San-tao.
It is to the east of Ta-ki-shan. (1). It is divided by a triple peak, and there are range upon range of mountains. The people live along the roadsides. The soil is poor and the crops sparse. The climate is of varying degrees of heat. Among the males and females some are white. The men knot their hair on the tops of their heads; the women do it up in a chignon behind. They wear a single garment. The men frequently get on board junks and come to Ch’uanchou (in Fu-kien). When the brokers there have got all the money out of their bags for ornaments for their persons, they go home, where their countrymen show them great honor at which even fathers and old men may not grumble, for it is a custom to show honor to those who come from China. The people boil seawater to make salt, and ferment sugar-cane juice to make liquor. They have a ruler (or chief). The natural products are beeswax, cotton, and cotton stuffs. In trading with them use is made of copper beads, blue and white porcelain cups, small figured chintzes, pieces of iron and the like. Secondary to them there is T’a-p’ei, Hai-tan, Pa-numg-ki, Pu-li-lao, Tung-liu-li. They are only noted here as they have no very remarkable products.
1) The San hsü of Chao Ju-kua were Kia-ma-yen (Calamian), Pa-lao-yu (Palawan?), and Pa-ki-nung (Busuanga?). The San-tao of our author seems to be a more restricted area, presumably the coast south of Cape Engano, which may be his Ta-ki shan. The San hsü of Chao were dependencies of Ma-i which probably included all of the northern and western portions of Luzon, if not all the island.
2) Chao Ju-kua states that in San hsü were “many lofty ridges and ranges of cliffs which rise steep as the walls of a house.”
3) T’a-pei defies identification. Hai-tan is found already in Chao’s book, it is the Aeta, the Negrito aborigines of the Philippines. Pa-nung-ki must be an error for Pa-ki-nung; Pu-li-lao is Chao’s P’u-li-lu (Polillo island) and Tung Liu-li is also in all likelihood an error for Tung Liu-hsin and may mean “Eastern Luzon.” See Hirth and Rockhill, op. sup. cit., 160, where these names are wrongly divided; we should read Li Kin and Tung Liu-hsin.
In reference to what our author says of white colored natives in the Philippines, I have been assured that such is the fact; I, unfortunately, cannot now recall on which island they have been found. (Mindoro, probably albinos.—A. C.)
Ma-i.
The island is flat and broad. It is watered by a double branched stream. The soil is rich. The climate is rather hot. In their customs they are chaste and good. Both men and women do up their hair in a knot behind. They wear a blue cotton shirt. When any woman mourns her husband, she shaves her head and fasts for seven days, lying beside her husband. Most of them nearly die, but if, after seven days, they are not dead, their relatives urge them to eat. Should they get quite well they may not remarry during their whole lives. There are some even who, to make manifest their wifely devotion, when the body of their dead husband has been consumed, get into the funeral pyre and die. At the burial of a chief of renown they put to death two or three thousand slaves to bury with him. The people boil sea-water to make salt, and ferment treacle to make spirits. The native products are cotton, beeswax, tortoise-shell, betelnuts and chintzes. The goods used in trading are caldrons, pieces of iron, colored cotton stuffs, red taffetas, ivory, sycee shoes and the like. The natives and the traders having agreed on prices, they let the former carry off the goods and later on they bring the amount of native products agreed upon. The traders trust them, for they never fail to keep their bargains.