Negritos of Zambales

Chapter 7: Spanish Attempts to Organize Negritos

Anthropometric Measurements Vocabularies Plates

ILLUSTRATIONS

I. Outline map of the Philippine Islands, showing distribution of Negritos. 18 II. Outline map of Zambales, showing distribution of Negritos. 30 III. Negrito women of Bataan on a rock in a stream. 30 IV. Negrito man from Nangsol, near Subig, Zambales. 30 V. Negrito man from Aglao, Zambales. 30 VI. Negrito woman of Zambales. 30 VII. View near Santa Fe, Zambales. 30 VIII. Capitan of Villar. 30 IX. Negrito man of Zambales. 30 X. Showing the relative height of American, mixed blood and pure Negrito. 30 XI. Group of Negritos and Constabulary at Cabayan, Zambales. 30 XII. Old man of Zambales, pure Negrito. 30 XIII. Old man of Zambales, pure Negrito, showing hair on face and chest. 30 XIV. Negrito of Zambales, showing hair on the chin and skin disease on the arm. 30 XV. Pure Negrito of Zambales, showing hair on the chin. 30 XVI. Negrito Man of Zambales, showing hair on the face. 30 XVII. Negrito girls of Zambales, one with hair clipped behind to eradicate vermin. 30 XVIII. Negrito man of Zambales, pure blood. 30 XIX. Negrito man of Zambales, mixed blood. 44 XX. Negrito man of Zambales, pure blood. 44 XXI. Negrito man of Zambales, mixed blood. 44 XXII. Negrito girl of Zambales, pure blood. 44 XXIII. Negrito woman of Zambales, mixed blood. 44 XXIV. Old Negrito woman of Zambales, pure blood. 44 XXV. Negrito man of Zambales, pure blood. 44 XXVI. Negrito man of Negros, mixed blood. 44 XXVII. Negrito man of Zambales. 44 XXVIII. Negritos (emigrants from Panay) of Maao, Occidental Negros; mixed bloods. 44 XXIX. Group of Negrito men at Santa Fe, Zambales. 44 XXX. Principal men of Tagiltil, Zambales; pure Zambal and mixed Negrito. 44 XXXI. Negritos of Zambales, mixed bloods. 44 XXXII. Group of people called Aburlin; non-Christian Zambal and Negrito mixed bloods. 44 XXXIII. Negrito women of Zambales. 44 XXXIV. Group of Negrito women at Santa Fe, Zambales, showing dress. 44 XXXV. Negrito girls of Zambales, one wearing necklace of dried berries. 58 XXXVI. Combs worn by Negritos of Zambales. 58 XXXVII. Ornaments worn by Negritos of Zambales. 58 XXXVIII. Negrito man, wife, and hut, Bataan. 58 XXXIX. Better class of Negrito hut, Zambales. 58 XL. Negrito man of Bataan making fire with bamboo. 58 XLI. Negrito men of Bataan making fire with bamboo. 58 XLII. Bows and arrows used by Negritos of Zambales. 58 XLIII. Position taken by Negritos of Zambales in shooting. 58 XLIV. Negrito man of Bataan drawing a bow; hog-bristle ornaments on the legs. 58 XLV. Negrito man of Negros (emigrant from Panay) drawing a bow. 58 XLVI. Musical instruments used by Negritos of Zambales. 58 XLVII. Negritos of Zambales singing the "talbun." 58 XLVIII. Negritos of Zambales dancing. 58 XLIX. Negrito men of Bataan beating gongs and dancing. 58 L. Negritos of Zambales dancing the "torture dance." 58 LI. Negrito woman and daughter, Bataan. 72 LII. Pure Negrito woman and mixed blood, with babies, Zambales. 72 LIII. Negrito women and children, Zambales. 72 LIV. Negrito children, Santa Fe, Zambales. 72 LV. Capitan of Cabayan, Zambales, with Negrito and Zambal wives. 72 LVI. Boys of Zambales, showing scars made by blistering for fevers, etc. 72 LVII. Negrito woman of Zambales, pure blood, showing scars made by blistering for fevers, etc. 72 LVIII. Negrito woman of Zambales, pure blood, showing skin disease. 72 LIX. Negrito man of Zambales, mixed blood, showing skin disease. 72 LX. Negrito boy of Zambales, mixed blood, showing skin disease. 72 LXI. Negrito man of Zambales, mixed blood, showing skin disease. 72 LXII. Capitan-General del Monte, Negrito of Zambales. 72

Figure 1. "Belatic," trap used by Negritos. 45 Figure 2. Marks on dice used by Negritos. 49

PREFACE

This report is based on two months' field work pursued during May and June, 1903. Accompanied by Mr. J. Diamond, a photographer, the writer went in the latter part of April to Iba, Zambales, where a few days were spent in investigating the dialects of the Zambal people and in preparation for a trip to the interior.

