SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Introduction

Juan de la Isla (1565, 232) described Visayan social structure in 1565 in one simple sentence: “They have
three classes: they call the chiefest, datos, who are like knights, and those like citizens, timaguas
[timaiuas], and the slaves, oripes [orijmn]."

Visayans themselves considered this three-tiered structure so normative they extended it figuratively to
the animal kingdom. Little green parrots were kusi nga olipun and green ones with red breasts were kusi
nga timaioa, but those with resplendant red and green plumage all over were kusi nga datu.

It was a structure canonized by a well-known Visayan origin myth: all three classes were offsprings ofa
divine primordial pair, who fled or hid from their father’s wrath.

Social Class

➢ DATU
• The word "DATU" means an incumbent ruler both political and social class
• Married within their rank
• Also took secondary wives
• Authority arose from his lineage
• Power depended upon his wealth, number of slaves and subjects, and his reputation for
physical prowess.
• Expected to govern his people, settle their disputes, protect them from enemies, and lead them
in battle.
• In return of these responsibilities, he received labor and tribute from his people.
• These advantages enabled them to specialize their activities, perfect skills and accumulate
wealth.

➢ TIMAWA
• Spanish dictionaries define "Timawa" as "freeman"
• Originally offsprings or decendants of a datu's commoner wives or slave concubines.
• Paid tribute or transfer their allegiance to some other datu.
• Won their tattoos beside the datu in battle.
• Open marriage negotiations for their sons
• Men of consequence in the community.
• They could lend or borrow money, enter business partnerships, and acquire slaves of their
own.
• Commoners or people in between.
 ➢ ORIPUN
• The word oripun appears to be a transitive form of an archaic root udip (to live) meaning “to let
live”
• Status is dependent on birth rig inheritance or acquired debt, commuted penal sentence, or by
victimization by the more powerful.
• Foreign captives or acquired from human sacrifice.
• Bore children of the same class.
• Redeemend or tinubos oripon could be transferred from one to another.

Debt and Dependence

Visayan social fabric was thus woven of debt and dependence that is, relationships in which one person
was dependent on the decisions of another, the one exercising choice, the other not. The slave did not
choose to work for his master, but his master might choose to grant him a favor.

The high interest rates which created these debts were: based on the natural increase of crops or livestock.
Sulit meant a debt without interest, a sale without profit, or a crop without increase; the loan of an
inanimate object like a knife or boat was huram and did not incur utang (debt). A debtor’s children were
born in debt, his first-degree kin were also liable, and any favor received incurred debt.

Community

A datu’s following was his haop or dolohan, Visayan terms to which Tagalog barangay was added alter
Manila became the colonial capital.

Haop appears to be cognate with sakop, any inclusive group, but especially one supportive of a person on
whom they were dependent, like children on their parents or slaves on their master. Alms called palos or
hinapot were given by the community to one released from captivity, or to the poor by anybody selling food.

The villages and towns where one or more haop lived were bongto or lungsod; and hamlets or
neighborhoods were gamuro, a cluster of houses within earshot.

Kinship

Early Spanish dictionaries of Visayan languages often list Cebuano, Hiligaynon, or Samareno variants
under a single entry. This is especially true of kinship terminology. Thus the word for father is given as
amahan, amay, and anduyon without distinction, though with a Cebu variant of amba or ambuyon; and
mother as inahan, indayon, and iloy, with a Kiniray-a variant, inang.

Parents’ brothers and sisters were also differentiated by sex: uncles were yoyo, oyo-an, or bata, and aunts
were iyaan or dada. But sons and daughters were simply anak, offspring; and so, too, brothers, sisters,
and cousins of either sex were igkaanak, igsoon, igmanhod, igtotood, or otod. (Otod was a piece cut
offsomething; hence, kaotoran, relatives of one lineage.)
Grandparents of either sex, together with their brothers and sisters and their spouses, were all apuy,
apohan, or owang or more respectfully, “Laki” or “Bai,” sometimes with “Gurang” (mature) added. Great-
grandparents were apo, or “Bata”with or without laki, bai, or gurang attached. A prudent person therefore
muttered “Laki-laki” or “Apo-apo” when leaving the house in order to invoke his ancestors’ protection
against harm or accident.

