CUSTOMS OF

TAGALOG
 Historical
Background
During the first century of Spanish rule, the colonial government had a
difficulty in running local politics because of limited Spaniards who are
willing to live outside Intramuros.

The situation force the Spaniards

to allow Filipinos to hold position
of Gorbernadorcillos.

Gobernadorcillo - is the leader of a town or

pueblo (people or population).
To ensure Gobernadorcillos would remain loyal to the crown the friars
assigned to the parishes were instructed to supervise and monitor the
activities of the former.

The Friars ended up performing the

administrative duties that colonial
duties should have been doing at the
local level.

The Friars became the most

influential figure in the pueblo
The friars who were assigned in mission territories were required to
periodically to inform their superiors of what was happening in their
areas. They prepared reports on the number of natives they converted
the people’s way of life, their social economic situation and the problem
they encountered.

Some of them submitted short letters while others who were keen
observers and gifted writers wrote long dispatches. On the top of the
regular reports the submitted, they also shared their personal
oberservation and Experiences. Plasencias Relation de las costumbres de
los Tagalos is and example of this kind of work
Fr. Juan de Plasencia:
Las Costumbres de los
Indios Tagalos de
Filipinas
Background of the Author
Juan de Plasencia
-Juan de Plasencia was born in the early 16th century as
Juan Portocarrero in Plasencia, in the region of Extremadura,
Spain. He was one of the seven children of Pedro
Portocarrero, a captain of a Spanish schooner.
He is believed to have arrived to the Philippines in 1578, after
a stopover in Mexico. As soon as he arrived, he joined forces
with another missionary, Fray Diego de Oropesa, and they
both started preaching around Laguna de Bay and Tayabas,
Quezon, in Quezon Province, where he founded several
towns.

Fray Juan de Plasencia came together with the first batch of

Franciscan missionaries in the Philippines.
• Juan de Plasencia wrote a number of books designed primarily
to promote the understanding of both the Spanish language
among the natives, and the local languages among the
missionaries, to facilitate the task of spreading Christianity.
• He is the author of what is believed to be the first book
printed in the Philippines, the Doctrina Cristiana, that was not
only printed in Spanish, but also in Tagalog, in both Latin
script and the commonly used Baybayin script of the natives of
the time, and it even had a version in Chinese.
• A mystical work which he entitled "La Santina", was an Opus
number on prayer and contemplation entirely done in the
Tagalog language so the natives who did not know Spanish
could also engage in the spiritual exercises of their teachers.
• Relacion de las Costumbres de Los Tagalos (1589) - First Civil
Code of the Philippines
• Arte de la Lengua (Art of Language)
• Vocabulario
• Coleccion de frases tagala (Collection of Tagalog Phrases)
Historical Background
of the Document
Social Classes
.

Datu
✣ chief, captain of wars,
whom governed, obeyed
and reverenced.
 Government

The unit of government is called Barangay ruled by a

chieftain, and consist of 30 to 100 families together
with their relatives and slaves.
.

Nobles or Maharlika
✣ Free-born, they do not
pay taxes.
.

Commoners or Aliping
namamahay

✣ They live on their own houses

and lords their property and gold.
.

Slaves or Alipin sa guiguilid

✣ They serve their master in his

house and his cultivated lands and
can be sold.
 Division of Children

Whether it is Male or Female

The first, the third and the fifth child belongs to the
father.
The second, the fourth and the sixth child belongs to
the mother.
Whether Free or Slave
If the father and/mother is free then all of his/her
children are free.
If the father and/mother is slave then all of his/her
children are slaves.
If they only have one child it is half free and half slave.
• Maharlicas could not after marriage move from one
village to another without paying a certain fine in
gold (ranging from one to three taels and a banquet
to the entire barangay) as arranged among them.
• Special case, when one married a woman of another
village, the children were afterwards divided equally
between the two barangays.
• Investigations made and sentences passed by the
dato must take place in the presence of those his
barangay.
• They had laws by which they condemned to death a
man of low birth who insulted the daughter or wife
of a chief; likewise witches, and others of the same
class.
• For loans, the debtor is condemned to a life of toil.
Borrowers become slaves and after the death of the
father, the children pay the debt.
• For inheritance, the legitimate children of a father and
mother inherit equally.
• Dowries are given by men to the women’s parents
before marriage. If the parents are both alive, they
both enjoy the use of it.
• In case of divorce, if the wife left the husband for the
purpose of marrying another, all her dowry will go to
the husband but if he did not marry another, the
dowry was returned.
 The worship of tagalogs
• Simbahan- temple or place of adoration
• Pandot- a festival celebrated in a large house
of chief
• Sibi- temporary shed on each side of the
house
• Sorihile- small lamps
• Nagaanitos- union of worship in all barangay
 IDOLS
• Bathala- the powerful and maker of all things
• Lic-ha (images with different shapes)
• Dian masalanta (patron of lovers and of
generation)
• Lacapati and Idianale (patrons of cultivated
lands and of husbandry)
• Sun, moon and stars
• Seven little goats (the Pleiades)
• Mapolon (change of seasons)
 IDOLS
• Balatic (greater Bear)
• Buaya- water lizard
• Tigmamanuguin –bird of auguries

