In the course of these excursions to the country, the native Indians,
with a stray half-breed, generally of the China Mestizo race, are
nearly the only people met with, as few Europeans are settled in the
provinces, except in the provincial capitals, or near the alcalde,
whose dependents they generally are. Should a stranger be able to
speak to the natives in their own language, he has a much better
opportunity of becoming acquainted with their character, habits,
and feelings, than if he is merely able to speak Spanish, a language
which only a very small proportion of them understand in the country,
although most of those in the neighbourhood of Manilla can speak
it after a fashion. For although the law makes it requisite for the
Capitan of every pueblo to be able to speak as well as to read and
write Spanish, yet this is not always the case, as I have frequently
met with these officials, more especially in out-of-the-way places,
who did not understand it.
Nearly the whole, certainly above three-fourths of the population, make
use of the Tagala or Tagaloc language, which, so far as I am aware,
is quite peculiar to these islands, having little or no similarity
to Malayee, so that it does not appear to have been derived from a
Malay root, although some few Malay words have been engrafted on it,
probably from the circumstance of that language being made use of
in the province of Bisayas, which is the only place in the islands
where it is spoken.
In Pampanga province, the natives speak a distinct language, differing
entirely from Tagaloc, quite as much as Welsh does from English,
although many of the Pampangans, on growing up, find it useful to know
how to speak the Tagaloc, which most of them understand a little of.
The _Negritos_, who are found in some parts of the islands, are a
peculiar race, with features exactly resembling the African negro,
although in general smaller made men, but formed with all the
characteristics of the African. They also use a distinct language,
and have very little intercourse with either of the other races--many
tribes of them living, even up to this day, independent of, and
unsubdued by, the Spaniards, whose active missionaries have however
of late years been making every effort to reduce them to allegiance
to the government of Manilla, as well as to the religion of the cross.
These good men have penetrated, where soldiers dare not enter with
arms in their hands, and in their case, truly, the sword has given
place to the gown, with good effects to all concerned in the reduction
of these wild Indians to the Roman Catholic faith, and the arts of
civilized life; for many hundreds of them, nay, I believe thousands,
are now peaceful cultivators of the soil, which, these good fathers
have taught them how to till, instead of living, as they formerly did,
at warfare with mankind, and solely on the produce of the chase.
How these differences of race and language have arisen, it is probably
impossible now to discover, at least I have never heard any one of
the many theories on the subject, for they are nothing more than
speculations, which could sustain all the requirements necessary to
account for their existence in their present state.
In the character of the native Indians there are very many good points,
although they have long had a bad name, from their characters and
descriptions coming from the Spanish mouths, who are too indolent
to investigate it beyond their households, or at the most beyond
their city walls; as very few, indeed, of all the Spaniards I met
with have ever been in the country any distance from Manilla, except
those whose duty it has been to proceed to a distance, as an alcalde
of the province, or as an officer of the troops scattered through
the islands,--very many of whom remain at home in the residency or
in their quarters, smoking or drinking chocolate, and bewailing their
hard fates, which have condemned them to live so far away from Manilla,
from the theatre, and from society. They come and go without knowing,
or caring to know, anything about the people around them, except when
a feast-day comes, when they are always ready enough to visit their
houses, dance with the beauties, and consume their suppers.
The most noticeable traits in the Philippine Indians appear to be
their hospitality, good-nature, and _bonhommie_ which very many
of them have. Their tempers are quick; but, like all of that sort,
after effervescing, soon subside into quiet again.
Very frequently have I been invited to enter their houses in the
country, when loitering about during the heat of the sun, under
the protection of an immense and thick sombrero which prevented me
suffering much from the exposure; and on going into one of them,
after the host or hostess had accommodated me with a seat on the
_banco_ of bamboo, a cigarillo, or the _buyo_, which is universally
chewed by them, and composed of the betel nut and lime spread over an
envelope of leaf, such as nearly all Asiatics use, has been offered
by the handsome, though swarthy, hands of the hostess or of a grown-up
daughter: or, if their rice was cooking at the time, often have I been
invited to share it, and have sometimes so made a most excellent and
hearty meal, using the natural aid of the fingers in place of a spoon,
or other of the customary aids for eating. After eating they always
wash their hands and mouths, so cleanly are their habits.
So long as any white man behaves properly towards them, and treats
them as human beings should be treated, their character will evince
many good points; but should they be beaten or abused without a
cause, or for something that they do not understand, as they but too
frequently are when composing the crews of ships, the masters of which
are seldom able to speak to them in their own language or in Spanish:
who can blame them if the knife is drawn from its sheath, and their
own arm avenges the maltreatment of some brutal shipmaster or his
mates for the wrong they have suffered at their hands? In all I have
seen or had to do with them they have never appeared as aggressors,
and it has only been when the white men, despising their dark skins,
have ventured on unjustifiable conduct, that I have heard of their
hands being raised to revenge it.
When they know that they are in the wrong, however, should the
harshest measures be used towards them, I have never known or heard
of their having had recourse to the knife, and I have frequently seen
them suffer very severe bodily chastisement for very slight causes
of offence.
They are easily kept in order by gentleness, but have spirit enough to
resent ill-treatment if undeserved. Not long ago an instance of the
kind happened to a person who has the character of being a violent
and irascible man. He one day fell into a passion about something
or other, and fastened his ill-nature and passion on an inoffensive
servant who chanced to be near him at the time, and ended some abuse
by ordering the man to go into a room, where he followed him, and after
locking the door and putting the key into his pocket, took up a riding
switch and began to flog the servant, who bore it for a while, until,
losing his temper completely, he seized his master by the throat,
and, taking the whip from him, administered with it quite as much
castigation as he had himself received.
Their general character is that of a good-natured and merry people,
strongly disposed to enjoy the present, and caring little for the
future.
So far as regards personal strength and mental activity or power,
they are much superior to any of the Javanese or Malays I have seen
in Java, or at Batavia and Singapore. But, to our modes of thinking,
the greatest defect in their character is their indolence and dislike
to any bodily exertion, which are the effects of the sun under which
they live; but their native maxims and their habits, although we
may disapprove of them now-a-days, when everything goes by steam,
might be dignified by a great poet's verse into the truest and best
philosophy; for does he not sing,--
Otium bello furiosa Thrace,
Otium Medi pharetra decori
Grosphe, non gemmis, neque purpura venale, nec auro.
Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum
Splendat in mensâ tenui salinum;
Nec leves somnos timor aut Cupido
Sordidus aufert.
Lætus in præsens animus, quod ultra est
Oderit curare, et amara lento
Temperet risu, &c.----Hor. II. xvi.