The valley of the Pulangi (the Rio Grande de Mindanao), the biggest river in Mindanao, with the broad rice-growing floodplain and marsh behind its mouth on the Moro gulf (board).
The Maguindanao sultanate that later rules from here is sixteenth century. The people are later called Maguindanao ('people of the flooded plain'), with Tiruray and Teduray in the hills. In 1200 this is a river full of settlements with no state over them (board), and we found no source that says otherwise.
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 floodplain villages
- The river mouth on the Moro gulf
- The hill villages of the west
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, forest goods; 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
- Pulangi mouth: River mouth.
- Cotabato: Modern city (a later name).
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.
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.