The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 18 of 55: 1617-1620; Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 18 of 55: 1617-1620; Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
Next after Panpanga comes the district comprising all of Sambales and
Pangasinan. This, although here considered as a separate province,
is under the jurisdiction of Manila in judicial and religious
matters. Its natives are chiefly those called Negrillos. They are
mountain Indians and are either very tawny in color, or black. They
are so restless, so warlike, and so averse to trade and communication
with other people, that up to this time it has not been possible to
subdue them effectively. Although on different occasions they have
been severely chastised, there is still no security from them. They
are in the habit of making sudden assaults upon their neighbors,
continually, and cutting off many heads. In this consists the whole
happiness of these barbarians. These Negrillos belong to the same
race of people as those who live farthest in the interior and in the
most rugged parts of these islands. It is a very well established and
common belief that they are the real aborigines; and that the rest
of the Indians are immigrants who conquered them, and compelled them
to leave the shores and plains, and to retire to the most isolated
and rugged parts of the islands, where they now are. They are still
so brutal and so averse to civilization that they scarcely deserve
more than the name of men; for they often cut off the heads of their
own fathers and brothers as a pastime, for no other reason than
their natural cruelty and brutality. Very few of them have fixed
settlements, nor do they plant crops; but they live upon camotes
(a kind of potato), other herbs and roots, and the game which they
hunt. They hardly ever come to the plains or coasts except to make
assaults and to cut off heads. The one who has cut off the greatest
number of these is most feared and respected among them. The skulls
they keep in their huts as trophies, or to serve as jugs and cups
in their drinking-bouts. There is such abundance of wild game in
the province of Pangasinan that within a space of only twenty leguas
over sixty thousand, and sometimes as many as eighty thousand, deer
are killed every year. The Indians pay these deerskins as tributes;
while trade in them is a source of great profit for Japon, because
the Japonese make of them good leather for various purposes.
_Ten thousand tributes_. There must be in Pangasinan between ten
thousand and twelve thousand half-pacified tributes, two thousand
belonging to his Majesty, and the rest to private individuals. The
capital of this province is a place called Binabatonga. It
formerly contained about three thousand houses, or, according to
other estimates, a greater number; but it now has only about two
thousand. The province has some good ports. One is that of Agoo,
commonly called "the port of Japon," because it was the first port
which the Japonese occupied in these islands [when our people first saw
them here]. Another port is Bolinao, which is better than any other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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