Which ancient Filipino weapon calls to you?

I’ve heard stories that our warrior ancestors in the Philippines chose their weapon based on their felt sense. Some stories claim that the weapon chose the warrior. I’m sure warriors selected their weapons based on a little bit of both intuition and practicality. Physical attributes like size, strength, and dexterity played a huge role in the kind of weapon (sword, dagger, ax, spear, etc.) that our ancient ancestors selected. Even in Filipino Martial Arts today, the idea that the weapon is an extension of oneself influences how practitioners train. 

If you were an ancient warrior of the Philippines, what would your weapon of choice be? Which weapon would call to you? Would it be a heavier dual handed sword like the kampilan, a headhunter’s weapon? Or a bow and arrow, allowing you to stay hidden and shoot from a far? Or would it be a bolo, an all-purpose blade for farming and fighting?

I’ve always had an affinity for the kris blade. Maybe because it’s my namesake, but I also like its history of dual purpose as a practical and ritual sword. It's shorter length ranging between one to two feet long is better for someone my size. The wavy edges enable more deadlier slashing, and were symbolic of a snake, dragon, or water depending on the tribe and region. Some claim the kris had magical properties. Not just an inanimate object, the kris was actually alive, a blade with a living spirit. I found these two kris swords in 2015 on my first trip to Tugaya in Mindanao, a place known for their artisans.

While I love these swords, I don’t carry them around for self-protection (obviously). They hang out on display in my living room, amongst the other traditional swords that my husband and I have collected over the past two decades. None of them are built for any type of real combat — their edges either too dull or their weight not quite right. They are artifacts, representations of an ancient past, and a personal symbol to me of my journey back to the motherland. While they have significant meaning from a historical and personal context, a sword not made for fighting, in my opinion, seems almost antithetical. 

What are the roles then of these traditional blades in our modern age? And how do these beautifully crafted edged weapons want to be known, here in the 21st century and far from their original home and displaced in time?

Well, I asked them – and they answered.

So just for the record, I don’t usually talk to inanimate objects! But recently, I’ve been in conversation with one of my mentors, Alleluia Panis, founder of Kularts, about her community project reclaiming the stolen traditional swords that have been on display in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. How these blades are living artifacts that have been trapped in museum glass coffins. That they aren’t these dead, frozen-in-time things, but alive in our cultural memory, especially in Filipino Martial Arts.

So, I thought, if these blades have spirits, then why not just ask them what they want to do? They told me they wanted to be known by us, so we might know ourselves. And I thought oooh, of course. 

Objects, like traditional swords, can be portals to the past. They are gatekeepers inviting you to learn more about the warriors that wielded them, who are part of your cultural heritage. And most likely you have a distant great uncle who used escrima in the jungle during wartime, or an aunt who was an underground journalist during the Marcos regime , or a sister who was brave and left an abusive relationship. Evidence of the warrior spirit right there in your family, in your bloodline, and therefore in you. Because I know that you too have a personal story about how you survived or fought for something important in your life. 

Once you begin to dive into your warrior heritage, you start to uncover yourself. And that’s really what all this ancestral work you’re doing is about — to help you see more of you — so you might live more wholly in the world. 

My conversation with my blades also taught me this: we might believe we were forged for a particular life based on the body we’re in, the parents we have, our cultural roots or environment that we were raised in, the history of oppression or privilege we’ve inherited, or however the distant or near past has shaped us. These are most undoubtedly influencing factors, some changeable and others not. But these can keep us feeling lifeless or imprisoned behind a glass case of constructs, allowing the gaze of others to determine who we are. 

We have the power to shape an extraordinary life that’s unique to us despite the hand we're dealt or our conditioning, and this is what the warrior within us fights for. If you see a kris or a bolo in a museum, or hanging on the wall at a martial art school, or at a local market (I’ll have some for you to meet if you stop by the Urilat Market tomorrow), know that their purpose in the present day is to collectively awaken the warrior within us to fight these new kind of battles. And they are fulfilling this incredible calling despite being trapped in a museum or crafted just for display – perhaps even helping us to view ourselves in the same liberated way.