The Pre – Spanish

Influences

Ages before the coming of the white men to the Asian world, our Filipino ancestors had their own culture and life-style, which included their customs, society, government and laws, writing and language, literature, music, religion, superstitious beliefs, economy and arts and sciences.

All these things, in the course of time, became the Asian heritage of the Filipino people.

The Barangays

The first Spaniards arrived in the 16th century.

They were surprised to see the early Filipinos having a civilization of their own and living in well-organized independent villages called barangays.

The name barangay originated from balangay, a Malay word meaning “sailboat”. Evidently, our seafaring ancestors named their villages after their sailboats.

The barangay was a self-sustaining community, ruled by a datu.

It is consisted of from 30 to 100 families. Some barangays were quite large, each having a population of more than 2,000.

Among them were Sugbu (Cebu), Maynilad (Manila), Bigan (Vigan) and Maktan (Mactan).

Houses and Dwellings

The ancient Filipino lived in houses in the barangay.

These houses were made of wood and bamboo, roofed by nipa palm leaves

and were called bahay kubo(nipa hut).

Each house had a bamboo ladder that could be drawn up at night or when the

family was out.

It also had a gallery, called batalan, where big water jars were kept for

bathing and washing purposes.

Some of our ancestors lived in tree-houses which were built on the top of trees for better protection against the enemy. The Bagobos and Kalingas still live in such houses.

Food and Drinks

The staple food of the early Filipinos was rice.Aside from rice, their food consisted of carabao meat, pork, chickens, sea turtles, fish, bananas and other fruits and vegetables.

They cooked their food in earthen pots or in bamboo tubes. They ate with their fingers, using the banana plants as plates and the coconut shells as drinking cups.

They made fire to cook their food by rubbing two pieces of dry wood which, when heated, produced a tiny flame. They stored their drinking water in big earthen jars or in huge bamboo tubes.

Their most popular wine was the tuba which was taken from coconut sports.

According to Dr. Antonio de Morga, one of the early Spanish historians of the country, it was “a wine of the clarity of water, but strong and dry”.

Other wines:basi - an Ilocano wine brewed from sugarcane pangasi - a Visayan wine made from riceLambanog - a Tagalog wine taken from the coconut palm Tapuy - an Igorot wine made from rice.

Mode of Dressing

Long before the coming of the Spaniards the early Filipinos were

already wearing clothes.

They were not naked savages like the Old Stone Age people in Europe or America.

The men wore a collarless, short-sleeved jacket called

kangan and a strip of cloth, called bahag, wrapped around the waist and in

between the legs.

It was dyed (tinina) either in blue or black, except that of the chief which was red.

Instead of a hat, the men used the putong, a piece of cloth wound around the head.