The Inhabitants of the Philippines

by Frederic H. Sawyer

To summarise the description of Luzon we may say that its agricultural wealth, present and future, lies in the valley of the Rio Grande of Cagayan, in the great valley lying between the Gulf of Lingayen and the shores of the Bay of Manila, in the rich lands of Cavite, Batangas, and Laguna, in the valley of the River Bicol, and on the slopes of the volcanoes of Albay.

The production of the great northern valley is principally tobacco; of the middle valley, sugar and rice; of the southern valley, rice, and of the volcanic slopes, Manila hemp. The Sierras of Ilocos are highly mineralised, as are also the mountains of Tayabas, whilst as already stated washing for gold is the principal industry of Camarines Norte. Parts of this great island, as in Bulacan and Pampanga, support a dense population of 500 to the square mile; whilst, in other parts, hundreds or even thousands of square miles are absolutely unknown, and are only populated by a few scattered and wandering savages, many of whom have never seen a white man.

The Inhabitants of the Philippines.

Description of their appearance, dress, arms, religion, manners and customs, and the localities they inhabit, their agriculture, industries and pursuits, with suggestions as to how they can be utilized, commercially and politically. With many unpublished photographs of natives, their arms, ornaments, sepulchres, and idols.

Chapter XXII.

Aetas or Negritos, Including Balúgas, Dumágas, Mamanúas, and Manguiánes.

These people are generally considered to be the aborigines of the Philippines, and perhaps at one time inhabited the entire group. The invasion of the Malays dispossessed them of the littoral, and of the principal river valleys, and the Spanish Conquest drove them gradually back into the mountains. It seems strange that these irreclaimable savages should be able from their eyries on Mount Mariveles to distinguish a great city with its Royal and Pontifical University and yet remain unconverted, uncivilised, and independent of all authority, just as they were before Legaspi arrived.

They are a race of negroid dwarfs of a sooty black colour, with woolly hair, which they wear short, strong jaws, thick lips, and broad flat noses. The men I have seen in the jungle near Porac and at Mariveles were about 4 feet 8 inches in height, and the women about a couple of inches shorter. The men only wore a cord round the waist with a cloth passed between their legs. The women wore a piece of cloth around the hips, and as ornaments some strings of beads round their necks. However, like many other savages in the Philippines and elsewhere, those of them, both men and women, who are accustomed to traffic with the Christian natives, are possessed of clothes which they put on whenever they enter a village. Their appearance was not prepossessing; the skin of a savage is rarely in good order or free from some scaly eruption, and the stomach is commonly unduly distended from devouring large quantities of vegetable food of an innutritious character. Still they were not so unpleasing as might be supposed, for although their figures are not good according to our standards, nor are their muscles well developed, either on arms or legs, yet there was a litheness about them that gave promise of extreme agility and great speed in running. As a matter of fact, they do run fast, and climb trees in a surprising way. The Tagals and other Malays who go barefooted use their toes to pick up an object on the ground rather than stoop as a European would do, but the toes of the Negritos are more like fingers. They come near the Quadrumanes in this respect. The men carried bows, about five feet six inches long and a quiver full of iron-pointed arrows—also a wood-knife, or bolo, very roughly made. The former they make themselves; but the latter they obtain from the Tagals. I can confirm from my own experience a statement of various travellers, that they are fond of lying close to fires or in the warm ashes, for when I arrived at a bivouac of these people near Porac, their skins were covered with ashes, and I saw that they had recently arisen from their favourite lair, the prints of their forms being plainly visible. They had with them some wretched starveling dogs which assist them in the chase.

It would seem that the Negritos must be descended from a race which formerly extended over a vast area, for remains of them exist in Southern India, in the mountains of Ceylon, and in the Andaman Islands.