The Lingayen gulf plain of Pangasinan with the Zambales coast and hills and the Tarlac plain behind.
The English page 'Ma-i' reads the Zhufan zhi's Li-yin-tung as Lingayen, one of the places the Zhufan zhi calls 'the same sort of place as Ma-i'; Scott reads such places as trading shores of the same kind, not as Ma-i's subjects. The coast people are later called Pangasinan (a name later read as 'place of salt-making') and the Zambales hills hold the hunting people later called Aeta.
Who holds it
- Title
- No overall chief: the datus (chiefs) and elders of the river-mouth and valley communities, each answering for their own people
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Nothing is written about the rulers or headmen of this country for 1200. The structure is read from geography and from ethnography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
What it holds
- The gulf shore and the Agno delta
- Salt-making
- The Zambales hill villages
Allies and rivals
Each village group deals with its neighbours by marriage, trade, feud and raid; nothing above them is shown.
How things stand that morning
Not described for 1200; the villages are presumed to be farming, fishing and selling what the rivers and forests give.
Wealth
Rice, salt and fish; no figures.
Military
Not known; boats, spears, shields and blowpipes in the later record. No numbers.
Threats
- Feuds and raiding between villages
- Flood, drought or fire
- A change in the trade that comes by sea
Places of note
- Lingayen: Gulf shore (a later name).
- Dagupan: Delta town (a later name; the gazetteer's position is used with care).
Where the sources disagree
- The ethnic names used here (Ibanag, Ilocano, Tagalog, Bisaya, Maranao and the rest) are later labels, most of them recorded by the Spanish from the 1560s on; the ethnic map of 1200 is not known. The word barangay (a community under a datu) is also of the Spanish record.
- Lingayen as a Zhufan zhi name is a modern scholars' reading as given on the English 'Ma-i' page; we did not read the Zhufan zhi text.
Evidence: Geography and later ethnography only; no text of the period describes this country.
On the map: A rough outline of the people's country; the real extent of any village group in 1200 is not known, and nothing here is a border.
Sources and studies
- Background knowledge of Southeast Asian history (Wolters; Hall; Bellwood; Scott; Junker; Reid), recalled and not re-read in this pass
- The OMNIA board (September 2026) note for this place: a lead only, not a source
- Wikipedia, 'History of the Philippines (900-1565)' (read in this pass): the table of early polities, nothing dated for 1200
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.