The Hawaiian gazette., 1895-10-11

mountains, while the plains and cos
tai regions are inhabited by intruding
races. This is true Of LuZon, the
largest member of the group of Phil
ippines. The dwarfs wers found there
by the first Spanish settlers, as well as
in the interior of the four other prin-
cipal islands. They will have moth
ing to do with the Spanish, Malay or
Chinese inhabitants, and intrusion
upon their territory is vigorously re-
scented. Armed as they are with poi
soned arrows, the slightest scratch
from which means death, they are
well able to defend themselves. There
are parts OF LuZon in which no white
man dares to set foot, and some of the
smaller isles OF the group remain to
this day UNEMPLOYED, for the same
reason.
The dwarfs trade to some extent
with Chinese peddlers, but in very
peculiar fashion. The peripatetic mer-
chant deposits money in a certain
spot and goes away to a distance In
return for it the savages leave in the
same place such merchandise as rare
gums, fine woods and the leaves and
roots of valuable plants, which the
ptuulcI dOiC W uloPOSC vi IL bsS
cities at a great profit. They are al
ways scrupulously honest and liberal
in their dealings. The respective ter
ritories of the various tribes are
bounded by chains of hill or belts of
jungle, which must not be crossed
without formal invitation or special
permission. Occasional violations of
This law cause bloody fights. The
little negroes are the smallest people
in the world, with the exception, per-
haps, of the black dwarfs of the Congo,
who are said to average four feet and
two and half inches in height.
Owing to the extreme wildness of
these little people and the difficulty of
approaching them, they have never
been studied to any extent, except on
the Andaman islands. There the race
has been kept particularly pure, no
intrusion by strangers having occur
red. At,all events, there has been no
settlement by foreigners, though May
lays and Chinese have for centuries
frequented the islands for the purpose
of gathering edible swallows nests.
They have laid traps for the natives,
in order to catch them and make
slaves OF them. On this account the
pigmies have made a practice of kill
ing mariners who CHANGED to be cast
away on their shores. By nature they
are gentle and kindly. Their morals
are an improvement on those of most
white people. Sexual improprieties
are almost unheard of amongst them.
Marriage between cousins they con-
slider an outrage on decency.
The sight aud hearing of these pig
mics are extremely delicate, the for
mer sense being more developed among
the tribes in the juDgles and the latter
among the people who live on the
coast. The coast dwellers in the dark
est nights pierce with harpoon the
turtles which come to breathe at the
surface of the water, having no guide
but the slight noise made by the rep
tiles in doing so. The dwarfs are
short-lived, fifty years among them
being extreme old age. The wife of
chief has an authority among the
women which corresponds to her hus-
bands authority over the men. She
keeps these privileges when a widow
if she has children, otherwise she loses
them. From eleven to thirteen years
of age is for both sexes a period of
rigid abstinence, during which they
must not eat turtle, pork, fish or honey
articles of diet which under ordinary
circumstances are their staple food.
Some of the customs of the dwarfs
are very odd, according to the testi-
mony of M. Quatrefages, 10 whose
newly published work the writer is
indebted for much of his Informal ion
about these little people. When a
child dies its body is exbumed at the
end of three months. The father cleans
the bones and paints the skull yellow.
The bones are divided into fragments
and made into necklaces, which are
distributed among friends of the family
for souvenirs. On the Andamans the
pigmies DO not know how to make
fire, but only to keep it alive. They
say they got it originally from god,
but it may have been obtained from
one of two volcanoes in the Deighbor-
hood. 1t is surmised that their ances-
tors may have understood how to
make fire in the customary manner
Of savages, by rubbing two sticks to-
gether. They have u legend of the
deluge-a great flood which, owing to
neglect of Divine commands, covered
the whole earth and destroyed all
l1VlDg lnlURS. Two meu anu Two
women who CHANGED to be in canoe
alone escaped, and they were the pro-
genitors of the subsequent race. 1t is
worth mentioning, by the way, that
the o-called Wild Man OF Borneo ex-
hibited in a cage by Barnum many
years ago was a little negro from the
Malay Archipelago.
Luzon, the largest OF the Phillip
pines, is almost twice the size of Ire
land, being 400 miles long by $50 miles
wide. 1t has inDumerable mountains
and abounds in lakes, some of them
of great size. The Lago de Bay is
thirty-th miles long and equally
broad, and fifteen rivers flow into it.
EARTHQUAKES and volcanic disturb
ances are frequent. In 1927 one Of the
highest peaks OF the Garsbaflos range
near the north end of the island was
swallowed up during an eruption. The
group, which embrace over 500 islands,
has population Of about 5000, 600,
and an area Of $1,000 square miles.
The people are mostly Malays. being
split up into several nations, the most
numerous of which numbers 1000, 600.
They speak twenty distinct languages
on LuZon alone.