The Inhabitants of the Philippines

by Frederic H. Sawyer

When the missionary accompanied me to visit any of these people, I observed that as we approached a house the people were hurriedly putting on their clothes to receive us, but they were evidently more at ease in the garb of Adam before the fall.

The Tagbanúas have no strong religious convictions, and can be easily persuaded to allow their children to be baptised. The population of Inagáhuan and Abortan at the time of my visit was, according to the missionary, 1080, of whom 616 were baptised. But from this number many had been taken away by their half-caste or Chinese creditors to Lanúgan, a visita of Trinitian, to collect wax and almáciga—the forests near Inagáhuan and Yuáhit being entirely exhausted. The heathen Tagbanúas believe in future rewards and punishment, and call the infernal regions basaud. They believe in a Great Spirit, the creator and preserver, who presides over all the important acts of life. They call him Maguindose, and make offerings to him of rice and fish. Polygamy is allowed amongst them, but from what I saw is not much practised. When a Tagbanúa proposes marriage to the object of his affections, he leaves at the door of her hut the fresh trunk of a banana plant. If she delays answering till the trunk has withered, he understands this as a negative, and the damsel is spared the pain of verbally refusing; but if she approves of his suit, she sends him her answer in good time.

The lover then conveys to the house of the bride’s parents, where all her relations are assembled, large baskets of boiled rice. He takes a morsel of this and places it in the mouth of the girl, she then does the same to him, and by this symbolic act they assume the responsibilities of matrimony. This particular ceremony is common to many Philippine tribes. The remainder of the cooked rice furnishes the basis of the marriage feast.

They are said to cruelly punish adultery; on the other hand, divorce is easily obtained.

When one of their number is very ill, they get up a concert (?) of gongs and drums with the hope of curing him, and during the performance nobody must approach the patient’s couch. I could not learn whether the music was intended to cheer up the sick person, or to frighten away the evil spirit, which they look upon as the cause of his malady; but I incline to the latter belief, because the so-called music is calculated to frighten away any living thing.

If, however, the patient does not improve, he is then consulted as to where he would like to be buried, and about other details of the ceremony and funeral feast. This reminds me that I have read of a Scotchwoman consulting her dying husband as to whether the scones to be made for his funeral should be square or round. Such, however, is the custom of the Tagbanúas.

Immediately after death the relatives place by the corpse the weapons and effects belonging to the deceased and sprinkle ashes on the floor all around—then they retire and leave the dead alone for a time. Later on, they return and carefully examine the ashes to see whether the soul of the defunct, when abandoning the body, left any foot-marks.

Then, forming a circle round the dead, they chant a dirge in honour of the departed, after which they commit his body to the earth in the midst of his cleared land, unless he has selected some other spot, burying with him his arms and utensils, not forgetting the wood-knife and a liberal ration of cooked rice and condiments for his journey to the other world. They then abandon both hut and land and never return to it. They bury small children in jars called basinganis.

I was much interested in these people, and felt a great pity for them. All energy and determination seemed to have been crushed out of them by centuries of oppression from their predatory neighbours, and when at last the Spanish gun-boats delivered them from these periodical attacks, they were held in what was practically slavery by their half-caste or Chinese creditors. The respectability of a Tagbanúa is measured by the weight of gongs he possesses, just as the importance of a Malay pirate-chief depends on the weight of brass-guns he owns.

The half-castes, or Chinese, will supply them with a brass-gong worth, say $5, for which they charge them thirty dollars to account. This must be paid in almáciga (gum-dammar) at $5 per picul. Consequently the poor savage has to supply six piculs of almaciga. Now this gum was worth $12 per picul in Singapore, and the freight was trifling. Consequently the savage pays the greedy half-caste, or avaricious Chinaman, $72 worth of gum (less expenses) for a $5 gong, and these rascally usurers take care that the savage never gets out of their debt as long as he lives, and makes his sons take over his debt when he dies. These terms are considered very moderate indeed; when I come to speak of Mindanao I shall quote some much more striking trade figures. Many of the traders there would think it very bad business to get only $72 for goods costing $5.