Part 2

Better, however, consult Zuniga himself, [8] and the notes thereon by Retana, who singularly has failed to insert Ortiz' Practica in his Biblioteca, and you will find much of interest;--among other things about tattooing, common practice at one time among all Polynesians, the same as among our own aborigines, until taught more refined ways by Christian missionaries; and about wakes too,--solemn ceremonials of grief, with banquetting and chants--on the occasion of the death of kindred. [9]

Anent these and similar breaches of the Divine commands against Satanism, it is surprising (I would observe) to reflect how many forms of spirit and idol-worship [10] are (to their degradation be it said) common with Malaysian and Caucasian. (See in our own periodicals, published presumably by bright-minded, clean-souled Christian philosophers, yes, see in these oracles of our fireside, advertisements of magicians, diviners, fortune-tellers, charm-workers, not to speak of other law breakers, whose mere self-interest seems to have dulled all true intellective sense.)

The last authority on general topics I name here as invaluable as well as deeply interesting to the scholar is the Encyclopedia (in two volumes) of the Augustinian travelers, Manuel Buzeta and Felipe Bravo (Madrid, 1851)--a work replete with most varied information along with statistics, now, of course, out of date, on the ethnology, geography, topography, dialects, customs and rites of the aborigines in the Philippine archipelago.

Barring, as is only fair, any eulogy on the antiquated features of this Encyclopedia, which yet will be recognized of much service to the historian, the writer himself, who herein is supported among others by Retana, would style this monument of varied scholarship and research a masterpiece of all-round learning; within its lines an indispensable guide to every Philippinologist.

Such, then, are the books most trustworthy and serviceable in their respective fields of history, antiquities, ethnology, and other sciences relating to Philippina.

Before leaving this subject to dwell on Philippinian linguistics, I venture a brief digression on a class of works of general historic character--repertories of all ethnic science, little known, however, albeit to their serious disadvantage, to most students, and prized only by your true-hearted book-lover, who has sense to value what he reads for its own worth mainly, not because stamped with popular approval.

These are annals of the religious brotherhoods in the East, to be recognized in Retana and other catalogues under the various titles of chronicles--sometimes as Conquistas, a by no means unfamiliar term--stories, that is, of the conquest of heathendom, woven oftentimes, no doubt, as recreation by the missionary amid his cares; sometimes as relief from thoughts of his far-away native land--journals, as it were, drawn up by the wanderer, who, besides being traveler, usually was a more or less keen-eyed observer, at home wherever Providence sent him; where, too, he studied (for self-interest was also at stake) whatever regarded the natives in his care--the lands they dwelt in, the skies above them, the waters around them.

Scholars such as these on life-long service in their foreign homes were wont to make themselves conversant with every characteristic of the natives--with the language first of all, then the legends, poetry, chants; with the traditions and customs of the people, the industries and sports of their dusky-hued friends and brothers.

As a rule, these plain, simply-told recitals of matters of fact, chronicle among other curios of literature, all kinds of even the most out-of-the-way learning anent the races of men; of plants and animals, of the various oftentimes most singular phenomena of air, earth, and water--subjects, all of them, of eagerest quest on the part of scientist, ethnologist, linguist, philosopher, naturalist.

These stories, albeit at times verbose, at others digressive, will be acknowledged by the honest-minded critic as rich, indeed, in many-sided lore, enough to repay amply whatever time or trouble you have spent in their reading.

With the exception of one collection of missionary annals--the Relations of the Jesuits in North America; now being edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin--I know of no exact counterpart in the field of English literature to these delightful narratives of old-time missionary travelers, Maver's translation of Zuniga's Estadismo, in 1814, being not only out of print, but I suppose unpurchasable.

With the aid of such monuments as these--all original records of old-time conquistadores and their fellow-missionaries in the Americas, it has resulted (to the delight and blessing of students) that the cyclopedias of Americana (thirty nine volumes of them), wherein you will find enshrined whatever is worthy of preservation in the various chequered cycles of aboriginal and Spanish polity and art, massed together by the Western historian Bancroft, are veritably invaluable to the antiquarian, besides being wholesome and refreshing food for men of intellective genius, as therein, along with abundant matter for romance and epic, you will see unraveled and laid bare many a drama of life.

