Rolling Street Art: The Beautiful Rides of Cebu

P. Bion Griffin Professor Emeritus,

University of Hawai`i, Mānoa 

Graffiti became street art; Taggers gave way to Banksy. Graffiti became the stuff of museums, of gallery showings, and of artists instead of criminals. Or the criminals became seen as artists.  The painters, owners, and riders of the minibuses of Cebu, especially from the South terminal to Carcar and back have one-upped them all…well, maybe not Bansky[1]. Many of the buses are rolling works of art, of fantasy, and of cultural explosion. Looking more closely we may see an exuberance specifically of Cebuano culture; looking more widely we see not only mini-buses but wild jeepneys coursing the streets of Cebu City and tricycles, or habal-habal, everywhere, the latter pimped out, blinged out, like few others in the Philippines. Street art is now rolling on the streets. The question that drives this anthropology of art paper is simply “WHY CEBU?” What is it about Cebuano Culture that produces such art?

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Plate One. Rolling street art. My favorite.  Outside Carcar, 2011

 

Plate Two A B & C. Details from Plate One. Art without a doubt.

 

Plate Three. Two views of life? “It’s more fun in the... “& “The VATICAN a holy place”. Unpainted Ceres buses in the background. Religious  imagery is often found on all types of PUVs.

At a national conference at the University of the Philippines Diliman I briefed this query to a Cebu-based academic artist who had delivered a paper about Cebuano artists and their problems with reception, recognition, and sales. Her answer was a blank face and complete lack of comprehension. Ah, not an anthropologist, I thought. No oil painting, no sculpture. Best I continue informant interviews, photography and looking at what the anthropology of art might say. Then, on an AirAsia flight, I spotted in the inflight magazine  the article “Art from the street.” More importantly, one accompanying photograph included an artist painting a bus (Lau 2018)[2]. An epiphany! “Instead of walls, the specially commissioned ‘moving’ mural was painted on a public bus – literally taking art from the streets for a spin on the streets” (Lau 2018:81 print edition).   I realized that Cebu buses are a genre of street art. A new avenue anthropological investigation opened. But for my article, the key word is anthropology, not gallery art. Again, why and how do we explain this Cebuano distinction? What anthropological insights and contributions may we make?

As I approach this thrust, I must consider the anthropology of art,  the idea of Cebuano culture, as opposed to Filipino culture. And I must zero in on the painted buses themselves and on the owners, painters, and riders. Lastly, I must look at Luzon buses, jeepneys and tricycles and learn why they are by and large such unexciting entities compared with those that circle around the Carcar City rotunda.

But are they, those jeepneys, tricycles and buses of Luzon only pale reflections of their Visayan kin? Are no statistical analyses on hand to build as evidence? The answer is no. One could go on the streets, count, photograph and somehow judge Manila versus Cebu City, or Baguio versus Carcar, but really, that still necessarily brings in a subjective, judgmental component. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; art is individually considered, judged, and praised or condemned. Your hardy writer has been studying the multitude of public utility vehicles (PUV) he has been riding since 1972, and I trust his judgement! But many variables do present themselves. Urban versus rural, big air con buses versus minibuses, the economies of the regions, and, perhaps, cultural expressions.

In Baguio City, where jeepneys tend to be old, dirty and poorly presented, some may be excused because their round trips are not to and from delightful Carcar, but via remote towns and villages over unpaved mountain roads. That said, Baguio’s city jeepneys are seldom painted in a distinctive fashion. Most frequently, stick-on decals of Disney cartoon characters and other themes are used. Some interesting air brush motifs are found but treating the vehicle as a single canvas is unlikely. Exceptions exist.

Plate Four (above) and Five. The Baguio exceptions. Note that these are long-bodied models. The jeepney “Iron Maiden” in the upper plate is for city transport (I could take it when going home from the market) while the model below is a mountain traversing unit. Both sport chromed horses on their hoods. Very Baguio.  Very Country. As I gaze at the designs on the upper jeepney, I wonder if I am off base re Cebu. That design would fit nicely on the road to Carcar.

Manila jeepneys, like Baguio’s, still largely follow the style of the traditional, jeep-based vehicle. These, made by Sarao and other long-time builders, have evolved from the earliest styles, all originating with the WWII American jeep. Seldom does one today still find a grouping of chrome horses on the hood, but otherwise paintjobs and chrome are rather standard.

Plate Six. Down a country road, old-time chrome horses leading the way.

 

Plate Seven. A plain oldie from 1969 on a Manila – Suburbs run. One can’t get a simpler livery.

Occasionally one sees a standout; on Ortigas avenue by C 5, I was enthralled by a new stretch jeepney painted in solid high-gloss black with gold metal trimming. One also sees the occasional fine job of airbrushing themes of various genres; Cebu is not the only location of beautiful rides, but I wonder if it holds a big lead. If so, why? That is my question that drives this paper.

Cebu does have what most of Luzon now longer sees: minibuses[3].

Plate Eight. A minibus in all its glory at the Carcar Rotunda.

In the 1970s and 1980s minibuses ruled the provincial roads of Luzon. Running relatively short hauls, say from San Fernando, La Union,  or Vigan, Ilocos Sur, to Dagupan, Pangasinan, they were the rides of choice over jeepneys which made even shorter and slower trips. Only the big corporate carriers used the large and sometimes airconditioned buses: Philippine Rabbit, Victory Liner, Times Transit, Viron, Pantranco, Dugupan Bus Line and the famous F Franco “flying coffin.” None of the Luzon vehicles of any size or configuration had colorful liveries. The Rabbit was red. Times was Green, Pantranco did have a stripe and so on. Jeepneys and minibuses sported the names of drivers, conductors, and their supposed paramours or fantasies.

Plate Nine. The “real” minibuses of Luzon in the Cagayan Valley about 1982. Your author is standing

by Lallo Bus Line’s “Star Bus of the North.” The “Godfather” of the LBL line is to the left.

Sometimes a phrase such as “God Bless this Trip” or “Midnight Cowboy” added character. Now the minibuses have been replaced by larger buses, the impersonal UV Express Toyota HiAces or the hybrid faux-jeepney minibuses. By a curious twist, the big corporation  buses now are colorful with swirling paint designs, all uniform per company. The paint jobs identify the company; one glance tells that the bus is a Victory Liner, not Florida or Genesis. But still…no art there.

