Negritos of Zambales | Page 9

of it that
they were accustomed to wear certain ornaments in order to show to the
eyes or all the murders they had committed. When a person lost a
relative either by a violent or a natural death he covered his head with a
strip of black cloth as a sign of mourning and could take it off only
after having committed a murder, a thing which they were always eager
to do in order to get rid of the sadness of mourning, because so long as
they wore the badge they could not sing or dance or take part in any
festivity. One understands then that deaths became very frequent in a
country where all deaths were necessarily followed by one or more
murders. It is true that he who committed a murder sought to atone for
it by paying to the relatives of the deceased a certain quantity of gold or
silver or by giving them a slave or a Negrito who might be murdered in
his place.
The Zambal had nevertheless more religion than the inhabitants of
other provinces. There was among them a high priest, called "Bayoc,"
who by certain rites consecrated the other priests. He celebrated this
ceremony in the midst of orgies and the most frightful revels. He next
indicated to the new priest the idol or cult to which he should specially
devote himself and conferred on him privileges proportionate to the
rank of that divinity, for they recognized among their gods a hierarchy,
which established also that of their curates. They gave to their principal
idol the name of "Malyari"--that is, the powerful. The Bayoc alone
could offer sacrifice to him. There was another idol, Acasi, whose
power almost equaled that of the first. In fact, they sang in religious
ceremonies that "although Malyari was powerful, Acasi had
preëminence." In an inferior order they worshiped also Manlobog or
Mangalagan, whom they recognized as having power of appeasing

irritated spirits. They rendered equal worship to five less important
idols who represented the divinities of the fields, prosperity to their
herds and harvests. They also believed that Anitong sent them rains and
favorable winds; Damalag preserved the sown fields from hurricanes;
Dumanga made the grain grow abundantly; and finally Calascas
ripened it, leaving to Calosocos only the duty of harvesting the crops.
They also had a kind of baptism administered by the Bayoc with pure
blood of the pig, but this ceremony, very long and especially very
expensive, was seldom celebrated in grand style. The sacrifice which
the same priest offered to the idol Malyari consisted of ridiculous
ceremonies accompanied by savage cries and yells and was terminated
by repugnant debaucheries.
Of course it is impossible to tell how much of this is the product of the
writer's imagination, or at least of the imagination of those earlier
chroniclers from whom he got his information, but it can very well be
believed that the natives had a religion of their own and that the work
of the missionaries was exceedingly difficult. It was necessary to get
them into villages, to show them how to prepare and till the soil and
harvest the crops. And the writer concludes that "little by little the
apathetic and indolent natives began to recognize the advantages of
social life constituted under the shield of authority and law, and the
deplorable effects of savage life, offering no guarantee of individual or
collective security."
A fortress had been built at Paynaven, in what is now the Province of
Pangasinan, from which the work of the missionaries spread southward,
so that the northern towns were all organized before those in the south.
It is not likely that this had anything to do with causing the Negritos to
leave the northern part of the province, if indeed they ever occupied it,
but it is true that to-day they inhabit only the mountainous region south
of a line drawn through the middle of the province from east to west.
The friar Martinez Zúñiga, speaking of the fortress at Paynaven, said
that in that day, the beginning of the last century, there was little need
of it as a protection against the "infidel Indians" and blacks who were
very few in number, and against whom a stockade of bamboo was

sufficient.
It might serve against the Moros [he continues], but happily the
Zambales coast is but little exposed to the attacks of these pirates, who
always seek easy anchorage. The pirates are, however, a constant
menace and source of danger to the Zambal, who try to transport on
rafts the precious woods of their mountains and to carry on commerce
with Manila in their little boats. The Zambal are exposed to attack from
the Moros in rounding the point at the entrance of Manila Bay, from
which