Chapter I

Chapter IDistribution of NegritosProbably no group of primitive men has attracted more attention from the civilized world than the pygmy blacks. From the time of Homer and Aristotle the pygmies, although their existence was not absolutely known at that early period, have had their place in fable and legend, and as civilized man has become more and more acquainted with the unknown parts of the globe he has met again and again with the same strange type of the human species until he has been led to conclude that there is practically no part of the tropic-zone where these little blacks have not lived at some time.Mankind at large is interested in a race of dwarfs just as it would be in a race of giants, no matter what the color or social state; and scientists have long been concerned with trying to fix the position of the pygmies in the history of the human race. That they have played an important ethnologic rôle can not be doubted; and although to-day they are so scattered and so modified by surrounding people as largely to have disappeared as a pure type, yet they have everywhere left their imprint on the peoples who have absorbed them.The Negritos of the Philippines constitute one branch of the Eastern division of the pygmy race as opposed to the African division, it being generally recognized that the blacks of short stature may be so grouped in two large and comprehensive divisions. Other well-known branches of the Eastern group are the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands and perhaps also the Papuans of New Guinea, very similar in many particulars to the Negritos of the Philippines, although authorities differ in grouping the Papuans with the Negritos. The Asiatic continent is also not without its representatives of the black dwarfs, having the Sakai of the Malay Peninsula. The presence of Negritos over so large an area has especially attracted the attention of anthropologists who have taken generally one or the other of two theories advanced to explain it: First, that the entire oceanic region is a partly submerged continent, once connected with the Asiatic mainland and over which this aboriginal race spread prior to the subsidence. The second theory is that the peopling of the several archipelagoes by the Negritos has been a gradualspread from island to island. This latter theory, advanced by De Quatrefages,1is the generally accepted one, although it is somewhat difficult to believe that the ancestors of weak and scattered tribes such as to-day are found in the Philippines could ever have been the sea rovers that such a belief would imply. It is a well-known fact, however, that the Malays have spread in this manner, and, while it is hardly possible that the Negritos have ever been as bold seafarers as the Malays, yet where they have been left in undisputed possession of their shores they have remained reckless fishermen. The statement that they are now nearly always found in impenetrable mountain forests is not an argument against the migration-by-sea theory, because they have been surrounded by stronger races and have been compelled to flee to the forests or suffer extermination. The fact that they live farther inland than the stronger peoples is also evidence that they were the first inhabitants, for it is not natural to suppose that a weaker race could enter territory occupied by a stronger and gain a permanent foothold there.2The attention of the first Europeans who visited the Philippines was attracted by people with frizzly hair and with a skin darker in color than that of the ruling tribes. Pigafetta, to whom we are indebted foran account of Magellan’s voyage of discovery in 1521, mentions Negritos as living in the Island of Panglao, southwest of Bohol and east of Cebu.3If we are to believe later historians the shores of some of the islands fairly swarmed with Negritos when the Spaniards arrived. Meyer gives an interesting extract from an old account by Galvano, The Discoveries of the World (ed. Bethune, Hakluyt Soc., 1862, p. 234):4In the same yeere 1543, and in moneth of August, the generall Rui Lopez sent one Bartholomew de la torre in a smal ship into new Spaine to acquaint the vizeroy don Antonio de Mendoça, with all things. They went to the Islands of Siria, Gaonata, Bisaia and many others, standing in 11 and 12 degrees towards the north, where Magellan had beene. * * * They found also an Archepelagus of Islands well inhabited with people, lying in 15 or 16 degrees: * * * There came vnto them certaine barkes or boates handsomely decked, wherein the master and principall men sate on high, and vnderneath were very blacke moores with frizled haire * * *: and being demanded where they had these blacke moores, they answered, that they had them from certaine islands standing fast by Sebut, where there were many of them.Zúñiga5quotes the Franciscan history6as follows:The Negritos which our first conquerors found were, according to tradition, the first possessors of the islands of this Archipelago, and, having been conquered by the political nations of other kingdoms, they fled to the mountains and populated them, whence no one has been able to accomplish their extermination on account of the inaccessibility of the places where they live. In the past they were so proud of their primitive dominion that, although they did not have strength to resist the strangers in the open, in the woods and mountains and mouths of the rivers they were very powerful. They made sudden attacks on the pueblos and compelled their neighbors to pay tribute to them as to lords of the earth which they inhabited, and if these did not wish to pay them they killed right and left, collecting the tribute in heads. * * *One of the islands of note in this Archipelago is that called Isla de Negros on account of the abundance of them [negroes]. In one point of this island—on the west side, called “Sojoton”—there is a great number of Negritos, and in the center of the island many more.Chirino has the following to say of the Negritos of Panay at the end of the sixteenth century:7Amongst these (Bisayas) there are also some negroes, the ancient inhabitants of the island of which they had taken possession before the Bisayas. They aresomewhat less black and less ugly man those of Guinea, but are smaller and weaker, although as regards hair and beard they are similar. They are more barbarous and savage than the Bisayas and other Filipinos, for they do not, like them, have houses and fixed settlements. They neither sow nor reap, and they wander through the mountains with their women and children like animals, almost naked. * * * Their sole possessions are the bow and arrow.Meyer,8who has given the subject much study and has conducted personal investigations on the field, states that “although at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in the country, and probably long before, the Negritos were in process of being driven back by the Malays, yet it appears certain that their numbers were then larger, for they were feared by their neighbors, which is now only exceptionally the case.”Of the vast amount of material that has been written during the past century on the Negritos of the Philippines a considerable portion can not be taken authoritatively. Exceptions should be made of the writings of Meyer, Montano, Marche, and Blumentritt. A large part of the writings on the Philippine Negritos have to do with their distribution and numbers, since no one has made an extended study of them on the spot, except Meyer, whose work (consisting of twelve chapters and published in Volume IX of the Publications of the Royal Ethnographical Museum of Dresden, 1893) I regret not to have seen. Two chapters of this work on the distribution of the Negritos, republished in 1899, form the most recent and most nearly correct exposition of this subject. Meyer summarizes as follows:It may be regarded as proved with certainty that Negritos are found in Luzon, Alabat, Corregidor, Panay, Tablas, Negros, Cebu, northeast Mindanao, and Palawan. It is questionable whether they occur in Guimaras, Mindoro, and the Calamianes.This statement would be more nearly correct if Corregidor and Cebu were placed in the second list and Guimaras in the first. In this paper it is possible, by reason of special investigations, to give more reliable and detailed information on this subject than any yet published.Present Distribution in the Philippines9In LuzonThis paper concerns itself chiefly with the Zambales Negritos whose distribution in Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, and Tarlac is treated in detail in the following chapter. But Negritos of more or less pure blood, known variously as Aeta, Agta, Baluga, Dumagat, etc., are found in at least eleven other provinces of Luzon. Beginning with the southern end of the island there are a very few Negritos in the Province of Sorsogon. They are found generally living among the Bicol population and do not run wild in the woods; they have probably drifted down from the neighboring Province ofAlbay. According to a report submitted by the governor of Sorsogon there are a few of these Negritos in Bacon and Bulusan, and four families containing Negrito blood are on the Island of Batang near Gabat.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Eight pueblos of Albay report altogether as many as 800 Negritos, known locally as “Agta.” It is not likely any of them are of pure blood. In all except three of the towns they are servants in Bicol houses, but Malinao, Bacacay, and Tabaco report wandering groups in the mountains.Meyer, who makes no mention of Negritos in Sorsogon or Albay, deems their existence in the Camarines sufficiently well authenticated, according to Blumentritt, who places Negrito half-breeds in the neighborhood of Lagonoy and around Mount Isarog. Information received by The Ethnological Survey places them in the mountains near Baao, Bulic, Iriga, Lagonoy, San José, Gao, and Tigaon, as well as scattered over the Cordillera de Isarog around Sagnay. All of these places are in the extreme southeastern part of the province contiguous to that part of Albay inhabited by Negritos. In neither province is the type pure. In the northern part of the province a few Negritos, called “Dumagat,” are reported near Sipocot and Ragay. The towns of San Vicente, Labo, Paracale, Mambulao, and Capalonga along the north coast also have Negritos, generally called “Aeta.” These are probably of purer blood than those around Mount Isarog. More than a hundred families of “Dumagat” are reported on the Islands of Caringo, Caluat, and Jomalic.Farther to the north the Island of Alabat was first stated by Blumentritt to be inhabited by Dumagat, and in his map of 1882 he places them here but omits them in the map of 1890. Meyer deems their occurrence there to be beyond all doubt, as per Steen Bille’s reports (Reise der Galathea, German ed., 1852). Reports of The Ethnological Survey place Aeta, Baluga, and Dumagat on Alabat—the formerrunningwild in the mountains, the latter living in the barrios of Camagon and Silangan, respectively. On the mainland of the Province of Tayabas the Negritos are generally known as Aeta and may be regarded as being to a large degree of pure blood. They are scattered pretty well over the northern part of the province, but do not, so far as is known, extend down into the peninsula below Pitogo and Macalelon. Only at Mauban are they known as Baluga, which name seems to indicate a mixed breed. The Island of Polillo and the districts of Infanta and Principe, now part of the Province of Tayabas, have large numbers of Negritos probably more nearly approaching a pure physical type than those south of them. The Negritos of Binangonan and Baler have received attention in short papers from Blumentritt, but it yet remains for someone to make a study of them on the spot.Meyer noted in 1872 that Negritos frequently came from the mountainsto Santa Cruz, Laguna Province. These probably came from across the Tayabas line, as none are reported in Laguna except from Santa Maria, in the extreme northern part. Even these are probably very near the boundary line into Rizal Province; perhaps they are over the line. Tanay, Rizal Province, on the shore of Laguna de Bay, reports some 300 Negritos as living in the mountains north of that town. From descriptions given by natives of Tanay they do not appear to be pure types. There is also a small group near Montalbán, in Rizal Province, not more than 20 miles from Manila.Going northward into Bulacan we are in possession of more definite information regarding the whereabouts of these forest dwellers.Zúñigain 1803 spoke of the Negritos of Angat—in those days head-hunters who were accustomed to send messages by means of knotted grass stalks.10This region, the upper reaches of the Angat River, was visited by Mr. E. J. Simons on a collecting trip for The Ethnological Survey in February, 1903. Mr. Simons saw twenty-two little rancherias of the Dumagat, having a total population of 176 people. Some of them had striking Negroid characteristics, but nearly all bore evidence of a mixture of blood. In some cases full-blooded Filipinos have married into the tribe and adopted Negrito customs entirely. Their social state is about the same as that of the Negritos of Zambales, though some of their habits—for instance, betel chewing—approach more nearly those of lower-class Filipinos. A short vocabulary of their dialect is given in Appendix B.Negritos are also found in northern Bulacan and throughout the continuous mountain region extending through Nueva Ecija into Isabela and the old Province of Principe. They are reported from Peñaranda, Bongabong, and Pantabangan, in Nueva Ecija, to the number of 500. This region is yet to be fully explored; the same may be said also of that vast range of mountains, the Sierra Madre, of Isabela and Cagayan. In the Province of Isabela Negritos are reported from all the towns, especially Palanan, on the coast, and Carig, Echague, Angadanan, Cauayan, and Cabagan Nuevo, on the upper reaches of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, but as there is a vast unknown country between, future exploration will have to determine the numerical importance of the Negritos. It has been thought heretofore that this region contained a large number of people of pure blood. This was the opinion set forth by Blumentritt. He says:This coast is the only spot in the Philippines in which the original masters of the Archipelago, the Negritos, hold unrestricted possession of their native land. The eastern side of the Cordillera which slopes toward this coast is also their undisputed possession. However, the western slopes they have been compelled to share with branches of Malay descendants. Here they retain the greatest purity of original physique and character.These statements stand much in need of verification. Inquiries pursued by The Ethnological Survey do not bear them out—in fact, point to an opposite belief.There is a small body of what may be pure types near the boundary between Isabela and Cagayan, west of the Cagayan River, but the coast region, so far as is known, does not hold any Negritos.As many as sixteen towns of Cagayan report Negritos to the total number of about 2,500. They are known commonly as “Atta,” but in the pueblo of Baggao there are three groups known locally as “Atta,” “Diango,” and “Paranan.” They have been described by natives of Baggao as being very similar to the ordinary Filipinos in physical characteristics except that they are darker in color and have bushy hair. Their only weapons are the bow and arrow. Their social status is in every way like that of the Negritos as distinguished from the industrious mountain. Malayans of northern Luzon. Yet future investigations may not associate these robust and warlike tribes with the weak, shirking Negritos. Negritos of pure type have not so far been reported from Cagayan.At only two places in the western half of northern Luzon have Negritos been observed. There is a small group near Piddig, Ilokos Norte, and a wandering band of about thirty-five in the mountains between Villavieja, Abra Province, and Santa Maria, Ilokos Sur Province, from both of which towns they have been reported. It is but a question of time until no trace of them will be left in this region so thickly populated with stronger mountain peoples.In the Southern IslandsAlthough Negritos were reported by the early Spanish writers to be especially numerous in some of the southern islands, probably more of them are found on Luzon than on all the other islands in the Archipelago. Besides Luzon, the only large islands inhabited by them at present are Panay, Negros, Mindanao, and Paragua, but some of the smaller islands, as Tablas and Guimaras, have them.Negritos of pure blood have not been reported from Mindoro, but only the half-breed Manguian, who belong in a group to themselves. It is questionable whether the unknown interior will produce pure types, though it is frequently reported that there are Negritos in the interior.There is a rather large colony of Negritos on the west coast of Tablas near Odiungan, and also a few on the Isla de Carabao immediately south of Tablas. These have probably passed up from Panay. All the provinces of the latter island report Negritos, locally known as “Ati” and “Agta.” They seem to be scattered pretty well over the interior of Panay, being especially numerous in the mountainous region where the Provinces of Antique and Iloilo join. In Antique thereare about 1,000 Negritos living in groups of several families each. They are reported from nearly all the towns, being more numerous along the Dalanas and Sibalon Rivers. The number of pure types is said, however, to be rapidly decreasing on account of intermarriage with the Bukidnon or mountain Visayan. They are of very small stature, with kinky hair. They lead the same nomadic life as the Negritos in other parts, except that they depend more on the products of the forest for subsistence and rarely clear and cultivate “ca-ĭng-ĭn.”11They seem to have developed more of religious superstitions, and believe that both evil spirits and protecting spirits inhabit the forests and plains. However, these beliefs may have been borrowed from the Bukidnon, with whom they come much in contact. From a mixing of the Ati and Bukidnon are sprung the Calibugan, who partake more of the characteristics of their Visayan ancestors than those of the Ati, and generally abandon the nomadic life and live in clearings in the forest.About ten years ago there was a group of about 200 Ati at a place called Labangan, on the Dalanas River, governed by one Capitán Andres. They made clearings and carried people across the river for a small remuneration. Many of them are said to have emigrated to Negros to escape public work to which the local authorities subjected them without compensation.There is a small, wandering group of Negritos on Guimaras, probably emigrants from Panay. They have been reported from both Nagaba and Nueva Valencia, pueblos of that island.Investigation does not bear out the statements of the historian previously quoted in regard to the early populations of Negros. At least it seems that if the southwestern part of that island known as Sojoton had been so thickly populated with Negritos early in the eighteenth century more traces of them would remain to-day. But they seem to have left no marks on the Malayan population. While in the Isio region in August, 1903, I made special investigation and inquiry into this subject and could find no trace of Negritos. Expeditions of the Constabulary into the interior have never met with the little blacks except a single colony near the boundary line between the two provinces just north of Tolon. A few Negritos have also been seen scattered in the interior of southern Oriental Negros back from Nueva Valencia, Ayuquitan, and Bais. From there no trace of them exists until the rugged mountains north of the volcano of Canlaon are reached, in the almost impenetrable recesses of which there are estimated to be a thousand or more. They are especially numerous back of Escalante and formerly made frequent visits to that pueblo, but recent military operations in the region have made them timid, as scouting parties have fired on and killed several of them. The sight of a white man or native of theplain is a signal for an immediate discharge of arrows. Also in the mountains behind Sagay, Cadiz, and Manapla live a few scattered families. I was fortunate in securing photographs of a Negrito captured by the Constabulary near Cadiz. (SeePl. XXVI.) He was much taller than the Negritos of Zambales, but with very little muscular development. He spoke Visayan, and said he knew no other dialect. While in Negros I also secured photographs of a small colony of Ati, who emigrated from Panay about twenty years ago and now live on a mountain hacienda on the slope of Mount Canlaon.So far there is no evidence that Negritos exist on Cebu, Bohol, Samar, and Leyte. In Mindanao they are found only in the extreme northern part of Surigao, not having been reported below Tago. They are called “Mamanua,” and are not very numerous.We have detailed accounts of both the Tagbanua and Batak of Paragua, by señor Manuel Venturello, a native of Puerto Princesa, who has lived among them twenty years. These interesting articles, translated by Capt. E. A. Helmick, Tenth United States Infantry, and published in pamphlet form by the Division of Military Information, Manila, are especially full as to customs, religion, language, etc., of the Tagbanua who inhabit the central part of Paragua from the Bay of Ulugan south to Apurahuan. However, the Tagbanua, although perhaps having a slight amount of Negrito blood, can not be classed with the Negritos. But, in my opinion, the Batak who inhabit the territory from the Bay of Ulugan north to Caruray and Barbacan may be so classed, although they are by no means of pure blood. They are described as being generally of small stature but well developed and muscular. They have very curly but not kinky hair, except in rare cases. Their weapons are the bow and arrow and the blowgun or sumpitan, here called “sumpit.” Their only clothing is a breechcloth and a short skirt of flayed bark. A notable feature of their customs is that both polygyny and polyandry are permitted, this being the only instance of the latter practice so far observed among the tribes of the Philippines. The Batak are not very numerous; their villages have been decimated by ravages of smallpox during the past five years.ConclusionThis rapid survey leaves much to be desired, but it contains about all that is definitely known to-day concerning the whereabouts of the Negritos in the Philippines. No attempt has been made to state numbers. The Philippine census will probably have more exact information in this particular, but it must be borne in mind that even the figures given by the census can be no more than estimates in most instances. The habits of the Negritos do not lend themselves to modern methods of census taking.After all, Blumentritt’s opinion of several years ago is not far from right. Including all mixed breeds having a preponderance of Negrito blood, it is safe to say that the Negrito population of the Philippines probably will not exceed 25,000. Of these the group largest in numbers and probably purest in type is that in the Zambales mountain range, western Luzon. However, while individuals may retain in some cases purity of blood, nowhere are whole groups free from mixture with the Malayan. The Negritos of Panay, Negros, and Mindanao are also to be regarded as pure to a large extent. On the east side of Luzon and in the Island of Paragua, as we have just seen, there is marked evidence of mixture.The social state of the Negritos is everywhere practically the same. They maintain their half-starved lives by the fruits of the chase and forest products, and at best cultivate only small patches of maize and other vegetables. Only occasionally do they live in settled, self-supporting communities, but wander for the most part in scattered families from one place to another.1Les Pygmées, 1887.2However, when one attempts to fathom the mysteries surrounding the origin and migrations of the Negrito race he becomes hopelessly involved in a labyrinth of conjecture. Did the Negritos come from somewhere in Asia, some island like New Guinea, or is their original home now sunk beneath the sea? In the present state of our knowledge we can not hope to know. We find them in certain places to-day; we may believe that they once lived in certain other places, because the people now living there have characteristics peculiar to the little black men. But the Negrito has left behind no archaeological remains to guide the investigator, and he who attempts seriously to consider this question is laying up for himself a store of perplexing problems.It may be of interest to present here the leading facts in connection with the distribution of the Negrito race and to summarize the views set forth by various leading anthropologists who have given the subject most study.The deduction of the French scientists De Quatrefages and Hamy have been based almost entirely on craniological and osteological observations, and these authors argue a much wider distribution of the Negritos than other writers hold. In fact, according to these writers, traces of Negritos are found practically everywhere from India to Japan and New Guinea.De Quatrefages in Les Pygmées, 1887, divides what he calls the “Eastern pygmies,” as opposed to the African pygmies, into two divisions—the Negrito-Papuans and the Negritos proper. The former, he says, have New Guinea as a center of population and extend as far as Gilolo and the Moluccas. They are distinguished from the true Papuans who inhabit New Guinea and who are not classed by that writer as belonging to the Negrito race.On the other hand, Wallace and Earl, supported by Meyer, all of whom have made some investigations in the region occupied by the Papuans, affirm that there is but a single race and that its identity with the Negritos is unmistakable. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 77) says that he and Von Maclay in 1873 saw a number of Papuans in Tidore. He had just come from the Philippines and Von Maclay had then come from Astrolabe Bay, in New Guinea. With these Papuans before them they discussed the question of the unity of the races, and Von Maclay could see no difference between these Papuans and those of Astrolabe Bay, while Meyer declared that the similarities between them and the Negritos of the Philippines was most striking. He says: “That was my standpoint then regarding the question, neither can I relinquish it at present.”Although they defended the unity of the Negritos and the Papuans they recognized that the Papuans were diversified and presented a variety of types, but Meyer regards this not as pointing to a crossing of different elements but as revealing simply the variability of the race. He continues (p. 80): “As the externalhabitusof the Negritos must be declared as almost identical with that of the Papuans, differences in form of the skull, the size of the body, and such like have the less weight in opposition to the great uniformity, as strong contrasts do not even come into play here, and if the Negritos do not show such great amount of variation in their physical characters as the Papuans—which, however,is by no means sufficiently attested—it is no wonder in the case Of a people which has been driven back and deprived of the opportunity of developing itself freely.”Thus it remains for future investigations to establish beyond doubt the identity of the Papuans.De Quatrefages divides all other Eastern pygmies into two divisions—insular and continental—and no authors find fault with this classification. Only in fixing the distribution of the Negritos do the authorities differ. The islands admitted by everybody to contain Negritos to-day may be eliminated from the discussion. These are the Philippines and the Andamans. In the latter the name “Mincopies” has been given to the little blacks, though how this name originated no one seems to know. It is certain that the people do not apply the name to themselves. Extensive study of the Andamans has been made by Flower and Man.The Moluccas and lesser Sunda Islands just west of New Guinea were stated by De Quatrefages in 1887 (Les Pygmées) to be inhabited by Negritos, although three years previously, as recorded in Hommes Fossiles, 1884, he had doubted their existence there. He gave no authority, and assigned no reason in his later work for this change of opinion. Meyer thinks this sufficient reason why one should not take De Quatrefages too seriously, and states that proofs of the existence of the Negritos in this locality are “so weak as not to be worth discussing them in detail.” From deductions based on the examination of a single skull Hamy inferred that pure Negritos were found on Timor, but the people of Timor were found by Meyer to be mixed Papuans and Malays, resembling the latter on the coasts and the former in the interior.Likewise in Celebes, Borneo, and Java the French writers think that traces of an ancient Negrito population may be found, while Meyer holds that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant such an assumption. In Sumatra he admits that there is an element not Malayan, which on account of the nearness of Malacca may beNegritic,but that fact is so far by no means proved.In regard to Formosa Meyer quotes Scheteleg (Trans. Ethn. Soc.,n.s., 1869, vii): “I am convinced * * * that the Malay origin of most of the inhabitants of Formosa is incontestable.” But Hamy holds that the two skulls which Scheteleg brought were Negrito skulls, an assumption which Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 52) disposes of as follows: “To conclude the occurrence of a race in a country from certain characters in two skulls, when this race has not been registered from that country, is, in the present embryonic state of craniology, an unwarrantable proceeding.”In like manner Hamy has found that a certain Japanese skull in the Paris Museum resembles a Negrito skull, and he also finds traces of Negritos in Japan in the small stature, crisp hair, and darker color of the natives of the interior of the Island of Kiusiu. But Meyer holds that the facts brought forward up to the present time are far from being established, and objects to the acceptance of surmises and explanations more or less subjective as conclusive.There is no doubt of the occurrence of Negritos in the peninsula of Malacca, where both pure and mixed people have been found. These are reported under a variety of names, of which Semang and Sakaí are perhaps the best known. