Chapter 4
Reporters:
Edward Bolingot
Marthon Duane de las Verlas
Rafael Ramirez
Our Malayan Heritage
Before the Spaniards came, our Malay ancestors had their
ancestral culture, it includes:
1. Food and Drinks – the staple food is the rice and the popular drinks
of our ancestors is the tuba from the coconut, basi made from sugar
cane, pangasi is also known as the rice wine, lambanog from the
coconut palm and tapuy is an Igorot wine distilled from rice.
2. Mode of Dressing – Bahag and kangan is the most common clothing
of the men, and baro and patadyong is for the women.
3. Tattoos – represents war records and enhances bodily beauty.
4. House – made from wood, bamboo, and palm leaves.
5. Natural courtesy and politeness – Removing of the putong as a sign
of courtesy, the men always walks behind the women.
6. Cleanliness and neatness – they always take a bath after sunset, and
buyo is chewed for teeth coloring, they had a jar full of water for them
to wash their feet when entering the house.
7. Amusements – our ancestors had their musical instruments
accompanying folk songs and folk dances.
8. Marriage Customs – men offers dowry for the women. A prince could
marry a slave, and had practiced divorce before.
9. The wedding ceremony – bringing of the bride to the home of the
groom where the ceremony is held.
10. Government – settlement as an independent government kingdom
called barangay ruled by a datu also known as hari or raja.
11. Laws – had both oral and written laws. Oral laws is given by a
woman called Lubluban, then written laws are announced by a
barangay crier known as umalahokan.
12. Religion - supreme God was bathala, worshiped spirits called anitos
or diwata a manganito is offered to the anitos performed by a priest
called katalona.
13. Burial and mourning customs – corpse are embalmed, buried near
his home with his clothes, food, weapons, and sometimes slaves are
buried with the dead. Larao is a mourning custom for a deceased datu.
14. Superstitions - believed in witches such as aswang, mangkukulam,
chanak and tigbalang. Believed in magical amulets such as anting-
anting.
15. Languages – had different languages and dialects called the Malayo-
Polenesian language, which is the mother tongue.
16. Writing – they used sipol as pen. Wrote in banana leaves, tree
barks, and bamboo tubes. The ancient alphabet is consisted of 3 vowels
and 14 consonants.
17. Literacy of the early Filipinos – Before the coming of the Spaniards,
there is already a degree of literacy of the Philippines where there is
hardly a men and much less of a women who does not read nor write.
18. Literature – consists of myths and legends, songs and poems, fables,
proverbs and riddles.
19. Education – education was generally informal before the Spaniards.
Both boys and girls were taught by their parents in their homes with
reading, writing, arithmetic, and tribal customs.
20. Arts – architecture was revealed itself in the bahay kubo, painting
and the tattoos were made skillful tattoo artist of the barangays. They
have barangay sculptors of statues made from wood, gold, and ivory.
21. Sciences – the early Filipinos knew some herbal medicines and is
associated with religion and magic. They knew astronomy, steer the
vessels using stars and the sun. They knew engineering and one of the
evidences is the banaue rice terraces. They can add, subtract, divide
and multiply.
22. Weights and Measures – they used talaro and the measures of
capacity were the kaban, salop, kaguitna, and the gating. They used
thumbs and four fingers to extend which is called tumoro.
23. Calendars – there are 12 months in a year and contains 30 days
except the last month which had only 26 days.
24. Coinage – they have their coins found in jars and is seen in Bataan
and Manila, it is a cone-shaped gold pieces.
25. Domestic and Foreign Trade – they have traded from island to
island and some will trade for products that they have that the other
island doesn’t have. They have also carried on commerce with China,
Japan, Siam, Malacca, India, Borneo, Sumatra, and other oriental
islands.
26. Agriculture and Industries – there were two methods of cultivation.
The first is, kaingin method in which the land is set on fire to the shrubs
and bushes after they bore in the ground and planted the seeds. The
second method is using the wooden plows and harrows drawn by the
carabaos. Early Filipinos have both system of public and private
ownership of land. They practiced fishing, mining, lumbering, weaving,
metal work, manufacture of wines, racing of poultry and stock.
