Timawa

The timawa were the privileged intermediate class of ancient Visayan society, in between the uripon (commoners, serfs, and slaves) and the tumao (royal nobility).

The most trusted among these timawa are traditionally tasked with carrying out diplomatic missions, marriage negotiations, and mourning rites in case of the death of the datu.

[6][7] Military engagements among precolonial Filipino thalassocracies can be classified into land wars (mangubat or magahat), sea raids (mangayaw, pangayaw, or kayaw), sieges (salakay), sabotage (burhi), and ambushes (habon, saghid, hoom, or poot).

The purpose of the raids were to gain prestige through combat, taking plunder (dahas or dampas), and capturing (taban) slaves or hostages (sometimes brides).

Participation and conduct in raids and other battles were recorded permanently by the timawa and the tumao in the form of tattoos on their bodies, hence the Spanish name for them – pintados (literally "the painted ones").

The trophies, captives, and goods taken from the raid (sangbay or bansag) were then divided among the participants once they return home, often to celebratory shouting and chanting (hugyaw or ugyak).

When defenses fail, villagers would often burn their own houses in a scorched-earth tactic to prevent looting, and then retreat to fortifications (tambangan) deeper inland.

With its loss, the timawa lost their place in society as a warrior class and were now forced to pay taxes to the Spanish colonial government.

The datu, themselves being forced to pay tribute, started fining their timawa harshly for arbitrary reasons or else lent them money at usurious interest rates.

[1] By the 17th century, Spanish dictionaries were now erroneously defining timawa as libres (freemen) and libertos (freedmen), and were equating them with plebeyos ("commoners") and tungan tawo (literally "people in-between", the middle class)—descriptions that used to refer to the serf and peasant class, the tuhay or mamahay (the Visayan equivalent of the Tagalog aliping namamahay) and not the timawa.

[13] In stark contrast, the word timawa in modern Visayan languages has been reduced to meaning "destitute", "impoverished", "wretched", "miserable" and "poverty-stricken".