Barangay

• Barangay or balangay was then a name of a boat called balangai

which appeared in all major languages of the Islands. In the Tagalog
society, the term was also referred to the smallest political unit.
• The two definitions characterize 16th century Philippines: dependence
on boats and highly localized government.
• The term was used to refer to the people, not the place
Settlement patterns of early communities
• Clustered villages lined along sheltered bays, coastal areas,
and mouths of big river systems.
• Size of villages pegged from 50 to 2000 people.
• In the interior, villages were scattered. People were mobile.
16th century Philippines
• Almost all of the inhabitants had lived on the seacoasts or the banks of
navigable rivers.
• Boat was the only mode of transportation.
• The water connected communities where they exchanged foodstuffs,
manufactured wares, and foreign imports.
• Armed conflict and raiding were commonplace.
• Tausog Muslims would recall their ancestors as Arabs not Filipino converts.
• In Panay, men who lived on the seacoasts were in frequent conflict with men who
lived in the mountains.
• Datu
• owed allegiance
• making alliances
• South: sultan ruled his
datus
• It should be noted, that
the word continued to
mean the people, not the
place.
• Rajah (ruler); Batara
(noble lord); Sarripada
(His Highness)
• Datu
• Obtainable by:
• Inheritance
• Wisdom
• Physical prowess and courage
• Wealth
• Datu had all the functions of the government but he was not an
absolute leader
• Timawa
• Free men; paid neither tax nor tribute to the datu
• Offspring or descendants of a datu’s commoner wives or slave
concubines
• Must follow the datu in times of war with his own weapons and gears
• Manned the oars
• Helped in building the house of the datu as well as in planting a rice
field.
• Oripun
• Udip (to live) meaning ”to let live” e.g. to spare life on the field of
battle, to ransom a captive, or to redeem a debt equivalent to a man’s
price
• Bihag (outright captives)
• Alipin or Oripon
• Anyone could be a slave as a punishment for a major
crime e.g. adultery, disobedience to the chief,
thievery, capture in raids, inability to pay debt and by
being born into the class.
• The servile debtors, peons, and dependent groups
• Three types of servile debtors:
• Ayuey- most exploited class, worked 3 days for their mater
• Tumarampuc- could live in their own houses; work for a day
for their master; sometimes they would substitute rice for
labor
• Tumataban- worked in house of their master only when there
was some feasting or revel to be organized
• Alipin among Tagalogs
• Aliping saguiguilid- they served inside the house of the datu; they
could be sold.

• Aliping namamahay- they lived in their own houses with their families
just outside the house of their lord. They aided their lord in sowing
and harvesting; rowing boats; constructing his house without pay or
stipend. They owned property, gold and land which were inherited by
their children. They could not be enslaved and sold.
• Half-slave: either the father or the mother was free, only one
child (half free, half slave); or if the last child was odd.
• Full-slave: odd children followed the status of father either free
or slave; even children followed the status of mother either free
or slave
• One-fourth slave: one of the parent was free and the other was
half slave.
• Debt slavery
• What was usually borrowed was rice. Rice is a food, a consumable
food, and it is a seed, a factor of production. When seeds are planted,
they yield more than double of its original quantity. Thus, it was
seemed equitable that anyone who borrowed rice should repay at
least double of what he borrowed and the interest of loan should grow
each planting season.
• Control system
• no written law; only customary or oral law
• no government or king;
• obedience to the head of family
• faith to God and dead forbears
Common causes of conflicts between barangays
• One goes to another village and there is put to death without
cause
• Wives are stolen from them
• Maltreatment of friendly visitors
Religious Beliefs and Practices
• Except muslims, Filipinos were animistic
• Tagalogs worshipped Bathala as supreme god.
• Filipinos believed in spirits called anitos or diwata, good and
bad
• Religious leaders were called babaylan, baylana or katalonan.
Among the Muslims, they were called as Imams or pandita.
They were herbalists, psychologists, psychiatrists, fortune
tellers, and advisers of the datu.
Religious Beliefs and Practices
• Mariit, certain places, landmarks and trees have to be
respected or have become restricted because these are
inhabited by spirits.
• Ancient Filipinos believed in an afterlife and the concept of
heaven and hell. Panayanons believed that souls travel in a
river, thus, they used coffin shaped boats.
• Disease and illness were attributed to the environmental spirits
and soul-spirits of dead relatives.
Divination and Magic Charms
• Early Filipinos were fond of interpreting signs as good or bad
e.g. the sounds of insects and animals, flight of the birds,
barking of dogs
• Believed in black magic and sorcerers
• Believed in aswang (witches) and manoghiwit
• Believed in the efficacy of anting-anting as well as lumay
Feasting

• Early Filipinos drank more than they eat

• During somebody's illness or death, bethrotals, weddings, sacrifices,
and arrival of guests.
• Food and Cooking
• rice, millet, taro, yams, bananas, yams and sago
• seafood (fish, eels, snails, squid, crabs, mollusks, turtles and its eggs),
main source of protein
• boiling, frying using coconut oil, grilling or smoking
• honey
• Distilling and Drinking
• social occassions were drinkfests
• tuba (fermented sap of palms)
• kabarawan (fermented honey)
• intus or kilang (sugarcane wine improved by aging)
• pangasi (rice/millet wine fermented with yeast)
• alak (any of the these beverages distilled into hard liquor)
Economic Activities
• Agriculture and cultivation took two types: kainging and wet
rice farming
• Irrigation ditches were used.
• There was a system of public and private land holding.
• Production of tuba and vinegar
• Fishing, poultry, stock-raising, lumbering, ship building, pottery
making and weaving, mining
• Barter system
• International Trade
Women in Precolonial Philippines
Domestic Affairs
• equal inheritance from their parents
• equal share of property upon the death of the husband
• separation
• sexual gratification with metal contraptions attached to the
private parts of the husband
• planning the number of the children
Outside the social realm
• chieftain especially in the absence of a male
• lawgiver
• emissary which shocked the Spaniards
• local traders
• religious functionary
Babaylan
• mediator between mortals and deities and/or spirits perceived
as involved way or another in human affairs
• interpreter of dreams and omens
• bearer of oral tradition
• healer of physical and spiritual ailments
• adviser and arbiter
Islam in the Philippines
Unification of Mindanao
• the spread of Islam led to an establishment of a common
religion
• viewed as a way of life: Islam promoted (equality)
commonality in cultural traits and practices among its
followers
• founding of a sultanate system (unification of the people)
Unification of Mindanao
• promoted a common language: Arabic (official language)
• 16th century brought close correspondence" Brunei and
Sulu
Early relations with Arabs
• 1380 (tarsilas) - Muslim chroniclers
• Mudum (Arab missionary scholar) landed in Sulu
• 1390 Rajah Baginda (province of Menankabaw, Sumatra)
• led army invaders to Sulu
Early relations with Arabs
• Abu Bakr (Palembang, Sumatra) - Sulu (1450
• married the daughter of Baginda
• founded sultanate of Sulu
• Shariff Kubungsuan
• Muslim leader of Johore
• conquest of Maguindanao
• married native princess
• founded sultanate of Maguindanao
Muslim Seafarers
• Muslim traders and missionaries
• first to come, stay, introduce new culture
• trading and religious education
• Sulu, S. Palawan, Mindanao (Batangas, Pasig RIver, Manila Bay)
• Asians (convert) missionaries vs Persian traders and religious
teachers
Muslim Seafarers
• Middle Eastern culture
• spread is gradual and peaceful
• If the Christian Spaniards delayed their coming by 50 years,
Philippines today would be a Muslim country like its neighbors
- Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei