Fray Juan de Placencia was a 16th century Spanish Franciscan missionary who helped establish numerous towns in the Philippines. He is known for writing the first book printed in the Philippines, the Doctrina Christiana, as well as the Customs of Tagalog, which summarized the social hierarchy, religious practices, and burial customs of the Tagalog people. It described their belief in various gods and rituals involving sacrifices to gods of nature like the moon and stars for purposes like healing and prosperous harvests. It also detailed the Tagalog views of the afterlife and different types of priests and witches they recognized.

1. JUAN DE PLACENCIA
Custom of the Tagalog

2. Fray Juan de Placencia
Fray Juan de Placencia ( real
name: Juan de Portocarrero)
Juan de Placencia was born in
the 16th century. His birth place is
in Placencia Caceres Province,
Extramadu, Spain.
 He and Fray Diego de Oropesa
were assigned to do missions
works in the Southern Tagalog
area.
He helped in the foundation and
organizations of numerous towns
in Quezon, Rizal and Bulacan.

3.  He was a member of the Franciscan Order came together with the
first batch missionaries to the Philippines in July 2, 1578.
 Wrote the CUSTOMS OF TAGALOG around 1589
 His famous book is the Doctriana Christiana (Christian Doctrine)
the first book printed in the Philippines

4. Customs of Tagalogs
DATUS
• The chiefs who governed them were captains in their wars, and
whom they obeyed and reverenced.
 Tribal gathering is called in Tagalog a “barangay”.
 In general men were “monogamous”, while their wives were
referred to as “asawa”.

5. THREE CASTES:
NOBLES
 Freeborn or they called maharlica.
 They not pay tax or contribute to the dato.
 Must accompany the datu in war.
COMMONERS
 Aliping namamahay.
 Serve their master whether he be a dato or not.
 Cannot be made slaves(sa guiguilar) nor can either parents or
children be sold.
 They lived in their own houses and are lords of their property and
gold.

6. SLAVES
 Aliping sa guiguilar. The slaves also are called “five taels ten or
more taels.”
 Not married
 Serve their master in his house and his cultivated lands and may
be sold
KARAKOA

7. OTHER EXAMPLES OF LITERATURE WRITTEN BY FRIARS
AND COLONIAL OFFICIALS DURING THE SPANISH PERIOD.
1. Relacion de las Islas Filipinas(1582)
 written by Miguel de Loarca, an ecomendero of Panay
 he described the Filipino’s way of life in the Western Visayas area.
2. Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas
 written by Lt. Gov. Antonio de Morga
 provides information about the state of the Philippines in the
latter part of the 16th century.

8. Other Spanish Missionares who continue the historiographical
traditions:
1. Relacion de las Islas Filipinas, 1604
 Fr. Pedro Chrino S.J.
2. Historia General, 1751
 Fr. Juan Delgado S.J.
3. Labor Evangelica, 1663
 Fr. Francisco Colin S.J
4. Historia natural de sitio, fertilidad y calidad de las Islas de Bisayas, 1668
 Fr. Francisco Ignacio Alcina S.J.

9. The Worship of the Tagalog
THE MOON
 They worship the moon especially when it’s new, which at the time
they had great rejoicings to adore and welcome it.
STARS
 They also worship the stars, most especially the morning star
which they called “tala”

10. BATAHALA
 They worship this God especially
 He was said to be the “all powerful” and “ maker of all things”
SUN
 They also worshipped the sun for it’s beauty, respected and
honored as the heavens.

11. THEIR OTHER IDOLS:
LIC-HA
 were images with different shapes.
LITTLE TRIFLES
 they adored these like the Romans.
DIANA MASALANTA
 the patron of lovers and of generation.
LACAPATI AND INDIANALE
 were patrons of cultivated lands and of husbandry.
BUAYA
 they paid reverence to these creatures for fear of getting harmed.

12. TAGALOG OMENS
 They believed that rats, snakes, the bird (tigmamanugin) or if they pass
by someone who sneezed they think of this us a bad omen and that they
should go back home for evil will be fall them if they continue their
journey.
DIVINATION
 To see whether weapons, such as dagger or knife were useful and lucky
for the possessor.
TIME
 The natives had no established division of years or months instead they
base time or season on their cultivation of soil, counting the moons or
the different produce of trees and flowers. These help them make up a
year.

13. MANNER OF OFFERING
 Their sacrifice was to proclaim a feast and offer to the evil what
they had to eat. This is done in front of an idol with fragrant
perfumes.
 Often they sacrifice goats, fowls and swine which were decapitated
and laid bare before the idol.
 They worship these idols sometimes by putting wrappings of
cloths in the heads of these idols, thus it’s like worshipping the
devil without seeing him.

14. PURPOSE OF THESE OFFERING
 Healing of the sick
 Prosperous voyage of those embarking on the sea
 A good harvest
 Successful child birth
 Happy outcome of married life

15. DISTINCTION OF PRIEST AND THE DEVIL
1.CATALONAN (The first distinction)
 Catalonan was an honorable among the natives and was held
ordinarily by people of rank, this rule is being general in all the
islands.
 Catalonan also was either a man or a woman that officiates the
feast.
 The word “katulo” means “in the good term with you” one can
associated with the treatment of the supernatural because the
spirit would be upset if there was imbalance in the society.