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, p. 62, footnote 2) says: “Stevens divides the Negritos of Malacca into two principal tribes—the Belendas, who with the Tumiors branched off from the Kenis tribe, and the Meniks, who consist of the Panggans of Kelantan and Petani and the Semangs of the west coast. Only the Panggans * * * and the Tumiors are pure Negritos. A name often recurring for the Belendas is Sakeis (Malay: ‘bondman,’ ‘servant’), a designation given them in the first instance by the Malays but which they often also apply to themselves when addressing strangers.”In their efforts to find Negrito traces in the Mao-tse, the aboriginal peoples of the Chinese Empire, De Lacouperie and De Quatrefages have, in the opinion of Meyer, even less to stand on than had Hamy in the case of Japan. In like manner it remains to be proved whether the Moií of Annam are related to Negritos, as the two French writers have stated, but whose opinions have been vigorously opposed by Meyer and others.The question of the aboriginal inhabitants of India is one of even greater importance and presents greater difficulties. If it can be shown that this aboriginal population was Negrito, and if the relations which researches, especially in philology, have indicated between the peoples of India and those of Australia can be proved, a range of possibilities of startling importance, affecting the race question of Oceania in general and the origin and distribution of the Negritos in particular, will be opened up. In regard to the Indian question there is much diversity of opinion. De Quatrefages and Hamy, as usual, regardthe Negritos as established in India, but Topinard and Virchow are opposed to this belief. Meyer holds that “this part of the Negrito question is in no way ripe for decision, and how much less the question as to a possible relationship of this hypothetical primitive population with the Negroes of Africa.” (Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 70.)In anthropology a statement may be regarded as proved for the time being so long as no opposition to it exists. With the exception of the Philippine and the Andaman Islands and the Malay Peninsula, as we have seen, the presence of traces of Negritos is an open question. The evidence at hand is incomplete and insufficient, and we must therefore be content to let future investigators work out these unsolved problems.3English edition of Stanley, 1874, p. 106.4Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 6, footnote.5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Reprint by Retana, vol. I, p. 422.6By this is meant Fr. San Antonio’s Chronicas de la Apostolica, Provincia de San Gregorio, etc., 1738–1744.7Relación de las Islas Filipinas, 1604; 2d ed., 1890, p. 38.8Meyer, Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 4.9See sketch map,Pl. I.10Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Ed. Retana, 1893, I, p. 421.11Ca-ĭng-ĭn is a Malayan word for cultivated clearing.Chapter IIThe Province of ZambalesGeographical FeaturesThis little-known and comparatively unimportant province stretches along the western coast of Luzon for more than 120 miles. Its average width does not exceed 25 miles and is so out of proportion to its length that it merits the title which it bears of the “shoestring province.”1The Zambales range of mountains, of which the southern half is known as the Cordillera de Cabusilan and which is second in importance to the Caraballos system of northern Luzon, forms the entire eastern boundary of Zambales and separates it from the Provinces of Pangasinan, Tarlac, and Pampanga. A number of peaks rise along this chain, of which Mount Pinatubo, 6,040 feet in height, is the highest. All of the rivers of Zambales rise on the western slope of these mountains and carry turbulent floods through the narrow plains. Still unbridged, they are an important factor in preventing communication and traffic between towns, and hence in retarding the development of the province. Another important factor in this connection is the lack of safe anchorages. The Zambales coast is a stormy one, and vessels frequently come to grief on its reefs. At only one point, Subig Bay, can larger vessels find anchorage safe from the typhoons which sweep the coast. The soil of the well-watered plain is fertile and seems adapted to the cultivation of nearly all the products of the Archipelago. The forests are especially valuable, and besides fine timbers for constructional purposes they supply large quantities of pitch, resin, bejuco, and beeswax. There are no industries worth mentioning, there being only primitive agriculture and stock raising.The following opinions of Zambales set forth by a Spanish writer in 1880 still hold good:2There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose commercial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced, but nowhere is the air more pureand transparent, the vegetation more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny, and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.Historical SketchAccording to Buzeta, another Spanish historian, it was Juan de Salcedo who discovered Zambales.3This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao, where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.It seems that nothing further was done toward settling or evangelizing the region for twelve years, although the chronicler goes on to say that three years after the discovery of Bolinao a sergeant of Salcedo’s traversed the Bolinao region, receiving everywhere the homage of the natives, and a Franciscan missionary, Sebastian Baeza, preached the gospel there. But in 1584 the Augustinians established themselves at the extreme ends of the mountain range, Bolinao and Mariveles. One of them, the friar Esteban Martin, was the first to learn the Zambal dialect. The Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin, Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans undertook the active evangelization of the district.Let us now examine [continues the historian4] the state of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the larger part of the aboriginal population: “The principal cause,” he said, “of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted, is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find it impossible to exercise any influence over them.”Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families, united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring these villages together because they carried on wars continually, and they lived in such a state of discord that it was impossible to govern them; moreover they were so barbarous and fierce that they recognized only superior power. They governed through fear. He who wished to be most respected sought to inspire fear by striking off as many beads as possible. The one who committed the most assassinations was thus assured of the subordination of all. They made such a glory of it that they were accustomed to wear certain ornaments in order to show to the eyesor all the murders they had committed. When a person lost a relative either by a violent or a natural death he covered his head with a strip of black cloth as a sign of mourning and could take it off only after having committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager to do in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long as they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part in any festivity. One understands then that deaths became very frequent in a country where all deaths were necessarily followed by one or more murders. It is true that he who committed a murder sought to atone for it by paying to the relatives of the deceased a certain quantity of gold or silver or by giving them a slave or a Negrito who might be murdered in his place.The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants of other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called “Bayoc,” who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He celebrated this ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most frightful revels. He next indicated to the new priest the idol or cult to which he should specially devote himself and conferred on him privileges proportionate to the rank of that divinity, for they recognized among their gods a hierarchy, which established also that of their curates. They gave to their principal idol the name of “Malyari”—that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi, whose power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang in religious ceremonies that “although Malyari was powerful, Acasi had preëminence.” In an inferior order they worshiped also Manlobog or Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of appeasing irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five less important idols who represented the divinities of the fields, prosperity to their herds and harvests. They also believed that Anitong sent them rains and favorable winds; Damalag preserved the sown fields from hurricanes; Dumanga made the grain grow abundantly; and finally Calascas ripened it, leaving to Calosocos only the duty of harvesting the crops. They also had a kind of baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure blood of the pig, but this ceremony, very long and especially very expensive, was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which the same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated by repugnant debaucheries.Of course it is impossible to tell how much of this is the product of the writer’s imagination, or at least of the imagination of those earlier chroniclers from whom he got his information, but it can very well be believed that the natives had a religion of their own and that the work of the missionaries was exceedingly difficult. It was necessary to get them into villages, to show them how to prepare and till the soil and harvest the crops. And the writer concludes that “little by little the apathetic and indolent natives began to recognize the advantages of social life constituted under the shield of authority and law, and the deplorable effects of savage life, offering no guarantee of individual or collective security.”A fortress had been built at Paynaven, in what is now the Province of Pangasinan, from which the work of the missionaries spread southward, so that the northern towns were all organized before those in the south. It is not likely that this had anything to do with causingthe Negritos to leave the northern part of the province, if indeed they ever occupied it, but it is true that to-day they inhabit only the mountainous region south of a line drawn through the middle of the province from east to west.The friar Martinez Zúñiga, speaking of the fortress at Paynaven, said that in that day, the beginning of the last century, there was little need of it as a protection against the “infidel Indians” and blacks who were very few in number, and against whom a stockade of bamboo was sufficient.It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily the Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these pirates, who always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however, a constant menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to transport on rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to carry on commerce with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal are exposed to attack from the Moros in rounding the point at the entrance of Manila Bay, from which it results that the province is poor and has little commerce.5Everything in the history of the Zambal people and their present comparative unimportance goes to show that they were the most indolent and backward of the Malayan peoples. While they have never given the governing powers much trouble, yet they have not kept pace with the agricultural and commercial progress of the other people, and their territory has been so steadily encroached on from all sides by their more aggressive neighbors that their separate identity is seriously threatened. The rich valleys of Zambales have long attracted Ilokano immigrants, who have founded several important towns. The Zambal themselves, owing to lack of communication between their towns, have developed three separate dialects, none of which has ever been deemed worthy of study and publication, as have the other native dialects of the Philippines. A glance at the list of towns of Zambales with the prevailing dialect spoken in each, and in case of nearly equal division also the second most important dialect, will show to what extent Zambal as a distinct dialect is gradually disappearing:Dialects in Zambales ProvinceTownPrimary dialectSecondary dialectOlongapoTagalogSubigTagalogCastillejosTagalogIlokanoSan MarcelinoIlokanoTagalogSan AntonioIlokanoSan NarcisoIlokanoSan FelipeIlokanoCabanganZambalBotolanZambalIbaZambalPalauigZambalMasinlocZambalCandelariaZambalSanta CruzZambalInfantaZambalDasolPangasinanZambalAgnoIlokanoPangasinanBarriZambalSan IsidroIlokanoBalincaguinPangasinanAlosIlokanoPangasinanAlumnosPangasinanIlokanoZaragozaZambalBolinaoZambalAndaZambalOf twenty-five towns Zambal is the prevailing dialect of less than half. As will be seen, the Ilokano have been the most aggressive immigrants. As a prominent Ilokano in the town of San Marcelino expressed it, when they first came they worked for the Zambals, who held all the good land. But the Zambal landowners, perhaps wanting money for a cockfight, would sell a small piece of land to some Ilokano who had saved a little money, and when he ran out of money he would sell a little more land, until finally the Ilokano owned it all.This somewhat lengthy and seemingly irrelevant sketch of the early history of Zambales and of the character of its inhabitants to-day is given to show the former state of savagery and the apathetic nature of the people who, in the days before the arrival of the Europeans, were in such close contact with the Negritos as to impose on them their language, and they have done it so thoroughly that no trace of an original Negrito dialect remains. Relations such as to-day exist between the people of the plains and those of the mountains would not change a dialect in a thousand years. Another evidence of a former close contact may be found in the fact that the Negritos of southern Zambales who have never personally come in contact with the Zambal but only with the Tagalog also speak Zambal with some slight variations,showing, too, that the movement of the Negritos has been southward away from the Zambal territory.Close study and special investigation into the linguistics of this region, carried also into Bataan and across the mountain into Pampanga and Tarlac, may throw more light on this very interesting and important subject and may reveal traces of an original Negrito dialect. Prominent natives of Zambales, whom I have questioned, and who are familiar with the subject, affirm that the Negritos know only the dialect of the Zambal. Indeed those are not lacking who believe in a blood relationship between the Negritos and the Zambal, but this belief can not be taken seriously.6Very little mention is made by the early writers of the Negritos. In fact they knew nothing of them except that they were small blacks who roamed in the mountains, living on roots and game which they killed with the bow and arrow. They were reported to be fierce little savages from whom no danger could come, since they did not leave their mountain fastnesses, but whose territory none dared enter.Habitat of the NegritosAs has been stated, the present range of the Negritos of this territory embraces the mountainous portion of the lower half of Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga, extending southward even to the very extremity of the peninsula of Bataan.This region, although exceedingly broken and rough, has not the high-ridged, deep-canyoned aspect of the Cordillera Central of northern Luzon. It consists for the most part of rolling tablelands, broken by low, forest-covered ridges and dotted here and there by a few gigantic peaks. The largest and highest of these, Mount Pinatubo, situated due east from the town of Cabangan, holds on its broad slopes the largest part of the Negritos of Zambales. Many tiny streams have their sources in this mountain and rush down the slopes, growing in volume and furnishing water supply to the Negrito villages situated along their banks. Some of the larger of these streams have made deep cuts on the lower reaches of the mountain slopes, but they are generally too small to have great powers of erosion. The unwooded portions of the table-lands are covered with cogon and similar wild grasses.Here is enough fertile land to support thousands of people. The Negritos occupy practically none of it. Their villages and mountain farms are very scattered. The villages are built for the most part on the table-land above some stream, and the little clearings are found on the slope of the ridge at the base of which the stream runs. No use whatever is made of the grass-covered table-land, save that it offers a high and dry site for a rancheria, free from fevers.Practically all of the Negrito rancherias are within the jurisdiction of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino. Following the winding course of the Bucao River, 15 miles southeast from Botolan, one comes to the barrio of San Fernando de Riviera, as it is on the maps, or Pombato, as the natives call it. This is a small Filipino village, the farthest out, a half-way place between the people of the plains and those of the uplands. Here a ravine is crossed, a hill climbed, and the traveler stands on a plateau not more than half a mile wide but winding for miles toward the big peak Pinatubo and almost imperceptibly increasing in elevation. Low, barren ridges flank it on either side, at the base of each of which flows a good-sized stream. Seven miles of beaten winding path through the cogon grass bring the traveler to the first Negrito rancheria, Tagiltil, one year old, lying sun baked on a southern slope of the plateau. Here the plateau widens out, is crossed and cut up by streams and hills, and the forests gradually become thicker. In the wide reach of territory of which this narrow plateau is the western apex, including Mount Pinatubo and reaching to the Tarlac and Pampanga boundaries, there are situated no less than thirty rancherias of Negritos, having an average population of 40 persons or atotal of more than 1,200. Besides these there are probably many scattered families, especially in the higher and less easily accessible forests of Mount Pinatubo, who live in no fixed spot but lead a wandering existence. And so uncertain are the habits of the more settled Negritos that one of the thirty rancherias known to-day may to-morrow be nothing more than a name, and some miles away a new rancheria may spring up. The tendency to remain in one place seems, however, to be growing.The mountainous portions of the jurisdictions of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino, themselves many miles apart with three or more towns between, are contiguous, the one extending southeast, the other northeast, until they meet. The San Marcelino region contains about the same number of Negritos, grouped in many small communities around five large centers—Santa Fé, Aglao, Cabayan, Pañibutan, and Timao—each of which numbers some 300 Negritos. They are of the same type and culture plane as those nearer Piñatubo, and their habitat is practically the same, a continuation of the more or less rugged Cordillera. They are in constant communication with the Negritos north of them and with those across the Pampanga line east of them. The Negritos of Aglao are also in communication with those of Subig, where there is a single rancheria numbering 45 souls. Still farther south in the jurisdiction of Olongapo are two rancherias, numbering about 100 people, who partake more of the characteristics of the Negritos of Bataan just across the provincial line than they do of those of the north.Here mention may be made also of the location of rancherias and numbers of Negritos in the provinces adjoining Zambales, as attention is frequently called to them later, especially those of Bataan, for the sake of comparison. Negritos are reported from all of the towns of Bataan, and there are estimated to be 1,500 of them, or about half as many as in Zambales. They are more numerous on the side toward Manila Bay, in the mountains back of Balanga, Orion, and Pilar. Moron and Bagac on the opposite coast each report more than a hundred. There is a colony of about thirty near Mariveles. Owing to repeated visits of tourists to their village and to the fact that they were sent to the Hanoi Exposition in 1903, this group has lost many of the customs peculiar to Negritos in a wild state and has donned the ordinary Filipino attire.Cabcabe, also in the jurisdiction of Mariveles, has more than a hundred Negritos, and from here to Dinalupijan, the northernmost town of the province, there are from 50 to 200 scattered in small groups around each town and within easy distance. Sometimes, as at Balanga, they are employed on the sugar plantations and make fairly good laborers.The Negritos of Bataan as a whole seem less mixed with the Malayan than any other group, and fewer mixed bloods are seen among them. Their average stature is also somewhat lower. They speak corrupt Tagalog, though careful study may reveal traces of an original tongue. (SeeAppendix Bfor a vocabulary.)In the section of Pampanga lying near Zambales Province more than a thousand Negritos have been reported from the towns of Florida Blanca, Porac, Angeles, and Mabalacat. There are estimated to be about 1,200 in Tarlac, in the jurisdiction of the towns of O’Donnell, Moriones, Capas, Bamban, and Camiling. There are two or three good trails leading from this province into Zambales by which the Negritos of the two provinces communicate with each other. It is proposed to convert the one from O’Donnell to Botolan into a wagon road, which will have the effect of opening up a little-known territory. Across the line into Pangasinan near the town of Mangataren there is a colony of mixed Negritos somewhat more advanced in civilization than is usually the case with these forest dwellers. According to Dr. D. P. Barrows, who visited their rancherias in December, 1901, it seems to have been the intention of the Spanish authorities to form a reservation at that place which should be a center from which to reach the wilder bands in the hills and to induce them to adopt a more settled life. A Filipino was sent to the rancheria as a “maestro” and remained among the people six years. But the scheme fell through there as elsewhere in the failure of the authorities to provide homes and occupations for the Negritos. The Ilokano came in and occupied all the available territory, and the Negritos now hang around the Ilokano homes, doing a little work and picking up the little food thrown to them. Dr. Barrows states that the group contains no pure types characterized by wide, flat noses and kinky hair. In addition to the bow and arrows they carry a knife called “kampilan” having a wide-curving blade. They use this weapon in a dance called “baluk,” brandishing it, snapping their fingers, and whirling about with knees close to the ground. This is farther north than Negritos are found in Zambales but is in territory contiguous to that of the Tarlac Negritos. The entire region contains about 6,000 souls. The groups are so scattered, however, that the territory may be said to be practically unoccupied.1The province has recently been divided by act of the Philippine Commission, the northern part above Santa Cruz being joined to Pangasinan.2Francisco Cañamaque, Boletin de la Sociedad Geografica de Madrid, vol IX, 1880.3Diccionario Geográfico, etc., de las Islas Filipinas, vol. II, 1850.4Cañamaque.5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, 1803.6This was evidently the belief of some of the old voyagers. Navarette, whose account of his travels in 1647 is published in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, 1704, said that the people called “Zambales” were great archers and had no other weapons than the bow and arrow. Dr. John Frances Gemelli Careri, who made a voyage around the world, 1693–1697, says in his report (Churchill’s Voyages, vol. IV): “This mixing [that is, of Negritos] with the WildIndiansproduced the Tribe ofManghianwho are Blacks dwelling in the Isles of Mindoro and Mundos [probably Panay], and who peopled the Islandsde los Negros,or of Blacks. Some of them have harsh frisled hair like theAfricanandAngolablacks. * * *“TheSambali,contrary to the others, tho’ Wild have long Hair, like the other Conquer’dIndians.The Wives, of these Savages are deliver’d in the Woods, like She Goats, and immediately wash themselves and the Infants in the Rivers, or other cold Water; which would be immediate Death toEuropeans.These Blacks when pursu’d by theSpaniards,with the sound of little Sticks, give notice to the rest, that are dispers’d about the Woods, to save themselves by Flight. Their Weapons are Bows and Arrows, a short Spear, and a short Weapon, or Knife at their Girdle. They Poison their Arrows, which are sometimes headed with Iron, or a sharp Stone, and they bore the Point, that it may break in their Enemies Body, and so be unfit to be shot back. For their defense, they use a Wooden Buckler, four Spans long, and two in breadth, which always hangs at their Arm.“Tho’ I had much discourse about it, with the Fathers of the Society, and other Missioners, who converse with these Blacks,Manghians, MandiandSambali,I could never learn any thing of their Religion; but on the contrary, all unanimously agree they have none, but live like Beasts, and the most that has been seen among the Blacks on the Mountains, has been a round Stone, to which they pay’d a Veneration, or a Trunk of a Tree, or Beasts, or other things they find about, and this only out of fear. True it is, that by means of the HeathenChineseswho deal with them in the Mountains, some deformed Statues have been found in their Huts. The other three beforemention’d Nations, seem’d inclin’d to observing of Auguries andMahometanSuperstitions, by reason of their Commerce, with theMalayesandTernates.The most reciev’d Opinion is, that these Blacks were the first Inhabitants of the Islands; and that being Cowards, the Sea Coasts were easily taken from them by People resorting fromSumatra, Borneo, Macassarand other Places; and therefore they retir’d to the Mountains. In short, in all the Islands where these Blacks, and other Savage Men are, theSpaniardsPossess not much beyond the Sea Coasts; and not that in all Parts, especially fromMaribeles,to CapeBolinaoin the Island ofManila,where for 50 Leagues along the Shoar, there is no Landing, for fear of the Blacks, who are most inveterate Enemies to theEuropeans.Thus all the in-land Parts being possess’d by these Brutes, against whom no Army could prevail in the thick Woods, the King ofSpainhas scarce one in ten of the Inhabitants of the Island, that owns him, as theSpaniardsoften told me.”

