As Top Dog and I used to say "As the Stick Twirls"
http://sunkete.blogspot.com:80/index.html
LOL... the writer is making some easy logical gaps in his reasoning. Last I saw on youtube, Yuli Romo was not brandishing a rapier but a kampilan.
The writer then states the Visayans use a weapon that was similar to a (drumroll).... Moro blade.
"Kapitan Perong brandishing his lampirong (Visayan version of Moro barong blade) would "horse" mount at the tip of the bundled bamboo poles and upon his signal to cut loose the harness would be propelled several feet above the air flying like superman with the trajectory precisely aimed at the incoming paraos (Moro sailboats)."So the Kapitan was using a similar Moro weapon, but the Moro side does not know how to use it because the Spanish didn't show them how? The Moros knew to forge and design a weapon so well, that the Visayans chose to ignore their subjugator's sword of choice and UNANIMOUSLY decided to use their enemy's sword instead. Interesting.
Why are they still using barongs and kampilans? If it is a rapier why not use a rapier? They are easy to forge as any barong, kris or kampilan.
Add to the fact that I'd like to see a full grown man catapulted into the air and land softly on a sailboat's sails without going over, with panicked occupants on the boat, and carrying a blade THEN killing EVERYONE on board. Maybe Errol Flynn on a huge galleon's sails....
So this obvious MYTH the writer believes?
I suppose in this person's logic bubble, Moros are not Filipinos, and that unless a Cebuano was wielding a blade and counting in Spanish it isn't part of any "Martial Art".
I'd like to have seen this writer tell the Moros of old that they didn't have a martial art.
I doubt they would call them on a cell phone to let them know.
He is also singing the Fighting Friar tune again, even though the examples have already been debunked.
Consider this:
In 1836, William Barret Travis wrote a letter to the "people of Texas and all Americans in the world" from the Alamo describing that the "the garrison
are to be put to the SWORD" by over a thousand Mexicans under General Santa Anna.
Let's look at this description.
Travis uses the term "Sword" to describe the upcoming conflict.
However, at this time, the Mexican army surrounded and overwhelmed the Alamo volunteers with cannon fire and rifles with bayonets.
The Mexicans who were under Spanish rule for many years won their independence and utilized the arms that Spain had left behind.
In addition, the Mexicans bought a large number of British arms to supplement as far back as the 1820's.
From historical evidence, the Mexican infantry man was armed with "the India Pattern musket, a 39 inch barrel of .752-.760 caliber. It weighed nine pounds, eleven ounces and came with a seventeen inch socket bayonet that itself weighed one pound."
The Mexican light infantry men called Cazadores were armed with lighter muskets (Tercerlos), others carried Baker rifles armed with the 23 inch bayonet. Although firing with the bayonet attached proved the rifles useless. "These (bayonets) were very handy for camp chores, but because it added weight to the end of the gun barrel, it was seldom mounted and rarely seen in hand-to-hand combat." The Cazadores were better trained in marksmanship and tactics than the average soldier.
Now consider these facts :
1. By the 1800's, Mexicans who would have had the closest cross training to Spanish methods of war had already transitioned to the rifles.
2. The bayonet on the rifles extended the weapon's length far enough to simulate a short pike. The preferred Spanish weapon of choice.
3. The Mexicans did not storm the Alamo with machetes.
4. The year of transition started in 1820's, during the time these fictional fighting friars were supposedly teaching our "untrained" natives on the Spanish OUTDATED tactics of warfare... the sword.
5. The term "sword" did not literally mean that the tactics were going to be with a sword.
6. At the Alamo, the one man known for his skills with the blade was James Bowie and many accounts state he had several primed pistols at his side, and he had taken ill by the time of the battle so was not directly influential.
Now knowing the nature of Filipinos and a bit about what was happening during these times... doesn't it poke several large holes in the logic that the Spanish friars taught the Filipinos how to use a weapon that not only the Spanish considered an outmoded weapon, but countries Spain subjugated thought so as well?
If we go by the linked writer's logic, The Mexicans would have stormed the Alamo with their Spanish trained rapier skills... except the Mexicans would not use actual rapiers but their indigenous Aztec war clubs. Maybe even use catapults to fly over the walls.
Remember the Alamo indeed.
(note: the reference on the weapons used in the Alamo was appropriated from the TAMU website.)
