[18] These “Hay-tan” are the Aetas, Itas, or Negritos of modern authors. The antiquity of this ethnographical name surprises us. The description of the Negritos seems to have been written yesterday. The Chinese author, in speaking of the nests of the Negritos, seems to have confused them with the houses that are built today in the forking of the branches of trees by some heathen tribes of Mindanao.—B.
Mr. James A. LeRoy, in a letter dated March 14, 1905, says that it is at least doubtful that the Negritos were ever tree-dwellers in the true sense of the word, i.e., building solid, defensible structures like those of the typical tree-dwellers. The Negritos do indeed spend a portion of their time in the treetops and often hunt their game in that way. It is probable that the tree-dwellers of the Philippines are Malays, although some of them may have a strain of Negrito blood. [↑]
[19] This refers to the Indians and not the Negritos.—B. [↑]
[20] Of the mouth of the rivers?—B. [↑]
[21] By cotton, the author evidently means cotton textiles.—B.
This is not necessarily so. Stangl remarks that the author’s meaning must be the tree cotton, which is called kapok, basing his assertion upon the word that is used, presumably in the Chinese. The cotton plant is called kapas in Java. Apropos of tree cotton, Census of the Philippines, iv, p. 120, says: “A species of tree cotton (Ceiba pentandra) is found growing in a wild state in many of the islands; the cotton is useless for spinning purposes, the staple being very short, but it is used for making cushions and other articles.” [↑]
[22] Foreign cloth: sinamay [↑]
[24] The author accentuates the fact that the Visayan villages had no common jurisdiction. This appears to imply that several villages in Luzón were under the jurisdiction of one king or prince.—B. This does not necessarily follow. [↑]
[25] The island of Mindanao was also more populous during the period of the Spanish conquest than now. The islands of Sarangani which have now 1,500 Bilanes and 100 Moros, were very thickly populated by the latter in 1548, and they had a large fort on a hill there.—B.