14 BULLETIN 137, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and spears and in shields ; clubs and other weapons of various kinds 

 of wood are more rare. 



Methods of metal production and metal ii^orMng. — A classifica- 

 tion of the tribal groups of the Philippines based upon the amount 

 of iron and other metals employed would include with the Negritos 

 several of the pagan tribes that do not make their own iron imple- 

 ments or weapons but acquire them in trade with the more highly- 

 cultured peoples. Second, the metal casting tribes of northern Luzon 

 of head-hunting proclivities, such as the Bontok-Igorot, the Kalinga, 

 and the Tinggian, as well as the Bagobo, the Mandaya, and the 

 Mindanao pagan tribes, all of which are able to cast brass metal 

 objects and to forge iron. Limitation in the supply of metal often 

 compels them to have recourse to their more primitive and ancient 

 weapons, so that iron and bamboo spearheads may be employed in 

 the same community. 



The mining of iron ore in the Philippines was carried on for cen- 

 turies in the Angat Mountain region in the Province of Bulacan in 

 the central part of Luzon, but nowhere has a plentiful supply of the 

 worked metal been found. The first iron implements or weapons 

 werfe introduced from Borneo, where the industry is much older and 

 where there is a sufficient supply of ore. Later, the knowledge of 

 worldng iron was imported into the Philippines along with a supply 

 of the raw material. 



The method employed in working iron is pretty much the same 

 throughout the islands. The ingot of metal is heated in a fire of 

 charcoal. Bellows consisting of several bamboo cylinders placed 

 upright on the ground near the fire and worked with pistons supply 

 air to the flame. A metal tube for carrying the air current to the 

 fire is inserted at the bottom of the upright bamboo cylinder and 

 projects at right angles to the nearby charcoal fire. The heated 

 metal is beaten with heavy stone hammers and is held by crude iron 

 tongs joined at one end. In the case of steel, a temper is secured 

 by inserting the metal blade in water for rapid cooling. Even the 

 finest swords of the Moro smiths are made by this method and with 

 the aid of no other tools. In the Angat region of Bulacan the iron- 

 ore deposits are very pure. Smelting is by charcoal and the finished 

 product is made into plowshares and bolos, which are sold in the 

 neighboring region and in Manila. Copper was formerly mined 

 at Lepanto, in Bontok. Copper and brass seem to have been em- 

 ployed from the time of their introduction to the Philippine crafts- 

 man purely in an ornamental way. Iron, because of its qualities of 

 hardness in an unalloyed state, was early preferred to copper and 

 brass in the production of blades, while silver, gold, and copper had 

 purely ornamental uses. 



