CUSTOMS OF

THE
TAGALOGS
Relacion de las Costumbres de Los Tagalogs
By: Fray Juan de Plasencia
Fray Juan de Plasencia ● His real name is Joan de Portocarrero
● One of the seven children of Pedro
Portocarrero, who was a captain of a
Spanish Schooner.
● He grew up in the period known as the Siglo
de Oro.
● A member of Franciscan Order in 1578.
● Arrived at a port in Cavite, few kilometers
south of Manila, July 2nd of 1578.
● He was assigned to do missionary work in
Southern Tagalog Area.
● His book “Doctrina Christiana en Lengua
Espanola y Tagala” became the first printed
book in the Philippines.
● Died in Liliw, Laguna in 1590.
● The original copy of Customs of the Tagalogs is currently kept in
Archivo General de Indias located in Seville, Spain.
● A duplicate copy is kept in Franciscano Ibero-Oriental in Madrid,
Spain.
● An english translation appeared in Volume VII of the Blair and
Robertson’s The Philippine Islands.
● An english translation was published as a part of the volume for
precolonial Philippines.
DISCUSSION
DATO MAHARLICA COMMONERS SLAVES
 ● Rules over a few people.
DATO ● Governs and captains in wars.
or
CHIEF
● The freeborn
● Doesn’t pay tax or tribute but
NOBLES or MAHARLICA accompany the Dato in wars.

COMMONERS or ALIPING ● They live in their own houses.

NAMAMAHAY ● Accompanies their master
wherever he went.

