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Twin Islands on the Pacific Land. Geologically, Samar and Leyte form one land mass, the two islands
are separated by the narrow and shallow San Juanico Strait, named
after the small islet San Juanico or San Juanillo (Little John)
one of many small islets strung along the Strait. Samar
and Leyte, Biliran and the adjoining islands form Region 7 - Eastern
Visayas. It has a total land area of 2,143,169
ha.
Samar,
especially along the Pacific Coast and the eastern cordillera still
has some primary forests, unchanged for millennia with a flora and
fauna known for its indemicity. The
two islands lie approximately between 12.5 and 10 degrees latitude
north (1205-9045), and 124-126 longitude east (123050-12600). Because both islands face the Pacific,
they are vulnerable to the typhoons that come during the southwestern
monsoon or habagat season.
Climate in the region is described as Type II with no marked
dry season with pronounced maximum rainfall from January to November
and Type IV with rainfall more or less evenly distributed year round. Samar
is especially vulnerable to typhoon and this is evident in the economically
underdeveloped province Eastern Samar.
The sea on the Pacific side can be rough, and the narrow
San Bernardino Strait which separates Samar from the main island
of Luzon and links the Pacific with the inland Visayan Sea is especially
treacherous. It has been the watery grave of many galleons
sailing between Manila and Mexico. Total
Population, 2000 (Census
as of May 1, 2000) is placed at 3,610,355. Prehistory. Like the rest of the Visayas the prehistory of Samar-Leyte
has not be adequately written.
Early Spanish accounts referred to Samar with two names:
Ibabao for the north and Samar for the south.
Leyte was known as Tendaya or Iraete, after the town of Leyte
where the Spaniards made their first landfall. Various
archaelogical finds, especially of implements, gold artifacts and
tools for making them, attest to a rich history.
Important sites are found in Cabalian, Ormoc where ceramics
and gold jewelry were discovered, some of which Prof. Otley Bayer
described as not unlike pre-Majapahit Javanese gold work; Carigara,
and Limasawa where tradeware of the Ming Dynasty period (13th to
17th centuries) and Siamese and Vietnamese ceramics were recovered.
Near the shoreline north of Brgy. Magallanes, celadon shards
and Ming ceramics were found.
The discovery of iron slags in association with these shards
point to metal smelting. And the discovery of secondary burial
in large earthware jars both in Leyte and Samar and smaller islands
indicates sophisticated and well- developed culture. Pieces of pre-colonial gold jewelry appear in the antique market,
pieces said to have been dug in Samar, unfortunately this claim
cannot be ascertained always because they come from the underground
market. A
more coherent picture of the culture, however, comes from Spanish
missionary chronicles and relations.
The most important are Pedro Chirino 1604 Relacion and Ignacio Alzina 1668-72 Historia, two books of which can be described
as ethnography. Taken
together a picture of a sophisticated society emerges where there
are organized though fragmented settlements, inhabited by people
who tattooed themselves and wore jewelry and silk.
These people knew a variety of edibles from the forest, built
commodious dwellings on stout wooden posts and of renewable wood,
bamboo and thatch. These
people had a language which they could commit to writing in a script
all their own; they had weapons, religious celebrations, customary
laws, and a social organization based on the clan.
They were by and large healthy, more corpulent than the Tagalog,
and were quite content. Alzina
suggests that Visaya comes from aya or caya which means a happy person. East meets West. Samar and Leyte first came to the attention of Europeans in 1521 when Magellan, after crossing the Pacific |
