MALAY LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES. 



455 



joice in the possession of a well-stocked Olympian 

 Valhalla, sufficient to their sympathies and hopes. 

 Ingrafted thus on a genuine indigenous stem, 

 the more recent and exotic religion, while retain- 

 ing much of its own peculiar form in flower and 

 fruit, derives its local energy and development 

 from the unfailing sap of the national mind ; no 

 longer foreign, but native, believed in sooner 

 than taught, an integral part of daily life, not a 

 plastered-on addition, it affords so far an abso : 

 lute contrast to the " musical bank currency " 

 of the Erewhons of our age, and is itself a not 

 inconsiderable part of the genuine circulating 

 medium of the Philippines. Hence, as a social 

 bond, a humanizing influence, an effective sanc- 

 tion, a promoter of friendly intercourse, of right, 

 of love even, a poetry amid life's commonplace, a 

 balm — ideal but not inefficacious — of the wounds 

 and bruises of fact, Christianity has, it would 

 seem, rarely been more advantageous to its fol- 

 lowers than here, where it can scarcely be dis- 

 tinguished from a well-regulated, genial Asiatic 

 paganism ; a riddle harder to read in appearance 

 than in reality. 



This is not the place for me to enter on the 

 perilous field of the strange abnormal practices 

 and beliefs, survivals of a far older creed, that 

 subsist and smoulder on throughout the archi- 

 pelago, and even within the immediate neighbor- 

 hood of Manila itself, its convents and cathedral, 

 beneath the Christianized surface, though rarely 

 obtruding themselves on European observation : 

 Cybelian priesthoods, Cotyttian rites, repressed 

 but not obliterated, and to which the past histo- 

 ry of other nations, perhaps the present, offers 

 many a parallel. Enough that such things are ; 

 their investigation, though of deep anthropologi- 

 cal interest, is foreign to my present scope, which 

 extendi only over the usual, not the exceptional, 

 the recognized, not the concealed and disavowed, 

 phases of Philippine society and life. 



Mass is ended ; the " Royal March " of Span- 

 ish celebrity has dismissed the congregation ; 

 and, while we stand a little apart and watch the 

 bright-colored crowd issuing dense but orderly 

 from the churcn-portal, the native gubernador- 

 cillo or capitan, the head-man of the village 

 community, observes and approaches us. The 

 ensigns of his office are few, and those chiefly 

 Spanish ; a short jacket of black cloth, worn, 

 unbecomingly enough, over the» indispensable 

 blouse, a thin staff tipped with silver or gold, 

 sometimes — though, Heaven be praised, rarely-- 

 a European hat, distinguish the great man. 

 Probably he himself is forty years old or -nore, 



but his general appearance, features, form, and 

 bearing, would designate him at first sight for a 

 lad of barely twenty ; and, indeed, the closest 

 inspection may not rarely fail in determining his 

 real age. This extraordinary semblance of ju- 

 venility, prolonged far into middle life, is not 

 merely due to the beardless face, where a slight 

 mustachio is commonly enough the only hair- 

 growth even in advanced life, but more to the 

 smooth, smiling, unworn features, where neither 

 ■care nor passion seems to have left a trace, and 

 partly to the uprightness of stature and well-pro- 

 portioned roundness of limb maintained to the 

 very confines of senility — a fitting exterior to the 

 calm, unexcitable, moderated character within, 

 and not unparalleled among the Chinese, Japan- 

 ese, and other Turanian tribes. It is almost a pity 

 that early and frequently-recurring maternity too 

 generally deprives — though not uncompensating 

 in its kind for what it takes — the Malay women 

 of a physical advantage more to the purpose in 

 their sex than in the male. 



Every village, large or small, is headed by 

 its capitan, a native of the place or district, 

 elected, in accordance with immemorial custom, 

 for two years' office by the villagers themselves, 

 subject, of course, to the approbation, seldom 

 withheld, of the alcalde, or Spanish provincial 

 governor. For the Spaniards wisely enough pre- 

 ferred at their conquest to maintain and continue 

 in most matters of detail the already existing 

 village or barangai organization, rather than to 

 supersede it by novel systems of their own ; a 

 matter in which they showed themselves to be 

 better colonizers than, for instance, the French. 

 But the post of capitan, however important, 

 is scarcely an object of rural ambition, as its 

 responsibilities are at least equal to its dignity ; 

 while the expenses which custom or duty has 

 rendered obligatory on its holder are too often in 

 excess of its emoluments, legal or not. Hence 

 the not unfrequent nolo episcopari — that is, its 

 Tagal equivalent — of a newly-elected capitan. 



Of even higher authority in every village 

 than the capitan himself is the cura, or parish 

 priest. He is in most instances a Spaniard by 

 birth, and enrolled in one or other of the three 

 great religious orders, Augustinian, Franciscan, 

 or Dominican, established by the conquerors in 

 these islands. But his birthplace, complexion, 

 and habit apart, he is ordinarily as much, some- 

 times in a manner more, of a native in his sym- 

 pathies and turn of mind than the natives them- 

 selves. This is quite natural. Bound for life 

 to the land of his adoption, with no social, no 



