy.” Quiason seems to assume that all significant economic activity in and around the municipalities were processed through the tiangue. This does not appear to have been the case. For instance, Jagor notes that regional trade existed even in the distant province of Samar, with reference in Chapter 19 to “mariners from Catbalogan” who sailed to Laoang to “exchange the surplus of the harvests [there] for other produce.” He observes that while there was barter among Samareños (salted fish for rice), there were “no markets in Samar and Leyte” and “hardly any money” in the interior of Samar. However, there was trade between Samar and Manila and local trade among the coastal settlements of western and southern Samar.
Some fifty years earlier, Tomas de Comyn noted the existence of widespread trade among Filipinos, not just in Samar but everywhere. “The circulation of the country productions and effects of all kinds among the inhabitants of the provinces … is tolerably active and considerable.” While he noted that “magistrates [he probably meant provincial governors] in their respective districts” interfered with that trade and kept it from fully blossoming through the imposition of extra “rates and arbitrary prices” on traders, “a certain degree of stimulus and scope is still left in favor of internal trade.” He observed the ubiquity of local trade and of course the importance of the Manila market:[3]
Hence it follows, that there is scarcely an island or province, that does not carry on some traffic or other, by keeping up relations with its neighbors, which sometimes extend as far as the capital; where, in proportion as the produce and raw materials find a ready market, returns suitable and adequate to the consumption of each place, respectively, are obtained.
Comyn continued by remarking that tiangues “are held weekly in almost every town” and that “[a] propensity to barter and traffic, in all kinds of ways, is indeed universal among the natives ….”
These caveats are not meant in a carping or disrespectful manner for what remains a significant piece of work. Indeed, Quiason’s work has even a wider breadth than I have indicated, with additional sections regarding barter, silver coin, weights and measures, prices, observations of foreign observers, role of the principalía, and a suggestion of an economic hierarchy of place from Manila to regular markets to tiangues to itinerant venders. Any focus on the tiangue must perforce begin with Quiason. That being said, more research needs to be done.
A simple place to begin, which might allow us to portray networks of economic exchange, is to focus on places that had tiangues and when they were offered. If we can identify the days of the week for pueblos in proximity, we may be able to develop a sense of the network of traders circulating from one tiangue to the next over the course of a week.
What follows[4] is a list of provinces and pueblos and weekdays I have compiled from Quiason and other sources. I hope others will email me with other references so I can add them (with full acknowledgment of course) and make the material available electronically for scholars everywhere in the world. References are by province and municipality; spellings are generally those of the time.
Bruce Cruikshank, 10 August 2014
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
dbc_research_institute@yahoo.com
[1] Serafin D. Quiason, “The Tiangui: A Preliminary view of an Indigenous Rural Marketing System in the Spanish Philippines.” Philippine Studies, 33:1 (1985), 22-38. In contrast to Quiason’s usage, I have chosen to use the spelling tiangue. Even though the Mexican spelling and origin of the term is tiangui, my understanding is that tiangue is the spelling more commonly used in the Philippines. Today I am told, tiangue has more the meaning of “flea market.”
[2] Chapter 15, Feodor Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (from the 1875 English translations), from Austin Craig, ed., The Former Philippines through Foreign Eyes, from books by Fedor Jagor, Tomas de Comyn, Charles Wilkes, and Rudolf Virchow (Manila: Philippine Education Department, 1916). Available and used on line through Guttenberg Books, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10770/10770-8.txt.
[3] Tomas de Comyn, The State of the Philippines in 1810, based on the 1821 translation, found and used on line through Guttenberg Books, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10770/10770-8.txt. In text the original Spanish can be found on pp. 49-50 of the 1878 edition of the Comyn book.
[4] Listed separately.