On the other hand, Spaniards and natives find no difficulty to obtain
concessions from the Government, under promise of cultivating the land
so taken. The regulations are so vague or so impossible, that they are
inevitably broken. The proprietor, too, is never sure of his land:
it can be forfeited by disobedience; and lawsuits are constantly
going on between the individual and the State.
This condition of affairs is of course annoying to everyone concerned,
yet no one ever thinks of changing the laws. To a Spaniard, what was
good enough for his grandfather is quite good enough for himself.
The Early Missionaries Beneficial to the Natives.
The early missionaries from Mexico were of the greatest benefit to
the Filipinos, both in the religious and in the practical affairs of
life. They introduced the use of wheat and maize, taught the natives
how to cultivate these articles of food, and, when ripe, how to make
them into bread. But there were many stubborn prejudices to overcome;
and for a long time wheat was eaten by the natives only in the holy
wafer used in the sacrament of the Church.
Now, wheat-patches are common, and in many districts maize is as much
a staple article of food as rice is in others, and roasted ears of
corn are sold as a delicacy in the markets. There are three crops of
maize grown in a year, but only for family use.
The missionaries also introduced the art of weaving, and all
through the islands a primitive bamboo-loom is one of the commoner
implements of the smallest hut. Here are woven fabrics of cotton,
silk, hemp, bamboo, and piña,--the fibre of the pineapple leaf. The
merely well-to-do and poorer classes wear clothes woven of cotton,
silk, and piña, or of piña and hemp, or of hemp or bamboo. But the
glory of the wealthy, Spaniard or Mestizo, man or woman, are their
garments of pure pineapple-leaf fibre, called jusi. This is durable
and almost priceless. A small jusi handkerchief is worth $50. So
delicate is the thread, that, in weaving, it is protected by gauze
from the gentlest breeze. The costliness of the material, therefore,
is due to the difficulties of the weaver and to the time and patience
necessary to produce even a single inch.
The missionaries, as well, taught the native the arts of living;
of being more comfortable in his house, and out of it; of making
bricks and tiles, and of building and adorning churches. And thus
they stood between an exacting Government and the helpless natives,
and were often the only Providence of which the latter were aware.
Herbs and medicinal plants abound in the islands. The bark of the ditá
tree greatly resembles that known as Peruvian Bark, and is used by
the natives to reduce fever. From it an alkaloid is extracted that
is called by Manila chemists, ditaïne. Its effects are like those
produced by swallowing quinine, only not so marked.
A perfume called Ylang-Ylang, is made from the flowers of a tree of
that name that grows in the Philippines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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