After a journey of 25 miles inland a camp was established near Tagiltil. During the three weeks we were there the camp was visited by about 700 Negritos, who came in from outlying settlements, often far back in the mountains; but, owing to the fact that most of them would remain only as long as they were fed, extended investigations had to be conducted largely among the residents of Tagiltil and the neighboring rancheria of Villar.

From Tagiltil a trip was made southward behind the low mountain chain, which marks the limit of the plain, and through a hitherto unexplored territory, very broken and next to impassable except in the dry season. The trail, known only to Negritos and but little used, followed for the most part the beds of mountain streams. Four little rancherias were passed, the people of two of which had already visited us. A hard two-day trip brought us to Santa Fe, a barrio of San Marcelino. After a week with the Negritos at this place a trip was made toward the Pampanga boundary to Cabayan and Aglao, the former locality inhabited by several small groups of Negritos, the latter an isolated Ilokano barrio in and near which the Negritos live. A visit to the rancherias near Subig and Olongapo concluded the investigation. In all, more than a thousand Negritos were seen.

With only a short time at a place it is evident that an exhaustive study of the people of any particular locality could not be made. But the culture plane of the entire area is practically the same, and the facts as here presented should give a good idea of the customs and the general condition of the Negritos of Zambales Province. The short time at my disposal for the investigation is my only excuse for the meager treatment given some lines of study--as, for example, physical anthropology and language.

Inasmuch as nothing has yet been published by The Ethnological Survey on the Negritos of the Philippines, I have thought it not out of place to preface my report with an introductory chapter on their distribution. The data contained therein have been compiled by me from information gathered by the Survey during the past two years and are sufficiently authentic for the present purpose.

The photographs of the Zambales Negritos were made by Mr. J. Diamond and those of the Bataan Negritos are from the collection of Hon. Dean C. Worcester, Secretary of the Interior. Credit for each photograph is given on the plate as it appears.

CHAPTER I. Distribution of Negritos

DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRITOS

Probably no group of primitive men has attracted more attention from the civilized world than the pygmy blacks. From the time of Homer and Aristotle the pygmies, although their existence was not absolutely known at that early period, have had their place in fable and legend, and as civilized man has become more and more acquainted with the unknown parts of the globe he has met again and again with the same strange type of the human species until he has been led to conclude that there is practically no part of the tropic-zone where these little blacks have not lived at some time.

Mankind at large is interested in a race of dwarfs just as it would be in a race of giants, no matter what the color or social state; and scientists have long been concerned with trying to fix the position of the pygmies in the history of the human race. That they have played an important ethnologic role can not be doubted; and although to-day they are so scattered and so modified by surrounding people as largely to have disappeared as a pure type, yet they have everywhere left their imprint on the peoples who have absorbed them.

The Negritos of the Philippines constitute one branch of the Eastern division of the pygmy race as opposed to the African division, it being generally recognized that the blacks of short stature may be so grouped in two large and comprehensive divisions. Other well-known branches of the Eastern group are the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands and perhaps also the Papuans of New Guinea, very similar in many particulars to the Negritos of the Philippines, although authorities differ in grouping the Papuans with the Negritos. The Asiatic continent is also not without its representatives of the black dwarfs, having the Sakai of the Malay Peninsula. The presence of Negritos over so large an area has especially attracted the attention of anthropologists who have taken generally one or the other of two theories advanced to explain it: First, that the entire oceanic region is a partly submerged continent, once connected with the Asiatic mainland and over which this aboriginal race spread prior to the subsidence. The second theory is that the peopling of the several archipelagoes by the Negritos has been a gradual spread from island to island. This latter theory, advanced by De Quatrefages, is the generally accepted one, although it is somewhat difficult to believe that the ancestors of weak and scattered tribes such as to-day are found in the Philippines could ever have been the sea rovers that such a belief would imply. It is a well-known fact, however, that the Malays have spread in this manner, and, while it is hardly possible that the Negritos have ever been as bold seafarers as the Malays, yet where they have been left in undisputed possession of their shores they have remained reckless fishermen. The statement that they are now nearly always found in impenetrable mountain forests is not an argument against the migration-by-sea theory, because they have been surrounded by stronger races and have been compelled to flee to the forests or suffer extermination. The fact that they live farther inland than the stronger peoples is also evidence that they were the first inhabitants, for it is not natural to suppose that a weaker race could enter territory occupied by a stronger and gain a permanent foothold there.

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