Many other forms of heathenism, some of them not even yet wholly banned from the Philippines, the reader will find described in another of Retana’s works—de Aniterías (Madrid, 1894).
Zúñiga also tells all worth knowing of the abominable rites practised among Luzonians,—of their Nonos, Duendes, the Pag-Papasipin, Tigbalag, Patianac, Bongsol, and Bilao. Much of what he says regarding the attachment of these peoples to unclean and impious ceremonies he has gathered from that rarest of books—one copy only believed to be extant, at the colonial museum of the Augustinians at Valladolid (in Spain), the Práctica (Manila, 1731), of Father Tomás Ortiz, one-time missionary of that brotherhood in China, then for thirty years resident in Luzon, where he died in 1742.
Better, however, consult Zúñiga himself,[2] and the notes thereon by Retana, who singularly has failed to insert Ortiz’ Práctica in his Biblioteca, and you will find much of interest;—among other things about tattooing, common practice at one time among all Polynesians, the same as among our own aborigines, until taught more refined ways by Christian missionaries; and about wakes too,—solemn ceremonials of grief, with banquetting and chants—on the occasion of the death of kindred.[3]
Anent these and similar breaches of the Divine commands against Satanism, it is surprising (I would observe) to reflect how many forms of spirit and idol-worship[4] are (to their degradation be it said) common with Malaysian and Caucasian. (See in our own periodicals, published presumably by bright-minded, clean-souled Christian philosophers, yes, see in these oracles of our fireside, advertisements of magicians, diviners, fortune-tellers, charm-workers, not to speak of other law breakers, whose mere self-interest seems to have dulled all true intellective sense.)
The last authority on general topics I name here as invaluable as well as deeply interesting to the scholar is the Encyclopedia (in two volumes) of the Augustinian travelers, Manuel Buzeta and Felipe Bravo (Madrid, 1851)—a work replete with most varied information along with statistics, now, of course, out of date, on the ethnology, geography, topography, dialects, customs and rites of the aborigines in the Philippine archipelago.
Barring, as is only fair, any eulogy on the antiquated features of this Encyclopedia, which yet will be recognized of much service to the historian, the writer himself, who herein is supported among others by Retana, would style this monument of varied scholarship and research a masterpiece of all-round learning; within its lines an indispensable guide to every Philippinologist.
Such, then, are the books most trustworthy and serviceable in their respective fields of history, antiquities, ethnology, and other sciences relating to Philippina.
Before leaving this subject to dwell on Philippinian linguistics, I venture a brief digression on a class of works of general historic character—repertories of all ethnic science, little known, however, albeit to their serious disadvantage, to most students, and prized only by your true-hearted book-lover, who has sense to value what he reads for its own worth mainly, not because stamped with popular approval.
These are annals of the religious brotherhoods in the East, to be recognized in Retana and other catalogues under the various titles of chronicles—sometimes as Conquistas, a by no means unfamiliar term—stories, that is, of the conquest of heathendom, woven oftentimes, no doubt, as recreation by the missionary amid his cares; sometimes as relief from thoughts of his far-away native land—journals, as it were, drawn up by the wanderer, who, besides being traveler, usually was a more or less keen-eyed observer, at home wherever Providence sent him; where, too, he studied (for self-interest was also at stake) whatever regarded the natives in his care—the lands they dwelt in, the skies above them, the waters around them.
Scholars such as these on life-long service in their foreign homes were wont to make themselves conversant with every characteristic of the natives—with the language first of all, then the legends, poetry, chants; with the traditions and customs of the people, the industries and sports of their dusky-hued friends and brothers.