RACE QUESTIONS IN PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 479 



known, European prejudice made itself manifest. It was said that 

 the choice of a tragic subject could unquestionably be traced back 

 to the descent of the artist from " savages." But when did artists 

 of the white race ever shrink from such subjects? Luna has had 

 cause enough to complain of European injustice. The natives are 

 charged with not being independent in art. " They can only imi- 

 tate/' it is said. But how many European nations one would have 

 to strike out of the list of the civilized if that title is to belong only 

 to those which have an art of their own! It should not be for- 

 gotten that the Spaniards have, during their three hundred years' 

 rule, impressed a Spanish mark on the native artistic tendencies. 

 The ethnographer who is acquainted with the woven and carved de- 

 signs of the heathen tribes which have remained free from the Span- 

 iards and from Christian civilization will certainly not be able to 

 deny that the Malays of the Philippine Islands have a great talent 

 for ornamental art. But if the reproach is cast against the Filipinos 

 that they have tried to Europeanize themselves in plastic art as well 

 as in music, they have not done differently from the Europeans 

 that is, they denationalize themselves and come into the great inter- 

 national Circle of civilization, a thing that can hardly be charged as 

 a sin against them. It is very remarkable, they say, that Euro- 

 peans condemn in the Filipinos, as a mark of inferiority that which 

 they regard in themselves as a sign of progress. 



Rizal also has spoken of the injustice of the judgments which 

 Europeans pass upon Philippine conditions. I have published his 

 views on this subject in the tenth volume of the Internationalen 

 Archivs fur Ethnographie, and will therefore on the present occa- 

 sion only give a sketch of them, with a few additional observations 

 to complement them. Dr. Ri/al says that most Europeans judge 

 the natives from their servants, which would be as false as if any- 

 body should form his conception of the German people from the 

 complaints which German housewives are always ready to make 

 concerning their domestics. At one time while he was visiting me 

 we strolled out of town. He gathered some wild flowers and asked 

 me their names. I had to confess respecting many of them that 

 I knew neither their common nor their botanical names. He 

 laughed and said: " "Well, you are a cit; let us ask a countryman." 

 We met a peasant, but he could not give us any information about 

 any of the flowers. " Why," Kizal said, " is this the first time you 

 ever saw the flowers?" The peasant replied that he knew the 

 flowers very well, but did not know what they were called. When 

 the countryman had gone, Eizal said to me : " How fortunate you 

 Europeans are as compared with us poor Tagals ! If such an experi- 

 ence as I have just gone through should happen to a European 



