Uripon

The alipin refers to the lowest social class among the various cultures of the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the Visayan languages, the equivalent social classes were known as the oripun, uripon, or ulipon.

The most common translation of the word is "servant" or "slave", as opposed to the higher classes of the timawa/maharlika (warrior class) and the tumao/maginoo (noblemen). This translation, however, is inaccurate. The concept of the alipin relied on a complex system of obligation and repayment through labor in ancient Philippine society, rather than on the actual purchase of a person as in Western and Islamic slavery. Indeed, members of the alipin class who owned their own houses were more accurately equivalent to medieval European serfs and commoners.

Alipin and oripon come from the transitive form of the archaic Visayan root word udip ("to live"). It derived from the word meaning "to let live" in the senses of letting a war captive live or paying or ransoming someone for a debt that exceeds the value of their life.

As a social class, alipin had several subclasses based on the nature of their obligations and their dependence on their masters:

At lower ranks than the above were the alipin of alipin. The aliping sa gigilid of an aliping namamahay was called bulisik ("vile"), while an aliping sa gigilid of an aliping sa gigilid was known by the even more derogatory bulislis (literally meaning "lifted skirt", a term implying that these persons were so vulnerable that it seems like their genitals are exposed). At an even more lower social rank than the latter two were alipin who were acquired through war or who came from other communities. They were often treated as non-persons until they became fully integrated into the local culture.

While the alipin does, indeed, serve another person, historians note that translating the term as "slave" in the western sense of the word may not be fully justifiable. Documented observations from the 17th century indicate that there may be significant differences between the Western concept of "slave" and the Pre-Hispanic Filipino concept of "alipin". Some academics prefer to use the more accurate terms "debtors", "serfs", "bondsmen", or "dependents" instead.

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Wikipedia