There are some priests who have special communication with the devil. He speaks to them through the mouths of their little idols, and makes them believe that these are the voices of their ancestors, whom they worship. Sometimes the devil passes into the bodies of their sacrificers, and, during the short time of the sacrifice, he makes them say and do things that fill the bystanders with fear. They take that order of sacrificers from among their friends or their relatives, who wish to learn the mystery of it from them. Their blindness causes them to esteem that rank greatly, for besides the reputation and respect that that employment brings them, they also receive large offerings. All who have been present at the sacrifice make them gifts, one cotton, one gold, and one a fowl. The sacrifice takes place in their houses. The victim is now a hog, now a fowl, now some fish or rice; and the sacrifice is differently named according to the various victims. It is performed by the sacrificer stabbing the victim amid certain ceremonies, which he performs to a cadence marked by a drum or a bell. That is the time in which the devil takes possession of them. He causes them to make innumerable contortions and grimaces, after the end of which they tell what they believe they have seen or heard.
As for their persons, those people are well built, have handsome features, and are light-complexioned. They are clad in a garment that falls to the ankles, which is made of striped cotton of various colors. When in mourning, they wear white; however, that mode of dress is not so general. Those called Pintados, and those of the island of Mindanao, wear short white, yellow, or red tunics, which hang to the knees, bound in by a girdle one vara wide and two and one-half brazas long; this is, as a general rule, white or red, and always falls to the knees. They wear neither stockings nor shoes; and instead of a hat they use a bit of cloth, which they wind twice or thrice around the head. Their whole adornment consists in having very rich and beautiful necklaces, earrings, and gold rings or bracelets. They wear those bracelets above the ankle; some wear these of ivory, and others of brass. They also have little round plates three fingers in diameter, which they pass through a hole that they make in the ear. In some of those islands, the men formerly marked all the body with figures, whence comes the Spanish name “Pintados” [“pictured,” i.e., tattooed]. That operation was performed in the flower of their age, and at the period when they had most strength to suffer that torture. They had themselves adorned in that way after they had performed some illustrious deed. The masters of that art first trace on their bodies the design of the picture, which they next follow up with pricks from very sharp points, and throw on the blood which comes out a powder which never fades away. The whole of the body is not pricked at once, but bit by bit; and formerly, in order that one might have the right of making it for each part, it was necessary to perform an illustrious deed, and to show new prowess. Those pictures are pretty, and well proportioned to the portions of the body on which they are made; and, although they are of an ashen color, they are nevertheless agreeable to the sight. The children are not tattooed at all. The women do not bear the marks of that adornment except on one hand and on some part of the other. In regard to their teeth, they imitate the men in everything. They file them from their earliest childhood; some making them even in this way, others filing them into points, thus giving them the appearance of a saw. They cover the teeth with a black, glossy polish, or one that is flame-colored; and thus their teeth become black, or as red as vermilion. In the upper row, they make a little covering which they fill with gold, which shows off to advantage on the black or red background of that polish.
The women as well as the men are continually in the water, and they also swim like fish. They need no bridge to get over rivers. They bathe at all times of the day, as much for pleasure as for cleanliness. Women who have but recently given birth cannot be prevented from bathing, and bathe in the waters of the coldest springs. As soon as the child has issued from its mother’s womb, it is placed in the water; and on taking it from the bath its head is rubbed with ajonjoli [i.e., sesame] oil mixed with civet. They do that also on other occasions, and to show politeness, especially the women and little boys. They bathe also during their sicknesses, and have for that purpose springs of hot water, especially at the shore of Laguna de Bay, which is in the island of Manila.[7]
There is no one language that is general for all the islands, but each district has a special one. True, they have some relation between one another, such as exists between the Lombard, Sicilian, and Tuscan. There are six dialects in the island of Manila, and two in the island of Oton; while there are some languages which are spoken in several islands. The most general are the Tagál and Bisayan. The latter is very rude, but the former is very polished, and most remarkable. Thus a religious, who was well versed in those islands, was in the habit of saying that the Tagál language had the advantages of the four chief languages of the world: that it was mysterious, like Hebrew; that it had the articles of the Greek, both for appellatives and for proper names; that it had elegance and abundance, like the Latin; and that it was not less suitable than the Italian for compliments and business.[8] They have only three vowels, but these serve as five. They have only a dozen consonants, which they express differently by placing a little dot above or below, as can be seen in the following figure.
