Book Review Of William Henry Scott's Pre-Colonial Philippines

3. Pre-colonial Philippines (on culture and life ways)
– based on William Henry Scott 's book Barangay
a.
The author’s objective in writing this book was to answer the question “what did the Spaniards actually say about the Filipino people when they first met them?” and the hoped that this will permit the Filipino readers today to pay a visit in our ancestors’ land. Yes, he achieved this objective. He, in his book, write all about the culture, religion, trades, literature, social organization, etc. (Scott, 1994)
b.
There general hierarchical organization includes the ruling class that are called datos, the knights or supporters called timawas and the slaves, which were called alipin. Bikolandia follows general hierarchal organization. The datu and ginoo was defined as “rich and elite”. The head of a community was called a kaduluhan, the ruler of a town was called namamanwa and the one who was recognized by other chiefs as a senior was pono. The second class was also called timawas that was defined as an ordinary person of the town who is neither chief nor slave, or a free man who was a slave. The third class was the slaves which they called oripun in general. This slaves might be a gintobo, was born as slave, dayo which was tasked to stay at his master’s tomb and the sayat that was one sacrificed in a mourning of a chief. The Visayan social culture has also three classes: Datos, timaguas and oripes. The datu is the head of the Visayan community the power of a Datu was