Cebu does have its large, uniform corporate-owned bus line, Ceres. Ceres are solid yellow [but see below] and are large buses usually on longer routes. The painting is pleasant, but no fantasy creeps in, no joie de vivre. Ceres is just a bus. The buses of Cebu that are most elaborate and the subject of this paper are “mini”- to “a bit smaller than Ceres.”  They are the canvases upon which the spirit of the Cebuano seems to be most vividly presented.

 

 Plate Ten. Examples of the “new jeepney/minitruck”, an nicely painted old jeepney, and an attractive tricycle, all representative of Cebu City transport, not inter-city travel. A close viewing suggests that  “Pearl,” whoever she is, gets around! The lower left new jeepney is in the Camotes islands but is pure Cebuano. The tricycles may be in Carcar. Note the “Plain Jane” vehicle in the upper right photograph.

 I do have to repeat that Cebu “jeepneys,” are not really jeepneys, but a replacement style now nearly

 ubiquitous, but not universal. The styles extant, primarily within Cebu City proper, often are  examples

of the vivid, tricked out, colorful PUVs and tricycles that I see as special to Cebu and perhaps the

 Visayas.

What is it about the Cebu buses that sparks my interest? The designs are usually complex and

 storytelling, or at least attention grabbing. Stories are what live in us, that involve us. The images may

 be religious or perhaps anti-religious or even sacrilegious. Fantasy and the fantastic, muted sexuality

 and adventure, exploding colors, and personal statements all adorn the buses and jeepneys. The same

 could be argued for buses and jeepneys, especially jeepneys, even in the far reaches of Luzon. But I

 assert it is a matter of degree. This brings us back the difficult to answer question is the rolling street art

 somehow reflective of Cebuano culture.

But what is the elusive thing called Filipino Culture? First, we can dispense with the voluminous writings that grew out of the Ateneo de  Manila’s Institute of Philippine Culture during the 1960s and 1970s, writing that still dominates the lay public’s understandings. The work of Fr. Frank Lynch, Jaime Bulatao, Mary Hollnsteiner and others harked back to the dominant themes of American anthropology and the University of Chicago’s Philippines Studies Program (Lynch, Yengoyan, Makil, Hollnsteiner 2004; May G 1998). No fault may be found, I argue, with this anthropology, but it was a creature of its time. Culture was seen in normative terms and with concomitant theoretical underpinnings. Filipino Culture was something shared, not differentially participated in. Utang na loob, pakikisama, and the ideals of behavior and the Filipino family were explored and generalized upon. Variation in culture as a symbol system, as how people participated in their culture in different ways and with different meanings, did not draw the attention now highlighted in anthropology. I do not find a search of ideals or norms a fruitful way to investigate the rolling street art of Cebu buses. Still, one can’t entirely escape, since we are attempting to differentiate aspects of Cebuano culture from the overall entity, the symbol system, the ways of looking at the world, the variable and fluctuating designs for living that one might call Filipino.

I am reminded of Conrad de Quiros’s essay in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (May 11, 2014:A10) and his point that “…Our [Filipino] culture being steeped in myth and legend, our heroes being larger than life and savior figures” and “We are a culture too that isn’t always able to distinguish fantasy and reality.” More recently, Joel Ruiz Butuyan also in PDI (May 21, 2018) cast another angle on the same point “Politicians are viewed as fantastical beasts who can be benevolent or malevolent, and people generally let them be, just like they do with good and bad spirits such as engkanto, tikbalang, and nuno sa punso.”  Teledramas are full of the most amazing beings, often bad boys and girls, and the fates of interactions with the same.  I like to think of the Philippines as a “theater state.” I draw on Clifford Geertz’s book  Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (1980) for inspiration, and on a personal communication from Douglas Yen (n.d., back in the day) in discussing the media explosion with the discovery of the Tasaday of South Cotabato, Mindanao. He pointed out the level of fantasy swirling through the urban Philippines with political dramas, the Tasaday, the “Thrilla in Manila,” (the 1975 boxing match of Mohamad Ali and Joe Frazier), and wild street demonstrations before and after the declaration of martial law. Today every evening television news is scripted with drama: a murder, preferably gruesome, women crying, a sexy lady or two, even a sexy man or two, and political intrigue: theater. The whole Philippines is committed to and enthralled by festivals, their parades, and their fantasies. Nearly every town of any size has a fabulous annual festival, parade, beauty contest and politicians strutting their stuff. Perhaps most convincing are the performances of Congressmen and Senators. The ultimate was the August 27, 2025, boxing match between Philippine National Police Chief Nicolas Torre III and Davao Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, a “dare” match turned into a fund raiser at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum! What a show! And Duterte skipped out (Argosino, 2025 ).   

Within Filipino culture as the foundation of a theater state we may locate plentiful variation. I speculate that the buses of Cebu exemplify a special Cebuano exploration and display of their participation in this theater. I might, with caution, mention popular cultural stereotypes that have for years pervaded my hearing. Of course, stereotyping is dangerous, and falls back on the normative classifying that I have already diminished. Still, at least in the popular imagination, where there is smoke, there is fire, and the various ethnic groups seem to have a bit of both the smoke and the fire. So, Ilocanos are alleged, as a group, to be thrifty,[4] industrious, and brave/aggressive. Tagalogs may be proud and assertive, Waray, like Ilocanos are brave or strong. Illongas are supposedly status conscious. Cebuanos, our folk of interest, may be kind, gentle, slow to anger (and if angry, not showing so until…bang!) and given to love of the good things of life. I suggest we transition this latter notion to the exuberance in display, a vivid approach to one’s surroundings, and a touch of the mystical. The buses do have more than a touch of magic and fantasy.

Art from an anthropological perspective must be clarified. The justification for including vehicle paint jobs as art will buttress the interpretation of images viewed and presented.  J. Coole has a succinct view that enables a beginning analysis.

