Arizona silver belt., 1895-08-31
IN THE PHILIPPINES.
Some Queer Phases of Life in the
 Archipelago.
The Easy-Going Natives and Their Large Families--A Fine Quality of SILK Is the Principal Article
 of Clothing.


 The seekers oi strange modes of life and the student of the habits of people who have had little contact with civili- zation and have primitive homes can be satisfied by n visit to almost any of the other larger islands than Luzon in the Philippine archipelago, as, forinstanec, Negros, palawan, Mmdanao and Sa- mas. In any of these isl ands, says a Manila letter in the New York Times, there can be found tens of thousands of natives who like generations of their ancestors, have never left their little island homes, and have not the faintest iden that there is any world beyond their islands. Here the race is mixed and the residents are almost of as light compleXions as the residents of Manila. The young men and women are comedy, and great many of the women between the ages of sixteen and twenty are of striking beauty. On many islands there live the liocals, who are supposed to be the aborigincs of the archipelago, and to be of Malay origin. They are an interesting race for any uuthropologist to study, Travellers who have trotted about the globe say that the Bocals in the Philippine islands and the Punays in Borneo are about the lazicst people that live. They do abe solutcly nothing that is unnecessary for living and dreaming They have immense families--oftcn twenty chil- ,lrcn in a house, and there are a multi tude of eases of parents having fifteen and eighteen boys and girls. Every family has it's own house. but five dol lars will build large and superior bamboo hut, and one dollar will make a better domicile than thousands of the Gocals own. Tho whole family, no mat ter how numerous, is crowded into one room at night, the slcCpurs rccliuiugon heaps of dried banana leaves. Strange Co say. the women are a ciCanly people They bathe every day and arc expert swimmers, They are proud ot their teeth, and take pans to frequently polish them with rude brushes made of the arcea tree. The poorer people have no other cooking utensils than an carthcn pot, and the aristoerats have few cast-iron pans and big rough, carthen dishes,
 The substitute for cotton and wool. cn goods is called moufia cloth, and it is made from the mouHla plant, which is a species of hemp The fiber of this plant is coarse, stiif and not at all pliabic. IL is the white, inner sur face of the long, thin shoots that is used. The natives pull the fiber out, wet the finger and twist the thread. which, as a consequence, is uneven and full of little punches. Very little mOutlld cloth is exported from the island. as t has an extensive domestic use, It takes an industrious woman several weeks to make strip of mouila cloth ten feet long and three feet wide, Flax being almost unknown on the island, the only other material for cloth is silk, The Philippine for csts are full of nulbcrrigs, and silk was woven long before white men came to the islands, Some of the Philippine silk is as fine as the finest China silk. Much of il is claboratcly brocadcd. al- though the process requires an immense amount of time, as the threads which form thc pattern have to be tied up cach time separately The nambilla. a square piece of brocadcd silk. forms the principal garment of the richer na- tircs on the smaller islands This is six feet wide by seven feet long, and re- quires about seventeen months for it's manufacture, A Philippine weaver takes her child on her back and wcavcs for half an hour then she goes down to thc stream and draws jug of water. or down to thc scashurc for swim in the surf After weaving a few min utes more, she again goes to the brook or to the shore, and washes out some single artialc of clothing, ncger wash lag out more than one garment at a time, 50 during the day She probably pats in about six hours at the loom.