Pre-Hispanic Philippines

Balagtas, Bryan P. Lopez, Francis John A.

Early Customs and Practice

Clothing
Male Upper Female Baro or Camisa a jacket with sleeves

Kanggan Black or Blue Colorless jacket with short sleeves

Lower

Bahag consisted of a Saya - a loose skirt strip of cloth wrapped Tapis red or white cloth about the waist, passing wrapped aroound the down between the thighs waist.
Putong piece of cloth wrapped around head. The color of the putong showed the manliness of a man. Barefooted Hair gracefully knotted at the back of the head

Head

Footwear

Barefooted

Early Customs and Practice

Ornaments

Early Customs and Practice

Houses
Built to suit the tropical climate, the ancient house was made of wood, bamboo, and nipa palm.

Early Customs and Practice

Social Classes Divided into three Classes: 1. Nobles (carried the title of Gat or Lakan) 2. Freemen (Mahadlika) 3. Dependents a. aliping namamahay b. aliping sagigilid

Early Customs and Practice

The Position of Women
The customary laws gave them right to be the equal of men
could own and inherit property, engage in trade and industry succeed to the chieftainship of a barangay Exclusive right to give names to their children

As a sign of deep respect, the men, when accompanying women, walked behind them

Early Customs and Practice

Government
Barangay
unit of government and consisted of from 30 to 100 families Was derived from the Malay balangay, a boat Independent and was ruled by a chieftain

Chieftain
To rule and govern his subjects and to promote their welfare and interest Executive, the legislator, and the judge

Early Customs and Practice

Government
Barangay friendship and alliance
Sandugan
A treaty of friendship and alliance was concluded by means of the blood compact in which contracting parties drew blood from their arms and mixed the blood thus drawn with the wine in a cup. Blood-brothers.

Wars between barangays

Murder Kidnapped of wives maltreatment

Early Customs and Practice

Laws
Customary
Were handed down orally from generation to generation and constituted bulk of the laws of the barangay.

Written
Were those that the chieftain and his elders promulgated from time to time as necessity arose.
Code of Kalantiyaw Muslims Law

Early Customs and Practice

How a Law was Made
Chieftain forms an idea in creating a law Call the elders of the community Elders approved the idea Chieftain made necessary regulation or rules Elders immediately approves Umalokohan (a public announcer) was summoned and ordered to go around the barangay to announce the promulgation of the new rule and regulations

Early Customs and Practice

Judicial Process
Decided peacefully through a court composed of the chieftain as judge and the barangay elders as jury. Trials were held publicly and decisions were rendered promptly. Since there were no lawyers at that time, so all trials were conducted efficiently and without any delay.

Early Customs and Practice

Judicial Process
The witnesses by taking an oath to prove their honesty and sincerity: May the crocodile devour me if I tell any falsehood. The disputant with more witnesses to his side was adjudged the winner. The defeated party had no other recourse than to bow before the inevitable.

Early Customs and Practice

Trial by Ordeal
Was resorted to in order to show God in His infinity wisdom always took the side of the innocent.
Taking the stone in a boiling water out of the pot Giving lighted candles to the suspect Plunging into the river. Chew uncooked rice

Early Customs and Practice

Religious Beliefs
Believed in the immortality of the soul and in life after death. Bathala superior to all other deities. Tigmamanukin a kind of blue bird is also worshipped because they seemed to consider the objects of Nature as something to be respected. The veneration of the soul-spirits was universal among ancient Filipinos and may be termed the Cult of the Dead

Early Customs and Practice

Religious Beliefs
Likha or larawan is a carved idols made out of stone, gold, or ivory in which they kept alive the memory of their dead relatives. Ancients Filipino offered prayers and food to their anitos.

Early Customs and Practice

Religious Beliefs
Below Bathala were other gods and goddesses
Idianale Lakampati Sidapa Apolaki Kidul Tagalog goddess of agriculture Tagalog god of harvest Visayan god of death Pangasinan war god Kalinga god of thunder

Dallang
Malyari Poko Kolyog

Ilocano goddess of beauty

Zambal god of power and strength Tagbanua god of the sea Ifugao god of earthquakes

Early Customs and Practice

Economic Life
Agriculture Fishing Mining Lumbering and Shipbuilding Weaving

Pre-colonial Culture
Languages
There are more than a hundred languages and dialects in the Philippines, eight of which may be considered major languages. They are Tagalog, Iloko, Pangasinan, Pampangan, Sugbuhanon, Hiligaynon, Samarnon or Sama-Leyte, and Magindanao.

Pre-colonial Culture
System of Writing
The Filipinos before the arrival of the Spaniards had a syllabary which was probably of Sanskrit or Arabic provenance.

Pre-colonial Culture
System of Writing
They used as pen a sharp-pointed iron instrument called sipol. With this iron instrument, they engraved words on bamboo tubes, wooden boards and leaves of the plants which were used as paper.

