Historical knowledge is confined almost entirely to events that have occured[sic] within one's lifetime. There are few traditions that have any historical value, and even in these there is an element of the wonderful that makes them unreliable as guides.
It is obvious that the pagan Manóbo has made no advance along academic lines, clue to the fact that he never has had an opportunity afforded him, but judging of his intellectual ability by that of the Christianized Manóbos, it is not inferior to that of the Bisáya. I had experience in organizing and conducting schools among the conquistas, and it has been my experience that ceteris paribus, they advance as rapidly as Bisáyas. If the conquistas have not progressed as far intellectually, it is due to lack of facilities and not to any inherent inability to learn.
Knowledge of astronomy is limited among the Manóbos to the names of a few of the principal stars and constellations. The nature of the stars, moon, sun, eclipses, and kindred phenomena are all explained in mythological tales, from a belief in which no amount of reasoning can move them. The old story that the comet is the harbinger or bearer of disease is in vogue.
Esthetic arts, such as painting and architecture, are unknown, though Manóbos can carve rude and often fantastic wooden images, and can make crude tracings and incisions on lime tubes and baskets.
Notwithstanding their lack of scientific and esthetic knowledge, their observation of nature is marvelous. This is obviously due to long familiarity with the forest, the stream, and the mountains. From his boyhood years the Manóbo has lived the life of the forest. He has scanned the trees for birds and monkeys, the streams for fish. Living, as he generally has, within a definite district, and roaming over it in search of game and other things to eat, at the same time keeping a close watch for any variation that might indicate the presence of an outsider, he has come to possess those marvelous powers of sight and of observation that would astonish the average white man. Within his own district the position of every tree is known. Every stream and every part of it, every mountain, every part of the forest is known and has its appropriate name. The position of a place is explained in a few words to a fellow tribesman, and is understood by the latter.
Trees and plants are recognized, and their adaptation in a great many cases for certain economic uses is known, though I think that, in his knowledge of the latter, the Manóbo is inferior to both the Bisáya and the Mandáya, as he is undoubtedly of a more conservative and less enterprising disposition.
The Manóbo character has been so maligned by missionaries, and by all the Bisáyas who have dealings with them, that it deserves a clearance from the aspersions that have been cast upon it. In dealing with the Manóbo, as with all primitive peoples, the personal equation brings out more than anything else the good qualities that underlie his character. Several of the missionaries seem not to have distinguished between the pagan and the man. To them the pagan was the incarnation of all that is vile, a creature whose every act was dictated by the devil. The Bisáya regarded him somewhat in the same light, but went further. He looked upon him as his enemy because of the many acts of retribution, even though retribution was merited, that had been committed by the Manóbo or by his ancestors. He entertained a feeling of chagrin and disappointment that this primitive man was unwilling to become an absolute tool in his hands for thorough exploitation. Hence no name, however vile, was too bad for the poor forest dweller who refused to settle near his plantation and toil--man, woman, and child--for an utterly inadequate wage. His feeling toward the conquistas is little, if at all, better.
Upon first acquaintance the Manóbo is timid and suspicious. This is due to the extreme cautiousness that teaches him to guard a life that among his own people has only a nominal value. When in the presence of strangers for the first time, he remembers that reprisals have been bandied from time immemorial between his people on the one hand, and Bisáyas, on the other, and he realizes that without proper care, reprisals might be made on him. Again, if the visitor has penetrated into his district, his suspicion may be aroused to its full force by calumnious reports or rumors that may have preceded the visitor's arrival. My own visits were frequently preceded by rumors to the effect that I had magic power to poison or to do other things equally wonderful, that I was a solider in disguise, or by other similar reports. But in these cases and in all others one may allay the timorousness and suspiciousness of these primitive people to a great extent by previous announcement of one's visit and intentions, and upon arrival in their settlement, by refraining from any act or word that might betray one's curiosity. Surprise must not be expressed at anything that takes place. The mere question as to what, for instance, is beyond such and such a mountain, or where is the headwaters of such and such a stream, may start up the full flame of suspicion. Hence prudence, a kind, quiet, but alert manner, a good reputation from the last visited locality and a distribution of trifling gifts, is always efficacious in removing that feeling of distrust that these primitive people feel toward a stranger.
Another charge is that they are revengeful. They certainly believe in "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Revenge for an unatoned wrong is a stern, fundamental, eternal law, sanctioned by Manóbo institutions, social, political, and religious; one that is consecrated by the breath of the dying, and passed on from generation to generation to be fulfilled; but it has one saving clause, arbitration. Hence a stranger must inform himself of such past happenings as might jeopardize him. The Manóbo has a very limited conception of the extent of the outside world and of the number of its inhabitants, and he is inclined to believe that one American, for instance, knows every other one and may be related by blood to any other. Hence any imprudent action on the part of one may draw down revenge on the head of another1, relative or not, for even innocent third parties may, by Manóbo custom, be sacrificed to the unsatisfied spirit of revenge. The danger, however, in which a stranger might find himself from this cause, is easily eliminated by questioning the people as to who had wronged them on previous occasions; and should he learn that he is considered a party to the wrong through identity of blood or of race with the guilty one, he must gently suggest a plan for arbitration at some later date, and in other pacific ways avert the revenge from himself.
1It is not improbable that the death of Mr. H. M. Ickis, geologist of the Bureau of Science, Manila, was partly due to the capture and exile of one Gubat of the upper Umaíam some 15 or 20 years ago.