The Inhabitants of the PhilippinesSawyer, Frederic H.
History
The Inhabitants of the Philippines
Sawyer, Frederic H.
Ethnology -- Philippines; Philippines -- Social life and customs
The population of the capital, in consequence of its continual
communication with the Chinese and other Asiatics, with the sailors
of different nations, with the soldiers, and with the Mexican convicts
who are generally mulattoes, and who arrive in some number every year,
has come to be a mixture of all the bloods and features, or otherwise
a degeneration of the primitive race.
At Cainta, on a branch of the Pasig, the natives are darker, taller,
and of a different type. This is accounted for by the fact that,
in 1762-63, during the English invasion, a regiment of Madras Sepoys
occupied the town for many months, long enough, in fact, to modify the
native type to such an extent as to be plainly visible 125 years later.
Crauford says that some Christian inhabitants of Ternate followed
their priests (Jesuits) to Luzon when the Spaniards were driven out of
Molucas by the Dutch in 1660. They were located in Marigondon. There
is now a town called Ternate between Marigondon and the sea, near
Punta Restinga. But, with the exception of the capital and these
two places, I think the Tagals have not greatly altered in physical
characteristics since the Conquest--notwithstanding Ratzel's statement
that "Spanish-Tagal half-breeds in the Philippines may be numbered
by the hundred thousand," which I consider erroneous.
The fact is, that wherever a small number of male Europeans live
amongst a native race, the effect on the type is smaller than may
be supposed, and what there is becomes obliterated or disseminated
in course of time. Colour may be a little altered, but all the other
characteristics remain. The mestizas are not so prolific as the native
women, and notwithstanding Jagor's assertion to the contrary, they
often marry natives, and especially if their father has died while
they were young. I knew in the town of Balayan three handsome sisters,
daughters of a Spaniard who had died many years before. Although they
lived in a house which had been at one time the finest in the town,
and still retained some remnants of its former grandeur, they had
reverted entirely to the native customs and dress. They spoke only
Tagal, and all three of them married natives.
The tendency of the Philippine native to revert to old customs is
well marked, and I agree with Jagor when he says: "Every Indian
has an innate inclination to abandon the hamlets and retire into
the solitude of the woods, or live isolated in the midst of his own
fields," in fact to Remontar.
The Tagals are considered by Wallace as the fourth great tribe of the
Malay race. He only mentions the Tagals, but in fact the population
of the Archipelago, except the Negritos and some hybrids, belongs
to the Malay race, although slightly mixed with Chinese and Spanish
blood in a few localities. They are here and there modified by mixture
with other races, and everywhere by their environment, for they have
been Roman Catholics and subject to Spanish influence, if not rule,
for upwards of three centuries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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