Butuan, the gold river kingdom of the Agusan

Who rules

Title

King (raja; the Chinese texts say wang)

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

low

The Song shi gives transliterated names for the rulers and envoys of 1001 to 1011 (a king Kiling and a king Sri Bata Shaja, in the forms Wikipedia gives). No ruler is named for any later date. For 1 January 1200 the holder is not known.

What the realm holds

• The lower Agusan from Butuan bay to the edge of the marsh
• Placer gold from the Agusan tributaries and the Diwata range, by the campaign board's reading
• The boat yards and the sea trade through the Masao roads
• The routes by water through the Agusan marsh to the gold country

How it was acquired

Not known. The earliest Chinese notice is 1001; the boats and graves reach back much further.

Allies and rivals

Trade ties with Champa (in 1011 Butuan asked to rank with it at the Song court) and with Srivijaya-era shipping; Chinese, Cham and mainland jars reach its graves. Its neighbours are the Manobo hill peoples on the upper Agusan and the Surigao and Caraga coasts. Brunei's alleged hold over it is a fourteenth-century claim and not in play.

The realm that morning

No source is dated to 1200. The last dated act is the embassy of 1011, 189 years before; the next solid notice is Pigafetta's account of 1521, which names a king Siagu at Butuan (Wikipedia, 'Rajahnate of Butuan'). On the morning of 1 January the north-east monsoon is blowing, which makes the Pacific side of Mindanao a hard shore; Butuan bay is sheltered and the boats are working the coast and the river.

Wealth

Gold from river gravels and the hills, worked into ornament; boats; trade in forest goods. No figures.

Military

Not known. The tradition of war boats and raiding is from the Spanish period.

Threats

• Silting and shifting of the river mouth and the Masao channel
• Sea raiders from the Sulu and Visayan seas (none dated)
• Decline of the Chinese and Cham trade that raised the town

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1200No dated event is known for Butuan in 1200.Depends on: The silence of the sources, not a peace Stopped by: Any new find or text

Places of note

• Butuan town: The modern city; the old river port lay along the Agusan and at Masao.
• Masao roads: The Agusan mouth on Butuan bay; the channel has shifted since.
• Libertad (Ambangan) boat site: Where the balangay were found; position approximate.
• Esperanza: Find spot of the gold image of a seated goddess (1917).
• Agusan marsh: Flooded basin on the middle river, travelled by boat; the road to the gold country.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry id butuan-agusan (and masao-butuan-port, esperanza-agusan-tara, agusan-marsh, diwata-gold-range) take Butuan as a standing kingdom in 1200 ('secure'). The only dated acts are 1001 to 1011; whether the kingdom still stood in 1200 is not shown.
• The 1011 embassy: the campaign board says the request for equal rank with Champa was refused. Wikipedia's page gives both a refused request (king Kiling) and a later grant (king Sri Bata Shaja) without clear dates and marks parts 'citation needed'. We could not read the Song shi; the refusal in 1011 is followed from the campaign board and marked unverified.
• The Wikipedia page gives the first embassy as 17 March 1001 (flagged 'citation needed'); the reign-year equivalents are Xianping 4 (1001), Xianping 6 (1003), Jingde 4 (1007) and Dazhong Xiangfu 4 (1011). No month was converted by me.
• The balangay dates: the National Museum's radiocarbon dates are recalled as running from the fourth to the thirteenth century (the Wikipedia 'Butuan' page gives 320 CE for the first boat). A boat's wood date is not the date of its use.
• Date of the Golden Tara of Agusan is unsettled (the ninth and tenth centuries on the English page 'Golden Tara', AD 1000 to 1300 in a Field Museum catalogue entry that page cites); do not treat it as a 1200 object. See Golden Tara of Agusan.

Evidence: One dated Chinese embassy cycle (1001 to 1011) and good excavated evidence; nothing for the twelfth century. The Chinese text was read only through Wikipedia.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Drawn on the Agusan valley units; the real reach of Butuan beyond the river port is unknown.

Primary sources for this realm

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