After receiving your Lordship's letter, I wished to reply immediately; but I postponed my answer in order that I might first thoroughly inform myself in regard to your request, and to avoid discussing the conflicting reports of the Indians, who are wont to tell what suits their purpose. Therefore, to this end, I collected Indians from different districts--old men, and those of most capacity, all known to me; and from them I have obtained the simple truth, after weeding out much foolishness, in regard to their government, administration of justice, inheritances, slaves, and dowries. [25] It is as follows: _Customs of the Tagalogs_ This people always had chiefs, called by them _datos_, who governed them and were captains in their wars, and whom they obeyed and reverenced. The subject who committed any offense against them, or spoke but a word to their wives and children, was severely punished. These chiefs ruled over but few people; sometimes as many as a hundred houses, sometimes even less than thirty. This tribal gathering is called in Tagalo a _barangay_. It was inferred that the reason for giving themselves this name arose from the fact (as they are classed, by their language, among the Malay nations) that when they came to this land, the head of the barangay, which is a boat, thus called--as is discussed at length in the first chapter of the first ten chapters--became a _dato_. And so, even at the present day, it is ascertained that this barangay in its origin was a family of parents and children, relations and slaves. There were many of these barangays in each town, or, at least, on account of wars, they did not settle far from one another. They were not, however, subject to one another, except in friendship and relationship. The chiefs, in their various wars, helped one another with their respective barangays.