The Kalaság or Kalasak is a large rectangular wooden

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...

used by precolonial Filipinos. The shield is made of hardwood and is decorated with intricate carvings and an elaborate rattan binding on the front. The wood comes from native trees such as the ''dapdap'', ''polay'' and ''sablang''. The shield usually measured about in length and in width. Its base is composed of

rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan (from Malay language, Malay: ''rotan''), is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the clos ...

wood which is strengthened by the application of

resin A resin is a solid or highly viscous liquid that can be converted into a polymer. Resins may be biological or synthetic in origin, but are typically harvested from plants. Resins are mixtures of organic compounds, predominantly terpenes. Commo ...

coating that turned rock-hard upon drying. It was widely used throughout the Philippines for warfare. Datu

Lapulapu Lapulapu (floruit, fl. 1521) or Lapu-Lapu, whose name was first recorded as Çilapulapu, was a datu (chief) of Mactan, an island now part of the Philippines. Lapulapu is known for the 1521 Battle of Mactan, where he and his men defeated Spa ...

was reported to have used this shield during the

Battle of Mactan The Battle of Mactan (; ) was fought on a beach in Mactan Island (now part of Cebu, Philippines) between Spanish forces led by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan along with local allies, and Lapulapu, the chieftain of the island, on th ...

in 1521. In the Panay Bukidnon folk epic ''

Hinilawod Hinilawod is an epic poem orally transmitted from early inhabitants of a place called Sulod in central Panay, Philippines. The term "Hinilawod" generally translates to "Tales From The Mouth of The Halawod River". The epic must have been commo ...

,'' the heroes in the story are depicted rigorously training, carrying, and fighting with the kalasag. The shield can also be used in an offensive manner. When the character Dumalapdap was being surrounded by a crowd of maidens, he "struck them with his shield" and "drove them with his shield" before threatening them further with his spear. Among the various Cordilleran ethnic groups in the northern Philippines, their kalasag were distinctively shaped with three prongs on the upper edge and two prongs on the bottom. These were used offensively in close-quarters combat during

headhunting Headhunting is the practice of hunting a human and collecting the severed head after killing the victim. More portable body parts (such as ear, nose, or scalp) can be taken as trophies, instead. Headhunting was practiced in historic times ...

raids and warfare. The three upper prongs are designed to be thrust unto an enemy's legs and are quickly twisted to trip them; while the two lower prongs are designed to fit over the neck of a downed enemy for decapitation with a

head axe The head axe, also known as headhunter's axe, is a battle axe of the Cordilleran peoples of the Philippines specialized for beheading enemy combatants during headhunting raids. They are distinctively shaped, with a concave or straight thin blade a ...

or a bolo. Its shape is commonly used as part of the official seal of the

Philippine National Police The Philippine National Police (PNP; ) is the national police force of the Philippines. Its national headquarters is located at Camp Crame in Bagong Lipunan ng Crame, Quezon City. Currently, it has approximately 228,000 personnel to police a pop ...

. Various kinds of kalasag are also represented in the provincial flags of

Bukidnon Bukidnon (), officially the Province of Bukidnon (; ; ; Bukid language, Binukid and Higaonon language, Higaonon: ''Probinsya ta Bukidnon''), is a landlocked Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Northern Mindan ...

Maguindanao Maguindanao (; Maguindanaon: ''Dairat nu Magindanaw''; Iranun: ''Perobinsia a Magindanao''; ) was a province of the Philippines located in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). From 2014 to 2022, its provincial capital ...

, and

Mountain Province Mountain Province (; ; ; ; ; ) is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Bontoc while Bauko is the largest municipality. Mountain Province was formerly referred to as Mountain ...

. The officers who bears the royal regalia of the

Sultan of Brunei The Sultan of Brunei is the monarchical head of state of Brunei and head of government in his capacity as prime minister of Brunei. Since independence from the British in 1984, only one sultan has reigned, though the royal institution dates bac ...

such as the ''Panglima Asgar'', ''Perwira Asgar'' and the ''Hulubalang Asgar'' carry the royal weapons of kalasak (shield) and ''

kampilan The kampilan (Baybayin: ) is a type of single-edged sword, traditionally used by various Ethnic groups in the Philippines, ethnic groups in the Philippine archipelago. It has a distinct profile, with the tapered Sword#Blade, blade being much broa ...

'' (sword). File:Bagobo warriors in full war regalia (Krieger, 1926).png,

Bagobo The Lumad are a group of Austronesian indigenous peoples in the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for Katawhang Lumad (Literally: "indigenous people"), the autonym officially ado ...

warriors from Davao (1926), the warrior in the center is holding a kalasag File:Mindanao Bangsamoro & Lumad Shields & Knives.jpg, Various kinds of ''kalasag'' from Mindanao displayed in the National Museum of Anthropology File:A Moro Shield (Kalasag).jpg, A Moro kalasag (c. 1905) File:Igorot Shield (kalasag).jpg, An

Igorot The indigenous peoples of the Cordillera in northern Luzon, Philippines, often referred to by the exonym Igorot people, or more recently, as the Cordilleran peoples, are an ethnic group composed of nine main ethnolinguistic groups whose domains ...

kalasag (c. 1905) File:Kaamulan Festival 2016.jpg,

Manobo The Manobò (sometimes also spelled Menobò, Manuvù , Menuvù , or Minuvù) are an indigenous peoples from Mindanao in the Philippines, whose core lands cover most of the Mindanao island group, from Sarangani island into the Mindanao mainland in ...

''kalasag'' and spears during the 2016

Kaamulan Festival Kaamulan Festival is an ethnic cultural festival held annually in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon in the Philippines from the second half of February to March 10, the anniversary date of the foundation of Bukidnon as a province in 1917. It is held t ...

File:Visayan balay illustrated by Fr. Francisco Ignacio Alcina, SJ.jpg,

Visayan Visayans ( Cebuano: ''mga Bisayà'' ) are a Philippine ethnolinguistic family group or metaethnicity native to the Visayas, to the southernmost islands south of Luzon, and to a significant portion of Mindanao. They are composed of numerous di ...

warriors with both

taming A tame animal is an animal that is relatively tolerant of human presence. Tameness may arise naturally (as in the case, for example, of island tameness) or due to the deliberate, human-directed process of animal training, training an animal agai ...

and kalasag shields from the ''Historia de las Islas e Indios de Bisayas'' (c. 1668) by

Francisco Ignacio Alcina Francisco Ignacio (de) Alcina SJ (also Alzina, Alçina) (February 2, 1610 – July 30, 1674) was a Spanish historian and a Jesuit missionary in the Philippines. He served as parish priest in the Visayan islands for 37 years. Most of those years ...

File:An Itneg shaman renewing an offering to the spirit shield (1922, Philippines).jpg, A 1922 photograph of a

shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

of the

Itneg people The Itneg people also known as "Tinguian" or "Tingguian" are an Austronesian ethnic group indigenous to the Philippines. They are part of the broader Cordilleran or Igorot group, despite the Itnegs themselves not identifying as such. The Itneg p ...

renewing an offering to the spirit (''

anito ''Anito'', also spelled ''anitu'', refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities in the Indigenous Philippine folk religions from the precolonial age to the present, although the term itself may have other meanings and associ ...

'') of a warrior's ''kalasag''

See also

References

See also