A Visit to the Philippine Islands

There is a bird called by the natives Tigmamanoquin, and if, when they are going to a festival, this bird flies from the right to the left, it is considered of auspicious augury, but disastrous if it fly from the left to the right. The bird (I know not its classical name) is never killed by the Indians, but if caught it is set free with the words, “Hayona tigmamanoquin, lunchan mo nang halinging” (Be gone, bird! and sing sweetly for me).

The Indians believe that a guardian angel is born at the birth of every Christian child, to whose special care through life the infant is confided. In some parts this angel is called Catotobo, in others Tagatanor. But the Tagáls habitually employ the Castilian words angel and angeles in the Catholic sense. I remember to have heard a clever Dutchman say that Java was well governed by knowing how to use properly two Arabic words —Islam (faith), which was never to be interfered with; and Kismet (fate), under whose influence Mussulmans cheerfully submit to their destiny. The Santa Iglesia madre is the charm by which the Philippines are ruled.

The Indian women are generally cleanly in their persons, using the bath very frequently, and constantly cleaning and brightening their black and abundant hair, which they are fond of perfuming and tying in a knot behind, called the pusód, which is kept together by a small comb and gilded needles, and is adorned with a fragrant flower. They are proud of their small foot, which the Chinese call golden lily, and which has a slipper, often embroidered with gold or silver, just supported by the toes. Their walk is graceful and somewhat coquettish; they smoke, eat betel, and are rather given to display a languid, liquid eye, for which they have an Indian expression, “Mapuñgay na mata.”

The dress of the Filipinos is simple enough. It consists of a shirt worn outside a pair of pantaloons; but the shirt is sometimes of considerable value, woven of the piña, handsomely embroidered, and of various colours, bright red being predominant. I asked an opulent Indian to show me his wardrobe, and he brought out twenty-five shirts, exhibiting them with great pride; there were among them some which may have been worth a hundred dollars each. It is difficult to fix a limit to the money value of the more exquisite specimens of weaving and embroidery. A small pocket handkerchief sent to the Queen of Spain is said to have cost five hundred dollars. One or two doubloons (onzas) of gold are asked for the pañuelos (kerchiefs) usually sold in the shops of the capital. The finest qualities are woven in the neighbourhood of Iloilo. The loom is of the rudest and simplest construction; one woman throws the shuttle, another looks after the threads. The cloth is sent to Manila to be embroidered. The women wear gowns of the fabrics of the country, into which, of late, the silks of China and the coloured yarns of Lancashire have been introduced. The better-conditioned wear an embroidered shawl or kerchief of piña. This is the representative of female vanity or ambition. When we passed through the towns and villages of the interior, a handsomely adorned piña handkerchief was the flag that often welcomed us from the windows of the native huts, and sometimes the children bore them about and waved them before us in the processions with which they were wont to show their pleasure at our presence.

The dress of the Indians is nearly the same throughout the islands; the pantaloons of cotton or silk, white or striped with various colours, girded round the waist with a kerchief, whose folds serve for pockets, and a shirt over the pantaloons of cotton. Sinamay (a native cloth), or piña for the more opulent, is universally employed. Straw hat or kerchief round the head; but the favourite covering is a huge circular cap like a large inverted punch-bowl, made generally of bamboo, but sometimes of tortoise-shell, and having a metal spike or other ornament at the top; it is fitted to the head by an internal frame, and fastened by a ribbon under the chin. This salacot is used by many as a protection against sun and rain; it appeared to me too heavy to be convenient.