Pre-colonial Culture
Literature
The literature of the early Filipinos may be classified into floating or oral literature and written literature. The literature of the Tagalog consisted of sabi (maxim), sawikain (saying), bugtong (riddle), suliranin and indulanin (street songs), talindaw (boat songs), diyuna (song of revelry), kumintang(war song which evolved into a love song), uyayi and hele (lullabies).

Legends and Hoaxes in Early Philippine History

The Maragtas story Code of Kalantiyaw The Legend of Princess Urduja

The Maragtas Story

I. At around 1250 AD, ten datus and their families left their kingdom of Borneo to seek their freedom and new homes across the sea. Led by Datu Puti, the ten royal Malay families landed in the island of Panay. Bought the lowlands of Panay from the Ati king named Marikudo. In which their descendants remain, and the Malay datus settled in the rich lowlands.

The Maragtas Code

I. Deliberate refusal to work in the fields or to plant anything for daily sustenance is a most serious crime which deserves severe penalty.
(a) The lazy person shall be arrested and sold to a rich family to serve as a slave, as such, to learn the lesson of service and the value of work in the house and in the fields.

The Maragtas Code

(b) Later, when he has been trained for work and has come to love it, he shall be restored to his family. The price paid for him shall be returned and he shall no longer be considered a slave, but a free man who has been regenerated and desires to live by the fruit of his labor. (c) If much later it is found out that he has not returned in any way and that he wastes his time in idleness, he shall be arrested again by the authorities and sent to the forest. He shall not be allowed to associate with the rest of the community because he is a bas example.

The Maragtas Code

II. Robbery of any sort shall be punished severely. The fingers of the thief shall be cut off. III. Only those who can support a family or several families can get married more than once and have as many as they can.

The Maragtas Code

(a) The poor family cannot have more than two children because it cannot support and properly bring up in the community a greater number of children (b) The children who cannot be supported by their parents shall be killed and thrown into the river.

The Maragtas Code

IV. If a man has had a child by a woman and he runs away from her because he does not want to marry her, his child by this woman shall be killed because it is difficult for a woman without a husband to support a child. (a) The parents of the woman shall be disinherit her. (b) The village authorities shall look for the man, and when they catch him and he stull refuses to marry, he shall be executed before the child of the woman he has abandoned. Father and child shall be buried in the same grave.

The Maragtas code as Part-Fiction, Part-History

It is true that many stories in the Maragatas appear in Panay folklore, and other sources verify some data in the tale.
However, as W.H. Scott noted: There is no reason to doubt that this legend preserves the memory of an actual event, but it is not possible to date the event itself or to decide which of its details are historic facts and which are the embellishments of generations of oral transmission.

The Maragtas code as Part-Fiction, Part-History

Some of the valid objections to the Maragtas being real history are as follows:
The publisher in 1907 of the Visayan legends noted: According to the author, this Maragtas should not be considered as containing facts all of which are accurate and true, because many of his data do not tally with what we hear from old men. The 19th century manuscript compiled by an Augustinian friar which contains the legend also claims: All these notes are my ideas and are not in the history.

The Maragtas code as Part-Fiction, Part-History

On the other, there are some interesting coincidence between the Maragtas and Panay customs, folklore, and traditions. At San Joaquin, Iloilo , a rock called Embidayan is considered as the actual meeting place between the Negritos and the Bornean datus. Some names in the Maragtas recur in Panay folklore of the Sulod, a mountain people

A Brunei legend tells of a Bornean sultan who made conquests in the Philippines in the early 16th century.

Code of Kalantiyaw
It was previously as the second oldest legal code in the Philippines Said to have been promulgated by Datu Kalantiyaw of Aklan in 1433. Documents sold by Jose E. Marco to Dr. James Robertson then published an English translation of the legal code, and this caused Filipino scholars and historians to accept authenticity without question.

Code of Kalantiyaw
I. Ye shall not kill; neither shall ye steal; neither shall ye do hurt to the aged; lest ye incur the danger of death. All those who infringe this [order shall be condemned] to death by being drowned with stones in the river, or in boiling water.

II. Ye shall obey. Let all your debts with the headmen (principles) be met punctually. He does not obey [shall received] for the first time one hundred lashes. If the debt is large, [he shall be condemned] to be beaten to death.

Code of Kalantiyaw
III. Obey ye: let no one have women that are very young; nor more than he can support; nor be given to excessive lust. IV. Observe and obey ye: let no one disturb the quiet of graves. When passing by the caves and trees where they are, give respect to them.

Code of Kalantiyaw
V. Ye shall obey: he who [makes] exchanges for food, let it be always be done in accordance with his word. VI. Ye shall be obliged to revere sites that are held in respect [such as those of] trees of recognized worth; and other sites.

Code of Kalantiyaw
VII. They shall be put to death: he who kills trees of venerable appearance; he who shoots arrows at night at old men and women; he who enters the houses of the headmen without permission; he who kills the fish [called] shark, or the streaked cayman (crocodile).