“The anthropology of art studies and analyses the wide range of material objects produced by people around the world. These are considered not merely as aesthetic objects but are understood to play a wider role in people's lives, for instance in their beliefs and rituals. The materials studied include sculpture, masks, paintings, textiles, baskets, pots, weapons, and the human body itself. Anthropologists are interested in the symbolic meanings encoded in such objects, as well as in the materials and techniques used to produce them…. Another central concern of this branch of the discipline has been to analyse the form and function of objects and to explore the relations between these and aspects of the wider society….Since the 1960s in particular, anthropologists have produced increasingly sophisticated analyses of visual materials. More recently, closer attention has been paid to the different ideas of aesthetic value in different societies. Increasing attention has also been paid to the ways in which material objects made in one sphere come to have value in another. For example, there have been a number of recent studies of the tourist and art markets as well as of the role of museums.” Jeremy Coote (n.d., see references for URL.)

 

Paul Bohannan adds perspectives useful in studying bus paintings. “All art can be said to have two sweeping characteristics: it embodies a message within an idiom of communication, and it arouses a sense of mystery – a feeling that it is more than it appears to the intellect to be” Bohannon (1964:141).

I started my thinking on the beautiful rides of  Cebu in 2010. I scratched  notes, made visits to Cebu and Carcar, queried assorted locals, and continued to wrestle with the central question. Do the painted buses and jeepneys, and even the blinged tricycles reveal a special exuberance in Cebuano culture? Informants – bus conductors, the occasional rider and stand by usually had difficulty articulating what the bus designs meant to them. Of course, this is typical of one pressed to come up with an explanation “out of the blue,” but most thought the painted buses and the artwork itself made the bus look attractive. “The owner wants a good-looking bus to compete with other owners and buses” was often a response to our queries. “Buses should look good.” “I’m proud of my bus.” “I haven’t thought about your question.” “Yes, Carcar buses are special, like Carcar.” A professional painter of buses – he does an entire bus, not piece work, noted that he plans the paint job with the owner, often selecting designs from books of illustrations. He considers the whole bus when he undertakes a job. As to deeper meanings, he passed, but clearly took pride in his art. I must admit that when asked about the meaning of a piece of art, I hedge and leave it to university art professors to tell me what the artist meant by his or her result! Perhaps a symposium at the University of San Carlos might bring reflections.[5]

In May 2022, after the isolation of the Covid pandemic, I returned to Cebu to wrap up my research and finish this essay. As they say, “FAIL.” Few pieces of rolling street art were seen. No exuberance in decorated buses, jeepneys or, truly, anything met my eyes. It seemed all gone. The research wraps up with a possible negation of the hypothesis, or a rejection of any distinctiveness in Cebuano culture as seen in “rolling street art.” The streets of Cebu and the roads of the island were loaded with government mandated mini-buses and by multitudes of Ceres buses. The former were painted a uniform off-white, the latter shared an attractive livery of no great distinction, but not the original universal yellow. The rolling street art is but sporadically seen. I failed to travel the Cebu City to Carcar route, so I cannot be certain of my interpretation. The plethora of plain buses north of Cebu City seem to make the case that rolling street art is passé.

The first point herein is that the research problem perhaps has been solved. The idea may wrong. True, I have not explained the existence of the Carcar painted buses, but the hypothesis cannot be strongly supported. The second point is to speculate why such is the case. Lots of anthropological ideas cum research projects end up busts. This is to be expected and thought through, but not necessarily turned into a renewed project. Still, I was shocked to find the change. I wonder if I overstated the singularity of the painted buses. Most importantly, I suggest that a perfect storm, no pun intended, has changed the public transportation world of Cebu. The pandemic from March 2020 until the present in which I write this line, May 2022, now fading, crippled small operators financially. No one could ride together on buses until recently. Supporting business closed. Drivers and conductors had no employment, hence no money. Mini-bus owners, small businesspersons themselves, likely were seldom able to survive the loss of income. Then came the typhoon that savaged the island. As of May 2022, the evidence of terrible destruction still confronts one. Small operators may have experienced destruction of their infrastructure. In any case, two new PUV systems, funded by deeper pockets, perhaps took over.

Ceres buses back in 2010 were largely limited to long distance routes and were few compared with the minibuses. They were larger, sometimes air-conditioned and fares were a little higher as I recall. If a traveler wanted a maximally comfortable seat and a trip with fewer stops and goes, Ceres was the choice. Traveling from Cebu City’s South Terminal to well beyond Carcar, Ceres was also the choice. Ceres is, reportedly, the largest bus franchise in the Philippines and “rules” the Visayas. The company has now extended to Luzon. And, clearly, it has taken over the shorter rural hauls recently the domain of the painted minibuses. I infer that the company saw the opening and quickly put a fleet of large buses onto the rural roads and city streets of Cebu. And, they had company.

The white minibuses are ubiquitous on Cebu City’s streets. The numbers of wildly painted “jeepneys” seem to have plummeted. The minibuses are meant to upgrade the quality of vehicles. The replacement of the older style jeepney is mandated by law and came into effect late in the President Duterte administration. I had surmised that the demise of older jeepneys was largely a Manila and Luzon phenomenon. In those places the very old diesel powered jeepneys had been on the road since time immemorial and were often smoke belching beasts. Cebu had largely left behind the traditional jeepney, replacing it with a more modern vehicle with no ancestry to the WWII jeep.  Again, I was mistaken. The numbers of  minibuses (one cannot call them modern jeepneys, no matter what the politicians and bureaucrats say) suggest that our old painted buses and evolved jeepneys could not survive this onslaught.

The combined powers of big business, Ceres, and the  government fostered “modern” PUVs, the buses, some allegedly electric were, I suggest, the basis of the disappearance of the rolling street art buses owned by individual entrepreneurs. I still think that the minibuses seen running from South Terminal to Carcar (and others) were emblematic of a Cebuano joie de vivre, but I see no anthropological basis for making a stronger assertion. Perhaps such a spirit will be revived as the effects of the pandemic and typhoon dissipate but running up against the powers of Ceres and government organized and controlled environmentally friendly buses makes the prospect dim. Did a special Cebuano artistic excitement ever exist? Or does a pan Philippines flair for wild color, fantasy, and account for my buses? Has the anthropology of art in this case failed, or is something hidden that the anthropologist fails to see? Inquiring minds want to know. But, whatever the reasons, those buses are beautiful rolling street art.

