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The Philippine Prehistory

1. The document discusses Philippine pre-Hispanic civilization and culture, including how indigenous peoples lived, their social classes and systems of government, religious beliefs, and arts like music and oral literature. 2. Ancient Filipinos had their own culture before Spanish colonization, with different housing, clothing, and customs depending on their region. Their society was organized into social classes and barangays with leaders. 3. They had rich oral traditions, wrote in indigenous scripts, and played various musical instruments. Archaeologists believe the earliest settlers arrived over 20,000 years ago via land bridges, with later migrations by boat.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
1K views2 pages

The Philippine Prehistory

1. The document discusses Philippine pre-Hispanic civilization and culture, including how indigenous peoples lived, their social classes and systems of government, religious beliefs, and arts like music and oral literature. 2. Ancient Filipinos had their own culture before Spanish colonization, with different housing, clothing, and customs depending on their region. Their society was organized into social classes and barangays with leaders. 3. They had rich oral traditions, wrote in indigenous scripts, and played various musical instruments. Archaeologists believe the earliest settlers arrived over 20,000 years ago via land bridges, with later migrations by boat.
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Philippine Prehistory Civilization and Culture Edward B.

Taylor defined culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, moral, laws, customs, and any capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. Moreover, Leslie A. White refers to culture as an organization of phenomena which includes arts, objects, ideas and sentiments. Hence, culture is the way of living of certain people. How they dress, how they eat, how they court and bear children, how they are buried, and many more refer to their culture. This chapter is about the way of living of the Filipinos before they were colonized by the Spaniards. Ethnocentrism and Xenocentrism are two concepts developed in sociology. When a person believes that his own group and culture are superior to all others then he is guilty of ethnocentrism. A persons belief in the superiority of his group may include pride in his community or hometown, his school, his fraternity, or his province. This same belief may take such insidious and socially disruptive forms as racism, class antagonism, religious bigotry, and the over-zealous and belligerent patriotism called jingoism. Xenocentrism is the opposite of ethnocentrism. Contrary to what the early Westerners claimed, the Filipinos have their own indigenous culture prior to the colonization period. Their houses are made of materials they found in their places. These houses are called bahay kubo. In the mountains of the Cordilleras they built their houses on tree tops while the Badjaos or Sea Gypsies of Sulu lived in bats as they roamed the sea. Among the ancient wore baro or camisa and the lower part consists of saya or patadyong. They wore ornaments made of gold and precious stones. The body was also adorned. They did this by means of tattooing. Unlike today, where tattoos are mostly for fashion, then it was a manifestation of a mans record of his bravery. The ancient Filipinos were divided into social classes. These were the nobles, the freemen, and the dependents. Among the dependents were classified into aliping namamahay and the aliping sagigilid. Among the Bisayans, the dependents were of three kinds: the tumataban, who worked for one day for his master; and the ayuey, who worked three days a week for his master. During those times, women were the equal men. They could own and inherit property and sell it. They could engage in trade and succeed to the chieftainship of their community. The community called barangay was the unit of governments. The head was powerful and promulgated the laws with the consent of the elders of the community. The barangays trade among themselves and for mutual protection against their common enemy, they made the laws of the barangay with the consent of the elders. When the elders approved the proposed law, a town crier, called the umalohokan would explain the new law. Most disputes were settled by trial by ordeal, which was also the practice of most western nations. The pre-Spanish Filipinos believed that the soul was immortal. They believed in life after death. They worshipped a Supreme Being called the Bathalang Maykapal. Our ancestors venerated their dead by carving idols called diwata in Bisayan and anito in Tagalog. Pre-Spanish Filipinos performed circumcision of their sons, a special rite done for their health and cleanliness. Physical love was not taboo among ancient Filipinos. They had potions for sexual malfunctioning. Morga reported the bagontao or single men and dalagas or maidens were people of little restraint, and from early childhood they had communication with one another and mingled with facility of anger. Young men and women entered into love pacts, which they kept even after marriage to others. Ancient Filipinos were very respectful of their dead because they believe in life after death and the immortality of the soul. Mourning for the dead chieftain was called the Laraw; for a dead man, Maglahe; and for a dead woman, Morotal. There are more than a hundred languages and dialects that exist in the country today. Of these, eight are considered major languages, namely: Sugbuhanon (Cebuano); Tagalog; Iloko; Pangasinan; Hiligaynon (Ilonggo); Kapangpangan; Magindanaw; and Samarnon (Waray-waray). They are sister-languages and belong to one family of languages called Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian. When the Spaniards set foot on Philippine soil, they found the Filipinos writing in their native syllabary or alphabet. The Philippine alphabet is called syllabify because every letter is pronounced as a syllable. The Tagalog script was called baybayin, sometimes erroneously called alibata. It consisted of three vowels and fourteen consonants, with a total of 17 letters. The writing system was horizontal, from left to right. Oral Literature consisted of sabi (maxims); bugtong (riddles); talindaw (boat song); tagumpay (victory songs); uyayi and hele (cradle song); ihiman (wedding song); kumintang (war song); and many others.

Ifugaos had epics: Hudhud and Alim. Ilokanos: Biag ni Lam-ang Bikolanos: Handiong Muslims: Bantugan, Indarapatra and Sulayman; Bidasari, and Parang Sabil. The natives of Cebu played instruments made of bamboo called the kudyapi. Among the Negritos of Zambales and Bataan, the favorite musical instruments were the bansic, a sort of a flute and the gangsa, a kind of guitar. The Ilocanos have the kutibeng, a sort of guitar. Among the Bisayans, the favorite were the balitaw and dandansoy. The Asian Cultural Heritage Historians believe that the first settlers of the islands came by land bridges during the Pleistocene epoch. In 1962, a skull of man was discovered in the Tabon caves in Palawan. From this, it was learned that the man had been in the Philippines at least 22,000 years ago. First Group: Negritos Second Group: Indonesians uses blowguns or sumpit. Came first at 3000 BC and then in 1000 BC. Third Group: Malays came thru sailboats and were medium.

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