In a Visayan Home.
The shutters of the house across the street were closed. Under the
balcony, near where the road was strewn with scarlet blossoms from
the fire-tree, carpenters were hammering and sawing busily. Shaped
by the antiquated bandsaw and the bolos, a rude coffin gradually
assumed its grim proportions. A group of schoolboys, drawn by
curiosity, looked on indifferently while keeping up a desultory game
of tag. Upstairs, the women, dressed in the black veils of mourning,
shuffling noiselessly around, were burning candles at the "Queen of
Heaven's" shrine. They murmured prayers mechanically--not without a
certain reverence and awe--to usher the departing soul into the land
beyond. A smoky wall-lamp, glimmering near the door, illuminated the
black crucifix above the bed. In the dim candle-light vague shadows
danced on the white walls.
The priest had heard the last confession of José Pilar. Not that
José had been one of the padre's friends. In fact, he was suspected
during the past year of having been a secret agent of Aglipay, the
self-consecrated Bishop of Manila, and the target of the accusation
and invective that the Church of Rome is so proficient in. The recent
rulings of the order had abolished the confession fee; but the long
road was uncertain and the dangers great. The padre rubbed his hands
as he went out. He had received a "voluntary" contribution for his
services, with the assurance that a series of masses would be ordered
by the widow of José Pilar. Through the stiff palms, the cold sea,
gray as steel, washed the far-distant shores of lonely islands,
and the red glow of the setting sun had died away.
The padre thought about the plump goats and the chickens in the new
stockade. The simple people brought their chickens to the convent,
denying themselves all but the fish and rice. The mothers weaned
their puny brats on rice; they stuffed them with it till their swollen
paunches made a grotesque contrast with their skinny legs. Childbirth
is one of the minor incidents of Filipinia. Where is the house that
doesn't swarm with babies, like the celebrated residence of the old
woman in the shoe? When one of these sparrows falls, the little song
that dies is never missed.
How many times had Father Cipriano climbed the rickety ladder to the
_nipa_ dwellings, entering the closed room where the patient lay
upon the floor! A gaping crowd of yokels stood around, while the
old woman faithfully kneaded the abdomen. The native medicaster,
having placed the green leaves on the patient's temples, would be
brewing a concoction of emollient simples. The open shirt disclosed
upon the patient's breast the amulet which had been blessed by Padre
Cipriano, and was stamped with a small figure of a saint. The holy
father smiled as he reflected how they spent their last cent for the
funeral ceremonies, while the doctor's fee would be about a dozen
eggs. And even now that death had come to one not quite so ignorant
and simple as the rest, the funeral celebrations would be but the more
elaborate. Not every one who could afford a coffin in Malingasag! And
as the padre crossed the _plaza_ he lighted a cigarette.
It was with feelings of annoyance that he saw before the side door
of the church a tiny litter cheaply decorated with bright paper and
red cloth. The yellow candles threw a fitful light over the little
image on the bier. It was the image of a child, a thing of wax,
clothed in a white dress, with a tinsel crown upon its head. One
of the sacristans was drumming a tattoo upon the bells. The padre
motioned him to discontinue. He would have his gin-and-water first,
and then devotions, lasting twenty minutes. After devotions he could
easily dispose of the small child. So the two humble women waited in
patience at the door, and the cheap candles sputtered and went out
before the good priest could find time to hurry through the unimportant
funeral services that meant to him only a dollar or two at best in
the depreciated silver currency. Already night was overshadowing the
palm-groves as the pathetic little group filed out and trudged across
the rice-pads toward the cemetery.
The Filipinos regard the American doctors with suspicion. When a
snakebite can be cured by a burnt piece of carabao horn, or when the
leaves or bits of paper stuck upon the temple will relieve the fever
or the dysentery, what is the use of drugs and medicines and things
that people do not understand? Once, out of the kindness of his heart,
an army doctor that I knew, prescribed a valuable ointment for a child
afflicted by a running sore. The child was in a terrible condition,
as the sore had eaten away the flesh and bone, leaving a large hole
under the lower lip through which the roots of the teeth were all
exposed. The parents had not washed the child for weeks. They actually
believed that bathing was injurious when one was sick. The doctor,
giving them directions how to use the medicine, asked them, as an
experiment, what fee he might expect. He knew well that if the priest
had asked this question, they would eagerly have offered everything
they had. So he was not surprised when they replied that they were very
poor, and that they did not think the service was worth anything. The
doctor turned them away good naturedly, but they returned the next
day with the medicine, reporting that undoubtedly it was no good,
because, forsooth, the child had cried when they applied it! As a
peace-offering they brought a dozen miserable bananas.
