The Negritos[1] seem to have been driven into the more inaccessible
parts by successive invasions of those Malay tribes who in very
different stages of civilization and with considerable variety of
physical appearance now form the parti-coloured but fairly
homogeneous population of the islands.
First among these rank the Tagals. They are by preference inhabitants of the lowlands, and generally fix their pile-built dwellings near water. In Manila, Cavite, Batangas, Bulacan, Morong, Infanta, Tayabas, and Bataan they form the bulk of the population, and they also appear in Zambales, Principe, Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Mindoro, Marinduque, Polillo, &c. Their language (Tagalog) especially has made extensive encroachments on the other Philippine tongues since the conquest. The Tagal is physically well developed, has a round head, high cheek bones, flattish nose, lowbrow, thickish lips, and large dark eyes. The lines from the nose to the mouth are usually strongly marked. The power of smell is of extraordinary acuteness. A pair of trousers and a shirt worn outside constitute the dress of the men; that of the women differs by the substitution of the saya or gown for the trousers. Agriculture, and especially the cultivation of rice, is the Tagal's staple means of living; they are also great fishers and keep swine, cattle, and vast numbers of ducks and fowls. Externally they are mostly Roman Catholics; but abundant traces of their old superstitions may still be observed. Cock-fighting and theatrical entertainments are in great favour with the Tagals; they have quite a passion for playing on musical instruments, and learn to execute European pieces with great success. Before the arrival of the Spaniards they had an alphabet of their own (see Stanley's translation of Morga), and they still possess a body of lyrical poetry and native melodies. On the death of an adult a feast is sometimes held among the better families, but the funeral itself is conducted after the ordinary Roman Catholic fashion.
The Visayas inhabit all the islands to the south of Luzon, Masbate, Burias, Ticao, and Mindoro, and to the north of Borneo, Sulu, and Mindanao. In the 15th and 16th centuries they were called “Pintados” (i.e., painted people) by the Spaniards. Though they had attained a considerable degree of civilization before the conquest, they readily accepted Christianity and assisted in the subjugation of the Tagals. The mountains in the interior of some of the Visaya Islands are occupied by savage Visayas, generally styled Infieles, Montesinos, or Cimarrones. The Calamianes, who inhabit the islands of that name, and the Caragus, who inhabit the east coast of Mindanao from Cape Surigao to Cape St Augustin, are usually classed with the Visayas.
The Igorrotes or Igolotes proper (for the name is by many writers very loosely applied to all the pagan mountain tribes of Luzon) inhabit the districts of Bangued, Lepanto, Tiagan, Bontoc. From their cranial characteristics they seem to be distinct from the Tagals and other “Malay” tribes, and they are said to show traces of Chinese and even Japanese intermixture. Dirty and savage-like in person, they are none the less industrious agriculturists—laying out their fields on artificial terraces on the mountain sides, and constructing irrigation canals with remarkable skill; and they also excel as miners and workers in metal. In the matter of sexual morality they form a striking contrast to the licentious Malays; they are monogamists, allow no divorce, and inflict severe punishment for infidelity. Though an attempt to subdue the Igorrotes was made as early as 1660, it was not till 1829 that Spanish supremacy was acknowledged.
For details in regard to the other tribes of the Philippines the Ilocanes, Parnpangos, Pangasinanes, Ibanags or Cagayans, Tinguianes (Itanegas or Tingues), Apayaos, Catalanganes, Vicols, &c.—the reader is referred to Professor Ferd. Blumentritt's monograph, Versuch einer Ethnographie der Philippinen, Gotha, 1882. No fewer than thirty languages are officially recognized. In 1865 it was estimated that Yisaya was spoken by upwards of 2,000,000 persons, Tagalog by 1,300,000, Cebuano by 386,000, &c.
Chinese immigrants, in spite of massacres and administrative restrictions, form a powerful element in the Philippines; in Manila alone they numbered 30,000 in 1880, and there is hardly a pueblo of any size in which one or more of them is not to be found. The petty trade and banking are nearly all in their hands. Chinese mestizos or half-breeds (Mestizos de Sanglay, or Mestizos Chinos) are numerous enough to form separate communities; in 1867 they were said to be 211,000 strong. The European element has never been numerically important—some 8000 or 9000 at the most; but there has grown up a considerable body of European mestizos. Traces of Indian sepoys are still seen in the neighbourhood of Manila, where sepoy regiments were quartered for about eighteen months after the conquest of Manila by the English. Owing partly to Philip II.'s prohibition of slavery the Negro is conspicuous by his absence.
There are no accurate statistics of the whole population of the Philippines; and even the number of the Spanish subjects was up till 1877 only estimated according to the number of those who paid tribute. Diaz Arenas in 1833 stated the total at 3,153,290, the ecclesiastical census of 1876 at 6,173,632, and the civil census of 1877 at 5,561,232; Moya y Jimenez, founding on certain calculations by Del Pan, and admitting an annual increase of 2 per cent., brings the number up to 10,426,000 in 1882.