Code of Kalantiyaw
VIII. Slavery for a daom [certain period of time] [shall be suffered]: by those who steal away the women of the headmen; by him who keeps illtempered dogs that bite the headmen; by him who burns the fields of another. IX. It shall be an obligation: let every mother teach matters pertaining to lust secretly to her daughters, and prepare them for womanhood; let not men be cruel nor punish their women when they catch them in the act of adultery

Code of Kalantiyaw
X. All those shall be beaten for two days, who: sing while traveling by night; kill the bird Manaul [bird resembling an eagle]: tear the documents belonging to the headmen. . .; or mock the dead XI. They shall be burned: those who by their strength or cunning have mocked at and escaped punishment; or who have killed young boys; or try to steal away the women of agorangs (old men).

Code of Kalantiyaw
XII. They shall be drowned: all those slaves who interfere with their superiors, or their owners or masters; all those who abuse themselves through their lust; those who destroy their anitos (idols) by breaking them or throwing them down. XIII. All those shall be exposed to the ants for half a day: who kill black cats during a new moon; or steal anything from the chiefs and agorangs, however small it be.

Code of Kalantiyaw
XIV. Those shall be made slaves for life: who have beautiful daughters and deny them to the sons of chiefs, and with bad faith hide them away.

XV. Those shall be beaten: who eat the diseased flesh of the beasts which they hold in respect, or the herbs which they consider good; who would try to kill the young Manaul, or the white monkey.

Code of Kalantiyaw
XVI. The fingers shall be cut off: of all those who break idols of wood and clay in their olongans (probably shrines) and temples; of those who destroy the daggers of the katalonas (priest of priestess) for killing pigs, or break the drinking jars [of the latter]. XVII. Those shall be killed who profane sites where idols are kept, and sites where are buried the sacred things of their diwatas and headmen. He who performs his necessities in those places shall be burned.

Code of Kalantiyaw
XVIII. Those who do not cause these rules to be obeyed: if they are headmen they shall be put to death by being stoned and crushed; and if they are agorangs, they shall be placed in rivers, to be eaten by sharks and caymans.

Code of Kalantiyaw: A fake

o Serious objections to this fake historical code brought by Scott, as follows:
Dubious origin. Dubious contents. Un-Filipino nature of the code.

Code of Kalantiyaw: A fake

Dubious origin
Its discoverer, Jose E. Marco was also involved in the sale of other fake historical documents. The code itself was contained in an ancient story of the legends of Negros by a so-called parish priest of Himamaylan in 1838-1839 named Fr. Jose Maria Pavon. However there is no evidence that Fr. Pavon, the alleged author of the manuscript , was never in the Philippines in 1838, or parish priest of that town in 1839, the dates of the manuscript.

Code of Kalantiyaw: A fake

Dubious contents.
The contents of the original manuscript are of dubious value.
The author prays for the preservation of the king of Spain in 1838 and dedicates a book to him in 1839, but Spain had no king between 1833 and 1874. The author also states that the month of November was called a bad month, for it brought air laden with putrified microbes of evil fevers. But it was late 1850s Louis Pastuer discovered the theory of infectious germs, and the word microbe itself was first proposed in 1878.

Code of Kalantiyaw: A fake

Un-Filipino nature of the code.
The kalantiyaw code contains many erdicts which contradict the character of the Filipino, not mention that some of them are very strange indeed. For example, the code prescribed the death penalty for trespassing on the datus house, but only a years slavery fro stealing his wife.
According to Scott , what is incredible about the Kalantiyaw code is not its severity, but its capricious viciousness.

Princess Urduja
A legendary amazon warrior princess named Urduja and she has served as rallying point for the people if Pangasinan. Thus, in Lingayen, capital of Pangasinan, the Governors official residence is named Urduja House in her honor. She has been adopted as the symbol of a Filipina heroine and an inspiration for women power in national development.

Urduja: The Princess Who Never Was.

The historical error came from the travel accounts of one Ibn Batuta (1304-1378), a Muslim sheik from morroco. According to his travelogue, while somewhere in Southeast Asian waters, he reached the land of Tawalisi after a voyage of 71 days, and China was 15 days away with favorable wind.

Urduja: The Princess Who Never Was.

Dr. Jose Rizal calculated that Ibn Batutas ship would have been in the neighborhood of northwestern Luzon. Also Tawalisi could have been anywhere in Sulu, Luzon, Celebs, Cambodia, or Indochina. Also there is no port of departure to Tawalisi and the 15 days away from China is the only thing is indicated.

Urduja: The Princess Who Never Was.

Modern historians agree that Princess Urduja was the imaginary creation of the traveller Ibn Batuta, and the land of Tawalisi was not in Pangasinan at all.

Reference
Agoncillo, T. (1990). History of the Filipino People. Quezon City: R.P. Garcia Publishing. Zaide, S. (1999). The Philippines: A Unique Nation. Quezon City: All-Nations Publishing.

End