Among the Indian women the opulent wear costly embroidered garments of piña, and many of them possess valuable jewels, and are decorated on occasions of festivity with earrings, necklaces and bracelets of pearls, diamonds and other precious stones. A few of them speak Spanish, and during our visits became the interpreters for the others, as the Indian women generally took a part in the graceful but simple ceremonials which marked our progress; sometimes forming a line through the towns and villages, and waving many-coloured flags over us as we passed, escorted by the native bands of music. In some families the garments which were worn a century ago are still preserved. Many of the petty authorities are the hereditary possessors of local rank, and on grand occasions make displays of the costumes of their forefathers. There is some variety in the mode of dressing the hair. The Tagálas clean it with lemon juice, and employ cocoa-nut oil made fragrant by infusions of odoriferous flowers. They clean their hands with pumice-stone. In many parts the thumbnail of the right hand is allowed by both sexes to grow to a great length, which assists playing on the guitar, and divers domestic operations. The under garments of the women are tightened at the waist, and their camisas have long and wide sleeves, which are turned back upon the arms, and embroidered in more or less costly taste. They all chew the areca, and, as age advances, they blacken their eyebrows and wear false hair like their patrician mistresses. They sometimes paint their nails with vermilion, and to be entitled a Castila, which means European, is recognized as a great compliment.

Rice is the ordinary food of the Indians. It is boiled for half an hour, and then called canin. The capsicum, or chile, is used for a condiment. They eat three meals a day, out of a large dish, helping themselves with their fingers, and sometimes using a plantain leaf for a plate. They also have sauces round the central dish, into which they dip the canin. They introduce the thumb first into the mouth, and very dexterously employ the fingers to push forward the food. The luxuries of the native are pretty nearly reduced to the cigar and the betel-nut. Indeed these can scarcely be called luxuries; they are more necessary to him than his simple food, which consists generally of boiled rice, sometimes flavoured with fish or vegetables, and his sweetmeat the sugar-cane. As he obtains his cigarritos at the estanco for less than two cuertos a dozen, and can make them, or buy them from a contrabandista, at not even half that price, and as the cost of the areca is extremely small, his wants and his enjoyments are easily and cheaply supplied. His garments are few and economical, and such as in most parts of the islands are supplied by the rude family loom; but the source of his ruin is in his gallo and his passion for play, to which nine-tenths of the miseries of the Indian are to be traced. Out of his embarrassments the Chinaman makes his profit, buying the labour of the indebted and extorting its maximum with coarse and often cruel tyranny. The Chinese have a proverb that the Indian must be led with rice in the left hand of his master and a bamboo in the right.

There is in some of the islands abundance of deer and wild boars; they are killed by arrows of two kinds – one barbed with a clove from the wild palm, shot direct; another with an iron head, shot upwards and falling down upon the animal. The Indians make a dry venison (called tapa) of the flesh and send it to the Manila market. Much wild fowl is found in the forest, especially of the gallinaceous species. The Bisayan caves are frequented by the swallows which produce the edible bird’s-nests, and which are collected by the natives for exportation to China.

Multitudes of Indians get their living by the fisheries. The fish most esteemed is the sabalo, which is only found in the Taal Lake, whose water is fresh and flows into the sea. In the centre of the lake is an island, with its always burning volcano. At the season when the sabalo quit the lake for the sea, an estocade of bamboos is erected across the river, the top of which does not reach the surface of the water; three or four yards below, another estocade is placed, raised five or six feet above the surface, and the two estocades are united by a bamboo platform. The fish leap over the first barrier, and fall on the platform, where they are caught: some of them are as large as salmon. The Bay Lake is celebrated for the curbina, an excellent fish. By the banks of the river enormous nets are seen, which are sunk and raised by a machinery of bamboo, and the devices employed for the capture of fish are various and singular. In the Bisayans the Indians make faggots, which they kindle, and, walking on the banks with a spear in their right hand, the fish approach the light and are harpooned and flung upon the shore. I understand the sea-slug, which the Indians call balate, is thus captured. It is a well-known delicacy among the Chinese. Turtle are caught by watching their approach (the watcher being concealed) and simply turning them on their backs when they are at a certain distance from the water. Native divers bring up the mother-of-pearl oyster, but the pearl fishery is not of much importance. These divers also discover the enormous shell-fish which serve as receptacles for holy water in the churches.

