Kali – Debunking its Myth (Arguments by James U. Sy Jr. )

This is a response to the article written by Talibung Antike (Is “KALI” appropriate to describe an indigenous blade based Filipino Martial Arts?) for Juan Dela Cruz who wrote:

“I think you need to back up your claims with researches and citations from legitimate sources. You’re ranting all these outbursts from hand-down information and passed-by-mouth claims. First of all, try to find out the history of the Muslims, of where they came from and how are they related to the Datu you have mentioned, if you research deeper you will find out they they belong to one ancestral origins. These Datus and the Muslims in Mindanao belonged to the Malay-Indo tribe of Borneo and nearby south east asian countries. Kali is an art from the south, if you happen to know wikipedia, I hope you can look for its etymology. You also happen to criticize and claimed that the right term for the practitioners of the FMA is “eskrimador”, did you ever look up in your sources the root meaning of eskrima??? For one, the term is Spanish, so how would you back up it’s authenticity???

I’m a practitioner of FMA and a researcher as well, I hope that these claims of yours are well founded and backed -up, so as not to make anymore divisions with the practitioner of the Filipino Martial Arts. Regardless of what the term is, whether Eskrima, Arnis, or Kali, you should think that these arts belong to the Filipino culture and we should be proud that these arts are part of our heritage.

I hope one day that all these “pagalingan” and “pataasan ng ihi” will be eradicated from and within the different systems of FMA. I hope that one day we would be united by our differences and appreciate what each of us has to offer, so that… that one day would be a glorious day for the FILIPINO MARTIAL ART and the FILIPINO PEOPLE….

RESPECT- an essential characteristic of a FMA practitioner… RESPECT…”

Juan de la Cruz, or whatever is your real name, as you are very interested in SCHOLARLY RESEARCH, let me share with you what I have uncovered in my years of research about the Kali Myth.

What follows is a partial summary of my detailed and well documented findings which you can find in my upcoming book that will be debunking the Kali Myth.

I would be interested if you can refute my findings point by point with LEGITIMATE RESEARCH AND CITATIONS as you have required from Talibung Antike. If your arguments are strong and logical enough, I would be more than glad to include it in my book in defense of your belief.

1. The Wikipedia you have mentioned, by academic standards, would not constitute as a legitimate source of info unless it is used as a supplement to primary sources. Anybody, especially Kali advocates, can manipulate contents of Wikipedia by editing articles. We all know that.

2. One of the, if not the, best primary sources is the people who speak the particular Filipino language from which Kali supposedly originated. Taibung Antike, a native speaker of Kinaray-a and Hiligaynon, had just affirmed that there is no Kali as a name for Filipino Martial Arts (FMA), in his languages. What more citation could validate that affirmation?

3. Juan de la Cruz, are you a native speaker of Kinaray-a and Hiligaynon? If so, can you please show us that Kali does exist in said languages as a name for Filipino Martial Arts (FMA).

4. If not, why would you be so infuriated with Talibung Antike’s assertion? What is the scholastically researched basis of your outrage?

5. Also, what is your native tongue? Is it any of the Filipino languages? If yes, did you find Kali as a name for Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) in your native tongue? If you didn’t find it, why do you think so?

6. If your native tongue is not any of the Filipino languages, what then is your basis of disagreeing with somebody who is a native speaker of the Filipino languages?

7. There are 171 living and 4 extinct languages in the Philippines today. Of these, 8 are major languages and none of them have Kali as a name for Filipino Martial Arts (FMA).

8. The 1960 Philippine Census tells us that 7 of these 8 major languages comprise 83% of the Philippine population. More recent census showed that Cebuano and Tagalog comprise 50% of the Philippine population. How can Kali be the Mother Art/Term for all Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) if we can’t find it in the 8 major languages of the Philippines?

9. If you, as you have claimed, have also researched Kali, then pinpoint to us exactly from which Filipino language did it came from. An inability to do so in your part would show that it is you who did not do your homework. 

10. If Kali came from Malay then why can’t we find Kali as a name for a Martial Arts in the Malay language?

11. If Kali is Muslim, as you imply indirectly in your post, then why can’t we find it in the various languages of Mindanao such as Ta’u-sug, Maranao, Mandaya, etc.? I’ve interviewed people who speak these languages and they affirmed the absence of such word in their languages.

12. The Ta’u-sugs have their own Martial Arts but they call them Silat and Kuntaw, not Kali. Those that practice these arts have told me that nowhere in their lexicon would you find Kali as a synonym to Silat and Kuntaw.

13. If Kali the Mother Art/Term is the contraction of the Cebuano words Kamot Lihok, does that mean that all pre-Hispanic Malays spoke Cebuano? Highly unlikely.

14. Kamot in Tagalog means to scratch. There is no Lihok word in Tagalog. Does this mean that Tagalogs don’t have Filipino Martial Arts (FMA)?

15. If Kali has anything to do with Filipino Martial Arts (FMA) then we will find it together with the pre-Hispanic words Bangkaw, Kampilan, etc. But we don’t.

16. Juan de la Cruz, you’re confused with the word EsKrima. EsKrima may have Spanish roots (EsCrima) but it is already a Filipino adoption of the word. I have consulted not less than 10 Spanish dictionaries and they all agree that EsCrima is “Fencing.” However, you will not see EsKrima in any Spanish dictionary, only in Filipino dictionaries.

17. If you can produce a legitimate Spanish dictionary which will have EsKrima as an entry, then I have to concede that it is a Spanish word. Otherwise, your assertion that it is a Spanish word is nothing but conjecture and emotionally motivated.

