Omaha daily bee., 1899-04-20
ODD CUSTOMS OF FILIplNOS
ln''inctivo Love of Bright Colors, Music,
Song and Ceremony.
SWEET SCENTED LOT TO AsSIMlATE
Christians, Cnnnibais, IdoIators. Nam
Killers aud observation-disclosures
tcri.tics of the Malay
Mixture.

Every day materially Increases the coun-
try's store OF knowledge concerning the in
habitants OF the Philippines. 1t is generally
understood that Uncle Sam has secured, by
means OF Dewey's guns and 800. 600, 900 cash,
the most varied mixture Of Malays in the
orient. But their history, customs and
mode OF living were given little thought
until the battle of Manila bay brought the
natives before the astonished gaze of the
western world. A contribution to the SUBJ
ject OF much value is a paper by Margherita
Arlina Hamm on Philippine customs and
oddities in the New York Independent. The
writer says:
1t would seem as II at the beginning of
the Christian era the various Malay tribes
who constituted the Philippine population
were not highly advanced either socially or
rellgiously. Slavery was common and polyg-
amy was practiced by the governing
classes. At some points there is reason to
believe that cannibalism prevailed. OF the
religious concepts nothing definite is known.
put 1t Is fair to presume that the Papuan
and Negrito elements had a belief of the
same class as their kindred of New Guinea
today. The Tagals and Visayas had ad-
Vanced several steps further and had a
crude belief in spirits, especially evil ones.
At some time in the first ten centuries Of
the era Buddhist missionaries from China
tried to preach the gentle doctrines of the
Indian prince and in the Sulu archipelago, il
not in Mindanao, there was undoubtedly a
tinge of Hindu thought. Even at this time
much of the Sulu speech and some of the
Mindanao, l noticed, contained both Sanscrit
and Arabic words. Where this came from
and how it ever reached there is an enigma
OF the darkest kind.
The word pundita is employed in the
double sense of a learned person and also
of a priest. This is a stranger fact than
would have been the discovery by Julius
Caesar that the Picts and Scots were speak
ing a Persian dialect.
Between the year 1000 A.. d. and today the
Wlipinos have been subjected to the pressure
of religion in it's militant phase. In the
northern and middle islands Christianity
and in the southern territory Islam has
done its best to make converts. Both faiths
have been eminently successful. OF an
estimated population of 10, 600, 900. 5000, 900
are nominally Christians and 1000, 900 Mo-
hammedans. Another estimate makes the
figures 1000, 900 and 5000, 900, while a third
estimate gives 1000, 900 Christians, 5000, 900
Moslems and 10000 600 idolaters
The Malay likes excitement and has an in
stinctive love for color, bright metals, rich
vestments. music, song and ceremony. He
takes naturally to the Roman Catholic forms
and also to those of the Crescent. How
deeply he is imbued with religious truths
and convictions is difficult to determine.
Those who have spent their lives in the
Philippines are as much in doubt on the sub
ject as those who have been there a single
do h .IA,v IL yna . .yf,tta, f,.,.. I'D
are addicted to superstition is noticeable in
every part OF the archipelago. One of the
commonest sights in Manila, Iloilo and the
smaller cities is that of hawkers, half-naked
natives, who go about with a box in which
there is a doll -saint, a sacred relic, a cheap
ACKNOWLEDGMENT or some other object OF
religious interest. The front of the box is
made of glass or has a small window covered
with a piece of glass. The devout pay a
small fee to the hawker, for which they are
permitted to look into the interior and to
imprint a kiss upon the glass. These
hawkers are licensed and pay a fee for the
privilege of carrying on their odd traffic.
Various Brands of Dervishes.
There are hundreds OF these p%eddlers and
all of them seem to do a profitable if not a
prosperous business. Among the Moros. or
Philippine Mussulmans, there are bowling
dervishes, dancing dervishes and praying
dervishes. OF the habits of this class the
Spanlards know but little. Although they
were nomlnally the sovereigns of Mindanac
and the Sulu archipelago their sovereignty
was confined to their forts, battalions and
gunboats. To go a thousand yards from one
OF the forts into the interior was very much
like committing suicide. The Moro kills
partly for the sake of robbery and partly
from religious fanaticism. The entire
Moslem territory is about as savage today
as 1t was 400 years ago. The only marked
improvement is that effected by heroic
Roman Catholic missionaries, who have il
the course of the years succeeded in con.
verting som 10, 900 or q, 1000 souls.
1t is known, however, that the ~pundita'
have a curious custom Of taking the younl
men from the villages out into the wilder
ness and there keeping them for many days
or weeks at a time, in which they instruc
them in the mysteries Of the koran. NJ
Moro warrior can hope to attain greatness
unless he. has received religious training o
this sort. 1t Is here that the oathbound as
sassins, juramentados, are trained and edu