The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 40]

I690-I691] NATIVE PEOPLES AND CUSTOMS

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in all the villages, and all the tributes are divided
among various heads of barangays, in accordance
with the enumeration of the villages; and those
heads are the ones who look after the collection of the
royal income, and see that the Indians live like
Christians. They must also, by reason of their office, give account to the father minister and the
alcalde-mayor of their province, in case there is any
fault to find with their respective barangays.
467. No Indian could pass voluntarily from one
barangay to another without the payment of a certain sum, which was established among them, and
unless he made a great feast to all the barangay
which he left. It was much more difficult if they
were married. If a man of one barangay married
a woman from another, the children had to be divided between the barangays, as was also done with
the slaves.
468. The classes of people mentioned in that
early age by our brother Plassencia (besides that of
chief or dato) are three, as follows. One class is
that of the nobles, whom they call mahadlicas. This
word signifies, according to the best vocabularies of
the Tagalog language, those who are free, and who
were never slaves. The second class are called
pecheros; and the third are those who were slaves
legitimately. Although I find in one vocabulary
that mahadltca is rendered as "freedman," still I
find that freedman is rendered by timava in most
trustworthy vocabularies. And although in the
common practice of the Tagalog speech, one now
says minahadlica aco nang panginoongco, that is,
"My master freed me," I do not believe that it is
so; for mahadlica properly signifies "to give free