They are pagans, and they believe that their gods will answer prayer. For worship, they resort to their caves in the mountains. When a child is to be named, it is carried to the woods, where the priest raises a knife over its head, at the same time pronouncing a name. He then, with the knife, strikes a tree. If sap flows forth, the name is deemed good; if not, he goes through the same ceremony until the desired result is produced; the god, then, is supposed to have given his consent.
They are very intelligent, and are a well-formed race, and many are handsome, with aquiline noses. On the crown of the head they wear a tuft of hair, like the Japanese. Like the domesticated natives, they are very fond of music and of dress. They tattoo their bodies and also black their teeth, and are supposed to have descended from the shipwrecked Japanese cast upon the island.
A Native Restaurant, in Binondo.
The Chinese: Hated but Indispensable.
Long before the Spanish occupation, Chinese trading-junks stopped at the Philippine Islands; and, after the founding of Manila, being well received by the Spaniards, who depended upon them for many necessities, they established trading-posts in various parts of the colony.
In 1580 the Government built the Alcayceria—a large building that was used as a kind of Chinese market. Here were situated all the Chinese shops, which it was thought better to confine to one locality: they might be regulated the more easily.
The Alcayceria proved too small, however, and the shops were soon in every part of the Binondo. Other centres were soon provided for them, where the Government protected and even encouraged the enterprise of the Chinamen.
The native and the Spanish merchants becoming alarmed at the increase of the Celestials, began an agitation, whose object was to limit their number to 6,000; but the movement received little encouragement from the Government, which drew a large revenue from the Chinamen.