i.ALFER] RELATIONS OF CHINESE TO THE PHILIPPINES 253 



is contained in the "History of the Sung Dynasty" (Sung sliih), in 

 the chapter giving the history of Formosa for that period. After a 

 few remarks on the native tribes of the island, the report goes on to 

 say : 



Near them {i.e., the Formosans) is the land of the Pi-sia-ye (Visaya). 

 whose language is not understood [on Formosa]. They go naked, and from 

 the way they stare, one would say they are not like other people. In the period 

 Shun-hsi (A. D. 1174-1189) the chief of that country daringly took some hun- 

 dreds of his men and suddenly appeared in the Bay of Ts'iian-chou (Fuhkien 

 Province). In Wei-t'ou and other villages they committed outrages and mur- 

 der. In their plundering they looked chiefly for iron implements, spoons, and 

 chop-sticks. When people shut their doors, they desisted, and only cut off the 

 rings of the door-knockers. When spoons and chop-sticks were thrown to 

 them, they stooped to gather them. When they saw a rider clad in iron, 

 they struggled among themselves to cut off his armor; then, joining forces, 

 slew him mercilessly. In close combat they availed themselves of spears, to 

 which a rope of more than a hundred feet in length was attached with which to 

 handle the weapon, for they save their iron and do not recklessly throw it 

 aside. They had no boats or oars, but rafts made of bamboo poles tied 

 together. Hurriedly they carried these off jointly, set them afloat, and disap- 

 peared. 



The identification of the Pi-sia-ye mentioned in this text with the 

 Visaya of the Philippines has already been proposed by Terrien de 

 Lacouperie, 1 but has been rejected by G. Schlegel 2 on the ground 

 that it is impossible that those islanders should have been able to 

 make the long passage over sea on rafts, as the Chinese historian 

 says — a feat which, however, was possible from Formosa to Fuh- 

 kien. Schlegel accordingly seems to infer, but does not state ex- 

 plicit}-, that the Pi-sia-ye are a Formosan tribe. 3 His arguments, 

 however, are by no means valid. The Chinese text is not at all 

 ambiguous, and says plainly that it was a country beside or near 

 Formosa, and one with a different language ; there is here, conse- 

 quently, the question of a non-Formosan tribe. In the description 

 of the Formosan tribes, Chinese authors never use the word "coun- 

 try" (kuo) as used above in connection with the Pi-sia-ye, but speak 

 only of clans and tribes ; furthermore, a tribe of the name Pi-sia-ye 

 has never existed, nor does it exist, on Formosa. The mere lin- 

 guistic evidence, however (/. c, the phonetic coincidence of Pi-sia-ye 

 and Visaya or Bisaya), is not in itself sufficient proof for assuming 

 the identity of these people with the Philippine tribe of that desig- 



1 The Languages of China before the Chinese, p. 127. 



2 T'oung Pao (1895), vol. vi, p. 182. 



3 James W. Davidson (The Island of Formosa, p. 3) falls into the same 

 error. 



