The next 10,000 years, during and after the last ice age was a survival period for the Maharlikans in view of the last great upheaval they have undergone through, which was followed thereafter by the decrease of the Earth's temperature freezing most part of the hinterlands forcing them to thrive in the caves. It was during that period when waves of succeeding migrants begun to populate the land of Ophir.
It is interesting to acknowledge here the work of a world
renowned American anthropologist in the person of Henry Otley Beyer, founder of
the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines. Beyer proposed
in his Migration Wave Theory that the peopling of the archipelago was a result
of migrations in different time periods. The first group Beyer called the “Dawn
Man” or cave men type of who, according to his theory, arrived around
250,000 years ago. Beyer was actually referring to the “escaped remnants” of Muian descendants (Maharlikans) who survived the last great upheaval and found refuge
in the archipelago. They did not arrive as a result of unintentional wandering
in search for food, as Beyer proposed, but rather already been here and aware of
its existence as they used to visit the place during the Muian times. This fact
supports the Core Population Theory
of Felipe Landa Jocano, another known anthropologist of the University of the
Philippines who refuted Beyer’s migration theory. Jocano instead did propose that the
first people of Southeast Asia (including the Philippines) were products of a
long process of evolution and migration. His research indicates that they
shared more or less the same culture, beliefs, practices and even similar tools
and implements.
The second wave of migrants in Beyer's theory were the so-called “Negritos” who, according to Beyer, came around or between 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. These
group fused in their communities and culture with the already established
Maharlikan settlements, socialized and intermarried with the Maharlikan people.
These migrant people came from the neighboring islands in the south, from Indonesia
and Malaysia through land bridges. From that point of origin being in the south,
going to north (ilaya meaning "upper part" or "north")
to the Maharlikan’s direction of location, the next migrating people (Third Wave A and B, between 6,000 to 500 years
ago) did refer to them the ylayas, a term which became prevalent as being referred
to the "people of the north".
It has to be noticed here that there was a reversed pattern of migrations, first, from the Maharlikan group going outside, and then from the outside coming to the Maharlikan territory. The explanation was that, these migrating people coming into the land of Maharlika (Ophir) were on the clandestine process of revisiting their true origin as told in their oral traditions. This was true to both the Indonesian's Srivijayan and Majapahit empires, respectively.
It has to be noticed here that there was a reversed pattern of migrations, first, from the Maharlikan group going outside, and then from the outside coming to the Maharlikan territory. The explanation was that, these migrating people coming into the land of Maharlika (Ophir) were on the clandestine process of revisiting their true origin as told in their oral traditions. This was true to both the Indonesian's Srivijayan and Majapahit empires, respectively.
The advent and emergence of the Ylayan culture, which was an assimilation of the surviving Maharlikans and foreign migrants (second and third waves) paved way for the revival of the Muian
ways through their system of governance, arts, belief, medicine, and in their
knowledge of the supernatural. It has to be noted that the people of the Pre-European
Philippines were mostly animist (who really did not worship the spirits of
nature but rather honored them in a less elaborated rites) have records or
books of mystical in nature. These knowledge or abilities traced back from the Muian period.
It should not also be confused that the term ilaya (ylaya)
has no connection with the term Malaya, such that of the Malayan Peninsula or
Malaysia, which refers to the land far south-west of the then land of Ophir.
