Habitat of the Negritos
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 a total 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. (See [Appendix B] for 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.
[1] The province has recently been divided by act of the Philippine Commission, the northern part above Santa Cruz being joined to Pangasinan.
[2] Francisco Cañamaque, Boletin de la Sociedad Geografica de Madrid, vol IX, 1880.
[3] Diccionario Geográfico, etc., de las Islas Filipinas, vol. II, 1850.
[4] Cañamaque.
[5] Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, 1803.
[6] This 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 Wild Indians produced the Tribe of Manghian who are Blacks dwelling in the Isles of Mindoro and Mundos [probably Panay], and who peopled the Islands de los Negros, or of Blacks. Some of them have harsh frisled hair like the African and Angola blacks. * * *
“The Sambali, contrary to the others, tho’ Wild have long Hair, like the other Conquer’d Indians. 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 to Europeans. These Blacks when pursu’d by the Spaniards, 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, Mandi and Sambali, 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 Heathen Chineses who 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 and Mahometan Superstitions, by reason of their Commerce, with the Malayes and Ternates. 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 from Sumatra, Borneo, Macassar and other Places; and therefore they retir’d to the Mountains. In short, in all the Islands where these Blacks, and other Savage Men are, the Spaniards Possess not much beyond the Sea Coasts; and not that in all Parts, especially from Maribeles, to Cape Bolinao in the Island of Manila, where for 50 Leagues along the Shoar, there is no Landing, for fear of the Blacks, who are most inveterate Enemies to the Europeans. Thus all the in-land Parts being possess’d by these Brutes, against whom no Army could prevail in the thick Woods, the King of Spain has scarce one in ten of the Inhabitants of the Island, that owns him, as the Spaniards often told me.”