CHAPTER VIII

POPULATION – RACES

Though the far greater number of the pagan Indians, as they are called by the Spaniards, belong to the same races as those who inhabit the towns, there are many exceptional cases. Independent and separated from the pagans, there are numerous Mahomedans, especially in the island of Mindanao, of which only a small tract along the coast has been subjected by the Spaniards; these, whom the Spaniards designate as Moros, a name to which traditional and national associations attach great abhorrence, are probably of Malayan descent. There, as in every region where missionaries have sought to undermine or depreciate the authority of the Koran, the attempt has wholly failed. I saw some of these people at Zamboanga, and found them familiar with the Arabic formula of Islamism, and that many of their names, such as Abdallah, Fatima, and others, were such as are common to the Mussulmans. They are understood to be in amity with the Spaniards, who have treaties with the reigning Sultan; but I found no evidence of their recognition of Spanish authority.

The enmity between the Mahomedan races (Moros) and the Spaniards may be deemed hereditary. The answer given by the Rajah Soliman of Tondo to Legaspi, the first governor of the Philippines, who solicited his friendship, is characteristic: – “Not until the sun is cut in two, not until I seek the hatred instead of the love of woman, will I be the friend of a Castila” (Spaniard).

Living in the remotest mountainous regions of Mindanao, never, I believe, explored by European adventurers, there is a race in the very lowest stages of barbarism, I cannot say of civilization, for of that they present no trace. They are said to wear no garments, to build no houses, to dress no food. They wander in the forest, whose wild fruits they gather by day, and sleep among the branches of the trees by night. They have no form of government, no chief, no religious rites or usages. I saw one of the race who was brought for sale as any wild animal might have been to the governor of Zamboanga. He refused to purchase, but retained the lad, who was apparently of about eight or nine years of age. At Iloilo, he was waiting, with other native servants, at table, and he appeared to me the most sprightly and intelligent of the whole – bright-eyed, and watching eagerly every sign and mandate of his master. He was very dark-coloured, almost black; his hair disposed to be woolly; he had neither the high cheeks nor the thick lips of the African negro, but resembled many specimens I have seen of the Madagascar people. I was informed that the whole tribe – but the word is not appropriate, for they are not gregarious – are of very small stature; that they avoid all intercourse with other races, collect nothing, barter nothing, and, in fact, want nothing. I had once occasion to examine in the prison of Kandy (Ceylon) one of the real “wild men of the woods” of that island, who had been convicted for murder; the moral sense was so unawakened, that it was obvious no idea of wrong was associated with the act, and the judge most properly did not consider, him a responsible being on whom he could inflict the penalties of the law. There was little resemblance between the Filipino and the Cingalese in any external characteristic. Ethnological science would be greatly advanced if directed to the special study of the barbarous aboriginal races of whom specimens yet remain, but of which so many have wholly disappeared, who can have had no intercourse with each other. I believe there are more varieties of the human family than have hitherto been recognized by physiologists, amongst whom no affinity of language will be found. The theories current as to the derivation of the many varieties of the human race from a few primitive types will not bear examination. Civilization and education will modify the character of the skull, and the differences between the crania of the same people are so great as to defy any general law of classification. The farther back we are enabled to go, the greater will be the distinction of types and tongues; and it will be seen that the progress of time and commerce and knowledge and colonization, has annihilated many an independent idiom, as it has destroyed many an aboriginal race.

Against the wilder savages who inhabit the forests and mountains of the interior, expeditions are not unfrequently directed by the government, especially when there has been any molestation to the native Christian population. Their chiefs are subjected to various punishments, and possession is taken of their villages and strongholds; but these are not always permanently held, from the insufficiency of military force to retain them. But it is clear that these rude tribes must ultimately be extinguished by the extension of cultivation and the pressure of a higher civilization.