 

References and  selected resources for additional information

Argosino, Faith 2025 Torre gets the better of another Duterte. Philippine Daily Inquirer. P. 6, July 28, 2025.  Print edition.

Anonymous 2024. Philippine Street Art: Reflecting Social Issues. EduBirdie.https://hub.edubirdie.com/examples/graffiti-art-and-street-art-in-the-philippines-reflection-of-social-issues-in-the-philippines/. Downloaded 7-27-2025.

Anonymous 2021. Philippine Street Art Scene. https://streetartnews.net/2021/08/philippine-street-art-scene.html#google_vignette. Downloaded 7-27-2025.

Bohannon, Paul 1964. Africa and Africans. The Natural History Press, Garden City, New York.

Cabildo, Aldous Vince 2022. Street Art in the Philippines: 10 Spots That Tell Stories and Expressions. TripZilla Philippines. https://www.tripzilla.ph/street-art-in-the-philippines/9110 downloaded 7-27-2025.

Calara, Perry M. 2008. Trisikel, habal-habal or pedicab. Sun-Star p. 6, February 10, 2008.

Coote, Jeremy n.d. Anthropology of Art  https://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/about-anthropology/specialist-areas/anthropology-of-art.html  Downloaded 8-21-2018.

Ellsworth-Jones, Will 2013. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/  downloaded 8-20-2018.

Geertz, Clifford 1980. Negara: The  Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Lau, Danny 2018. “Art from the Streets,” Travel360.com. AirAsia Inflight Magazine. May. 76-83.

Lynch, Frank,  Yengoyan, Aram A., Makil, Perla Q., Hollnsteiner, Mary Racelis. 2004. Philippine society and the individual: selected essays of Frank Lynch. Quezon City, Philippines : Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University : distributed by Ateneo de Manila University Press. Rev. ed.

 

May, GA 1998. Father Frank Lynch and the Shaping of Philippine Social Science. Itinerario 22 (3): 99-121.

 Riva, Emma n.d. Venazir Martinez, Baguio City’s Anthro-preneur. https://upmag.com/venazir-martinez/ Downloaded 7-27-2025. Great photographs of Baguio City wall paintings.

Roque, Kevin Christian 2024 Revolutionary Walls:  The Activist’s Canvas. UP Forum, University of the Philippines. https://up.edu.ph/revolutionary-walls-the-activists-canvas/ Downloaded 7-27-2025. Good general introductory text.

 

Contact: pbiongriffin@gmail.com

Citation: Griffin, P. Bion 2025 Rolling Street Art: the Beautiful Rides of Cebu. Wandering with An Old Anthropologist. Baguio City, Philippines. 29 July 2025. Blog post. http://wanderingoldanthropologist.blogspot.com/.

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[1] Bansky is arguably the world’s most famous and reclusive “street artist.” See Elsworth-Jones (2013). Philippines street art is too big to discuss here. The References and Resources section list with URLs several good sources.

[2] The online version does not have the print version bus painting. Can we imagine a Cebu City art gallery commissioning a bus painting?  

[3] Interestingly, in 2021 the mandate to replace jeepneys by new, custom-built nouveau jeepneys, complete with air conditioning and wi-fi has re-introduced the minibus, but in an urban context. Consortium-owned, the paint jobs are decidedly pedestrian. They are also allegedly environmentally friendly, being  occasionally electric powered.

[4] I will use English glosses, incomplete and inaccurate although they may be. The issue is all fuzzy and subject to passionate debate.

[5] Perhaps the task of the research was beyond  the anthropologist -me. I do not speak Cebuano. My Tagalog is good for ordering a drink in a bar or arguing with a taxi driver. My assistant spoke good English, but the idea of my inquiry seems to have been lost in translation. Getting into the deep  meaning of bus art was beyond us.

 

The Agta-Clovis Arrow: Experimental Ethnoarchaeology on Projectile Technology

P. Bion Griffin Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa 

Comments on this draft are welcome. Everything is subject to revision. Draft 8

The formatting of the references is haywire, but nothing other than use of strong drink would fix it. Who cares?

Abstract

Clovis projectile points may or may not  have been attached to arrow shafts. As an ethnoarchaeological exercise, an Agta hunter in the Philippines placed three Clovis point replicas on one style of hunting arrow shaft. Consideration of the possibilities of this technology being used to kill mammoths by Paleo-Indians follows the step-by-step fabrication of the Agta-Clovis arrow.

Years ago, I was told in no uncertain terms that Clovis projectile points could not have been used as arrow points. The received wisdom went that these beautifully knapped points were, among North American Paleo-Indians users, mounted on dart shafts hurled by atlatls, or “spear throwers.” A few scholars favored Clovis hunters using spears, not “darts” and not affixed to atlatl. I had recently spent months engaged in ethnoarchaeology among Agta hunter-gatherers living in the humid forests of the northern Philippines (Griffin and Estioko-Griffin 1985). These Agta were master bowmen (and women) and utilized a plethora of arrow point styles attached to a variety of structural devises. Some arrow points were longer, larger and heavier than any Clovis point (Estioko-Griffin 1984, Griffin 2012, 1997). I decided to put my ethnoarchaeology interests to examining how Clovis points might fit with Agta arrow construction. An Agta hunter would be tasked with contriving the first Agta Clovis arrow – if he or she was willing and deemed it possible.

The exercise could not pretend to demonstrate that Clovis points were arrow points, but some of the assertions against a Clovis bow & arrow complex might be cast in a new light. Clovis points could function as arrow points. Whether they did or not remains unresolved, all the metric analyses of the last few decades aside (Arp 2016, Buchanan and Briggs 2009, Hildebrandt and King 2012). A close reading of Shea and Sisk (2010) convinces me that bow & technology was known in the Early Upper Paleolithic 45-35 ka.  Most interestingly, now some argue that Clovis points may not functioned as killing tools, but general-purpose knives (Eren et.al. 2021) Perhaps the Clovis Paleo-Indians were not, after all, the ultimate “Man the Hunter.” (New World version) In the final analysis, however, they got the mammoths, dead or alive, and they ate them. The “kill sites” are unquestionable evidence of human association with dead mammoths.  I suspect that they ate plenty, not the once in a lifetime and never stopping talking about it, that Scotty McNeish suggested long ago.

