PRIMITIVE WEAPONS AND ARMOK OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 15 



The statement often made regarding the excellence and superi- 

 ority of Moro workmanship in iron and steel is only partially true. 

 Many of the steel blades attributed to the Mohanmiedan Moro were- 

 probably made by Mohammedan smiths in Borneo where the iron; 

 industry is older and where the peculiar Malay weapons assume 

 their most characteristic and beautiful shapes. It is true, however, 

 that nowhere in the Philippines are there as many types of fine metal 

 blades, richly ornamented with gold, silver, ivory, and brass as 

 among the Moros of the Sulu Archipelago and in western Mindunao. 

 The Pagan Bagobo dwelling farther east in Mindanao produces as 

 beautiful brass work on iron spearheads and lances, and the central: 

 Luzon Tagalog of Bulacan secures as good a temper on his agricul- 

 tural iron implements and work bolos as the Moro, while the head- 

 hunter's steel ax of the northern central Luzon mountain area is an 

 equally highly specialized weapon with as high a grade of steeS 

 blade and of as elaborate and beautiful an ornamental design on 

 the poll as is true of Moro metal work. 



In many cases it is difficult to ascertain whether blades are of 

 steel or of iron. In general, most blades appear to be of steel what- 

 ever the source of this material may be, or whether it is recent com- 

 mercial or from a native center of manufacture. The processes of 

 metal working include all of those arts which go by the general name 

 of hammering, casting, overlajdng, inlaying, damascening, swaging, 

 linking, chasing, embossing, carving, niello, and filigree work. For 

 each process there is a craft with its own appliances, tools, and 

 processes. 



In the Ethnological Survey Publications (vol. 1, p. 125), Dr. E. A. 

 Jenks relates in detail the operations connected with the productioii 

 of metal weapons at Baliwang, Bontoc, northern Luzon. 



Baliwang has four smithies, in each of which two or three men labor, eacis 

 man in a smithy perforrain:? a separate part of the worlj. One operates the 

 lellows. another feeds the tire and does the heavy striking durins? the initial 

 part of the work, and the other — the real lihide maker, the artist — directs ai.c 

 the labor and performs the finer and finishing parts of the blade production. 



The smithies are about 12 feet square without side walls. They have a 

 grass roof sloping to within 3 feet of the earth, enlarging the shaded area to 

 near 20 feet square. Near one side of the room is the bellows, called " op-op," 

 «!Onsisting of two vertical, parallel wooden tubes about 5 feet long and 10 

 inches in diameter, standing side by side. Each tube has a piston or plunger, 

 called " dot-dot " ; the packing ring of the piston is of wood covered with; 

 chicken feathers making it slightly flexible at the rim, so it fits snugly in thc- 

 tube. The lower end of the bellows tubes rests in the earth, 4 inches above- 

 which a small bamboo tube leads the compressed air to the fireplace front) 

 each bellows tube. These small tubes, called " to-bong," end near an openinjir 

 through a brick at the back of the fire, and the air forced through them passes-; 

 on through the brick to the burning charcoal. The outer end of the " to-bonsr ''' 

 is cut at an angle, and as the tubes end outside the opening in the brick.,, the air- 



