Volume 40 — Chapter XIII

The moderation of their conduct, and the sobriety of their living

Their clothing is very simple, without stiffening or linings. All are dressed after the same style, and innovations due to curiosity are not allowed. As the country is so hot, they dress very loosely, a fact which makes the cutting out very easy. Each one is the tailor of his own garments. This is the reason why the Indians are so lacking in the communal idea, and are so hostile to assembling and uniting in villages; for since their misery and laziness make them content with the easiest and most natural, which all obtain, they do not need one another. For in each house are found all the trades, and no one makes use of them unless his own necessity compels him. If one goes to fish, he is content with what will satisfy either his appetite or his necessity; and the desire of acquiring does not make him break with his laziness in order to work.

Returning to their clothes, the stuffs worn are generally common to nobles, and plebeians, kings and slaves, and there is no difference between them—except it be in something extraordinary, in which the obligation and ostentation of their chief persons induces them to depart from their accustomed use. At such times they are wont to wear silks and very beautiful stuffs, with buttons and gold lace. Their krises (which are their inseparable weapons) have gilded scabbards and hilts of massy gold. I have seen some of them which were valued at nine slaves each, all covered with precious stones and perhaps encrusted with pearls. But in daily appearance all resemble one another, both in the garments in which they dress and in the fashions that they employ. These clothes consist of breeches and short jacket [ropilla]—or skirt, to be more accurate. That is not worn over a shirt, for with them the first garment is not the shirt, but the skirt, for it is all one. Sometimes they wear a jacket with long skirts cut in the French style; which, although it can be buttoned, is generally worn open, with the breast exposed. In this particular this nation is quite different from the others of this region. They use another style of cut; the skirts and sleeves each ending in a point, and the ends which ought to close over the bosom are brought together in double points, fastened either with a button or with a knot, so that almost all the breast is left open. The breeches are full and white, resembling those which the Spaniards wear for the sake of cleanliness under their black ones. They are girt with a bit of native linen, so long that after having been knotted it hangs from the waist to the knees; and it serves to make their garb more decent than it would be because of the meagerness and thinness of the breeches. Or if they do not have that, then they use two brazas’ length of the same cloth or silk, which at its full width they wind about the body, joined in front with one end crossed below the other. In that manner they cover the breeches entirely, and the clothing is much more decent. In this usage, the gala costumes have special elaboration, and it displays their ostentation; for they are wont to wear cloth that is valued at thirty or forty reals of eight. They also wear breeches of the Malay fashion, which are closed like ours, although they are not so tight. It is the rule that they must be of silk with a gold fringe below, or with border and buttons of the same which among these people is always of filigree or of solid gold. In that they consider only ostentation, without any risk of waste.

On the head, in the Moorish style, is worn a turban. Its use throughout the Indias is general, but among these people inviolable. I do not know whether it is because even their hearts are tinged with their cursed worship, or because of hatred to our nation and to our customs, or because of flattery to their natural arrogance—through which they will never, of themselves, come to depreciate their own things. Even yet throughout the islands, those who are esteemed as chiefs are ashamed of appearing without hats.

The clothing of the women is plainer, and such that it becomes indecent; for from the small mantas or textiles of these regions, which are all very thin, they make a sack nine palmos long and open at both ends. They gird this in at the waist as much as may be necessary, so that it falls to the feet; what is left they allow to fall over the legs, and it does not even reach to the knees, or necessarily serve for the decency which modesty requires. They adjust it by drawing it close to one side of the body, and by making folds on the other side of all the extra width in proportion to their body. This sack, which by day is a garment—so shameful to decency, because it so ill satisfies it—serves at night for mattress, sheets, and curtain. For on retiring they ungird the sack, and the part which they doubled about the knees they put up to the head. That is all the opulence and comfort that their beds can boast of, which are made of a thin mat. These are their Holland and Rouen linens, which serve for their opulence and their fastidious cleanliness. That is their whole wealth of quilts and covers, which protect them from the cold and from the mosquitoes. All is so exactly adapted to necessity, that there is no difference between the chief women and the slaves—as I saw in Joló in the queen herself, and in Samboangan in many other women, not inferior to her in vanity. However, the women of highest rank, on retiring let fall a curtain without a covering. And that is all their ostentation and the necessary obligation of modesty for the protection from sight of those who are careless concerning their manner of sleeping, in houses where there is no division of apartments, and where there can be no rooms for the multitude that inhabit them, and where the others throw themselves down pellmell on the floor. At most, the master is protected by that little grandeur. This is in regard to the bed, for in dress no difference is known.