Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture continues to trot along in his vain attempts to prove the Lequios Islands are the Philippines. Specifically he claims Northern Luzon and the Batanes Islands are the Lequios Islands and thus the place where Fernando Pinto shipwrecked. During his time on Lequios Island Pinto mentioned that horsemen were among the inhabitants. So, where are the horses on Batanes Island and Northern Luzon? Tim claims to have the answer. They were covered-up and forgotten because of racism.
🐎 The Forgotten Horses of the Philippines
Most people assume the horse arrived in the Philippines riding alongside the Spanish conquistadors. After all, kabayo — the Tagalog word for horse — sounds a lot like caballo, the Spanish term. Maybe. Such banter and wordplay is not academic forgetting prior history and other local names of horses
But what if that assumption is dead wrong?
What if horses had been in the Philippines long before Legazpi’s ships ever touched shore and before Pinto's famous shipwreck on the Isles of Lequios, Philippines?
That’s exactly what David B. Mackie, an American agricultural officer in the early 1900s, uncovered — and the evidence he compiled isn’t just interesting... it’s paradigm-shifting. This century-old reference is ignored by many from the Jesuit paradigm such as Dr. Austin Craig who clearly came to manipulate the history of the Philippines. It is time to recognize this Colonial bias for what it is... racism.
🧭 A Four-Part Horse History
In a forgotten gem published in The Journal of Heredity in 1916, Mackie outlines four major eras in the history of horses in the Philippines:
Pre-horse era — Horses were unknown.
Malay Muslim introduction — Horses came via Sumatra and Malaysia, especially to the Sulu archipelago.
Spanish period — Horses arrived not from Spain, but from China and Japan.
American breeding era — Western breeds introduced for improvement.
But the most important — and suppressed — is the second era: the Muslim-led arrival of horses long before Spain.
This is Tim's introduction and already he is off to a bad start. First of all he writes:
After all, kabayo — the Tagalog word for horse — sounds a lot like caballo, the Spanish term. Maybe. Such banter and wordplay is not academic forgetting prior history and other local names of horses
Banter and wordplay between similar words is not academic? But that is Tim's exact etymological methodology when attempting to derive Hebrew words from Tagalog. Tim brushes off the connection between those words but the fact is Tagalog has many Spanish loanwords which is only natural seeing as the Spanish occupied the Philippines for 400 years.
Borrowed from Spanish caballo, from Latin caballus.
Tim's source for the claims in this article is David B. Mackie who writes about the introduction of horses into Mindanao, specifically Sulu. That is not Northern Luzon and the Batanes. Where are the horses in Northern Luzon and Batanes which pre-date the arrival of the Spanish? That's what Tim needs to focus on and prove.
🕌 The Malay Muslims Brought Horses First
According to Mackie’s research, horses were already present in Mindanao and Sulu before Magellan’s arrival. The Sulu and Maguindanao peoples didn’t just have horses — they had their own indigenous words for them:
Kuda (Sulu)
Kura (Maguindanao)
These are not borrowed from the Spanish caballo. In contrast, upland tribes unfamiliar with horses before colonization use kabayo — a clear Spanish loanword.
That linguistic distinction alone is a red flag to any real researcher: horses didn’t come from Spain — they came earlier.
🐘 Royal Gifts, Trade Routes, and a Pre-Spanish Powerhouse
Mackie traces horse arrival to the Malayan Islamic expansion of the 14th century. The arrival of figures like Makdum, Rajah Baginda, and Abu Bakr — princes and scholars from Sumatra — brought with them not only religion and law, but animals for war, trade, and prestige.
These weren't isolated events. The Sulu Sultanate was in contact with:
Sumatra
Brunei
Java
China
Japan
And they weren’t just trading spices and silk.
They were trading horses.
Spanish records confirm this:
In 1578, Don Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa warned Governor Sande that:
“These Moros are most dangerous people, being familiar with all manner of firearms and with horses.”(Mackie, 1916, p. 375)
So yes — before Spanish colonization, the south had horses. Likely for centuries. Records suggest they came through Sumatra and let us not forget at the time of Magellan, the King of Zebu was originally from Sumatra. Ignoring the Muslim record only citing the newer account is not academic.
It's hilarious how Tim declares a thing is not academic when his whole project is unacademic pseudo-history. What we learn in this section is the Moros had horses before the Spanish arrived and even had their own names for horses. Tim says that is proof that kabayo is not derived from cabello.
There are several things wrong here. First of all, Tagalog is not the same language as Tausug which is the language spoken in Sulu. Second of all, and most importantly, the Spanish NEVER subdued Mindanao completely.
In the Philippines:
- Spain conquers portions of Mindanao and Jolo and imposes protectorate status over the Moros of Sulu.
- Spain failed to completely subjugate Moros.
- While Spain conquered portions of Mindanao, the Sulu Sultanate of Sulu submitted to protectorate status through Spain's extensive use of military resources.
- Moro resistance against Spanish colonial authorities continue until the 1898 US capture of the Philippines.
There was not the same level of interaction between the Spanish and Mindanao as there was with the Visayas and Luzon.
So, the Southern Philippines had horses. Great. What about the north? What about Tim's alleged location of the Lequios Islands, Batanes and Northern Luzon?
🐉 China and Japan: Not Spain
When horses finally appeared in northern Luzon, it wasn’t Spanish stallions that disembarked.
It was Chinese and Japanese horses.
Mackie records that:
In 1583, King Philip II ordered large shipments of horses from China.
In 1587, thirty Chinese ships arrived in Manila — with horses.
The Nambu horse from Japan was introduced into Cagayan and Ilocos Norte.
Even the Spanish historian Antonio de Morga wrote in 1604:
“There were no horses, mares or asses in the islands until the Spaniards had them brought from China and Japan.”(Mackie, p. 378)
Morga was wrong on this. Perhaps he did not spend any time in North Luzon, which is Lequios, where he should have been seeking horses according to Pinto. Anyone quoting Morga as fact on this, is not offering an honest record.
That alone shatters the colonial myth.
🐎 The Native Breeds: More Than Just Ponies
Through fieldwork across every province, Mackie identified five distinct native horse types, including:
The Sulu pony — stocky and ancient, descended from Sumatra.
The Chinese horse — thickset, powerful, short-legged.
The Nambu type — long-bodied, large-hooved, found in northern Luzon.
A breed with Arab-like features — refined and muscular, likely through Indian or Persian trade.
A widespread rural “scrub” type — undersized due to poor breeding and neglect.
These were real, viable animals — not myth. Some areas like Catanduaneshad over 3,000 horses in the early 1900s alone, with over 55% showing dun or buckskin coloring, a trait tied to ancient Eurasian breeds.
In researching this fully, one will find a narrative where horses were claimed in a Chinese shipwreck which turned out to be donkeys. That is then formed in propaganda that it means there were no horses in the Philippines. This kind of insane propaganda persists in academia and it is time to smash through the Colonial ceiling and correct this once and for all. It may well be valid they were donkeys but that account is not the position of ancient horses in the Philippines.
This is the same for the word which derives from Spain which is not the only word for horse used locally, yet, that singular point is posited by many to claim they were not here. The statement is meaningless and born in ignorance. Grow up Colonial propagandists.
In this section Tim admits that King Philip II imported horses from China and Japan. He writes that as if it's a revelation. Why would the Spanish ship horses all the way from Spain? They would likely not survive the arduous trip. importing horses from Japan and China would be much more practical.
Tim then cites Antonio Morga who writes:
“There were no horses, mares or asses in the islands until the Spaniards had them brought from China and Japan.”
According to Tim, Morga is wrong.
Morga was wrong on this. Perhaps he did not spend any time in North Luzon, which is Lequios, where he should have been seeking horses according to Pinto. Anyone quoting Morga as fact on this, is not offering an honest record.
"Anyone quoting Morga as fact on this, is not offering an honest record?" But the citation comes from Mackie and Tim is relying upon him for this entire article! Is Mackie not honest? Then why uses him as a source? As for Morga, Tim has quoted him many times yet now all of a sudden he is a liar.
But riddle me this: If Northern Luzon had native horses why did the Spanish need to import them from China and Japan?
That is the end of Tim's analysis and so far he has not proven there was a native horse culture in Northern Luzon and Batanes. Here is what Pinto wrote concerning horsemen on Lequios Island:
While we were all locked in this painful trance, six horsemen rode up to us, and at the sight of us there on our knees, naked and unarmed, with two dead women in our midst, they took such pity on us that four of them promptly headed back to the people following them on foot and kept them in check where they were, without permitting anyone to do us any harm. Then they returned, bringing with them six of the men on foot who appeared to be ministers of justice, or at least, the kind of justice that we thought God had in store for us at the time.
At the command of the men on horseback, these six tied us all up in groups of three. Showing signs of compassion, they told us not to be afraid because the king of the Ryukyus was a God-fearing man, well inclined by nature to the poor, to whom he was always very charitable, and they gave us their word, swearing by their faith, that he would do us no harm. These words of consolation, however pious they appeared to be on the surface, did not satisfy us in the least, for by then we had lost all hope of life so that even if we had been told this by someone we trusted completely, we still would have found it hard to believe, much less a group of cruel, tyrannical heathens who had neither religion nor any knowledge of God.
Pinto's Travels, pg. 288-289
It was past three in the afternoon when a courier on horseback came riding into town in great haste and delivered a letter to the xivalem, who was their local military commander. As soon as he read it, he immediately ordered two drums to be beaten by way of summoning the townspeople, who responded to the call by assembling in a large temple of their worship. There, framed in a window, he addressed them, informing them of the orders he had received from the broquem, governor of the kingdom, to the effect that they were to take us to the city of Pongor, seven leagues from there.
The majority of the people protested, voicing their objections to this order six or seven times, and a heated argument ensued, as a result of which nothing was agreed on that day except to send the courier back to the broquem with an explanation of what was happening. Consequently, they were forced to keep us confined there until eight o'clock the following day when two peretandas—who are like magistrates—arrived, accompanied by a crowd of people from the city, including twenty men on horseback. After taking us into custody with detailed documents drawn up by notaries public, they departed immediately. Late in the afternoon of the same day we reached a town called Gundexilau, where they put us into an underground dungeon, in which we spent the night, suffering unbearable hardship, in a pool of water swarming with leeches that left us all quite bloody.
pg. 290
From these passages in Pinto's journal it's pretty clear that the horsemen were part of the military. So, where is the Filipino calvary in Northern Luzon and Batanes? That is what Tim has to prove and he has failed to do so.
This article exhibits every bad trait of The God Culture. There are half-truths, there is unwarranted extrapolation, and there is the disdain for real history and name calling for those who do not tow Tim's line. It is illogical to say Sulu had horses therefore there was a unified horse culture throughout the Philippine archipelago including Batanes and Northern Luzon. Tim is making assumptions rather than offering hard proof. This is not just bad history, it's bad horse-story! To that I say, Grow up Timothy Jay Schwab who is The God Culture.
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