II.

AUTHORITIES ON PHILIPPINE DIALECTS.

Now a few words anent the chief authorities on Philippine linguistics--treatises, namely, bearing on the various dialects employed in that archipelago, twenty-seven in number, as observed ahead, all, however, akin in their common stock--Malay, of which these idioms, or patois, are daughters, yet with countless, sharply-marked differences between one another.

A working knowledge of the many fashions of speech so much needed as obvious, nay, indispensable to traveler or missionary, will be gained most quickly and thoroughly, it should be premised, from books of two-fold character,--(1) namely, from grammars and dictionaries of the several idioms, based on scientific rules of philology; then (2) from devotional works--books of Christian piety, very numerous in the Philippines, as are religious manuals, prayer-, sermon-, and confession-books, whereof titles abound in Retana, all pretty much from the busy pen of missionaries themselves, to whose zeal and ability in the instruction of their brown and black many-tongued wards is due largely, nay, wholly, whatever of humanizing, Christian character is found in Malaysia, as in fact is true also in other countries now civilized and enlightened, albeit once barbarian.

In his latest bibliography, [11] where the number of published works in each of the twenty-seven dialects of the Philippines is set down by Retana, you will observe from a study of his lists, that though in many dialects there are no grammars so entitled, or other scientific aids to learning a given idiom, yet there are many works of religious cast printed therein,--hand-books of practical religion, which you will find useful beyond measure to linguists. Since from these prayer-books, wherein are set down plainly the simplest and commonest rules of Christian ethical conduct, you can easily gather a working knowledge of the language itself, as the missionary who composed them was careful to put matters of every-day interest in the plain, every-day speech of the islanders. Before closing this brief digression on manuals of piety, I must observe what will prove very useful, I judge, to the scholar, that with works of the first class, as grammars and dictionaries, is to be associated on shelf and desk a goodly number of works of another class--books and treatises that bear the name Arte = Aids to Learning, whereof you will encounter very many in Retana.

The Arte of a given dialect, as will be found true also in a measure for grammars and other school-manuals, will be recognized as a compendium of not only literary rules, but of many practical maxims of daily life, whereby the pupils are urged not only to correct speech, but to upright conduct as well through sobriety, piety to the Supreme Being, obedience to rulers, respect for parents and fellows, according to the noblest ideals of refined Christian manhood and womanhood. Thus, with grammar were taught ethics; with politics, religion.

Referring here to class-books in the Philippines, where from the earliest years of the conquest every pueblo had its school of primary instruction, it will not be irrelevant to point out the fact very stoutly that though education (as admitted by well-nigh every chronicler) was primitive in character,--and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where was it not? yet the course of instruction given in the common schools of bamboo-thatch was (as results amply testify) deep and solid enough for the intellectual calibre of the people. Since, so far as known, Malaysia, however saintly, heroic, innocent, the same as our own aborigines, albeit now civilized for three centuries and upwards, has, despite the heartiest aid in teachers and funds, fairly lavished on them by Church and state, turned out no man of shining mark, no scholar, no artist, no genius in statecraft or commerce. The first college-institution with pretensions to higher courses of intellectual training was opened (formally at least) by the Jesuits in 1601, less than half a century, that is, after the arrival of Europeans in Luzon.

In regard to common Indian schools, so zealously guarded by the Leyes de las Indias, I have picked up here and there from old-time chroniclers scraps of many ordinances passed by the crown relative to their foundation and conduct. Among them the following bits of quaint old-fashioned oversight of the dominies in charge. Thus, in 1754, I have read that each maestro of a mission-school was to get, in lieu of support, "a peso and one caban--a measure--of rice a month." (A caban was equal to 75 litres, about the same number of quarts, English.) Again, every mission-priest was called upon to supply (free to his pupils) "paper and ink." Moreover, as early as the beginning of the century just closing, in 1817, it was ordained that boys' schools were to be kept on the ground-floor of the mission-house; while the girls were to be taught at their mistress' home. (Malaysia--thus it was ordained--was not to experiment with the "co-educational theory.")

