Chapter 12: Tagalog Society and Religion Datus

○ Maginoo with personal followings

Intro ○ Nagdarato - "to rule a barrio or
- Tagalog barangay"
- Father - ama ○ Gulang-gulang - public lounging
mangaama platform
○ Dulohan - datu's following or faction
- Mother - ina ○ Barangay - literally a boat
- Children to their father - Bapa (beloved) - Filipino settlers first
◊ Also applied to youngsters arrived in boats
◊ General expression of admiration - Adopted by the colonial
- Children to mother - Bayi (Lady) government
 Tribute-collecting
Kinship  Baptismal registers
- Husband and wife - asawa - Few household to as many
○ Inaasawa - secondary wife or concubine as hundred
○ Slave concubine - pangapol - Taytay (Rizal) - four
○ Children of pangapol would not be heirs except in the case hundred families under
of a father's special affection four datus
○ Ranking wives - employed wet nurses - Pook - single barangay
○ Importance of both parents - kaanaktilik - Bayan (town) - four to
- Grandfather - amba father and mother on ten chiefs with their
- Grandmother - indo the east coast dulohan
○ Nono - when old enough to be considered truly venerable - Lipon, lupon, pulong -
but not after their death municipal council
- Grandparents and grandchildren - apo - Large bayan - Lakan or
- Great-grandparents - apo sa tuhod Rajah
○ Illegitimate children - anak sa kinaligawan or anak sa  Ex. Pasig River,
kaagula (ligaw - passerby, agulo - lover) Tondo
Datu's duties
Social Structure (Tagalog) - Govern his people
- Three-class social structure: - Lead them in war
○ Ruling class - maginoo - datus - Protect them from their enemies
○ Timawa or maharlika - supporters - Settle their disputes
○ Alipin - slaves, bondsmen, debt peons - As good administrator
- Alipin namamahay - Basal - the drumstick he beat a gong to
- Alipin sa gigilid summon his people
○ Father Plasencia - maharlika as separate class - Tuway - captain or pilot
- Maginoo and datu - Anakora - captain/owner of a large vessel
Maginoo - Bornean title
○ Tagalog aristocracy or upper class - Panugot or kanulo - guide for other datus
- Noble descent - Not called king (hari); not even paramount
○ Ginoo - for both sexes chiefs
- Gat or Dayang (before name) - Lord or Lady ○ Only for foreign monarchies (kaharian)
○ Panginoon - with lordship over many slaves and valuable and their viceroys (halili)
property ○ Spaniards called them principales
- May-ari (with plenty of possessions) (chief), NOT regulos (rulers)
- Dalam - large, well-staffed house and household ○ Like Caballeros (knights), beneficiaries
- Poon - honorific contraction of caballeria (encomienda) (Plasencia)
- Maygintawo - "fellow with a lot of gold" ○ Principalia of later generations
○ Puno (root) - founder of a descent line (lalad) - Judge (hukom)
- Bansag - boasting of lineage and wealth ○ Convoked the litigants
- Lingas - of wealth and ferocity ○ Heard sworn testimony
- Mahal - being from well-born gentry ○ Handed down a decision

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 ○ Decision could be appealed
▪ To an arbiter of the contestant's
choice from another community, even a
non-datu
○ If sued by one of his peers
▪ Appeared before a wise legalist
acceptable to him and his accuser
▪ If failed to settle, blood feud is
initiated, until mutual exhaustion
satisfied honor and agreed to financial
settlement
- Law
▪ Handed down by tradition
▪ Liable to amendment by consensus
among leading datus
▪ Circumvention by any among them
powerful enough to do so
- Penalties
▪ Varied with social statues
▪ Fines heavy enough to result in debt
slavery
▪ Adultery - settled by indemnification of
the offended husband
- Sum as taken as future
dowry and signified adoption
of any resulting child as his
own
▪ Capital punishment - witchcraft or
infraction of religious tabus
- Datu takes
possession of
the condemned
man's children in
the case of
total
enslavement
- Control over the available arable land was vested in
the datu
▪ Only irrigated land was distributed
▪ Datu had the right to retain certain
land use for himself
▪ Restriction of access to fisheries
▪ Collection of market fees at a strategic
passage on a waterway
▪ Datus were known to manipulate Manila
market prices
▪ He could also convert his rights into
regular payments from his people
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Datu's Privileges
- Received services, agricultural produce, and respect
from his people
- Respect:
○ Covering the mouth with the hand when
addressing him
○ Contracting the body in a deep bow on
entering his presence
○ Raising the hands alongside the cheeks
○ Never addressed as "Ohoy!" or "Oya!"
