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Mangyan Bamboo Collection from Mindoro, Philippines, circa 1900-1939, at the Library of Congress

Accompanying Documents and Publications

Rare Materials Notice: This collection contains many rare books, manuscripts, and other unique items that are only accessible in the Asian Reading Room by advance appointment. To schedule an appointment, contact reference staff through Ask a Librarian. Researchers should review the Asian Division's Rare Book Policy prior to their appointment. Links to titles of rare books and manuscripts on this page will retrieve fuller bibliographic information from the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Besides the bamboo items, the collection also consists of accompanying documents and publications that Fletcher Gardner sent to the Library of Congress, which are available online. These are made up of the following items:

  • A three volume publication: Indic Writings of the Mindoro-Palawan Axis, San Antonio, Texas: Witte Memorial Museum, 1939-1940
  • Handwritten transliterations in Mangyan of Items 1-14 in Set 2
  • Typed transliterations in Mangyan of Items 15-48 in Set 2
  • Handwritten English translations of Items 1-48 in Set 2
  • A typed two-page document of English translations of 6 bamboo cylinders (Set 3) and Item A1 signed by Fletcher Gardner
  • A handwritten note by Fletcher Gardner describing documents sent as “Original Transliterations and Translations to accompany Incised Bamboo Indic M.S. from Mindoro Philippines Islands.”
  • 3 accession cards dated August 22, 1938 for three items in the collection (most likely three bamboo cylinders—numbers IV, V, VI)

These items shed light on the provenance of the collection, as well as provide working transliterations and translations of the inscriptions on the bamboo items. The publication, Indic Writings not only covers items in the Library’s collection but also touches on other Mangyan bamboo items and Tagbanua texts collected by Gardner and his partners in the Philippines (chiefly, Ildefonso and Eusebio Maliwanag, and Guillermo Bacal) that are in other collections in the United States such as the Ayer Collection of the Newberry Library in Chicago. Tagbanua is an umbrella term that refers to some of the Indigenous communities of Palawan, an island in the Philippines. The third volume of Indic Writings is a Mangyan vocabulary and grammar by Gardner.