Now for the promised works of chief authority on Philippine linguistics,--monuments of the various dialects of that archipelago, that, along with their purely technical value to the student of idioms, will be acknowledged as useful to scholars in even far different lines of intellectual play.

Of the best works for the study of Visaya, or Bisaya, first dialect in the islands acquired by missionary and conquistador, wherein he gives 352 titles (p. xxix), Retana has the following: "Up to a few years ago the dictionary held in highest repute by linguists was the work of the Augustinian scholar Alonso de Mentrida," a vocabulary of the Hiligueina, or Hiligayno, and Haraya tongues--two of the three chief dialects spoken in Panay, not very different from the Visaya of Cebu, used, however, by the less cultured tribes of hillsmen in that island. This vocabulary, first printed in 1637, and in 1841 republished at Manila, with diagrams of Indian alphabets, enlarged in another edition in 1842, by a brother missionary, Julian Martin, has now been supplanted by the Visaya-Spanish dictionary (in two volumes), of another Augustinian scholar, Juan Felix de la Encarnacion, printed at Manila, first, in 1851-1852, then in 1866 and again in 1885.

Another work deserving of praise is the Arte of the Visaya idiom in use in the islands of Samar and Leite (Binondo, 1872), composed by the Franciscan traveler, Antonio Figuerroa, in which latter language--Leite, that with slight changes is similar to Cebuano, the first grammar was published by the Jesuit missionary, Domingo Ezquerra, in 1662.

Helpful, too, as much as the former Arte in philology is the Christian Doctrine translated into Visaya-Cebuano by the Recoleto scholar and orator, Tomas de San Jeronimo, known to his contemporaries as "the Cicero of Cebu." His school-book re-issued at Binondo in 1876 is a reprint of his edition of 1731.

Of the Tagal dialect,--a form of speech so hard to acquire with nicety that, according to a Spanish saying, one needs therefor "un ano de arte y dos de bahaque," [12] that is to say, unless I am wrong in my interpretation of the last word--"bahaque" which likely is Aeta, the scholar needs "a year of study and two of practice."

The earliest Tagal Arte, so styled in chronicles, for what with the universal destructive touch of time, and in Luzon especially, the voracity of that pest of librarians, the anay,--an ant that in a few hours, it is said, will devour a library,--cases as well as books, not a sole copy, apparently, has survived, was composed in 1580 by the Augustinian voyager and missionary, Agustin de Albuquerque, fourth superior of his brotherhood in the Philippines, and printed at Manila in 1637.

In Tagal the works most highly praised are the following: The Critical Treatise on Tagalisms (Mexico, 1742), by the Franciscan linguist, Melchior Oyanguren, the only work known wherein that tongue is contrasted on scientific lines with the classic Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and Mandarin Chinese. The author was moved to prepare his manual for the instruction of his brother missionaries prior to their entrance into their field of work in Luzon.

The Tagal dictionary, by the Jesuit missionary, Juan de Noceda, and others of his society (Manila, 1754), a lexicographical treasure, was reprinted at Valladolid in 1836, and (in its most highly-prized form) again, in 1860, at Manila, with valuable additions by some Augustinian experts.

For the scholar unacquainted with Latin, the most serviceable work for learning Tagal is the Essay on Tagal Grammar (Manila, 1878), composed by the Recoleto missionary and linguist, Toribio Minguella de la Merced, whose Grammar (in the same language) for the use of children (Manila, 1886) was adopted for schools by the Spanish government.

While another helpful work for the study of that same dialect is the Tagal catechism, by the Augustinian, Luis de Amezquita, a popular booklet, first printed in 1666, and (in its thirteenth edition) in 1880, at Manila.

A rare and precious treatise, praised for its critical spirit, is the study on Tagal poetry--a compendium of that dialect reprinted at Sampaloc in 1787, from the first edition of 1703; and again at Manila, in 1879, by another member of the same brotherhood, Gaspar de San Agustin, author, besides, of one of the most valued Conquistas, or histories of the islands.

