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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 51, 1801-1840

Note 9 — PART II

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In his “Non-Christian Tribes of Northern Luzon,” Worcester calls attention to the various indefinite modes of using the word “tribe,” among ethnological writers, and proposes (p. 803) the following definition as a means of securing clearness and accuracy therein: “A division of a race composed of an aggregate of individuals of a kind and of a common origin, agreeing among themselves in, and distinguished from their congeners by, physical characteristics, dress, and ornaments; the nature of the communities which they form; peculiarities of house architecture; methods of hunting, fishing, and carrying on agriculture; character and importance of manufactures; practices relative to war and the taking of heads of enemies; arms used in warfare; music and dancing, and marriage and burial customs; but not constituting a political unit subject to the control of any single individual nor necessarily speaking the same dialect.” He adds: “Where different dialects prevail among the members of a single tribe it should be subdivided into dialect groups.” He also says (p. 798): “It was the usage of the Spaniards to designate as a tribe each group of people which had a dialect, more or less peculiar, of its own. Furthermore, the custom which is widespread among the hill people of northern Luzon of shouting out the name of a settlement when they desire to call for one or more persons belonging to it, seems in many instances to have led the Spaniards to adopt settlement names as tribal ones, even when there were no differences of dialect between the peoples thus designated.”—Eds. ↑

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