Father Juan de

Plasencia's
Customs of the
Ancient Tagalogs
1JRN2- GROUP #2

Buates, Louise Andrea

Cardenas, Alexander
Cruz, Jamela Ashley
Deananeas, Jianzen
Gacutan, Rose Eunice

Who wrote the article?
• a Spanish friar of the Franciscan
Order. He was among the first group
of Franciscan missionaries who
arrived in the Islands on July 2, 1578.
• Juan de Plasencia was born in the
early 16th century as Juan
Portocarrero in Plasencia, in the
region of Extremadura, Spain.
LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES
• Spent most of his missionary life in the
Philippines, where he founded numerous
towns in Luzon and authored several
religious and linguistic books, most
notably the Doctrina Cristiana (Christian
Doctrine), the first book ever printed in
the Philippines.
• Known to be a "defender of the native
population" and is known to lead a
lifestyle devoid of luxury and is always in
contact with the people he was trying to
convert to Christianity.
 Why did he write it?
• He was tasked by the King of Spain to document the
customs and traditions of the colonized (“natives”) based
on, arguably, his own observations and judgments.

• To put an end to some injustices being committed against

the natives by certain government officials.
• Arte de la lengua tagala
"Relacion de las Costumbres de Los Tagalos" (1589), not only
• Declaracion de toda la
doctrina Cristiana helped understand and preserve many of the traditional ways
• Vocabulario of the local population, but also provided the first form of Civil
• Doctrina Cristiana Code, used by local governors to administer justice.
• Relacion de las Costumbres
de Los Tagalos Written Works
The Relacion treats of the government of
DATU OR
the Tagalog, their administration of justice, MAGINOO
slavery, inheritance, social system, and
marriages. MAHARLICA
(NOBILITY AND

It also explains the relation between these FREEMEN)

social classes and the origin of each. Thus,

ALIPING NAMAMAHAY
it states three ways of how a man may
(COMMONERS)
become a slave; namely: birth, debt, and
captivity in war. It tells, as well, of the king
and of the duties he rendered to his ALIPING SA GUIGUILIR
subjects. (SLAVES)
 BARANGAY DATU

• Tribal gathering the chiefs ruled over. The

people within it are few - sometimes as
many as hundred houses, and others
were less than thirty.

• The word is derived from balangay, the

name for the sailboats that originally SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datu

brought settlers of Malay stock to the

• chief, captain of wars, whom people
Philippines from Borneo.
governed, obeyed and reverenced

• ruler of the barangay

 MAHARLIKA

• NOBLES
• members of the tagalog warrior class who had the
same rights and responsibilities as the timawa (who
did not have to pay to a maginoo or datu, but
occasionally be obliged to work on a datu's land and
help in community projects), but in times of war they
were bound to serve their datu in battle.
• the maharlikas were less free than the timawas
because they could not leave a datu's service without
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Codex first hosting a large banquet and paying the datu gold.
 SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Codex

ALIPING NAMAMAHAY
• Commoners
• They live in their own houses and lords of
their own property and gold
ALIPING SAGUIGUILIR
• Slaves
• They serve their master in his house and his
cultivated lands and can be sold
 MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

• Men are monogamous and wives are referred to as Asawa.

- Paninilbihan
- Panghihimuyat
- Bigay-Suso
• Divorce: (1) Adultery, (2) Abandonment on the part of the husband, (3)
Cruelty, and (4) Insanity.
INHERITANCE

• Legitimate children inherited equally, except where the parents showed

slight favor towards the other by giving gifts such as two or three gold
taels or jewel.
 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

• The chieftain’s executive function includes implementing laws, ensuring order

and giving protection to his subject.
• Disputes between individuals were settled by a court made up of the chieftain
and council of elders.