For the study of Tagal refrains--for this people is ballad-lover to the core--and similar turns of speech, an excellent work, one unique of its kind, is the Coleccion (Guadalupe, 1890), by two well-known Franciscan linguists, Gregorio Martin and Mariano Martinez Cuadrado.

The Tagal Arte (Sampaloc, 1745), along with a manual (also in Tagal) for the administration of the Sacraments, composed by the Franciscan missionary, Sebastian de Totanes, "is" (according to our bibliographer) "the best edition of the best grammar" written by missionaries of that order.

In Ilocano, another of the unnumbered dialects of Luzon, there is a good dictionary (Manila, 1849), by the Augustinian scholar, Andres Carro (aided by others of his brotherhood)--the first work of its kind, reprinted only a few years ago, in 1888. Serviceable, too, for the study of the same dialect--Ilocano--as doubtless easy to obtain, is the Catecismo, by another member of that same order, Francisco Lopez (Manila, 1877), whereof editions fairly without number have issued.

In Batanes, or Vatanes, a dialect used in the islets north of Luzon, mission-field of the Dominicans, hard to reach, nor easy at best to live in, is composed the Catechism of the Christian Doctrine (Manila, 1834), by a missionary of that order--the only work, perhaps, printed in that language, wherein Retana states he is about to edit a grammar and dictionary. In his Biblioteca (p. 51) he gives the Ave Maria in Batanes, Ibanag and Ilocano, in order to show (he says) the diversities between these idioms.

The Pampanga Arte (Manila, 1729), by the Augustinian, Diego Bergano, an estimable aid to the would-be learner of that language, was reissued at Sampaloc in 1736. By the same author is a dictionary of Pampanga--the only work of its class, printed at Manila, first in 1732, and again in 1860.

In the Ibanag tongue, otherwise Ibanay or Cagayan, the dictionary by the Dominican linguist, Jose Bugarin, and companions (Manila, 1854), we have what Retana styles a masterpiece of philological craft, "the first and (in fact) only vocabulary of that dialect" whereof of all Philippine tongues "the orthography is the most difficult to manage." In another place, however (p. 102), he has named another Ibanag dictionary (Manila, 1867), constructed from Dominican MSS., to which similarly (by error I suppose) he has awarded seniority of press. Prior to the above date--1854--in that vast region of Cagayan, where, by the way, is grown the choicest tobacco in the Philippines, the missionaries, for generation and generation of island-pupils had relied wholly on MS. copies of Padre Bugarin's dictionary.

In Pangasinan, or Caboalan, dialect used in the province of the same name in Luzon, we have another linguistic treasure--the Arte of Mariano Pellicer, of the same brotherhood, reprinted at Manila, in 1862, from the edition of 1690, whereof in the course of time, as writers tell us, it came to pass that up to about the middle of the present century only one copy survived. Then re-cast by Pellicer, in 1840, it was re-published by him some twenty years later.

Of the Cuyona dialect I note two works of merit,--one (p. 113) an explanation of the Christian Doctrine (Manila, 1871), by the Recoleto missionary, Pedro Gibert de Santa Eulalia, edited by the Dominican Mariano Cuartero, first bishop of St. Isabel, or Elizabeth, of Jaro, in the island of Panay, one of the four suffragans of Manila, an industrious scholar, editor of many works in Indian dialects, whom the reader, however, is not to confound with another prelate of the same name, Recoleto bishop of Nueva Segovia, in Luzon, nephew of the former, who, in this one respect, was like his uncle--author of no book: while the other Cuyona treasure, whereof there are very few in that language, ("poquisimos libros," says Retana, p. 230), seven titles in all comprising the bibliography of that tongue, is the Plan of Religion (Manila, 1886), by the same industrious and scholarly Gibert.

In the Gaddan idiom, wherein only two books have been printed, both very devotional in character, is a Catechism (Manila, 1833), and the Pathway to Heaven (ib., 1873), by Dominican missionaries in the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela, in Luzon.