SLAVES or ALIPING ● They serve their master in his

SAGUIGUILIR house.
● They can be sold.
● The tribal gathering was called Barangay in Tagalog, which the Dato
rules over.
● The nobles or maharlicas help the Datu in everything.
● The commoners or aliping namamahay are lords of their property and
gold. Their children inherit it, and cannot be made slaves.
● Slaves or aliping saguiguilir that are born in the house of their master
rarely, if ever, sold.
● There is a difference between aliping namamahay and aliping saguiguilir.
It is illegal to take the children of the aliping namamahay and take them
in as aliping saguiguilir.
● For those whose mother and father are maharlicas, will forever remain a
maharlica. But can be changed through marriage.
● If one of the maharlicas had children with their slaves, the children and
the mother became free.
● If one of them had children by a slave-woman of another, half of the child was
free and half belonging to his father.
● If two persons are married, of whom one was a maharlica and the other a
slave, their children were divided. The 1st, 3rd, 5th belongs to the father, and
the 2nd, 4th, 6th belongs to the mother. If the father is free, then those who
belong to him were free and if the mother is a slave, those who belong to her
were slaves.
● If only had one child, half free and half slave.
● The maharlicas could not, after marriage, move from one village to another,
or from one barangay to another, without paying a certain fine in gold, as
arranged among them.
● Failure to pay the fine might result in war between the barangay where the
person left and the one which he entered.
● When one married a woman of another village, the children were afterwards,
divided.
● They had laws by which they condemned to death a man of low birth who
insulted the daughter or wife of a chief.
● As for witches, they killed them, and their children and accomplices became
slaves of the chief.
● The dowries are given by the men to the women’s parents.
● If the wife, at the time of her marriage, has neither a father, a mother nor
grandparents, she enjoys her dowry.
● It should be a notice that unmarried women can own no property, in land or
dowry, fro the result of all their labors accrues to their parents.
● In the case of a divorce before the birth of the children, if the wife left the
husband for the purpose of marrying another, all her dowry and an equal
additional amount fell to the husband; but if she left him, and did not marry
another, the dowry was returned.
● When the husband left his wife, he lost half of the dowry, and the other half was
returned to him.
● If he possessed the children at the time of the divorce, the whole dowry and the
fine went to the children, and was held for them by their grandparents or other
responsible relatives.
● Marriage dowries which father’s bestow upon their sons when they are about to
be marries, and half of which is given immediately, even when they are only
children.
● The fine was heaviest if upon the death of the parents, the son or daughter
should be unwilling to marry because it had been arranged by his or her
parents. In this case the dowry is which the parents received was returned and
nothing more. But if the parents were living, they paid the fine.
 WORSHIP OF THE TAGALOGS
● It is true that they have the simbahan, which means a temple of adoration; but it is
because, when they wished to celebrate a festival, which they called pandot or
worship. They celebrated it in a large house of the chief.
● The house, for the above-mentioned period of time was called a temple.
● There was one called Bathala who they especially worshipped. The title means
that it is all powerful or maker of all things.
● They also worshipped the moon, especially when it was new, at which time they had
great rejoicings, adoring it, and bidding it welcome.
● The change of seasons, which they called Mapolon.
● The 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.
● Lacapati and Idianale were patrons of the cultivated lands and of husbandry.
● They paid reverence to water-lizards called Buaya for fear of being harmed by
them.
● They were very liable to find auguries in things they witnessed.
● The natives had no established division of years, months, and days.
● The winter and summer are distinguished as sun-time and water-time and the
latter term designating winter in those regions, where there is no cold, snow, or
ice.
● Their manner of offering sacrifice was to proclaim a feast, and offer to the devil
what they had to eat. This was done in front af an idol and praise it in poetic songs
sung by the officiating priest, male or female, called catolonan.
● Worshipping the devil without the sight of him.
● The devil was sometimes liable to enter into the body of the catolonan.
● The objects of sacrifice were goats, fowls, and swine, which were flayed,
decapitated, and laid bare before the idol.
● They performed another ceremony by cooking rice in a jar, after which they broke
the jar and the rice was left intact mass which was set before the idol together with a
few buyos which is a small fruit wrapped in a leaf with some lime.
● The heads of the animals after being offered as they expressed were cooked and
eaten also.
● The reasons for offering this sacrifice:
*recovery of a sick person
*the prosperous voyage of those embarking on the sea
*a good harvest
*a propitious result in wars
*a successful delivery in childbirth
*a happy outcome in married life
● The distinctions made among the priests of the devil were as follows:
*The first one, called catolonan was either a mon or a woman.
*The second one, called mangangauay or witches who deceived by pretending to
heal the sick.
*The third one, called manyisalat which is the same with mangangauay.
*The fourth one, called mancocolam whose duty was to emit fire from himself at
night, once or often each month.
*The fifth one, called hocloban which is another kind of witch, of greater efficacy than
the mangangauy. By simply raising the hand, they kill whom they close.
*The sixth one, called silagan. If they saw anyone in white, to tear out his liver and eat
it, causing his death. It is consider a fable in Catanduanes.
*The seventh one, called magtatanggal his purpose was to show himslef at night to
many persons without his head or entrails. Also a fable.
*The eighth one, called osuang, which is equivalent to a sorcerer, they have seen him
fly and that murdered men and ate their flesh. This was among the Visayas Islands;
among the tagalogs these did not exist.
*The ninth one, called mangagayoma. They made charms for lovers out of herbs,
stones and wood which would infuse the heart with love.
*The tenth was called a sonat which was equivalent to a preacher, it was his office to
help one die.
*The eleventh one, called pangatahojan, was a soothsayer and predicted the future.
*The twelfth one, called bayoguin, signified a “cotquean” a man whose nature
inclined toward that of a woman.
● Their manner of burying the dead was as follows, the deceased was buried beside
his house and if he were a chief, he was placed beneath a little house or porch
which they constructed for this purpose.
● They mourned for him for 4 days and afterward laid him on a boat which served
as a coffin or bier. Where guard kept over him by a slave.
● These infidels said that they knew that there was another life rest which they
called maca, just as if we should say paradise or village of rest, saying that whose
who go to this place are the just and the valiant.
● There was place of punishment, grief, and affliction called casanaan which was a
place of anguish.
● They said that all the wicked went to that place and there dwelt the demons whom
they called sitan.
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF
THE EXCERPTS?
● Plasencia described the Filipino’s life before the Spanish Influences.
● Plasencia’s work contain insights that can help inspire people to
preserve the history of the Philippines from the very beginning.
● In the excerpts, the Filipinos already had a political and justice
system. It is also stated that they were economically stable.
● Prior to the coming of the Spaniards they’re already civilized.
 WHAT MAKES IT BIASED?
● Plasencia was not a Filipino.
● There were some parts that Plasencia mentioned that Spaniards
were greatly ahead than the Filipinos. For example, him saying that
the Filipinos adored the stars but do not know their names unlike
Spaniards.
● Has a different point of view.