History.—The Philippine, or, as he called them, the St Lazarus Islands were discovered by Magellan on 12th March 1521, the first place at which he touched being Jomonjol, now Malhou, an islet in the Strait of Surigao between Samar and Dinagat. By 27th April he had lost his life on the island of Mactan off the coast of Cebu. The surrender of the Moluccas by Charles V. in 1529 tended to lessen the interest of the Spaniards in the Islas de Poniente, as they generally called their new discovery, and the Portuguese were too busy in the southern parts of the Indian Archipelago to trouble about the Islas de Oriente, as they preferred to call them. Villalobos, who sailed from Navidad in Mexico with five ships and 370 men in February 1543, accomplished little (though it was he who suggested the present name of the archipelago by calling Samar Filipina); but in 1565 Legazpi founded the Spanish settlement of San Miguel at the town of Cebu, which afterwards became the Villa de Santisimo Nombre de Jesus, and in 1571 determined in large measure the future lines of conquest by fixing the capital at Manila. It is in a letter of Legazpi's in 1567 that the name Islas Filipinas appears for the first time. The subjugation of the islands, thanks to the exertions of the Roman Catholic missionaries and to the large powers which were placed in their hands by Philip, was effected, not of course without fighting and bloodshed, but without those appalling massacres and depopulations which characterized the conquest of South America. Contests with frontier rebellious tribes, attacks by pirates and reprisals on the part of the Spaniards, combine with volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tornadoes to break the comparative monotony of the subsequent history. Manila was captured by the English under Draper and Cornish in 1762, and ransomed for £1,000,000; but it was restored in 1764.
Professor Blumentritt published a Biblioqraphie der Philippinen in 1882; minor lists of authorities will be found in his Versuch einer Ethnographie, in Moya y Jimenez, &c. It is enough to mention Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, Mexico, 1609 (English translation by Henry E. J. Stanley, Hakluyt Soc., 1868); Chirino, Relacion de las I. F., Rome, 1604; Combez, Hist. de las Islas de Mindanao, Joló, &c., Madrid, 1667; Agustin, Conquistas de las I. F., Madrid, 1698; Juan de la Concepcion, Hist. general de Philipinas, Sampaloc, 1788; Zuñiga, Hist. de Philipinas, Sampaloc, 1803 (English partial translation by John Maver, 1814); Comyn, Estado de las I. F. en 1810, Madrid, 1820 (new edition, 1877); Mas, Informe sobre el Estado de las I. F. en 1842, Madrid, 1843; Mallat, Les Philippines, Paris, 1846; Diaz Arenas, Memorias hist. y estad., Manila, 1850; Buzeta and Bravo, Diccionario estad., &c., de las I. F., Madrid, 1850; La Gironnière, Vingt ans aux Philippines, 1853; Semper, Die Philippinen u. ihre Bewohner, Würzburg, 1869; Ferrando, Hist. de los PP. Dominicanos en las I. F., &c., Madrid, 1870; Jagor, Reisen in den Philippinen, Berlin, 1873; Scheidnagel, Las Colonias Españolas de Asia, Madrid, 1880; Cañamaque, Las Islas Filipinas, Madrid, 1880; Cavada, Guia de Filipinas, 1881; Francisco Javier de Moya y Jimenez, Las I. F. en 1882, Madrid, 1883. (H. A. W.)
PHILIPPOPOLIS, Filippopel, and (Turkish) Felibe, a city of Thracia, previous to 1878 the chief town of a sanjak in the Turkish vilayet of Adrianople, and now the capital of the independent province of Eastern Roumelia and the chief town of one of the six departments, lies 112 miles west-north-west of Adrianople by rail and thus 309 miles from Constantinople, mainly on the right bank of the Maritza (the ancient Hebrus). The railway runs farther up the river to Sarambey and Simcina, but has no direct connexion with the other railway systems of Europe. Highways, however, from Bulgaria, Servia, and Macedonia meet at Philippopolis, which, besides being the centre of an extensive trade, carries on considerable manufactures of silk, cotton, and leather. The city is built partly on a striking group of granite eminences (whence the old Roman name, Trimontium) and partly on the low grounds along the river, which in the outskirts are occupied by rice-fields. On the left side of the river and connected with the city by a long bridge is the suburb of Karsliiaka. The population, estimated at 24,000 to 28,000, consists of Bulgarians, and, in smaller proportions, of Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Jews, and Gipsies. A Greek archbishop has his see in the city, and among the public buildings are a number of Greek churches and a Greek lyceum (1868).
Eumolpia, a Thracian town, was captured by Philip of Macedon and made one of his frontier posts; and, though the soldiers seem to have given it the title of “Poneropolis,” or City of Hardships, and it was not long afterwards recovered by the Thracians, the name of Philip's City has stuck to it ever since. Under the Romans Philippopolis or Trimontium became the capital of Thracia; and, even after its destruction by the Goths, when 100,000 persons are said to have been slain, it continued to be a nourishing city till it was again laid in ruins by Joannes Romaioctonus, the Bulgarian king. It passed under Turkish rule in 1369; in 1818 it was
- ↑ See Meyer, in Z. f. Ethn., vols. v., vi. , vii.