In the Aeta language of the Negritos, or little black men, perhaps the primitive race of the Philippines--whose name I have encountered in many forms of spelling, as Ata, Ataa, Aeta, Agta, Aita, Ita, Itaa, [13] there are similarly, only two works known to Retana, whose bibliographical notices have been of so much value,--one a Report on the Philippine Islands (Paris, 1885), addressed to the French Minister of Public Instruction by J. Montano, a book of over two hundred and nine pages, illumined with numerous phototypes, and, what renders it of exceptional value, enriched with vocabularies, "the first," Retana declares, in Aeta, Bilaan, Manobo (of the natives of Mindanao), Samal and Tagacaolo dialects.

As companion volume to the above, though far smaller in bulk, is a little treatise (Dresden, 1893), of double authorship, the German A. B. Meyer giving therein a very interesting Aeta vocabulary, and his Dutch co-laborer, H. Kern, a comparative study of the same tongue, which he traces to Malay ancestry.

For the study of Chamorro, idiom of the Marianas Islands, one will find serviceable the little book of devotions (Manila, 1887), with counsels for the worthy reception of the Sacraments of God, (p. 248)--the only work, in fact, we have in this dialect, by the Recoleto linguist and traveler, Aniceto Ibanez del Carmen.

Finally, with three other samples of the Philippine press as proofs of the variety of its polyglot fonts, and I shall have done with this digression on the many languages used in this part of Polynesia,--one a grammar in the dialect of Yap or Guap (p. 248), in the western Caroline archipelago (Manila, 1888), composed apparently by the Capuchin missionary, Ambrosio de Valencia; the second (p. 332) a Hispano-Kanaka dictionary (Tambobong, 1892), by another Capuchin wanderer, according to Retana, Agustin Maria de Arinez. While the last, a work, as will readily be acknowledged, of interest as well as importance to ethnologists, linguists, Americanists especially, is the list of Nahuatlisms of Costa Rica (San Jose de Costa Rica, 1892), by Juan Fernandez Ferraz, a goodly-sized volume of over two hundred pages, wherein, on purely linguistic grounds, the author has maintained the kinship of our own Central Americans and the Philippinians, from the fact especially that in the respective countries of these two antipodal peoples, abound very many terms of every-day use, with identical spelling and meaning. In his Biblioteca (p. 340), Retana has gathered a few of these homonyms and synonyms.

Such, then, are the chief authorities on language among our Philippina that, while entertaining, nay instructing the philologist, will delight also the general student, the writers whereof, as the reader will not be slow to observe, were in far larger number all churchmen and missionaries.

In fact, of the 1142 authors, whose works he has enumerated (Biblioteca, xxxv-xxxvi), Retana states that four hundred and sixty-six are ecclesiastics, that is, ninety-eight secular clergymen and three hundred and sixty-eight members of religious brotherhoods, whereof the Augustinians--the writer's own order--numbering one hundred and forty-one authors, inclusive of thirty-seven Recoletos--the bare-footed branch of that fraternity--figure highest. Next in rank, we have one hundred Dominicans, then fifty-seven Jesuits, fifty-six Franciscans, and fourteen authors of orders not specified.

Of these brotherhoods, who thus in Malaysia, as in other quarters of the globe, brought forth so brilliant an array of scholars and philanthropists, the first-named, the Augustinians, with Legazpi, crossing two oceans and one continent therefore, found a home in the Philippines at the conquest of that archipelago in 1565; in 1577 the first Franciscans reached the isles; in 1581, the Dominicans, with the first bishop of Manila (by actual possession), Domingo Salazar, member of the same brotherhood, accompanied too by some Jesuits, while the Recoletos first crossed the Pacific in 1611.

These churchmen, with very few exceptions Spanish, with later on a sprinkling of Portuguese, Dutchmen, Germans, Italians and Irishmen, scholars, as a rule, of fair repute, some even of European eminence, from their advent into Polynesia, besides their care in implanting Christian altruism, wherewith only (as history attests) thrive science and art, have toiled ever since to imbue these islanders, whom they found heathen--without letters, laws, or settled abode--with learning, the arts of husbandry, building, carving, painting, weaving, and the like graces of intellectual grandeur--in brief, with whatever of civilization now marks Malaysian genius.