described the political, social, economic and cultural practices of the Filipinos
LESSON 4: CUSTOMS OF TAGALOG before they were Christianized.
 During the first century of Spanish rule: Because of the difficulty of the
colonial government in local politics, Spanish officials were forced to allow
Filipinos to hold the position of gobernadorcillo.
Gobernadorcillo- municipal judge or governor in the Philippines during the
Spanish colonial period.
Friars- a member of any of certain religious order of men, especially the four
mendicant orders: (Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, and Franciscan).
 The friars were assigned to supervise and monitor the gobernadorcillos.
 The friars supervised the election of the local executives, helped in the
collection of taxes, were directly involved in educating the youth, and
performed other civic duties.
 FRIARS BECAME THE MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE AND INFLUENTIAL FIGURE
IN THE PUEBLO.
Pueblo- (Spanish:village)
 Friars and Colonial officials who also wrote about the Filipinos which could
further enrich our knowledge of Philippine history during the early part of
the Spanish period:
 Miguel de Loarca-
-encomendero of Panay.
-He wrote the Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (1582).
-He described the Filipinos’ way of life in the Western Visayas area.
 Lieutenant Governor Antonio de Morga
-He wrote the Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.
- Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas provides information about the state
of the Philippines in the latter part of 16th century.
 Other Spanish missionaries who continued the historiographical tradition:
 Fr. Pedro Chirino S.J (Relacion de las Islas Filipinas, 1604)
 Fr. Juan Delgado S.J (Historia General, 1751)
 Fr. Francisco Colin S.J (Labor Evangelica, 1663)
 Fr. Francisco Ignacio Alcina S.J (Historia natural del sitio, fertilidad y
calidad de las Islas e Indios de bisayas, 1668)
 Most of what we know about the Philippine History during the first century
of the Spanish period were derived from the accounts of the Spanish friars.
Relacion de las Costumbres de Los Tagalogs (Customs of the Tagalogs 1589)
-wote by Fray Juan de Plasencia
-contains numerous information that historians could use in reconstructing
the political and socio-cultural history of the Tagalog region.
-his work is a primary source because he personally witnessed the events
and his accounts contained his observations.
-the original document of Customs of Tagalogs is in Archivo General de
Indias (AGI) in Seville, Spain.
-A duplicate copy in Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental (A.F.I.O) in Madrid,
Spain.
-An English translation appeared in Volume VII of the Blair and Robertson’,
The Philippine Islands.
Fray Juan de Plasencia
-Joan de Portocarrero is his real name.
-member of Franciscan Order who came together with the first batch of
missionaries to the Philippines in 1578.
-With his fellow, Franciscan Fray Diego de Oropesa, they were assigned to
do mission works in Southern Tagalog Area.
-Pasencia also helped foundations and organization of numerous towns in
Quezon, Laguna, Rizal and Bulacan.
-he wrote the Relacion de las Costumbres de los Tagalogs because of his
continuous interaction with people he converted to Christianity. He vividly
-He also wrote Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Española y Tagala to make the
articles of faith comprehensible to people who have never heard of Christ or
the Catholic Church.
- Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Española y Tagala became the first printed
book in the Philippines in 1593.
-He died in Liliw, Laguna in 1590.
EXCERPTS FROM CUSTOMS OF THE TAGALOGS
Chiefs called as DATOS
- governed people (Tagalogs), and were captain in their wars and whom they
obeyed and reverenced.
- These chiefs ruled over a few people; sometimes as many as a hundred
houses, sometimes even less than thirty.
Barangay
- tribal gathering of Tagalogs.
- the reason for giving themselves this name rose from the fact (as they are
classed, by their language, among the Malay nations) that when they came
to this land, the head of baranggay, which is a boat, thus called became the
dato.
`- in its origin, was a family of parents, children, relations and slaves.
The chiefs, in various wars, helped one another with their respective barangays.
In addition to these chiefs, who corresponded to our knights, there were
three castes:
1. Nobles - freeborn whom they call maharlica. They did not pay tax or tribute to
the dato, but must accompany him in war, at their own expense. If he built a
house, they helped him, and had to be fed up for it. The same was true in
tillage. The lands which they inhabited were divided among the whole
barangay, especially the irrigated portion, and thus each one knew his own.
