Philippine Soundscapes during Colonial Contact

My dissertation will explore the social and religious ramifications of Spanish settlement-building in the Philippines (1521-1898) by examining the relationship between visual and acoustic stimuli in and around two plaza complexes: the Quipayo Parish in Bicol (built in 1578) and the St. Joseph’s Church in the Ifugao Province (built in 1872). Acoustic stimuli, or “sonifacts”, merit closer attention from archaeologists. Multi-sensory archaeological investigations are fraught with difficulties because archaeologists primarily deal with materiality and time. Non-visual datasets like acoustic reconstructions of the past are ephemeral; when coupled with concrete material remains, however, they can provide a richer understanding of human motivation and behavior. I argue that through experimentation within a virtual environment, the ephemeral can be come material.

Sonifacts that are measured during fieldwork and rendered in virtual space can interact with topographies, vegetation models, structures, objects, and interpretative frameworks. By inviting acoustic information into archaeological analysis, I hypothesize that multi-sensorial investigations will lead to a fuller understanding of cultural and religious mixing practices in the Philippines during Spanish contact. I will test this hypothesis by demonstrating how the geometry and materiality of plaza complexes expanded the audible range of church-bell ringing that emanated from poblaciones (Spanish Colonial towns), which interfered with indigenous musical performances and rituals that were important to local identity and social organization. I will reconstruct multiple soundscapes to determine how disruptive bell ringing would have been near Quipayo and St. Joseph. Soundscapes will be constructed through ray-tracing techniques within a virtual model that is based on survey, excavation, environmental reconstructions, and acoustic measurements. I will also experiment with creating alternative soundscapes that might have existed if the Spanish hadn’t built plazas. These alternatives will rely on regional environmental reconstructions and will show how deforestation efforts during Spanish settlement-building campaigns contributed to broadening the reach of church-bell audibility. By creating a church-bell soundscape within a virtual environment, I can also compare the audible range of bell ringing to material remains that will be uncovered during survey and excavation efforts in Ifugao and Bicol over the next two years, including at domestic units and cemeteries, both of which were primary locations for pre-Spanish religious rituals. This comparison will provide a fuller understanding of how auditory and visual information worked together to create a multi-sensorial experience during religious activity in the past.

CONTACT — Jared Koller, jmkoller@bu.edu