Lesson 3.1 Early Inhabitants

TEGR104: Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary Grades (Culture and Geography) 1
This lesson will introduce you to the pre-colonial culture of the Filipinos before the
coming of the Spaniards, specifically, what constitutes the Visayan social structure in the 16th
century. Further, illustrations of the early inhabitants in the Visayas as provided in the Boxer
Codex will also be covered.
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1. Trace the early inhabitants of a locality.
2. Conduct profiling of a chosen locality with reference to its local history.
Have you ever wondered why your community is structured in the way that it is
structured today? What do you think are the things that you need to understand when it
comes to how our society, from a sociological perspective, is organized?
Through archaeological records and extensive researches, the peopling of the

Philippine archipelago could somehow be theorized. Historians believed that during the
Pleistocene epoch, the first settlers of the Philippines came from the present-day islands of
the Malay Archipelago when sea levels were lower, creating land bridges connecting to the
Southeast Asian mainland. These Paleolithic hunters may have followed herds of wild animals
across these land bridges to the Philippine Islands. Some of these early migrations were made
by the ancestors of the present-day people of the Aeta and Agta tribes. These people continue
to be primarily hunters and food gatherers. Eventually, they explored the new land even more
and sojourned in the islands after the land bridges had disappeared with the rise of sea level
brought by the deglaciation period. The Spanish colonizers of the 16th century called them
Negritos. Some Western historians assume that the aborigines of the Philippines were the
Australo-Melanesian people who are distinctively small with dark skin and curly brown hair.
They were the ancestors of the people who were known today as Negritos or Aetas. Historians
presuppose that between 300 and 200 B.C., inhabitants of Malay-Polynesian descent settled
in the Philippine archipelago. They were mainly the agricultural and fishing people, others
wandered from place to place. There were 30 to 100 families in a society known as barangay.
Traditional Filipino Communities

Early Filipino settlements varied in population sizes. Some were inhabited by
thousands of people while others were small, composed only of a few scattered family
members. The unit of social organization with broader political, economic, and religious
features than the family was the barangay, headed by the native chieftain called datu or rajah.
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2 TEGR104: Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary Grades (Culture and Geography)
Social Organization
The Visayan social structure in 1565 was a three-tiered structure (see Fig. 1), as
described by Juan de la Isla. They have three classes: they call the chiefest, datos, who are
like knights, and those like citizens, timaguas [timawas], and slaves, oripes [oripun]. It is a
structure canonized by a well-known Visayan origin myth: all three classes were offspring of
a divine primordial pair, who fled or hid from their father’s wrath. According to the Boxer
version,
They scattered where best they could, many going out of their father’s house; and others
stayed in the main sala, and others hid in the walls of the house itself, and others went into the kitchen
and hid among the pots and stove. So, the Visayans say, from these who went into the inner rooms of the
house come the lords and chiefs they have among them now, who give them orders and whom they
respect and obey and who among them are like our titled lords in Spain; they call them datos in their
language. From these who remained in the main sala of the house come the knights and hidalgos among
them, in as much as these are free and do not pay anything at all; these they call timaguas in their
language. From those who got behind the walls of the house, they say, come those considered slaves,
whom they call oripes in their language. Those who went into the kitchen and hid in the stove and among
the pots they say are the negroes, claiming that all the negroes there are in the hills of the Philippine
Islands of the West come from them. And from the others who went out of the house, they say, come all
the other nations there are in the world, saying that these were many and that they went to many diverse
places. (Boxer Codex 1590b, 351-52, cited in W. H. Scott, 1994)
DATOS
TIMAWA
ORIPUN
Figure 1. Visayan social structure in 1565.
Datu
Datu is the head of a Visayan community, also known as the principal or “a lord of
vassals” in Spanish. The term kadatoan refers to datus who are regarded as autonomous.
Datu is both a political office and a social class, both referring to an incumbent ruler and all
members of the ruling class of either sex. One's particular right to rule depended on direct
descent from former rulers, so members of the datu class jealously guarded their lineage. A
man who became a datu simply by marrying one is called sabali. A Datu can also take
secondary wives or sandil who produced a lesser order of nobility called tumao, if they were of
high rank themselves or timawa if they were slaves or commoners. Potli or lubus nga datu
meant one of pure or unmixed ancestry, and kalibutan (“all-around”) meant pedigreed on all
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four sides – that is, all four grandparents. There was no word for primary datu or paramount
chief, but those recognized as primus inter pares were known as pangulo, head or leader;
kaponoan, most sovereign (from puno, root or trunk); or makaporos nga datu, a unifying chief.
Those who controlled seaports with foreign trade generally took Malay-Sanskrit titles like
Rajah (Ruler), Batara (Noble Lord), or “Sarripada” (His Highness). Spaniards translated Rajah
as kings, though they had neither kingdoms nor power over other datus.
What do social anthropologists mean by chiefdom?

