1

spread from island to island. This latter theory, advanced by De Quatrefages, is the generally accepted one, although it is somewhat difficult to believe that the ancestors of weak and scattered tribes such as to-day are found in the Philippines could ever have been the sea rovers that such a belief would imply. It is a well-known fact, however, that the Malays have spread in this manner, and, while it is hardly possible that the Negritos have ever been as bold seafarers as the Malays, yet where they have been left in undisputed possession of their shores they have remained reckless fishermen. The statement that they are now nearly always found in impenetrable mountain forests is not an argument against the migration-by-sea theory, because they have been surrounded by stronger races and have been compelled to flee to the forests or suffer extermination. The fact that they live farther inland than the stronger peoples is also evidence that they were the first inhabitants, for it is not natural to suppose that a weaker race could enter territory occupied by a stronger and gain a permanent foothold there."

1 Les Pygmées, 1887.

2 However, when one attempts to fathom the mysteries surrounding the origin and migrations of the Negrito race he becomes hopelessly involved in a labyrinth of conjecture. Did the Negritos come from somewhere in Asia, some island like New Guinea, or is their original home now sunk beneath the sea? In the present state of our knowledge we can not hope to know. We find them in certain places to-day; we may believe that they once lived in certain other places, because the people now living there have characteristics peculiar to the little black men. But the Negrito has left behind no archæological remains to guide the investigator, and he who attempts seriously to consider this question is laying up for himself a store of perplexing problems.

It may be of interest to present here the leading facts in connection with the distribution of the Negrito race and to summarize the views set forth by various leading anthropologists who have given the subject most study.

The deduction of the French scientists De Quatrefages and Hamy have been based almost entirely on craniological and osteological observations, and these authors argue a much wider distribution of the Negritos than other writers hold. In fact, according to these writers, traces of Negritos are found practically everywhere from India to Japan and New Guinea.

De Quatrefages in Les Pygmées, 1887, divides what he calls the "Eastern pygmies," as opposed to the African pygmies, into two divisions-the Negrito-Papuans and the Negritos proper. The former, he says, have New Guinea as a center of population and extend as far as Gilolo and the Moluccas. They are distinguished from the true Papuans who inhabit New Guinea and who are not classed by that writer as belonging to the Negrito

race.

On the other hand, Wallace and Earl, supported by Meyer, all of whom have made some investigations in the region occupied by the Papuans, affirm that there is but a single race and that its identity with the Negritos is unmistakable. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 77) says that he and Von Maclay in 1873 saw a number of Papuans in Tidore. He had just come from the Philippines and Von Maclay had then come from Astrolabe Bay, in New Guinea. With these Papuans before them they discussed the question of the unity of the races, and Von Maclay could see no difference between these Papuans and those of Astrolabe Bay, while Meyer declared that the similarities between them and the Negritos of the Philippines was most striking. He says: "That was my standpoint then regarding the question, neither can I relinquish it at present."

Although they defended the unity of the Negritos and the Papuans they recognized that the Papuans were diversified and presented a variety of types, but Meyer regards this not as pointing to a crossing of different elements but as revealing simply the variability of the race. He continues (p. 80): "As the external habitus of the Negritos must be declared as almost identical with that of the Papuans, differences in form of the skull, the size of the body, and such like have the less weight in opposition to the great uniformity, as strong contrasts do not even come into play here, and if the Negritos do not show such great amount of variation in their physical characters as the Papuans-which, however,

The attention of the first Europeans who visited the Philippines was attracted by people with frizzly hair and with a skin darker in color than that of the ruling tribes. Pigafetta, to whom we are indebted for

is by no means sufficiently attested-it is no wonder in the case of a people which has been driven back and deprived of the opportunity of developing itself freely."

Thus it remains for future investigations to establish beyond doubt the identity of the Papuans.

De Quatrefages divides all other Eastern pygmies into two divisions-insular and continental-and no authors find fault with this classification. Only in fixing the distribution of the Negritos do the authorities differ. The islands admitted by everybody to contain Negritos to-day may be eliminated from the discussion. These are the Philippines and the Andamans. In the latter the name "Mincopies" has been given to the little blacks, though how this name originated no one seems to know. It is certain that the people do not apply the name to themselves. Extensive study of the Andamans has been made by Flower and Man.

