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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55, 1690-1691: 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 40 of 55, 1690-1691: 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

Native races and their customs. Francisco Colin, S.J.;
    Madrid, 1663.

    The natives of the southern islands. Francisco Combés,
    S.J.; 1667.

    Letter on the Filipinos. Gaspar de San Agustín, O.S.A.; 1720.

    The native peoples and their customs. Juan Francisco de San
    Antonio, O.S.F.; 1738.


Sources: The material for this appendix is obtained from the
following works: Colin's Labor evangélica (Madrid, 1663), book
i, chap. iv, xiii-xvi; from a copy in the possession of Edward
E. Ayer, Chicago. Combés's Hist. de Mindanao, Ioló, etc. (Madrid,
1667)--reprinted by Retana and Pastells (Madrid, 1897), chap. ix-xviii;
from a copy of the latter in the possession of the Editors. San
Agustín's letter, from an early MS. copy in the possession of Edward
E. Ayer. San Antonio's Crónicas (Manila, 1738), i, pp. 129-172;
from a copy in the possession of Edward E. Ayer.

Translations: The above matter is compiled and translated by James
Alexander Robertson.






NATIVE RACES AND THEIR CUSTOMS


[This so-called ethnological appendix does not presume to present in
exact scientific detail the various races and tribes inhabiting the
Philippines; but to give in their own words what the earliest writers
especially have themselves observed and experienced concerning some
of those races and tribes, in so far as such observations have not
hitherto appeared in this series. The accounts contain much of value
as showing how the Filipino was gradually transformed in many ways by
his contact with his conqueror. For early ethnological information of
the Philippines, see Vols. V, VII, XII, XIII, and XVI of this series.]

[Colin in his Labor evangélica (Madrid, 1663) devotes pp. 15-19
and 53-75 (comprising chapters iv, and xiii-xvi of book i) to the
Filipinos. Those chapters here follow.]




CHAPTER IV

    Of the origin of the nations and peoples who inhabit these
    islands


25. Although these are islands it will not be necessary to fatigue the
mind by discussing (as do San Agustin and other authors in respect to
other islands and to America) whence and how people and animals came
to them. For if some of these islands have been, at any time since
the flood, part of a continent, from that time men and animals could
remain in them; while if they have always been islands, the nearness of
some of them to others, and of some of them to the mainland of Asia,
whence began the propagation of the human race and the settlements
of the descendants of Noah, is sufficient reason why some of them
could come to settle these regions. And that this was really so,
and that the principal settler of these archipelagoes was Tharsis,
son of Javan, together with his brothers, as were Ophir and Hevilath
of India, we see in the tenth chapter of Genesis, which treats of
the dispersion of peoples and the settlement of countries, as we
establish in another place.

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