De Mas lays down as a principle that the Igorrotes of Luzon are heathens of the same race as the converted Indians, but in a savage state. The Aetas, or Negritos, are a separate race, not indigenous, but the descendants of invaders and conquerors. He had many opportunities of intercourse with them, and speaks favourably of his reception among them. The men had no other covering than a belt of bark fibres, the women a sort of petticoat of the same texture. Unmarried girls wore a species of collar made from the leaves of a mountain palm, whose ends met between their naked breasts. The females played on a rude guitar, the case being a piece of bamboo, with three strings from the roots of a tree, and which they tuned by tightening or loosening with their left hand. When it rained, they covered themselves with large palm-leaves, which they also used as shelter from the sun. He says they resisted all attempts upon their chastity. They brought wax, honey and deer, and sought for tobacco and rice in exchange. For money they cared not. The mode of showing respect is to offer water to the superior – no son can accept it from, but must hand it to, his father. They exhibit much fear of the evil spirits that are in the forests, but all information they gave was at secondhand. They had not seen the spirits, but others had, and there was no doubt about that. The friars report them to be short lived – their age seldom exceeding forty years. Father Mozo says: “They have their localities, in which they group themselves and which they unwillingly leave: fixed abodes they have none, but shift from place to place within a circumference of four to five leagues. They drive four rough sticks into the ground, surround them with the flexible branches of the ylib, fling down some palm-leaves, bring in a piece of wood for a pillow, and have their house and bed ready. The game killed by one belongs to all – the head and neck being thrown to the dogs. The community ordinarily consists of twenty to twenty-five persons, who select the most courageous of their number as chief. In the summer they locate themselves on the banks of rivers, but during the rainy and windy seasons they confine themselves to their rude huts. If a death take place, they bury the corpse, but flee from the locality, lest others be summoned away. When they seek wild honey in the woods, the finder of a swarm marks the tree where the bees are, and the property is deemed his own until he has time to return and remove the comb. A fire is lighted at the foot of the tree – the smoke drives away the bees – the Indian mounts, bearing a broad palm-leaf folded in the shape of a vase, into which he turns the honey-comb, ties it over, and descends. All his wants are supplied when, in addition to his matches for fire, his bow and arrows, and his rude cutlass, he has a small supply of tobacco for his luxury. If food be scarce, he drinks hot water and ties a cord tightly round his body; he eats also of a root called sucbao, but in the warm weather indigenous fruits are never wanting.” After a string of quotations from the classics, illustrating the pains, penalties and passions of civilized existence, with the serenity, stupidity and satisfaction of these children of nature, the padre says: “Finally, in admiration of their manner of life, if they were but enlightened by our holy faith – if they only suffered what they suffer for the sake of God – I verily believe they would not be paralleled by the austerest monk of the Thebaïd. True it is they commit the sin of divorce – true it is that a slip before marriage is seldom heard of; but they are cruel, they are murderers!” Such is the consistency of ecclesiastical judgment.

There are many speculations as to the origin of the darker, or black races, who now occupy the northern and central mountainous and little visited regions, and from whom one of the islands, Negros, takes its name. They principally dwell in the wilder part of the provinces of Ilocos South, Pangasinan, Cagayan, and Nueva Ecija. They are of small stature, have somewhat flattened noses, curled hair, are agile, have no other dress than a covering of bark over their genitals, are dexterous hunters, have no fixed dwellings, but sleep wherever sunset finds them. Their whole property consists of their bow, a bamboo quiver and arrows, a strip of skin of the wild boar, and the girdle, which the Spaniards call the tapa rabo (tail cover). The Negritos are held to be the aboriginal inhabitants of the islands, which were invaded by those now called Indios, who much resemble, though they are a great improvement on, the Malayan race. The Negritos retired into the wilder districts as the Tagáls advanced, but between the two races there exists a great intensity of hatred. The Negritos are the savages of the Philippines, and are divided into many tribes, and it is said every grade between cannibalism and the civilization of the Indian is found among them. They generally live on the wild fruits and vegetables which grow spontaneously, though some cultivate rice, and attend to the irrigation of their fields. Some make iron weapons, and the Itaneg, according to the friars, only want conversion to be in all respects equal to the Indios. This race has a mixture of Chinese blood, the Ifugaos of that of the Japanese. The ruder savages ornament their cabins with the skulls of their enemies. The Apayos live in comfortable houses, and employ for floors polished planks instead of the interwoven bamboos of the Tagáls. They carry on a trade in wax, cocoa and tobacco, and deck their dwellings with China earthenware. The Isinay Negritos profess Christianity. In the island of Luzon there are estimated to be 200,000 heathens, in that of Mindanao 800,000 idolators and Mussulmans. But it is impossible to follow out the mixed races in all their ramifications and peculiarities. Among the characteristics of the wilder races is the separation of the toes, which enables them to pick up even minute objects, so if they let anything fall they use foot or hand with equal facility; they will descend head downwards the rigging of a ship, holding on with their feet; the great toe is much more separated from the others than in the white races. Their sense of smelling is exquisite, and they profess, without the aid of language, to discover the state of the affections from the breath.

