ACTIVITY 3 IN GEC 2

October 17, 2024
ACTIVITY 3
CONTEXT AND CONTENT ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PRIMARY SOURCES
Lesson 2: Customs of the Tagalogs by Fray Juan De Plasencia
I. CONTEXT
A. Brief Biography of the Author

 Born in the early 16th century as Juan Portocarrero in Plasencia,
Extremadura, Spain
 Spanish friar of the Franciscan Order
 He is believed to have arrived in the Philippines in 1578, after a
stopover in Mexico.
 With Fray Diego de Oropesa, they preached around Laguna de Bay and
Tayabas, Quezon, where they founded several towns.
 They are also credited to have founded large towns in Bulacan,
Laguna, and Rizal (e.g. Meycauayan, Lucban, and Antipolo)
 He is the author of what is believed to be the first book printed in the
Philippines, the Doctrina Christiana
B. Historical Background
 Much of what has been written about the Philippines, particularly its
history, has been produced either by outsiders, or for outsiders—using their
categories, their languages, their terms and often informed by their own
agenda, specifically economic and/or political
 The myth of the barangay had its genesis in a single source: Las costumbres
de los indios Tagalos de Filipinas, submitted in 1589 by the Franciscan
Juan de Plasencia.
 Commissioned by Spanish civil authorities, the report was based on
Plasencia’s apparent attempts to collect and analyze information regarding
the Tagalogs.
 The influence of Plasencia’s report cannot be overstated. This report
became the basis for Spanish laws and policies in the Philippines, allowing
the Spaniards to not only govern, but also to reconfigure and reconstruct
Philippine society.
 And it has continued to serve as the basis for historical reconstructions of
Tagalog society.
 As John Phelan noted: “The overwhelming bulk of our knowledge about
the character of preconquest Tagalog society comes from a study of
Tagalog customs composed by a Franciscan friar, Juan de Plasencia.
II. CONTENT
A. Highlight Events/Important Facts or Items
Excerpts of the Document