Back in 1984, then a University of Hawaii anthropologist, I contracted with skilled stone knapper Dr. Errett Callahan of Piltdown Productions to provide me with six replica Clovis points. (See the Wikipedia url in references.) Then I returned to my Agta hosts, carrying three of the points. My procedure on the Clovis points cum Agta arrows was as follows. Speaking in the Agta language, I showed the men present the points, especially my close mentor Tomba. I asked if they could function as arrow heads. Tomba, in concert with Lakay (old man) Heting, replied in the affirmative, but thought that being glass, they would break easily. I asked Tomba if he could make two or three arrows using the points. I did not suggest any particular style or method of construction. Over the course of three days, Tomba made Agta style arrows using the replica Clovis points as the killing point. He chose to make a multi-component arrow, hafting the points on foreshafts as he would a tinanad, baag, and others. Tomba fabricated a cord that connected the foreshaft to the main arrow shaft, a hard wood shaft he formed from a straight small sapling trunk.  Plate one shows the competed arrow being examined by Tomba. But before going over his step-by-step work, a discussion of the technology of Agta arrows allows insight into Tomba’s choice of the Clovis application.   

Plate One. Tomba and a finished Agta Clovis arrow. Lakay Heting looks on with doubt about the idea.

Agta arrow technology has been described in several publications (Estioko-Griffin 1984, Griffin 2012, 1997) I will summarize as relevant to this essay. What we are looking for are the principles used in construction of the bow and arrow killing technology devised by Agta. Remember that they live in a varied environment, albeit humid tropics. Most hunting takes place within primary rain forest at various elevations, but some is increasingly within secondary growth due to commercial logging or swiddening by non-Agta. The favored game animals are wild pigs and deer. Macaques, pythons, monitor lizards and birds are taken when encountered. In the early 20^th century feral water buffalo were hunted. The buffalo were the most dangerous animal existing, although adult wild pigs, especially boars, have a history of harming both Agta and their dogs. Two types of arrows are used on pigs and deer. A general all-purpose arrow is always carried and may be shot at any animal. For pig and deer, a more specialized and complex arrow is favored. An assortment of old-fashioned arrows, seldom used by the late 20^th century, killed monkeys, birds, fish and any small, elusive animal. These are illustrated in plates below.

Tomba chose to make a multi-component arrow patterned after the Agta style tinanad, baag and sagud. These have a hard wood shaft, a foreshaft of hard wood, a point mounted on the foreshaft and a fiber line connecting the point and the main shaft. The line is usually over a meter long. The function is built on the dynamics of the point entering the animal’s body, whereupon the foreshaft and the main shaft disengage, the line playing out and catching on jungle growth. The animal is assumed to run, and the force of the main shaft fetching up tight on vegetation causes internal damage to the animal, hastening death. The ginilat and tinanad have metal barbs that catch on the internal parts of the animal. The baag and sagud use a harpoon principle. The antler, horn or iron is shaped to rotate inside an animal after the foreshaft disengages. A bone or antler toggle has a metal point attached to the front, while a concavity at the base permits foreshaft attachment. Plate two, top two arrows, illustrates this construction. The third point does not use a foreshaft since the posterior metal rod inserts directly into the main shaft. The fourth, or lowest point, combines a multiple barbed metal point with a foreshaft and the necessary cord line.

Plate two. Multi-component arrows for deer and wild pigs: top, a sagud metal toggle point fronting a foreshaft with the attached cord line. The foreshaft always inserts into the mainshaft. Next below is a baag, a toggle made from a deer antler fronted by a simple metal point. Third down is a ginilat without a foreshaft. The bottom point, a tinanad, utilizes both the foreshaft and a smithed iron point. As we will see, Tomba’s Agta Clovis arrow works on the tinanad principle, except the anterior of the foreshaft is split to accept the Clovis base instead of a hole into which a metal shaft is inserted.

Plate three. Assorted styles of points based on an arrow of simply a reed shaft and a point. These are all-purpose arrows. Variation is the smith’s choice and love of style, although the wider points have more cutting power but demand greater proximity to prey than do narrow points.

Plate four. Rare, specialized arrows. The upper is for shooting fish looking down into the water. The lower for are for monkeys, which when hit, may try to pull the arrow out of the wound. Barbs and the cord lines inhibit this effort, to the monkey’s detriment.

Plate five. Epeng selecting a section of deer antler for shaping a baag toggle devise for a multi-component arrow.

Plate six. Roughing out the baag toggle.

Plate seven. Drilling the hole in the toggle for insertion of the cord line.

Plate  eight. The cord line inserted in a test of fit and balance. The toggle is also fitted to the foreshaft.

Plate nine. A step further in the baag/sagud fabrication. In this sagud the metal point is set into the water buffalo horn and secured by binding as discussed in Tomba’s work below. The cord line is attached to the foreshaft and is being straightened and made taut for attachment to the main hard wood shaft.

Plate ten. Tomba is shaving a hard wood sapling for use as the main shaft of the Agta Clovis arrow. All arrows with heavy points utilize a hard wood shaft, not a reed.

Plate eleven. Tomba is fire-hardening the wood arrow shaft after shaping.

 

Plate twelve. The foreshaft has been shaped and inserted into the mainshaft cavity. The Clovis point placement in the groove cut into the anterior end of the foreshaft is being tested.

Plate thirteen. The foreshaft has initial fiber binding place to tighten the split end.

Plate fourteen. The Agta Clovis arrow is taking shape. Fiber bindings are seen around the base of the point, the upper foreshaft, and the lower shaft where the cord line is firmly secured to the foreshaft. The line stretches back to the main shaft.

 

Plate fifteen. Tomba has rubbed a tree sap as glue onto the binding, here evident around the base of the point. Work began in daylight goes on into the evening.

Plate sixteen. Fine ash from the cooking and heating fire is rubbed onto the tree sap glue as a sealant and to remove the sticky surface.

