The people of these three tribes, and the Ilongots, and the wild Tingians of Apayao, were fierce, war-like, unsubdued head-hunting savages at the time of the American occupation. Friendly as is our present relationship with the former head-hunters of Luzón, and excellent as is now the condition of public order in their territory, we still often have the fact brought home to us that the blood-lust of these sturdy and brave fighters is only dormant. A steady hand must be held on them for many a year to come. The problems which the primitive peoples of the Philippines present are neither few nor simple. We shall not get far by ignoring them or misrepresenting them. Let us look them squarely in the face. CHAPTER XXIV NON-CHRISTIAN TRIBE PROBLEMS And now let us try to gain a clear appreciation of some of the problems actually presented by the existence of the non-Christian peoples of the Philippines. They belong to twenty-seven tribes at the most. Probably this number will ultimately be somewhat further reduced. The number of dialects spoken is greatly in excess of the number of tribes, as the people of a single tribe sometimes speak three or four well-marked dialects. The tribes are divided between two wholly distinct races, to wit, Negritos and Malays. The Negritos are of very low mentality and are incapable of any considerable degree of civilization. Many of them are kept in a state of abject peonage, and not a few are held in actual slavery, by their Christian Filipino neighbours. In revenge for the abuses which they suffer they are prone to commit criminal acts, and the problem which they present resolves itself into protecting them from their neighbours and their neighbours from them. The latter thing would be easy enough if the former were practicable, but unfortunately their neighbours cannot be persuaded to let them alone, and never do it except under compulsion. The people of all the Malay non-Christian tribes, with the exception of certain Negrito mestizos, are undoubtedly capable of attaining to a fairly high degree of civilization. Physically and, in my opinion, mentally the people of several of the hill tribes are decidedly superior to their lowland Filipino neighbours, who have degenerated to some extent as a result of less favourable climatic conditions and other causes. In social development these Malay tribes vary from the semi-nomadic Mangyans of Mindoro to the highly civilized Tingians of Abra, who are in many ways superior to the Ilocanos with whom they live in close contact. Some of these tribes, like the Benguet-Lepanto Igorots and the Tingians, are peaceful agriculturists; others, like the wild Tingians of Apayao, the Kalingas, the Bontoc Igorots, the Ifugaos, the Ilongots, the Manobos and the Mandayas, are, or recently have been, fierce fighters prone to indulge in such customs as the taking of human heads for war trophies, or even the making of human sacrifices to appease their heathen divinities.