10 BULLETIN 137, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ent kinds of wood glued together and lined on the back with sinew 

 or tough rawhide. The inner layer supplies the element of rigidity ; 

 the outer layer or back that of elasticity, and these two layers are held 

 firmly in place by side pieces glued on. The limit of the simple bow 

 is that of the muscular effort required to bend it ; but if the bow be 

 fastened to a stick, as in the bow gun or arbalest, then mechanical 

 devices can be used to bend it, so that its rigidity and efficiency may 

 be increased immensely; in fact, the different varieties of arbalest 

 receive their name from the methods of bending the bow. 



Methods of classi-fication mid types of Philippine weapons of 

 offense and defense. — Weapons of the Philippine Islands may be 

 classified as to materials employed in their construction, whether 

 made of horn, bone, wood, canes, copper, brass, bronze, iron, or 

 steel; they may be further classified as to the method of their em- 

 ployment in hand-to-hand combat or for projecting at a distance; 

 or, again, with regard to the nature of the cutting edge and the 

 general adaptability of the w^eapon for cutting and slashing or 

 for thrusting; and, finally, with regard to the form of the weapon 

 and its ornamental features. Weapons employed by the various 

 Filipino tribal groups vary with the degree of influence exercised 

 on them by intrusive ethnic elements and cultures, with the skill \n 

 metal work attained by the different tribes, and in their accessibility 

 to supplies of metal ore. Generally speaking, the degree of excel- 

 lence attained by any one tribe in the metal handicrafts and more 

 particularly in the forging of weapons is at the same time the 

 measure of its acculturation to Hindu and more particularly to 

 Mohammedan metal crafts brought from the Asiatic mainland. 



No archeological evidence pointing to the occupancy of the Philip- 

 pine Islands before the introduction of iron has ever been found, 

 although weapons formed from bamboo, wood, stone, and iron are 

 coextensively employed. Curiously enough, one of the few stone 

 artifacts found in use by the Spanish conquerors was a crude granite 

 crucible for reducing gold ore and quartz which the early Spanish 

 adopted and employed in their mining operations. The possibility 

 that the Philippines were occupied by Negritos and by primitive 

 Indonesians before the age of iron or even copper is not remote. 

 If such occupation occurred, there is every possibility that even then 

 there was no stone age, as it is understood to have transpired else- 

 where. The tropical flora of the East Indies furnishes materials 

 more easily worked and more adaptable than is stone. Bamboo 

 furnished the material for all of the weapons and implements re- 

 quired. A shell or stone that might be used but once could be em- 

 ployed in shaping the bamboo spear or arrow shaft and still not be 

 representative of a stone age in its true sense. 



