sipa: A game played with a hollow ball of plaited bamboo or rattan, by boys standing in a circle, who by kicking it with their heels endeavor to keep it from striking the ground.
soltada: A bout between fighting-cocks.
’Susmariosep: A common exclamation: contraction of the Spanish, Jesús, María, y José, the Holy Family.
tabi: The cry used by carriage drivers to warn pedestrians.
tabú: A utensil fashioned from half of a coconut shell.
tajú: A thick beverage prepared from bean-meal and syrup.
tampipi: A telescopic basket of woven palm, bamboo, or rattan.
Tandang: A title of respect for an old man: from the Tagalog term for “old.”
tapis: A piece of dark cloth or lace, often richly worked or embroidered, worn at the waist somewhat in the fashion of an apron; a distinctive portion of the native women’s attire, especially among the Tagalogs.
tatakut: The Tagalog term for “fear.”
teniente-mayor: “Senior lieutenant,” the senior member of the town council and substitute for the gobernadorcillo.
tertiary sister: A member of a lay society affiliated with a regular monastic order.
tienda: A shop or stall for the sale of merchandise.
tikbalang: An evil spirit, capable of assuming various forms, but said to appear usually as a tall black man with disproportionately long legs: the “bogey man” of Tagalog children.
tulisan: Outlaw, bandit. Under the old régime in the Philippines the tulisanes were those who, on account of real or fancied grievances against the authorities, or from fear of punishment for crime, or from an instinctive desire to return to primitive simplicity, foreswore life in the towns “under the bell,” and made their homes in the mountains or other remote places. Gathered in small bands with such arms as they could secure, they sustained themselves by highway robbery and the levying of blackmail from the country folk.
