A Visit to the Philippine Islands

by John Bowring

Many Mahomedan superstitions and usages had found their way to the interior, and among them the rite of circumcision.

All the Indians are born with a circular dark spot on the buttock, of the size of a shilling; as their skins darken the mark extends, becomes lighter in colour, and in age is scarcely distinguishable.

There is a tradition that the Indians were formerly in the habit of punishing an unpopular person by a penalty which they called Cobacolo, and which was inflicted on any who had misled them by false counsels. The whole population assembled, went to the house of the offender, every one bearing a cudgel; some surrounded the house to prevent escape, and others entered and, by blows, drove the victim to the balcony, from whence he was compelled to leap, and he was then chased out of the neighbourhood, after which the house was razed to the ground, and all that it contained destroyed. The tradition is preserved in many popular proverbs and phrases, in which the Cobacolo is used as a menace to evil-doers.

Among the most celebrated books on the Philippines are the “Cronicas Franciscanas,” by Fr. Gaspar de S. Agustin, an Augustine monk of Madrid, who lived forty years among the Indians, and from whose descriptions I have made a few selections; but there are remarkable contrarieties of opinion among different writers. Their fields of observation are different, and natural temperament has much to do with the judgment formed. Our friar does not give the natives a favourable character. According to him they are generally “inconstant, distrustful, malicious, sleepy, idle, timid, and fond of travelling by rivers, lakes, and seas.”

“They are great consumers of fish, which are found in immense abundance. After rains the fields and marshes and ponds are filled with them. Fish two palms long are often pulled up from among the paddy. As the waters dry up, the fish retreat to any muddy recess, and the Indians catch them with their hands, or kill them with sticks.” I have seen many Indians fishing in the paddy grounds, and what becomes of the fish in the times of drought, when no “muddy recesses” are to be found, it is hard to say, but where there is water fish may invariably be sought for with success.

“They eat three meals a day, consisting principally of rice, the sweet potato, and a small quantity of fish or meat; the daily cost of the whole being half a rial” (= 3d. sterling). “As labourers they get half a rial in addition to their food. They willingly borrow money, which they do not repay, and he who will not encourage ingratitude must show them no favour; to exact a promise is to ensure a falsehood. They are the ingrates described in the 36th Psalm. They never shut the door they have opened; they return nothing to its place; they never do the work they have been paid for beforehand, yet they do not fail to ask for an advance: the carpenter must have money to buy wood; the washerman to get soap; and they even practise their devices upon the parish priest! They have the art of blundering about everything; they fold all garments the wrong way; turn a shirt inside out, always present the back where the front should be.” The father is somewhat severe, and of my own experience I can say there was at least about as much chance in such matters of the Indians doing right as wrong. Alava said of the Indians that their brains were in their hands.

The padre continues:—“They are envious, ill-bred, and impertinent. They will even ask a padre, ‘Whence do you come? where are you going?’ If you are reading a letter, they will look over your shoulders, though not able to read themselves; and if two people are talking in secret, the Indians will come near, though not understanding a word.” Grave charges these. “They enter houses, and even convents, without leave, and seem to make themselves at home in a manner to excite wonderment and anger; even when the padre is asleep, they make a great noise in trampling the floor, though in their own houses they walk with as much care as if treading among eggs. They use no chairs at home, but absolutely wear out those of the convents by sitting and lounging on them, particularly in the balconies, where they can get a look at the women.”