Chapter IDistribution of NegritosProbably no group of primitive men has attracted more attention from the civilized world than the pygmy blacks. From the time of Homer and Aristotle the pygmies, although their existence was not absolutely known at that early period, have had their place in fable and legend, and as civilized man has become more and more acquainted with the unknown parts of the globe he has met again and again with the same strange type of the human species until he has been led to conclude that there is practically no part of the tropic-zone where these little blacks have not lived at some time.Mankind at large is interested in a race of dwarfs just as it would be in a race of giants, no matter what the color or social state; and scientists have long been concerned with trying to fix the position of the pygmies in the history of the human race. That they have played an important ethnologic rôle can not be doubted; and although to-day they are so scattered and so modified by surrounding people as largely to have disappeared as a pure type, yet they have everywhere left their imprint on the peoples who have absorbed them.The Negritos of the Philippines constitute one branch of the Eastern division of the pygmy race as opposed to the African division, it being generally recognized that the blacks of short stature may be so grouped in two large and comprehensive divisions. Other well-known branches of the Eastern group are the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands and perhaps also the Papuans of New Guinea, very similar in many particulars to the Negritos of the Philippines, although authorities differ in grouping the Papuans with the Negritos. The Asiatic continent is also not without its representatives of the black dwarfs, having the Sakai of the Malay Peninsula. The presence of Negritos over so large an area has especially attracted the attention of anthropologists who have taken generally one or the other of two theories advanced to explain it: First, that the entire oceanic region is a partly submerged continent, once connected with the Asiatic mainland and over which this aboriginal race spread prior to the subsidence. The second theory is that the peopling of the several archipelagoes by the Negritos has been a gradualspread from island to island. This latter theory, advanced by De Quatrefages,1is the generally accepted one, although it is somewhat difficult to believe that the ancestors of weak and scattered tribes such as to-day are found in the Philippines could ever have been the sea rovers that such a belief would imply. It is a well-known fact, however, that the Malays have spread in this manner, and, while it is hardly possible that the Negritos have ever been as bold seafarers as the Malays, yet where they have been left in undisputed possession of their shores they have remained reckless fishermen. The statement that they are now nearly always found in impenetrable mountain forests is not an argument against the migration-by-sea theory, because they have been surrounded by stronger races and have been compelled to flee to the forests or suffer extermination. The fact that they live farther inland than the stronger peoples is also evidence that they were the first inhabitants, for it is not natural to suppose that a weaker race could enter territory occupied by a stronger and gain a permanent foothold there.2The attention of the first Europeans who visited the Philippines was attracted by people with frizzly hair and with a skin darker in color than that of the ruling tribes. Pigafetta, to whom we are indebted foran account of Magellan’s voyage of discovery in 1521, mentions Negritos as living in the Island of Panglao, southwest of Bohol and east of Cebu.3If we are to believe later historians the shores of some of the islands fairly swarmed with Negritos when the Spaniards arrived. Meyer gives an interesting extract from an old account by Galvano, The Discoveries of the World (ed. Bethune, Hakluyt Soc., 1862, p. 234):4In the same yeere 1543, and in moneth of August, the generall Rui Lopez sent one Bartholomew de la torre in a smal ship into new Spaine to acquaint the vizeroy don Antonio de Mendoça, with all things. They went to the Islands of Siria, Gaonata, Bisaia and many others, standing in 11 and 12 degrees towards the north, where Magellan had beene. * * * They found also an Archepelagus of Islands well inhabited with people, lying in 15 or 16 degrees: * * * There came vnto them certaine barkes or boates handsomely decked, wherein the master and principall men sate on high, and vnderneath were very blacke moores with frizled haire * * *: and being demanded where they had these blacke moores, they answered, that they had them from certaine islands standing fast by Sebut, where there were many of them.Zúñiga5quotes the Franciscan history6as follows:The Negritos which our first conquerors found were, according to tradition, the first possessors of the islands of this Archipelago, and, having been conquered by the political nations of other kingdoms, they fled to the mountains and populated them, whence no one has been able to accomplish their extermination on account of the inaccessibility of the places where they live. In the past they were so proud of their primitive dominion that, although they did not have strength to resist the strangers in the open, in the woods and mountains and mouths of the rivers they were very powerful. They made sudden attacks on the pueblos and compelled their neighbors to pay tribute to them as to lords of the earth which they inhabited, and if these did not wish to pay them they killed right and left, collecting the tribute in heads. * * *One of the islands of note in this Archipelago is that called Isla de Negros on account of the abundance of them [negroes]. In one point of this island—on the west side, called “Sojoton”—there is a great number of Negritos, and in the center of the island many more.Chirino has the following to say of the Negritos of Panay at the end of the sixteenth century:7Amongst these (Bisayas) there are also some negroes, the ancient inhabitants of the island of which they had taken possession before the Bisayas. They aresomewhat less black and less ugly man those of Guinea, but are smaller and weaker, although as regards hair and beard they are similar. They are more barbarous and savage than the Bisayas and other Filipinos, for they do not, like them, have houses and fixed settlements. They neither sow nor reap, and they wander through the mountains with their women and children like animals, almost naked. * * * Their sole possessions are the bow and arrow.Meyer,8who has given the subject much study and has conducted personal investigations on the field, states that “although at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in the country, and probably long before, the Negritos were in process of being driven back by the Malays, yet it appears certain that their numbers were then larger, for they were feared by their neighbors, which is now only exceptionally the case.”Of the vast amount of material that has been written during the past century on the Negritos of the Philippines a considerable portion can not be taken authoritatively. Exceptions should be made of the writings of Meyer, Montano, Marche, and Blumentritt. A large part of the writings on the Philippine Negritos have to do with their distribution and numbers, since no one has made an extended study of them on the spot, except Meyer, whose work (consisting of twelve chapters and published in Volume IX of the Publications of the Royal Ethnographical Museum of Dresden, 1893) I regret not to have seen. Two chapters of this work on the distribution of the Negritos, republished in 1899, form the most recent and most nearly correct exposition of this subject. Meyer summarizes as follows:It may be regarded as proved with certainty that Negritos are found in Luzon, Alabat, Corregidor, Panay, Tablas, Negros, Cebu, northeast Mindanao, and Palawan. It is questionable whether they occur in Guimaras, Mindoro, and the Calamianes.This statement would be more nearly correct if Corregidor and Cebu were placed in the second list and Guimaras in the first. In this paper it is possible, by reason of special investigations, to give more reliable and detailed information on this subject than any yet published.Present Distribution in the Philippines9In LuzonThis paper concerns itself chiefly with the Zambales Negritos whose distribution in Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, and Tarlac is treated in detail in the following chapter. But Negritos of more or less pure blood, known variously as Aeta, Agta, Baluga, Dumagat, etc., are found in at least eleven other provinces of Luzon. Beginning with the southern end of the island there are a very few Negritos in the Province of Sorsogon. They are found generally living among the Bicol population and do not run wild in the woods; they have probably drifted down from the neighboring Province ofAlbay. According to a report submitted by the governor of Sorsogon there are a few of these Negritos in Bacon and Bulusan, and four families containing Negrito blood are on the Island of Batang near Gabat.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Eight pueblos of Albay report altogether as many as 800 Negritos, known locally as “Agta.” It is not likely any of them are of pure blood. In all except three of the towns they are servants in Bicol houses, but Malinao, Bacacay, and Tabaco report wandering groups in the mountains.Meyer, who makes no mention of Negritos in Sorsogon or Albay, deems their existence in the Camarines sufficiently well authenticated, according to Blumentritt, who places Negrito half-breeds in the neighborhood of Lagonoy and around Mount Isarog. Information received by The Ethnological Survey places them in the mountains near Baao, Bulic, Iriga, Lagonoy, San José, Gao, and Tigaon, as well as scattered over the Cordillera de Isarog around Sagnay. All of these places are in the extreme southeastern part of the province contiguous to that part of Albay inhabited by Negritos. In neither province is the type pure. In the northern part of the province a few Negritos, called “Dumagat,” are reported near Sipocot and Ragay. The towns of San Vicente, Labo, Paracale, Mambulao, and Capalonga along the north coast also have Negritos, generally called “Aeta.” These are probably of purer blood than those around Mount Isarog. More than a hundred families of “Dumagat” are reported on the Islands of Caringo, Caluat, and Jomalic.Farther to the north the Island of Alabat was first stated by Blumentritt to be inhabited by Dumagat, and in his map of 1882 he places them here but omits them in the map of 1890. Meyer deems their occurrence there to be beyond all doubt, as per Steen Bille’s reports (Reise der Galathea, German ed., 1852). Reports of The Ethnological Survey place Aeta, Baluga, and Dumagat on Alabat—the formerrunningwild in the mountains, the latter living in the barrios of Camagon and Silangan, respectively. On the mainland of the Province of Tayabas the Negritos are generally known as Aeta and may be regarded as being to a large degree of pure blood. They are scattered pretty well over the northern part of the province, but do not, so far as is known, extend down into the peninsula below Pitogo and Macalelon. Only at Mauban are they known as Baluga, which name seems to indicate a mixed breed. The Island of Polillo and the districts of Infanta and Principe, now part of the Province of Tayabas, have large numbers of Negritos probably more nearly approaching a pure physical type than those south of them. The Negritos of Binangonan and Baler have received attention in short papers from Blumentritt, but it yet remains for someone to make a study of them on the spot.Meyer noted in 1872 that Negritos frequently came from the mountainsto Santa Cruz, Laguna Province. These probably came from across the Tayabas line, as none are reported in Laguna except from Santa Maria, in the extreme northern part. Even these are probably very near the boundary line into Rizal Province; perhaps they are over the line. Tanay, Rizal Province, on the shore of Laguna de Bay, reports some 300 Negritos as living in the mountains north of that town. From descriptions given by natives of Tanay they do not appear to be pure types. There is also a small group near Montalbán, in Rizal Province, not more than 20 miles from Manila.Going northward into Bulacan we are in possession of more definite information regarding the whereabouts of these forest dwellers.Zúñigain 1803 spoke of the Negritos of Angat—in those days head-hunters who were accustomed to send messages by means of knotted grass stalks.10This region, the upper reaches of the Angat River, was visited by Mr. E. J. Simons on a collecting trip for The Ethnological Survey in February, 1903. Mr. Simons saw twenty-two little rancherias of the Dumagat, having a total population of 176 people. Some of them had striking Negroid characteristics, but nearly all bore evidence of a mixture of blood. In some cases full-blooded Filipinos have married into the tribe and adopted Negrito customs entirely. Their social state is about the same as that of the Negritos of Zambales, though some of their habits—for instance, betel chewing—approach more nearly those of lower-class Filipinos. A short vocabulary of their dialect is given in Appendix B.Negritos are also found in northern Bulacan and throughout the continuous mountain region extending through Nueva Ecija into Isabela and the old Province of Principe. They are reported from Peñaranda, Bongabong, and Pantabangan, in Nueva Ecija, to the number of 500. This region is yet to be fully explored; the same may be said also of that vast range of mountains, the Sierra Madre, of Isabela and Cagayan. In the Province of Isabela Negritos are reported from all the towns, especially Palanan, on the coast, and Carig, Echague, Angadanan, Cauayan, and Cabagan Nuevo, on the upper reaches of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, but as there is a vast unknown country between, future exploration will have to determine the numerical importance of the Negritos. It has been thought heretofore that this region contained a large number of people of pure blood. This was the opinion set forth by Blumentritt. He says:This coast is the only spot in the Philippines in which the original masters of the Archipelago, the Negritos, hold unrestricted possession of their native land. The eastern side of the Cordillera which slopes toward this coast is also their undisputed possession. However, the western slopes they have been compelled to share with branches of Malay descendants. Here they retain the greatest purity of original physique and character.These statements stand much in need of verification. Inquiries pursued by The Ethnological Survey do not bear them out—in fact, point to an opposite belief.There is a small body of what may be pure types near the boundary between Isabela and Cagayan, west of the Cagayan River, but the coast region, so far as is known, does not hold any Negritos.As many as sixteen towns of Cagayan report Negritos to the total number of about 2,500. They are known commonly as “Atta,” but in the pueblo of Baggao there are three groups known locally as “Atta,” “Diango,” and “Paranan.” They have been described by natives of Baggao as being very similar to the ordinary Filipinos in physical characteristics except that they are darker in color and have bushy hair. Their only weapons are the bow and arrow. Their social status is in every way like that of the Negritos as distinguished from the industrious mountain. Malayans of northern Luzon. Yet future investigations may not associate these robust and warlike tribes with the weak, shirking Negritos. Negritos of pure type have not so far been reported from Cagayan.At only two places in the western half of northern Luzon have Negritos been observed. There is a small group near Piddig, Ilokos Norte, and a wandering band of about thirty-five in the mountains between Villavieja, Abra Province, and Santa Maria, Ilokos Sur Province, from both of which towns they have been reported. It is but a question of time until no trace of them will be left in this region so thickly populated with stronger mountain peoples.In the Southern IslandsAlthough Negritos were reported by the early Spanish writers to be especially numerous in some of the southern islands, probably more of them are found on Luzon than on all the other islands in the Archipelago. Besides Luzon, the only large islands inhabited by them at present are Panay, Negros, Mindanao, and Paragua, but some of the smaller islands, as Tablas and Guimaras, have them.Negritos of pure blood have not been reported from Mindoro, but only the half-breed Manguian, who belong in a group to themselves. It is questionable whether the unknown interior will produce pure types, though it is frequently reported that there are Negritos in the interior.There is a rather large colony of Negritos on the west coast of Tablas near Odiungan, and also a few on the Isla de Carabao immediately south of Tablas. These have probably passed up from Panay. All the provinces of the latter island report Negritos, locally known as “Ati” and “Agta.” They seem to be scattered pretty well over the interior of Panay, being especially numerous in the mountainous region where the Provinces of Antique and Iloilo join. In Antique thereare about 1,000 Negritos living in groups of several families each. They are reported from nearly all the towns, being more numerous along the Dalanas and Sibalon Rivers. The number of pure types is said, however, to be rapidly decreasing on account of intermarriage with the Bukidnon or mountain Visayan. They are of very small stature, with kinky hair. They lead the same nomadic life as the Negritos in other parts, except that they depend more on the products of the forest for subsistence and rarely clear and cultivate “ca-ĭng-ĭn.”11They seem to have developed more of religious superstitions, and believe that both evil spirits and protecting spirits inhabit the forests and plains. However, these beliefs may have been borrowed from the Bukidnon, with whom they come much in contact. From a mixing of the Ati and Bukidnon are sprung the Calibugan, who partake more of the characteristics of their Visayan ancestors than those of the Ati, and generally abandon the nomadic life and live in clearings in the forest.About ten years ago there was a group of about 200 Ati at a place called Labangan, on the Dalanas River, governed by one Capitán Andres. They made clearings and carried people across the river for a small remuneration. Many of them are said to have emigrated to Negros to escape public work to which the local authorities subjected them without compensation.There is a small, wandering group of Negritos on Guimaras, probably emigrants from Panay. They have been reported from both Nagaba and Nueva Valencia, pueblos of that island.Investigation does not bear out the statements of the historian previously quoted in regard to the early populations of Negros. At least it seems that if the southwestern part of that island known as Sojoton had been so thickly populated with Negritos early in the eighteenth century more traces of them would remain to-day. But they seem to have left no marks on the Malayan population. While in the Isio region in August, 1903, I made special investigation and inquiry into this subject and could find no trace of Negritos. Expeditions of the Constabulary into the interior have never met with the little blacks except a single colony near the boundary line between the two provinces just north of Tolon. A few Negritos have also been seen scattered in the interior of southern Oriental Negros back from Nueva Valencia, Ayuquitan, and Bais. From there no trace of them exists until the rugged mountains north of the volcano of Canlaon are reached, in the almost impenetrable recesses of which there are estimated to be a thousand or more. They are especially numerous back of Escalante and formerly made frequent visits to that pueblo, but recent military operations in the region have made them timid, as scouting parties have fired on and killed several of them. The sight of a white man or native of theplain is a signal for an immediate discharge of arrows. Also in the mountains behind Sagay, Cadiz, and Manapla live a few scattered families. I was fortunate in securing photographs of a Negrito captured by the Constabulary near Cadiz. (SeePl. XXVI.) He was much taller than the Negritos of Zambales, but with very little muscular development. He spoke Visayan, and said he knew no other dialect. While in Negros I also secured photographs of a small colony of Ati, who emigrated from Panay about twenty years ago and now live on a mountain hacienda on the slope of Mount Canlaon.So far there is no evidence that Negritos exist on Cebu, Bohol, Samar, and Leyte. In Mindanao they are found only in the extreme northern part of Surigao, not having been reported below Tago. They are called “Mamanua,” and are not very numerous.We have detailed accounts of both the Tagbanua and Batak of Paragua, by señor Manuel Venturello, a native of Puerto Princesa, who has lived among them twenty years. These interesting articles, translated by Capt. E. A. Helmick, Tenth United States Infantry, and published in pamphlet form by the Division of Military Information, Manila, are especially full as to customs, religion, language, etc., of the Tagbanua who inhabit the central part of Paragua from the Bay of Ulugan south to Apurahuan. However, the Tagbanua, although perhaps having a slight amount of Negrito blood, can not be classed with the Negritos. But, in my opinion, the Batak who inhabit the territory from the Bay of Ulugan north to Caruray and Barbacan may be so classed, although they are by no means of pure blood. They are described as being generally of small stature but well developed and muscular. They have very curly but not kinky hair, except in rare cases. Their weapons are the bow and arrow and the blowgun or sumpitan, here called “sumpit.” Their only clothing is a breechcloth and a short skirt of flayed bark. A notable feature of their customs is that both polygyny and polyandry are permitted, this being the only instance of the latter practice so far observed among the tribes of the Philippines. The Batak are not very numerous; their villages have been decimated by ravages of smallpox during the past five years.ConclusionThis rapid survey leaves much to be desired, but it contains about all that is definitely known to-day concerning the whereabouts of the Negritos in the Philippines. No attempt has been made to state numbers. The Philippine census will probably have more exact information in this particular, but it must be borne in mind that even the figures given by the census can be no more than estimates in most instances. The habits of the Negritos do not lend themselves to modern methods of census taking.After all, Blumentritt’s opinion of several years ago is not far from right. Including all mixed breeds having a preponderance of Negrito blood, it is safe to say that the Negrito population of the Philippines probably will not exceed 25,000. Of these the group largest in numbers and probably purest in type is that in the Zambales mountain range, western Luzon. However, while individuals may retain in some cases purity of blood, nowhere are whole groups free from mixture with the Malayan. The Negritos of Panay, Negros, and Mindanao are also to be regarded as pure to a large extent. On the east side of Luzon and in the Island of Paragua, as we have just seen, there is marked evidence of mixture.The social state of the Negritos is everywhere practically the same. They maintain their half-starved lives by the fruits of the chase and forest products, and at best cultivate only small patches of maize and other vegetables. Only occasionally do they live in settled, self-supporting communities, but wander for the most part in scattered families from one place to another.1Les Pygmées, 1887.2However, when one attempts to fathom the mysteries surrounding the origin and migrations of the Negrito race he becomes hopelessly involved in a labyrinth of conjecture. Did the Negritos come from somewhere in Asia, some island like New Guinea, or is their original home now sunk beneath the sea? In the present state of our knowledge we can not hope to know. We find them in certain places to-day; we may believe that they once lived in certain other places, because the people now living there have characteristics peculiar to the little black men. But the Negrito has left behind no archaeological remains to guide the investigator, and he who attempts seriously to consider this question is laying up for himself a store of perplexing problems.It may be of interest to present here the leading facts in connection with the distribution of the Negrito race and to summarize the views set forth by various leading anthropologists who have given the subject most study.The deduction of the French scientists De Quatrefages and Hamy have been based almost entirely on craniological and osteological observations, and these authors argue a much wider distribution of the Negritos than other writers hold. In fact, according to these writers, traces of Negritos are found practically everywhere from India to Japan and New Guinea.De Quatrefages in Les Pygmées, 1887, divides what he calls the “Eastern pygmies,” as opposed to the African pygmies, into two divisions—the Negrito-Papuans and the Negritos proper. The former, he says, have New Guinea as a center of population and extend as far as Gilolo and the Moluccas. They are distinguished from the true Papuans who inhabit New Guinea and who are not classed by that writer as belonging to the Negrito race.On the other hand, Wallace and Earl, supported by Meyer, all of whom have made some investigations in the region occupied by the Papuans, affirm that there is but a single race and that its identity with the Negritos is unmistakable. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 77) says that he and Von Maclay in 1873 saw a number of Papuans in Tidore. He had just come from the Philippines and Von Maclay had then come from Astrolabe Bay, in New Guinea. With these Papuans before them they discussed the question of the unity of the races, and Von Maclay could see no difference between these Papuans and those of Astrolabe Bay, while Meyer declared that the similarities between them and the Negritos of the Philippines was most striking. He says: “That was my standpoint then regarding the question, neither can I relinquish it at present.”Although they defended the unity of the Negritos and the Papuans they recognized that the Papuans were diversified and presented a variety of types, but Meyer regards this not as pointing to a crossing of different elements but as revealing simply the variability of the race. He continues (p. 80): “As the externalhabitusof the Negritos must be declared as almost identical with that of the Papuans, differences in form of the skull, the size of the body, and such like have the less weight in opposition to the great uniformity, as strong contrasts do not even come into play here, and if the Negritos do not show such great amount of variation in their physical characters as the Papuans—which, however,is by no means sufficiently attested—it is no wonder in the case Of a people which has been driven back and deprived of the opportunity of developing itself freely.”Thus it remains for future investigations to establish beyond doubt the identity of the Papuans.De Quatrefages divides all other Eastern pygmies into two divisions—insular and continental—and no authors find fault with this classification. Only in fixing the distribution of the Negritos do the authorities differ. The islands admitted by everybody to contain Negritos to-day may be eliminated from the discussion. These are the Philippines and the Andamans. In the latter the name “Mincopies” has been given to the little blacks, though how this name originated no one seems to know. It is certain that the people do not apply the name to themselves. Extensive study of the Andamans has been made by Flower and Man.The Moluccas and lesser Sunda Islands just west of New Guinea were stated by De Quatrefages in 1887 (Les Pygmées) to be inhabited by Negritos, although three years previously, as recorded in Hommes Fossiles, 1884, he had doubted their existence there. He gave no authority, and assigned no reason in his later work for this change of opinion. Meyer thinks this sufficient reason why one should not take De Quatrefages too seriously, and states that proofs of the existence of the Negritos in this locality are “so weak as not to be worth discussing them in detail.” From deductions based on the examination of a single skull Hamy inferred that pure Negritos were found on Timor, but the people of Timor were found by Meyer to be mixed Papuans and Malays, resembling the latter on the coasts and the former in the interior.Likewise in Celebes, Borneo, and Java the French writers think that traces of an ancient Negrito population may be found, while Meyer holds that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant such an assumption. In Sumatra he admits that there is an element not Malayan, which on account of the nearness of Malacca may beNegritic,but that fact is so far by no means proved.In regard to Formosa Meyer quotes Scheteleg (Trans. Ethn. Soc.,n.s., 1869, vii): “I am convinced * * * that the Malay origin of most of the inhabitants of Formosa is incontestable.” But Hamy holds that the two skulls which Scheteleg brought were Negrito skulls, an assumption which Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 52) disposes of as follows: “To conclude the occurrence of a race in a country from certain characters in two skulls, when this race has not been registered from that country, is, in the present embryonic state of craniology, an unwarrantable proceeding.”In like manner Hamy has found that a certain Japanese skull in the Paris Museum resembles a Negrito skull, and he also finds traces of Negritos in Japan in the small stature, crisp hair, and darker color of the natives of the interior of the Island of Kiusiu. But Meyer holds that the facts brought forward up to the present time are far from being established, and objects to the acceptance of surmises and explanations more or less subjective as conclusive.There is no doubt of the occurrence of Negritos in the peninsula of Malacca, where both pure and mixed people have been found. These are reported under a variety of names, of which Semang and Sakaí are perhaps the best known. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, p. 62, footnote 2) says: “Stevens divides the Negritos of Malacca into two principal tribes—the Belendas, who with the Tumiors branched off from the Kenis tribe, and the Meniks, who consist of the Panggans of Kelantan and Petani and the Semangs of the west coast. Only the Panggans * * * and the Tumiors are pure Negritos. A name often recurring for the Belendas is Sakeis (Malay: ‘bondman,’ ‘servant’), a designation given them in the first instance by the Malays but which they often also apply to themselves when addressing strangers.”In their efforts to find Negrito traces in the Mao-tse, the aboriginal peoples of the Chinese Empire, De Lacouperie and De Quatrefages have, in the opinion of Meyer, even less to stand on than had Hamy in the case of Japan. In like manner it remains to be proved whether the Moií of Annam are related to Negritos, as the two French writers have stated, but whose opinions have been vigorously opposed by Meyer and others.The question of the aboriginal inhabitants of India is one of even greater importance and presents greater difficulties. If it can be shown that this aboriginal population was Negrito, and if the relations which researches, especially in philology, have indicated between the peoples of India and those of Australia can be proved, a range of possibilities of startling importance, affecting the race question of Oceania in general and the origin and distribution of the Negritos in particular, will be opened up. In regard to the Indian question there is much diversity of opinion. De Quatrefages and Hamy, as usual, regardthe Negritos as established in India, but Topinard and Virchow are opposed to this belief. Meyer holds that “this part of the Negrito question is in no way ripe for decision, and how much less the question as to a possible relationship of this hypothetical primitive population with the Negroes of Africa.” (Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 70.)In anthropology a statement may be regarded as proved for the time being so long as no opposition to it exists. With the exception of the Philippine and the Andaman Islands and the Malay Peninsula, as we have seen, the presence of traces of Negritos is an open question. The evidence at hand is incomplete and insufficient, and we must therefore be content to let future investigators work out these unsolved problems.3English edition of Stanley, 1874, p. 106.4Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 6, footnote.5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Reprint by Retana, vol. I, p. 422.6By this is meant Fr. San Antonio’s Chronicas de la Apostolica, Provincia de San Gregorio, etc., 1738–1744.7Relación de las Islas Filipinas, 1604; 2d ed., 1890, p. 38.8Meyer, Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 4.9See sketch map,Pl. I.10Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Ed. Retana, 1893, I, p. 421.11Ca-ĭng-ĭn is a Malayan word for cultivated clearing.

