The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 20 of 55: 1621-1624; 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 20 of 55: 1621-1624; 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
That race lacks all good natural reasoning power. They cannot read,
nor do they know what day, month, or year, or the increase and decline
of the moon, signify. They govern themselves by one star that rises in
the west, which they call _gaganayan_, while they call the natives of
their neighborhood by the same name. On seeing that star they attend to
the planting of their waste and wretched fields in order to sow them
with yams and camotes, which form their usual and natural food. They
do not have to plow or dig, or perform any other cultivation than
that of clearing the land where they are to plant.
When any one of those barbarians dies, they do not bury him for many
days, for, as they say, they pass one month, during which period they
amass quantities of food about the deceased, to whom they give his
share as well as the others. Then they continue to prick the body,
and, as they say, they draw off or suck out the humors until the body
is left dry. When that time comes they wrap it in their blankets, and
fasten buyos and other things about the waist for the journey. Some are
buried in a sitting posture and placed with their backs against their
shields, in caves under the rocks, the mouths of which are stopped
with stones. Others they set in the trees, and they carry food for
so many days after having left them in either one of those places.
It is not very easy to ascertain the number of those people, who are
scattered, for they are so intractable, and do not let themselves
be seen, moving from one place to another on slight pretext, without
any hindrance; for their houses, to provide which would be the chief
cause of anxiety, they easily build anywhere, with a bundle of hay,
while they move their fields of yams or camotes (on which they live
well) from one place to another without much effort, pulling them
up by the roots--for, because of the dampness of the country, these
take root wherever they are placed. In the same manner, they carry
their ornaments or bones; [58] and since their arms and clothes are
but little or nothing, they are not embarrassed, because they always
carry these with them. Yet it is known that, if those called Ygolotes
reach one thousand men, that is a great number. They can scarcely
gather in one body or live on friendly terms with one another. For
those of Banaco and those of Atindao, villages of the same mountains,
have little or no communication with them, as neither do those of Aytuy
and Panaquy, villages on the other side of the said mountain-range--to
whom it is said that they pay tribute or a sort of recognition; but
both are hostile to those of Alrade, Vigan, and Oyrraya, so that, all
those Ygolotes being so separated, cautious, malicious and treacherous,
no message or despatch can at all be sent them. For if it be done
with few Indians, they secure and kill them; and if there are many,
they fight them, and will not listen to or believe them. If Spaniards
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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