The exact number who fall under this classification is not known,
Governor Bolton, who was intimately acquainted with the wild tribes of
the District, estimated their number at sixty-five hundred, but this
count did not include the sub-division here given as Obo. One
enumeration, made by a Jesuit missionary, places the population at
fifteen thousand, while the Government report of 1900 gives them
eighteen thousand four hundred. The latter estimates are certainly
excessive. It is probable that they were determined by compiling the
population of villages reported to exist in the interior.
The wilder members of this tribe are, to a certain extent, migratory,
moving their villages from one location to another according to the
demands of their mode of agriculture. Their rice fields are made in
mountain-side clearings, and as the ever present cogon grass[1] begins
to invade the open land they substitute sweet potatoes or hemp. In time
even these lusty plants give way to the rank grass, and the people find
it easier to make new clearings in the forest than to combat the pest
with the primitive tools at their command. This results in some new
fields each year, and when these are at too great a distance from the
dwellings the old settlements are abandoned and new ones formed at more
convenient locations.
[1] _Imperata koenigii_.
It is probable that the total number belonging to this tribe does not
exceed ten thousand persons.