off the hull and further pounding removes the bran but also breaks most grains. Further winnowing with a bamboo tray (bilao) separates the hull from the rice grains. This traditional hand-pounding chore, although very laborious and resulted in a lot of broken rice, required two to three skilled men and women to work harmoniously and was actually a form of socializing among young folks in the villages." Maynila as a "Bayan" According to the earliest Tagalog dictionaries, large coastal settlements like Tondo and Maynila, which were ultimately led by a Lakan or Rajah, were called "Bayan" in the Tagalog language. This term (which is translated today as "town") was common among the various languages of the Philippine archipelago, and eventually came to refer to the entire Philippines, alongside the word Bansa (or Bangsa, meaning "nation"). Austronesian origins of Maynila As with virtually all the lowland peoples of Maritime Southeast Asia, the Tagalog people who established the fortified polity of Maynila were Austronesians. They had a rich, complex culture, with its own expressions of language and writing, religion, art, and music. This Austronesian culture was already in place before the cultural influences of China, the Indonesian thassalocracies of Srivijaya and Majapahit, and Brunei, and eventually, the western colonial powers. The core elements of this Austronesian culture also persisted despite the introduction of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and, later, Christianity. Elements of these belief systems were syncretistically adapted by the Tagalogs to enrich their already-existing worldviews, elements of which still persist today in the syncretistic forms known as Folk Catholicism and Folk Islam. These Austronesian cultures are defined by their languages, and by a number of key technologies including the cultural prominence of boats, the construction of thatched houses on piles, the cultivation of tubers and rice, and a characteristic social organization typically led by a “big man” or “man of power”. Politics and governance Societal structure The pre-colonial Tagalog barangays of Manila, Pampanga and Laguna had a more complex social structure than the cultures of the Visayas, enjoying a more extensive commerce through their Bornean political contacts, and engaging in farming wet rice for a living. The Tagalogs were thus described by the Spanish Augustinian friar Martin de Rada as more traders than warriors. In his seminal 1994 work "Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society" (further simplified in the briefer by the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office in 2015),