•
BELIEFS
No established division of years, months, and days
• Catolonan (officiating priest)
• offerings and sacrifices
• Belief on bearing child
 DISTINCTIONS AMONG THE PRIESTS
OF THE DEVIL
C ATA L O N A N
- EITHER MAN OR WOMAN
- A N H O N O R A B L E O N E A M O N G T H E N AT I V E S A N D C O U L D B E H E L D B Y
PEOPLE OF RANK
• M A N G A G A U AY
-ALSO KNOWN AS WI TCHES, DECEIVE OR PRETENDS TO HEAL THE SI CK
- I F W I S H E S T O K I L L S O M E O N E AT O N C E , T H E Y C O U L D ; A N D T H E Y C O U L D
P R O L O N G L I F E F O R A Y E A R B Y B I N D I N G T O T H E WA I S T A L I V E S E R P E N T
• M A N Y I S A L AT
- S A M E W I T H M A N G A G A U AY
- H A D T H E P O W E R O F A P P LY I N G R E M E D I E S T O L O V E R S T H AT T H E Y
WO U L D A B A N D O N T H E I R OW N W I V E S , A N D P R E V E N T T H E M I N H AV I N G
S E X U A L I N T E R C O U R S E W I T H T H E L AT T E R
- I F T H E WO M A N, CO N ST R A I NE D BY T H ES E , WE R E A BA NDON E D, I T
W O U L D B R I N G S I C K N E S S , W O U L D D I S C H A R G E B L O O D A N D M AT T E R
MANCOCOLAM
- D U T Y WA S TO E M M I T F I R E F R O M H I M S E L F AT N I G H T, O N C E O R
OFTENER EACH MONTH
- T H E F I R E E M I T T E D C O U L D N OT B E E X T I N G U I S H E D
H O C LO B A N
- A N OT H E R K I N D O F W I TC H B U T O F G R E AT E R E F F I C A C Y T H A N T H E
M A N G A G A UAY
- T H E Y C O U L D K I L L S O M EO N E W H O M T H E Y C H O S E E I T H E R BY
SALUTING OR RAISING THE HAND
- T H E Y C O U L D H E A L T H O S E W H O M T H E Y M A D E I L L BY U S I N G
OT H E R C H A R M S
M A G TATA N G A L
- O C C U RS I N C ATA N D UA N E S
- P U R P O S E I S TO S H O W H I M S E L F AT N I G H T TO M A N Y P E R S O N S ,
WITHOUT HIS HEAD OR ENTRAILS
-IN THE MORNING, RETURNS HIS HEAD OR REMAINING, LIKE AN
ALIVE PERSON
- M A N Y N AT I V E S A F F I R M E D S E E I N G I T
O S UA N G
-SORCERER
- F L I E S , M U R D E RS M E N , E AT S T H E I R F L E S H
- O C C U RS I N T H E V I S AYA S I S L A N D S , D O E S N OT E X I S T A M O N G T H E
TA G A LO G S
M A N G A G AYO M A
- T H E Y M A D E C H A R M S F O R LO V E RS O U T O F H E R B S , S TO N E S A N D
W O O D I N F U S E T H E H E A R T W I T H LO V E .

S O N AT
- TO H E L P O N E TO D I E
- F O RS E E K E R O F S A LVAT I O N O R C O N D E M N AT I N O F T H E S O U L

PA N G ATA H OJ A N
- S O OT H S AY E R A N D F O R S E E K E R O F F U T U R E

B AYO G U I N
- A M A N W H O S E N AT U R E I N C L I N E D TO WA R D T H AT O F A W O M A N
M A G TATA N G A L
- O C C U RS I N C ATA N D UA N E S
- P U R P O S E I S TO S H O W H I M S E L F AT N I G H T TO M A N Y P E R S O N S ,
WITHOUT HIS HEAD OR ENTRAILS
-IN THE MORNING, RETURNS HIS HEAD OR REMAINING, LIKE AN
ALIVE PERSON
- M A N Y N AT I V E S A F F I R M E D S E E I N G I T
O S UA N G
-SORCERER
- F L I E S , M U R D E RS M E N , E AT S T H E I R F L E S H
- O C C U RS I N T H E V I S AYA S I S L A N D S , D O E S N OT E X I S T A M O N G T H E
TA G A LO G S
M A C A - PA R A D I S E O R V I L L A G E O F R E S T
C A S A N A A N - A P L A C E O F A N G U I S H A N D PA G A N S W H O C O N F E S S E D
TO H E L L
S I TA N - D E M O N S F R O M H E L L .
T I G B A L A N G - P H A N TO M S O R G H O S T
PAT I A N A C - I F A W O M A N D I E D D U R I N G C H I L D B I R T H , S H E A N D
H E R C H I L D S U F F E R E D P U N I S H M E N T.
 Contribution in the Philippine history
Customs of the tagalogs is a part (either chapters or
subsections) of longer monographs written by the
chroniclers of the Spanish expeditions to the Philippines
during the early 16th and 17th centuries. They appeared
initially in Blair and Robertson’s 55 volumes, The Philippine
Islands (1903) and in the Philippine Journal of Sciences
(1958).
 The original work itself is a product of observations and judgments.
Therefore, it is probable that Juan de Plasencia’s work might contain
partiality in presenting his observations and judgments.
It has continued to serve as the basis for historical reconstructions of
Tagalog society.
Many of the 16th century beliefs and practices are still present today.
It affirms that during the pre-Hispanic period, Filipinos already have a
government as well as set of beliefs and practices.
Some of our perceptions on Filipino beliefs and practices are
somehow no different from Juan de Plasencia's point of view.