Plate seventeen. The mainshaft anterior end has had a hole excavated and line attached with fiber, tree sap glue and ash sealant. This is the line that attached to the immediately forward foreshaft and point.

Plate eighteen. Last but not least, Tomba attached fletching of hornbill or hawk feathers.

 

Plate nineteen. The three Agta Clovis point arrows as completed by Tomba. Note that the top point is small and has light binding. The middle point is well bound at the base, while the lower point has binding well forward of the base. Note also the varying styles of the foreshafts and thickness of the cord lines.

Plate twenty. One Agta Clovis arrow with three Agta arrows. The multi-barbed point has no foreshaft, but the reed mounted light point does. This is a monkey killing arrow. The lower point is a pangal, the most common style found and is always in a hunter’s kit. A pangal would be shot at anything that moves, or, preferably, does not move. Adapting an old State of Maine saying of, “If it runs, an Agta will shoot it. If it falls, and Agta will eat it.” So would the visiting anthropologist.

 

Thoughts on hunting big game with bow & arrows, atlatl & darts and spears

What game was sought and how Clovis pointed projectiles were used remains an enigma. That bow & arrow sufficed, or was even invented, remains a heresy, or at least an unlikely hypothesis. The consensus of academic opinion is that Clovis and the later Folsom hunters used atlatls. I question the heresy. I note a hint of “Paleolithic” use of bone foreshafts and barbed points is alleged to have been found at Ngandong, Java (Soekmono 1973, Fig. 5 p.32) We also speculate that use of spears began by the Middle Pleistocene among early varieties of the genus Homo. Spears of fire-hardened wood testify to the likely ubiquity of such a tool or weapon. Moving from a hardened tip shaped by a flaked stone to a spear hafted with a shaped point is less certain, but given a long-term and extensive lithic technology, one is hard pressed to discount stone points on spears well before the New World was peopled (Shea and Sisk 2010 range widely around this and related issues). European Upper Palaeolithic hunters are now argued to have an arrow technology that uses small, flaked points. “Researchers examined tiny triangular stone points and other artifacts excavated at a rock-shelter in southern France called Grotte Mandrin. H. sapiens on the move probably brought archery techniques from Africa to Europe, archaeologist Laure Metz of Aix-Marseille University in France and colleagues report February 22 in Science Advances.” (Bower 2023).  Lombard (2022) pushes arrow use back further in time, hypothesizing that the bow and arrow may have been used in certain environments before or at the same time as the atlatl dart system and 60 to 80 thousand years ago. 

Guadalupe Sanchez (personal communication 2023) pointed out that the Fin del Mundo site, contained two young gomphotheres (an extinct elephant species) with an array of Clovis points. Some suggested, given their small size, possible use as arrow points. Her paper with John P. Carpenter (2021:126) illustrates the variation in point size. One point is less than 4 cm. in length. While I argue based on the above Agta experiment that larger points function easily as arrow points, the small size of the Fin del Mundo points is intriguing. To be sure, small points on atlatl propelled shafts is also possible. I see no reason, given these data, that Clovis mammoth hunters could not have used bows and arrows as killing tools. As is said, “If the horse is dead, dismount.” Don’t tell me that Clovis hunters could not have used bows. Note that no evidence exists they were archers.

Clovis hunters surely used spears on some game animals. The effectiveness of an atlatl dart -a light spear launched from the “spear thrower” aka atlatl is another matter and remains contested despite excellent experiments. George Frison (1989) has, in my view, the most persuasive argument for Clovis hunters as mammoth killers. His experiments with “finishing off” African elephants during a Zimbabwe culling operation show that an atlatl and spear technology should be able to also kill mammoths.  Eren et. al (2013) disagree, given the thickness of mammoth hides and fat. Frison’s expertise in real hunting adds, in my opinion, to the weight of his arguments. On the other hand, Eren et. al. also argue that the points may not have been killing tools, but knives and general-purpose cutting tools. They suggest that the kill sites do not support Clovis points as the reasons for the dead mammoths.  Let the games begin!

Unlike Frison, I am no hunter, although I did join hunts when living with Agta. I have worked with captive Asian elephants in Thailand and Cambodia. All captive elephants are tamed, not domesticated. Some are tamer than others. Elephants can be extremely dangerous when aroused. Male elephants are fast on their feet, use trunks and tusks as weapons, are both intelligent and unpredictable and often have bad attitudes. In the wild, Asian elephants are not easy to kill without use of high-powered rifles. Wary of humans, they either move away fast or charge with ill intent. What I am saying is that humans killing mammoths is no joke and is fraught with danger. Hunter-gatherer bands, like Clovis people, could not have afforded to have prime age men killed by mammoths, mastodons, or bison. Killing tactics would been carefully designed and tactically followed. I speculate that Frison’s statement that prime, healthy mammoths were prey of choice is debatable. I suspect (I wish I could do a taste test) that very young are tasty and the elderly close to death more than edible in a pinch, and easier to kill than mature adults. In fact, Agta of Tomba’s people, who hunt pig and deer, replicate wolf kill patterns in that most kills are young or elderly pigs (Mudar 1985). The adult pigs are fast, strong, vicious, and smart. They are more difficult to kill. Simple as that. Waguespack and Surovell (2013) is an important source for this and related issues. Age of death of prey mammoths should be explored herein, but we will pass, as will consideration of other prey animals of Clovis hunters. Spears, darts, and arrow may have killed the entire suite.

The old saying “There is more than one way to skin a cat” applies here. While Frison doubts driving mammoths into quagmires, as opposed to driving them out, slowing them down in terrain difficult for mammoths is viable. Katz (2019) suggested that trapping in pits may work. She suggests that a concentration of mammoth skeletons near Mexico City was a kill site. Guadalupe Sanchez informed me that no evidence was found that indicates human action  in the deaths of the mammoths. No Clovis points or stone tools were associated, suggesting natural causes (personal communication 8-05-2023). Katz points to alleged cut marks on  bones. The jury may still be out. Natural traps and “jumps” may have been possible in favored locales. Excavation of pits seems beyond the technology of the times.