Slinging a tablet around his neck, a "valuable remedy against the
pest," the Filipino thinks that he is reasonably secure against
disease, and that if he becomes afflicted, it is the result of some
transgression against heaven. I happened to receive a startling proof,
however, of its efficacy when the padre's house-boy, rather a bright
young fellow, made me a present of his "remedy" and died the next
day of cholera. Still I have seen the "_anting-anting_," which is
supposed to render the wearer bullet-proof, pierced with the balls of
the Krag-Jorgensen and stained with blood. Although the Visayans show
considerable sympathy toward one when he is sick, the native dentist
cutting out the tooth with a dull knife, we would consider almost too
barbarous to practice in America. The Igorrotes have a way of driving
out the fever with a slow fire; but between this Spartan method and
Visayan ignorance the choice is difficult. No wonder that the people
drop off with surprising suddenness. Your laundryman or baker fails to
come around some morning, and you ask one of your neighbors where he
is. The neighbor, shifting his wad of _buya_ to the other cheek, will
gradually wake up and answer something ending in "_ambut_." "_Ambut_"
is a convenient word for the Visayan, as it means "don't know," and
even if he is informed, the Filipino often is too lazy or indifferent
to explain. You finally discover some one more accommodating who
replies: "Why, haven't you heard? He died the other day."
Sulkiness, one of the characteristics of the girls and boys, develops
into surliness in men and billingsgate in women. And I have no doubt
that little Diega, the sulkiest and prettiest of the Visayan beauties,
in a few years will be gambling at the cock-fights, smoking cigars,
and losing her money every Sunday afternoon at Mariana's _monte_
game. Vulgarity with them goes down as wit, and the Visayan women make
a fine art of profanity. It is always the woman in a family quarrel
who is most in evidence. And even the delicate Adela when the infant
Richard fell downstairs the other day, cried, "Mother of God!" which
she considered to be more appropriate than "_Jesus_, _Marie_, _Josep_!"
On entering one of the common houses, you would be astonished at the
pitiable lack of furnishings. The floor is made of slats of split
bamboo, tied down with strips of cane. The walls are simply the dried
_nipa_ branches, fastened down with bamboo laths. The only pictures on
the walls are the cheap prints of saints, the "Lady of the Rosary," or
illustrations clipped together with the reading matter from some stray
American magazine. The picture of a certain popular shoe manufacturer
is sometimes given the place of honor near the crucifix. If any attempt
at decoration has been made, the lack of taste of the Visayans is at
once apparent. For the ancient fly-specked chromo of the "Prospect
of Madrid" is as artistic in their eyes as though the advertisement
of a certain cracker factory did not adorn the margin. The undressed
pillars that support the house, run through the floor. The _nipa_
shutters that protect the windows are propped open, making heavy
awnings, and permitting a free circulation of the breeze. There are
no ceilings in these houses, and the entire framework of the roof is
visible. A cheap red curtain, trimmed with lace, is draped before the
entrance to the sleeping-room. While in the better frame-constructed
residences an old Spanish tester bed with a cane bottom may be seen in
this apartment, here only the straw mats and the cotton bolsters are to
be found. A basket hanging from a bamboo spring serves as a cradle for
the baby, but it is a pretty lucky baby that indulges in this luxury,
as most of the children, spreading the mats upon the floor at night,
pillow their heads upon the bolsters, ten in a row, and go to sleep. A
marble-topped table and a few chairs, formally arranged as though in
preparation for a conclave, are the features of the larger homes; but
generally the furniture consists of a long bench, a wooden table, and
a camphorwood box, which contains the family treasures, and the key to
which the woman of the house wears in her belt--a symbol of authority.
