The Land Called Lagoon

The Chinese could have been the first contact of Lagunenses to the outside world.

Stand on the lakeshore of the town of Bay. There, you could still hear the hustle and bustle of a busy market place as the wind buzz through your ears. You could imagine Malay migrants– early settlers of the place trading their local produce– coconuts, sugar, hemp and other commodities with Chinese silk, potteries, stoneware and other merchandise.

Chinese junks sail from Manila Bay to the lakeshore villages through the Pasig River. Chinese merchants do business with locales of this most populated community around the lake during the pre-colonial period.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, large quantities of pottery pieces from Thailand and North Vietnam also reached the country on board Chinese junks. Fantastic amounts of Chinese wares dug up in the lake shore towns of Laguna attest to this lively trade between China (Fukien and Che Kong) and Lagunenses before the Europeans came. The settlers around the lake were Tagalogs similar to the residents of a larger colony called Maynilad.and adjacent areas. Villagers organized themselves into different traditional social class levels. The rulers of the community were the Datus. They were the nobles, and patriarch of the people. In Maynilad, subjects called the Datu "Raha." but in less politically dominant areas, like the villages around the lake, natives called their chieftain Lakan or Gat. Next to the nobles were the Maharlicas. They enjoyed privileges and rights, denied the lower class. The Aliping Namamahay, the serfs, and the Aliping Sagigilid, the slaves. They were at the bottom of the social ladder. The serfs and the slaves were captives, the condemned, or the hereditary dependent class.

Their basic social grouping was the Barangay. Each Barangay consisted of 30 to 100 households or families related by kinship. Relationship was by blood, marriage or alliances against common enemies. Leadership within the Barangay were shared by family heads and older persons in the community recognized for their knowledge of customary laws and religious sanctions. However, a Datu chosen for courage, wisdom, and wealth headed the Barangay.

Every Barangay was independent, socially, politically and economically.

Bay was the most populated region along the lake when the Spaniards came. It is a part of a big vast of land ruled by Gat Pangil. Its name "Bay" came from the Tagalog word "Bay" or "Baybayin" which means lakeshore. Natives called the lake "Kasumuran." but the Spaniards used the Spanish word Laguna meaning "Lagoon" to describe it. The Spaniards named the lake after the community, thus it was known to be "Laguna de Bay," or Lagoon (Lake) of Bay.

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