I favor a situation where the mammoth is constrained to be necessary. Mbuti pygmies in the Congo Forest are alleged to be able to run (fast) under a forest elephant and thrust a spear up into the elephant’s gut (and keep running, fast). Eventually the elephant dies and is butchered and eaten. Such a tactic is difficult to imagine outside a heavy forested environment, but who knows? Did a poison exist that, rubbed on the Clovis point and stuck into a mammoth, caused death? Recall the famous film The Hunters by John Marshall of !kung killing a giraffe with a poison arrow? (Actually, allegedly they got tired of waiting for the giraffe to die, so they shot it with a rifle, but hey, that’s filming.) Agta also have a poison for application to arrow points. The poison is deadly but is not used on pigs or deer. Humans were the targets of choice, which makes me wonder if the early use of bow & arrow was for shooting Neanderthals, a disconcerting thought, since your author shares a few of their genes.  Dogs find them, sapiens shoots them. Neanderthals extinct. This idea, may, however, be carrying Pat Shipman’s (2015a,b) idea of dogs and Neanderthals too far! At least, we do not at present have evidence of Clovis points smeared with poison nor Neanderthals with arrow points embedded. Perhaps the thawing Siberian tundra will one day unearth the damning evidence.

Many hunters have canine helpers. Dogs were likely domesticated, or semi-domesticated, from wolf ancestry well before the human entrance to the New World (Shipman 2023, 2015). Dogs walked along with men, women, and children out of Siberia down into the northern Western Hemisphere. Dogs are important helpers in finding, driving, and holding game. Mammoths may have been unaccustomed to dogs and people and found the dogs’ harassment discomforting. Working in teams, dogs and Clovis hunters may have been effective in moving mammoths to preferred kill sites. In a final analysis, or hypothesis building, the skills and experience of Clovis hunters are difficult to discount. One way or another, they killed mammoths. Did they use spears? Surely. Did they use atlatl? Reasonable. Did they use bow & Arrows? Seems a long shot, but not impossible. Clovis points mounted on hard wood shafts and foreshafts, launched by strong bows are a possibility as far as killing power and tactics are concerned. (See Pope 1962  on bow power). The demise of bow & arrow technology with the passing of large fauna is also possible. The bow & arrow reappearing thousands of years later when the technology was advantageous is reasonable to all except the committed nay-sayers. Whatever… mammoths died out in the New World. Perhaps the Clovis hunters killed them all off, perhaps not. That’s another story.

A Greg Larson Far Side cartoon.

 

Perhaps one of the most realistic artist’s depiction of men attempting to kill a mammoth. One man is getting stomped, a predictable event. One does not stand about trying to spear an elephant in good condition.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/shock-absorbing-spear-points-kept-early-north-americans-hunt

A wonderful if perhaps unrealistic view of atlatl use.

 

Atlatl and spears at work on Bison antiquus. That bison would not be standing around as a target. He would be charging and doing some serious damage. Hunters would never be so foolish. But, hey, as usual, a volcano is in the background so it must be realistic.

National Geographic Magazine (date) Fair Use.

Folsom men go at it with a Bison antiquus, bows & arrows this time. A famous National Geographic painting by artist Chares Knight. Another volcano. Love it.

National Geographic  Magazine (date) Fair Use.

Wise men: what to do when a mammoth appears on the scene. The Flight from the Mammoth Paul Jamin 1885

George Catlin painting from life. Note both spears and bow & arrow in use. These dangerous animals, Bison bison, are handicapped by deep snow. One would expect Clovis hunters to have taken advantage of similar snow conditions. Did Clovis hunters have snowshoes? Seems likely. In some locations and seasons snow and Clovis folk surely co-existed.

 

Atlatl spear throwing procedure. From Hunter 1992

 

Acknowledgements and special mentions

The extended family of Galpong, Taytayan and Littawan Taginod hosted my family and student researchers for the duration of our residence with them. Son-in-law Tomba fabricated the Agta-Clovis arrows discussed above. My thanks to them; my utang na loob, by definition, can never be repaid. I treasure my years with them and among other Agta, all who contributed to this paper. My wife Agnes (Annie) and son Marcus were team members and fellow anthropologists. Mr. Alfonso (Sonny) Lim and Mr. Nicola (Nick) Cerra of  Acme Plywood and Veneer and Goodwood Inc. respectively cared for use throughout out stay in their forest domain. Mr. Pete Galimba, Acme forest boss, was always ready to help. The Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai`i is thanked for helping me get out of Dodge and back into the jungle – repeatedly.

 

References cited and suggested further readings

Arp, Don Jr.

            2016       Dart or Arrow? 20th Century Projectile Point Differentiation Studies and the Search for Weapons System Design Innovation on the Great Plains. Central States Archaeological Journal. 63(3): 150-153.

Bryan, A. L.

1991                The Fluted-Point Tradition in the Americas-One of Several Adaptations to Late Pleistocene American Environments. In Clovis: Origins and Adaptations, edited by R. Bonnichsen and K. L. Tunmire, pp. 15-33. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Corvallis, Oregon

Bower, Bruce

      2023          Homo sapiens may have brought archery to Europe about 54,000 years ago. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/homo-sapiens-archery-europe-neandertal?fbclid=IwAR1D5SCWnQ3rd7E4QP3iHzEsb0Qg5itzp9DxYVQ3EfdI9HQJfFW2Rl_afEY February 22

2017          Shock-absorbing spear points kept early North Americans on the hunt https://www.sciencenews.org/article/shock-absorbing-spear-points-kept-early-north-americans-hunt April 14.  (also photo credit of illustration)           

Buchanan, Briggs and Marcus J. ?

      2009        A Formal Test of the Origin of Variation in North American Early Paleoindian Projectile Points. American Antiquity 74(2): 279-298.

Dixon, E. James

      1999        Bones,  Boats & Bison: Archeology and the First Colonization of Western North America. The University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. I found the chapter “Interpreting Cultural Development” especially interesting.

Christopher,  Ellis 

        2013      Clovis Lithic Technology: The Devil is in the Details. Reviews in Anthropology, 42:127–160. Routledge 

Eren, Metin I., David J. Meltzer, Brett Story, Briggs Buchanan, Don Yeagerf, and Michelle R. Bebber

2021    On the efficacy of Clovis fluted points for hunting proboscideans Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports 39;103-166 This article is a must read. Eren and company challenge the whole Clovis gospel.

