It is said to derive from the armour costumes used in traditional Moro-moro stage plays, where actors fought mock battles with wooden swords. Eskrima also spelled escrima is a derived from the Spanish word for fencing , esgrima. The name kali is most likely derived from the pre-Hispanic Filipino term for blades and fencing, kalis Spanish spelling : " calis " , [ 10 ] documented by Ferdinand Magellan 's expedition chronicler Antonio Pigafetta during their journey through the Visayas and in old Spanish to Filipino Mother Tongue dictionaries and vocabulary books dating from to the late s, such as in Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala by Fr.
Pedro de San Buenaventura. There exist numerous similar terms of reference for martial arts such as kalirongan , kaliradman , and pagkalikali. Ned Nepangue and Celestino Macachor contend that the term kali in reference to Filipino martial arts did not exist until the Buenaventura Mirafuente wrote in the preface of the first known published book on arnis, Mga Karunungan sa Larong Arnis by Placido Yambao, the term kali as the native mother fighting art of the Philippine islands.
Practitioners of the arts are called arnisador male, plural arnisadores and arnisadora female, plural arnisadoras for those who call theirs arnis , eskrimador male, plural eskrimadores or eskrimadora female, plural eskrimadoras for those who call their art eskrima , and kalista or mangangali for those who practise kali.
It is also known as estoque Spanish for rapier , estocada Spanish for thrust or stab and garrote Spanish for club. In Luzon it may go by the name of arnis de mano or arnes de mano. The indigenous martial art that the Spanish encountered in was not yet called "eskrima" at that time.
Kuntaw and Silat are separate martial arts that are also practiced in the Philippine archipelago [ citation needed ]. The people of this country are not simple or foolish, nor are they frightened by anything whatever. They can be dealt with only by the arquebuse , or by gifts of gold or silver They kill the Spaniards so boldly, that without arquebuses we could do nothing. All those who have been killed since the coming of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi received their death through lack of arquebuses.