Marginal note: “The consonants not marked with any point are pronounced with ‘a;’ if they have a point above, they are pronounced with ‘e,’ or ‘i;’ if the point is below, they are pronounced with ‘o’ or ‘u.’”
They have learned to write from us[9] by making their lines from left to right, instead of their former way of writing from top to bottom. Reeds or palm-leaves serve them as paper, and the point of an iron style is used instead of a pen. They use their writing only to letters from one to another, for they have no histories or books of any learning. Our religious have printed books in the languages of the islands, concerning the matters of our religion. In the Malucas, they have a very pretty method of writing to their friends. They collect flowers of various colors, and make a bouquet of them; and he who receives the bouquet understands, on beholding the varieties of flowers and their colors, as if they were so many different characters, the thoughts of his friend. They have not sufficient capacity to apply themselves to learning, and they content themselves with being good carpenters, and with working gold and iron well. They have been employed during these last few years in making silk and cotton stockings; in writing and reading our characters; in singing and dancing; and in playing the flute, the guitar, and the harp. The strings used for those last instruments are made from twisted silk, and produce as agreeable a sound as ours, although quite different in quality. They formerly had an instrument called cutiape, which some of them still use. It bears a close resemblance to a hurdy-gurdy, and has four copper cords. They play it so cleverly, that they make it express whatever they wish; and it is asserted as a truth that they speak, and tell one another whatever they wish, by means of that instrument, a special skill in those of that nation.
Most of those islanders have only one wife, but it is not true that there are not some places in the country where they have several, especially in the island of Mindanao. It may be said that the husbands buy their wives there, since they generally make some present to their parents according to their rank: that of dato, for instance, which signifies “a man of rank;” of tinaua, which signifies “free;” or oripuen, which signifies “a slave.” The women in the islands of the Pintados are called binocot, or “woman who is in the room;” for bocot signifies “a room,” and the women go outside but rarely, and even are carried then on the shoulders of their slaves. I have seen one woman of Dapitan, a settlement of the island of Mindanao, so delicate and so fine, that she always had herself carried to church on the shoulders of her slaves whom she best liked. It is a mark of politeness among those women always to keep the right hand in front of the mouth when they talk to a man.[10]
Those people live in houses thatched with straw, with the leaves of trees, or with large reeds which, divided into two, serve them as a tiling. There is but little furniture to be seen in their houses. But rarely are chairs seen there, for they always sit on the ground, or on carpets made from reeds. They have neither beds nor mattresses, as their reed mats serve as both. They eat on the ground or on very small low tables, but the tables are used only among the chiefs. Banana leaves, which are one braza long and one-half braza wide, serve them as napkins. Their employment consists of agriculture, the very abundant fishing along their coasts and in their rivers, and hunting wild boars and deer with dog and spear—an employment to which their agility and their skill renders them very suitable. They also go to gather honey and wax in the mountains or in the trees, where nature has taught the bees to make both those substances.
The arms of some are spears, of others arrows; the campilan, which is a large cutlass; the kris, or poniard; the zompites or blow-guns, through which they blow little poisoned arrows; and bacacaies, or little reeds hardened by fire at the end. To defend their grain from animals and from men who could harm it, they scatter caltrops, which the old men call tribulos,[11] made so that one of the four points of which they are composed is always up, and those who pass there get caught without perceiving the traps. But now the Spaniards have taught them how to use firearms, and they get along very well—especially a nation called the Pampangos, many of whom are enrolled in the Spanish troops. These men serve with great fidelity, and well second the courage of which the Spaniards set them an example in their combats by sea and land.