PRE-SPANISH

PHILIPPINE
CULTURE
 A. Clothing.
• The male attire consisted of the upper
and lower pieces. The lower part is called
bahag. The male had a headgear called
putong. The female dress consisted of the
baro or camisa and the lower dress called
saya and they used tapis to wrap around
the waist.
B. Ornaments
For men, tattoos were signs of valor and
manly attributes, for women, tattoos enhanced
beauty. The ancient Visayans were the most
tattooed inhabitants of the Philippines. For this
reason, they were called Pintados (painted
people) and the Visayas, the Islas de los Pintados
(islands of the painted people).
•According to old Spanish
chronicles, the ancient Bisayans
were the ost tattoed inhabitants of
the Philippines. For this reason,
they were called Pintados, and the
Visayas, the Isla de los Pintados
(Island of painted people.
C. Houses
 The ancients house, just like the present nipa house,
was made of wood, bamboo, nipa palm and cogon grass.
 The houses are generally elevated from the ground
with the lower portion used as storage for farm or
fishing implements and enclosure for pigs, chickens, and
ducks.
 The bajaos or Sea Gypsies of Sulu, on the other hand,
made their houses on boats for they were sea- roving
people whose life depended upon the water of the seas.
D.The Philippine society was divided into three
classes:
1) the nobles (maharlika) – This represented the elite
group in the society. The Datu being a member of this
class and other wealthy families enjoyed privileges. ex.
gat, lakan, datu
2) the freemen (timawa)- this class comprised the
majority of the population. They are lesser than the Datu
and Maharlika families.
3) the dependents (“alipin”) – The least privileged class
in a precolonial society
• But the stratification of these
social classes was not absolute,
for there existed no caste
system and there was a high
level of social mobility.
Among the ancient Tagalogs, two kinds of dependents
existed;
1)Aliping Namamahay – They were
summoned only if their masters needed
assistance in planting and in harvesting crops,
constructing houses, traveling too far places,
and helping out in times of emergency. They
can own property and can marry even
without the consent of the master.
•Aliping Saguiguilid- can not
own property and can not marry
without the consent of the master.
Most of them were captured
during wars. They lived in the
houses of their masters.
•It must be noted however, that it is
also believed that there was no
slavery in the Philippines unlike in
Middle East and Europe. When the
Europeans reached the Philippines
they mistook our dependents as
slaves.
• Among the ancient Bisayas, the
dependents were of three kinds:
a. A tumatamban- who works in the
masters house when summoned to do so.
B. A Tumarampuk- who worked one day
for his masters
C. Ayuey- who worked three days for his
lord
• It must be noted however, that
a different dependency existed in
the Visayas. A dependent seasonally
works in the sugar cane fields and
is relatively free. They are the
sacadas working the haciendas.
E. Position of Women in Early Society
Women occupied high position in the society and early
laws and customs recognized them as equal of men.
1. They could own and inherit property.
2. They could engage in trade and industry.
3. They could inherit the chieftaincy and rule barangays if
they were daughters of datus with no sons.
4. The mother in the family enjoyed the exclusive privilege of
naming the children.
5. As a sign of deep respect, the men when, accompanying
women, walked behind them.
F. Personal Habits
a. They bathed regularly for cleanliness and
plessure. That will explain why early settlements
were along situated along the river banks.
b. Filipinos were clean of their teeth, they
used fibrous husk of the betel-nuts as
toothbrush, and salt and water as toothpaste
•The early Filipinos where so clean
in their homes that you will not be
allowed to bring your slippers or
shoes inside. They sweep their
houses will brooms made of
coconut leaves.
G. Marriage Customs
• Generally, a man belonging to one class
married a woman of the same class. Except
for Muslims, the early Filipinos generally
practiced monogamy. Marriage was usually
arranged by parents even during the young
age of the boy and girl.
•There were two pre-requisites to
marriage:
First, the lover’s servitude to the girl’s
family and;
Second, the dowry, which was a sum
of money, gold, property, or anything of
value given by the man to the girl’s parents.
