THE PRE COLONIAL PHILLIPNES

GOVERNMENT

 BARANGGAY- FILIPONOS EARLIEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT

 EACH BARANGAY IS RULED BY CHIEFTAINS (DATU)

 CHIEFTAINS (DATU) –RULE AND GOVERN HIS SUBJECTS AND TO

PROMOTE THEIR WELL BEING. IN TIMES OF PEACE, HE WAS THE CHIEF
EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATOR, AND THE JUDGE.

 LAWS WERE MADE BY CHIEFTAINS AND THE ELDERS

RELIGION

 BELIEVE IN ANITOS, PRIMORDIAL FORCES OF NATURE THAT COULD

ACOMMPANY OR POSSESS PEOPLE

 THEY BELIEVE ILLNESS IS CAUSE BY EVIL SPIRITS

 BATHALA- THE MOST POWERFULL GOD

 PRAISE MANY GODS& GODDESSES

ECONOMY

 Not much different from that found today in many remote barrios.

 During those halves- forgotten days, life was placid and characterized by less
economic and social pressure than it is today..

 Agriculture – the main source of livelihood. There was an abundance of rice,

coconuts, sugar cane, etc.

 Mining was comparatively developed

 lumbering and shipbuilding were flourishing industries in those pre- colonial days

 weaving was a home industry

  There were probably more commerce and business transactions along the waterways than
along pathways.

ARTS

 The first glimpse of the artistic sense of the primitive inhabitants of the Philippines can
be had in the remains of their tools and weapons

 With the advance of the New Stone age the primitive inhabitants began to show signs of
artistic improvement in the form of beads, amulets, bracelets and earings

 In the early Iron Age, the artistic variety of the ancient Filipinos reached its apogee.
Ornaments with different forms and sizes began to appear.

 There were several influences on Filipino primitive art which are apparent in the
surviving artifacts.

TECHNOLOGIES AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Negritos

 Homes- temporary sheds made of jungle leaves and branches of trees

 Made fire by rubbing two dry sticks together to give them warmth
 Didn’t know how to cook food
 Used bow and arrow as weapon and for hunting.

Indones

 More advanced
 Lived in grass-covered homes built above the ground or on top of trees.
 Practiced dry agriculture
 Clothing was made from beaten bark and decorated designs
 Cooked food in bamboo tubes

Implements: polished stone axes, adzes and chisels

Weapons: Bow and arrows, spears, shield and blow guns (sumpit).

Malays

 Culturally more advanced that Negritos

 possessed the Iron Age culture
 introduced into the Philippines both lowland and highland methods of rice
cultivation, including the system of irrigation
 domestication of animals (dogs, fowls, and carabaos)

Weapons: bows and arrows, spears, bolos, daggers, krises (swords), sumpits
(blowguns), shields and armors made of animal hide and hardwood, and lantakas
(bronze cannons).

SOCIAL CLASSES

Divided into three social classes. Nobles, Freemen and the dependents.

Nobles:

 consist of chiefs and their families

 Wielded tremendous influence in the baranggay
 Enjoyed rights that were not usually enjoyed by the other members of the
society.
 In tagalong region, usually carried the title of Gat or Lakan. Lakan Dula Gat
Maitan

Freemen:

 Called Mahadlika by the tagalogs.

 Composed of free men and dependents who earned their freedom.

Dependents:
 Occupying the lowest stratum
 Known as alipin among the Tagalogs.
 Acquired his status in society by inheritance, by captivity in war, failing to pay his
debts by purchase or by committing a crime.
 Among the tagalogs, alipin may be namamahay or sagigilid.
 The namamahay had his own family and properties an served his master during
planting and harvest seasons.
 The sagigild lived with his master, had no property of his own and could not
marry without the latters consent.

SYSTEM OF WRITING

 Considered tagalog as the richest among the other languages

 Filipinos before the arrival of Spaniards had a syllabary which was probably of
Sanskrit or Arabic provenance.

 Syllabary consisted of seventeen symbols. Three were vowels and fourteen were
consonants.

 They wrote on bark of trees, on leaves, bamboo tubes using their knives and
daggers, pointed sticks as their pens and their colored saps as ink.