These extracts are as characteristic of the monk as of the Indian. “They care nothing for dog, cat, horse nor cow; the game-cock is their great concern; him they visit at dawn; him they caress through the day; they will contemplate him with eyes fixed for half an hour at a time: the passion never decays; many of them think of nothing else. The government patronizes cock-fights. Last year they produced 40,000 dollars” (in 1859, 86,000 dollars); “sad resource this for so many tears, crimes, and punishments! What quarrels, what lawsuits, what appeals! And in their gambling they pass the night till sunrise. The chief of the Barangay (clan) loses the tribute-money he has collected; his doom is the prison, or a flight to the mountains. They hate to live in houses or convents where they would be placed beyond even the odour of women. They take care of their own plates, and exhibit in their dwellings some possessed before the arrival of the Spaniards, but in convents and houses they break plates enough to ruin their masters. This is because of their stupidity, or that they are thinking of their beloved, or of anything but what ought to occupy their thoughts; and if they let fall a dish, it is passed over by the Spaniards, or they are only called ‘brute! animal! savage!’ In their own house, however, the breaking a piece of earthenware would be followed with a good number of cane blows, and this is of more efficacy than all Cicero’s Philippics (sic in orig.) They cannot be trusted with a sword, mirror, glass, gun, watch, nor any delicate thing; they are sure to spoil it. You may confide to them a bamboo, a stick, a piece of timber, a palm-branch, and to a few of them a ploughshare.

“They are bold and insolent in making unreasonable requests, careless of the when or the how. They remind me in their petitions of what happened to Sancho Panza in the island of Barataria, when troubled with that impertinent and intrusive rustic Michael Turra. For their four eggs they want a hundred dollars. I never see an Indian coming towards me with a gift—something worthless, of course, and of no use to himself—flowers or fruits, but I exclaim, in the words of Laocoon to the Trojans” (grandiloquent friar!) “‘Timeo Danaos dona ferentes.’ The Bishop of Troya, Don Francisco Gines Barrientes, a most circumspect prelate, told me that an Indian brought him a handkerchief of Guava fruit and asked him for the loan of fifty dollars. And when the Lord Marquis de Villasierra, Don Fernando de Valenzuela, was in the castle of Cavite, an Indian gave him a cock, for which the Marquis ordered him to be paid six times its value, and the Indian said he expected eighty cavans of rice, and this, too, was in the time of scarcity, when every cavan was worth two dollars. It matters little, however, for they are just as well pleased when they fail as when they succeed, for they do not value anything given them by a Spaniard, not even by a priest! In selling they will ask thirty and accept six; they take the chance of cheating, and, knowing the great goodness (la suma bondad) of the Spanish character, they do not apprehend any expression of anger in consequence of an absurd pretension.”

The friar thus describes a negotiation between an Indian peasant and a merchant:—“The peasant has two or three hundredweight of indigo for sale; he does not come alone, but with his relations, friends, and sometimes the women, for the indigo belongs to several who form the suite of the seller. Every offer has to be communicated to the party, who are crouched in a circle round the negotiator; the offer being discussed, they agree to the reduction of a dollar in the price—the buyer requires three; this matter being settled, another discussion begins; some of the indigo is damp and dirty, and an allowance must be made, and thus the negotiation goes on harassing and never-ending, so that very few Spaniards will tolerate such impertinence and importunity, and the conference ends by a dry inquiry, ‘Will you? yes! or no!’ If no, the Indians are angrily ordered into the street, but the more patient mestizos and Chinese make the Indians their guests, feed them and lodge them, and get these commodities on their own terms, in Chinese style, for the Indian is very stupid in trading matters.” And then the father gives abundant evidence of their simplicity. “In fine, the Indian prefers the rial of a Chinese to the dollar of a Spaniard.” Who can wonder, then, at the prosperous condition of the Chinese in the Philippines? “The Indians show great indifference to danger: they will not move out of the way of a restive horse, nor, if in a small boat, give place to a large one. In the river, if they see crocodiles approaching, they take no notice and adopt no precautions. The Koran says that every one has his fate written in the marks on his forehead; so think the Indians, not that they have read the Koran, but because of their own folly, which exposes them to daily misfortunes.” “They are very credulous among themselves, yet believe nothing but what is unfavourable about the Spaniards. It is evident that the act of faith is supernatural when they acknowledge the divine mysteries taught by the Spaniards. In other matters they believe in nothing which is adverse to their interests. They do not object to rob Spaniards, not even the ministers of religion. Of this we have irresistible evidence, so that there can be no doubt, and we can only regret that no remedy can be found.”