The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Filipino

FILIPINO, fil-ĭ-pē'-nō, a native of the Philippine Islands. The Filipinos form a very mixed population, numbering in all about 8,000,000, and seem to represent almost every type of the human race. Some of the tribes have become more or less civilized, others live in the same barbarism as prevailed before the Spanish occupation. In the make-up of the composite Filipino, the darker substratum has been supplied by the Negrito, the Papuan, and the African negro. A copper tint has been added by the Malay and Polynesian. This infusion of fierce blood has given to the islanders their fighting qualities. There exist among them certain arts of life, and a skin of a paler hue, inherited from Japanese, Chinese and Cambodian sources. Hamite, Semite and Aryan are each said by ethnologists to contribute some elements to the life, physical, intellectual and religious of this strange people, and two centuries of uninterrupted commerce between the archipelago and South America has introduced also a strain of American Indian blood into the Filipino race.

When we come to analyze the tribes, as far as they are at present known to scientific men, it appears that the Indios, the more or less civilized natives of the archipelago, divide themselves naturally into four groups, namely, Tagals, Vicols, Visayas and Llocanes. The Tagals are palpably the most advanced in the arts of life, and number about 1,500,000. Most of them live in the island of Luzon, preferring to settle in the low-lying plains, or near streams and on the seacoast. From Luzon they extend southward, in scattered groups, through Mindoro, Marinduque, and smaller islands farther south. They cultivate the soil, raise large quantities of rice and are bold and skilful fishermen; and this active industrious life shows itself in their vigorous physique and powers of endurance. The Tagalog language is more widely spoken than any other Filipino dialect. The Llocanes, who number over 800,000, occupy territory in the extreme northern peninsula of Luzon. They form but a small tribe, and seem to be distinguished from the Tagals merely by the dialect they use. The island of Visaya is wholly occupied by the tribe from which it takes its name, and the Visayas are said to number some three millions and a quarter and to speak a distinct language which separates them from the other Malayan races of the archipelago. The Vicols number about 560,000 and are scattered over the Camarines peninsula, and occupy also the islands of Catanduanes, Burias, Ticao and a half of the Masbate. In physical type and habits of life they largely resemble the Tagals. The Sulu chain of islands, which stretches between Mindanao and North Borneo, is peopled by the Moros, who are also found on the southwest coasts of Mindanao and Balabec, as well as on the south coast of Palawan, or Paragua Island. Their original seat was undoubtedly Borneo, from which they have derived their Mohammedan faith and most of their social usages. They have nothing in common with the peoples farther north and have stoutly resisted all attempts to Christianize them. They were once the fiercest pirates of the archipelago and lived by ravage and robbery. The natives of the northern islands, upon whom they once preyed, as they learned from the Spaniards the use of firearms and modern methods of warfare, were able successfully to repel the raids of the Moros, whose primitive weapons could not cope with repeating rifles and Gatling guns.

As the mountains are the last refuge of liberty in a conquered country, so also are they the last lurking place of savagery and barbarism. The interior of Luzon and several other islands is mountainous and uncultivated; here lurk the savage tribes whom 200 years of Spanish rule failed to civilize or even subdue. These are reckoned at half a million souls, have many languages and dialects, and are in greatest force among the mountain fastnesses of central Mindanao. While some of these tribes are peaceful and inclined to commerce and industry, a large section shows the warlike spirit that urges them to live on rapine. The Negritos, or Little Negroes, dwell in the higher ranges of Luzon and Negro; they are black in skin, and dwarfish in stature; they are of low mentality, incapable of assimilation and are evidently doomed to early extinction.

The Spaniards appear to have done very little to investigate the antiquities of the Filipino races. There is a vast field of exploration open to ethnologists and archæologists in this remarkable archipelago, which possesses a literature of its own in poetry and folk-lore, and has derived from Malay and Indian invaders such arts as metallurgy and weaving, in both of which arts many of the tribes are exceedingly expert. The ethnologists of the Smithsonian Institution have already turned their attention in this direction, and the United States Treasury Department is putting every possible facility in the way of those who are trying to unravel the story of the savage navigators who first cruised in the channels of the Philippine archipelago. (See Philippines). Consult Sawyer, F. C., ‘The Inhabitants of the Philippines’ (London 1900); Worcester, D. C., ‘The Philippines, Past and Present’ (2 vols., New York 1914); and ‘The Philippine Islands and their People’ (New York 1898); and the publications of the Ethnological Bureau of Washington.