MALAY LIFE IN THE PHILIPPINES. 



457 



envied by the upholsterers of Europe. The nar- 

 row interspaces along the walls of the principal 

 room are decorated with colored prints, generally 

 Spanish, devotional or historical, as the case may 

 be ; and not rarely boast of family portraits, exe- 

 cuted by native artists, with all the detail accu- 

 racy and all the stiffness and want of perspective 

 that a Chinese could accomplish. Glass globes, 

 red and blue, mixed with gay lamps, and perhaps 

 a European chandelier, hang from the ceiling, and 

 a small tinsel-decorated altar or oratory, the pe- 

 nales of the family, commonly occupies a corner 

 of the apartment. The doors around open into 

 bedrooms, and a bamboo-made passage leads off 

 to the bath-room and kitchen, which is also on the 

 first floor, but at a little distance from the rest 

 of the house. 



Abundance of light, though tempered by the 

 semi-opacity of the pearl-shell windows, plenty 

 of fresh air, as much bright color and ornament 

 as can be had, and scrupulous cleanliness, the 

 broad floor-planks being daily scrubbed with 

 plantain-leaves to a mirror-like polish, and every- 

 thing dusted twice in the day, such are the chief 

 characteristics of the interior of a Malayo-Philip- 

 pine house ; and, amid conditions of the sort, the 

 general health and longevity of the inhabitants 

 cease to surprise. Outside, the appearance of 

 the many-gabled palm-thatched roofs at every 

 variety of pitch, the widely-projecting eaves, the 

 bamboo interlacements, and carved timber-work 

 of the walls, the checkered panes and little bal- 

 conies here and there, is very picturesque, and 

 has a kind of Swiss-cottage look that harmonizes 

 well with the local background of hill and forest. 



I pass over the ceremonies of reception, and 

 the hospitality that follows ; both are in the main 

 identical with those practised elsewhere in the 

 non-Europeanized East, with the difference that 

 here the women of the house take a more promi- 

 nent part in welcome and entertainment than is 

 customary in Syria, Arabia, or Western Asia 

 generally. When not under Mohammedan influ- 

 ences, Malays draw the line of demarkation be- 

 tween the sexes but slightly ; and Christianity 

 naturally tends to efface rather than to deepen 

 the division. To this circumstance, more per- 

 haps than to any other, I am inclined to attribute 

 the manifest superiority in mind, and even in 

 body, of the average Philippine Malay over his 

 Mohammedan kinsmen, as the latter are found in 

 Sumatra, the peninsula, the Sooloo Archipelago, 

 and adjoining regions. 



That the adoption of Islam may be, and in 

 fact is, a real benefit and an uplifting to savage 



tribes, among whom the lowest and most brutal- 

 izing forms of fetichism would else predominate, 

 does not admit of doubt. Anthropophagy, human 

 sacrifices, and other kindred horrors, have thus 

 been banished by Mohammedan teaching from 

 whole tracts of Africa ; and so far is well. But 

 not less does experience show that, sooner or 

 later, the tribe, the nation that casts in its lot 

 with Islam, is stricken as by a blight ; its fresh- 

 ness, its plasticity, disappear first, then its vigor, 

 then its reparative and reproductive power, and 

 it petrifies or perishes. With the abstract and 

 theoretical merits of monotheism or polytheism, 

 Islam or Christianity, I have nothing to do ; but 

 this much is certain, that within the circle of the 

 Philippine Archipelago itself — not to seek exam- 

 ples farther away — the contrast between the 

 Mohammedan villages of the southernmost isl- 

 ands and the Christian ones elsewhere is very 

 remarkable, nor by any means favorable to the 

 former. 



For a satisfactory explanation of the problem 

 before us, there is no need for recurring to causes, 

 if such there be, hid in the extra-mundane and 

 unknown. The reason is near to seek. Family 

 life, family ties, family affections, these form the 

 only true, stable, and at the same time expansive 

 basis for communities, states, empires even ; and 

 that these may, and actually do, coexist after a 

 fashion with a vigorous profession of Mohamme- 

 danism no one who has experimental knowledge 

 of Turkish or Arab populations can possibly 

 deny. They exist ; but even when at their best 

 and strongest are always cramped, stunted, and 

 hindered their full growth and development by 

 the forced demarkation between the sexes, the 

 sanctioned polygamy, the over-facility of divorce, 

 and the other social mistakes interwoven whether 

 by the hand of the Prophet himself, or rather, as 

 with Sprengel I incline to believe, by that of the 

 narrow-minded and ascetic Omar, into the very 

 texture of Islam. Nowhere ace family bonds 

 closer drawn, family affections more enduring, 

 than among the Malay races; and nowhere, in 

 consequence, is whatever weakens or distorts 

 them more injurious. Hence a Malay Mohamme- 

 dan is a contradiction, an anomaly, a failure, 

 much as a Hindoo Christian or a European 

 Buddhist might be. The system does not suit 

 him, nor he the system. Not so the Malay of the 

 Philippino-Christian type. His family, as that of 

 his Chinese or Japanese cousins, moderate poly- 

 theists like himself, is a pleasing sight, much sub- 

 ordination and little constraint, unison in gra- 

 dation, liberty, not license. Orderly children, 