Chiefdom refers to a loose federation of chiefs bound by loose ties of personal
allegiance to a senior among them. The head of such a chiefdom exercised authority over his
supporting chiefs, but not over their subjects or territory, and his primacy stemmed from his
control of local or foreign trade, and the ability to distribute luxury goods desired by the others.
Philippine chiefdoms were usually located at river mouths to facilitate highland-lowland
exchange of goods (Scott, 1994).
How does a datu assert his power?

A datu’s authority arose from his lineage, but his power depended upon his wealth, the
number of his slaves and subjects, and his reputation for physical prowess. Some were
therefore autocratic and oppressive, others were not, those whose subjects were followers
rather than vassals. A courageous, frightening datu was called pamalpagan from palpag, split
and flattened bamboo. Those who were not subjects of autocratic datus were very free and
unrestricted. A ruling datu boasted heirloom wealth called bahandi--goldwork, imported
porcelain, and bronze gongs--but not real estate. Bahandi was required for status display,
exchanged marriages, shared among close relatives, held as collateral for loans, and loaned
out itself for mean who mortgaged themselves into bondage to obtain the wife of their or their
family’s choice (Scott, 1994).
What is/are the responsibilities of a datu?

A datu was expected to govern his people, settle disputes, protect them from enemies,
and lead them in battle.
Presently, the Philippines is governed by a President who runs the country with the help
of his cabinet members. The same also is true during the 16th century Philippines with their
own version of what constitutes a datu’s staff. A datu was assisted by a considerable staff.
His chief minister or privy counselor was atubang sa datu – literally, “facing the datu.” His
steward or majordomo was paragahin, a dispenser who collected and recorded tribute and
crops and distributed them among datu’s relatives. Retainers, and house slaves as well as
allocated them for work gangs or public feasts. His sheriff or constable was bilanggo, whose
own house served as jail or a bilanggowan. There was a kind of a town crier, paratawag, who
announced proclamations, mantala, either by shouting them from the top of a tall tree or by
delivering them to the persons concerned – for example, timawa being summoned for a hunt
or sea raid. These officers were generally tumao (except the town crier or paratawag who was
normally a slave), either from the datu’s own clan or the descendants of the collateral
ancestor, and tumao, in general, were called sandig sa datu, supporters of the datu.
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Timawa
Spanish dictionaries always define timawa as freemen (libres) or freedmen (libertos).
They can be classified as:
1. offspring or descendants of a datu’s commoner wives or slaves concubine;
2. ginoo, are persons liberated by their own master;
3. “citizens”, are privileged class, not ordinary people;
4. “knights and hidalgos”, are attached to their lords as personal vassals, pay no
tribute, and render no agricultural labor;
5. commoners (plebeyos) or tungan tawo, “people in-between” during the 17th
century.
Even when that memory was fading, the pre-Hispanic timawa were being fondly recalled
as a “third rank of nobility”. Today, they call everybody timawa who are not slaves (Alcina,
1668a, 4:59, cited in W. H. Scott, 1994).
Several responsibilities and services performed by a timawa can be identified as follows:
1. pays tribute called buhis or handug to the datu;
2. served as personal vassals, won tattoos beside the datu in battle, rowed and
manned the datu’s warship, received favors, and shared in the public accolade
for his victories, attends feasts as retainers, acts as wine tasters, among others;
3. men of consequence in the community;
4. they were held accountable for wounding or killing any captives;
5. could lend and borrow money;
6. can enter business partnerships;
7. can acquire slaves of their own; and
8. inheritance of their children depends on the datu’s pleasure.
It can be noted that the warrior roles of datu and timawa were destined to disappear
under colonial pacification. Fray Rodrigo de Aganduru Móriz (1623, 452) described the
changes that had taken place by 1623 as follows:
The Indios of the Bisayas say that before they gave obedience to the King our Lord,
and become Christians, not only did the Mindanaons not make raids in their territory, but
that, on the contrary, they would go to Mindanao where they took many captives and
terrified them; and now it is the opposite because since they are Christians and it is not
licit for them to make those raids, and they are disarmed, they are paying for what they did
