THE PROVINCE OF ZAMBALES
Geographical Features
This little-known and comparatively unimportant province stretches
along the western coast of Luzon for more than 120 miles. Its average
width does not exceed 25 miles and is so out of proportion to its
length that it merits the title which it bears of the "shoestring
province." [12]
The Zambales range of mountains, of which the southern half is known
as the Cordillera de Cabusilan and which is second in importance
to the Caraballos system of northern Luzon, forms the entire eastern
boundary of Zambales and separates it from the Provinces of Pangasinan,
Tarlac, and Pampanga. A number of peaks rise along this chain, of
which Mount Pinatubo, 6,040 feet in height, is the highest. All of the
rivers of Zambales rise on the western slope of these mountains and
carry turbulent floods through the narrow plains. Still unbridged,
they are an important factor in preventing communication and
traffic between towns, and hence in retarding the development of
the province. Another important factor in this connection is the
lack of safe anchorages. The Zambales coast is a stormy one, and
vessels frequently come to grief on its reefs. At only one point,
Subig Bay, can larger vessels find anchorage safe from the typhoons
which sweep the coast. The soil of the well-watered plain is fertile
and seems adapted to the cultivation of nearly all the products of
the Archipelago. The forests are especially valuable, and besides
fine timbers for constructional purposes they supply large quantities
of pitch, resin, bejuco, and beeswax. There are no industries worth
mentioning, there being only primitive agriculture and stock raising.
The following opinions of Zambales set forth by a Spanish writer in
1880 still hold good: [13]
There are more populous and more civilized provinces whose
commercial and agricultural progress has been more pronounced,
but nowhere is the air more pure and transparent, the vegetation
more luxuriant, the climate more agreeable, the coasts more sunny,
and the inhabitants more simple and pacific.
Historical Sketch
According to Buzeta, another Spanish historian, it was Juan de Salcedo
who discovered Zambales. [14]
This intrepid soldier [he says], after having conquered Manila and
the surrounding provinces, resolved to explore the northern part of
Luzon. He organized at his own expense an expedition, and General
Legaspi gave him forty-five soldiers, with whom he left Manila
May 20, 1572. After a journey of three days he arrived at Bolinao,
where he found a Chinese vessel whose crew had made captives of a
chief and several other natives. Salcedo, retook these captives
from the Chinese and gave them their liberty. The Indians, who
were not accustomed to such generosity, were so touched by this
act that they became voluntary vassals of the Spaniards.
It seems that nothing further was done toward settling or evangelizing
the region for twelve years, although the chronicler goes on to say
that three years after the discovery of Bolinao a sergeant of Salcedo's
traversed the Bolinao region, receiving everywhere the homage of the
natives, and a Franciscan missionary, Sebastian Baeza, preached the
gospel there. But in 1584 the Augustinians established themselves at
the extreme ends of the mountain range, Bolinao and Mariveles. One
of them, the friar Esteban Martin, was the first to learn the Zambal
dialect. The Augustinians were succeeded by the Recollets, who, during
the period from 1607 to 1680, founded missions at Agno, Balincaguin,
Bolinao, Cabangan, Iba, Masinloc, and Santa Cruz. Then in 1680, more
than a hundred years after Salcedo landed at Bolinao, the Dominicans
undertook the active evangelization of the district.
Let us now examine [continues the historian [15]] the state
of these savage Indians whom the zealous Spanish missionaries
sought to convert. Father Salazar, after having described the
topography of this mountainous province, sought to give an idea
of the political and social state of the pagans who formed the
larger part of the aboriginal population: "The principal cause,"
he said, "of the barbarity of these Indians, and that which
prevents their ever being entirely and pacifically converted,
is that the distances are so great and communication so difficult
that the alcaldes can not control them and the missionaries find
it impossible to exercise any influence over them."
Each village was composed of ten, twenty, or thirty families,
united nearly always by ties of kinship. It was difficult to bring
these villages together because they carried on wars continually,
and they lived in such a state of discord that it was impossible to
govern them; moreover they were so barbarous and fierce that they
recognized only superior power. They governed through fear. He who
wished to be most respected sought to inspire fear by striking
off as many beads as possible. The one who committed the most
assassinations was thus assured of the subordination of all. They
made such a glory of it that they were accustomed to wear certain
ornaments in order to show to the eyes or all the murders they had
committed. When a person lost a relative either by a violent or
a natural death he covered his head with a strip of black cloth
as a sign of mourning and could take it off only after having
committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager to do
in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long
as they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part
in any festivity. One understands then that deaths became very
frequent in a country where all deaths were necessarily followed
by one or more murders. It is true that he who committed a murder
sought to atone for it by paying to the relatives of the deceased
a certain quantity of gold or silver or by giving them a slave
or a Negrito who might be murdered in his place.