The Moluccas and lesser Sunda Islands just west of New Guinea were stated by De Quatrefages in 1887 (Les Pygmées) to be inhabited by Negritos, although three years previously, as recorded in Hommes Fossiles, 1884, he had doubted their existence there. He gave no authority and assigned no reason in his later work for this change of opinion. Meyer thinks this sufficient reason why one should not take De Quatrefages too seriously, and states that proofs of the existence of the Negritos in this locality are "so weak as not to be worth discussing them in detail." From deductions based on the examination of a single skull Hamy inferred that pure Negritos were found on Timor, but the people of Timor were found by Meyer to be mixed Papuans and Malays, resembling the latter on the coasts and the former in the interior.

Likewise in Celebes, Borneo, and Java the French writers think that traces of an ancient Negrito population may be found, while Meyer holds that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant such an assumption. In Sumatra he admits that there is an element not Malayan, which on account of the nearness of Malacca may be Negritic, but that fact is so far by no means proved.

In regard to Formosa Meyer quotes Scheteleg (Trans. Ethn. Soc., n. s., 1869, VII): "I am convinced that the Malay origin of most of the inhabitants of Formosa is incontestable."

But Hamy holds that the two skulls which Scheteleg brought were Negrito skulls, an assumption which Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, 1898, p. 52) disposes of as follows: "To conclude the occurrence of a race in a country from certain characters in two skulls, when this race has not been registered from that country, is, in the present embryonic state of craniology, an unwarrantable proceeding."

In like manner Hamy has found that a certain Japanese skull in the Paris Museum resembles a Negrito skull, and he also finds traces of Negritos in Japan in the small stature, crisp hair, and darker color of the natives of the interior of the Island of Kiusiu. But Meyer holds that the facts brought forward up to the present time are far from being established, and objects to the acceptance of surmises and explanations more or less subjective as conclusive.

There is no doubt of the occurrence of Negritos in the peninsula of Malacca, where both pure and mixed people have been found. These are reported under a variety of names, of which Semang and Sakaf are perhaps the best known. Meyer (Distribution of Negritos, p. 62, footnote 2) says: "Stevens divides the Negritos of Malacca into two principal tribesthe Belendas, who with the Tumiors branched off from the Kenis tribe, and the Meniks, who consist of the Panggans of Kelantan and Petani and the Semangs of the west coast. Only the Panggans and the Tumiors are pure Negritos. A name often recurring for the Belendas is Sakeis (Malay: 'bondman,' 'servant'), a designation given them in the first instance by the Malays but which they often also apply to themselves when addressing strangers."

In their efforts to find Negrito traces in the Mao-tse, the aboriginal peoples of the Chinese Empire, De Lacouperie and De Quatrefages have, in the opinion of Meyer, even less to stand on than had Hamy in the case of Japan. In like manner it remains to be proved whether the Moif of Annam are related to Negritos, as the two French writers have stated, but whose opinions have been vigorously opposed by Meyer and others.

The question of the aboriginal inhabitants of India is one of even greater importance and presents greater difficulties. If it can be shown that this aboriginal population was Negrito, and if the relations which researches, especially in philology, have indicated between the peoples of India and those of Australia can be proved, a range of possibilities of startling importance, affecting the race question of Oceania in general and the origin and distribution of the Negritos in particular, will be opened up. In regard to the Indian question there is much diversity of opinion. De Quatrefages and Hamy, as usual, regard

2

an account of Magellan's voyage of discovery in 1521, mentions Negritos X as living in the Island of Panglao, southwest of Bohol and east of Cebu. If we are to believe later historians the shores of some of the islands fairly swarmed with Negritos when the Spaniards arrived. Meyer gives an interesting extract from an old account by Galvano, The Discoveries of the World (ed. Bethune, Hakluyt Soc., 1862, p. 234): " 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.

3

Zúñiga quotes the Franciscan history as follows:

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.

Chirino has the following to say of the Negritos of Panay at the end of the sixteenth century: 5

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

the Negritos as established in India, but Topinard and Virchow are opposed to this belief. Meyer holds that "this part of the Negrito question is in no way ripe for decision, and how much less the question as to a possible relationship of this hypothetical primitive population with the Negroes of Africa." (Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 70.)

