From Bamboo to Bandila

The Evolution of Surigao’s Local Symbols

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From Bamboo to Bandila – The Evolution of Surigao’s Local Symbols

23 August 2025 Feature | Surigao Historical Society | Local History

What does a tattooed chest, a colonial banner, and a municipal logo have in common?

All tell the story of Surigao through symbols—carved in bamboo, painted on fabric, or digitized for print.

These are the marks of memory, borne by warriors, waved by processions, and stamped by government desks.

Skin and Spirit: The Tattooed Origins of Identity

Long before written laws or printed flags, Surigaonon identity was inscribed on skin. Among upland groups like the Mamanwa and lowland Visayan-speaking warriors, tattoos—or batek—served as badges of courage, ancestry, and status. Each mark etched by thorn or bone told a story: a battle won, a rite survived, a lineage honored.

Tattooed motifs resembled geometric patterns, flowing waves, animal spirits, and tribal crests—many now forgotten or buried beneath modern skin. In the absence of paper, the body was the first banner.

Bamboo and Blades: Symbols in Daily Life

Symbols weren’t only on skin. Bamboo containers, carved wooden hilts, shields, and woven baskets bore marks of family lineage, deity protection, or social rank. These weren’t ornamental—they were functional codes of identity, helping distinguish friend from foe, kin from outsider.

Local warriors often bore shields painted with sunburst patterns, serpent forms, or concentric eye designs—each signifying valor, vigilance, or divine guidance.

Crosses and Crowns: Colonial Symbols and Control

With the arrival of the Spaniards in the 1600s, visual identity became a tool of religious and political power. Churches rose with carved wooden crosses, Marian banners, and gold-leaf saints processed through towns during fiestas.

Military garrisons flew the red-and-gold standard of the Spanish crown, while missionaries introduced heraldic seals bearing ecclesiastical coats of arms. These foreign icons gradually replaced native ones—but often, indigenous communities syncretized them, hiding their meanings in plain sight.

Seals of Selfhood: Municipal and Provincial Symbols

By the American period, local governments in Surigao began adopting official seals as part of statecraft. These emblems—still used today—combined natural resources (coconuts, rivers, ore) with tools of governance: plow, pickaxe, cross, torch.

Each element in a seal told a civic story:

A mountain might represent resilience.
A coconut tree, local livelihood.
A book or torch, the rise of education under Filipino leadership.

These symbols were—and still are—daily reminders of identity printed on permits, diplomas, uniforms, and vehicles.

From Chalkboard to Street March: Symbols of Civil Society

Local schools, cooperatives, parishes, and youth movements also created logos that reflected their values. A public high school might use a torch flanked by laurel leaves; a fisherfolk cooperative might center a banca and sunrise.

In each design, there’s a conversation between local pride, ancestral heritage, and modern aspirations. Some even resurrect old motifs—a tattoo line here, a bamboo weave there—echoes of the precolonial past disguised in modern design.

From Print to Pixel: The Digital Age of Symbol-Making

Today, social media campaigns, political movements, and advocacy groups in Surigao use logos and infographics as virtual banners. During elections or fiestas, symbols multiply: flags, color schemes, even emojis customized for regional identity.

But with this digital expansion comes the risk of symbol fatigue, distortion, or erasure. Many young Surigaonons may know their city seal but not the story behind it. Some municipal emblems use generic clip art, losing cultural grounding.

The question now becomes: What symbols will we choose to carry forward—and what meanings will we remember to attach?

Five Questions to Spark Your Curiosity

What did tattoos and tribal carvings mean to Surigao’s early communities?
How did Spanish and American colonial powers use symbols to reshape local identity?
What do the elements in your town’s seal say about its past—and its hopes?
How do local schools and cooperatives use visual identity to inspire unity and pride?
Can old motifs be revived in today’s digital symbols—and what would they mean now?

Explore Further, Engage Deeper

This story is just one of many hidden within the pages of Surigao Across the Years. To explore more: Interact with the book through Artificial Intelligence (AI):
Visit the customized GPT by Open AI HERE and the Book Section of the Surigao Historical Society HERE

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