The Inhabitants of the Philippines

by Frederic H. Sawyer

I have added to this account of them a list of such of their manufactures as I have seen or could learn of, and in most instances I have given the Igorrote name. The Igorrotes have several dialects, so that the names of the various articles may vary according to the locality. Herewith a list of the dialects and the places where each is spoken, taken from Spanish official sources.

Dialect.	Locality.
Benguetano.	The greater part of Benguet.
Igorrote.	Lepanto.
Igorrote del Abra.	Five villages of Bontoc.
Igorrote de la Gran Cordillera.	By the reduced Igorrotes and the independent tribes of the Caraballo.
Igorrote Suflin.	In fifteen villages of that Cordillera.

Many of the Principales or head-men and others under Spanish influence speak and write Ilocano, which they find necessary for their trade with that people. More than twenty years ago there were seven schools in Lepanto regularly attended by five hundred and sixty-two children, of whom one hundred and ten could then read and write Spanish. No doubt by this time these schools have considerably increased.

I am much impressed by the great industry of these people and with the great skill they show in everything they undertake. It is therefore disappointing to read in Foreman’s book ‘The Philippine Islands,’ p. 213: “Like all the races of the Philippines, they are indolent to the greatest degree.” Foreman goes on to say, Polygamy seems to be permitted, murders are common, their huts are built bee-hive fashion, they keep a Dr. and Cr. account of heads with the Negritos. All this is probably in consequence of accepting idle stories as facts, and is nothing less than a libel on the Igorrotes. A people who believe in a Supreme Being, Creator of heaven and earth, in the immortality of the soul, in an upper and lower heaven, in punishment after death, if it has been evaded in life, who are strict monogamists, and who have a high belief in the sacredness of the marriage tie; a people who guard the chastity of their daughters as carefully as the British or the Americans; a people physically strong, brave, skilful, and industrious, have nothing in common with the wretches Foreman described under their name. These people live in the fairest and healthiest parts of Luzon, no fevers lurk amongst those pine-clad mountains, no sultry heats sap the vital powers. What an opportunity for a grand missionary enterprise! What a noble material to work on, every condition seems favourable. The very fact of their rejection of the form of Christianity presented to them, and their distrust of the Spaniards, may influence them in favour of some simpler doctrine. I shall feel well repaid for my labour in describing these people, if the truthful picture I have attempted to present of them should interest those who have the means and the will to inaugurate a new era, to help them along the Path. A perusal of what the old chroniclers say about them convinces me that they have done much themselves to improve their moral condition, and that many detestable customs, at all events attributed to them, have long since been relegated to oblivion.

I now give a list of the Missions in the Igorrote and Tinguian territory that existed in 1892.

Missions in Tinguian and Igorrote Territory.

1892.

Province.	Town.	Population.	Missionaries.
			Rev. Father—
Abra	Pidigan.	2,418	P. Ornia.
	Bucay.	3,688	J. Lopez.
	La Paz y San Gregorio.	2,802	P. Fernandez.
	Villavieja.	1,912	M. Fonturbel.
	Bangued.	8,702	A. Perez.
	Tayum.	3,064	L. Vega.
	Dolores.	2,522	F. Franco.
Lepanto	Cervantes y Cayan.	2,200	A. Oyanguren.
Benguet	La Trinidad y Galiano.	849	J. Garcia.
			R. Rivera.
		28,157

All the inhabitants of these towns and villages are Christians, and either they or their ancestors were baptised by missionaries of the Augustinian order.