Extract from a Letter written by Father Pablo Pastells to the Father Provincial, Juan Capell, S. J.[20]
Manila, April 20, 1887.
... Now considering Mindanao under its social and political aspect, its population is divided into Christians, heathens, and Moros, all of whom proceed in general from the Malay, Indonesian races,[21] and the indigenous or Negrito race, and from crosses of the same races among themselves and with other superior races, especially the Chinese and Spaniards. The Christians are divided into old and new. The old Christians number about 186,000, and occupy in the ethnographical map accompanying our letters, the place represented by color no. 1. Their customs smell of the greater or less familiarity that they have or have had with the heathens from whose races they proceed. Without the powerful and efficacious influence of religion one would note in them a marked tendency to idleness, drunkenness, gambling, and lust. On the other side they are naturally hospitable, docile, and generous. They are pious in the performance of their religion. In their family and married life considerable morality is observed when there exist no rocks of scandal in the villages. I have observed in certain parish books which register more than two hundred baptisms per year, that two or three years pass without the notice of a single natural child.[22] They are given to the cultivation of rice, abacá, sugar-cane, coffee, tobacco, bananas, lumbias, cocoa-palms, and other fruit trees, and to that of tubers such as sweet potatoes, gabe, and arorú, which are an article of prime necessity for them in times of famine. They extract mastic and other resins, as for example piao and guísog, and refine the oil of cocoanuts, biao, and balao, but do not extract castor or peanut oil as they are ignorant of their use.[23] Wax and honey are very abundant. From the latter, and from sugar-cane, nipa, cocoanuts, rice and cabo negro they prepare their drinks, and their vinegars from the last named and from camagon.[24] They also get salt from sea-water by means of rapid evaporation.[25] In general, the men are farmers, but among them there are carpenters, smiths, metal workers, masons, tailors, and even some who devote themselves to the making of weapons. The women weave the filaments of piña, tindog,[26] abacá, cotton, and silk. They embroider and sew most delicately and tastefully. In certain seasons of the year, many Indians of the coasts, travel and fish especially for sea-turtles, whether they have any shell or not.[27]
The Philippine barangay
[From photograph taken by Otto Fischer, 1888; procured in Madrid]
They live in humble houses of nipa, bamboo, and even of wood, which are quite luxurious among the most powerful. The animals that they use for their work, conveyance, and travel are the carabao, the ox, and the horse. Their implements for farming are reduced to the plow and the bolo. Their domestic animals are the dog, cat, cock, and swine. Their games are cockfighting, cards, and sipa, a hollow ball of split bamboo, which they move with the feet. They also use dancing as a means of diversion, especially the moro-moro dance and the tapáiron. During their principal feasts, they adorn their houses with hangings and hold modest banquets. They are very fond of excitement and noise, especially that caused by fireworks. Their usual cutting weapons are the hatchet, súndan, lígdao, kris, campilan, tabas, and the badí for the women. The missile weapons are the spear which may be of four kinds, namely, púyus, búdiac, lináyas, and pinuipui; arrows of bamboo, palma brava,[28] iron, and steel. Those weapons used both for cutting and thrusting are balaraos or two edged daggers, whose hilts and scabbards are usually adorned with various designs in silver engraved by themselves. The boats used by them are vintas, barotos, bancas, bilus, pancos, falúas, paraos, and lancanes. For fishing they make use of the harpoon, arrows, bolos, corrals, and nets. For the same object they also use the bark of the tree called tuble and the fruits of the tuba-tuba, and lagtan.[29] There trade is, as a rule, reduced to the articles of prime necessity in food, drink, clothing, and work utensils. Among the old Christians of Mindanao, tulisanes by profession are not known, and if there are any in the south, they are deported.
The new Christians, from 1876 to the present time, reach some 25,000. In their general characteristics and customs, they are not distinguished from the races to which they owe their origin. Nevertheless, after they receive holy baptism, and while they live as Christians under the civil and religious organization to which they are subjected by the father missionaries, a very marked difference is noted, for by the habit of subjection to law which they acquire by means of the mild means of Christian education which the missionary who has been able to merit their confidence, strikes, the change of their customs is facilitated in a remarkable manner, and in a short time the moral condition of their families and individuals is changed. I mean [that the above is true] when they persevere [in the Christian life] for in regard to this, there are some tribes who are more fickle than others. Thus for example, the converted Mandaya is much less inconstant than the Manobo, for the importance of being subject to a beginning of authority is more impressed on his mind.
The heathen to the number of about 300,000, are divided into different nations or families of three races properly so called: the Malay, the Indonesian, and the Negrito. They have many crosses with other superior races, as the Chinese, Japanese, and even according to some, the European.[30]