William Dampier gives an eye-opening account of how Batanes got its European name. “Bashee Islands” derives from basi, the traditional fermented sugarcane drink associated especially with Northern Luzon.
Here is my translation of the Dutch edition (where the now famous engraving appears) of Dampier’s account:
“Their common drink is water, like that of all the other Indians. Besides this, however, they make a drink from the juice of sugarcane, which they boil, adding some small black berries to it. When it has been thoroughly boiled, they put it into large pots and allow it to ferment for three or four days. It then settles and becomes clear, and is immediately ready to drink.
This is an excellent drink, very similar to English beer in both color and taste. It is very strong and, as I believe, quite wholesome, for our men, who drank freely of it every day for several weeks, were often made drunk by it but never became ill.
The inhabitants brought large quantities of it aboard every day, and also supplied those who were on shore. Some of our men were working on Basjee, an island to which they gave that name because they drank so much of this beverage there, which the inhabitants called by that name. Since they could obtain it cheaply, they did not fail to drink heartily of it.
And because our men drank this beverage here in such abundance, they called all these islands the Basjee Islands.”
The early European name “Bashee Islands” emerged from a specific encounter with local food and drinking culture. This encounter was so memorable that, in Chapter 111 (“The Pacific”) of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab of the Pequod unthinkingly catches the “sugary musk from the Bashee isles” while making passage. This is no doubt a reference to the sugarcane wine that gave the island its name.
In the same way that San Miguel is now the Philippines’ de facto national liquor brand, this latest territorial dispute non-issue reminds us that food and drink often express forms of connection older than the nation itself. Long before the emergence of the Filipino nation as a political idea, communities across the archipelago were already linked through shared ingredients, methods of fermentation, trade, hospitality, and everyday consumption. I’m certain our food historians like Felice Prudente Sta. Maria or even Erwan Heussaff can say more about this.
Beyond lofty geopolitics and legalese, people are united most deeply by what they grow, make, share, eat, and drink. How can Beijing’s claims compete with our lived experience as a people?