Estioko-Griffin, Agnes

1984    The Ethnography of Southeastern Cagayan Agta Hunting. MA thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. The thesis covers far more than arrow technology. Available through the Griffins.

Frison, George C.

      1991          Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Required reading. Covers the whole nine yards.

 

      1989          Experimental Use of Clovis Weaponry and Tools on African Elephants. American Antiquity 54(4): 766-784. Required read on this topic. How I wish I could have joined the team.

 

Griffin, P. Bion

      2012          The Centrality of Arrow Crafting and Hunting in the Agta Way-of-Life. In Cordillera Review: Journal of Philippine Culture and Society Vol IV(2):65-90. Cordillera Studies Center, University of the Philippines, Baguio. With Agnes Estioko-Griffin.

 

1997        Technology and Variation in Arrow Design. In Projectile Technology, edited by

Heidi Knecht, Plenum Press, New York. Pp. 267-286.

      2000          Agta Hunting and Resource Sustainability in Northeastern Luzon,                                           Philippines. In  Evaluating the Sustainability of Hunting in Tropical Forests,                          edited by John G. Robinson and Elizabeth L. Bennett, Biology and                                          Management Series. Columbia University Press, New York.  Pp. 325-335.                              Senior author with M. B. Griffin.

Griffin, P. Bion and Agnes Estioko-Griffin

      1985          Ethnoarchaeology of Agta Hunters-Gatherers. Archaeology 31(6):34-43.

Hildebrandt, William R. and Jerome H. King

      2012          Distinguishing between darts and arrows in the archaeological record: Implications for technological change in the American West. American Antiquity 77 (4): 789-799

Hunter, Wryley

      1992          Reconstructing A Generic Basketmaker Atlatl. Bulleting of Primitive Technology 4 Downloaded 1-20-22 Un

Hutchings, W. Karl and Lorenz Bruchert

      1997    Spear Thrower Performance: Ethnographic and Experimental Research. Antiquity 71: 890-897.

Katz, Brigit  

      2019 Two Traps Where Woolly Mammoths Were Driven to Their Deaths Found in Mexico. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/found-mexico-two-traps-where-woolly-mammoths-were-driven-their-deaths-180973522/

Knecht, H. editor                                                                                                      

      1997          Projectile Technology, New York, Plenum Press. The entire volume, edited by Knech, is central to our interests. Old World, New World, Palaeolithic to ethnographic.

 

Lombard, Marlize

      2022 Re-considering the origins of Old World spearthrower-and-dart hunting. Quaternary Science Reviews. Re-considering the origins of Old World spearthrower-and-dart hunting - ScienceDirect. 1 October 2022, 107677.

 

Marks, Stuart A.

      1976          Large Mammals and a Brave People: Subsistence Hunters in Zambia. University of Washington Press, Seattle.  Elephant hunters. Good stuff.

 

Mithen, S.

      1993          Simulating Mammoth Hunting and Extinction: Implications for the Late Pleistocene of the Central Russian Plain. In Hunting and Animal Exploitation in the Later Paleolithic and Mesolithic of Eurasia, edited by G. L. Peterkin, H. M. Bricker, and P. Mellars, pp. 163-178. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association No. 4, Washington, D.C. Great idea to look at both the European Upper Palaeolithic and the New World very late Pleistocene.

 

Mudar, Karen

      1985          Bearded Pigs and Beardless Men: Predator-Prey Relationships Between Pigs and Agta in Northeastern Luzon, Philippines. IN: P. B. Griffin and A. E. Griffin (eds.) The Agta of Northeastern Luzon: Recent Studies. San Carlos Publications, University of San Carlos, Cebu City.

 

Pope, Saxton T.

      1962          Bow and Arrows. University of California Press, Berkeley. More than you want to know on the subject, but best you do know. A great little book. Introduction by Robert Heizer.

 

Sanchez, Guadalupe and John P. Carpenter

      2021          Tales of the  Terminal Pleistocene: Clovis in Northern Mexico and the First Mesoamericans. In: Preceramic Mesoamerica Jon C. Lohse, Aleksander Borejsza and Arthur A. Joyce (eds.) New York and Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Pp. 117-141.

 

Shea, John and Matthew L. Sisk

      2010          Complex Projectile Technology and Homo sapiens Dispersal into Western Eurasia. Paleoanthropology 2010:100-122. A must-read concerning, yes, atlatls, bows & arrows, and when and where and who etc. Notes on Neanderthals too.

Shipman, Pat

      2023          Our Oldest Companions: The Story of the First Dogs. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University.

 

      2015a        The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction. Cambridge: The Belknap Pres of Harvard University.

 

      2015 b       How do you kill 86 mammoths? Taphonomic investigations of mammoth megasites. Quaternary International Volumes 359–360, 2 March 2015, Pages 38-46.

Soekmono, R.

      1973          Pengantar sejarah Kedudayaan Indonesia 1. Penerbit Kanisius, Yogyakarta. In Bahasa Indonesia.

 

Tomka, Steve

      2013    The Adoption of the Bow and Arrow: A Model Based on Experimental Performance Characteristics. American Antiquity 78(3) 553-569.

 

VanderHoek, Richard

      1993          Spearthrower Technology: Evolution of a Delivery System. Senior thesis, University of Alaska, Anchorage. This thesis is a great resource and could have easily qualified as a Master’s thesis. Eighty pages of solid material.

 

Waguespack, Nicole M. and Todd A. Surovell

      2003          Clovis Hunting Strategies, or How to Make out on Plentiful Resources. American Antiquity 68 (2):333-352. A must read. Lots to think about concerning the Clovis economic way of life. Specialized Hunters? Generalized hunters?

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errett_Callahan I regret that I did not get this essay done for Errett to see. Mea culpa

Watanabe, Hitoshi

      1975          Bow and Arrow Census in a West Papuan Lowland Community: a new field for Functional-Ecological Study. Occasional Papers in Anthropology, University of Queensland, Brisbane. Impressive is all I can say. The usual meticulous Japanese study.

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