then.
Oripun
Sociologically, the oripun constituted the class which in contemporary European society
would have been called commoners. The word oripun appears to be a transitive form of an
ancient root word udip (to live) meaning “to let live” – for example, to spare life on the field of
battle, to ransom a captive, or to redeem a debt equivalent to man’s price. The market for
these exchanges was provided by a labor shortage for exploiting a rich natural environment;
debt slavery was prevalent because agriculture was undeveloped, goods limited, and interest
rates high, so debtors had little collateral except their own persons. The oripun produced by
these conditions were legally slaves: they could be bought and sold. Some others who make
up the oripun class are the following:
1. foreign captives or purchases who served as victims for human sacrifice;
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2. members of their master’s household suckled at the same breast as his own
children;
3. householders, who gave their masters or creditors a portion of their crops or
labor; and
4. some who were hardly distinguishable from freemen or timawa.
Individual status within the oripun class depended on birthright, inherited or acquired
debt, commuted penal sentence, or victimization by the more powerful. Below are what
composes the oripun social scale:
1. bihag, were outright captives. They were marketed by dealers as expensive
merchandise like bahandi porcelain and gongs, or ships and houses;
2. hayohay or ayuey, are oripun who lived in their master’s house – they occupy the
bottom of the oripun social scale. They are the most enslaved, and the ones they
mostly sell to the Spaniards;
3. tuhay or mamahay, are those with their own house and field;
4. bulan (month) or pikas, were half-slaves if their owners divided their time by the
month. Only one of their parents was hayohay;
5. tilor or sagipat, are quarter-slaves. Three of their grandparents were nonslaves;
and
6. tumarampok, are offsprings of slaves who take over their parents’ obligations.
Boxer Codex: This Is What 16th Century Filipinos Looked Like
The late 16th-century Boxer Codex, a Spanish-language compilation from the

Philippines, is far from unknown among scholars of early-modern Asia. However, few have
seen the entire text. Since its discovery by the well-known historian Charles Ralph Boxer in
1947, bits and pieces have been translated and published, but not always in an expert way.
The new translation of the entire codex by Jeffrey Scott Turley, with extensive commentaries
by Turley and George Bryan Souza, is, therefore, more than welcome. It has evidently been a
demanding task: the codex runs to 305 double folio pages, with names of locations and
persons which are not always easy to decipher. The editing seems to be meticulously and
expertly done, although the publisher should preferably have checked it to eliminate a number
of typographical errors. The codex has earned justified fame for its numerous artistic
illustrations of various ethnic groups of East and Southeast Asia, often the only ones that we
possess for the period in question. These illustrations are reproduced in a satisfying way, as
are the less well-known ones of Chinese mythical beings and animals. Some of the most
interesting parts concern the various ethnic groups of the Philippine Islands: Cagayans,
Visayans, Tagalogs, and Moros. The long accounts of customs and mytho-history sometimes
have a surprising affinity to modern ethnographic texts, as the writer seems to have listened
attentively to local informers (Hans Hägerdal, n.d. Retrieved from:
https://newbooks.asia/review/boxer-codex).
Also, as Brill Publishing puts it, the Boxer Codex is a transcription and translation of an
illustrated late Sixteenth-Century Spanish Manuscript concerning the Geography, History, and
Ethnography of the Pacific, South-east and East Asia. In The Boxer Codex, the editors have
transcribed, translated, and annotated an illustrated late-16th century Spanish manuscript. It
is a special source that provides evidence for understanding early-modern geography,
ethnography and history of parts of the western Pacific, as well as major segments of
maritime and continental South-east Asia and East Asia. Although portions of this gem of a
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manuscript have been known to specialists for nearly seven decades, this is the first complete
transcription and English translation, with critical annotations and apparatus, and
reproductions of all its illustrations, to appear in print. (Source:
https://brill.com/view/title/31681)
The following gallery shows what the 16th-century Filipinos looked like in the eyes of the
Europeans:
Negrillos or Negrito hunting

