If two persons married, of whom one was a maharlica and the other a slave, whether namamahay or sa guiguilir, the children were divided:  the first, whether male or female, belonged to the father, as did the third and fifth; the second, the fourth, and the sixth fell to the mother, and so on.  In this manner, if the father were free, all those who belonged to him were free; if he were a slave, all those who belonged to him were slaves; and the same applied to the mother.  If there should not be more than one child he was half free and half slave.  The only question here concerned the division, whether the child were male or female.  Those who became slaves fell under the category of servitude which was their parent’s, either namamahay or sa guiguilir.  If there were an odd number of children, the odd one was half free and half slave.  I have not been able to ascertain with any certainty when or at what age the division of children was made, for each one suited himself in this respect.  Of these two kinds of slaves the sa guiguilir could be sold, but not the namamahay and their children, nor could they be transferred.  However, they could be transferred from the barangay by inheritance, provided they remained in the same village.

The maharlicas could not, after marriage, move from one village to another, or from one barangay to another, without paying a certain fine in gold, as arranged among them.  This fine was larger or smaller according to the inclination of the different villages, running from one to three taels and a banquet to the entire barangay.  Failure to pay the fine might result in a war between the barangay which the person left and the one which he entered.  This applied equally to men and women, except that when one married a woman of another village, the children were afterwards divided equally between the two barangays.  This arrangement kept them obedient to the dato, or chief, which is no longer the case—­because, if the dato is energetic and commands what the religious fathers enjoin him, they soon leave him and go to other villages and other datos, who endure and protect them and do not order them about.  This is the kind of dato that they now prefer, not him who has the spirit to command.  There is a great need of reform in this, for the chiefs are spiritless and faint-hearted.

Investigations made and sentences passed by the dato must take place in the presence of those of his barangay.  If any of the litigants felt himself aggrieved, an arbiter was unanimously named from another village or barangay, whether he were a dato or not; since they had for this purpose some persons, known as fair and just men, who were said to give true judgment according to their customs.  If the controversy lay between two chiefs, when they wished to avoid war, they also convoked judges to act as arbiters; they did the same if the disputants belonged to two different barangays.  In this ceremony they always had to drink, the plaintiff inviting the others.