The Inhabitants of the PhilippinesSawyer, Frederic H.
History
The Inhabitants of the Philippines
Sawyer, Frederic H.
Ethnology -- Philippines; Philippines -- Social life and customs
Blumentritt describes them from a photograph lent him by
Dr. A. B. Meyer, as having eyes long and deeply sunk, upper lip and
chin hairy, the hair long plaited in a tail, and often reaching the
hips. A Spanish authority describes them as similar to the other
hillmen, but wearing long hair, and dirty and disagreeable in their
aspect
Their dress is as primitive as that of the other savage races,
the adult men wearing a band of beaten bark round the waist, the
women wearing a tapis, and the children going quite naked. They wear
rings or spirals of brass wire on their arms, necklaces, and other
ornaments. But when the men have occasion to go into the Christian
villages, they wear shirts and trousers. I have myself seen instances
of this custom amongst the Tagbanúas in Palawan.
They are clever smiths and know how to temper their weapons. Their
lances have different shaped heads, and the shafts are made of Palma
Brava. Their swords are well-made and ornamented, and are carried in
a wooden scabbard from a belt of webbing. This appears to be their
favourite weapon. They never go unarmed, even for a few paces, and
they sleep with their weapons beside them. Their shields are of light
wood, carved, and painted red.
Their domestic life is not unlike that of the Christian natives,
for they are not polygamists; they, however, are more careless and
dirty. They purchase their wife from her parents. They subsist by
hunting and fishing, and by cultivating rice, maize, sweet potatoes,
and other vegetables. They grow tobacco, which they exchange for
other goods with the Christian natives. They catch the wild carabaos
in traps. They are ineradicably addicted to head-hunting, and wage
a continual war with all their neighbours, but if an interval of
peace occurs, they fight one family or clan against another, for they
must have heads. The marriage ceremony cannot be completed till the
bridegroom has presented the bride with some of these grisly trophies;
heads of Christians for choice.
They signify war by placing arrows in the path and sprinkling blood
upon it. Treaties of peace, or rather truces, are sometimes ratified by
human sacrifices, and the ceremony of blood-brothership is practised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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