Round Butuan the ground has given up burials of several kinds.
At Libertad (Ambangan) plank-built boats, the balangay, lie buried in a concentration the Wikipedia page 'Butuan' calls the only one of its kind in Southeast Asia; at the Balangay Shrine across the Masao river from the Bood promontory the museum text on that page speaks of the graveyard of Balangay 1 and dates it to AD 320, without saying how. The Butuan branch of the National Museum shows burial coffins and goldsmiths' work, and the page mentions shaped (deformed) skulls 'similar to reports in Sulawesi'. The page 'Rajahnate of Butuan' adds burials with habitation at Suatan and Masao.
The dates run from the fourth century to a time we could not fix, so we do not know which grounds were in use on 1 January 1200. The graves are the best evidence of how the people of Butuan buried their dead, and they say nothing of gods, priests or temples.
Who holds it
- Title
- No priest or keeper is known; the burial grounds belong to the families of Butuan
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
The graves were dug in the twentieth century; no text names the people who made them, their rites or their priests.
What it holds
- Nothing is shown: no estate, village, toll or revenue
Allies and rivals
The grounds belong to the families of the river town; nothing links them to a ruler.
How things stand that morning
Not shown. Whether boat burial and coffin burial were still the custom in 1200 is not known; some of the dated finds are centuries older.
Wealth
Grave goods only, in the finds.
Threats
- None recorded
Places of note
- Libertad (Ambangan) boat graves: Where the buried balangay were found; position approximate.
- Masao and the Balangay Shrine: Burials and habitation at the Agusan mouth; the shrine stands across the Masao river from Bood promontory.
Where the sources disagree
- The AD 320 date for Balangay 1 is the museum text as quoted on the Wikipedia page; the method is not stated, and it is much older than 1200.
- The page 'Butuan' gives no radiocarbon figures for any site.
Evidence: Physical finds with few published dates in what we could read; most of the statements on the source pages carry no citation. Nothing is known of the rites.
On the map: Points only: burial grounds, not holdings.
Primary sources for Butuan
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
- Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia, 'Butuan' (read in this pass): the Libertad balangay concentration, the 1001 contact with Song China
- Wikipedia, 'Rajahnate of Butuan' (read in this pass): the Song shi missions, the ivory seal, the balangay finds; several statements on that page are marked unsourced
- The OMNIA board (September 2026) note for this place: a lead only, not a source
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.