Adventures in the Philippine Islands

by Paul P. de La Gironière

I had scarcely arrived than women with very young children came in crowds to me. In order to satisfy them I caressed their babes: but that was not what they wanted, and, notwithstanding their gestures and their words, I could not make out their wishes. On the following day, the woman whom I have already mentioned as having lived for some time among the Tagalocs, arrived from a neighbouring tribe, accompanied by ten other women, each of whom had an infant in her arms. She explained what I was not able to comprehend on the previous day, and said: “We have amongst us very few words for conversation: all our children take at their birth the name of the place where they are born. There is great confusion, then, and we have brought them to you that you may give them names.”

As soon as I understood this explanation, I wished to celebrate the ceremony with all the pomp that the circumstances and the place allowed. I went to a small rivulet, and there, as I knew the formula for applying the baptismal water, I took my two Indians as sponsors, and during several days baptised about fifty of these poor children. Each mother who brought her infant was accompanied by two persons of her own family. I pronounced the sacramental words, and poured water on the head of the child, and then announced aloud the name I had given to the child. Therefore, as they have no means of perpetuating their recollections, from the time that I pronounced the name,—Francis, for instance,—the mother and her accompanying witnesses repeated it very often, until they learned to say it correctly, and commit it to memory. Then they went away, and were constantly repeating the name, which they were anxious to retain.

The first day the ceremony was rather long; but the second day the number lessened, and I was allowed to pursue my examination of the character of my hosts. I had retained the woman who spoke Tagaloc, and in the long conversations which I held with her, she initiated me thoroughly in all their customs and usages.

The Ajetas have no religion; they do not adore any star. It seems, however, that they have transmitted to, or received from, the Tinguianes, the practice of adoring, during one day, a rock or a trunk of any tree on which they find any resemblance whatever of an animal; they then abandon it, and think no more of an idol until they meet with a strange form, which, for a short time, constitutes the object of their frivolous worship. They have a strong veneration for the dead; and during several years it is their practice to visit their graves, and there to leave a little tobacco or betel. The bow and arrows which once belonged to the deceased are hung up over his grave on the day of his interment; and every night, according to the belief of his surviving comrades, he rises up out of his grave, and goes to hunt in the forest.

Interments take place without any ceremony. The dead body is laid at full length in a grave, which is covered up with earth. But whenever one of the Ajetas is dangerously ill, and his recovery despaired of, or that he has been even slightly wounded by a poisoned arrow, his friends place him seated in a deep hole, with the arms crossed over his breast, and thus inter him while living.

I thought of speaking to my interpreter on religion, and asked her if she did not believe in a Supreme Being—an all-powerful Divinity, on whom all nature—even we ourselves—depend in all things; and who had created the firmament, and who was looking on at our acts. She looked at me with a smile, and said: “When I was young, amongst your brothers, I remember that they spoke to me of a master, who, as they said, had Heaven for his dwelling-place; but all that was lies; for see”—(she here took up a small stone and threw it into the air, saying, in a very serious tone)—“how can a king, as you say, remain in the sky any more than that stone?” What answer could I give to such reasoning? I left religion aside, to put to her other questions.

I have already stated that the Ajetas did not often wait for the death of a person to put him into the ground. As soon as the last honours are rendered to a deceased, it is requisite, conformably to their usages, to take revenge for his death. The hunters of the tribe to which he belonged set out, with their lances and their arrows, to kill the first living creature which should appear before their eyes—be it man, stag, wild boar, or buffalo. From the moment they start in search of a victim, they take care, in every part of the forest through which they pass, to break the young shoots of the arbustus shrub, by pointing its tops in the direction which they are following. This is done to give a caution to their friends, and other passers-by, to avoid those places in which they are searching for a victim, for if one of themselves fell into their hands, he would, without fail, be taken as the expiatory victim.

They are faithful in marriage, and have but one wife. When a young man has made his choice, his friends or his parents make a demand for the young girl; a refusal is never given. A day is chosen; and on the morning of that day the young girl is sent into the forest, where she hides herself or not, just as she pleases, and according as she wishes to be married to the young man who has asked her. An hour after her departure, the young man is sent to find out his bride. If he has the good luck to find her, and to bring her back to her parents before sunset, the marriage is concluded, and she becomes his wife without fail; but if, on the contrary, he returns to the camp without her, he is not allowed to renew his addresses.

Among the Ajetas old age is highly respected. It is always one of the oldest men who governs the assembled body. All the savages of this race live, as I have stated, in large families of from sixty to eighty persons. They ramble about through the forests, without having any fixed spot for their abode; and they change their encampment according to the greater or less quantity of game which they find in various places.

While thus living in a state of nature altogether primitive, these savages have no instrument of music, and their language imitating, as I have stated, the cries of monkeys, has very few sounds, which are extremely difficult for a stranger to pronounce, how much soever may be his eagerness to study them. They are excellent hunters, and make a wonderful use of the bow. The young negroes, however little, of each sex, while their parents are out hunting, amuse themselves on the banks of the rivulets with their small bows. If by chance they see any fish in the translucent stream they let fly an arrow at it, and it is seldom that they miss their aim.