On climbing the outside stairway to the living-rooms you find your
passage blocked by a small fence. In trying to step over this you
nearly crush a naked baby, and a yellow dog snaps venomously at
your heels. You enter the main room, where the pony-saddle and the
hemp-scales may be stored. The Filipinos are great visitors, and you
will find a ring of old men squatting upon the benches like so many
hens, chewing the betel-nut and nursing their enormous feet. Some
fellow in the corner, with a chin like a sea-urchin, strums a tune
monotonously on an old guitar. Your host arises, offers you a glass of
gin and a cigar or cigarette, and asks you to "_lincoot dinhi_." So,
at his invitation, you sit down, and are expected to begin the
conversation. Such conversation is enlightening and runs somewhat
like this:
"Yes, thank you, I am very well; Yes, we are all well. Everything is
well.... The beer of the Americans is very good.... Whisky is very
strong.... The Filipino whisky is not good for anything.... It is very
dull here. It is not our custom to have pretty girls.... What is your
salary? All the Americans are very rich. We are all very poor.... The
horses in America are very large. Why?... If the people want me,
I will be elected mayor. But let them decide.... After a while will
you not let me have some medicine? The wife has beri-beri very bad."
The family arises with the chickens. For the Filipino boy no
chores are waiting to be done. The ponies and the dogs are never
fed. Nobody seems to care much for the animals. With the exception
of the fighting-cock, chickens, dogs, pigs, and carabaos are left to
forage for themselves. The pigs and dogs are public scavengers, and
the poor curs that howl the night long, till you wish that they were
only allowed to bay the moon in daytime, stalk the barren shores or
rice-pads in the hope of preying upon carrion. A Filipino dog, though
pinched and starved, has not the courage even to catch a young kid
by the ear, and much less to say "boo" to a goose. It is surprising
how the ponies, feeding upon the coarse grass, ever become as wiry
as they do. Evidently, to the Filipino, animals do not have feelings;
for they often ride their ponies furiously, though the creature's back
may be a running sore. In using wooden saddles they forget to place a
pad beneath them, and the saddle thus becomes an instrument of torture.
After the morning bath in the cool river, a cup of chocolate or a
little bowl of rice will serve for breakfast. Then the women attend
morning mass and kneel for half an hour on the hard tiles. It is still
early in the day, and the fantastic mountains, with their wonderful
lights and shadows, are just throwing off the veil of mist. Now,
in the clear light, the huge, swelling bosom of the hills, the
densely-timbered slopes beyond, stand out distinctly, like a picture
in a stereoscope. The heavy forests, crowded with gigantic trees,
seem like a mound of bushes thickly bunched. Off to the left rises
a barren ridge, that might have been the spine of some old reptile
of the mezozoic age; and in the center a Plutonic ampitheater--the
council-chamber of the gods--is swept by shadows from the passing
clouds, or glorified for a brief moment by a flood of light.
The boys are then sent out to catch one of the ponies for their father,
who is going to inspect his hemp plantation on the foot-hills. His
progress will at first be rather slow; for he is a great chatterbox,
and if he finds some crony along the road, he will dismount and drink
a glass of _tuba_ with him, or dicker with him over an exchange of
fighting cocks. The birds are then brought out, and the two men squat
down, with the birds in hand, and set them pecking at each other to
display their fine points. But the string of _hombres_, with their
bolos slung about their waists, making for the mountains, reminds the
planter that he must be getting on. His fields are let out to these
fellows, who will pay him a proportion of the hemp which they can
strip. Although the process of preparing hemp is primitive and slow,
the green stalk being stripped by an iron comb, the laboring man
can prepare enough in one day to supply his family with "_sow sow_"
for an entire week. If he would work with any regularity, especially
in the wild hemp-fields, he would soon be "independent," and could
buy the hemp from others, which could be sold at a profit to the
occasional hemp-boats that come into port. The only capital required
is one or two bull-carts and carabaos, a storehouse, and sufficient
rice or money to secure his first invoice of hemp. The men who carry
it in from the mountains, either on their own backs or on carabaos,
sell it for cash or its equivalent in rice at the first store.
