from actual events in the lives of the Filipino pre-colonials has to be taken into consideration. The view of an author living in the 20th century democratic country has a lot of difference from those who came from monarchic societies, who had actual contact with the pre-colonials, and who tried to qualify and approximate the conventions used in local hierarchical structures using the constructs of their time and context, in order to understand their actual experience of contact with what existed in the archipelago during the 16th century. Honorary datus The title of "Honorary Datu" has also been conferred to certain foreigners and non-tribe members by the heads of local tribes and Principalities of ancient origin. During the colonial period, some of these titles carried with them immense legal privileges. For example, on January 22, 1878, Sultan Jamalul A'Lam of Sulu appointed the Baron de Overbeck (an Austrian who was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire's consul-general in Hong Kong) as Datu Bendahara and as rajah of Sandakan, with the fullest power of life and death over all the inhabitants. On the other hand, in the Philippines, the Spaniards did not practice the granting of honorary titles. Instead, they created nobiliary titles over conquered territories in the archipelago, in order to reward high Spanish colonial officials. These nobiiary titles are still used in Spain until now by the descendants of the original holders, e.g., Count of Jolo.Visconde de Mindanao, List of Spanish Nobility. At present, arrangements such as this can no longer carry similar legal bearing under the Philippine laws. The various tribes and claimants to the royal titles of certain indigenous peoples in the Philippines have their own particular or personal customs in conferring local honorary titles, which correspond to the specific and traditional social structures of some indigenous peoples in the country. (N.B. In unhispanized, unchristianized and unislamized parts of the Philippines, there exist other structures of society, which do not have hierarchical classes.)Historians classify four types of unhispanized societies in the Philippines, some of which still survive in remote and isolated parts of the Country: 1.) Classless societies; 2.) Warrior societies, characterized by a distinct warrior class, in which membership is won by personal achievement, entails privilege, duty and prescribed norms of conduct, and is requisite for community leadership; 3.) Petty Plutocracies, which are dominated socially and politically by a recognized class of rich men who attain membership through