This photograph shows a feast given by a boy of thirteen years and a girl of twelve on the anniversary of the death of their son. Very early marriages are responsible in part for the poor physical development so common among the Filipinos.
A Member of the Cabaruan Trinity.
This man impersonated Christ at the time a new religious sect established its headquarters at Cabarúan, Pangasinán. Nevertheless he got into jail for cattle stealing.
La Vanguardia, commonly considered to be the leading Filipino paper in the islands, published the following account of the event referred to above:—
“Basilio Aquino, a native of Parañaque, and Timoteo Kariaga, an Iloko residing in Manila, made a bet as to which of them had the better anting-anting, and to settle it Kariaga allowed himself to be struck twice on the right arm and once on the abdomen, but as they say,—Miracle of miracles! Although Aquino used all of his strength and the bolo was extremely sharp, he did not succeed in making the slightest scratch on Kariaga. In view of that, Aquino invited his rival to submit him to the same test. Kariaga was reluctant to do so, for he was sure he would wound Aquino, but the latter insisted so much that there was nothing to do but please him, and at the first cut his right arm was almost severed, and he died from loss of blood two hours later. The wounded man would not report the occurrence to the authorities, but the relatives of the victim were compelled to do so in view of his tragic end.”
From the report of this occurrence in El Ideal, a paper believed to be controlled by Speaker Osmeña, I quote the following:—
“The trial was made in the presence of a goodly number of bystanders, all of them townsmen, connections and friends of the actors.
“Timoteo Kariaga, that being the name of one of the actors, an Ilocano resident of Manila, was the first to submit to the ordeal. His companion and antagonist, named Basilio Aquino, from Parañaque, bolo in hand, aimed slashes at the former, endeavouring to wound him in the arms and abdomen, without success, the amulet of Kariaga offering apparently admirable resistance in the trial, so that the bolo hardly left a visible mark upon his body.”
A very interesting and highly instructive book might be written on Filipino superstitions, but I must here confine myself to a few typical illustrations:—