The Confederation of Madya-as was a legendary pre-colonial supra-baranganic polity in island

of Panay in the Philippines. It was mentioned in Pedro Monteclaro's book titled Maragtas. It was
supposedly created by Datu Sumakwel to exercise his authority over all the other datus of Panay
.[1] Like the Maragtas and the Code of Kalantiaw, the historical authenticity of the confederation is
disputed, as no other documentation for Madya-as exists outside of Monteclaro's book.[2]

Contents

 1Origin
 2Colonization
 3Social Structure
 4Religion
o 4.1The gods
o 4.2Creation of the first man and woman
o 4.3Death
o 4.4Shamans
 5Integration to the Spanish East Indies
 6Early accounts
 7The Book of Maragtas
o 7.1The Datus of Madja-as according to oral tradition
 8See also
 9References

Origin[edit]
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Bas relief of the Barter of Panay at the facade of the municipal gymnasium of the town of San
Joaquin, Iloilo (Panay), Philippines - the town to where the place of landing of the ten Bornean Datus now
belongs.
The world in 13th century; shows the Visayan realm and its neighbors.

Madja-as was a pre-colonial chiefdom in Central Philippines. According to ancient tradition recorded
by P. Francisco Colin, S.J., an early Spanish missionary in the Philippines,[3] The inhabitants
of Panay island in the Philippines were believed to be from North Sumatra; especially from the polity
of Pannai, after which the Island of Panay (called Ananipay by the Atis)was named after (i and y
being interchangeable in Spanish). It was founded by Pannai loyalists who wanted to reestablish
their state elsewhere following an occupation of their homeland.
The polity of Pannai was a militant-nation settled by Warrior-Monastics as evidenced by the Temple
ruins in the area as it was allied under the Sri-Vijaya Mandala that defended the conflict-ridden Strait
of Malacca. The small kingdom traded-with and simultaneously repulsed any unlicensed Chinese,
Indonesian, Indian or Arab navies that often warred in or pirated the strait of Malacca and, for a
small country, they were adept at taking down armadas larger than itself - a difficult endeavour to
achieve in the strait of Malacca, which was among the world's most hotly contested maritime choke-
point where, today, one half of world trade passes through. The naval power of Pannai was
successful in policing and defending the straights of Malacca for the Mandala of Srivijaya until
the Chola invasion of Srivijaya occurred, wherein a surprise attack from behind, originating from the
occupied capital, rendered the militant polity of Pannai vulnerable from an unprotected assault from
the back flank. The Chola invaders eventually destroyed the polity of Pannai and its surviving
soldiers, royals and scholars were said to have been secreted-out eastwards. In their 450 years of
occupying Sumatra, they refused to be enslaved to Islam, Taoism or Hinduism after the polity's
dissolution. The people who stayed behind in Pannai, themselves, have an oral tradition wherein
they said that the high-borne scholars, soldiers and nobles of Pannai who refused to swear
allegiance to a treacherous invading em