- Any slander against maginoo was severly punished
- Received a share of harvests as tribute from the
lower classes
- Additional contributions such as sugarcane wine or
tuba on such occasions as his feasts or funerals
- Personal services
○ Seasonal field labor
▪ Nobody was exempt of any class
▪ Participation in maritime
▪ Military expeditions
▪ House contruction
▪ Opening new land
▪ All laborers were fed or feasted
○ Seafaring duties
▪ Equip and supply the vessel and then to
row it
▪ Slaves or warriors
Timawa and maharlika
Timawa
- Datu's nonslave followers
- Freemen
- Could not be legally bought and sold
- Hidalgo (Boxer Codex and Plasencia
- Commoners (la gente comun) or plebians (plebeyos)
- Enjoyed agricultural rights to portion of barangay
land
- Harvest without paying tribute
- Datus were basically their lords, not their landlords
- Might be also be liable to work fisheries, accompany
expeditions, or row boats
- Could be called out for irregular services
○ Supporting feasts
○ Building houses
- Born into their class
- Maginoo class above them and the alipin below
- Absorbed the illegitimate offspring of maginoo
- Alipin who had successfully repaid debts
Maharlika
- From Sanskrit - maharddlika - man of wealth,
wisdom, or competence
- Kind of lower aristocracy who rendered military
service to their lords
- Accompanied their captain abroad; whenever he called
and wherever he went
 - Plasencia did not explain the origin of their status ▪ Free mother - free second child
- "diluted maginoo blood" - Slave father -
- Descendants of mixed marriages between a ruling line slave first child
and one out of power ▪ So on with all the rest
- Subject to the same requirements of seasonal and ▪ Odd number - half slave, half free
extraordinary community labor as everybody else in the - Three non-alipin grandparents - quarter-slaves
barangay - Only worked off
- Technically less free than ordinary timawa half their
- To transfer their allegiance, they must host a feast and father's
pay their datu 6 to 18 pesos in gold, otherwise, it could - One-quarter
be an occasion for war (Plasencia) their
- Destined to disappear under colonial pacification grandfather's
○ As the raids they practiced also disappeared - Indebtedness
○ Maharlika services turned into feudal dues during alternate
- "freemen though with a certain subjugation in that they months
may not leave the barangay; they are the people call - Right to
villeins - meaning countryfolk living in some nobleman's enforce their
villa" (San Buenaventura, 1613, 389) manumission if
they could
Alipin afford the price
- Slave - both men and women - Namamahay - ordinary alipin with land rights
- Causes: - Alipin sa gigilid - lost land rights or never had it
○ Captivity - Gintubo, captive, or
○ Birth-right purchase
○ Debt - Hearth slave
- They had their price, and their owner or creditor might - Tagalos - kind of slave of both namamahay and
recover it by resale or manumission gigilid (Boxer)
- Subordination was obligatory until their debt was - May have been a flat error
redeemed Alipin namamahay
- Masters were technically their creditors rather than - San Buenaventura (1613, 299)
their lords ○ Make one field tungo (contract)
- Had birthright claim to work a piece of barangay land ○ Have no further obligation to their master
○ Could not be taken away from him or he from it ○ Almost free for they serve their master no more
○ Except in case of commuted death by which he than time to time
became a chattel (personal) slave ○ Almost has to beg them to go with him or help (like
- Birthright alipin - gintubo he does with freemen)
○ Inherited debt, indenture, or sentence ○ If he calls them too often it's considered an abuse
○ Could not be legally seized or sold - Father Plasencia
○ Debt could be transferred from one creditor to ○ Called them pecheros (tribute paters)
another for profit ○ Pecho - handog (half their crop)
○ Sought to become alipin to his own relatives if ○ Buwis (visayan term) more common use
possible ○ Nunuwis (tribute payer)
- Men in extreme penury (poverty) might voluntarily seek ○ Pabuwisan (encomienda)