Probably no group of primitive men has attracted more attention from the civilized world than the pygmy blacks. From the time of Homer and Aristotle the pygmies, although their existence was not absolutely known at that early period, have had their place in fable and legend, and as civilized man has become more and more acquainted with the unknown parts of the globe he has met again and again with the same strange type of the human species until he has been led to conclude that there is practically no part of the tropic-zone where these little blacks have not lived at some time.

Mankind at large is interested in a race of dwarfs just as it would be in a race of giants, no matter what the color or social state; and scientists have long been concerned with trying to fix the position of the pygmies in the history of the human race. That they have played an important ethnologic rôle can not be doubted; and although to-day they are so scattered and so modified by surrounding people as largely to have disappeared as a pure type, yet they have everywhere left their imprint on the peoples who have absorbed them.

The Negritos of the Philippines constitute one branch of the Eastern division of the pygmy race as opposed to the African division, it being generally recognized that the blacks of short stature may be so grouped in two large and comprehensive divisions. Other well-known branches of the Eastern group are the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands and perhaps also the Papuans of New Guinea, very similar in many particulars to the Negritos of the Philippines, although authorities differ in grouping the Papuans with the Negritos. The Asiatic continent is also not without its representatives of the black dwarfs, having the Sakai of the Malay Peninsula. The presence of Negritos over so large an area has especially attracted the attention of anthropologists who have taken generally one or the other of two theories advanced to explain it: First, that the entire oceanic region is a partly submerged continent, once connected with the Asiatic mainland and over which this aboriginal race spread prior to the subsidence. The second theory is that the peopling of the several archipelagoes by the Negritos has been a gradualspread from island to island. This latter theory, advanced by De Quatrefages,1is the generally accepted one, although it is somewhat difficult to believe that the ancestors of weak and scattered tribes such as to-day are found in the Philippines could ever have been the sea rovers that such a belief would imply. It is a well-known fact, however, that the Malays have spread in this manner, and, while it is hardly possible that the Negritos have ever been as bold seafarers as the Malays, yet where they have been left in undisputed possession of their shores they have remained reckless fishermen. The statement that they are now nearly always found in impenetrable mountain forests is not an argument against the migration-by-sea theory, because they have been surrounded by stronger races and have been compelled to flee to the forests or suffer extermination. The fact that they live farther inland than the stronger peoples is also evidence that they were the first inhabitants, for it is not natural to suppose that a weaker race could enter territory occupied by a stronger and gain a permanent foothold there.2

The attention of the first Europeans who visited the Philippines was attracted by people with frizzly hair and with a skin darker in color than that of the ruling tribes. Pigafetta, to whom we are indebted foran account of Magellan’s voyage of discovery in 1521, mentions Negritos as living in the Island of Panglao, southwest of Bohol and east of Cebu.3If we are to believe later historians the shores of some of the islands fairly swarmed with Negritos when the Spaniards arrived. Meyer gives an interesting extract from an old account by Galvano, The Discoveries of the World (ed. Bethune, Hakluyt Soc., 1862, p. 234):4

In the same yeere 1543, and in moneth of August, the generall Rui Lopez sent one Bartholomew de la torre in a smal ship into new Spaine to acquaint the vizeroy don Antonio de Mendoça, with all things. They went to the Islands of Siria, Gaonata, Bisaia and many others, standing in 11 and 12 degrees towards the north, where Magellan had beene. * * * They found also an Archepelagus of Islands well inhabited with people, lying in 15 or 16 degrees: * * * There came vnto them certaine barkes or boates handsomely decked, wherein the master and principall men sate on high, and vnderneath were very blacke moores with frizled haire * * *: and being demanded where they had these blacke moores, they answered, that they had them from certaine islands standing fast by Sebut, where there were many of them.

In the same yeere 1543, and in moneth of August, the generall Rui Lopez sent one Bartholomew de la torre in a smal ship into new Spaine to acquaint the vizeroy don Antonio de Mendoça, with all things. They went to the Islands of Siria, Gaonata, Bisaia and many others, standing in 11 and 12 degrees towards the north, where Magellan had beene. * * * They found also an Archepelagus of Islands well inhabited with people, lying in 15 or 16 degrees: * * * There came vnto them certaine barkes or boates handsomely decked, wherein the master and principall men sate on high, and vnderneath were very blacke moores with frizled haire * * *: and being demanded where they had these blacke moores, they answered, that they had them from certaine islands standing fast by Sebut, where there were many of them.

Zúñiga5quotes the Franciscan history6as follows:

The Negritos which our first conquerors found were, according to tradition, the first possessors of the islands of this Archipelago, and, having been conquered by the political nations of other kingdoms, they fled to the mountains and populated them, whence no one has been able to accomplish their extermination on account of the inaccessibility of the places where they live. In the past they were so proud of their primitive dominion that, although they did not have strength to resist the strangers in the open, in the woods and mountains and mouths of the rivers they were very powerful. They made sudden attacks on the pueblos and compelled their neighbors to pay tribute to them as to lords of the earth which they inhabited, and if these did not wish to pay them they killed right and left, collecting the tribute in heads. * * *One of the islands of note in this Archipelago is that called Isla de Negros on account of the abundance of them [negroes]. In one point of this island—on the west side, called “Sojoton”—there is a great number of Negritos, and in the center of the island many more.

The Negritos which our first conquerors found were, according to tradition, the first possessors of the islands of this Archipelago, and, having been conquered by the political nations of other kingdoms, they fled to the mountains and populated them, whence no one has been able to accomplish their extermination on account of the inaccessibility of the places where they live. In the past they were so proud of their primitive dominion that, although they did not have strength to resist the strangers in the open, in the woods and mountains and mouths of the rivers they were very powerful. They made sudden attacks on the pueblos and compelled their neighbors to pay tribute to them as to lords of the earth which they inhabited, and if these did not wish to pay them they killed right and left, collecting the tribute in heads. * * *

One of the islands of note in this Archipelago is that called Isla de Negros on account of the abundance of them [negroes]. In one point of this island—on the west side, called “Sojoton”—there is a great number of Negritos, and in the center of the island many more.

Chirino has the following to say of the Negritos of Panay at the end of the sixteenth century:7

Amongst these (Bisayas) there are also some negroes, the ancient inhabitants of the island of which they had taken possession before the Bisayas. They aresomewhat less black and less ugly man those of Guinea, but are smaller and weaker, although as regards hair and beard they are similar. They are more barbarous and savage than the Bisayas and other Filipinos, for they do not, like them, have houses and fixed settlements. They neither sow nor reap, and they wander through the mountains with their women and children like animals, almost naked. * * * Their sole possessions are the bow and arrow.

Amongst these (Bisayas) there are also some negroes, the ancient inhabitants of the island of which they had taken possession before the Bisayas. They aresomewhat less black and less ugly man those of Guinea, but are smaller and weaker, although as regards hair and beard they are similar. They are more barbarous and savage than the Bisayas and other Filipinos, for they do not, like them, have houses and fixed settlements. They neither sow nor reap, and they wander through the mountains with their women and children like animals, almost naked. * * * Their sole possessions are the bow and arrow.

Meyer,8who has given the subject much study and has conducted personal investigations on the field, states that “although at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in the country, and probably long before, the Negritos were in process of being driven back by the Malays, yet it appears certain that their numbers were then larger, for they were feared by their neighbors, which is now only exceptionally the case.”

Of the vast amount of material that has been written during the past century on the Negritos of the Philippines a considerable portion can not be taken authoritatively. Exceptions should be made of the writings of Meyer, Montano, Marche, and Blumentritt. A large part of the writings on the Philippine Negritos have to do with their distribution and numbers, since no one has made an extended study of them on the spot, except Meyer, whose work (consisting of twelve chapters and published in Volume IX of the Publications of the Royal Ethnographical Museum of Dresden, 1893) I regret not to have seen. Two chapters of this work on the distribution of the Negritos, republished in 1899, form the most recent and most nearly correct exposition of this subject. Meyer summarizes as follows:

It may be regarded as proved with certainty that Negritos are found in Luzon, Alabat, Corregidor, Panay, Tablas, Negros, Cebu, northeast Mindanao, and Palawan. It is questionable whether they occur in Guimaras, Mindoro, and the Calamianes.

It may be regarded as proved with certainty that Negritos are found in Luzon, Alabat, Corregidor, Panay, Tablas, Negros, Cebu, northeast Mindanao, and Palawan. It is questionable whether they occur in Guimaras, Mindoro, and the Calamianes.

This statement would be more nearly correct if Corregidor and Cebu were placed in the second list and Guimaras in the first. In this paper it is possible, by reason of special investigations, to give more reliable and detailed information on this subject than any yet published.

Present Distribution in the Philippines9In LuzonThis paper concerns itself chiefly with the Zambales Negritos whose distribution in Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, and Tarlac is treated in detail in the following chapter. But Negritos of more or less pure blood, known variously as Aeta, Agta, Baluga, Dumagat, etc., are found in at least eleven other provinces of Luzon. Beginning with the southern end of the island there are a very few Negritos in the Province of Sorsogon. They are found generally living among the Bicol population and do not run wild in the woods; they have probably drifted down from the neighboring Province ofAlbay. According to a report submitted by the governor of Sorsogon there are a few of these Negritos in Bacon and Bulusan, and four families containing Negrito blood are on the Island of Batang near Gabat.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Eight pueblos of Albay report altogether as many as 800 Negritos, known locally as “Agta.” It is not likely any of them are of pure blood. In all except three of the towns they are servants in Bicol houses, but Malinao, Bacacay, and Tabaco report wandering groups in the mountains.Meyer, who makes no mention of Negritos in Sorsogon or Albay, deems their existence in the Camarines sufficiently well authenticated, according to Blumentritt, who places Negrito half-breeds in the neighborhood of Lagonoy and around Mount Isarog. Information received by The Ethnological Survey places them in the mountains near Baao, Bulic, Iriga, Lagonoy, San José, Gao, and Tigaon, as well as scattered over the Cordillera de Isarog around Sagnay. All of these places are in the extreme southeastern part of the province contiguous to that part of Albay inhabited by Negritos. In neither province is the type pure. In the northern part of the province a few Negritos, called “Dumagat,” are reported near Sipocot and Ragay. The towns of San Vicente, Labo, Paracale, Mambulao, and Capalonga along the north coast also have Negritos, generally called “Aeta.” These are probably of purer blood than those around Mount Isarog. More than a hundred families of “Dumagat” are reported on the Islands of Caringo, Caluat, and Jomalic.Farther to the north the Island of Alabat was first stated by Blumentritt to be inhabited by Dumagat, and in his map of 1882 he places them here but omits them in the map of 1890. Meyer deems their occurrence there to be beyond all doubt, as per Steen Bille’s reports (Reise der Galathea, German ed., 1852). Reports of The Ethnological Survey place Aeta, Baluga, and Dumagat on Alabat—the formerrunningwild in the mountains, the latter living in the barrios of Camagon and Silangan, respectively. On the mainland of the Province of Tayabas the Negritos are generally known as Aeta and may be regarded as being to a large degree of pure blood. They are scattered pretty well over the northern part of the province, but do not, so far as is known, extend down into the peninsula below Pitogo and Macalelon. Only at Mauban are they known as Baluga, which name seems to indicate a mixed breed. The Island of Polillo and the districts of Infanta and Principe, now part of the Province of Tayabas, have large numbers of Negritos probably more nearly approaching a pure physical type than those south of them. The Negritos of Binangonan and Baler have received attention in short papers from Blumentritt, but it yet remains for someone to make a study of them on the spot.Meyer noted in 1872 that Negritos frequently came from the mountainsto Santa Cruz, Laguna Province. These probably came from across the Tayabas line, as none are reported in Laguna except from Santa Maria, in the extreme northern part. Even these are probably very near the boundary line into Rizal Province; perhaps they are over the line. Tanay, Rizal Province, on the shore of Laguna de Bay, reports some 300 Negritos as living in the mountains north of that town. From descriptions given by natives of Tanay they do not appear to be pure types. There is also a small group near Montalbán, in Rizal Province, not more than 20 miles from Manila.Going northward into Bulacan we are in possession of more definite information regarding the whereabouts of these forest dwellers.Zúñigain 1803 spoke of the Negritos of Angat—in those days head-hunters who were accustomed to send messages by means of knotted grass stalks.10This region, the upper reaches of the Angat River, was visited by Mr. E. J. Simons on a collecting trip for The Ethnological Survey in February, 1903. Mr. Simons saw twenty-two little rancherias of the Dumagat, having a total population of 176 people. Some of them had striking Negroid characteristics, but nearly all bore evidence of a mixture of blood. In some cases full-blooded Filipinos have married into the tribe and adopted Negrito customs entirely. Their social state is about the same as that of the Negritos of Zambales, though some of their habits—for instance, betel chewing—approach more nearly those of lower-class Filipinos. A short vocabulary of their dialect is given in Appendix B.Negritos are also found in northern Bulacan and throughout the continuous mountain region extending through Nueva Ecija into Isabela and the old Province of Principe. They are reported from Peñaranda, Bongabong, and Pantabangan, in Nueva Ecija, to the number of 500. This region is yet to be fully explored; the same may be said also of that vast range of mountains, the Sierra Madre, of Isabela and Cagayan. In the Province of Isabela Negritos are reported from all the towns, especially Palanan, on the coast, and Carig, Echague, Angadanan, Cauayan, and Cabagan Nuevo, on the upper reaches of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, but as there is a vast unknown country between, future exploration will have to determine the numerical importance of the Negritos. It has been thought heretofore that this region contained a large number of people of pure blood. This was the opinion set forth by Blumentritt. He says:This coast is the only spot in the Philippines in which the original masters of the Archipelago, the Negritos, hold unrestricted possession of their native land. The eastern side of the Cordillera which slopes toward this coast is also their undisputed possession. However, the western slopes they have been compelled to share with branches of Malay descendants. Here they retain the greatest purity of original physique and character.These statements stand much in need of verification. Inquiries pursued by The Ethnological Survey do not bear them out—in fact, point to an opposite belief.There is a small body of what may be pure types near the boundary between Isabela and Cagayan, west of the Cagayan River, but the coast region, so far as is known, does not hold any Negritos.As many as sixteen towns of Cagayan report Negritos to the total number of about 2,500. They are known commonly as “Atta,” but in the pueblo of Baggao there are three groups known locally as “Atta,” “Diango,” and “Paranan.” They have been described by natives of Baggao as being very similar to the ordinary Filipinos in physical characteristics except that they are darker in color and have bushy hair. Their only weapons are the bow and arrow. Their social status is in every way like that of the Negritos as distinguished from the industrious mountain. Malayans of northern Luzon. Yet future investigations may not associate these robust and warlike tribes with the weak, shirking Negritos. Negritos of pure type have not so far been reported from Cagayan.At only two places in the western half of northern Luzon have Negritos been observed. There is a small group near Piddig, Ilokos Norte, and a wandering band of about thirty-five in the mountains between Villavieja, Abra Province, and Santa Maria, Ilokos Sur Province, from both of which towns they have been reported. It is but a question of time until no trace of them will be left in this region so thickly populated with stronger mountain peoples.In the Southern IslandsAlthough Negritos were reported by the early Spanish writers to be especially numerous in some of the southern islands, probably more of them are found on Luzon than on all the other islands in the Archipelago. Besides Luzon, the only large islands inhabited by them at present are Panay, Negros, Mindanao, and Paragua, but some of the smaller islands, as Tablas and Guimaras, have them.Negritos of pure blood have not been reported from Mindoro, but only the half-breed Manguian, who belong in a group to themselves. It is questionable whether the unknown interior will produce pure types, though it is frequently reported that there are Negritos in the interior.There is a rather large colony of Negritos on the west coast of Tablas near Odiungan, and also a few on the Isla de Carabao immediately south of Tablas. These have probably passed up from Panay. All the provinces of the latter island report Negritos, locally known as “Ati” and “Agta.” They seem to be scattered pretty well over the interior of Panay, being especially numerous in the mountainous region where the Provinces of Antique and Iloilo join. In Antique thereare about 1,000 Negritos living in groups of several families each. They are reported from nearly all the towns, being more numerous along the Dalanas and Sibalon Rivers. The number of pure types is said, however, to be rapidly decreasing on account of intermarriage with the Bukidnon or mountain Visayan. They are of very small stature, with kinky hair. They lead the same nomadic life as the Negritos in other parts, except that they depend more on the products of the forest for subsistence and rarely clear and cultivate “ca-ĭng-ĭn.”11They seem to have developed more of religious superstitions, and believe that both evil spirits and protecting spirits inhabit the forests and plains. However, these beliefs may have been borrowed from the Bukidnon, with whom they come much in contact. From a mixing of the Ati and Bukidnon are sprung the Calibugan, who partake more of the characteristics of their Visayan ancestors than those of the Ati, and generally abandon the nomadic life and live in clearings in the forest.About ten years ago there was a group of about 200 Ati at a place called Labangan, on the Dalanas River, governed by one Capitán Andres. They made clearings and carried people across the river for a small remuneration. Many of them are said to have emigrated to Negros to escape public work to which the local authorities subjected them without compensation.There is a small, wandering group of Negritos on Guimaras, probably emigrants from Panay. They have been reported from both Nagaba and Nueva Valencia, pueblos of that island.Investigation does not bear out the statements of the historian previously quoted in regard to the early populations of Negros. At least it seems that if the southwestern part of that island known as Sojoton had been so thickly populated with Negritos early in the eighteenth century more traces of them would remain to-day. But they seem to have left no marks on the Malayan population. While in the Isio region in August, 1903, I made special investigation and inquiry into this subject and could find no trace of Negritos. Expeditions of the Constabulary into the interior have never met with the little blacks except a single colony near the boundary line between the two provinces just north of Tolon. A few Negritos have also been seen scattered in the interior of southern Oriental Negros back from Nueva Valencia, Ayuquitan, and Bais. From there no trace of them exists until the rugged mountains north of the volcano of Canlaon are reached, in the almost impenetrable recesses of which there are estimated to be a thousand or more. They are especially numerous back of Escalante and formerly made frequent visits to that pueblo, but recent military operations in the region have made them timid, as scouting parties have fired on and killed several of them. The sight of a white man or native of theplain is a signal for an immediate discharge of arrows. Also in the mountains behind Sagay, Cadiz, and Manapla live a few scattered families. I was fortunate in securing photographs of a Negrito captured by the Constabulary near Cadiz. (SeePl. XXVI.) He was much taller than the Negritos of Zambales, but with very little muscular development. He spoke Visayan, and said he knew no other dialect. While in Negros I also secured photographs of a small colony of Ati, who emigrated from Panay about twenty years ago and now live on a mountain hacienda on the slope of Mount Canlaon.So far there is no evidence that Negritos exist on Cebu, Bohol, Samar, and Leyte. In Mindanao they are found only in the extreme northern part of Surigao, not having been reported below Tago. They are called “Mamanua,” and are not very numerous.We have detailed accounts of both the Tagbanua and Batak of Paragua, by señor Manuel Venturello, a native of Puerto Princesa, who has lived among them twenty years. These interesting articles, translated by Capt. E. A. Helmick, Tenth United States Infantry, and published in pamphlet form by the Division of Military Information, Manila, are especially full as to customs, religion, language, etc., of the Tagbanua who inhabit the central part of Paragua from the Bay of Ulugan south to Apurahuan. However, the Tagbanua, although perhaps having a slight amount of Negrito blood, can not be classed with the Negritos. But, in my opinion, the Batak who inhabit the territory from the Bay of Ulugan north to Caruray and Barbacan may be so classed, although they are by no means of pure blood. They are described as being generally of small stature but well developed and muscular. They have very curly but not kinky hair, except in rare cases. Their weapons are the bow and arrow and the blowgun or sumpitan, here called “sumpit.” Their only clothing is a breechcloth and a short skirt of flayed bark. A notable feature of their customs is that both polygyny and polyandry are permitted, this being the only instance of the latter practice so far observed among the tribes of the Philippines. The Batak are not very numerous; their villages have been decimated by ravages of smallpox during the past five years.