Though they have a pantheon of gods and goddesses (for most of their divinities have wives), they have no temples, and no rites of public worship. They consult soothsayers (usually old women) in their diseases and difficulties; and there are sacrifices, outpouring and mingling of blood, libations of fermented liquors, violent gesticulations, and invocations to Cambunian (God), the moon, and the stars, and the ceremonials end with eating and drinking to excess. They sacrifice a pig to pacify the Deity when it thunders, and adore the rainbow after the storm. Before a journey they kindle a fire, and if the smoke do not blow in the direction they intend to take they delay their project. The flight of birds is watched as an important augury, and the appearance of a snake as a warning against some approaching calamity.

The mountain tribes are subject to no common ruler, but have their separate chieftains, called barnaas, to whom a certain number of dependants is assigned. On the death of a barnaas, the intestines are extracted, examined and burnt, for the purpose of ascertaining by the arts of divination the future destiny of the tribe. The body is placed in a chair, relations and friends are invited, and a great festivity of eating and drinking provided from the flocks and rice-fields of the deceased, with shouts and songs celebrating the virtues of departed barnaas. The banquet closes with all species of excesses, and both sexes remain drunk, exhausted or asleep on the ground about the corpse. It is said that the flesh of the departed is distributed among the guests, and Buzeta avers that such a case lately occurred at Tagudin (Ilocos South); but as he attributes it to the poverty of the deceased who had not left behind wherewithal to provide for the festival, the carnal distribution could hardly have been deemed an honour. The stories of the cannibalism of the natives must be received with distrust, there being a great disposition to represent them as worse savages than they really are. The arms of a warrior are gathered together after his death, and his family will not part with them. A vessel into which wine has been poured is placed at the foot of the trophies, in order that it may imbibe the virtue and valour of the departed, and obtain his auspices.

In case of the murder of an individual, the whole of the tribe unite to revenge his death. Prisoners taken in war are made slaves, and sell for from ten to twenty-five dollars each. Old men are bought, upon whom to try the poisonous powers or sharpness of their weapons. Adultery and the third offence of robbery are punished with death. Polygamy is not allowed, but there is no difficulty about divorce.

A great variety of languages is to be found among the wild people of the interior; not only are dialects of the various tribes unintelligible to each other, but sometimes a language is confined to a single family group. Where there has been no intercourse there is no similitude. Words are necessary to man, and language is created by that necessity. Hence the farther the study of idioms is pursued back into antiquity, the greater will their number be found. Civilization has destroyed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of idioms, and is still carrying on the work by diminishing the number of languages in which man holds intercourse with man. It is no bold prophecy to aver that in the course of centuries the number of separate tongues will be reduced to a small amount. In France, the French; in Italy, the Tuscan; in Spain, the Castilian; in Germany, the Saxon; in Great Britain, the English; – are becoming the predominant languages of the people, and have been gradually superseding the multitude of idioms which were used only a few generations ago. Adelung recorded the names of nearly 4,000 spoken and existing languages, but a list of those which time has extinguished would be far more extensive.