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
29. All those whom the first Spaniards found in these islands with the
command and lordship over the land are reduced to the first class,
the civilized peoples. Another kind, totally opposed to the above,
are the Negrillos, who live in the mountains and thick forests which
abound in these islands. The latter are a barbarous race who live on
the fruits and roots of the forests. They go naked, covering only
the privies with some articles called bahaques, made from the bark
of trees. They wear no other ornaments than armlets and anklets and
bracelets, curiously wrought after their manner from small rattans
of various colors, and garlands of branches and flowers on their
heads and the fleshy parts of the arm; and at the most some cock
or sparrow-hawk feather for a plume. They have no laws or letters,
or other government or community than that of kinsfolk, all those
of one line of family obeying their leader. In regard to religion
and divine worship they have but little or none. The Spaniards call
them Negrillos because many of them are as much negroes, as are the
Ethiopians themselves, both in their black color and in their kinky
hair. There are still a number of those people in the interior in
the mountains. In one of the large islands there are so many of them,
that it is for that reason called the island of Negros. Those blacks
were apparently the first inhabitants of these islands, and they have
been deprived of them by the civilized nations who came later by way of
Samatra, the Javas, Borney, Macaçar, and other islands lying toward the
west. If one should ask whence could come the Negros to these islands
so distant from Africa and Ethiopias, where negroes live, I answer
that it was from nearer India, or citra Gangem, which was formerly
settled by Ethiopic negroes and was called Etiopia. [7] From there,
it is more probable, went out the settlers of African Etiopia, as we
prove in another place. Moreover, even today does India have nations
of the negro race. Also they could easily pass from the districts of
the mainland of India to the nearest islands, and could come from
one to the other even as far as these Filipinas. In Nueva Guinea,
which is quite near Terrenate, the natives are negroes like those of
Guinea, and on that account the first explorers gave them that name;
and they could also pass from those to these districts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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