The pampamgo is another dance which is especially remarkable by the movements of the loins, and the special grace which the women show in it. It is accompanied by very significative clapping of the hands.
In the Visayas they dance the bagay, the music and song of which are langorous and melancholy, like that of the comintang. It is also a lover and a mistress who dance, the while they mingle their motions with cries.
The Montescos of the provinces of the north of the island of Luçon also dance to the sound of their bamboo flutes, but their gestures and their postures are so indecent that for shame a woman never dances except with her husband.
The Negritos in their dances hold in their hands their bow and arrows and utter horrible cries. They make frightful contortions and leaps to which in the country one has given the name of camarones, comparing them to those that the sea-crabs make in the water. They end their dance by shooting their arrows into the air, and their eyesight is so quick that they sometimes kill a bird on the wing. Their ouroucay, or song of the mountains, is a very pleasing melody consisting of six measures which are repeated time and time again, which if it were arranged for chorus, would make a fine effect.
The fandango, the çapateado, the cachucha, and other Spanish dances have been adopted by the Indians, and they do not lack grace when they dance them to the accompaniment of castinets, which they play with a remarkable precision. They also execute some dances of Nueva España, such as for example the jarabès, where they show all the Spanish vivacity with movements of their figure, of their breasts, of their hips, to right and left forward and backward, and pirouettes, whose rapidity is such that the eye can scarce follow them.
Drawing and painting are much further advanced than one would believe among the Indians of the Philippines. Without taking into account the fine geographical maps of Nicolas de Ocampo, we can cite the miniatures of Denian, and Sauriano, the pictures of churches, and the oil portraits of Oreco. Those works are indeed far from being perfect, for the artists to whom they are due have never had any masters, but they present marks of great talent, and the portraits have a striking resemblance [to the original]. We seize this occasion to testify all our gratitude to the two mestizo designers, Juan Serapio Transfiguracion Nepomuceno, and his son, for the services which as artists they have been pleased to render us with so much kindness.
[1] These statistics show that Mas has been the chief authority followed by Mallat. [↑]
[2] Inasmuch as this citation was translated from Mas by Mallat, we have used Mas’s words in preference to retranslating Mallat. [↑]