Note 54 — Chapter XVIII

The arms of the natives of Mindanao, like their clothes, are manufactured by themselves. The spears and campilans are said to be finely tempered. They themselves adjust the dies for their pataquias. The sheaths, like the hafts of their krises, are of gold richly engraved. The haft of the kris used by Dato Ayuman of Tabiran was of solid gold, and was engraved with sentences from the Koran in Arabic characters. The usual weapons are: campilans, krises (straight and wavy), machetes, bolos, ligdaos, súndanes, various kinds of spears, balaraos, and badis. They use coats-of-mail made of brass, tortoise-shell, malibago [-bark], or very thick cloth, or long sashes wound about the breast. Spears and arrows are generally poisoned with the resin of the tree called quemandag or the poison of red ants or scorpions; and the points of their daggers and balaraos are also poisoned. They also use darts made of steel, iron, bone, palm-wood and bamboo. For defense they construct traps, dig pits, and set bamboo points. They use also various kinds of lantacas and other kinds of firearms, with which the Chinese supply them, or which they manufacture themselves. These were considered contraband of war during the Spanish régime. (Pastells and Retana’s Combés, col. 782.)