Search (http://davaotoday.com/main) HOME Davao of the Past: A Reexamination from the South (Part II) Oct. 17, 2017 ANDERSON V. VILLA (HTTP://DAVAOTODAY.COM/MAIN/AUTHOR/ANDYVILLA/) In my maiden article (http://davaotoday.com/main/todays-views/three- months-tale/) for this column I made mentioned of a fishing village in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture, Japan. One of the villages we went to was Karakuwa. In the book, “Mindanao Muslim History: Documentary Sources from the Advent of Islam to the 1800s,” which I co-authored and published this year at the auspices of Ateneo de Davao University, Caracoa is repeatedly mentioned along with other indigenous warships which sorts of “challenged Western gunboats by sheer maneuverability and speed” in navigating the seas of Visayas and Mindanao (2017, 76). Caracoa or Karakuwa was a large boat, the fastest at the time and equivalent to the battleships in modern times. These ships were largely employed by Muslim polities (e.g. Sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu). What makes this encounter more interesting? The photo above is caracoa (Corcoa) as depicted by Bartholomew Argensola (1708). The photo on the right was taken at Karakuwa Visitor and Tsunami Center in Kesennuma with their traditional fishermen’s performance (circa 2017). Does it sound interesting? As a glocal scholar, I find meaning in my intellectual pursuits when such effort intersects with that of my humble beginning – a long history of working with the “seas.” Coastal communities do not only produce fisherfolks but also seafarers and coastguards; like my brothers and my dad to whom I owe a lot in this lifetime. The coast is lonely without the seaports, to which stevedores and laborers are born. In the first part (http://davaotoday.com/main/todays-views/davao-from-the- past-part-one/) of this article, I spoke about the small entrepreneurs who ventured Davao in the early 1900s. Does the name Ohta Kyozaburo ring a bell? As the father of Japanese emigrants to Davao, Ohta was notable one of those considered as early pioneers and “builders” of Davao. The monumental TO TOP ↑