The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants
of other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called
"Bayoc," who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He
celebrated this ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most
frightful revels. He next indicated to the new priest the idol or
cult to which he should specially devote himself and conferred on
him privileges proportionate to the rank of that divinity, for
they recognized among their gods a hierarchy, which established
also that of their curates. They gave to their principal idol
the name of "Malyari"--that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone
could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi,
whose power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang
in religious ceremonies that "although Malyari was powerful,
Acasi had preëminence." In an inferior order they worshiped also
Manlobog or Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of
appeasing irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five
less important idols who represented the divinities of the fields,
prosperity to their herds and harvests. They also believed that
Anitong sent them rains and favorable winds; Damalag preserved
the sown fields from hurricanes; Dumanga made the grain grow
abundantly; and finally Calascas ripened it, leaving to Calosocos
only the duty of harvesting the crops. They also had a kind of
baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure blood of the pig,
but this ceremony, very long and especially very expensive,
was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which the
same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous
ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated
by repugnant debaucheries.
Of course it is impossible to tell how much of this is the product
of the writer's imagination, or at least of the imagination of those
earlier chroniclers from whom he got his information, but it can
very well be believed that the natives had a religion of their own
and that the work of the missionaries was exceedingly difficult. It
was necessary to get them into villages, to show them how to prepare
and till the soil and harvest the crops. And the writer concludes
that "little by little the apathetic and indolent natives began to
recognize the advantages of social life constituted under the shield
of authority and law, and the deplorable effects of savage life,
offering no guarantee of individual or collective security."
A fortress had been built at Paynaven, in what is now the Province of
Pangasinan, from which the work of the missionaries spread southward,
so that the northern towns were all organized before those in the
south. It is not likely that this had anything to do with causing
the Negritos to leave the northern part of the province, if indeed
they ever occupied it, but it is true that to-day they inhabit only
the mountainous region south of a line drawn through the middle of
the province from east to west.
The friar Martinez Zúñiga, speaking of the fortress at Paynaven,
said that in that day, the beginning of the last century, there was
little need of it as a protection against the "infidel Indians" and
blacks who were very few in number, and against whom a stockade of
bamboo was sufficient.
It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily
the Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these
pirates, who always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however,
a constant menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to
transport on rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to
carry on commerce with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal
are exposed to attack from the Moros in rounding the point at the
entrance of Manila Bay, from which it results that the province
is poor and has little commerce. [16]
Everything in the history of the Zambal people and their present
comparative unimportance goes to show that they were the most indolent
and backward of the Malayan peoples. While they have never given the
governing powers much trouble, yet they have not kept pace with the
agricultural and commercial progress of the other people, and their
territory has been so steadily encroached on from all sides by their
more aggressive neighbors that their separate identity is seriously
threatened. The rich valleys of Zambales have long attracted Ilokano
immigrants, who have founded several important towns. The Zambal
themselves, owing to lack of communication between their towns, have
developed three separate dialects, none of which has ever been deemed
worthy of study and publication, as have the other native dialects
of the Philippines. A glance at the list of towns of Zambales with
the prevailing dialect spoken in each, and in case of nearly equal
division also the second most important dialect, will show to what
extent Zambal as a distinct dialect is gradually disappearing:
Dialects in Zambales Province
Town Primary dialect Secondary dialect
Olongapo Tagalog
Subig Tagalog
Castillejos Tagalog Ilokano
San Marcelino Ilokano Tagalog
San Antonio Ilokano
San Narciso Ilokano
San Felipe Ilokano
Cabangan Zambal
Botolan Zambal
Iba Zambal
Palauig Zambal
Masinloc Zambal
Candelaria Zambal
Santa Cruz Zambal
Infanta Zambal
Dasol Pangasinan Zambal
Agno Ilokano Pangasinan
Barri Zambal
San Isidro Ilokano
Balincaguin Pangasinan
Alos Ilokano Pangasinan
Alumnos Pangasinan Ilokano
Zaragoza Zambal
Bolinao Zambal
Anda Zambal
Of twenty-five towns Zambal is the prevailing dialect of less than
half. As will be seen, the Ilokano have been the most aggressive
immigrants. As a prominent Ilokano in the town of San Marcelino
expressed it, when they first came they worked for the Zambals, who
held all the good land. But the Zambal landowners, perhaps wanting
money for a cockfight, would sell a small piece of land to some Ilokano
who had saved a little money, and when he ran out of money he would
sell a little more land, until finally the Ilokano owned it all.
