129. To what has been said of dowries and marriages, it must be added that in some districts, besides the bigaycaya and those presents made to the relatives, there was panhimuyat. This was a kind of present that was given to the mother of the bride, merely in return for the bad and watchful nights that she had passed in rearing her. That panhimuyat signifies “watchfulness and care.” If the dowry was equal to five taes of gold, the panhimuyat was equal to one tinga, which was equivalent to one tae, or five pesos. That was a custom which well shows the harshness and greed of these nations, since the mothers wished to be paid even for the rearing of their daughters.
Also, whenever a chief married any daughter of his and asked a large dowry of his son-in-law, as, for instance, eighteen or twenty taes of gold, the father was obliged to give his daughter certain gifts called pasonor, such as a gold chain, or a couple of slaves, or something proportional to the dowry. It was very shameful to ask a large dowry without giving a pasonor. This is still done, resembling the gifts which among us the father presents to his daughter præter dotem,[26] which the civil law calls bona paraphernalia.[27]
[1] For description of Borneo, see Vol. XXXIII, p. 353, note 419. Malayo refers to a portion of the Malay Peninsula. For the origin, settlement, and distribution of the native peoples in the Philippines, see Barrows’s account in Census of Philippine Islands, i, pp. 411–417, 447–477; cf. Crawfurd’s Dictionary of Indian Islands, pp. 249–253.
[2] João de Barros, the great Portuguese historian, was born at Vizeu in 1496 and became page to the crown prince (afterward João III), for whose amusement he wrote his three-volume romance, Cronica de Emperador Clarimundo (Coimbra, 1520). João III appointed him captain of the fortress of San Jorge de Mina, governor of the Portuguese possessions in Guinea, and (1533) treasurer and general agent for Portuguese India. An attempt to colonize a grant of land in Brazil (received 1539) failed, and was abandoned. Barros died in 1570. The book referred to in the text was his Decados, a history of Portuguese India, written in fulfilment of a royal commission. The first “decade” was completed in nine years (1552), the second soon after, and the third ten years later. The fourth was left unfinished at his death, but was completed later by Diogo do Conto, who added eight more volumes. A complete edition was printed at Lisbon in twenty-four volumes (1778–88). Barros was a conscientious writer and a good stylist. (New International Encyclopædia.)
[3] An apparent error for the word “kasis,” and here wrongly used (see Vol. XVI, p. 134, note 161).
[4] Thus (sur) in text; but, as a matter of fact, Paragua stretches northeast from the north point of Borneo, and the Sulu archipelago in the same direction from its northeast side.
[5] Sumatra is on the whole deficient in lakes. The largest is Lake Singkara, about twenty miles in length by about twelve to fifteen in breadth, with a depth of twenty-four fathoms, and is the source of the Indragiri River. Another lies near the foot of the mountain Mârapi, and is called Danau Sapuluh kota, or “Lake of the ten forts.” There are two others in the country of the Korinchi Malays; and still another in the country of the Lampungs, toward Java, and called the Ranu (Javanese synonym for “water”). It is about sixteen miles long and eight miles wide. Colin evidently refers to either the first or the last of these. See Crawfurd’s Dictionary, p. 416.
[6] India citra Gangem (if we accept Marco Polo’s division) would correspond to Greater India, or the country extending from the Ganges to the Indus. India extra Gangem, or Lesser India, included the territory between the eastern coast of the peninsula of India, and that of Cochinchina or Champa. See Wright’s edition of Travels of Marco Polo (London and New York, 1892), p. 435, note. Colin says (p. 1), that India extra Gangem or Farther India included the coasts of the rich kingdoms of Malacca, Sian, Camboja, Champa, Cochinchina, Tunquin, and China, as far as the confines of Oriental Tartary. The allusion to an Asiatic Ethiopia is hopelessly confused, and may have arisen from Marco Polo’s second division of India, which includes Abyssinia.
[7] Of the Manguianes, or more properly the Mangyan, Pardo de Tavera says in Etimologia de las nombres de razas de Filipinas (Manila, 1901): “In Tagálog, Bícol, and Visaya, manguian signifies ‘savage,’ ‘mountaineer,’ ‘pagan negroes.’ It may be that the use of this word is applicable to a great number of Filipinos, but nevertheless it has been applied only to certain inhabitants of Mindoro. In primitive times, without doubt, the name was even then given to those of that island who to-day bear it, but its employment in three Filipino languages shows that the radical ngian had in all these languages a sense to-day forgotten. In Pampango this radical ending still exists and signifies ‘ancient,’ from which we can deduce that the name was applied to men considered to be the ancient inhabitants, and that these men were pushed back into the interior by the modern invaders in whose languages they are called the ‘ancients.’” They live in the mountains of Mindoro and are probably a mixture of the Negritos with other Filipinos, and possibly in some localities there may be a small infusion of white blood. They are non-Christian, and are very timid. Their dress consists of the “gee” string, with the addition, in the case of the younger girls, of some forty or eighty yards of bejuco (rattan) wrapped around the waist. They are divided into several tribes, chief among which are the “Buquit,” “Bangon,” and “Batanganes,” who roam in bunches or by families, the oldest acting as chief. They are willing workers, and make nearly all the bancas used in the province. They have no knowledge whatever of agriculture, and do not know the value of money. The census of 1903 shows a population of 7,269. See Census of the Philippines, i, pp. 472, 473, 547, and 548; and ii, p. 15.