The lands on tingues, or mountain ridges, are not divided but owned in
common by the barangay. There are some villages (as, for example, Pila de
Laguna) in which these nobles, or maharlicas, paid annually to the dato, a
hundred gantas of rice.
Trivia: Ganta - A unit of volume equivalent to eight chupas (a unit of volume
equivalent to 3.75 mL.)
2. Commoners - called aliping namamahay. They are married, and serve their
master, whether he be a dato or not, with half of their cultivated lands, as
was agreed upon in the beginning.
- They live in their own houses, and are lords of their property and golds.
- Children in their own houses, inherit it, and enjoy their property and lands.
The children, then, enjoy the rank of their fathers, and they cannot be made
slaves nor can either parents or children can be sold.
3. Slaves - called aliping sa guiguilir. They serve their master in his house and on
his cultivated lands, and may be sold.
The difference between aliping namamahay and aliping sa guiguilir, should be
noted; for, by a confusion of the two terms, many have been classed as slaves
who really are not.
In these three classes, those who are maharlicas on both father's and mother's
side continue to be so forever; and if it happens that they should become slaves,
it is through marriage. If these maharlicas had children among their slaves, the
children and their mothers became free; if one of them had children by a slave-
woman of another, she was compelled, when pregnant, to give her master half
of the gold tael, because of her risk of death, and her inability to labor during the
pregnancy. In such case half of the child was free - namely, the half belonging to
his father, who supplied the child with food. If he did not do this, he showed that
he did not recognize him as his child, in which case the latter was wholly a slave.
If a free woman had children by a slave, they were all free, provided he were not
her husband.

Maharlica married slave
Children
 In division, odd to father even to mother
 Free/slave , depends on their parents where they go to.
*If only one child, he/she will be half slave and half free.
*Slave depends on parents whether he/she is aliping sa guiguilir or aliping
namamahay
*If odd number of children, one odd is half (not specified who is capable)
*Sa guiguilir could be sold while namamahay is inheritance but remains in
the same village.
Culprit will serve as a sa guiguilir for master while for the one who
lent him/her pay the master then he/she will lent half of the serve to the
creditor.
Sentences
Arbiter - men of fair and just
Example of scenarios that needs an Arbiter:
a) litigants felt aggrieved
b) Controversy between two chiefs when wished to avoid war.
c) Disputants that is belonged to two different barangays.
Dowries
In terms of Divorce
If wife left
 Wife to another = dowries and additional goes to husband.
 Wife w/o another = Dowry returned
If husband left
 Husband = dowry lost half, returned half
 If have children, Dowry goes to them and held by grandparents or
responsible relatives.
Married thru arrangements
Half of dowry must be given if married couples only children
 Fines
 if upon the death of parents, son or daughter unwilling
to marry the man or woman from contract
 but if parents were living, fines paid by parents because
it is assumed that they'd design the situation.
II. WORSHIP OF THE TAGALOGS
 In all the villages, or in other parts of the Filipinas Islands, there are no
temples.
 The have the Simbahan which means a temple or place of adoration.
 They wished to celebrate a festival, which they called pandot or
worship, they celebrated it in a large house of a chie.
Sibi- a temporary shed on each side of the house with a roof.
Sorihile- small lamps
 The whole barangay, or family, united and joined in the worship which
they called nagaanitos.
 There was called Bathala whom they especially worshipped. The title
seems to signify “all powerful” or “maker of all things”. They also
worshipped the Sun, which account of its beauty, is almost universally
respected and honored by the heathens. The moon, especially when it
was new, at which time they had great rejoicings, adoring it and bidding
it welcome. Some of them also adored the stars, the exception of the
morning star they called Tala. Seven little goats – (The Pleiades),
Mapolon and Balatic which is our Greater Bear. They possessed many
idols called lic-ha which were images with different shapes.
 Dian Masalanta- who was the patron of lovers and of generation.
