Part 8 (1/2)

They fight with b.a.l.l.s of wet clay. Often the battle lasts two or three hours.

Indian girls have dolls, and they dress them and sing them to sleep.

They play ”house,” and often have doll-house moving.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indian Girls.]

Indian men and boys are fond of swimming, and they are very good swimmers. They are also fond of sailing in their canoes. The canoe is made of the bark of the birch tree. The Indians paddle their canoes. They can make them go very fast.

Many of the Indians now live in houses and have farms the same as white men, and they raise corn and vegetables and fruit. They have horses and cows and sheep as other farmers have. And we may hope that before long the Red Men will live in the same way as white men, and be as well off and as happy.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

The Philippine Islands are far away on the other side of the earth, near China. There are a great many of these islands. Most of them are small. But some of them are large islands, and many people live on them. The largest of the islands is called Luzon. The largest town in this island is Manila.

Many tribes of people live in the Philippine Islands. Each tribe has a language of its own.

It is very warm in these islands. So the people need but little clothing. Their houses are not very high. The highest house is only two stories. In some parts they have strange windows in their houses.

The panes are not made of gla.s.s, as in our houses. They are made of oyster sh.e.l.ls. But they are not like our oyster sh.e.l.ls. They are very thin--so thin that the light can come through them nearly as well as through gla.s.s. The sh.e.l.l is made square, and fits in the window like a pane of gla.s.s. Sometimes the sides or walls of the upper stories are made of frames, with oyster sh.e.l.ls for panes. The people can slide these walls back, so as to let the cool air into the rooms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Philippine House.]

There is one tribe in the islands called the Moro tribe. The people of this tribe have very strange houses. They build their houses in the water near the sh.o.r.e. They build them on the top of long poles. The first stories are high above the water. The people use ladders to go up to them. These houses are built of bamboo.

The bamboo is very useful in the country where it grows. It is a kind of reed, and grows very tall. It has joints like the joints of a corn stalk. It is not solid like a corn stalk, but is hollow inside. It is so thick and strong that the people make houses of it and all kinds of furniture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bamboo.]

The Moro men are good sailors and swimmers. They are also good divers.

They dive into the water for pearls and coral. They can stay under the water for two or three minutes at a time. The children also are good swimmers. They spend a great deal of time in the water.

There is another tribe called the Man'gy-ans. These people live in the mountains. They have black hair and flat noses. They are very strong, for they spend most of their time out of doors.

Some months of the year they do not live in houses. They sleep under trees. But other months of the year it rains very much. Then they sleep in houses. Their houses are made of poles with roofs of leaves.

The Mangyan women and girls wear a very strange kind of dress. It is made of cords coiled around their waists. The cords are narrow strips of rattan braided together. Rattan is the stem of a plant which grows to a very great height. It sometimes grows a hundred feet high. It is as thick as a man's wrist, and it is very tough and strong. The people split the rattan into thin strips. With these they make baskets, seats of chairs, walking canes, ropes, and many other things.

The Mangyan men are good hunters. They hunt an animal called the tim'a-rau. It is like a buffalo. They shoot it with bows and arrows.

There are a great many large forests in the Philippines, and there are very fine trees in them. The most useful of the plants or trees is the bamboo. I have already told you about it. The cocoanut palm is also a very useful tree. The nuts give food and drink and oil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Philippine woman carrying water.]

On one of the islands there is a wonderful plant called the pitcher plant. Its leaves are in the shape of pitchers. Some of the pitchers have lids, and are large enough to hold a pint of water.

In the Philippines they raise coffee, bananas, sugar, tobacco, and cotton. One of their most useful plants is the plant from which they get hemp for making ropes and cords. This plant is called ”ab'a-ca” by the people in the Philippines, and its hemp is called Manila hemp.