18. Now, if Kali is Filipino, why can’t we find it in LEGITIMATE Filipino dictionaries, especially those dictionaries published before the Kali-Boom Era, with the meaning of Filipino Martial Arts (FMA)?

19. If you will point out Wikipedia or any of the overseas websites as your proof, the question is where did they get the info? More importantly, are the info correct? You yourself had stressed for a scholastic and legitimate research.

20. The most comprehensive Hiligaynon dictionary written in 1934 had 10,000 entries, none of which referred to Kali as a name to Filipino Martial Arts (FMA).

21. The earliest works, such as the Artes y Reglas de la Lengua Tagala (1610, the first published Tagalog grammar) and the first Panay Visayan grammar (1637), do not show Kali as a name for Filipino Martial Arts (FMA).

22. Nor did Antonio Pigafetta, Ferdinand Magellan’s chronicler, recorded Kali although he did record Kampilan, Bangkaw, etc.

23. We would be interested if you can show us even just one pre-Hispanic, or even Spanish, document that mentions Kali by name. But I doubt that, otherwise we will find Kali in all Philippine history textbooks.

24. No archaeological finds either in Palawan, Butuan, Cebu, or other archaeologically rich places in the Philippines had shown even a shadow of the mythical Kali.

25. No legitimate historical documents, either written by a Spaniard or Filipino, mention Kali. Even Spanish decrees disallowing the carrying of weapons had not mentioned Kali. By legitimate what I mean is that the material was written only after checking primary sources such as pre-Hispanic or Spanish records. Copying and pasting from one website to the other does not count.

26. If the earliest you can go back is Mga Karunungan sa Larong Arnis, wouldn’t Florante and Laura by Francisco Balagtas (later half of 1800s) have come first, in mentioning Arnis? I doubt if you can find any document earlier than 1957 which will mention Kali.

27. And while you’re clamoring for citations, Mirafuente should be questioned for his lack of citations when he mentioned Kali in Yambao’s book. That despite the fact that he was a member of a local historical association!

28. If Kali is Muslim, why then is it also explained as representing the Hindu God Kali?

29. If you continue to stick to your assertion that Kali is Muslim, my question is how compatible are the practices in Kali with the 5 pillars of Islam? True Muslims would have none of Kali because it does not conform to the teachings of the Qur’an.

30. And maybe you can show us a Muslim grandmaster from Mindanao, not influenced by outside sources, who teaches Kali.

31. What particular Muslim tribe are you referring to? Filipino anthropologists had not identified any tribe called Kali or that practice an art called Kali.

32. The renowned anthropologist Felipe Landa Jocano of Cabatuan, father of Master/Prof. Felipe P. Jocano Jr. of the university of the Philippines Diliman, had not revealed any remnants of Kali or any Kali tribe in his anthropological works.

33. Or better yet a Muslim pre-Hispanic, or even Spanish, document that mentions Kali in detail.

34. Grandmasters Villabrille, Largusa, Gaje, Ilustrisimo…they were not Muslims but they used Kali. The senior students of Tatang Ilustrisimo had already publicly announced that there is no Kali and that certain individuals had advised Tatang before to use the term Kali. Originally he used Eskrima and Olisitrisimo to call his art.

35. If you research deeper, you will see that all the people using Kali in the US can trace back the word to GM Villabrille while those from the Philippines can trace it from the US.

36. I personally know at least 4 people with varying degrees of association with kali here in Negros and I can tell you they were originally Arnis people!

37. GM Villabrille originally used Eskrima as did GM Inosanto. GTs Gaje and Tortal originally used Arnis. These are all documented. You just need to find the right sources. You will find these scattered all over cyberspace in different forums.

38. True, the Maragatas has been invalidated as a historical document. However, what you failed to discover is that the original writer of Maragtas did not claim it to be historical but made it clear that it was based on stories gathered from many sources. Most likely you have only read a translation of the Maragtas, if you have read it at all. The various translations had chosen for one reason or the other to exclude certain portions of the original work.

39. Even Sir Henry William Scott who disproved Maragatas as a historical document did admit that it must be considered as a combination of folklore and history for we do not know which is which. The Code of Kalantiaw, however, was the one branded as a fabrication.

40. If you turn back you will realize that it is the Kali Myth blowers who had made divisions in the Filipino Martial Arts by making unvalidated, unhistorical, and commercial claims that downgrade Arnis/Eskrima just to market Kali the supposed Mother Art.

I can go and on but I don’t want to consume so much space here. I’m hoping that you can refute point by point my findings with legitimate proof.

For those who would like to add their own research, experiences, etc. to my upcoming book, I would be glad to include them, provided proper citation of sources and the like.

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CASASAI Goes To Australia

Earlier of December 2008 a family from Australia represented by Elaine Wilson told us that her husband and three children were very interested in learning Arnis/Eskrima system of Panay being promoted by the Combative and Sportive Arnis System Association Inc.

Elaine was actually a native of Iloilo and was married to Tom Wilson a Scottish and now living in Australia. When they came to Iloilo for a vacation her husband and three kids namely Rupert, Margaret, and Isabel learned the basics of Eskrima under The President and co-founder of CASASAI Guru Mel O. Balberde. The Wilson’s family has expressed their gladness of being a part of the CASASAI family based in Australia.

Above is the Wilson’s family together with the members of CASASAI, Iloilo.

See Pictures of Arnis/Eskrima Training below:

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