CULTURAL HOW WERE THEY WHAT DO THEY TELL

PRACTICE PRACTICED? OR PICTURE OF THE

TAGALOGS THAT TIME?
SOCIAL CLASSES The Maginoo class included only The Tagalog had a social
those who were willing to claim system of three levels,
royal ancestry. Their prestige consisting of the alipin
relied on their ancestors' renown (commoners, servants,
(bansag) or their prosperity and and slaves), the maharlika
courage in war (lingas). In (nobility of warriors), and
general, the closer the maginoo finally the maginoo.
lineage was to a succession
(laladroyal )'s founder (puno), the
greater their standing.
CIVIL RELATIONS This elegant tradition of dowry- A class of its own,
(MARRIAGE, giving is called Tumbasan, or particularly with regard to
DOWRY, "the act of fair making." It dowry-giving, is the
INHERITANCE) incorporates the following Tagalog custom of
fundamentals: in an offer by the courtship and marriage. In
bride's parents to give one either Christian Filipino or
hectare of riceland as a dowry, it pagan practices, there is
calls upon the parents of the no resemblance.
bridegroom to give one hectare of
riceland even or equivalent to the
gesture.
MANNER OF In a dambana, the activities of Initially, the Tagalog
WORSHIP Tagalismo were commonly people had their own
conducted. Roman Catholicism unique religion, modernly
was forcefully introduced by the known as Tagalismo, as
colonizers when the Spanish the original name of the
arrived, who sought to eradicate religion is unknown and
all other religions they found 'less' the Spanish did not record
than European religions. Most it.
Tagalogs belong to the Roman
Catholic Church at present, while
a comparatively smaller number
belong to different Protestant
sects or nationalized Christian
Churches.
DEATH (VIEW AND Trees are used as burial sites in Before Spanish
PRACTICES) rural Cavite areas. The dying colonization and Catholic
person selects the tree introduction, the Tagalog
beforehand, so a hut is people had various burial
constructed close to the said tree rituals. Such practices
when he or she becomes include, but are not limited
terminally ill or is obviously going to, burials of trees,
to die due to old age. The body of cremation burials,
 the deceased is then vertically
entombed inside the hollowed-out
tree trunk. A statue known as
likha is also sealed with the dead
inside the tree trunk before
colonization. There was a
complicated cremation-burial
tradition in Pila, Laguna, where
the body is let alone first to
decompose.
SPIRIT WORLD In the indigenous Philippine folk
beliefs, the present, ancestral
spirits, natural spirits, and deities,
although the word itself may have
other meanings and associations
depending on the Filipino ethnic
group.
sarcophagus burials, and
underground burials.
They said that everything
had a spirit. Phenomena. It
can also refer to carved
humanoid figures made of
wood, stone, or ivory
portraying these spirits, the
taotao. Anito (a term used
mainly in Luzon) is also
sometimes known as
diwata in some ethnic
groups (especially among
Visayans).