In LuzonThis paper concerns itself chiefly with the Zambales Negritos whose distribution in Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, and Tarlac is treated in detail in the following chapter. But Negritos of more or less pure blood, known variously as Aeta, Agta, Baluga, Dumagat, etc., are found in at least eleven other provinces of Luzon. Beginning with the southern end of the island there are a very few Negritos in the Province of Sorsogon. They are found generally living among the Bicol population and do not run wild in the woods; they have probably drifted down from the neighboring Province ofAlbay. According to a report submitted by the governor of Sorsogon there are a few of these Negritos in Bacon and Bulusan, and four families containing Negrito blood are on the Island of Batang near Gabat.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Eight pueblos of Albay report altogether as many as 800 Negritos, known locally as “Agta.” It is not likely any of them are of pure blood. In all except three of the towns they are servants in Bicol houses, but Malinao, Bacacay, and Tabaco report wandering groups in the mountains.Meyer, who makes no mention of Negritos in Sorsogon or Albay, deems their existence in the Camarines sufficiently well authenticated, according to Blumentritt, who places Negrito half-breeds in the neighborhood of Lagonoy and around Mount Isarog. Information received by The Ethnological Survey places them in the mountains near Baao, Bulic, Iriga, Lagonoy, San José, Gao, and Tigaon, as well as scattered over the Cordillera de Isarog around Sagnay. All of these places are in the extreme southeastern part of the province contiguous to that part of Albay inhabited by Negritos. In neither province is the type pure. In the northern part of the province a few Negritos, called “Dumagat,” are reported near Sipocot and Ragay. The towns of San Vicente, Labo, Paracale, Mambulao, and Capalonga along the north coast also have Negritos, generally called “Aeta.” These are probably of purer blood than those around Mount Isarog. More than a hundred families of “Dumagat” are reported on the Islands of Caringo, Caluat, and Jomalic.Farther to the north the Island of Alabat was first stated by Blumentritt to be inhabited by Dumagat, and in his map of 1882 he places them here but omits them in the map of 1890. Meyer deems their occurrence there to be beyond all doubt, as per Steen Bille’s reports (Reise der Galathea, German ed., 1852). Reports of The Ethnological Survey place Aeta, Baluga, and Dumagat on Alabat—the formerrunningwild in the mountains, the latter living in the barrios of Camagon and Silangan, respectively. On the mainland of the Province of Tayabas the Negritos are generally known as Aeta and may be regarded as being to a large degree of pure blood. They are scattered pretty well over the northern part of the province, but do not, so far as is known, extend down into the peninsula below Pitogo and Macalelon. Only at Mauban are they known as Baluga, which name seems to indicate a mixed breed. The Island of Polillo and the districts of Infanta and Principe, now part of the Province of Tayabas, have large numbers of Negritos probably more nearly approaching a pure physical type than those south of them. The Negritos of Binangonan and Baler have received attention in short papers from Blumentritt, but it yet remains for someone to make a study of them on the spot.Meyer noted in 1872 that Negritos frequently came from the mountainsto Santa Cruz, Laguna Province. These probably came from across the Tayabas line, as none are reported in Laguna except from Santa Maria, in the extreme northern part. Even these are probably very near the boundary line into Rizal Province; perhaps they are over the line. Tanay, Rizal Province, on the shore of Laguna de Bay, reports some 300 Negritos as living in the mountains north of that town. From descriptions given by natives of Tanay they do not appear to be pure types. There is also a small group near Montalbán, in Rizal Province, not more than 20 miles from Manila.Going northward into Bulacan we are in possession of more definite information regarding the whereabouts of these forest dwellers.Zúñigain 1803 spoke of the Negritos of Angat—in those days head-hunters who were accustomed to send messages by means of knotted grass stalks.10This region, the upper reaches of the Angat River, was visited by Mr. E. J. Simons on a collecting trip for The Ethnological Survey in February, 1903. Mr. Simons saw twenty-two little rancherias of the Dumagat, having a total population of 176 people. Some of them had striking Negroid characteristics, but nearly all bore evidence of a mixture of blood. In some cases full-blooded Filipinos have married into the tribe and adopted Negrito customs entirely. Their social state is about the same as that of the Negritos of Zambales, though some of their habits—for instance, betel chewing—approach more nearly those of lower-class Filipinos. A short vocabulary of their dialect is given in Appendix B.Negritos are also found in northern Bulacan and throughout the continuous mountain region extending through Nueva Ecija into Isabela and the old Province of Principe. They are reported from Peñaranda, Bongabong, and Pantabangan, in Nueva Ecija, to the number of 500. This region is yet to be fully explored; the same may be said also of that vast range of mountains, the Sierra Madre, of Isabela and Cagayan. In the Province of Isabela Negritos are reported from all the towns, especially Palanan, on the coast, and Carig, Echague, Angadanan, Cauayan, and Cabagan Nuevo, on the upper reaches of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, but as there is a vast unknown country between, future exploration will have to determine the numerical importance of the Negritos. It has been thought heretofore that this region contained a large number of people of pure blood. This was the opinion set forth by Blumentritt. He says:This coast is the only spot in the Philippines in which the original masters of the Archipelago, the Negritos, hold unrestricted possession of their native land. The eastern side of the Cordillera which slopes toward this coast is also their undisputed possession. However, the western slopes they have been compelled to share with branches of Malay descendants. Here they retain the greatest purity of original physique and character.These statements stand much in need of verification. Inquiries pursued by The Ethnological Survey do not bear them out—in fact, point to an opposite belief.There is a small body of what may be pure types near the boundary between Isabela and Cagayan, west of the Cagayan River, but the coast region, so far as is known, does not hold any Negritos.As many as sixteen towns of Cagayan report Negritos to the total number of about 2,500. They are known commonly as “Atta,” but in the pueblo of Baggao there are three groups known locally as “Atta,” “Diango,” and “Paranan.” They have been described by natives of Baggao as being very similar to the ordinary Filipinos in physical characteristics except that they are darker in color and have bushy hair. Their only weapons are the bow and arrow. Their social status is in every way like that of the Negritos as distinguished from the industrious mountain. Malayans of northern Luzon. Yet future investigations may not associate these robust and warlike tribes with the weak, shirking Negritos. Negritos of pure type have not so far been reported from Cagayan.At only two places in the western half of northern Luzon have Negritos been observed. There is a small group near Piddig, Ilokos Norte, and a wandering band of about thirty-five in the mountains between Villavieja, Abra Province, and Santa Maria, Ilokos Sur Province, from both of which towns they have been reported. It is but a question of time until no trace of them will be left in this region so thickly populated with stronger mountain peoples.

This paper concerns itself chiefly with the Zambales Negritos whose distribution in Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, and Tarlac is treated in detail in the following chapter. But Negritos of more or less pure blood, known variously as Aeta, Agta, Baluga, Dumagat, etc., are found in at least eleven other provinces of Luzon. Beginning with the southern end of the island there are a very few Negritos in the Province of Sorsogon. They are found generally living among the Bicol population and do not run wild in the woods; they have probably drifted down from the neighboring Province ofAlbay. According to a report submitted by the governor of Sorsogon there are a few of these Negritos in Bacon and Bulusan, and four families containing Negrito blood are on the Island of Batang near Gabat.

Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.

Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos.

Eight pueblos of Albay report altogether as many as 800 Negritos, known locally as “Agta.” It is not likely any of them are of pure blood. In all except three of the towns they are servants in Bicol houses, but Malinao, Bacacay, and Tabaco report wandering groups in the mountains.

Meyer, who makes no mention of Negritos in Sorsogon or Albay, deems their existence in the Camarines sufficiently well authenticated, according to Blumentritt, who places Negrito half-breeds in the neighborhood of Lagonoy and around Mount Isarog. Information received by The Ethnological Survey places them in the mountains near Baao, Bulic, Iriga, Lagonoy, San José, Gao, and Tigaon, as well as scattered over the Cordillera de Isarog around Sagnay. All of these places are in the extreme southeastern part of the province contiguous to that part of Albay inhabited by Negritos. In neither province is the type pure. In the northern part of the province a few Negritos, called “Dumagat,” are reported near Sipocot and Ragay. The towns of San Vicente, Labo, Paracale, Mambulao, and Capalonga along the north coast also have Negritos, generally called “Aeta.” These are probably of purer blood than those around Mount Isarog. More than a hundred families of “Dumagat” are reported on the Islands of Caringo, Caluat, and Jomalic.

Farther to the north the Island of Alabat was first stated by Blumentritt to be inhabited by Dumagat, and in his map of 1882 he places them here but omits them in the map of 1890. Meyer deems their occurrence there to be beyond all doubt, as per Steen Bille’s reports (Reise der Galathea, German ed., 1852). Reports of The Ethnological Survey place Aeta, Baluga, and Dumagat on Alabat—the formerrunningwild in the mountains, the latter living in the barrios of Camagon and Silangan, respectively. On the mainland of the Province of Tayabas the Negritos are generally known as Aeta and may be regarded as being to a large degree of pure blood. They are scattered pretty well over the northern part of the province, but do not, so far as is known, extend down into the peninsula below Pitogo and Macalelon. Only at Mauban are they known as Baluga, which name seems to indicate a mixed breed. The Island of Polillo and the districts of Infanta and Principe, now part of the Province of Tayabas, have large numbers of Negritos probably more nearly approaching a pure physical type than those south of them. The Negritos of Binangonan and Baler have received attention in short papers from Blumentritt, but it yet remains for someone to make a study of them on the spot.

Meyer noted in 1872 that Negritos frequently came from the mountainsto Santa Cruz, Laguna Province. These probably came from across the Tayabas line, as none are reported in Laguna except from Santa Maria, in the extreme northern part. Even these are probably very near the boundary line into Rizal Province; perhaps they are over the line. Tanay, Rizal Province, on the shore of Laguna de Bay, reports some 300 Negritos as living in the mountains north of that town. From descriptions given by natives of Tanay they do not appear to be pure types. There is also a small group near Montalbán, in Rizal Province, not more than 20 miles from Manila.

Going northward into Bulacan we are in possession of more definite information regarding the whereabouts of these forest dwellers.Zúñigain 1803 spoke of the Negritos of Angat—in those days head-hunters who were accustomed to send messages by means of knotted grass stalks.10

This region, the upper reaches of the Angat River, was visited by Mr. E. J. Simons on a collecting trip for The Ethnological Survey in February, 1903. Mr. Simons saw twenty-two little rancherias of the Dumagat, having a total population of 176 people. Some of them had striking Negroid characteristics, but nearly all bore evidence of a mixture of blood. In some cases full-blooded Filipinos have married into the tribe and adopted Negrito customs entirely. Their social state is about the same as that of the Negritos of Zambales, though some of their habits—for instance, betel chewing—approach more nearly those of lower-class Filipinos. A short vocabulary of their dialect is given in Appendix B.

Negritos are also found in northern Bulacan and throughout the continuous mountain region extending through Nueva Ecija into Isabela and the old Province of Principe. They are reported from Peñaranda, Bongabong, and Pantabangan, in Nueva Ecija, to the number of 500. This region is yet to be fully explored; the same may be said also of that vast range of mountains, the Sierra Madre, of Isabela and Cagayan. In the Province of Isabela Negritos are reported from all the towns, especially Palanan, on the coast, and Carig, Echague, Angadanan, Cauayan, and Cabagan Nuevo, on the upper reaches of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, but as there is a vast unknown country between, future exploration will have to determine the numerical importance of the Negritos. It has been thought heretofore that this region contained a large number of people of pure blood. This was the opinion set forth by Blumentritt. He says:

This coast is the only spot in the Philippines in which the original masters of the Archipelago, the Negritos, hold unrestricted possession of their native land. The eastern side of the Cordillera which slopes toward this coast is also their undisputed possession. However, the western slopes they have been compelled to share with branches of Malay descendants. Here they retain the greatest purity of original physique and character.

This coast is the only spot in the Philippines in which the original masters of the Archipelago, the Negritos, hold unrestricted possession of their native land. The eastern side of the Cordillera which slopes toward this coast is also their undisputed possession. However, the western slopes they have been compelled to share with branches of Malay descendants. Here they retain the greatest purity of original physique and character.

These statements stand much in need of verification. Inquiries pursued by The Ethnological Survey do not bear them out—in fact, point to an opposite belief.

There is a small body of what may be pure types near the boundary between Isabela and Cagayan, west of the Cagayan River, but the coast region, so far as is known, does not hold any Negritos.

As many as sixteen towns of Cagayan report Negritos to the total number of about 2,500. They are known commonly as “Atta,” but in the pueblo of Baggao there are three groups known locally as “Atta,” “Diango,” and “Paranan.” They have been described by natives of Baggao as being very similar to the ordinary Filipinos in physical characteristics except that they are darker in color and have bushy hair. Their only weapons are the bow and arrow. Their social status is in every way like that of the Negritos as distinguished from the industrious mountain. Malayans of northern Luzon. Yet future investigations may not associate these robust and warlike tribes with the weak, shirking Negritos. Negritos of pure type have not so far been reported from Cagayan.

At only two places in the western half of northern Luzon have Negritos been observed. There is a small group near Piddig, Ilokos Norte, and a wandering band of about thirty-five in the mountains between Villavieja, Abra Province, and Santa Maria, Ilokos Sur Province, from both of which towns they have been reported. It is but a question of time until no trace of them will be left in this region so thickly populated with stronger mountain peoples.

In the Southern IslandsAlthough Negritos were reported by the early Spanish writers to be especially numerous in some of the southern islands, probably more of them are found on Luzon than on all the other islands in the Archipelago. Besides Luzon, the only large islands inhabited by them at present are Panay, Negros, Mindanao, and Paragua, but some of the smaller islands, as Tablas and Guimaras, have them.Negritos of pure blood have not been reported from Mindoro, but only the half-breed Manguian, who belong in a group to themselves. It is questionable whether the unknown interior will produce pure types, though it is frequently reported that there are Negritos in the interior.There is a rather large colony of Negritos on the west coast of Tablas near Odiungan, and also a few on the Isla de Carabao immediately south of Tablas. These have probably passed up from Panay. All the provinces of the latter island report Negritos, locally known as “Ati” and “Agta.” They seem to be scattered pretty well over the interior of Panay, being especially numerous in the mountainous region where the Provinces of Antique and Iloilo join. In Antique thereare about 1,000 Negritos living in groups of several families each. They are reported from nearly all the towns, being more numerous along the Dalanas and Sibalon Rivers. The number of pure types is said, however, to be rapidly decreasing on account of intermarriage with the Bukidnon or mountain Visayan. They are of very small stature, with kinky hair. They lead the same nomadic life as the Negritos in other parts, except that they depend more on the products of the forest for subsistence and rarely clear and cultivate “ca-ĭng-ĭn.”11They seem to have developed more of religious superstitions, and believe that both evil spirits and protecting spirits inhabit the forests and plains. However, these beliefs may have been borrowed from the Bukidnon, with whom they come much in contact. From a mixing of the Ati and Bukidnon are sprung the Calibugan, who partake more of the characteristics of their Visayan ancestors than those of the Ati, and generally abandon the nomadic life and live in clearings in the forest.About ten years ago there was a group of about 200 Ati at a place called Labangan, on the Dalanas River, governed by one Capitán Andres. They made clearings and carried people across the river for a small remuneration. Many of them are said to have emigrated to Negros to escape public work to which the local authorities subjected them without compensation.There is a small, wandering group of Negritos on Guimaras, probably emigrants from Panay. They have been reported from both Nagaba and Nueva Valencia, pueblos of that island.Investigation does not bear out the statements of the historian previously quoted in regard to the early populations of Negros. At least it seems that if the southwestern part of that island known as Sojoton had been so thickly populated with Negritos early in the eighteenth century more traces of them would remain to-day. But they seem to have left no marks on the Malayan population. While in the Isio region in August, 1903, I made special investigation and inquiry into this subject and could find no trace of Negritos. Expeditions of the Constabulary into the interior have never met with the little blacks except a single colony near the boundary line between the two provinces just north of Tolon. A few Negritos have also been seen scattered in the interior of southern Oriental Negros back from Nueva Valencia, Ayuquitan, and Bais. From there no trace of them exists until the rugged mountains north of the volcano of Canlaon are reached, in the almost impenetrable recesses of which there are estimated to be a thousand or more. They are especially numerous back of Escalante and formerly made frequent visits to that pueblo, but recent military operations in the region have made them timid, as scouting parties have fired on and killed several of them. The sight of a white man or native of theplain is a signal for an immediate discharge of arrows. Also in the mountains behind Sagay, Cadiz, and Manapla live a few scattered families. I was fortunate in securing photographs of a Negrito captured by the Constabulary near Cadiz. (SeePl. XXVI.) He was much taller than the Negritos of Zambales, but with very little muscular development. He spoke Visayan, and said he knew no other dialect. While in Negros I also secured photographs of a small colony of Ati, who emigrated from Panay about twenty years ago and now live on a mountain hacienda on the slope of Mount Canlaon.So far there is no evidence that Negritos exist on Cebu, Bohol, Samar, and Leyte. In Mindanao they are found only in the extreme northern part of Surigao, not having been reported below Tago. They are called “Mamanua,” and are not very numerous.We have detailed accounts of both the Tagbanua and Batak of Paragua, by señor Manuel Venturello, a native of Puerto Princesa, who has lived among them twenty years. These interesting articles, translated by Capt. E. A. Helmick, Tenth United States Infantry, and published in pamphlet form by the Division of Military Information, Manila, are especially full as to customs, religion, language, etc., of the Tagbanua who inhabit the central part of Paragua from the Bay of Ulugan south to Apurahuan. However, the Tagbanua, although perhaps having a slight amount of Negrito blood, can not be classed with the Negritos. But, in my opinion, the Batak who inhabit the territory from the Bay of Ulugan north to Caruray and Barbacan may be so classed, although they are by no means of pure blood. They are described as being generally of small stature but well developed and muscular. They have very curly but not kinky hair, except in rare cases. Their weapons are the bow and arrow and the blowgun or sumpitan, here called “sumpit.” Their only clothing is a breechcloth and a short skirt of flayed bark. A notable feature of their customs is that both polygyny and polyandry are permitted, this being the only instance of the latter practice so far observed among the tribes of the Philippines. The Batak are not very numerous; their villages have been decimated by ravages of smallpox during the past five years.

Although Negritos were reported by the early Spanish writers to be especially numerous in some of the southern islands, probably more of them are found on Luzon than on all the other islands in the Archipelago. Besides Luzon, the only large islands inhabited by them at present are Panay, Negros, Mindanao, and Paragua, but some of the smaller islands, as Tablas and Guimaras, have them.

Negritos of pure blood have not been reported from Mindoro, but only the half-breed Manguian, who belong in a group to themselves. It is questionable whether the unknown interior will produce pure types, though it is frequently reported that there are Negritos in the interior.

There is a rather large colony of Negritos on the west coast of Tablas near Odiungan, and also a few on the Isla de Carabao immediately south of Tablas. These have probably passed up from Panay. All the provinces of the latter island report Negritos, locally known as “Ati” and “Agta.” They seem to be scattered pretty well over the interior of Panay, being especially numerous in the mountainous region where the Provinces of Antique and Iloilo join. In Antique thereare about 1,000 Negritos living in groups of several families each. They are reported from nearly all the towns, being more numerous along the Dalanas and Sibalon Rivers. The number of pure types is said, however, to be rapidly decreasing on account of intermarriage with the Bukidnon or mountain Visayan. They are of very small stature, with kinky hair. They lead the same nomadic life as the Negritos in other parts, except that they depend more on the products of the forest for subsistence and rarely clear and cultivate “ca-ĭng-ĭn.”11They seem to have developed more of religious superstitions, and believe that both evil spirits and protecting spirits inhabit the forests and plains. However, these beliefs may have been borrowed from the Bukidnon, with whom they come much in contact. From a mixing of the Ati and Bukidnon are sprung the Calibugan, who partake more of the characteristics of their Visayan ancestors than those of the Ati, and generally abandon the nomadic life and live in clearings in the forest.

About ten years ago there was a group of about 200 Ati at a place called Labangan, on the Dalanas River, governed by one Capitán Andres. They made clearings and carried people across the river for a small remuneration. Many of them are said to have emigrated to Negros to escape public work to which the local authorities subjected them without compensation.

There is a small, wandering group of Negritos on Guimaras, probably emigrants from Panay. They have been reported from both Nagaba and Nueva Valencia, pueblos of that island.

Investigation does not bear out the statements of the historian previously quoted in regard to the early populations of Negros. At least it seems that if the southwestern part of that island known as Sojoton had been so thickly populated with Negritos early in the eighteenth century more traces of them would remain to-day. But they seem to have left no marks on the Malayan population. While in the Isio region in August, 1903, I made special investigation and inquiry into this subject and could find no trace of Negritos. Expeditions of the Constabulary into the interior have never met with the little blacks except a single colony near the boundary line between the two provinces just north of Tolon. A few Negritos have also been seen scattered in the interior of southern Oriental Negros back from Nueva Valencia, Ayuquitan, and Bais. From there no trace of them exists until the rugged mountains north of the volcano of Canlaon are reached, in the almost impenetrable recesses of which there are estimated to be a thousand or more. They are especially numerous back of Escalante and formerly made frequent visits to that pueblo, but recent military operations in the region have made them timid, as scouting parties have fired on and killed several of them. The sight of a white man or native of theplain is a signal for an immediate discharge of arrows. Also in the mountains behind Sagay, Cadiz, and Manapla live a few scattered families. I was fortunate in securing photographs of a Negrito captured by the Constabulary near Cadiz. (SeePl. XXVI.) He was much taller than the Negritos of Zambales, but with very little muscular development. He spoke Visayan, and said he knew no other dialect. While in Negros I also secured photographs of a small colony of Ati, who emigrated from Panay about twenty years ago and now live on a mountain hacienda on the slope of Mount Canlaon.

So far there is no evidence that Negritos exist on Cebu, Bohol, Samar, and Leyte. In Mindanao they are found only in the extreme northern part of Surigao, not having been reported below Tago. They are called “Mamanua,” and are not very numerous.

We have detailed accounts of both the Tagbanua and Batak of Paragua, by señor Manuel Venturello, a native of Puerto Princesa, who has lived among them twenty years. These interesting articles, translated by Capt. E. A. Helmick, Tenth United States Infantry, and published in pamphlet form by the Division of Military Information, Manila, are especially full as to customs, religion, language, etc., of the Tagbanua who inhabit the central part of Paragua from the Bay of Ulugan south to Apurahuan. However, the Tagbanua, although perhaps having a slight amount of Negrito blood, can not be classed with the Negritos. But, in my opinion, the Batak who inhabit the territory from the Bay of Ulugan north to Caruray and Barbacan may be so classed, although they are by no means of pure blood. They are described as being generally of small stature but well developed and muscular. They have very curly but not kinky hair, except in rare cases. Their weapons are the bow and arrow and the blowgun or sumpitan, here called “sumpit.” Their only clothing is a breechcloth and a short skirt of flayed bark. A notable feature of their customs is that both polygyny and polyandry are permitted, this being the only instance of the latter practice so far observed among the tribes of the Philippines. The Batak are not very numerous; their villages have been decimated by ravages of smallpox during the past five years.

ConclusionThis rapid survey leaves much to be desired, but it contains about all that is definitely known to-day concerning the whereabouts of the Negritos in the Philippines. No attempt has been made to state numbers. The Philippine census will probably have more exact information in this particular, but it must be borne in mind that even the figures given by the census can be no more than estimates in most instances. The habits of the Negritos do not lend themselves to modern methods of census taking.After all, Blumentritt’s opinion of several years ago is not far from right. Including all mixed breeds having a preponderance of Negrito blood, it is safe to say that the Negrito population of the Philippines probably will not exceed 25,000. Of these the group largest in numbers and probably purest in type is that in the Zambales mountain range, western Luzon. However, while individuals may retain in some cases purity of blood, nowhere are whole groups free from mixture with the Malayan. The Negritos of Panay, Negros, and Mindanao are also to be regarded as pure to a large extent. On the east side of Luzon and in the Island of Paragua, as we have just seen, there is marked evidence of mixture.The social state of the Negritos is everywhere practically the same. They maintain their half-starved lives by the fruits of the chase and forest products, and at best cultivate only small patches of maize and other vegetables. Only occasionally do they live in settled, self-supporting communities, but wander for the most part in scattered families from one place to another.

This rapid survey leaves much to be desired, but it contains about all that is definitely known to-day concerning the whereabouts of the Negritos in the Philippines. No attempt has been made to state numbers. The Philippine census will probably have more exact information in this particular, but it must be borne in mind that even the figures given by the census can be no more than estimates in most instances. The habits of the Negritos do not lend themselves to modern methods of census taking.

After all, Blumentritt’s opinion of several years ago is not far from right. Including all mixed breeds having a preponderance of Negrito blood, it is safe to say that the Negrito population of the Philippines probably will not exceed 25,000. Of these the group largest in numbers and probably purest in type is that in the Zambales mountain range, western Luzon. However, while individuals may retain in some cases purity of blood, nowhere are whole groups free from mixture with the Malayan. The Negritos of Panay, Negros, and Mindanao are also to be regarded as pure to a large extent. On the east side of Luzon and in the Island of Paragua, as we have just seen, there is marked evidence of mixture.

The social state of the Negritos is everywhere practically the same. They maintain their half-starved lives by the fruits of the chase and forest products, and at best cultivate only small patches of maize and other vegetables. Only occasionally do they live in settled, self-supporting communities, but wander for the most part in scattered families from one place to another.