In anthropology a statement may be regarded as proved for the time being so long as no opposition to it exists. With the exception of the Philippine and the Andaman Islands and the Malay Peninsula, as we have seen, the presence of traces of Negritos is an open question. The evidence at hand is incomplete and insufficient, and we must therefore be content to let future investigators work out these unsolved problems.

English edition of Stanley, 1874, p. 106.

Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 6, footnote.

3 Zúñiga, Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas. Reprint by Retana, vol. 1, p. 422.

By this is meant Fr. San Antonio's Chronicas de la Apostolica, Provincia de San Gregorio, etc., 1738-1744.

5 Relación de las Islas Filipinas, 1604; 2d ed., 1890, p. 38.

somewhat less black and less ugly than 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.

*

*

Meyer, who has given the subject much study and has conducted personal investigations on the field, states that "although at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in the country, and probably long before, the Negritos were in process of being driven back by the Malays, yet it appears certain that their numbers were then larger, for they were feared by their neighbors, which is now only exceptionally the case."

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.

PRESENT DISTRIBUTION IN THE PHILIPPINES 2

IN LUZON

This paper concerns itself chiefly with the Zambales Negritos whose distribution in Zambales and the contiguous Provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, and Tarlac is treated in detail in the following chapter. But Negritos of more or less pure blood, known variously as Aeta, Agta, Baluga, Dumagat, etc., are found in at least eleven other provinces of Luzon. Beginning with the southern end of the island there are a very few Negritos in the Province of Sorsogon. They are found generally living among the Bicol population and do not run wild in the woods; they have probably drifted down from the neighboring Province of

1 Meyer, Distribution of Negritos, 1899, p. 4.

2 See sketch map, Pl. I.

Albay. According to a report submitted by the governor of Sorsogon there are a few of these Negritos in Bacon and Bulusan, and four families containing Negrito blood are on the Island of Batang near Gabat. Eight pueblos of Albay report altogether as many as 800 Negritos, known locally as "Agta." It is not likely any of them are of pure blood. In all except three of the towns they are servants in Bicol houses, but Malinao, Bacacay, and Tabaco report wandering groups in the mountains.

Meyer, who makes no mention of Negritos in Sorsogon or Albay, deems their existence in the Camarines sufficiently well authenticated, according to Blumentritt, who places Negrito half-breeds in the neighborhood of Lagonoy and around Mount Isarog. Information received by The Ethnological Survey places them in the mountains near Baao, Bulic, Iriga, Lagonoy, San José, Gao, and Tigaon, as well as scattered over the Cordillera de Isarog around Sagnay. All of these places are in the extreme southeastern part of the province contiguous to that part of Albay inhabited by Negritos. In neither province is the type pure. In the northern part of the province a few Negritos, called "Dumagat," are reported near Sipocot and Ragay. The towns of San Vicente, Labo, Paracale, Mambulao, and Capalonga along the north coast also have Negritos, generally called "Aeta." These are probably of purer blood than those around Mount Isarog. More than a hundred families of "Dumagat" are reported on the Islands of Caringo, Caluat, and Jomalic.

Farther to the north the Island of Alabat was first stated by Blumentritt to be inhabited by Dumagat, and in his map of 1882 he places them here but omits them in the map of 1890. Meyer deems their occurrence there to be beyond all doubt, as per Steen Bille's reports (Reise der Galathea, German ed., 1852). Reports of The Ethnological Survey place Aeta, Baluga, and Dumagat on Alabat-the former runing wild in the mountains, the latter living in the barrios of Camagon and Silangan, respectively. On the mainland of the Province of Tayabas the Negritos are generally known as Aeta and may be regarded as being to a large degree of pure blood. They are scattered pretty well over the northern part of the province, but do not, so far as is known, extend down into the peninsula. below Pitogo and Macalelon. Only at Mauban are they known as Baluga, which name seems to indicate a mixed breed. The Island of Polillo and the districts of Infanta and Principe, now part of the Province of Tayabas, have large numbers of Negritos probably more nearly approaching a pure physical type than those south of them. The Negritos of Binangonan and Baler have received attention in short papers from Blumentritt, but it yet remains for someone to make a study of them on the spot.

Meyer noted in 1872 that Negritos frequently came from the moun