couple. The majority of these
bowmen or archers are Negritos.
They have many herbs a drop of
which, introduced into the
bloodstream, would cause quick
death, unless remedied by
another herb.
Figure 2. Aeta or Negrito hunters (Negritos of the Pre-hispanic Philippine Archipelago). (From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Codex#/media/File:Negritos.png)
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A Native Binukot Lady. A native of Visayan

origin.
Figure 3. A Native Binukot Lady (Possibly Visayan). (From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Codex#/media/File:Native_of_Visayan_origin.jpg)
Visayan kadatoan (royal) couple.
Figure 4. Visayan kadatoan (royal) couple. (From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Codex#/media/File:Native_of_Visayan_origin.jpg)
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A pair of gold-embellished Visayan Noble

couple. “Shimmering sashes of woven gold with
ornate repoussé buckles, while lighter cloth
waistbands adorned with cord weights rattled
with every step.”
Figure 5. Visayan kadatoan (royal) Visayan kadatuan (royal) with his wife wearing red, the distinctive color of their
class. (From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Codex#/media/File:Native_of_Visayan_origin.jpg)
Visayan Principal Couple covered in tattoos. They

have another type of clothing, which consists of
cotton blankets. The men carry on their heads
some very fine multi-colored head scarfs which
they wear as some sort of Turkish turban. They call
these in their language purones (putong). The
young men wear them finely with many inserts of
strips of gold. The garments and dresses of
Bisayan women consist of some blankets with
diverse colored stripes made of cotton. They wear
a pezuelo, a chemise with half sleeves that reach
the elbows. They are close-fitting, without collars,
low-necked or low-cut, and fastened at the front
with braids or cords of silk. Many wear a lot of gold
jewelry that they use as fasteners and small golden
chains, which they use as best as they can.
Figure 6. Visayan Principal Couple covered in tattoos. (From:

https://www.thevisualtraveler.net/2018/05/boxer-codex-this-is-what-16th-century.html)
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Pintados from Bohol, showing their patok or

tattoos. The Bisayans are accustomed to
painting their bodies with some very elegant
tattoos. They do this with iron or brass rods,
the points of which are heated on fire. These
are done in the manner illuminations,
paintings all parts of the body, such as the
chest, the stomach, legs, arms, shoulders,
hands, and muscles, and among some, the
posteriors. (Source: Margaux Camaya, The
Visual Traveler, May 12, 2018)
Figure 7. Pintados (Possibly Cebuano or Waray) from Bohol, showing their patok or tattoo. (From:
https://www.thevisualtraveler.net/2018/05/boxer-codex-this-is-what-16th-century.html)
Native Visayan oripun (slaves).
Figure 8. Native Commoners (men) of the Pre-hispanic Philippine Archipelago. (From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Codex#/media/File:Naturales_1.png)
-=0=-
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Lesson 3.1 Early Inhabitants

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TEGR104: Teaching Social Studies in the Elementary Grades (Culture and Geography) 1

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

Through archaeological records and extensive researches, the peopling of the

Traditional Filipino Communities

Figure 1. Visayan social structure in 1565.

What do social anthropologists mean by chiefdom?

How does a datu assert his power?

What is/are the responsibilities of a datu?

Boxer Codex: This Is What 16th Century Filipinos Looked Like

The late 16th-century Boxer Codex, a Spanish-language compilation from the

Negrillos or Negrito hunting

A Native Binukot Lady. A native of Visayan

Figure 3. A Native Binukot Lady (Possibly Visayan). (From:

Visayan kadatoan (royal) couple.

Figure 4. Visayan kadatoan (royal) couple. (From:

A pair of gold-embellished Visayan Noble

Visayan Principal Couple covered in tattoos. They

Figure 6. Visayan Principal Couple covered in tattoos. (From:

Pintados from Bohol, showing their patok or

Native Visayan oripun (slaves).

Figure 8. Native Commoners (men) of the Pre-hispanic Philippine Archipelago. (From:

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