This somewhat lengthy and seemingly irrelevant sketch of the early
history of Zambales and of the character of its inhabitants to-day is
given to show the former state of savagery and the apathetic nature
of the people who, in the days before the arrival of the Europeans,
were in such close contact with the Negritos as to impose on them
their language, and they have done it so thoroughly that no trace of
an original Negrito dialect remains. Relations such as to-day exist
between the people of the plains and those of the mountains would not
change a dialect in a thousand years. Another evidence of a former
close contact may be found in the fact that the Negritos of southern
Zambales who have never personally come in contact with the Zambal but
only with the Tagalog also speak Zambal with some slight variations,
showing, too, that the movement of the Negritos has been southward
away from the Zambal territory.
Close study and special investigation into the linguistics of
this region, carried also into Bataan and across the mountain into
Pampanga and Tarlac, may throw more light on this very interesting
and important subject and may reveal traces of an original Negrito
dialect. Prominent natives of Zambales, whom I have questioned, and
who are familiar with the subject, affirm that the Negritos know
only the dialect of the Zambal. Indeed those are not lacking who
believe in a blood relationship between the Negritos and the Zambal,
but this belief can not be taken seriously. [17]
Very little mention is made by the early writers of the Negritos. In
fact they knew nothing of them except that they were small blacks who
roamed in the mountains, living on roots and game which they killed
with the bow and arrow. They were reported to be fierce little savages
from whom no danger could come, since they did not leave their mountain
fastnesses, but whose territory none dared enter.
Habitat of the Negritos
As has been stated, the present range of the Negritos of this territory
embraces the mountainous portion of the lower half of Zambales and
the contiguous Provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga, extending southward
even to the very extremity of the peninsula of Bataan.
This region, although exceedingly broken and rough, has not the
high-ridged, deep-canyoned aspect of the Cordillera Central of northern
Luzon. It consists for the most part of rolling tablelands, broken by
low, forest-covered ridges and dotted here and there by a few gigantic
peaks. The largest and highest of these, Mount Pinatubo, situated
due east from the town of Cabangan, holds on its broad slopes the
largest part of the Negritos of Zambales. Many tiny streams have their
sources in this mountain and rush down the slopes, growing in volume
and furnishing water supply to the Negrito villages situated along
their banks. Some of the larger of these streams have made deep cuts
on the lower reaches of the mountain slopes, but they are generally
too small to have great powers of erosion. The unwooded portions of
the table-lands are covered with cogon and similar wild grasses.
Here is enough fertile land to support thousands of people. The
Negritos occupy practically none of it. Their villages and mountain
farms are very scattered. The villages are built for the most part on
the table-land above some stream, and the little clearings are found
on the slope of the ridge at the base of which the stream runs. No
use whatever is made of the grass-covered table-land, save that it
offers a high and dry site for a rancheria, free from fevers.
Practically all of the Negrito rancherias are within the jurisdiction
of the two towns of Botolan and San Marcelino. Following the winding
course of the Bucao River, 15 miles southeast from Botolan, one comes
to the barrio of San Fernando de Riviera, as it is on the maps, or
Pombato, as the natives call it. This is a small Filipino village,
the farthest out, a half-way place between the people of the plains
and those of the uplands. Here a ravine is crossed, a hill climbed,
and the traveler stands on a plateau not more than half a mile wide but
winding for miles toward the big peak Pinatubo and almost imperceptibly
increasing in elevation. Low, barren ridges flank it on either side,
at the base of each of which flows a good-sized stream. Seven miles
of beaten winding path through the cogon grass bring the traveler to
the first Negrito rancheria, Tagiltil, one year old, lying sun baked
on a southern slope of the plateau. Here the plateau widens out, is
crossed and cut up by streams and hills, and the forests gradually
become thicker. In the wide reach of territory of which this narrow
plateau is the western apex, including Mount Pinatubo and reaching
to the Tarlac and Pampanga boundaries, there are situated no less
than thirty rancherias of Negritos, having an average population of
40 persons or a total of more than 1,200. Besides these there are
probably many scattered families, especially in the higher and less
easily accessible forests of Mount Pinatubo, who live in no fixed spot
but lead a wandering existence. And so uncertain are the habits of the
more settled Negritos that one of the thirty rancherias known to-day
may to-morrow be nothing more than a name, and some miles away a new
rancheria may spring up. The tendency to remain in one place seems,
however, to be growing.
