THE TINGUIAN 



BY FAY-COOPER COLE 



INTRODUCTION 



It seems desirable, at the outset, to set forth certain general con- 

 clusions regarding the Tinguian and their neighbors. Probably no 

 pagan tribe of the Philippines has received more frequent notice in 

 literature, or has been the subject of more theories regarding its ori- 

 gin, despite the fact that information concerning it has been exceed- 

 ingly scanty, and careful observations on the language and physical 

 types have been totally lacking. 



According to various writers, these people are descended from 

 Chinese, Japanese, or Arabs ; are typical Malay ; are identical with 

 the Igorot ; are pacific, hospitable, and industrious ; are inveterate 

 head-hunters, inhospitable, lazy, and dirty. The detailed discussion of 

 these assertions will follow later in the volume, but at this point I wish 

 to state briefly the racial and cultural situation, as I believe it to exist 

 in northwestern Luzon. 



I am under the impression that at one time this whole region was 

 inhabited by pygmy blacks, known as Aeta or Negrito, small groups 

 of whom still retain their identity. With the coming of an alien 

 people they were pressed back from the coasts to the less hospitable 

 regions of the interior, where they were, for the most part, exter- 

 minated, but they intermarried with the invaders to such an extent 

 that to-day there is no tribe or group in northwestern Luzon but shows 

 evidence of intermixture with them. I believe that the newcomers 

 were drawn from the so-called primitive Malay peoples of south- 

 eastern Asia ; that in their movement eastward and northward they 

 met with and absorbed remnants of an earlier migration made up of a 

 people closely related to the Polynesians, and that the results of this 

 intermixture are still evident, not only in Luzon, but in every part of 

 the Archipelago. 



In northern Luzon, I hold, we find evidences of at least two series 

 of waves and periods of migration, the members of which are simi- 

 lar physical type and language. It appears, however, that they came 

 from somewhat different localities of southeastern Asia and had, in 

 their old homes, developed social organizations and other elements of 



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