Chapter I · Distribution of Negritos

Probably no group of primitive men has attracted more attention from the civilized world than the pygmy blacks. From the time of Homer and Aristotle the pygmies, although their existence was not absolutely known at that early period, have had their place in fable and legend, and as civilized man has become more and more acquainted with the unknown parts of the globe he has met again and again with the same strange type of the human species until he has been led to conclude that there is practically no part of the tropic-zone where these little blacks have not lived at some time.

Mankind at large is interested in a race of dwarfs just as it would be in a race of giants, no matter what the color or social state; and scientists have long been concerned with trying to fix the position of the pygmies in the history of the human race. That they have played an important ethnologic rôle can not be doubted; and although to-day they are so scattered and so modified by surrounding people as largely to have disappeared as a pure type, yet they have everywhere left their imprint on the peoples who have absorbed them.

In the same yeere 1543, and in moneth of August, the generall Rui Lopez sent one Bartholomew de la torre in a smal ship into new Spaine to acquaint the vizeroy don Antonio de Mendoça, with all things. They went to the Islands of Siria, Gaonata, Bisaia and many others, standing in 11 and 12 degrees towards the north, where Magellan had beene. * * * They found also an Archepelagus of Islands well inhabited with people, lying in 15 or 16 degrees: * * * There came vnto them certaine barkes or boates handsomely decked, wherein the master and principall men sate on high, and vnderneath were very blacke moores with frizled haire * * *: and being demanded where they had these blacke moores, they answered, that they had them from certaine islands standing fast by Sebut, where there were many of them.

The Negritos which our first conquerors found were, according to tradition, the first possessors of the islands of this Archipelago, and, having been conquered by the political nations of other kingdoms, they fled to the mountains and populated them, whence no one has been able to accomplish their extermination on account of the inaccessibility of the places where they live. In the past they were so proud of their primitive dominion that, although they did not have strength to resist the strangers in the open, in the woods and mountains and mouths of the rivers they were very powerful. They made sudden attacks on the pueblos and compelled their neighbors to pay tribute to them as to lords of the earth which they inhabited, and if these did not wish to pay them they killed right and left, collecting the tribute in heads. * * *

One of the islands of note in this Archipelago is that called Isla de Negros on account of the abundance of them [negroes]. In one point of this island—on the west side, called “Sojoton”—there is a great number of Negritos, and in the center of the island many more.

Amongst these (Bisayas) there are also some negroes, the ancient inhabitants of the island of which they had taken possession before the Bisayas. They are somewhat less black and less ugly man those of Guinea, but are smaller and weaker, although as regards hair and beard they are similar. They are more barbarous and savage than the Bisayas and other Filipinos, for they do not, like them, have houses and fixed settlements. They neither sow nor reap, and they wander through the mountains with their women and children like animals, almost naked. * * * Their sole possessions are the bow and arrow.

Of the vast amount of material that has been written during the past century on the Negritos of the Philippines a considerable portion can not be taken authoritatively. Exceptions should be made of the writings of Meyer, Montano, Marche, and Blumentritt. A large part of the writings on the Philippine Negritos have to do with their distribution and numbers, since no one has made an extended study of them on the spot, except Meyer, whose work (consisting of twelve chapters and published in Volume IX of the Publications of the Royal Ethnographical Museum of Dresden, 1893) I regret not to have seen. Two chapters of this work on the distribution of the Negritos, republished in 1899, form the most recent and most nearly correct exposition of this subject. Meyer summarizes as follows:

It may be regarded as proved with certainty that Negritos are found in Luzon, Alabat, Corregidor, Panay, Tablas, Negros, Cebu, northeast Mindanao, and Palawan. It is questionable whether they occur in Guimaras, Mindoro, and the Calamianes.

This statement would be more nearly correct if Corregidor and Cebu were placed in the second list and Guimaras in the first. In this paper it is possible, by reason of special investigations, to give more reliable and detailed information on this subject than any yet published.

Conclusion

This rapid survey leaves much to be desired, but it contains about all that is definitely known to-day concerning the whereabouts of the Negritos in the Philippines. No attempt has been made to state numbers. The Philippine census will probably have more exact information in this particular, but it must be borne in mind that even the figures given by the census can be no more than estimates in most instances. The habits of the Negritos do not lend themselves to modern methods of census taking.

After all, Blumentritt’s opinion of several years ago is not far from right. Including all mixed breeds having a preponderance of Negrito blood, it is safe to say that the Negrito population of the Philippines probably will not exceed 25,000. Of these the group largest in numbers and probably purest in type is that in the Zambales mountain range, western Luzon. However, while individuals may retain in some cases purity of blood, nowhere are whole groups free from mixture with the Malayan. The Negritos of Panay, Negros, and Mindanao are also to be regarded as pure to a large extent. On the east side of Luzon and in the Island of Paragua, as we have just seen, there is marked evidence of mixture.

The social state of the Negritos is everywhere practically the same. They maintain their half-starved lives by the fruits of the chase and forest products, and at best cultivate only small patches of maize and other vegetables. Only occasionally do they live in settled, self-supporting communities, but wander for the most part in scattered families from one place to another.