Let us now examine [continues the historian[4]] the state of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the larger part of the aboriginal population: “The principal cause,” he said, “of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted, is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find it impossible to exercise any influence over them.”
Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families, united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring these villages together because they carried on wars continually, and they lived in such a state of discord that it was impossible to govern them; moreover they were so barbarous and fierce that they recognized only superior power. They governed through fear. He who wished to be most respected sought to inspire fear by striking off as many beads as possible. The one who committed the most assassinations was thus assured of the subordination of all. They made such a glory of it that they were accustomed to wear certain ornaments in order to show to the eyes or all the murders they had committed. When a person lost a relative either by a violent or a natural death he covered his head with a strip of black cloth as a sign of mourning and could take it off only after having committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager to do in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long as they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part in any festivity. One understands then that deaths became very frequent in a country where all deaths were necessarily followed by one or more murders. It is true that he who committed a murder sought to atone for it by paying to the relatives of the deceased a certain quantity of gold or silver or by giving them a slave or a Negrito who might be murdered in his place.
The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants of other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called “Bayoc,” who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He celebrated this ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most frightful revels. He next indicated to the new priest the idol or cult to which he should specially devote himself and conferred on him privileges proportionate to the rank of that divinity, for they recognized among their gods a hierarchy, which established also that of their curates. They gave to their principal idol the name of “Malyari”—that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi, whose power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang in religious ceremonies that “although Malyari was powerful, Acasi had preëminence.” In an inferior order they worshiped also Manlobog or Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of appeasing irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five less important idols who represented the divinities of the fields, prosperity to their herds and harvests. They also believed that Anitong sent them rains and favorable winds; Damalag preserved the sown fields from hurricanes; Dumanga made the grain grow abundantly; and finally Calascas ripened it, leaving to Calosocos only the duty of harvesting the crops. They also had a kind of baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure blood of the pig, but this ceremony, very long and especially very expensive, was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which the same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated by repugnant debaucheries.
Of course it is impossible to tell how much of this is the product of the writer’s imagination, or at least of the imagination of those earlier chroniclers from whom he got his information, but it can very well be believed that the natives had a religion of their own and that the work of the missionaries was exceedingly difficult. It was necessary to get them into villages, to show them how to prepare and till the soil and harvest the crops. And the writer concludes that “little by little the apathetic and indolent natives began to recognize the advantages of social life constituted under the shield of authority and law, and the deplorable effects of savage life, offering no guarantee of individual or collective security.”
A fortress had been built at Paynaven, in what is now the Province of Pangasinan, from which the work of the missionaries spread southward, so that the northern towns were all organized before those in the south. It is not likely that this had anything to do with causing the Negritos to leave the northern part of the province, if indeed they ever occupied it, but it is true that to-day they inhabit only the mountainous region south of a line drawn through the middle of the province from east to west.
The friar Martinez Zúñiga, speaking of the fortress at Paynaven, said that in that day, the beginning of the last century, there was little need of it as a protection against the “infidel Indians” and blacks who were very few in number, and against whom a stockade of bamboo was sufficient.
It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily the Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these pirates, who always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however, a constant menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to transport on rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to carry on commerce with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal are exposed to attack from the Moros in rounding the point at the entrance of Manila Bay, from which it results that the province is poor and has little commerce.[5]
Everything in the history of the Zambal people and their present comparative unimportance goes to show that they were the most indolent and backward of the Malayan peoples. While they have never given the governing powers much trouble, yet they have not kept pace with the agricultural and commercial progress of the other people, and their territory has been so steadily encroached on from all sides by their more aggressive neighbors that their separate identity is seriously threatened. The rich valleys of Zambales have long attracted Ilokano immigrants, who have founded several important towns. The Zambal themselves, owing to lack of communication between their towns, have developed three separate dialects, none of which has ever been deemed worthy of study and publication, as have the other native dialects of the Philippines. A glance at the list of towns of Zambales with the prevailing dialect spoken in each, and in case of nearly equal division also the second most important dialect, will show to what extent Zambal as a distinct dialect is gradually disappearing:
Dialects in Zambales Province
| Town | Primary dialect | Secondary dialect |
| Olongapo | Tagalog | |
| Subig | Tagalog | |
| Castillejos | Tagalog | Ilokano |
| San Marcelino | Ilokano | Tagalog |
| San Antonio | Ilokano | |
| San Narciso | Ilokano | |
| San Felipe | Ilokano | |
| Cabangan | Zambal | |
| Botolan | Zambal | |
| Iba | Zambal | |
| Palauig | Zambal | |
| Masinloc | Zambal | |
| Candelaria | Zambal | |
| Santa Cruz | Zambal | |
| Infanta | Zambal | |
| Dasol | Pangasinan | Zambal |
| Agno | Ilokano | Pangasinan |
| Barri | Zambal | |
| San Isidro | Ilokano | |
| Balincaguin | Pangasinan | |
| Alos | Ilokano | Pangasinan |
| Alumnos | Pangasinan | Ilokano |
| Zaragoza | Zambal | |
| Bolinao | Zambal | |
| Anda | Zambal |