History of the Philippine Islands (Vol. 1&2). Joaquín Martínez De Zúñiga
&c. but in very small quantities, their wants being necessarily few, going almost naked, baking their rice in green canes, and eating it with the leaf of the plantain.
The Spaniards, soon after they came into possession of these islands, commenced an extended commerce with India and China, which brought to New Spain, a proportionable increase of profit; and in a little time, Manila became so rich a colony, that it created a jealousy among the merchants of Seville, and, in consequence of their petition, its commerce was restricted. From this period it began to decline, and to the great detriment of these islands, which cannot subsist by the exchange of their own productions alone, these being very limited in their nature, and incapable of much extension, surrounded as they are by other nations, more industrious, and who can work at a cheaper rate8.
The luxuriant nature of the soil of these islands, has been much and justly extolled, but, proper allowance has not been made, for the sloth of the Indians, the hurricanes or tempests, which sweep every thing before them, the destructive insects, the rats, and many other things, which diminish greatly the fertility of these beautiful islands9.
CHAPTER II.
Of the Inhabitants the Spaniards found in the Philippines—their Language, Customs, and Religion.
Our historians, affecting always the marvellous, divide into different classes, the inhabitants the Spaniards found, on their first arrival in the Philippines. They denominate them satyrs, men with tails, sea monsters, and whatever else of the fabulous, is calculated to raise wonder in the human mind. In reality, however, they found only two classes, that which we know by the appellation of Negroes, and that of the Indians. The Negroes are very small in stature, and more of a copper colour than those of Guinea, with soft hair and flat noses. They lived in the mountains, almost in a state of nature, merely covering the forepart of the body, with a piece of the bark of a tree; and they subsisted upon roots, and such deer, as in hunting, they could kill with the bow and arrow, at which they were very dexterous. They slept where night overtook them, and they possessed no idea of religion or civilized habits, rather, indeed, ranking with beasts than as human beings. The Spaniards, have at length succeeded, in domesticating many of them, and converting them to christianity, to which they give no opposition, so long as they get subsistence, but if they are obliged to labour, for the maintenance of their family, they return again to the mountains.
The Negroes, without doubt, were the primitive inhabitants of these islands, and they retired to the mountains, on the arrival of the Indians. These latter, settling on the sea shore, continual hostility prevailed between them, but the Indians were never able, to establish themselves sufficiently, to be permitted, even to cut wood in the mountains, without paying a tribute for it. At present, the influence of the Negroes is very limited, but their antipathy to their first invaders, continues unabated; for, if a Negro is killed, or dies suddenly, it is customary for another, to bind himself to his countrymen by an oath, that he will disappear from among them, and that he will not return, until he has avenged the death of his friend, by killing three or four Indians, to accomplish which, he watches their villages, and the passes in the mountains, and if any unfortunately stray from their companions, he murders them.
The origin of these Negroes, some believe to be, from Angola10, though they are not so black as their ancestors, which it is pretended, proceeds from the temperature of these islands being milder, and less scorching than that of Africa. This possibly may be so, for it is well known, that by changing, from a sultry to a temperate climate, the blackness of the Negro may be diminished, in the course of a long series of generations; yet, the flat nose, and using a dialect of the same language, which the Indians of these isles speak, appears to prove satisfactorily enough, that the origin of one and the other, is nearly the same. The reason assigned, for their not being more numerous, is, the influence of the rain, wind, sun, and all those inclemencies natural to the climate, to which they are exposed; the errors of the government, having reduced them to the condition, almost, of wild beasts, in which we now see them11. The Indians whom the Spaniards found here, were of regular stature, and of an olive complexion, with flat noses, large eyes, and long hair. They all possessed some description of government better or worse, and each nation was distinguished by a different name; but, the similarity of their dress and manners, proves that the origin of all of them is the same.
They had chiefs, who held their situations, either on account of personal valour, or by succession to their fathers, where they had abilities to retain it. Their dominion extended over one or two villages, or more, according to the means they possessed, of extending protection. They were continually at war with the neighbouring villages, and continually making each other slaves. Out of these wars, arose three classes of people; the chiefs or masters of the villages, the slaves, and those whom the chiefs had enfranchised, with their descendants, and who, to this day, are called Timavas, properly signifying children of liberty. In some places, were found Indians whiter than others, descended, without doubt, from Chinese or Japanese, who had been shipwrecked on these coasts, and whom the Indians, naturally hospitable, received, and allowed to intermarry with them; and it is generally believed that the Ygorrotes of Ylocos, whose eyes resemble the Chinese, must have originated from the companions of Limahon, who fled to those mountains, when Juan de Salcedo compelled him to his disgraceful retreat, from the province of Pangasinan.
It is not, however, after all, easy to ascertain the origin of these people, but their idiom throws some degree of light on the subject. Although the languages these Indians speak, are many and different, they have so much intercourse one with another, that it may clearly be discovered, they are dialects of the same language, as the Spanish, French, and Italian, are derivatives from the Latin. The prepositions and pronouns, are nearly the same in all of them; the numeral characters, differ very little, and they have many words in common, and of one and the same structure.
No doubt can be entertained, that the radical language, from which all those dialects spring, prevails from Madagascar to the Philippines, with local shades of difference. It is spoken too in New Guinea, and in all the islands to the southward, in the Marianas, in the islands of San Duisk, in those of Otaheite, and in almost all the islands in the South Sea. In one collection of voyages, there are given various vocabularies, with such corresponding terminations, as the respective travellers, were able to distinguish among these islands. It is remarkable, that in these almost all the pronouns, are the same with those of the nation Tagala; the numerals, are common to all the dialects, used in these islands, and most of the words are the same, and with the same signification, as in the language Tagala. But, I am the more inclined to believe the identity of the dialects, from a conversation which I had with Don Juan Hovel, an Englishman, who spoke that of San Duisk, and who had a slave, a native of one of those islands. The structure, appeared to be the same, as that of the languages spoken in the Philippines; and on the whole, I feel confident in the opinion, that they are all dialects of the same language, so widely diffused over so large a portion of the earth. It is ascertained, that this language, is in common use for many thousand leagues, extending from Madagascar to the isles of San Duisk, Otaheite, and the isle of Pasquas, which latter, is not more than six hundred leagues distant, from the coast of South America. Yet, the Indians of the Philippines, do not understand the people of these last mentioned islands, when they have occasional intercourse with them; nor, even in these islands, do the inhabitants of one province, understand those of another. So neither does the Spaniard understand the Frenchman, nor the Frenchman the Italian.
In the same collection of voyages, already referred to, we find a vocabulary of only five terminations, which the Spaniards have distinguished on the coast of Patagonia, and which they have been able to assimilate to the language of these islands, and one of those is the word balay, which in that country signifies a house; and by this same word they designate a house among the Pampangos, and the inhabitants of the Bisayas in general. This may be more matter of accident than of proof, that the languages of one and the other is the same; but on observing, besides this, that the proper names of places about the middle of the continent of South America are very similar to those of the Philippines, I endeavoured to procure a vocabulary of this country, and did