 The idols called Lacapati and Idianale were patrons of the cultivated
lands and of husbandry.
 They paid reverence to water-lizards called by them buaya or
crocodiles, for fear of being harmed by them.
 If they left their house and met on the way a serpent or rat or a bird call
tigmamanuguin which was singing in the tree, they considered it as an
augury (babala). Two different forms of song an evil omen and good
omen.
 Poetic songs sung by the officiating priest, male or female, who is called
catolonan
 The objectives of sacrifice were goats, fowls and swine, which were
flayed decapitated and laid. The reason for offering this sacrifices and
adoration were in addition to whatever personal matter there might be.
Buyos- a small fruit wrapped in a leaf with some lime.
Distinction of priest of the devil:
1. Catolonan – was either man or woman. This office was an honorable
one among the natives and was held ordinarily by the people of rank,
this rule being general in all the islands.
2. Mangangauay - are witches who deceived by pretending to heal the
sick. Mangagauay was the Tagalog goddess of sickness and one of
Sitan‘s helpers.
3. Manyisalat- same as mangagauay. These priests had power of applying
such remedies to lovers that they would abandon and despise their own
wives, and in fact could prevent them by having intercourse with the
latter.
4. Mancocolam - can disguise himself as a healer and emits fire from
himself at night or during a bad weather. He can induce fire at his
victim’s house. If the fire were extinguished immediately, the victim
would eventually die.
5. Hocloban - is a witch that causes trouble of greater efficacy than the
mangagauay. By simply saluting or raising the hand or pointing a finger,
they killed whom they chose without using tools and herbal medicines.
Hukluban was considered the last agent of Sitan and could change
herself into any form she desired. She could kill someone by simply
raising her hand and could heal without any difficulty as she wished.
6. Silagan - are witches specific in Catanduanes, an island province located
in the Bicol region in Luzon who preys on anyone dressed in white by
tearing out the liver and devouring it causing the victim's death.
7. Magtatangal - which is in tagalog word is "mananangal" which literally
means "one who detaches" and so it is called the "self-segmenting one".
This creature can detach its upper body from its lower limbs after
undergoing a gruesome transformation. The upper body grows wings,
which is uses yo fly around and look for its prey.
8. Osuang - is a mythological myth in Philippine mythology where it is
believed to eat humans and other animals. "Aswang" in tagalog,
resembles a vampire creature (Vampire in English) who started
believing in the western world.
9. Mangagayoma - They made charms for lovers out of herbs, stones, and
wood, which would infuse the heart with love. Thus did they deceive
the people, although sometimes, through the intervention of the devil,
they gained their ends.
10. Sonat- which is equivalent to “preachers. It was his office to help one
die, at which time he predicted the salvation or condemnation of the
soul.
11. Pangatahojan- soothsayer, and predicted the future. This office was
general in the islands.
12. Bayoguin- signified a “cotquean”, a man whose nature inclined toward
that a woman.
Maca -"paradise" o r"villageofrest" -another life of rest
Casanaan- in the other life and mortality,there was a place of punishment,
grief, and affiliation called casanaan, which was a "place of anguish"
Bathala- the maker of all things.
Sitan - demons
Tigbalaang- ghost, vibit and phantoms.
Patianac- If any woman died in childbirth,she and the child suffered
punishment; and that night, she could be heard lamenting
Relevance
Customs of the Tagalog is a very popular primary source as it describes the
way of life of Filipinos before Spanish and Christian influences.
It covers numerous topics that are relevant in many disciplines;
1. Political scientist find it useful because it contains information about social
classes, political stratifications, and legal system of the tagalog region.
2. It tackles property rights, marriage rituals, burial practices, and the manner
in which justice is dispensed.
3. It preserves and popularized the unwritten customs, traditions,and
religious and superstitious beliefs of the Filipinos.
4. Priests and missionaries also read Customs of the Tagalog because it
contains insights that can help and inspire them to become effective
evangelizers.
5. Plasencia's historical writings also disproved the claim of some Spaniards
that when they arrived in the Philippines, Filipinos were still uncivilized and
lacking in culture.