datos_, who governed
them and were captains in their wars, and whom they obeyed and
reverenced. The subject who committed any offense against them,
or spoke but a word to their wives and children, was severely punished.

These chiefs ruled over but few people; sometimes as many as
a hundred houses, sometimes even less than thirty. This tribal
gathering is called in Tagalo a _barangay_. It was inferred that the
reason for giving themselves this name arose from the fact (as they
are classed, by their language, among the Malay nations) that when
they came to this land, the head of the barangay, which is a boat,
thus called--as is discussed at length in the first chapter of the
first ten chapters--became a _dato_. And so, even at the present day,
it is ascertained that this barangay in its origin was a family of
parents and children, relations and slaves. There were many of these
barangays in each town, or, at least, on account of wars, they did
not settle far from one another. They were not, however, subject to
one another, except in friendship and relationship. The chiefs, in
their various wars, helped one another with their respective barangays.

In addition to the chiefs, who corresponded to our knights, there
were three castes: nobles, commoners, and slaves. The nobles were the
free-born whom they call _maharlica_. They did not pay tax or tribute
to the dato, but must accompany him in war, at their own expense. The
chief offered them beforehand a feast, and afterward they divided
the spoils. Moreover, when the dato went upon the water those whom he
summoned rowed for him. If he built a house, they helped him, and had
to be fed for it. The same was true when the whole barangay went to
clear up his lands for tillage. The lands which they inhabited were
divided among the whole barangay, especially the irrigated portion,
and thus each one knew his own. No one belonging to another barangay
would cultivate them unless after purchase or inheritance. The lands
on the _tingues_, or mountain-ridges, are not divided, but owned in
common by the barangay. Consequently, at the time of the rice harvest,
any individual of any particular barangay, although he may have come
from some other village, if he commences to clear any land may sow it,
and no one can compel him to abandon it. There are some villages (as,
for example, Pila de la Laguna) in which these nobles, or maharlicas,
paid annually to the dato a hundred gantas of rice. The