The Filipinos During the Precolonial Era

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The Filipino during the Pre colonial Era The Filipinos during the pre-colonial era were completely different from the current Filipinos. Different in terms of houses, mode of dressing, ornaments, society, laws, customs, religion, rites, practices, education, literature, music and dances, arts, and their government systems. One of the typical ancient Filipino houses was made of bamboo, wood nipa palm, cogon, or whatever native materials found in the area. This mode of housing was popularly known to us today as bahay-kubo. Their modes of dressing were different from ours today. Male Filipinos wore collarless short-sleeved jacket called the Kanggan as the upper part of their clothing. The lower part of their clothing was the bahag which is a strip of cloth wrapped around the waist and in between legs. On the other hand, women wore baro or camisa as the upper part of their clothing. The skirt of the lower part was called saya and among the Visayans the patadyong. They also had no shoes. They walked bare-footed but had gold anklets. Ancient Filipinos also has their own fashion in terms of their ornaments. Gold was their common armlets, rings, necklaces, bracelets and pendants. They even used gold as fillings between their teeth. Tattoos were adorned in their bodies and faces. For men, it represents their war record as to how many enemies a warrior killed, the more tattooed he was. For women, they had tattoos to enhance their beauty as men find tattooed women attractive. Nowadays, gold are still used as an ornament but this is only exclusive for women. While tattoos nowadays are considered as expression of art and is most commonly seen to men. Their society was also divided into three social classes: the nobles, the free men and the dependents or the alipins. The chiefs, their families and relatives composed the upper class or nobility. The middle class or freemen who were

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