1Les Pygmées, 1887.2However, when one attempts to fathom the mysteries surrounding the origin and migrations of the Negrito race he becomes hopelessly involved in a labyrinth of conjecture. Did the Negritos come from somewhere in Asia, some island like New Guinea, or is their original home now sunk beneath the sea? In the present state of our knowledge we can not hope to know. We find them in certain places to-day; we may believe that they once lived in certain other places, because the people now living there have characteristics peculiar to the little black men. But the Negrito has left behind no archaeological remains to guide the investigator, and he who attempts seriously to consider this question is laying up for himself a store of perplexing problems.It may be of interest to present here the leading facts in connection with the distribution of the Negrito race and to summarize the views set forth by various leading anthropologists who have given the subject most study.The deduction of the French scientists De Quatrefages and Hamy have been based almost entirely on craniological and osteological observations, and these authors argue a much wider distribution of the Negritos than other writers hold. In fact, according to these writers, traces of Negritos are found practically everywhere from India to Japan and New Guinea.De Quatrefages in Les Pygmées, 1887, divides what he calls the “Eastern pygmies,” as opposed to the African pygmies, into two divisions—the Negrito-Papuans and the Negritos proper. The former, he says, have New Guinea as a center of population and extend as far as Gilolo and the Moluccas. They are distinguished from the true Papuans who inhabit New Guinea and who are not classed by that writer as belonging to the Negrito race.On the other hand, Wallace and Earl, supported by Meyer, all of whom have made some investigations in the region occupied by the Papuans, affirm that there is but a single race and that its identity with the Negritos is unmistakable. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 77) says that he and Von Maclay in 1873 saw a number of Papuans in Tidore. He had just come from the Philippines and Von Maclay had then come from Astrolabe Bay, in New Guinea. With these Papuans before them they discussed the question of the unity of the races, and Von Maclay could see no difference between these Papuans and those of Astrolabe Bay, while Meyer declared that the similarities between them and the Negritos of the Philippines was most striking. He says: “That was my standpoint then regarding the question, neither can I relinquish it at present.”Although they defended the unity of the Negritos and the Papuans they recognized that the Papuans were diversified and presented a variety of types, but Meyer regards this not as pointing to a crossing of different elements but as revealing simply the variability of the race. He continues (p. 80): “As the externalhabitusof the Negritos must be declared as almost identical with that of the Papuans, differences in form of the skull, the size of the body, and such like have the less weight in opposition to the great uniformity, as strong contrasts do not even come into play here, and if the Negritos do not show such great amount of variation in their physical characters as the Papuans—which, however,is by no means sufficiently attested—it is no wonder in the case Of a people which has been driven back and deprived of the opportunity of developing itself freely.”Thus it remains for future investigations to establish beyond doubt the identity of the Papuans.De Quatrefages divides all other Eastern pygmies into two divisions—insular and continental—and no authors find fault with this classification. Only in fixing the distribution of the Negritos do the authorities differ. The islands admitted by everybody to contain Negritos to-day may be eliminated from the discussion. These are the Philippines and the Andamans. In the latter the name “Mincopies” has been given to the little blacks, though how this name originated no one seems to know. It is certain that the people do not apply the name to themselves. Extensive study of the Andamans has been made by Flower and Man.The Moluccas and lesser Sunda Islands just west of New Guinea were stated by De Quatrefages in 1887 (Les Pygmées) to be inhabited by Negritos, although three years previously, as recorded in Hommes Fossiles, 1884, he had doubted their existence there. He gave no authority, and assigned no reason in his later work for this change of opinion. Meyer thinks this sufficient reason why one should not take De Quatrefages too seriously, and states that proofs of the existence of the Negritos in this locality are “so weak as not to be worth discussing them in detail.” From deductions based on the examination of a single skull Hamy inferred that pure Negritos were found on Timor, but the people of Timor were found by Meyer to be mixed Papuans and Malays, resembling the latter on the coasts and the former in the interior.Likewise in Celebes, Borneo, and Java the French writers think that traces of an ancient Negrito population may be found, while Meyer holds that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant such an assumption. In Sumatra he admits that there is an element not Malayan, which on account of the nearness of Malacca may beNegritic,but that fact is so far by no means proved.In regard to Formosa Meyer quotes Scheteleg (Trans. Ethn. Soc.,n.s., 1869, vii): “I am convinced * * * that the Malay origin of most of the inhabitants of Formosa is incontestable.” But Hamy holds that the two skulls which Scheteleg brought were Negrito skulls, an assumption which Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 52) disposes of as follows: “To conclude the occurrence of a race in a country from certain characters in two skulls, when this race has not been registered from that country, is, in the present embryonic state of craniology, an unwarrantable proceeding.”In like manner Hamy has found that a certain Japanese skull in the Paris Museum resembles a Negrito skull, and he also finds traces of Negritos in Japan in the small stature, crisp hair, and darker color of the natives of the interior of the Island of Kiusiu. But Meyer holds that the facts brought forward up to the present time are far from being established, and objects to the acceptance of surmises and explanations more or less subjective as conclusive.There is no doubt of the occurrence of Negritos in the peninsula of Malacca, where both pure and mixed people have been found. These are reported under a variety of names, of which Semang and Sakaí are perhaps the best known. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, p. 62, footnote 2) says: “Stevens divides the Negritos of Malacca into two principal tribes—the Belendas, who with the Tumiors branched off from the Kenis tribe, and the Meniks, who consist of the Panggans of Kelantan and Petani and the Semangs of the west coast. Only the Panggans * * * and the Tumiors are pure Negritos. A name often recurring for the Belendas is Sakeis (Malay: ‘bondman,’ ‘servant’), a designation given them in the first instance by the Malays but which they often also apply to themselves when addressing strangers.”In their efforts to find Negrito traces in the Mao-tse, the aboriginal peoples of the Chinese Empire, De Lacouperie and De Quatrefages have, in the opinion of Meyer, even less to stand on than had Hamy in the case of Japan. In like manner it remains to be proved whether the Moií of Annam are related to Negritos, as the two French writers have stated, but whose opinions have been vigorously opposed by Meyer and others.The question of the aboriginal inhabitants of India is one of even greater importance and presents greater difficulties. If it can be shown that this aboriginal population was Negrito, and if the relations which researches, especially in philology, have indicated between the peoples of India and those of Australia can be proved, a range of possibilities of startling importance, affecting the race question of Oceania in general and the origin and distribution of the Negritos in particular, will be opened up. In regard to the Indian question there is much diversity of opinion. De Quatrefages and Hamy, as usual, regardthe Negritos as established in India, but Topinard and Virchow are opposed to this belief. Meyer holds that “this part of the Negrito question is in no way ripe for decision, and how much less the question as to a possible relationship of this hypothetical primitive population with the Negroes of Africa.” (Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 70.)In anthropology a statement may be regarded as proved for the time being so long as no opposition to it exists. With the exception of the Philippine and the Andaman Islands and the Malay Peninsula, as we have seen, the presence of traces of Negritos is an open question. The evidence at hand is incomplete and insufficient, and we must therefore be content to let future investigators work out these unsolved problems.3English edition of Stanley, 1874, p. 106.4Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 6, footnote.5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Reprint by Retana, vol. I, p. 422.6By this is meant Fr. San Antonio’s Chronicas de la Apostolica, Provincia de San Gregorio, etc., 1738–1744.7Relación de las Islas Filipinas, 1604; 2d ed., 1890, p. 38.8Meyer, Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 4.9See sketch map,Pl. I.10Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Ed. Retana, 1893, I, p. 421.11Ca-ĭng-ĭn is a Malayan word for cultivated clearing.

1Les Pygmées, 1887.

2However, when one attempts to fathom the mysteries surrounding the origin and migrations of the Negrito race he becomes hopelessly involved in a labyrinth of conjecture. Did the Negritos come from somewhere in Asia, some island like New Guinea, or is their original home now sunk beneath the sea? In the present state of our knowledge we can not hope to know. We find them in certain places to-day; we may believe that they once lived in certain other places, because the people now living there have characteristics peculiar to the little black men. But the Negrito has left behind no archaeological remains to guide the investigator, and he who attempts seriously to consider this question is laying up for himself a store of perplexing problems.

It may be of interest to present here the leading facts in connection with the distribution of the Negrito race and to summarize the views set forth by various leading anthropologists who have given the subject most study.

The deduction of the French scientists De Quatrefages and Hamy have been based almost entirely on craniological and osteological observations, and these authors argue a much wider distribution of the Negritos than other writers hold. In fact, according to these writers, traces of Negritos are found practically everywhere from India to Japan and New Guinea.

De Quatrefages in Les Pygmées, 1887, divides what he calls the “Eastern pygmies,” as opposed to the African pygmies, into two divisions—the Negrito-Papuans and the Negritos proper. The former, he says, have New Guinea as a center of population and extend as far as Gilolo and the Moluccas. They are distinguished from the true Papuans who inhabit New Guinea and who are not classed by that writer as belonging to the Negrito race.

On the other hand, Wallace and Earl, supported by Meyer, all of whom have made some investigations in the region occupied by the Papuans, affirm that there is but a single race and that its identity with the Negritos is unmistakable. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 77) says that he and Von Maclay in 1873 saw a number of Papuans in Tidore. He had just come from the Philippines and Von Maclay had then come from Astrolabe Bay, in New Guinea. With these Papuans before them they discussed the question of the unity of the races, and Von Maclay could see no difference between these Papuans and those of Astrolabe Bay, while Meyer declared that the similarities between them and the Negritos of the Philippines was most striking. He says: “That was my standpoint then regarding the question, neither can I relinquish it at present.”

Although they defended the unity of the Negritos and the Papuans they recognized that the Papuans were diversified and presented a variety of types, but Meyer regards this not as pointing to a crossing of different elements but as revealing simply the variability of the race. He continues (p. 80): “As the externalhabitusof the Negritos must be declared as almost identical with that of the Papuans, differences in form of the skull, the size of the body, and such like have the less weight in opposition to the great uniformity, as strong contrasts do not even come into play here, and if the Negritos do not show such great amount of variation in their physical characters as the Papuans—which, however,is by no means sufficiently attested—it is no wonder in the case Of a people which has been driven back and deprived of the opportunity of developing itself freely.”

Thus it remains for future investigations to establish beyond doubt the identity of the Papuans.

De Quatrefages divides all other Eastern pygmies into two divisions—insular and continental—and no authors find fault with this classification. Only in fixing the distribution of the Negritos do the authorities differ. The islands admitted by everybody to contain Negritos to-day may be eliminated from the discussion. These are the Philippines and the Andamans. In the latter the name “Mincopies” has been given to the little blacks, though how this name originated no one seems to know. It is certain that the people do not apply the name to themselves. Extensive study of the Andamans has been made by Flower and Man.

The Moluccas and lesser Sunda Islands just west of New Guinea were stated by De Quatrefages in 1887 (Les Pygmées) to be inhabited by Negritos, although three years previously, as recorded in Hommes Fossiles, 1884, he had doubted their existence there. He gave no authority, and assigned no reason in his later work for this change of opinion. Meyer thinks this sufficient reason why one should not take De Quatrefages too seriously, and states that proofs of the existence of the Negritos in this locality are “so weak as not to be worth discussing them in detail.” From deductions based on the examination of a single skull Hamy inferred that pure Negritos were found on Timor, but the people of Timor were found by Meyer to be mixed Papuans and Malays, resembling the latter on the coasts and the former in the interior.

Likewise in Celebes, Borneo, and Java the French writers think that traces of an ancient Negrito population may be found, while Meyer holds that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant such an assumption. In Sumatra he admits that there is an element not Malayan, which on account of the nearness of Malacca may beNegritic,but that fact is so far by no means proved.

In regard to Formosa Meyer quotes Scheteleg (Trans. Ethn. Soc.,n.s., 1869, vii): “I am convinced * * * that the Malay origin of most of the inhabitants of Formosa is incontestable.” But Hamy holds that the two skulls which Scheteleg brought were Negrito skulls, an assumption which Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 52) disposes of as follows: “To conclude the occurrence of a race in a country from certain characters in two skulls, when this race has not been registered from that country, is, in the present embryonic state of craniology, an unwarrantable proceeding.”

In like manner Hamy has found that a certain Japanese skull in the Paris Museum resembles a Negrito skull, and he also finds traces of Negritos in Japan in the small stature, crisp hair, and darker color of the natives of the interior of the Island of Kiusiu. But Meyer holds that the facts brought forward up to the present time are far from being established, and objects to the acceptance of surmises and explanations more or less subjective as conclusive.

There is no doubt of the occurrence of Negritos in the peninsula of Malacca, where both pure and mixed people have been found. These are reported under a variety of names, of which Semang and Sakaí are perhaps the best known. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, p. 62, footnote 2) says: “Stevens divides the Negritos of Malacca into two principal tribes—the Belendas, who with the Tumiors branched off from the Kenis tribe, and the Meniks, who consist of the Panggans of Kelantan and Petani and the Semangs of the west coast. Only the Panggans * * * and the Tumiors are pure Negritos. A name often recurring for the Belendas is Sakeis (Malay: ‘bondman,’ ‘servant’), a designation given them in the first instance by the Malays but which they often also apply to themselves when addressing strangers.”

In their efforts to find Negrito traces in the Mao-tse, the aboriginal peoples of the Chinese Empire, De Lacouperie and De Quatrefages have, in the opinion of Meyer, even less to stand on than had Hamy in the case of Japan. In like manner it remains to be proved whether the Moií of Annam are related to Negritos, as the two French writers have stated, but whose opinions have been vigorously opposed by Meyer and others.

The question of the aboriginal inhabitants of India is one of even greater importance and presents greater difficulties. If it can be shown that this aboriginal population was Negrito, and if the relations which researches, especially in philology, have indicated between the peoples of India and those of Australia can be proved, a range of possibilities of startling importance, affecting the race question of Oceania in general and the origin and distribution of the Negritos in particular, will be opened up. In regard to the Indian question there is much diversity of opinion. De Quatrefages and Hamy, as usual, regardthe Negritos as established in India, but Topinard and Virchow are opposed to this belief. Meyer holds that “this part of the Negrito question is in no way ripe for decision, and how much less the question as to a possible relationship of this hypothetical primitive population with the Negroes of Africa.” (Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 70.)

In anthropology a statement may be regarded as proved for the time being so long as no opposition to it exists. With the exception of the Philippine and the Andaman Islands and the Malay Peninsula, as we have seen, the presence of traces of Negritos is an open question. The evidence at hand is incomplete and insufficient, and we must therefore be content to let future investigators work out these unsolved problems.

3English edition of Stanley, 1874, p. 106.

4Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 6, footnote.

5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Reprint by Retana, vol. I, p. 422.

6By this is meant Fr. San Antonio’s Chronicas de la Apostolica, Provincia de San Gregorio, etc., 1738–1744.

7Relación de las Islas Filipinas, 1604; 2d ed., 1890, p. 38.

8Meyer, Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 4.

9See sketch map,Pl. I.

10Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Ed. Retana, 1893, I, p. 421.

11Ca-ĭng-ĭn is a Malayan word for cultivated clearing.

Chapter IIThe Province of ZambalesGeographical FeaturesThis little-known and comparatively unimportant province stretches along the western coast of Luzon for more than 120 miles. Its average width does not exceed 25 miles and is so out of proportion to its length that it merits the title which it bears of the “shoestring province.”1The Zambales range of mountains, of which the southern half is known as the Cordillera de Cabusilan and which is second in importance to the Caraballos system of northern Luzon, forms the entire eastern boundary of Zambales and separates it from the Provinces of Pangasinan, Tarlac, and Pampanga. A number of peaks rise along this chain, of which Mount Pinatubo, 6,040 feet in height, is the highest. All of the rivers of Zambales rise on the western slope of these mountains and carry turbulent floods through the narrow plains. Still unbridged, they are an important factor in preventing communication and traffic between towns, and hence in retarding the development of the province. Another important factor in this connection is the lack of safe anchorages. The Zambales coast is a stormy one, and vessels frequently come to grief on its reefs. At only one point, Subig Bay, can larger vessels find anchorage safe from the typhoons which sweep the coast. The soil of the well-watered plain is fertile and seems adapted to the cultivation of nearly all the products of the Archipelago. The forests are especially valuable, and besides fine timbers for constructional purposes they supply large quantities of pitch, resin, bejuco, and beeswax. There are no industries worth mentioning, there being only primitive agriculture and stock raising.The following opinions of Zambales set forth by a Spanish writer in 1880 still hold good:2There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose commercial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced, but nowhere is the air more pureand transparent, the vegetation more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny, and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.Historical SketchAccording to Buzeta, another Spanish historian, it was Juan de Salcedo who discovered Zambales.3This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao, where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.It seems that nothing further was done toward settling or evangelizing the region for twelve years, although the chronicler goes on to say that three years after the discovery of Bolinao a sergeant of Salcedo’s traversed the Bolinao region, receiving everywhere the homage of the natives, and a Franciscan missionary, Sebastian Baeza, preached the gospel there. But in 1584 the Augustinians established themselves at the extreme ends of the mountain range, Bolinao and Mariveles. One of them, the friar Esteban Martin, was the first to learn the Zambal dialect. The Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin, Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans undertook the active evangelization of the district.Let us now examine [continues the historian4] the state of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the larger part of the aboriginal population: “The principal cause,” he said, “of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted, is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find it impossible to exercise any influence over them.”Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families, united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring these villages together because they carried on wars continually, and they lived in such a state of discord that it was impossible to govern them; moreover they were so barbarous and fierce that they recognized only superior power. They governed through fear. He who wished to be most respected sought to inspire fear by striking off as many beads as possible. The one who committed the most assassinations was thus assured of the subordination of all. They made such a glory of it that they were accustomed to wear certain ornaments in order to show to the eyesor all the murders they had committed. When a person lost a relative either by a violent or a natural death he covered his head with a strip of black cloth as a sign of mourning and could take it off only after having committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager to do in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long as they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part in any festivity. One understands then that deaths became very frequent in a country where all deaths were necessarily followed by one or more murders. It is true that he who committed a murder sought to atone for it by paying to the relatives of the deceased a certain quantity of gold or silver or by giving them a slave or a Negrito who might be murdered in his place.The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants of other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called “Bayoc,” who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He celebrated this ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most frightful revels. He next indicated to the new priest the idol or cult to which he should specially devote himself and conferred on him privileges proportionate to the rank of that divinity, for they recognized among their gods a hierarchy, which established also that of their curates. They gave to their principal idol the name of “Malyari”—that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi, whose power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang in religious ceremonies that “although Malyari was powerful, Acasi had preëminence.” In an inferior order they worshiped also Manlobog or Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of appeasing irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five less important idols who represented the divinities of the fields, prosperity to their herds and harvests. They also believed that Anitong sent them rains and favorable winds; Damalag preserved the sown fields from hurricanes; Dumanga made the grain grow abundantly; and finally Calascas ripened it, leaving to Calosocos only the duty of harvesting the crops. They also had a kind of baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure blood of the pig, but this ceremony, very long and especially very expensive, was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which the same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated by repugnant debaucheries.Of course it is impossible to tell how much of this is the product of the writer’s imagination, or at least of the imagination of those earlier chroniclers from whom he got his information, but it can very well be believed that the natives had a religion of their own and that the work of the missionaries was exceedingly difficult. It was necessary to get them into villages, to show them how to prepare and till the soil and harvest the crops. And the writer concludes that “little by little the apathetic and indolent natives began to recognize the advantages of social life constituted under the shield of authority and law, and the deplorable effects of savage life, offering no guarantee of individual or collective security.”A fortress had been built at Paynaven, in what is now the Province of Pangasinan, from which the work of the missionaries spread southward, so that the northern towns were all organized before those in the south. It is not likely that this had anything to do with causingthe Negritos to leave the northern part of the province, if indeed they ever occupied it, but it is true that to-day they inhabit only the mountainous region south of a line drawn through the middle of the province from east to west.The friar Martinez Zúñiga, speaking of the fortress at Paynaven, said that in that day, the beginning of the last century, there was little need of it as a protection against the “infidel Indians” and blacks who were very few in number, and against whom a stockade of bamboo was sufficient.It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily the Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these pirates, who always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however, a constant menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to transport on rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to carry on commerce with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal are exposed to attack from the Moros in rounding the point at the entrance of Manila Bay, from which it results that the province is poor and has little commerce.5Everything in the history of the Zambal people and their present comparative unimportance goes to show that they were the most indolent and backward of the Malayan peoples. While they have never given the governing powers much trouble, yet they have not kept pace with the agricultural and commercial progress of the other people, and their territory has been so steadily encroached on from all sides by their more aggressive neighbors that their separate identity is seriously threatened. The rich valleys of Zambales have long attracted Ilokano immigrants, who have founded several important towns. The Zambal themselves, owing to lack of communication between their towns, have developed three separate dialects, none of which has ever been deemed worthy of study and publication, as have the other native dialects of the Philippines. A glance at the list of towns of Zambales with the prevailing dialect spoken in each, and in case of nearly equal division also the second most important dialect, will show to what extent Zambal as a distinct dialect is gradually disappearing:Dialects in Zambales ProvinceTownPrimary dialectSecondary dialectOlongapoTagalogSubigTagalogCastillejosTagalogIlokanoSan MarcelinoIlokanoTagalogSan AntonioIlokanoSan NarcisoIlokanoSan FelipeIlokanoCabanganZambalBotolanZambalIbaZambalPalauigZambalMasinlocZambalCandelariaZambalSanta CruzZambalInfantaZambalDasolPangasinanZambalAgnoIlokanoPangasinanBarriZambalSan IsidroIlokanoBalincaguinPangasinanAlosIlokanoPangasinanAlumnosPangasinanIlokanoZaragozaZambalBolinaoZambalAndaZambalOf twenty-five towns Zambal is the prevailing dialect of less than half. As will be seen, the Ilokano have been the most aggressive immigrants. As a prominent Ilokano in the town of San Marcelino expressed it, when they first came they worked for the Zambals, who held all the good land. But the Zambal landowners, perhaps wanting money for a cockfight, would sell a small piece of land to some Ilokano who had saved a little money, and when he ran out of money he would sell a little more land, until finally the Ilokano owned it all.This somewhat lengthy and seemingly irrelevant sketch of the early history of Zambales and of the character of its inhabitants to-day is given to show the former state of savagery and the apathetic nature of the people who, in the days before the arrival of the Europeans, were in such close contact with the Negritos as to impose on them their language, and they have done it so thoroughly that no trace of an original Negrito dialect remains. Relations such as to-day exist between the people of the plains and those of the mountains would not change a dialect in a thousand years. Another evidence of a former close contact may be found in the fact that the Negritos of southern Zambales who have never personally come in contact with the Zambal but only with the Tagalog also speak Zambal with some slight variations,showing, too, that the movement of the Negritos has been southward away from the Zambal territory.Close study and special investigation into the linguistics of this region, carried also into Bataan and across the mountain into Pampanga and Tarlac, may throw more light on this very interesting and important subject and may reveal traces of an original Negrito dialect. Prominent natives of Zambales, whom I have questioned, and who are familiar with the subject, affirm that the Negritos know only the dialect of the Zambal. Indeed those are not lacking who believe in a blood relationship between the Negritos and the Zambal, but this belief can not be taken seriously.6Very little mention is made by the early writers of the Negritos. In fact they knew nothing of them except that they were small blacks who roamed in the mountains, living on roots and game which they killed with the bow and arrow. They were reported to be fierce little savages from whom no danger could come, since they did not leave their mountain fastnesses, but whose territory none dared enter.Habitat of the NegritosAs has been stated, the present range of the Negritos of this territory embraces the mountainous portion of the lower half of Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga, extending southward even to the very extremity of the peninsula of Bataan.This region, although exceedingly broken and rough, has not the high-ridged, deep-canyoned aspect of the Cordillera Central of northern Luzon. It consists for the most part of rolling tablelands, broken by low, forest-covered ridges and dotted here and there by a few gigantic peaks. The largest and highest of these, Mount Pinatubo, situated due east from the town of Cabangan, holds on its broad slopes the largest part of the Negritos of Zambales. Many tiny streams have their sources in this mountain and rush down the slopes, growing in volume and furnishing water supply to the Negrito villages situated along their banks. Some of the larger of these streams have made deep cuts on the lower reaches of the mountain slopes, but they are generally too small to have great powers of erosion. The unwooded portions of the table-lands are covered with cogon and similar wild grasses.Here is enough fertile land to support thousands of people. The Negritos occupy practically none of it. Their villages and mountain farms are very scattered. The villages are built for the most part on the table-land above some stream, and the little clearings are found on the slope of the ridge at the base of which the stream runs. No use whatever is made of the grass-covered table-land, save that it offers a high and dry site for a rancheria, free from fevers.Practically all of the Negrito rancherias are within the jurisdiction of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino. Following the winding course of the Bucao River, 15 miles southeast from Botolan, one comes to the barrio of San Fernando de Riviera, as it is on the maps, or Pombato, as the natives call it. This is a small Filipino village, the farthest out, a half-way place between the people of the plains and those of the uplands. Here a ravine is crossed, a hill climbed, and the traveler stands on a plateau not more than half a mile wide but winding for miles toward the big peak Pinatubo and almost imperceptibly increasing in elevation. Low, barren ridges flank it on either side, at the base of each of which flows a good-sized stream. Seven miles of beaten winding path through the cogon grass bring the traveler to the first Negrito rancheria, Tagiltil, one year old, lying sun baked on a southern slope of the plateau. Here the plateau widens out, is crossed and cut up by streams and hills, and the forests gradually become thicker. In the wide reach of territory of which this narrow plateau is the western apex, including Mount Pinatubo and reaching to the Tarlac and Pampanga boundaries, there are situated no less than thirty rancherias of Negritos, having an average population of 40 persons or atotal of more than 1,200. Besides these there are probably many scattered families, especially in the higher and less easily accessible forests of Mount Pinatubo, who live in no fixed spot but lead a wandering existence. And so uncertain are the habits of the more settled Negritos that one of the thirty rancherias known to-day may to-morrow be nothing more than a name, and some miles away a new rancheria may spring up. The tendency to remain in one place seems, however, to be growing.The mountainous portions of the jurisdictions of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino, themselves many miles apart with three or more towns between, are contiguous, the one extending southeast, the other northeast, until they meet. The San Marcelino region contains about the same number of Negritos, grouped in many small communities around five large centers—Santa Fé, Aglao, Cabayan, Pañibutan, and Timao—each of which numbers some 300 Negritos. They are of the same type and culture plane as those nearer Piñatubo, and their habitat is practically the same, a continuation of the more or less rugged Cordillera. They are in constant communication with the Negritos north of them and with those across the Pampanga line east of them. The Negritos of Aglao are also in communication with those of Subig, where there is a single rancheria numbering 45 souls. Still farther south in the jurisdiction of Olongapo are two rancherias, numbering about 100 people, who partake more of the characteristics of the Negritos of Bataan just across the provincial line than they do of those of the north.Here mention may be made also of the location of rancherias and numbers of Negritos in the provinces adjoining Zambales, as attention is frequently called to them later, especially those of Bataan, for the sake of comparison. Negritos are reported from all of the towns of Bataan, and there are estimated to be 1,500 of them, or about half as many as in Zambales. They are more numerous on the side toward Manila Bay, in the mountains back of Balanga, Orion, and Pilar. Moron and Bagac on the opposite coast each report more than a hundred. There is a colony of about thirty near Mariveles. Owing to repeated visits of tourists to their village and to the fact that they were sent to the Hanoi Exposition in 1903, this group has lost many of the customs peculiar to Negritos in a wild state and has donned the ordinary Filipino attire.Cabcabe, also in the jurisdiction of Mariveles, has more than a hundred Negritos, and from here to Dinalupijan, the northernmost town of the province, there are from 50 to 200 scattered in small groups around each town and within easy distance. Sometimes, as at Balanga, they are employed on the sugar plantations and make fairly good laborers.The Negritos of Bataan as a whole seem less mixed with the Malayan than any other group, and fewer mixed bloods are seen among them. Their average stature is also somewhat lower. They speak corrupt Tagalog, though careful study may reveal traces of an original tongue. (SeeAppendix Bfor a vocabulary.)In the section of Pampanga lying near Zambales Province more than a thousand Negritos have been reported from the towns of Florida Blanca, Porac, Angeles, and Mabalacat. There are estimated to be about 1,200 in Tarlac, in the jurisdiction of the towns of O’Donnell, Moriones, Capas, Bamban, and Camiling. There are two or three good trails leading from this province into Zambales by which the Negritos of the two provinces communicate with each other. It is proposed to convert the one from O’Donnell to Botolan into a wagon road, which will have the effect of opening up a little-known territory. Across the line into Pangasinan near the town of Mangataren there is a colony of mixed Negritos somewhat more advanced in civilization than is usually the case with these forest dwellers. According to Dr. D. P. Barrows, who visited their rancherias in December, 1901, it seems to have been the intention of the Spanish authorities to form a reservation at that place which should be a center from which to reach the wilder bands in the hills and to induce them to adopt a more settled life. A Filipino was sent to the rancheria as a “maestro” and remained among the people six years. But the scheme fell through there as elsewhere in the failure of the authorities to provide homes and occupations for the Negritos. The Ilokano came in and occupied all the available territory, and the Negritos now hang around the Ilokano homes, doing a little work and picking up the little food thrown to them. Dr. Barrows states that the group contains no pure types characterized by wide, flat noses and kinky hair. In addition to the bow and arrows they carry a knife called “kampilan” having a wide-curving blade. They use this weapon in a dance called “baluk,” brandishing it, snapping their fingers, and whirling about with knees close to the ground. This is farther north than Negritos are found in Zambales but is in territory contiguous to that of the Tarlac Negritos. The entire region contains about 6,000 souls. The groups are so scattered, however, that the territory may be said to be practically unoccupied.1The province has recently been divided by act of the Philippine Commission, the northern part above Santa Cruz being joined to Pangasinan.2Francisco Cañamaque, Boletin de la Sociedad Geografica de Madrid, vol IX, 1880.3Diccionario Geográfico, etc., de las Islas Filipinas, vol. II, 1850.4Cañamaque.5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, 1803.6This was evidently the belief of some of the old voyagers. Navarette, whose account of his travels in 1647 is published in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, 1704, said that the people called “Zambales” were great archers and had no other weapons than the bow and arrow. Dr. John Frances Gemelli Careri, who made a voyage around the world, 1693–1697, says in his report (Churchill’s Voyages, vol. IV): “This mixing [that is, of Negritos] with the WildIndiansproduced the Tribe ofManghianwho are Blacks dwelling in the Isles of Mindoro and Mundos [probably Panay], and who peopled the Islandsde los Negros,or of Blacks. Some of them have harsh frisled hair like theAfricanandAngolablacks. * * *“TheSambali,contrary to the others, tho’ Wild have long Hair, like the other Conquer’dIndians.The Wives, of these Savages are deliver’d in the Woods, like She Goats, and immediately wash themselves and the Infants in the Rivers, or other cold Water; which would be immediate Death toEuropeans.These Blacks when pursu’d by theSpaniards,with the sound of little Sticks, give notice to the rest, that are dispers’d about the Woods, to save themselves by Flight. Their Weapons are Bows and Arrows, a short Spear, and a short Weapon, or Knife at their Girdle. They Poison their Arrows, which are sometimes headed with Iron, or a sharp Stone, and they bore the Point, that it may break in their Enemies Body, and so be unfit to be shot back. For their defense, they use a Wooden Buckler, four Spans long, and two in breadth, which always hangs at their Arm.“Tho’ I had much discourse about it, with the Fathers of the Society, and other Missioners, who converse with these Blacks,Manghians, MandiandSambali,I could never learn any thing of their Religion; but on the contrary, all unanimously agree they have none, but live like Beasts, and the most that has been seen among the Blacks on the Mountains, has been a round Stone, to which they pay’d a Veneration, or a Trunk of a Tree, or Beasts, or other things they find about, and this only out of fear. True it is, that by means of the HeathenChineseswho deal with them in the Mountains, some deformed Statues have been found in their Huts. The other three beforemention’d Nations, seem’d inclin’d to observing of Auguries andMahometanSuperstitions, by reason of their Commerce, with theMalayesandTernates.The most reciev’d Opinion is, that these Blacks were the first Inhabitants of the Islands; and that being Cowards, the Sea Coasts were easily taken from them by People resorting fromSumatra, Borneo, Macassarand other Places; and therefore they retir’d to the Mountains. In short, in all the Islands where these Blacks, and other Savage Men are, theSpaniardsPossess not much beyond the Sea Coasts; and not that in all Parts, especially fromMaribeles,to CapeBolinaoin the Island ofManila,where for 50 Leagues along the Shoar, there is no Landing, for fear of the Blacks, who are most inveterate Enemies to theEuropeans.Thus all the in-land Parts being possess’d by these Brutes, against whom no Army could prevail in the thick Woods, the King ofSpainhas scarce one in ten of the Inhabitants of the Island, that owns him, as theSpaniardsoften told me.”