16. 2. MANGAGAUAY (The second distinction)
 Are witches who deceived people by pretending to heal the sick.
 Mangagaway/mangagauay was the goddess of sickness for the ancient
Tagalogs and one of the sitan’s helper. (Sitan was the guardian and
keeper of souls of the underworld called “kasanaan”, a place of anguish.)
He had four assistants and one of them is mangagauay.
3. MANYISALAT (The third distinction; the same as mangagauay)
 Are witches that are capable of concocting love potions to cause
more harm than good.
 Manyisalat or manisilat was the second agent of sitan known as
the Tagalog goddess of broken homes; tasked to destroy every
happy and united family she could find.

17. 4. MANCOCOLAM (The fourth distinction)
 A “witch” mankukulam/mangcocolam is a person employing or
using “kulam”- a form of folk magic practiced in the Philippines. (it
puts emphasis on the innate power of the self and a secret
knowledge of “magic baja or low magic”.
5. HOCLOBAN (The fifth distinction)
 Another kind of witch of greater efficacy than the mangagauay.
Without the use of medicine and by simply saluting or raising the
hand, they killed whom they choose.
 This was in Catanduanes, an island of the upper part of Luzon. We
know that Hukluban was considered the last agent of sitan and
could change herself into any form she desired.

18. 6. SILAGAN (The sixth distinction)
 Are flightless witches specific in Catanduanes Province, whose
prey of choice are people with fair skin or anyone dressed in
white.
 The name means “the hated one”. Since white is usually the color
of cassocks worm by religious clerics and associated with purity;
those who are against them are considered impure. Anti-colonial
resistance against the white Spaniards certainly did help to create
this monster.
7. MAGTATANGAL (The seventh distinction)
 A witch, they say that it flies and eats humans flesh, but when it
flies, it only has half of it’s body and that is why it is tangible and
can disengage and he dislodges half of his body and he carries the
other means at home.

19. 8.OSUANG (The eight distinction)
 Is equivalent to “sorcerer” they say that they have seen him fly and
murdered ate their flesh.
 Terms for various shape shifting evil creatures in Filipino folklore
such as vampires, ghouls, witches, and were beasts (usually cats,
dogs and pigs.)
9. MANGAGAYUMA(The ninth distinction)
 Gayuma is known as a love spell to help the love lives of those with
lonely or broken hearts.
 They made charms for lovers out of herbs, stones and woods
which would infuse the heart with love.
 They deceive the people, although sometimes through the
intervention of the devil they gained their ends.

20. 10. SONAT (The tenth distinction)
 The tenth equivalent to a “preacher”.
 It was his office to help one to die, at which time he predicted the
salvation or condemnation of the soul.
 Found throughout the land.
11. PANGATAHOJAN (The eleventh distinction; the soothsayer)
 Predicted the future and found throughout the land.
 Can predict the future or death of a person.
12. BAYOGUIN (The twelfth distinction)
 The twelfth, signified a “cotquean”.
 A man whose nature is inclined toward that of a
woman(homosexual).

21. THEIR MANNER OF BURYING THE DEAD
WAS AS FOLOWS:
 The deceased was buried beside his house. If he were a chief he
was placed beneath a little house or porch which they constructed
for this purpose. Before entering him, they mourned him for four
days. And afterward laid him on boat which served as a coffin or
bier, placing him beneath the porch, where guard kept over him by
a slave. In a place of rowers, various animals were placed within
the boat, each one being assigned a place at the oar by twos – male
female of each species being together .
Examples;
two goats
two deer or two fowls

22.  It was slave’s care to see that they were fed. If the deceased had
been a warrior, a living slave was tied beneath his body until in this
way he died. In course of time, all suffer decay, and for many days
the relatives of the dead man bewailed him, singing dirges and
praises of his good qualities, until they wearied of it. This grief was
accompanied by eating and drinking. This was a customs of
tagalongs.
 There infidels said that they knew that there was another life of
rest which they called “maca” just as if we should say “paradise”, or
in other words, “village rest”. They say that those who go to this
place are the just, and the valliant, and those who lived without
doing harm, are who possessed moral virtues. They said also that,
in the other life and mortality, there was a place of punishment,
grief and affliction called “casanaan”, which was “a place of
anguish”, they also maintained that no one would go to heaven,
where there only dwelt bathala, “the maker of all

23.  There were also another pogans who confessed more clearly to
hell which they called as I have said ”casanaan”;they said that all
the wicked went to that place and there dwelt the demons whom
they called “sitan”
 There were also ghost, which they called “vibit”, and “phantoms”,
which they called “tigbalaang”. They had another deception
namely, if any woman died in childbirth ,she and the child suffered
punishment and that, at night, she could be heard lamenting.
 This called “patianac”, May honor and glory be to God our Lord,
that among the tagalongs not a trace of this is left, and that those
who are now marrying do not even know what it is, thanks to the
preaching of the holy gospel, which has banished it.

24. REFERENCE
• Juan de P. (2019–2020) Customs of the Tagalog & Kartilya ng Katipunan, Assignments for
History. Retrieved from https://www.docsity.com last September 18. 2020
• Laura Lee J.(1998) Integrating History and Archarlogy in the study of contact Period
Philippine Chiefdoms. Retrieved from https:// www.global security.org. last March 29,
2012
• Russell David Almuete (2021–2022) Relevance of customs of tagalog to philippine History
https://www.studocu.com last February 2022
• Outenberg P. (1493–1898) the Philippine Islands, 1493–1898 volume of 55 ebook
Retrieved from https://www.bookrags.com