Husband and wife were both called asawa in Leyte and Samar, but in Cebu and Panay the term was
restricted to the wife (the man was bana)— or, more accurately, the chiefwife: any others were sandil,
whether of slave, timawa, or datu stock.

A son-in-law was nugang and his parents-in-law, ugangan; and numigang was for him to render bride-
service to them prior to marriage. Both son- and daughter-in-law were umagad, a term which : emphasized
their role in uniting their two families into one: agad were the thwarts between the two sides of a boat, and
alagadun was to adjust or conform. Bayaw was a brother-in-law, hipag was sister-in-law. If two men were
married to sisters, they called each other bilas, while women married to brothers called each other idas.
Parents who married their children off to one another’s children were balaye.

Law

Laws were part of the customs and traditions handed down from one generation to another: they were not
considered products of legislation but part of the natural order of things. Kabtangan were customs, but
kahimlang was nature or condition, both words derived from bulang, to put something in its place.

Alagag was the natural awe which juniors felt in the presence of seniors; hilas was ingrained reluctance to
contradict parents or superiors; and naga kahilas was for an ancestor spirit to keep a disrespectful
descendant awake with a guilty' conscience. Asynonym for kabtangan was kagawiyan, from gawi, to keep
or preserve. But batas or batasan was a decree regulating commerce and batas-batas was tariff

Marriage

Weddings between people without property to share by bequest were simple ceremonies in which the
couple partook of the same cup or plate,and hayohay were simply married off by their masters and given
a few pots. But the weddings of datus were the most important social events in a Visayan community.

Their importance depended on the size and ritual settlement of a bride-price called bugay —“bride-price”
rather than “dowry” because it was set by the girl’s father, bargained down like goods in a marketplace,
and was not conjugal property.

Spanish dowry (dote), on the other hand, was property a bride brought into her marriage to be enjoyed by
her husband. Visayan bugay was shared within the kin group that set the price and sealed the bargain,
including the bride’s brothers-in law if she was a widow, and redistributed to meet their own future needs
for bride-price.
The engagement required a relative or friend of the suitor to obtain permission from the girl's father to open
proceedings. The man’s relatives then went to the girl’s house with a respected timawa bearing his spear.

Inheritance

Children of both sexes inherited equally unless their parents specified some preference in a will (bilin).
Illegitimate children inherited only at the pleasure of the legal heirs. But heritage strictly followed
bloodline: stepchildren inherited only from their actual parents, and spouses did not inherit from each
other.

Property and Labor

The property mentioned in bride-price exchanges or inheritance disputes was always slaves and
bahandi—imported porcelains and gongs and gold, especially ornate gold ornaments whose value greatly
exceeded their gold content. Slaves were readily transferable, but bahandi was alienated only in case of
dire family emergency (an inaccessibility which made it a| particular target of raiders), though it was
sometimes loaned out in exchange for servitude.

But all property of whatever value —houses and boats, household furnishings and livestock, even raw
materials and the contents of granaries— must have been inheritable.

Labor, of course, was it self a commodity that could be bright and sold or, in the case of bonded tinubos,
rented. Indeed, it was the commodity in which creditors were investing when they underwrote somebody’s
debt: lito was resale, and linilito pagtubos was a person whose debt had been transferred many times from
one speculator to another. Oripun were not bondservants working off their debt: lowas was the payment
liquidating slavery, made either by the slave himself or somebody on his behalf, and tubos was a payment
which transferred title to the one who paid it.

Namomoo was to work in somebody else’s house, most frequently weaving. Lihog were hired hands
compensated only with meals and with a feast when the project was completed. Himakdul was
compensation given an agent or messenger for difficult service, and hinguli was a kind of hazardous duty
pay on expeditions like those called moro-moro after the Spaniards introduced the concept.

In the practice of agriculture, terms distinguished the division of labor, not of property. Lan-o or tagolaling
was the work a slave did for himself, and lampok (literally, “a precious stone”) was what he did for his
master; and if he made a surabi field for himself by stealth alongside his master’s, what he was stealing
was time, not land.