Geographical FeaturesThis little-known and comparatively unimportant province stretches along the western coast of Luzon for more than 120 miles. Its average width does not exceed 25 miles and is so out of proportion to its length that it merits the title which it bears of the “shoestring province.”1The Zambales range of mountains, of which the southern half is known as the Cordillera de Cabusilan and which is second in importance to the Caraballos system of northern Luzon, forms the entire eastern boundary of Zambales and separates it from the Provinces of Pangasinan, Tarlac, and Pampanga. A number of peaks rise along this chain, of which Mount Pinatubo, 6,040 feet in height, is the highest. All of the rivers of Zambales rise on the western slope of these mountains and carry turbulent floods through the narrow plains. Still unbridged, they are an important factor in preventing communication and traffic between towns, and hence in retarding the development of the province. Another important factor in this connection is the lack of safe anchorages. The Zambales coast is a stormy one, and vessels frequently come to grief on its reefs. At only one point, Subig Bay, can larger vessels find anchorage safe from the typhoons which sweep the coast. The soil of the well-watered plain is fertile and seems adapted to the cultivation of nearly all the products of the Archipelago. The forests are especially valuable, and besides fine timbers for constructional purposes they supply large quantities of pitch, resin, bejuco, and beeswax. There are no industries worth mentioning, there being only primitive agriculture and stock raising.The following opinions of Zambales set forth by a Spanish writer in 1880 still hold good:2There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose commercial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced, but nowhere is the air more pureand transparent, the vegetation more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny, and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.

This little-known and comparatively unimportant province stretches along the western coast of Luzon for more than 120 miles. Its average width does not exceed 25 miles and is so out of proportion to its length that it merits the title which it bears of the “shoestring province.”1

The Zambales range of mountains, of which the southern half is known as the Cordillera de Cabusilan and which is second in importance to the Caraballos system of northern Luzon, forms the entire eastern boundary of Zambales and separates it from the Provinces of Pangasinan, Tarlac, and Pampanga. A number of peaks rise along this chain, of which Mount Pinatubo, 6,040 feet in height, is the highest. All of the rivers of Zambales rise on the western slope of these mountains and carry turbulent floods through the narrow plains. Still unbridged, they are an important factor in preventing communication and traffic between towns, and hence in retarding the development of the province. Another important factor in this connection is the lack of safe anchorages. The Zambales coast is a stormy one, and vessels frequently come to grief on its reefs. At only one point, Subig Bay, can larger vessels find anchorage safe from the typhoons which sweep the coast. The soil of the well-watered plain is fertile and seems adapted to the cultivation of nearly all the products of the Archipelago. The forests are especially valuable, and besides fine timbers for constructional purposes they supply large quantities of pitch, resin, bejuco, and beeswax. There are no industries worth mentioning, there being only primitive agriculture and stock raising.

The following opinions of Zambales set forth by a Spanish writer in 1880 still hold good:2

There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose commercial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced, but nowhere is the air more pureand transparent, the vegetation more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny, and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.

There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose commercial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced, but nowhere is the air more pureand transparent, the vegetation more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny, and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.

Historical SketchAccording to Buzeta, another Spanish historian, it was Juan de Salcedo who discovered Zambales.3This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao, where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.It seems that nothing further was done toward settling or evangelizing the region for twelve years, although the chronicler goes on to say that three years after the discovery of Bolinao a sergeant of Salcedo’s traversed the Bolinao region, receiving everywhere the homage of the natives, and a Franciscan missionary, Sebastian Baeza, preached the gospel there. But in 1584 the Augustinians established themselves at the extreme ends of the mountain range, Bolinao and Mariveles. One of them, the friar Esteban Martin, was the first to learn the Zambal dialect. The Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin, Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans undertook the active evangelization of the district.Let us now examine [continues the historian4] the state of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the larger part of the aboriginal population: “The principal cause,” he said, “of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted, is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find it impossible to exercise any influence over them.”Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families, united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring these villages together because they carried on wars continually, and they lived in such a state of discord that it was impossible to govern them; moreover they were so barbarous and fierce that they recognized only superior power. They governed through fear. He who wished to be most respected sought to inspire fear by striking off as many beads as possible. The one who committed the most assassinations was thus assured of the subordination of all. They made such a glory of it that they were accustomed to wear certain ornaments in order to show to the eyesor all the murders they had committed. When a person lost a relative either by a violent or a natural death he covered his head with a strip of black cloth as a sign of mourning and could take it off only after having committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager to do in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long as they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part in any festivity. One understands then that deaths became very frequent in a country where all deaths were necessarily followed by one or more murders. It is true that he who committed a murder sought to atone for it by paying to the relatives of the deceased a certain quantity of gold or silver or by giving them a slave or a Negrito who might be murdered in his place.The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants of other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called “Bayoc,” who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He celebrated this ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most frightful revels. He next indicated to the new priest the idol or cult to which he should specially devote himself and conferred on him privileges proportionate to the rank of that divinity, for they recognized among their gods a hierarchy, which established also that of their curates. They gave to their principal idol the name of “Malyari”—that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi, whose power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang in religious ceremonies that “although Malyari was powerful, Acasi had preëminence.” In an inferior order they worshiped also Manlobog or Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of appeasing irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five less important idols who represented the divinities of the fields, prosperity to their herds and harvests. They also believed that Anitong sent them rains and favorable winds; Damalag preserved the sown fields from hurricanes; Dumanga made the grain grow abundantly; and finally Calascas ripened it, leaving to Calosocos only the duty of harvesting the crops. They also had a kind of baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure blood of the pig, but this ceremony, very long and especially very expensive, was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which the same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated by repugnant debaucheries.Of course it is impossible to tell how much of this is the product of the writer’s imagination, or at least of the imagination of those earlier chroniclers from whom he got his information, but it can very well be believed that the natives had a religion of their own and that the work of the missionaries was exceedingly difficult. It was necessary to get them into villages, to show them how to prepare and till the soil and harvest the crops. And the writer concludes that “little by little the apathetic and indolent natives began to recognize the advantages of social life constituted under the shield of authority and law, and the deplorable effects of savage life, offering no guarantee of individual or collective security.”A fortress had been built at Paynaven, in what is now the Province of Pangasinan, from which the work of the missionaries spread southward, so that the northern towns were all organized before those in the south. It is not likely that this had anything to do with causingthe Negritos to leave the northern part of the province, if indeed they ever occupied it, but it is true that to-day they inhabit only the mountainous region south of a line drawn through the middle of the province from east to west.The friar Martinez Zúñiga, speaking of the fortress at Paynaven, said that in that day, the beginning of the last century, there was little need of it as a protection against the “infidel Indians” and blacks who were very few in number, and against whom a stockade of bamboo was sufficient.It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily the Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these pirates, who always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however, a constant menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to transport on rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to carry on commerce with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal are exposed to attack from the Moros in rounding the point at the entrance of Manila Bay, from which it results that the province is poor and has little commerce.5Everything in the history of the Zambal people and their present comparative unimportance goes to show that they were the most indolent and backward of the Malayan peoples. While they have never given the governing powers much trouble, yet they have not kept pace with the agricultural and commercial progress of the other people, and their territory has been so steadily encroached on from all sides by their more aggressive neighbors that their separate identity is seriously threatened. The rich valleys of Zambales have long attracted Ilokano immigrants, who have founded several important towns. The Zambal themselves, owing to lack of communication between their towns, have developed three separate dialects, none of which has ever been deemed worthy of study and publication, as have the other native dialects of the Philippines. A glance at the list of towns of Zambales with the prevailing dialect spoken in each, and in case of nearly equal division also the second most important dialect, will show to what extent Zambal as a distinct dialect is gradually disappearing:Dialects in Zambales ProvinceTownPrimary dialectSecondary dialectOlongapoTagalogSubigTagalogCastillejosTagalogIlokanoSan MarcelinoIlokanoTagalogSan AntonioIlokanoSan NarcisoIlokanoSan FelipeIlokanoCabanganZambalBotolanZambalIbaZambalPalauigZambalMasinlocZambalCandelariaZambalSanta CruzZambalInfantaZambalDasolPangasinanZambalAgnoIlokanoPangasinanBarriZambalSan IsidroIlokanoBalincaguinPangasinanAlosIlokanoPangasinanAlumnosPangasinanIlokanoZaragozaZambalBolinaoZambalAndaZambalOf twenty-five towns Zambal is the prevailing dialect of less than half. As will be seen, the Ilokano have been the most aggressive immigrants. As a prominent Ilokano in the town of San Marcelino expressed it, when they first came they worked for the Zambals, who held all the good land. But the Zambal landowners, perhaps wanting money for a cockfight, would sell a small piece of land to some Ilokano who had saved a little money, and when he ran out of money he would sell a little more land, until finally the Ilokano owned it all.This somewhat lengthy and seemingly irrelevant sketch of the early history of Zambales and of the character of its inhabitants to-day is given to show the former state of savagery and the apathetic nature of the people who, in the days before the arrival of the Europeans, were in such close contact with the Negritos as to impose on them their language, and they have done it so thoroughly that no trace of an original Negrito dialect remains. Relations such as to-day exist between the people of the plains and those of the mountains would not change a dialect in a thousand years. Another evidence of a former close contact may be found in the fact that the Negritos of southern Zambales who have never personally come in contact with the Zambal but only with the Tagalog also speak Zambal with some slight variations,showing, too, that the movement of the Negritos has been southward away from the Zambal territory.Close study and special investigation into the linguistics of this region, carried also into Bataan and across the mountain into Pampanga and Tarlac, may throw more light on this very interesting and important subject and may reveal traces of an original Negrito dialect. Prominent natives of Zambales, whom I have questioned, and who are familiar with the subject, affirm that the Negritos know only the dialect of the Zambal. Indeed those are not lacking who believe in a blood relationship between the Negritos and the Zambal, but this belief can not be taken seriously.6Very little mention is made by the early writers of the Negritos. In fact they knew nothing of them except that they were small blacks who roamed in the mountains, living on roots and game which they killed with the bow and arrow. They were reported to be fierce little savages from whom no danger could come, since they did not leave their mountain fastnesses, but whose territory none dared enter.

According to Buzeta, another Spanish historian, it was Juan de Salcedo who discovered Zambales.3

This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao, where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.

This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao, where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.

It seems that nothing further was done toward settling or evangelizing the region for twelve years, although the chronicler goes on to say that three years after the discovery of Bolinao a sergeant of Salcedo’s traversed the Bolinao region, receiving everywhere the homage of the natives, and a Franciscan missionary, Sebastian Baeza, preached the gospel there. But in 1584 the Augustinians established themselves at the extreme ends of the mountain range, Bolinao and Mariveles. One of them, the friar Esteban Martin, was the first to learn the Zambal dialect. The Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin, Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans undertook the active evangelization of the district.

Let us now examine [continues the historian4] the state of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the larger part of the aboriginal population: “The principal cause,” he said, “of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted, is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find it impossible to exercise any influence over them.”Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families, united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring these villages together because they carried on wars continually, and they lived in such a state of discord that it was impossible to govern them; moreover they were so barbarous and fierce that they recognized only superior power. They governed through fear. He who wished to be most respected sought to inspire fear by striking off as many beads as possible. The one who committed the most assassinations was thus assured of the subordination of all. They made such a glory of it that they were accustomed to wear certain ornaments in order to show to the eyesor all the murders they had committed. When a person lost a relative either by a violent or a natural death he covered his head with a strip of black cloth as a sign of mourning and could take it off only after having committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager to do in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long as they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part in any festivity. One understands then that deaths became very frequent in a country where all deaths were necessarily followed by one or more murders. It is true that he who committed a murder sought to atone for it by paying to the relatives of the deceased a certain quantity of gold or silver or by giving them a slave or a Negrito who might be murdered in his place.The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants of other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called “Bayoc,” who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He celebrated this ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most frightful revels. He next indicated to the new priest the idol or cult to which he should specially devote himself and conferred on him privileges proportionate to the rank of that divinity, for they recognized among their gods a hierarchy, which established also that of their curates. They gave to their principal idol the name of “Malyari”—that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi, whose power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang in religious ceremonies that “although Malyari was powerful, Acasi had preëminence.” In an inferior order they worshiped also Manlobog or Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of appeasing irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five less important idols who represented the divinities of the fields, prosperity to their herds and harvests. They also believed that Anitong sent them rains and favorable winds; Damalag preserved the sown fields from hurricanes; Dumanga made the grain grow abundantly; and finally Calascas ripened it, leaving to Calosocos only the duty of harvesting the crops. They also had a kind of baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure blood of the pig, but this ceremony, very long and especially very expensive, was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which the same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated by repugnant debaucheries.

Let us now examine [continues the historian4] the state of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the larger part of the aboriginal population: “The principal cause,” he said, “of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted, is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find it impossible to exercise any influence over them.”

Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families, united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring these villages together because they carried on wars continually, and they lived in such a state of discord that it was impossible to govern them; moreover they were so barbarous and fierce that they recognized only superior power. They governed through fear. He who wished to be most respected sought to inspire fear by striking off as many beads as possible. The one who committed the most assassinations was thus assured of the subordination of all. They made such a glory of it that they were accustomed to wear certain ornaments in order to show to the eyesor all the murders they had committed. When a person lost a relative either by a violent or a natural death he covered his head with a strip of black cloth as a sign of mourning and could take it off only after having committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager to do in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long as they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part in any festivity. One understands then that deaths became very frequent in a country where all deaths were necessarily followed by one or more murders. It is true that he who committed a murder sought to atone for it by paying to the relatives of the deceased a certain quantity of gold or silver or by giving them a slave or a Negrito who might be murdered in his place.

The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants of other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called “Bayoc,” who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He celebrated this ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most frightful revels. He next indicated to the new priest the idol or cult to which he should specially devote himself and conferred on him privileges proportionate to the rank of that divinity, for they recognized among their gods a hierarchy, which established also that of their curates. They gave to their principal idol the name of “Malyari”—that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi, whose power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang in religious ceremonies that “although Malyari was powerful, Acasi had preëminence.” In an inferior order they worshiped also Manlobog or Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of appeasing irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five less important idols who represented the divinities of the fields, prosperity to their herds and harvests. They also believed that Anitong sent them rains and favorable winds; Damalag preserved the sown fields from hurricanes; Dumanga made the grain grow abundantly; and finally Calascas ripened it, leaving to Calosocos only the duty of harvesting the crops. They also had a kind of baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure blood of the pig, but this ceremony, very long and especially very expensive, was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which the same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated by repugnant debaucheries.

Of course it is impossible to tell how much of this is the product of the writer’s imagination, or at least of the imagination of those earlier chroniclers from whom he got his information, but it can very well be believed that the natives had a religion of their own and that the work of the missionaries was exceedingly difficult. It was necessary to get them into villages, to show them how to prepare and till the soil and harvest the crops. And the writer concludes that “little by little the apathetic and indolent natives began to recognize the advantages of social life constituted under the shield of authority and law, and the deplorable effects of savage life, offering no guarantee of individual or collective security.”

