Home Life
The general condition of the Negritos, although not one of extreme misery, is indeed pitiable. Their life is a continual struggle for sufficient food, but their efforts to provide for themselves stop short at that; clothing and houses are of secondary importance. The average Negrito takes little pride in his dwelling place. A shelter sufficient to turn the beating rains is all he asks. He sees to it that the hut is on ground high enough so that water will not stand in it; then, curled up beside his few coals of fire, he sleeps with a degree of comfort.
The most easily constructed hut, and therefore the most common, consists simply of two forked sticks driven into the ground so they stand about 8 feet apart and 4 feet high. A horizontal piece is laid in the two forks, then some strips of bamboo are inclined against this crosspiece, the other ends resting on the ground. Some cross strips are tied with bejuco to these bamboos and the whole is covered with banana leaves. With the materials close at hand a half hour is sufficient for one man to construct such a shelter. Where a comparatively long residence in one place is contemplated more care may be given the construction of a house, but the above description will apply to many dwellings in a rancheria two or three years old. Instead of two upright pieces make it four, somewhat higher, and place a bamboo platform within so the occupants do not have to sleep on the ground, and you have an approved type of Negrito architecture. Sometimes as an adjunct to this a shelter may be erected in front, provided with a bamboo seat for the accommodation of visitors. The more prosperous Negritos in the long-established rancherias have four-posted houses of bamboo, with roof and sides of cogon grass. The floors are 4 feet from the ground and the cooking is done underneath the floors. A small fire is kept burning all night. The inmates of the house sleep just above it, and in this way receive some benefit of the warmth. If it were not for these fires the Negrito would suffer severely from cold during the night, for he possesses no blanket and uses no covering of any sort.
For two reasons he never lets his fire go out; first, because he likes to feel the warmth continually, and second, because it is something of a task to build a fire, once it has gone out. (See Pls. [XXXVIII], [XXXIX].)
The method of making fire used universally by the Negritos of Zambales is that of the flint and steel, which apparatus they call “pan′-ting.” The steel is prized highly, because it is hard to get; it is procured in trade from the Christianized natives. Nearly every Negrito carries a flint and steel in a little grass basket or case dangling down his back and suspended by a fiber string from his neck. In the same basket are usually tobacco leaves, buyo, and other small odds and ends. Sometimes this pouch is carried in the folds of the breechcloth, which is the only pocket the Negrito possesses.
The flint-and-steel method of fire making has almost entirely supplanted the more primitive method of making fire by rubbing two sticks together; but in some instances this method is still followed, and everywhere the Negritos know of it. They do not know whether the method is original with them or, not, but they admit they borrowed the flint-and-steel idea from the Filipinos. When the friction process is employed a piece of bamboo with a hole in it, in which are firmly held some fine shavings or lint, is violently rubbed crosswise against the edge of another piece until the friction ignites the lint. It is called “pan-a-han′.” When two men are working together one holds the lower piece firmly while the other man rubs across it the sharpened edge of the upper piece. If a man is working alone the piece with the sharpened edge is held firmly between the ground and the man’s waist; the other piece of bamboo with the slit in is rubbed up and down on the sharp edge. (See Pls. [XL], [XLI].)
In lieu of other vessels, rice and similar foods are cooked in joints of green bamboo, which are placed in the coals and hot ashes. When the food is cooked the bamboo is split open and the contents poured out on banana leaves. This is by far the most common method employed, though not a few Negritos possess earthenware pots, and some few have a big iron vessel. Meats are always roasted by cutting into small bits and stringing on a strip of cane. Maize is roasted on hot coals. Everything is eaten without salt, although the Negritos like salt and are very glad to get it.
It has already been noted that the Negrito has a hard time to get enough to cat, and for that reason there is scarcely anything in the animal or vegetable kingdom of his environment of which he does not make use. He never has more than two meals a day, sometimes only one, and he will often start early in the morning on a deer hunt without having eaten any food and will hunt fill late in the afternoon. In addition to the fish, eels, and crayfish of the streams, the wild boar and wild chicken of the plain and woodland, he will eat iguanas and any bird he can catch, including crows, hawks, and vultures. Large pythons furnish especially toothsome steaks, so he says, but, if so, his taste in this respect is seldom satisfied, for these reptiles are extremely scarce.
Besides rice, maize, camotes, and other cultivated vegetables there is not a wild tuber or fruit with which the Negrito’s stomach is not acquainted. Even some that in their raw state would be deadly poisonous he soaks and boils in several waters until the poison is extracted, and then he eats them. This is the case with a yellow tuber which he calls “ca-lot′.” In its natural form it is covered with stiff bristles. The Negritos peel off the skin and slice the vegetable into very thin bits and soak in water two days, after which it is boiled in two or three waters until it has lost its yellow color. In order to see if any poison still remains some of it is fed to a dog, and if he does not die they themselves eat it. In taste it somewhat resembles cooked rice. This was told me by an old Negrito who I believe did not possess enough invention to make it up, and is in part verified by Mr. O. Atkin, division superintendent of Zambales, who says in a report to the General Superintendent of Education, October, 1903, concerning the destitution of the town of Infanta, that the people of that town were forced by scarcity of food to eat this tuber, there called “co-rot′.” He was told that it was soaked in running water five or six days before cooking, and if not prepared in this way it would cause severe sickness, even death. In fact, some cases were known where persons had died eating co-rot′.
A white, thin-skinned tuber, called “bol′-wi,” which is found in the forests, is highly prized by the Negritos, although it grows so deep in the ground that the labor of digging it is considerable. Among the cultivated vegetables are the common butter beans, called “an-tak′,” and black beans, known as “an-tak′ ik-no′” or “sitting-down beans” from the fact that the pods curl up at one end. Ga-bi and bau′-gan are white tubers, and u′-bi a dark-red tuber—which they eat. Other common products are maize, pumpkins, and camotes.
The Negrito has ordinarily no table but the bare ground, and at best a coarse mat; he has no dishes but banana leaves and cocoanut shells, and no forks or spoons but his fingers. He brings water from a stream in a piece of bamboo about three joints long in which all but one joint has been punched out, and drinks it from a piece of cocoanut shell. If he needs to cut anything to eat he has his ever-ready bolo, which he may have used a moment before in skinning a pig and which is never washed. He is repulsively dirty in his home, person, and everything he does. Nothing is ever washed except his hands and face, and those only rarely. He never takes a bath, because he thinks that if he bathes often he is more susceptible to cold, that a covering of dirt serves as clothing, although he frequently gets wet either in the rain or when fishing or crossing streams. This is probably one reason why skin diseases are so common.