the security of alipin status - Must share any special foodstuffs he might acquire
○ Napaaalipin not naaalipin for himself for his master's feasts
- To take on a debt slave is considered helpful (succor) - Master's call
- Tubos, sakop, ara - underwrite a debt in exchange for ○ Plant and harvest fields
bondage ○ Build houses
- Mixed marriage between alipin and timawa ○ Carry cargo
○ Offspring's condition was determined by their saya ○ Equip and roow boat
○ Saya - He owned his own house, personal belongings, and
▪ Free father - free first child gold and bequeathed them to his heirs
- Second child is slave like the - Ownership of land is restricted
slave mother
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○ Saya - He owned his own house, personal belongings, and
▪ Free father - free first child gold and bequeathed them to his heirs
- Second child is slave like the - Ownership of land is restricted
slave mother

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 - Namamahay came into their conditions in three ways
○ Inheritance from namamahay parents
○ Dropping down from timawa status
○ Rising up from gigilid
- If from legal action or insolvency
○ He and his creditor agreed on duration of bondage and
an equivalent cash valye
○ Never exceeded 10 taels in gold; 320 cavans of rice
at Manila prices
- Those who rose from gigilid purchased their freedom
Alipin sa gigilid
- Members of their master's household
- Dependent on him as his own children
- Moral right to sell them (rarely)
- Might be rewarded at their master's pleasure
- If they could accumulate enough gold, they could buy their
way into namamahay status or timawa
- Main source of alipin sa gigilid
○ Children born in their master's hous
○ Natural children by his own alipin
○ Men under such financial straits they could not afford
to raise them
○ Domestic gigilid slaves were single
- The terms gigilid and namamahay distinguished a man's place
of residence and marital status
- Debt can be underwritten by some other man motivated by
kin loyalty or hope of gain
- Derogatory:
○ Gilid
○ Bulisik "vile, contemptible"
○ Bulislis - "exposed"
- If destined for resale or sacrifice - nonpersons in society
- If functioning alipin - enjoy the right of food shelter, and
work of other alipin
- Increase in Chinese trade and colonial police power
○ Reducing timawa to namamahay
○ Namamahay to gigilid
Religion
Death and Burial
- Cadaver was wrapped in a shroud (cloth for wrapping dead
body) and covered with a pall (cloth spread over a coffin,
hearse, or tomb) for a four-day wake
- For prominent, deceased was displayed dressed as in life
- Wake (pulaw)
○ Extemporaneous dirges (sambitan)
○ Heavy drinking (tibaw); magpatibaw (drunkard
frequented funerals)
- Exequies (wakas) - held after the burial to assure the
departed soul's safe arrivial in the afterworld
○ Full-scale feasrs
○ Pig sacrifice
○ Food contributed by guests
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- Bangakay ceremonies for a secondary burial
- close relative refrain from merrymaking for
at least two years
- Until given a gift or silver to end their
despondency
- Graves were dug alongside houses or fields
- Each mourner threw a handful of soil in
- On the way home they took a bath in
running water
- Elite were entombled together with gold and
valuables
○ Under their own dwelling in a coffin
○ Boat with a shade above it, around
wwhich smoky fires were kept burning
for days
- Bangkay - secondary burial
○ The bones were exhumed, placed in a
jar, or other container
○ Deposited at the foot of a balete tree
○ Kept in the hous
○ If boat
▪ Male-female pairs of chicken,
goats, or deer
▪ A slave assigned to feeding them
- If a great warrior
○ A slave was placed under his body
- Maginoo-class deaths or those killed by
violence
○ Required the taking of additional
human lives
○ Few or many depending on the
deceased's status or dowry stipulation
- Sticking a tambuyok plume in their putong
and donning a rawhide collar as warning -
male survivors
- Until the end of mourning period, those
under oath observed dietary restrictions as
not eating rice or hot food