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BARANGAY: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. By William Henry Scott. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1995. ix, 306 pp. (Figures, maps, illus.) US$27.00, cloth, ISBN 971-550138-9; US$20.00, paper ISBN 971-550-135-4.
IN THIS, his final published book, the late William Henry Scott provides an excellent, ethno-historical interpretation of Philippine culture as it existed and was described at the time of Spanish contact. As Scott's documentation shows, what was recorded of lowland, coastal peoples in the sixteenth century is very much like what was described by anthropologists concerning mountain minorities - "tribal peoples" - in the twentieth.
BARANGAY- a word used throughout the Philippines with the double meaning of both "boat" and "community" - is based on Spanish chronicles covering most of the Visayan Islands; plus, in a more limited way, the people of Mindanao; with a substantial coverage of cultures in southern and central Luzon. The author makes...