The mountainous portions of the jurisdictions of the two towns of
Botolan and San Marcelino, themselves many miles apart with three
or more towns between, are contiguous, the one extending southeast,
the other northeast, until they meet. The San Marcelino region
contains about the same number of Negritos, grouped in many small
communities around five large centers--Santa Fé, Aglao, Cabayan,
Pañibutan, and Timao--each of which numbers some 300 Negritos. They
are of the same type and culture plane as those nearer Piñatubo, and
their habitat is practically the same, a continuation of the more or
less rugged Cordillera. They are in constant communication with the
Negritos north of them and with those across the Pampanga line east
of them. The Negritos of Aglao are also in communication with those
of Subig, where there is a single rancheria numbering 45 souls. Still
farther south in the jurisdiction of Olongapo are two rancherias,
numbering about 100 people, who partake more of the characteristics
of the Negritos of Bataan just across the provincial line than they
do of those of the north.
Here mention may be made also of the location of rancherias
and numbers of Negritos in the provinces adjoining Zambales, as
attention is frequently called to them later, especially those of
Bataan, for the sake of comparison. Negritos are reported from all
of the towns of Bataan, and there are estimated to be 1,500 of them,
or about half as many as in Zambales. They are more numerous on the
side toward Manila Bay, in the mountains back of Balanga, Orion, and
Pilar. Moron and Bagac on the opposite coast each report more than
a hundred. There is a colony of about thirty near Mariveles. Owing
to repeated visits of tourists to their village and to the fact that
they were sent to the Hanoi Exposition in 1903, this group has lost
many of the customs peculiar to Negritos in a wild state and has
donned the ordinary Filipino attire.
Cabcabe, also in the jurisdiction of Mariveles, has more than a hundred
Negritos, and from here to Dinalupijan, the northernmost town of the
province, there are from 50 to 200 scattered in small groups around
each town and within easy distance. Sometimes, as at Balanga, they
are employed on the sugar plantations and make fairly good laborers.
The Negritos of Bataan as a whole seem less mixed with the Malayan than
any other group, and fewer mixed bloods are seen among them. Their
average stature is also somewhat lower. They speak corrupt Tagalog,
though careful study may reveal traces of an original tongue. (See
Appendix B for a vocabulary.)
In the section of Pampanga lying near Zambales Province more than a
thousand Negritos have been reported from the towns of Florida Blanca,
Porac, Angeles, and Mabalacat. There are estimated to be about 1,200
in Tarlac, in the jurisdiction of the towns of O'Donnell, Moriones,
Capas, Bamban, and Camiling. There are two or three good trails leading
from this province into Zambales by which the Negritos of the two
provinces communicate with each other. It is proposed to convert the
one from O'Donnell to Botolan into a wagon road, which will have the
effect of opening up a little-known territory. Across the line into
Pangasinan near the town of Mangataren there is a colony of mixed
Negritos somewhat more advanced in civilization than is usually the
case with these forest dwellers. According to Dr. D. P. Barrows,
who visited their rancherias in December, 1901, it seems to have
been the intention of the Spanish authorities to form a reservation
at that place which should be a center from which to reach the wilder
bands in the hills and to induce them to adopt a more settled life. A
Filipino was sent to the rancheria as a "maestro" and remained among
the people six years. But the scheme fell through there as elsewhere
in the failure of the authorities to provide homes and occupations
for the Negritos. The Ilokano came in and occupied all the available
territory, and the Negritos now hang around the Ilokano homes, doing a
little work and picking up the little food thrown to them. Dr. Barrows
states that the group contains no pure types characterized by wide,
flat noses and kinky hair. In addition to the bow and arrows they
carry a knife called "kampilan" having a wide-curving blade. They use
this weapon in a dance called "baluk," brandishing it, snapping their
fingers, and whirling about with knees close to the ground. This is
farther north than Negritos are found in Zambales but is in territory
contiguous to that of the Tarlac Negritos. The entire region contains
about 6,000 souls. The groups are so scattered, however, that the
territory may be said to be practically unoccupied.