Part 22 (1/2)

[271] Paho. A species of very small mango from one and one-half to five centimeters in its longer diameter. It has a soft pit, and exhales a strong pitchy odor.--Rizal.

[272] A Spanish word signifying a cryptogamous plant; perhaps referring to some species of mushroom.

[273] In Tagal this is kasubha. It comes from the Sanskrit kasumbha, or Malay kasumba (Pardo de Tavera's El Sanscrito en la lengua tagalog).--Rizal.

This plant is the safflower or b.a.s.t.a.r.d saffron (Certhamus tinctorius); its flowers are used in making a red dye.

[274] Not a tree, but a climber. The plants are cultivated by training them about some canes planted in the middle of certain little channels which serve to convey irrigation to the plant twice each day. A plantation of betel--or ikmo, as the Tagals call it--much resembles a German hop-garden.--Rizal.

[275] This fruit is not that of the betel or buyo, but of the bonga (Tagal bunga), or areca palm.--Rizal.

[276] Not quicklime, but well slaked lime.--Rizal.

Rizal misprints un poco de cal viva for vn poluc de cal viua.

[277] The original word is marcada. Rizal is probably correct in regarding it as a misprint for mascada, chewed.

[278] It is not clear who call these caskets by that name. I imagine it to be the Spanish name, properly spelt buxeta. The king of Calicut's betel box is called buxen in the Barcelona MS. of the Malabar coasts.--Stanley.

[279] See VOL. IV, p. 222, note 31; also Delgado (ut supra), pp. 667-669. Delgado says that bonga signifies fruit.

[280] Tagal, tuko.--Rizal.

[281] This word in the original is visitandolas; Rizal makes it irritandolas (shaking or irritating them), but there are not sufficient grounds for the change.

[282] The Indians, upon seeing that wealth excited the rapacity of the encomenderos and soldiers, abandoned the working of the mines, and the religious historians a.s.sert that they counseled them to a similar action in order to free them from annoyances. Nevertheless, according to Colin (who was ”informed by well-disposed natives”) more than 100,000 pesos of gold annually, conservatively stated, was taken from the mines during his time, after eighty years of abandonment. According to ”a ma.n.u.script of a grave person who had lived long in these islands” the first tribute of the two provinces of Ilocos and Pangasinan alone amounted to 109,500 pesos. A single encomendero, in 1587, sent 3,000 taheles of gold in the ”Santa Ana,”

which was captured by Cavendish.--Rizal.

[283] This was prohibited later.--Rizal.

[284] See VOL. XIV, pp. 301-304.

According to Hernando de los Rios the province of Pangasinan was said to contain a quant.i.ty of gold, and that Guido de Labazaris sent some soldiers to search for it; but they returned in a sickly state and suppressed all knowledge of the mines in order not to be sent back there. The Dominican monks also suppressed all knowledge of the mines on account of the tyranny of which gold had been the cause in the West Indies.--Stanley.

[285] Pearl-fis.h.i.+ng is still carried on along the coasts of Mindanao and Palawan, and in the Sulu archipelago. In the latter region pearls are very abundant and often valuable; the fisheries there are under the control of the sultan of Sulu, who rents them, appropriating for himself the largest pearls.

[286] Probably the cowry (Cypraea moneta). Crawfurd states (Dict. Ind. Islands, p. 117) that in the Asiatic archipelago this sh.e.l.l is found only on the sh.o.r.es of the Sulu group, and that it ”seems never to have been used for money among the Indian Islanders as it has immemorially been by the Hindus.”

[287] Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (Eng. trans., London, 1875), devotes a portion of his chapter xv to these jars. He mentions the great prices paid by the j.a.panese for these vessels. On p. 164, occurs a translation of the above paragraph, but it has been mistranslated in two places. Stanley cites the similar jars found among the Dyaks of Borneo--the best called gusih--which were valued at from $1,500 to $3,000, while the second grade were sold for $400. That they are very ancient is proved by one found among other remains of probably the copper age. From the fact that they have been found in Cambodia, Siam, Cochinchina, and the Philippines, Rizal conjectures that the peoples of these countries may have had a common center of civilization at one time.

[288] ”Not many years ago,” says Colin (1663), ”a large piece [of ambergris] was found in the island of Jolo, that weighed more than eight arrobas, of the best kind, namely, the gray.”--Rizal.

[289] This industry must now be forgotten, for it is never heard of.--Rizal.

[290] Perhaps Morga alludes to the sinamay, which was woven from abaka, or filament of the plant Musa textilis. The abaka is taken from the trunk and not the leaf.--Rizal.

[291] This name seems to be Malay, Babu-utan, wild swine.--Stanley.

[292] The men of these islands were excellent carpenters and s.h.i.+p-builders. ”They make many very light vessels, which they take through the vicinity for sale in a very curious manner. They build a large vessel, undecked, without iron nail or any fastening. Then, according to the measure of its hull, they make another vessel that fits into it. Within that they put a second and a third. Thus a large biroco contains ten or twelve vessels, called biroco, virey, barangay, and binitan.” These natives were ”tattooed, and were excellent rowers and sailors; and although they are upset often, they never drown.” The women are very masculine. ”They do not drink from the rivers, although the water is very clear, because it gives them nausea.... The women's costumes are chaste and pretty, for they wear petticoats in the Bisayan manner, of fine medrinaque, and lamboncillos, which resemble close-fitting sayuelos [i.e., woolen s.h.i.+fts worn by certain cla.s.ses of religious]. They wear long robes of the same fine medrinaque. They gather the hair, which is neatly combed, into a knot, on top of the head, and place a rose in it. On their forehead they wear a band of very fine wrought gold, two fingers wide. It is very neatly worked and on the side encircling the head it is covered with colored taffeta. In each ear they wear three gold earrings, one in the place where Spanish women wear them, and two higher up. On their feet they wear certain coverings of thin bra.s.s, which sound when they walk.” (The citations herein are from Colin.) These islands have also retrograded.--Rizal.

[293] Cavite derives its name from the Tagal word cavit, a creek, or bend, or hook, for such is its form.--Stanley.