Amongst the industries of Pangasinan may be mentioned the manufacture of hats, hundreds of thousands of which were made at Calasiao from grass or nito, and sent to Boston or New York. There are also at Calasiao, and in some other towns, blacksmiths who forge excellent bolos or wood-knives from the iron-bands taken off bales of cotton cloth or sacking.
Carromatas, the two-wheeled vehicles of the country, are constructed in Lingayen and Dagupan, and are said to be very well made.
I may mention here that the ponies raised in these provinces are inferior to the Ilocanos or even the Albay breed.
The sands of the River Agno near Rosales, and of the streams coming down from Mount Lagsig, are washed for gold, principally by women who obtain but a meagre return.
The civilisation of the Pangasinanes is only skin-deep, and one of their characteristics is a decided propensity to remontar, that is, to abandon their towns or villages and take to the mountains, out of reach of all authority. There are some great land-owners in Pangasinan; one of them, Don Rafael Sison, owns an estate that stretches from Calasiao and Santa Barbara to Urdaneta.
Ilocanos (5).
This hard-working and industrious race occupies the northern and western shores of Luzon, from Point Lacatacay on the 121st meridian, east from Greenwich, to San Fabian, on the Gulf of Lingayen. This includes the three provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and La Union. The Ilocanos have also pushed into the north-eastern part of Pangasinan, where they occupy seven towns, and they inhabit the town of Alcalá in the province of Cagayan, several villages in Benguet, parts of the towns of Capas and O’Donnell in the provinces of Tarlac, and some towns in Zambales and Nueva Écija. They are all civilised and have been Christians for three centuries. Amongst them dwell many converted Tinguianes and Igorrotes, who speak the Ilocan dialect.
Blumentritt attributes the energy and activity of the Ilocanos to an admixture, even though it be small, of these brave and hardy races. In dress and appearance they are similar to the Tagals, and like them carry the indispensable bolo. They cultivate tobacco, cotton, rice, maize, indigo, sugar-cane, and a little cacao and coffee. They also grow the pita (Agave Americana), which gives the fibre for the nipis textiles, ajonjoli (Sesamum indicum, L.), from which they extract oil, which is used in medicine and for the hair, and they even grow some wheat. They extract a black resin from the Antong (Canarum Pimela), which is used as incense or for making torches; another resin from the Bangad, which is used as a varnish, another from the Cajel (Citrus Aurantium), and many others used either in medicine, for torches, for varnishing, or for paying the seams of wooden vessels. They get gum from the Balete (Ficus Urostigma), and from the Lucban, or orange tree (Citrus decumana, L.), oil from the Palomaria (Calophyllum inophyllum, L.), and from a large number of other trees, some only known by the native name, and the use of which is uncertain. They obtain dyes from many trees growing wild in the forests, amongst others from the Tabungao (Jatropha Curcas, L.), the Lomboy (Eugenia Lambolana, Lam.), the sibucao (Coesalpinia Sappan, L.). Their cultivation of indigo is declining, partly because the demand has diminished in consequence of the introduction of chemical substitutes, and also because the Chinese, into whose hands the whole produce of these provinces found its way, adulterated it so abominably as to discredit it altogether. Yet so great is the facility of Ilocan territory for growing indigo, that Gregorio Sy Quia of Vigan exhibited in Madrid in 1887 no less than seventy-five different kinds of indigo, and seventy-five different seeds corresponding to the samples. At the same exhibition, no less than twenty-four different kinds of rice were exhibited from Ilocos, and this by no means exhausts the list. Every kind has a distinctive name. The textile industry flourishes amongst these industrious people. The Local Committee of Namagpacan, in the province of La Union, sent to Madrid for the above-mentioned exhibition, no less than 145 different textiles, whilst other towns sent looms and other implements. Amongst the articles woven are quilts, cotton blankets (the celebrated Mantos de Ilocos), napkins and towels, and a great variety of material for coats, trousers, women’s dresses and other uses. Guingon (called by sailors dungaree), a blue stuff for clothing, costs from $0.50 to $0.31, 2s. 8d. per vara (2 feet 9 inches), a mixture of cotton and silk, for men’s wear, $1.25 per vara, silk handkerchiefs $0.25 each.
The Ilocans also make nets for fish, and for deer and pigs; baskets of all sorts, salacots or hats.