A fortress had been built at Paynaven, in what is now the Province of Pangasinan, from which the work of the missionaries spread southward, so that the northern towns were all organized before those in the south. It is not likely that this had anything to do with causingthe Negritos to leave the northern part of the province, if indeed they ever occupied it, but it is true that to-day they inhabit only the mountainous region south of a line drawn through the middle of the province from east to west.

The friar Martinez Zúñiga, speaking of the fortress at Paynaven, said that in that day, the beginning of the last century, there was little need of it as a protection against the “infidel Indians” and blacks who were very few in number, and against whom a stockade of bamboo was sufficient.

It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily the Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these pirates, who always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however, a constant menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to transport on rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to carry on commerce with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal are exposed to attack from the Moros in rounding the point at the entrance of Manila Bay, from which it results that the province is poor and has little commerce.5

It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily the Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these pirates, who always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however, a constant menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to transport on rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to carry on commerce with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal are exposed to attack from the Moros in rounding the point at the entrance of Manila Bay, from which it results that the province is poor and has little commerce.5

Everything in the history of the Zambal people and their present comparative unimportance goes to show that they were the most indolent and backward of the Malayan peoples. While they have never given the governing powers much trouble, yet they have not kept pace with the agricultural and commercial progress of the other people, and their territory has been so steadily encroached on from all sides by their more aggressive neighbors that their separate identity is seriously threatened. The rich valleys of Zambales have long attracted Ilokano immigrants, who have founded several important towns. The Zambal themselves, owing to lack of communication between their towns, have developed three separate dialects, none of which has ever been deemed worthy of study and publication, as have the other native dialects of the Philippines. A glance at the list of towns of Zambales with the prevailing dialect spoken in each, and in case of nearly equal division also the second most important dialect, will show to what extent Zambal as a distinct dialect is gradually disappearing:

Dialects in Zambales ProvinceTownPrimary dialectSecondary dialectOlongapoTagalogSubigTagalogCastillejosTagalogIlokanoSan MarcelinoIlokanoTagalogSan AntonioIlokanoSan NarcisoIlokanoSan FelipeIlokanoCabanganZambalBotolanZambalIbaZambalPalauigZambalMasinlocZambalCandelariaZambalSanta CruzZambalInfantaZambalDasolPangasinanZambalAgnoIlokanoPangasinanBarriZambalSan IsidroIlokanoBalincaguinPangasinanAlosIlokanoPangasinanAlumnosPangasinanIlokanoZaragozaZambalBolinaoZambalAndaZambal

Of twenty-five towns Zambal is the prevailing dialect of less than half. As will be seen, the Ilokano have been the most aggressive immigrants. As a prominent Ilokano in the town of San Marcelino expressed it, when they first came they worked for the Zambals, who held all the good land. But the Zambal landowners, perhaps wanting money for a cockfight, would sell a small piece of land to some Ilokano who had saved a little money, and when he ran out of money he would sell a little more land, until finally the Ilokano owned it all.

This somewhat lengthy and seemingly irrelevant sketch of the early history of Zambales and of the character of its inhabitants to-day is given to show the former state of savagery and the apathetic nature of the people who, in the days before the arrival of the Europeans, were in such close contact with the Negritos as to impose on them their language, and they have done it so thoroughly that no trace of an original Negrito dialect remains. Relations such as to-day exist between the people of the plains and those of the mountains would not change a dialect in a thousand years. Another evidence of a former close contact may be found in the fact that the Negritos of southern Zambales who have never personally come in contact with the Zambal but only with the Tagalog also speak Zambal with some slight variations,showing, too, that the movement of the Negritos has been southward away from the Zambal territory.

Close study and special investigation into the linguistics of this region, carried also into Bataan and across the mountain into Pampanga and Tarlac, may throw more light on this very interesting and important subject and may reveal traces of an original Negrito dialect. Prominent natives of Zambales, whom I have questioned, and who are familiar with the subject, affirm that the Negritos know only the dialect of the Zambal. Indeed those are not lacking who believe in a blood relationship between the Negritos and the Zambal, but this belief can not be taken seriously.6

Very little mention is made by the early writers of the Negritos. In fact they knew nothing of them except that they were small blacks who roamed in the mountains, living on roots and game which they killed with the bow and arrow. They were reported to be fierce little savages from whom no danger could come, since they did not leave their mountain fastnesses, but whose territory none dared enter.

Habitat of the NegritosAs has been stated, the present range of the Negritos of this territory embraces the mountainous portion of the lower half of Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga, extending southward even to the very extremity of the peninsula of Bataan.This region, although exceedingly broken and rough, has not the high-ridged, deep-canyoned aspect of the Cordillera Central of northern Luzon. It consists for the most part of rolling tablelands, broken by low, forest-covered ridges and dotted here and there by a few gigantic peaks. The largest and highest of these, Mount Pinatubo, situated due east from the town of Cabangan, holds on its broad slopes the largest part of the Negritos of Zambales. Many tiny streams have their sources in this mountain and rush down the slopes, growing in volume and furnishing water supply to the Negrito villages situated along their banks. Some of the larger of these streams have made deep cuts on the lower reaches of the mountain slopes, but they are generally too small to have great powers of erosion. The unwooded portions of the table-lands are covered with cogon and similar wild grasses.Here is enough fertile land to support thousands of people. The Negritos occupy practically none of it. Their villages and mountain farms are very scattered. The villages are built for the most part on the table-land above some stream, and the little clearings are found on the slope of the ridge at the base of which the stream runs. No use whatever is made of the grass-covered table-land, save that it offers a high and dry site for a rancheria, free from fevers.Practically all of the Negrito rancherias are within the jurisdiction of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino. Following the winding course of the Bucao River, 15 miles southeast from Botolan, one comes to the barrio of San Fernando de Riviera, as it is on the maps, or Pombato, as the natives call it. This is a small Filipino village, the farthest out, a half-way place between the people of the plains and those of the uplands. Here a ravine is crossed, a hill climbed, and the traveler stands on a plateau not more than half a mile wide but winding for miles toward the big peak Pinatubo and almost imperceptibly increasing in elevation. Low, barren ridges flank it on either side, at the base of each of which flows a good-sized stream. Seven miles of beaten winding path through the cogon grass bring the traveler to the first Negrito rancheria, Tagiltil, one year old, lying sun baked on a southern slope of the plateau. Here the plateau widens out, is crossed and cut up by streams and hills, and the forests gradually become thicker. In the wide reach of territory of which this narrow plateau is the western apex, including Mount Pinatubo and reaching to the Tarlac and Pampanga boundaries, there are situated no less than thirty rancherias of Negritos, having an average population of 40 persons or atotal of more than 1,200. Besides these there are probably many scattered families, especially in the higher and less easily accessible forests of Mount Pinatubo, who live in no fixed spot but lead a wandering existence. And so uncertain are the habits of the more settled Negritos that one of the thirty rancherias known to-day may to-morrow be nothing more than a name, and some miles away a new rancheria may spring up. The tendency to remain in one place seems, however, to be growing.The mountainous portions of the jurisdictions of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino, themselves many miles apart with three or more towns between, are contiguous, the one extending southeast, the other northeast, until they meet. The San Marcelino region contains about the same number of Negritos, grouped in many small communities around five large centers—Santa Fé, Aglao, Cabayan, Pañibutan, and Timao—each of which numbers some 300 Negritos. They are of the same type and culture plane as those nearer Piñatubo, and their habitat is practically the same, a continuation of the more or less rugged Cordillera. They are in constant communication with the Negritos north of them and with those across the Pampanga line east of them. The Negritos of Aglao are also in communication with those of Subig, where there is a single rancheria numbering 45 souls. Still farther south in the jurisdiction of Olongapo are two rancherias, numbering about 100 people, who partake more of the characteristics of the Negritos of Bataan just across the provincial line than they do of those of the north.Here mention may be made also of the location of rancherias and numbers of Negritos in the provinces adjoining Zambales, as attention is frequently called to them later, especially those of Bataan, for the sake of comparison. Negritos are reported from all of the towns of Bataan, and there are estimated to be 1,500 of them, or about half as many as in Zambales. They are more numerous on the side toward Manila Bay, in the mountains back of Balanga, Orion, and Pilar. Moron and Bagac on the opposite coast each report more than a hundred. There is a colony of about thirty near Mariveles. Owing to repeated visits of tourists to their village and to the fact that they were sent to the Hanoi Exposition in 1903, this group has lost many of the customs peculiar to Negritos in a wild state and has donned the ordinary Filipino attire.Cabcabe, also in the jurisdiction of Mariveles, has more than a hundred Negritos, and from here to Dinalupijan, the northernmost town of the province, there are from 50 to 200 scattered in small groups around each town and within easy distance. Sometimes, as at Balanga, they are employed on the sugar plantations and make fairly good laborers.The Negritos of Bataan as a whole seem less mixed with the Malayan than any other group, and fewer mixed bloods are seen among them. Their average stature is also somewhat lower. They speak corrupt Tagalog, though careful study may reveal traces of an original tongue. (SeeAppendix Bfor a vocabulary.)In the section of Pampanga lying near Zambales Province more than a thousand Negritos have been reported from the towns of Florida Blanca, Porac, Angeles, and Mabalacat. There are estimated to be about 1,200 in Tarlac, in the jurisdiction of the towns of O’Donnell, Moriones, Capas, Bamban, and Camiling. There are two or three good trails leading from this province into Zambales by which the Negritos of the two provinces communicate with each other. It is proposed to convert the one from O’Donnell to Botolan into a wagon road, which will have the effect of opening up a little-known territory. Across the line into Pangasinan near the town of Mangataren there is a colony of mixed Negritos somewhat more advanced in civilization than is usually the case with these forest dwellers. According to Dr. D. P. Barrows, who visited their rancherias in December, 1901, it seems to have been the intention of the Spanish authorities to form a reservation at that place which should be a center from which to reach the wilder bands in the hills and to induce them to adopt a more settled life. A Filipino was sent to the rancheria as a “maestro” and remained among the people six years. But the scheme fell through there as elsewhere in the failure of the authorities to provide homes and occupations for the Negritos. The Ilokano came in and occupied all the available territory, and the Negritos now hang around the Ilokano homes, doing a little work and picking up the little food thrown to them. Dr. Barrows states that the group contains no pure types characterized by wide, flat noses and kinky hair. In addition to the bow and arrows they carry a knife called “kampilan” having a wide-curving blade. They use this weapon in a dance called “baluk,” brandishing it, snapping their fingers, and whirling about with knees close to the ground. This is farther north than Negritos are found in Zambales but is in territory contiguous to that of the Tarlac Negritos. The entire region contains about 6,000 souls. The groups are so scattered, however, that the territory may be said to be practically unoccupied.

As has been stated, the present range of the Negritos of this territory embraces the mountainous portion of the lower half of Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga, extending southward even to the very extremity of the peninsula of Bataan.

This region, although exceedingly broken and rough, has not the high-ridged, deep-canyoned aspect of the Cordillera Central of northern Luzon. It consists for the most part of rolling tablelands, broken by low, forest-covered ridges and dotted here and there by a few gigantic peaks. The largest and highest of these, Mount Pinatubo, situated due east from the town of Cabangan, holds on its broad slopes the largest part of the Negritos of Zambales. Many tiny streams have their sources in this mountain and rush down the slopes, growing in volume and furnishing water supply to the Negrito villages situated along their banks. Some of the larger of these streams have made deep cuts on the lower reaches of the mountain slopes, but they are generally too small to have great powers of erosion. The unwooded portions of the table-lands are covered with cogon and similar wild grasses.

Here is enough fertile land to support thousands of people. The Negritos occupy practically none of it. Their villages and mountain farms are very scattered. The villages are built for the most part on the table-land above some stream, and the little clearings are found on the slope of the ridge at the base of which the stream runs. No use whatever is made of the grass-covered table-land, save that it offers a high and dry site for a rancheria, free from fevers.

Practically all of the Negrito rancherias are within the jurisdiction of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino. Following the winding course of the Bucao River, 15 miles southeast from Botolan, one comes to the barrio of San Fernando de Riviera, as it is on the maps, or Pombato, as the natives call it. This is a small Filipino village, the farthest out, a half-way place between the people of the plains and those of the uplands. Here a ravine is crossed, a hill climbed, and the traveler stands on a plateau not more than half a mile wide but winding for miles toward the big peak Pinatubo and almost imperceptibly increasing in elevation. Low, barren ridges flank it on either side, at the base of each of which flows a good-sized stream. Seven miles of beaten winding path through the cogon grass bring the traveler to the first Negrito rancheria, Tagiltil, one year old, lying sun baked on a southern slope of the plateau. Here the plateau widens out, is crossed and cut up by streams and hills, and the forests gradually become thicker. In the wide reach of territory of which this narrow plateau is the western apex, including Mount Pinatubo and reaching to the Tarlac and Pampanga boundaries, there are situated no less than thirty rancherias of Negritos, having an average population of 40 persons or atotal of more than 1,200. Besides these there are probably many scattered families, especially in the higher and less easily accessible forests of Mount Pinatubo, who live in no fixed spot but lead a wandering existence. And so uncertain are the habits of the more settled Negritos that one of the thirty rancherias known to-day may to-morrow be nothing more than a name, and some miles away a new rancheria may spring up. The tendency to remain in one place seems, however, to be growing.

The mountainous portions of the jurisdictions of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino, themselves many miles apart with three or more towns between, are contiguous, the one extending southeast, the other northeast, until they meet. The San Marcelino region contains about the same number of Negritos, grouped in many small communities around five large centers—Santa Fé, Aglao, Cabayan, Pañibutan, and Timao—each of which numbers some 300 Negritos. They are of the same type and culture plane as those nearer Piñatubo, and their habitat is practically the same, a continuation of the more or less rugged Cordillera. They are in constant communication with the Negritos north of them and with those across the Pampanga line east of them. The Negritos of Aglao are also in communication with those of Subig, where there is a single rancheria numbering 45 souls. Still farther south in the jurisdiction of Olongapo are two rancherias, numbering about 100 people, who partake more of the characteristics of the Negritos of Bataan just across the provincial line than they do of those of the north.

Here mention may be made also of the location of rancherias and numbers of Negritos in the provinces adjoining Zambales, as attention is frequently called to them later, especially those of Bataan, for the sake of comparison. Negritos are reported from all of the towns of Bataan, and there are estimated to be 1,500 of them, or about half as many as in Zambales. They are more numerous on the side toward Manila Bay, in the mountains back of Balanga, Orion, and Pilar. Moron and Bagac on the opposite coast each report more than a hundred. There is a colony of about thirty near Mariveles. Owing to repeated visits of tourists to their village and to the fact that they were sent to the Hanoi Exposition in 1903, this group has lost many of the customs peculiar to Negritos in a wild state and has donned the ordinary Filipino attire.

Cabcabe, also in the jurisdiction of Mariveles, has more than a hundred Negritos, and from here to Dinalupijan, the northernmost town of the province, there are from 50 to 200 scattered in small groups around each town and within easy distance. Sometimes, as at Balanga, they are employed on the sugar plantations and make fairly good laborers.

The Negritos of Bataan as a whole seem less mixed with the Malayan than any other group, and fewer mixed bloods are seen among them. Their average stature is also somewhat lower. They speak corrupt Tagalog, though careful study may reveal traces of an original tongue. (SeeAppendix Bfor a vocabulary.)

In the section of Pampanga lying near Zambales Province more than a thousand Negritos have been reported from the towns of Florida Blanca, Porac, Angeles, and Mabalacat. There are estimated to be about 1,200 in Tarlac, in the jurisdiction of the towns of O’Donnell, Moriones, Capas, Bamban, and Camiling. There are two or three good trails leading from this province into Zambales by which the Negritos of the two provinces communicate with each other. It is proposed to convert the one from O’Donnell to Botolan into a wagon road, which will have the effect of opening up a little-known territory. Across the line into Pangasinan near the town of Mangataren there is a colony of mixed Negritos somewhat more advanced in civilization than is usually the case with these forest dwellers. According to Dr. D. P. Barrows, who visited their rancherias in December, 1901, it seems to have been the intention of the Spanish authorities to form a reservation at that place which should be a center from which to reach the wilder bands in the hills and to induce them to adopt a more settled life. A Filipino was sent to the rancheria as a “maestro” and remained among the people six years. But the scheme fell through there as elsewhere in the failure of the authorities to provide homes and occupations for the Negritos. The Ilokano came in and occupied all the available territory, and the Negritos now hang around the Ilokano homes, doing a little work and picking up the little food thrown to them. Dr. Barrows states that the group contains no pure types characterized by wide, flat noses and kinky hair. In addition to the bow and arrows they carry a knife called “kampilan” having a wide-curving blade. They use this weapon in a dance called “baluk,” brandishing it, snapping their fingers, and whirling about with knees close to the ground. This is farther north than Negritos are found in Zambales but is in territory contiguous to that of the Tarlac Negritos. The entire region contains about 6,000 souls. The groups are so scattered, however, that the territory may be said to be practically unoccupied.

1The province has recently been divided by act of the Philippine Commission, the northern part above Santa Cruz being joined to Pangasinan.2Francisco Cañamaque, Boletin de la Sociedad Geografica de Madrid, vol IX, 1880.3Diccionario Geográfico, etc., de las Islas Filipinas, vol. II, 1850.4Cañamaque.5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, 1803.6This was evidently the belief of some of the old voyagers. Navarette, whose account of his travels in 1647 is published in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, 1704, said that the people called “Zambales” were great archers and had no other weapons than the bow and arrow. Dr. John Frances Gemelli Careri, who made a voyage around the world, 1693–1697, says in his report (Churchill’s Voyages, vol. IV): “This mixing [that is, of Negritos] with the WildIndiansproduced the Tribe ofManghianwho are Blacks dwelling in the Isles of Mindoro and Mundos [probably Panay], and who peopled the Islandsde los Negros,or of Blacks. Some of them have harsh frisled hair like theAfricanandAngolablacks. * * *“TheSambali,contrary to the others, tho’ Wild have long Hair, like the other Conquer’dIndians.The Wives, of these Savages are deliver’d in the Woods, like She Goats, and immediately wash themselves and the Infants in the Rivers, or other cold Water; which would be immediate Death toEuropeans.These Blacks when pursu’d by theSpaniards,with the sound of little Sticks, give notice to the rest, that are dispers’d about the Woods, to save themselves by Flight. Their Weapons are Bows and Arrows, a short Spear, and a short Weapon, or Knife at their Girdle. They Poison their Arrows, which are sometimes headed with Iron, or a sharp Stone, and they bore the Point, that it may break in their Enemies Body, and so be unfit to be shot back. For their defense, they use a Wooden Buckler, four Spans long, and two in breadth, which always hangs at their Arm.“Tho’ I had much discourse about it, with the Fathers of the Society, and other Missioners, who converse with these Blacks,Manghians, MandiandSambali,I could never learn any thing of their Religion; but on the contrary, all unanimously agree they have none, but live like Beasts, and the most that has been seen among the Blacks on the Mountains, has been a round Stone, to which they pay’d a Veneration, or a Trunk of a Tree, or Beasts, or other things they find about, and this only out of fear. True it is, that by means of the HeathenChineseswho deal with them in the Mountains, some deformed Statues have been found in their Huts. The other three beforemention’d Nations, seem’d inclin’d to observing of Auguries andMahometanSuperstitions, by reason of their Commerce, with theMalayesandTernates.The most reciev’d Opinion is, that these Blacks were the first Inhabitants of the Islands; and that being Cowards, the Sea Coasts were easily taken from them by People resorting fromSumatra, Borneo, Macassarand other Places; and therefore they retir’d to the Mountains. In short, in all the Islands where these Blacks, and other Savage Men are, theSpaniardsPossess not much beyond the Sea Coasts; and not that in all Parts, especially fromMaribeles,to CapeBolinaoin the Island ofManila,where for 50 Leagues along the Shoar, there is no Landing, for fear of the Blacks, who are most inveterate Enemies to theEuropeans.Thus all the in-land Parts being possess’d by these Brutes, against whom no Army could prevail in the thick Woods, the King ofSpainhas scarce one in ten of the Inhabitants of the Island, that owns him, as theSpaniardsoften told me.”

1The province has recently been divided by act of the Philippine Commission, the northern part above Santa Cruz being joined to Pangasinan.

2Francisco Cañamaque, Boletin de la Sociedad Geografica de Madrid, vol IX, 1880.

3Diccionario Geográfico, etc., de las Islas Filipinas, vol. II, 1850.

4Cañamaque.

5Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, 1803.

6This was evidently the belief of some of the old voyagers. Navarette, whose account of his travels in 1647 is published in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, 1704, said that the people called “Zambales” were great archers and had no other weapons than the bow and arrow. Dr. John Frances Gemelli Careri, who made a voyage around the world, 1693–1697, says in his report (Churchill’s Voyages, vol. IV): “This mixing [that is, of Negritos] with the WildIndiansproduced the Tribe ofManghianwho are Blacks dwelling in the Isles of Mindoro and Mundos [probably Panay], and who peopled the Islandsde los Negros,or of Blacks. Some of them have harsh frisled hair like theAfricanandAngolablacks. * * *

“TheSambali,contrary to the others, tho’ Wild have long Hair, like the other Conquer’dIndians.The Wives, of these Savages are deliver’d in the Woods, like She Goats, and immediately wash themselves and the Infants in the Rivers, or other cold Water; which would be immediate Death toEuropeans.These Blacks when pursu’d by theSpaniards,with the sound of little Sticks, give notice to the rest, that are dispers’d about the Woods, to save themselves by Flight. Their Weapons are Bows and Arrows, a short Spear, and a short Weapon, or Knife at their Girdle. They Poison their Arrows, which are sometimes headed with Iron, or a sharp Stone, and they bore the Point, that it may break in their Enemies Body, and so be unfit to be shot back. For their defense, they use a Wooden Buckler, four Spans long, and two in breadth, which always hangs at their Arm.

“Tho’ I had much discourse about it, with the Fathers of the Society, and other Missioners, who converse with these Blacks,Manghians, MandiandSambali,I could never learn any thing of their Religion; but on the contrary, all unanimously agree they have none, but live like Beasts, and the most that has been seen among the Blacks on the Mountains, has been a round Stone, to which they pay’d a Veneration, or a Trunk of a Tree, or Beasts, or other things they find about, and this only out of fear. True it is, that by means of the HeathenChineseswho deal with them in the Mountains, some deformed Statues have been found in their Huts. The other three beforemention’d Nations, seem’d inclin’d to observing of Auguries andMahometanSuperstitions, by reason of their Commerce, with theMalayesandTernates.The most reciev’d Opinion is, that these Blacks were the first Inhabitants of the Islands; and that being Cowards, the Sea Coasts were easily taken from them by People resorting fromSumatra, Borneo, Macassarand other Places; and therefore they retir’d to the Mountains. In short, in all the Islands where these Blacks, and other Savage Men are, theSpaniardsPossess not much beyond the Sea Coasts; and not that in all Parts, especially fromMaribeles,to CapeBolinaoin the Island ofManila,where for 50 Leagues along the Shoar, there is no Landing, for fear of the Blacks, who are most inveterate Enemies to theEuropeans.Thus all the in-land Parts being possess’d by these Brutes, against whom no Army could prevail in the thick Woods, the King ofSpainhas scarce one in ten of the Inhabitants of the Island, that owns him, as theSpaniardsoften told me.”

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