The Augustine provincial friar of Ilocos, reporting on the insurrection of 1807 in that province, says:—“Here, as elsewhere, there are abundance of robbers and pilferers; it is of no use to bring them to Manila, they should be punished in the locality; but they can be no more extirpated than can the rats and mice. Indeed there is an Indian proverb which says:—‘Robbers and rats will disappear together.’” I cannot endorse the friar’s indiscriminating censures, for I have heard extraordinary evidences of extraordinary integrity. The Alcalde of Cagayan told me that, though he had frequently left uncounted dollars in the care of the Indians, he had never discovered a single fraud.
One would suppose that the rich and potent friars were tolerably well protected against the Indians, yet one of them writes:—“The Indians do not now employ lances and arrows against our ministry, but papers, pens, tales, jokes and calumnies. So much have they been taught politics in Manila that now in all the pueblos are obscure scribblers, pettifoggers, pretenders, who are clever enough in writing memorials on stamped paper, to be presented to the Royal Audiencia. So if the parish priest reprove or punish them for their evil and scandalous lives, they meet together, drink wine, and fill a folio paper with their crosses, and march off to Manila, to the tribunal which they deem the most impressionable, from whence great vexations are caused to the poor parish priest. And much courage is required to bear this species of martyrdom, which is sufficiently common in the Indies.”—(Abbé Amodea.)
I do not know how lately there have been perquisitions against witches, but in the middle of the last century I find the record of a most diligent pursuit and rigorous punishment against the witches of Pampanga. The proceedings were superintended by a friar named Theodore of the Mother of God, who made a special report to the Mexican Inquisition. He says:—“There are witches in every pueblo, and in some they form a third part of the population. These slaves of the devil are divided into sundry classes: lamias, who suck the blood of infants; striges, who are wanderers on the face of the earth; sagas, who dwell in houses, and convey to the devil all the information he requires; larvas, who devote themselves to carnal delights; temures, who prepare love filtres; but all unite to do mischief to the human race.”
Of the credulity of the Indians there is no end of examples. In 1832, when the Santa Ana arrived with 250 soldiers, a report spread like wild-fire that the King of Spain had ordered all the children of the Indians to be collected, that their blood might be spilt upon the Spanish mines to make them more productive. The women fled to their homes, seized their children, and sought an asylum in the houses of the Spanish ladies in Manila. The men armed themselves with spears, and rushed tumultuously through the streets. The agitation was appeased with some difficulty. What any man reputed as a sage among the Indians avers, acquires immediate authority, and is not to be controlled by the influence of the priests; the words “Vica ng maruning,” meaning “The wise say so,” is the ready answer to all impugners. “God preserve us,” says the friar, “from Indian sages! for the Indians are proud, and will not obey the priest, nor the friar, nor the chaplain, unless obliged by fear, and they are not always afraid, though they feel thoroughly convinced of the superiority of the Spaniard, and are governed in spite of themselves. They imitate the Spaniard in all that is evil—his love of dress, his swearing habits, addiction to gaming, and all the vicious practices of the zaramullos (fops or busy-bodies); but Spanish courtesy and urbanity and good education they neither study nor copy; but revels and drunken bouts, and riotous weddings and burial excesses and tyrannical acts of all sorts they have inherited from their ancestors, and still preserve, so that they have Spanish vices added to their own.”
They show much deference to everything that is aristocratic among themselves. The jacket-wearing principalia are treated with great deference, and their rank religiously respected. First, the gobernadorcillo; then the ex-gobernadorcillos, who are called passed captains, in order of seniority; then the acting lieutenant, who must be the head of a barangay; then the heads of barangays according to age; then passed lieutenants, and so on; and their rank is recognized by the adjacent communities.
GIRLS BATHING.
Bathing is universal, men and women in the same place. The men wear pantaloons, the women cover themselves with a garment which they throw off when they enter the water. No scandal is caused by the habit, and several attempts of the Spanish authorities to interfere with the ancient usage have failed.
The Indians embrace by touching noses; but lip-kissing often accompanies the act. When the nostril is contracted (as in the act of smelling), and the Indian looks towards a person at a distance, it is deemed an invitation to a closer embrace. Strange stories are told of the exquisite sense of smell possessed by the Indians; that by it they can distinguish the dresses of their masters and mistresses, and lovers ascertain the state of each other’s affections. Inner garments are interchanged which are supposed to be impregnated with the passions of the owners. In disregard of the monks, the Indians secretly circumcise their children. The banian-tree (Balete, Ficus Indica) is held sacred. They burn incense under it, which they obtain from the friars under various pretences. How strangely are the rites of idolatry mingled with Christian observances! This is not the case alone in the Philippines. One of Dr. Gutzlaff’s renowned converts in Hong Kong used to say that to please the missionary he had added another god—the Christian’s God—to those he worshipped before; and I have known of secret visits to heathen temples on the part of Chinese professing Christians, when they were about to enter upon any important undertaking. “There is no driving out of them,” says the padre, “the cursed belief that the spirits of their ancestors are in the woods and among the roots of bamboos, and that they can bring good or evil upon them. They will offer sacrifices to them; and all our books and all our preachings have failed to remove the impressions left by any old man whom they choose to call ‘a sage.’” “The curates,” says De Mas, “profess to believe that these superstitions are passing away; no doubt the Indian conceals them as much as he can from his father confessor, but I have on many occasions convinced myself of their existence and influence.” Who, indeed, knowing anything of the credulity of the less instructed classes, and not these alone, among ourselves, can wonder at the state of “the religious mind” of the Philippine Indian? And so little are the priests themselves wholly free from infirmity, that a Philippine curate, Mallares, committed and caused to be committed no less than fifty-seven assassinations in the town of Magalan, believing that he should thus save his mother from being bewitched. Mallares was executed in 1840; and in his report the fiscal expresses his horror of “the incredible and barbarous prodigality of bloodshed by this monster.”
“The Indian knows no medium,” again to quote from the father. “Ask for tepid water, he will bring it boiling; say it is too hot, and you will get it quite cold. He lives in a circle of extremes. He rejoices if you lose patience and give him a beating, for he goes and boasts of having put his master into a passion. To irritate the Indian, you must take no notice of his short-comings. The sagacious men among them say that the Indian and the cane (for his correction) always grow together. They have another proverb: ‘The Spaniard is fire, and the Indian snow, and the snow puts out the fire.’” One of the padres reports that his servant-boy said to him: “You are a new comer, and are too indulgent: if I do amiss you ought to chastise me. Don’t you know the proverb, ‘The Indian and the cane grow together?’” “They blaspheme and abuse God when their prayers are not granted, and use language which would indeed be horrible were it not known how thoughtless they are, and how impossible it is for them to conform themselves to the Divine will.”