Early Political and Social Life.--The Barangay.--The weakest side of the culture of the early Filipinos was their political and social organization, and they were weak here in precisely the same way that the now uncivilized peoples of northern Luzon are still weak. Their state did not embrace the whole tribe or nation; it included simply the community. Outside of the settlers in one immediate vicinity, all others were enemies or at most foreigners. There were in the Philippines no large states, nor even great rajas and sultans such as were found in the Malay Archipelago, but instead on every island were a multitude of small communities, each independent of the other and frequently waging war. The unit of their political order was a little cluster of houses from thirty to one hundred families, called a "barangay," and which still exists in the Philippines as the "barrio." At the head of each barangay was a chief known as the "dato," a word no longer used in the northern Philippines, though it persists among the Moros of Mindanao. The powers of these datos within their small areas appear to have been great, and they were treated with utmost respect by the people. The barangays were grouped together in tiny federations including about as much territory as the present towns, whose affairs were conducted by the chiefs or datos, although sometimes they seem to have all been in obedience to a single chief, known in some places as the "hari," at other times by the Hindu word "raja," or the Mohammedan term "sultan." Sometimes the power of one of these rajas seems to have extended over the whole of a small island, but usually their "kingdoms" embraced only a few miles. Changes Made by the Spaniards.--The Spaniards, in enforcing their authority through the islands, took away the real power from the datos, grouping the barangays into towns, or "pueblos," but making the datos "cabezas de barrio," or "gobernadorcillos." Something of the old distinction between the dato, or "principal," and the common man may be still represented in the "gente illustrada," or the more wealthy, educated, and influential class found in each town, and the "gente baja," or the poor and uneducated. Classes of Filipinos under the Datos.--Beneath the datos, according to Chirino and Morga, there were three classes of Filipinos; the free persons, or "maharlica," who paid no tribute to the dato, but who accompanied him to war, rowed his boat when he went on a journey, and attended him in his house. This class is called by Morga "timauas." [16]