SLAVES

• A person becomes a slave by: (1) by captivity in war, (2) by reason of debt, (3)
by inheritance, (4) by purchase, and (5) by committing a crime.
• Slaves can be emancipated through: (1) by forgiveness, (2) by paying debt,
(3) by condonation, and (4) by bravery (where a slave can possibly become a
Datu) or by marriage.
 MARRIAGE DOWRIES

• If the wife, at the time of her marriage, has neither father, mother,
nor grandparents, she enjoys her dowry.

• Divorce before the birth of 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
Relation of the Worship of the Tagalogs, Their Gods,
and Their Burials and Superstitions

• No Temples
• Simbahan (Temple or Place of Adoration)
• Pandot (or worship)
• Sibi
• Sorihile
• Nagaanitos
 GODS/ IDOLS
• Bathala (idol/god, signify “all powerful” or “maker of all things”)
• Sun (worshipped for its beauty, almost universally respected and honored by heathens)
• Moon (worshipped especially when its new, rejoicing, adoring, and bidding it welcome)
• Stars, specifically Tala (morning star)
• “Seven little goats” (the Pleiades)
• Mapolon and Balatic w/c is our Greater Bear (change of season)
• Lic-ha (images with different shapes)
• They also worshipped little trifles. some particular dead man who was brave in war and
endowed with special faculties, to whom they commended themselves for protection in
their tribulations
• Dian Masalanta (patron of lovers and of generation)
• Lacapati and Idianale (patrons of the cultivated lands and of husbandry)
• They paid reverence to water-lizards called by them buaya, or crocodiles, from
 AUGURIES
• Divination - to see whether weapons (dagger knives etc.) were to be useful
and lucky for their possessor whenever an occasion should offer.
• No established division of years, months, and days' determined by the
cultivation of the soil, counted by moons, and the different effect produced
upon the trees when yielding flowers, fruits, and leaves
• Offerings and sacrifices: Catolonan (officiating priest)
• Belief in bearing a child: Young girls who first had their monthly courses, their
eyes were blindfolded four days and four nights. After that, the girl was taken to
the water to be bathed and washed her head.
 MANNER OF BURYING THE DEAD

• Deceased was buried beside his house, and if he were a chief, he was placed beneath
a little house or porch.
• Mourning for four days before interring.
• Laid him on a boat that served as a coffin and where a guard was kept over him by a
slave.
• Various animals were placed within the boat: ach one being assigned a place at the
oar by twos—male and female of each species being together
• If the deceased had been a warrior, a living slave was tied beneath his body until in
this wretched way he died.
• Maca: paradise or village of rest.
• There was also a place of punishment, grief, and affliction, called Casanaan.
 HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

• The Customs of the Tagalog is one of the most significant

primary sources of the Philippine history, as it tackles the
political and socio-cultural landscape of the ancient Filipinos,
from their system of government, social statuses, customs,
traditions and their beliefs before the Spanish Colonization.
February 5, 2021. http://www.artesdelasfilipinas.com/archives/186/accustomed-othering-in-colonial-writing.

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Candelaria and Her Village in Early 19th Century Philippines." Journal of Social History 33, no. 1 (1999): 37-55.
Accessed February 5, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3789459.

Blair, Emma. "The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898," October 11, 2004. Accessed February 5, 2021.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13701/13701-h/13701-h.htm?fbclid=IwAR0QIVUdmqv-n2oEAlLlcYut-
YEWnvq2eVn-zobo6BfwxWAg_H0UydcHvuU#d0e1500

Gutay, Jose D. "Life and Works of Fray Juan de Plasencia." Accessed February 5, 2021.
https://ofmphilarchives.tripod.com/id8.html.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 Vol. 1, no. 43. Accessed February 5, 2021.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/philamer/AFK2830.0001.043?rgn=main%3Bview.

Woods, Damon L. "From Wilderness to Nation: the Evolution of Bayan", October 4, 2005. Accesed February 5,
2021. https://escholarship.org/content/qt24m1q0f9/qt24m1q0f9.pdf?
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