History as hyperbole, humor, histrionics, etc.
Sensing that my planned title verged on clickbait, I checked for previous use. True enough, it appears as the title of an article by Neil Duxbury that appeared in 1995 in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies as an inquiry on a legal issue. No need to investigate further after browsing the first PDF page as a sample. Evidently, the catchy alliterative phrase would serve in relation to the allegation of legal overreach. Hmm, now that smacked of coincidence, given a current political controversy involving our own judiciary.
Actually, I had first considered framing this commentary within a larger sphere. It could well have been “History as hyperbole, speculation, mythification,” with the subhead “a challenge to skepticism urged on by common sense.”
Now, that would have spelled out most of my quibbles over the way history has often been presented as a fairy tale — something that one took with an hourglass’ capacity for sand grains. You’re expected to accept it as mostly credible components of a dramatized narrative.
Boyhood readings about Genghis Khan sparked interest, as did much of the sweep of brutal conquests. However, I quickly questioned the numbers attributed to his supposed Golden Horde — which once dominated the widest expanse of land ever by an empire, next only to that of the British (at roughly 24 to 17 percent).
Genghis led a rapacious army said to have numbered up to 240,000. Instantly, I wondered if one of his riders had been ordered to gallop up a high ridge with an abacus, and busily clicked on the rows of discs as steeds were steered across a flat plain. Could they really have been that many? Or was it simply easier to come up with a round number and claim credence for generations of readers?
We are told that the cavalry moved along faster than the infantry. Bringing up the rear were the camp followers that butchered and served edibility. Imagine the logistical challenge of such a supply line during that era. Concubines, including Genghis’ motley own, would’ve meant further complications. Maybe the number commanded by the “Scourge of God” could have been a more reasonable 100,000? Still a round number, though still hard to count.
Several millennia earlier, Alexander the Great’s own army was said to never have exceeded about 40,000, accounting for faster mobility that saw him mount invasions faster than any man toward the east. Much later, in 218 BC, Hannibal was said to have led just about the same number across the Alps, with several dozen elephants — a unique facet in the annals of conquest. Now, those details remain acceptable, as are dates and settings of famous battles, since these were recorded as primary sources by chroniclers.
It’s other details like overblown numbers of combatants, use of fancied weaponry and similarly speculated tactics, that raise eyebrows. The more distant the era, the less warfare history is stretched away from myth. Napoleon’s numbers at Waterloo are presumed to be correct, since records were already being kept better by that time.
If we leap forward to primary sources for the 16th century, say, and take it closer to home, skepticism must still question throwaway elements in a popular narrative.
Only lately, for instance, has a mano-a-mano confrontation between Lapulapu and Magellan given way to fact. Our first native hero to resist colonial domination turns out to have been too old to have any hand in the battle. Yet monuments to him still depict full-blown drama of musculature.
Among his suspected embellishments, the fated chronicler Pigafetta puts at an exact 49 the invaders who waded ashore in Mactan, with a dozen left to man the rowboats hampered by low tide. But the native defenders he puts at exactly 1,500. Other European eyewitnesses offered different sets of numbers— to as many as 2,000. Could they have been only half of that? Possible, since a good number must have just been scurrying around all over the shore and beneath palm trees, without any weapons at all but rocks to throw at exposed legs or metal helmets.
But the cinematic picture most Pinoys still screen in their minds involves warriors brandishing bows and arrows, metal-tipped spears, and that mighty blade, the kampilan, that seemed more of a ceremonial sword imbued with mythical power, given its association with the Bakunawa that caused eclipses by gnawing at the moon.
How many of Lapulapu’s warriors actually swung kampilans in the battle of Mactan? Our speculative reach must hew closer to perceived reality. Sure, Panday Pira was already crafting cannons at that time, and swordsmiths beyond Luzon could also help themselves to sources of iron — cauldrons traded by the Chinese, and whatever local iron deposits, however sparse.
Lapulapu’s bad blood with Humabon and his own fellow Mactanon Raja Zula wouldn’t have led to a preponderance of kampilans in the neighboring islands. That would have meant perennial battles. Unless Mactan only had a dozen divided among Lapulapu and Zula, and a baker’s dozen in Humabon’s possession. Now that’s the game of spec fic encroaching on history.
Another important point to ask: Who knew exactly if the first arrow that supposedly struck Magellan in the leg was indeed poisoned — as reported by Pigafetta and echoed by just about everybody? Yes, native warriors used arrowheads dipped in poison (from plants containing cardiac alkaloids and glycosides), but it doesn’t convert to sheer fact that all the arrows that struck the Europeans were poisoned. Any casual autopsy was imagined.
Lastly, while Pigafetta may have correctly recorded the exact number of casualties on their part (10 fatalities including Magellan), his additional report that the natives incurred only 15 dead and 24 injured make us imagine that he operated a drone camera while escaping on a rowboat.
Yes, history’s command of rational questioning is what makes it fascinating. Relating everything in the context of more plausible realism promotes better understanding. History as a retelling of the past comes in waves, spirals and circuits, layering over one another in all sorts of ways. At its most basic, there is popular history, fed by accessible primary sources, engaging the public even as a kind of “Marites” history that tells us what our heroes documented as their favorite breakfast. It becomes pop culture. Then there’s the epic sweep of history mentioned earlier, involving eras, cycles, patterns. There’s the history of conflict, telling us that no periods in history have been free from war.
There’s history written by winners, and history written by losers. There’s history written for an agenda, history manipulated politically. There’s reactive, alternative, post-colonial history. There’s a “Philosophy of History” that compiles essays “contextualizing the big trends in human history.” And there are differences between metahistory and historiography.
As AI’s own overviews state, “Hyperbolic language can be a tool for promoting a particular viewpoint or ideology. Skepticism is key. Context is crucial.” Now that AI has overtaken the very sweep of time, can there be less of histrionics as history?
History’s relationship with creative writing will continue to challenge the discipline of thought as betrothed to imagination. The reason I write this commentary is that I just received review copies of two important books from Vibal Publishing: Emilio Aguinaldo: Politics and Remembrance (1901-1963) by Jose Victor Z. Torres, and More Postcolonial Than We Admit 1 (Producing the Filipino After 1946), edited by Charlie Samuya Veric.
It’ll take me more time to go through these books, and use whatever little space I can have to comment on them. I will try to do this at the next opportunity. But already, I couldn’t help but dip in and enjoy an essay by Nick Joaquin in the Veric anthology. It’s characteristically enjoyable for the elegant prose that lifts the Mactan narrative to a fancied insight on the “twinship” between Lapulapu and Humabon. Another essay, by Edith L. Tiempo, in turn proposes “hybridity” in the use of English for our literature. I hope I can expand on my appreciation soon enough.