On Saturdays, the boys go to the mountains to buy eggs. Their first
stop is the _hacienda_ on the outskirts of the town--a large, cool
_nipa_ house, with broad verandas, situated in a grove of palms. Around
the veranda are the nests of woven baskets where the chickens are
encouraged to lay eggs. Sucking a juicy mango, they proceed upon their
journey through a field of sugar-cane. They stop perhaps at the rude
mill where the brown sugar is prepared and molded in the shells of
cocoanuts. They quench their thirst here with a stick of sugar-cane,
and, peeling the sweet stalk with their teeth, they disappear beyond
the hill. Now they have reached a wonderful country, where the monkeys
and the parrots chatter in the trees. They can set traps for little
parrots with a net of fine thread fastened to the branches. Only
a little further on is a small mountain _barrio_, where naked,
lazy men lie in the sun all day, and the women weave bright-colored
blankets on their looms. Returning with their handkerchiefs tied
full of eggs, the boys reach home about sundown. The thought of
being late to supper never worries them; the Filipino is notoriously
unpunctual at meals. The boys will cook their own rice, and spread
out the sleeping-mat wherever the sunset finds them. One shelter is
as good as another, and they just as often sleep away from home as
in their own beds. Their parents never worry about the children, for
they know that, like Bo-peep's sheep, they will come back some time,
and it doesn't make much difference when.
Early in April the rice-fields are flooded by the irrigation ditches
that the river or the mountain streams have filled with water. A plow
made of the notch of a tree is used to break the soil. A carabao
is used for this work, as it is impossible to mire him even in the
deepest mud. The boys and girls, together with the men and women,
wearing enormous sun-hats--in the crown of which there is a place for
cigarettes and matches--and with bared legs, work in the steaming
fields throughout the planting season. As the rice grows taller,
the crows are frightened away by strings of flags manipulated from
a station in the center of the paddy. Scarecrows are built whenever
there are any clothes to spare; but as the Filipino even utilizes
rags, the scarecrow often has to go in shocking _négligée_. After the
harvest season, when the entire village reaps the rice with bolos,
the dry field is given over to the ponies, and the carabaos, and the
white storks, who never desert their burly friend, the carabao, but
often are seen perching on his back. The work of husking and pounding
the crop then occupies the village.
If you should be invited in to dinner by a Filipino family, you would
expect to eat boiled rice and chicken. They would place a cuspidor on
one side of your chair to catch the chicken bones, which you would
spit out from your mouth. The food would be cooked in dishes placed
on stones over an open fire. The cook and the _muchachos_ never wash
their hands. They wash the dishes only by pouring some cold water on
them and letting them dry gradually. The cook will rinse the glasses
with his hand. How would you like to eat a chicken boiled with its
pin-feathers on, or find a colony of red ants in your soup? The
poorer families seldom go through the formality of serving meals. As
soon as the rice and _guinimos_ are cooked, the children and their
parents squat around the bowl and help themselves, holding a lump of
salt in one hand, and using the other for a fork or spoon. The women
do what little marketing needs to be done, and though the Filipino
acts in most things lavishly, the women can drive close bargains,
and will scold like ale-wives if they find the measure short even by
so much as a single _guinimo_.
The _guinimo_ is probably the smallest creature with a vertebra known
to the world of science--a small fish--and it strikes one as amusing
when the people count them out so jealously. But all their marketing
is done on retail lines. Potatoes, eggs, and fruit sell for so much
apiece. A single fish will be chopped up so as to go around among the
customers, while the measures used in selling rice and salt are so
small that you can not take them seriously. The transaction reminds
you of your childhood days when you were playing "keep store" with
a nickel's worth of candy on the ironing-board.
At Easter-time, or during the celebration of the "Santa Cruz,"
an enterprising family will get up a singing bee. Perhaps a wheezy
organ will be brought to light, and the musician then officiates
behind the instrument. His bare feet work the pedals vigorously,
and his body sways in rhythm with the strains. As the performance
is continuous, arriving or departing guests do not disturb the
ceremony. There seems to be a special song for this occasion, the
words of which must be repeated over and over as the music falls
and rises in a dismal wail. Refreshments of Holland gin and _tuba_
keep the party going until long after midnight.
As you walk down the long dusty street at evening, you will be half
suffocated by the smoke and the rank odor of the burning cocoanut-husks
over which the supper is being cooked. Then you remember how the
broiling beefsteak used to smell "back home," and even dream about
grandmother's kitchen on a baking day. And as you pass by the poor
_nipa_ shacks, you hear the murmur of the evening prayer pronounced
by those within. It is a prayer from those who have but little and
desire no more.