Nature of the “barangay”
 a family of parents and children, relations, and slaves
 did not settle far from one another.
 not subject to one another, except in friendship and relationship
Social structure/class
Dato
 Chief of the barangay
 Captain in their wars
 Rules over 30-100 households
Three castes
 Nobles
 Commoners
 Slaves
Maharlica
 Nobles and free born
 Do not pay tax or tribute to the dato, but must accompany him in war,
at their own expense
 Some would pay annually to the dato a hundred of gantas of rice
 After marriage, they could not move from one barangay to another
without paying a certain fine in gold
Aliping namamahay
 Commoners
 Can marry
 Serve their master, whether he be a dato or not, with half of their
cultivated lands
 They accompany their master whenever he went beyond the island, and
rowed for him
 They live in their own houses, and are lords of their property and gold
 Their children can inherit their parents’ properties
 Their children can enjoy the rank of their fathers, and they cannot be
made slaves (sa guiguilir) nor can either parents or children be sold
Aliping sa guiguilir
 Slaves
 They serve their master on his house and on his cultivated lands
 May be sold by their master
 Can ransom himself and become a namamahay through payment of at
least five taels of gold
Interclass marriage
 If a maharlica marries a slave, whether namamahay or sa guiguilir, the children
were divided: the first, third, fifth, and so on, whether male or females,
belongs to the father; the second, fourth, sixth, and so on, belongs to the
mother
 If the parent is a free born, all those who belonged to him/her are free; if
he/she is a slave, then the children are also slave
 Those who became slaves fell under the category of servitude which was
their parent’s
Sentence and punishment
 Investigations made and sentences passed by the dato must take place in
the presence of those of his barangay.
 An arbiter can be invited from another barangay if any of the litigants
felt aggrieved.
 There is a death penalty imposed for those who insult the child of a dato
 They condemned no one to slavery, unless he merited the death penalty
 All other offenses were punished by fines in gold, which, if not paid with
promptness, exposed the culprit to serve, until the payment should be
made
Dowry and inheritance
 The legitimate children inherited equally, except in the case where the
father and mother showed a slight partiality by such gifts as two or three
gold taels, or perhaps a jewel.
 Adopted children inherit the double of what was paid for their adoption
 Dowries are given by the men to women’s parents
 If the wife has no parents or grandparents, she enjoys her dowry
 Unmarried women can own no property, in land or dowry, for the result of
their labors accrues to their parents
 In the case of a divorce before birth of children, if the wife left the husband
and marry another man, all her dowry fell to the husband.
 If the woman left but did not marry, the dowry was returned.
 When the husband left his wife, he lost half of the dowry and the other half
was returned to him.
o If he possessed children at the time of his divorce, the whole dowry
and the fine went to the children.
 Upon the death of the wife in a year’s time they had no children, the
parents returned one-half of the dowry to the husband.
Upon the death\of the husband, one-half of the dowry was returned to the relatives of the husband.
Place of worship
 The simbahan, which means a temple or place of adoration, is being
constructed for the purpose of sheltering the assembled people during a
feast
 Nagaanitos- a feast celebrated and lasted for four days in which the whole
barangay, or family, united and joined in the worship.
Idol-worship
 Bathala – “all powerful” or “maker of all things”
 Dianmasalanta – patron of lovers and of generation
 Lacapati & Idianale – patrons of the cultivated lands and of husbandry
 They also worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars
 They possessed many idols called lic-ha, which were images of different
shapes
 They also adore some dead men who were brave in war and endowed
with special faculties
 They paid reverence to buaya (crocodile) from fear of being harmed by
them
Auguries and superstitions
 Belief in good and bad omens brought by particular animals (e.g. serpent,
rat, birds, etc.)
 Practice of divination to see whether weapons were to be useful or lucky
for their possessor
Rituals and sacrifice
 Practice of rituals and sacrifices led by a catolonan to heal sick person,
prosperous voyage, good harvest, victorious wars, etc.
 “Devil-worshipping”
Priests of the devil”
 There is a distinction among the “priests of the devil”
 Catolonan
o Either a man or a woman
o An honorable position held by people of rank
 Mangagauay
o Witches who deceived by pretending to heal the sick
o They induced maladies by their charms which can cause death
 Manyisalat
o Same as mangagauay
o They had the power of applying remedies to lovers that they would
abandon and despise their own wives
 Mancocolam
o Emits fire that cannot be extinguished from himself at night, once or
oftener each month
 Hocloban
o Another kind of witch of greater efficacy than the
o mangagauay
o Without the use of medicine, they can kill or heal whom they chose
 Silagan
o They kill anyone clothed in white by tearing out and eating the liver
of the victim
 Magtatanggal
o His purpose was to show himself at night to many persons, without his
head or entrails
 Osuang
o Equivalent to “sorcerer”
o They fly, murder men, and eat their flesh
o This was only among the Visayas Islands; among the Tagalogs these
did not exist
 Mangagayoma
o Another class of witches that make charms for lovers out of herbs,
stones, and wood, which would infuse the heart with love
 Sonat
o Equivalent to “preacher”
o They help people to die, at which time they predict the salvation or
condemnation of the soul
o Held by people of high rank
 Pangatahojan
o A soothsayer and predicts the future
o Bayoguin
o A “cotquean”, a man whose nature inclined toward that of a woman
 Burial practice
o The deceased are buried beside his house; and if he was a chief, he was
placed beneath a little house or porch which they constructed for this
purpose
o They lay the deceased on a boat which served as a coffin or bier, and
guarded by a slave
o Various animals, both male and female, were placed within the boat
(e.g. two goats)
o If the deceased is a warrior, a living slave is tied beneath his body until
the latter dies
o For many days, the relatives bewailed the dead, singing dirges, and
praises of his good qualities.
o The mourning is accompanied by eating and drinking.
o For the Negrillos (Negritos), they dug a deep, perpendicular hole and
placed the deceased within it, leaving him upright with head or crown
unburied, on top of which they put half a coconut which was to serve
him as a shield
o They then kill another person in retribution for the one who died.
 Life after death
o Maca
o paradise or village of rest
o Place of the just, the valiant, and those who lived good, or who
possessed moral virtues
 Casanaan
o Place of punishment, grief, and affliction
o Place of the wicked and being dwelt by demons, called sitan
o They believe that no one would go to heaven, where there
dwelt only Bathala
o They also believe in vibit (ghosts) and tigbalaang (phantoms)
o They also believe in patianac, that if any woman died in childbirth,
she and the child suffered punishment.

ACTIVITY 3 IN GEC 2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

ACTIVITY 3 IN GEC 2

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

ACTIVITY 3 IN GEC 2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

October 17, 2024

A. Brief Biography of the Author

A. Highlight Events/Important Facts or Items

Excerpts of the Document

You might also like