• Divorce was resorted to in case of marital troubles.
The grounds for divorce were:
a. adultery on part of the wife
b. desertion on part of the husband
c. Loss of affection
d. insanity
e. childishness
f. cruelty
g. lack of sexual satisfaction
• If the married couple belong to the different
classes, say a freeman and a dependent, their
children were equally divided among the
parents in so far as social status was
concerned. Thus, if the father was freeman, the
eldest, the third, and the fifth, the seventh, and
so on whether male of female belong to the
father. The second, the forth, the sixth, and the
eighth, and so on , belong to the mother.
 H. Government and Laws
The government of the pre-Spanish
Filipino was patriarchal in form. The unit of
administration was the barangay which was
a settlement consisting of 30 to 100
families. The early barangays were
independent fro each other and each was
ruled by a datu or raha.
•Laws were either customary or
written. Customary or oral laws were
customs and traditions handed down
orally from generation to generation.
While written laws were promulgated
by the datus
•Whenever the conflict cannot be readily
decided in the barangay court, a trial by
ordeal was resorted. It was believed that
the gods protected the innocent and
punished the guilty. Thus, an accused
person who was innocent was believed to
succeed in the ordeals because the gods
made it so.
• According to Lorca, there ordeals were utilized by
the court to find out the guilty person, namely:
1. the River Ordeal where suspected persons were
made to plunge into the river with their spears, and he who
rose to the surface first was adjudged guilty.
2. the Boiling Water ordeal where all suspected
persons were ordered to pick a stone placed in a pot of
boiling water, and he whose arm or hand was burned the
most was believed to be guilty
•The candle ordeal where each
of suspected persons was given
a lighted candle of the same
size, and he whose candlelight
died out first was considered
guilty.
G. Religious beliefs and Practices
Ancient Filipinos believed in an after life and
subscribed to the idea of heaven and hell. They
were animistic, they believed that everything
possessed spirit and therefore must be
respected. They believed in spirits called Anitos
or Diwata. They worshipped a supreme god
called Bathala which is equivalent to the
Spanish Dios.
H. Arts and Literature
The Controversy on the Code of Kalantiyaw
and the Maragtas of Panay
It was actually written in 1913 by Jose E.
Marco as a part of his historical fiction Las
antiguas leyendas de la Isla de Negros (Spanish,
"The Ancient Legends of the Island of Negros"),
which he attributed to a priest named José
María Pavón.
• In 1917, the historian Josué Soncuya wrote about
the Code of Kalantiaw in his book Historia
Prehispana de Filipinas ("Prehispanic History of
the Philippines") where he moved the location of
the Code's origin from Negros to the Panay
province of Aklan because he suspected that it
may be related to the Ati-atihan festival. Other
authors throughout the 20th century gave
credence to the story and the code.
• In 1965, then University of Santo Tomas doctoral
candidate William Henry Scott The Code of
Kalantiyaw:
• It has been alleged that in about 1433 the chief
of Panay, Datu Kalantiyaw issued orders for the
guidance of his people.
• However, Dr. Henry Scott disputed the
authenticity of this code saying that it is purely a
myth and has no historical basis.
• Filipino historians later removed the code from
future literature regarding Philippine history.[2]
When Antonio W. Molina published a Spanish
version of his The Philippines Through the Centuries
as Centuries as historia de Filipinas (Madrid, 1984),
he replaced the Code with one sentence: "La tésis
doctoral del historador Scott desbarate la existencia
misma de dicho Código" (The doctoral dissertation
of the historian Scott demolishes the very existence
of the Code).[3]
• Maragtas of Panay
This is the story of the ten Bornean Datus
who reached the island of panay in search of
settlement. This is a legendary or semi-historical
story about the ten datus and their families
who came from Borneo and settled in Panay in
search of freedom from the mistreatment of
their leader, Sultan Makatunaw.