416 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 15. 



Thej' are skilful hunters and fishers. Their 

 arms consist of a bamboo spear, bow and 

 arrows, with a lance-shaped head, often 

 smeared with a resinous poisonous compound. 

 They go nearly- naked, the only covering be- 

 ing a narrow band of bark around the loins. 

 Though savage in the interior, and occasion- 

 allj- of necessit}^ cannibal, when brought into 

 contact with the. civilized Indians and the 

 priests, they become harmless and confiding. 

 The\' mix with 

 the igorrotes and 

 other wild tribes 

 to such an extent 

 that it would be 

 difficult to find 

 one of pure blood 

 out of their na- 

 tive fastnesses. 

 There are a few, 

 probablj^ hj^- 

 brids, as ser- 

 vants in Manila, 

 docile and trust- 

 worthy, whom it 

 would be hard, 

 without careful 

 examination, to 

 distinguish from 

 a negro. ' They 

 seem to have no 

 religious ceremo- 

 nies, or ideas of 

 worship ; but 

 thej- respect old 

 age, and vener- 

 ate the dead. 



There is great 

 difference of 

 opinion among 

 ethnologists who 

 have seen these 

 Negritos, as to 

 the race to which 

 thej- belong. 

 Semper (1869) 

 and Davis (1870: 

 Journ. anthrop. soc. Land.), and authors 

 generally, class them among the Papuans. 

 Professor Rudolph Virchow, from the exami- 

 nation of the few skulls brought home b_y 

 Jagor and others, and in the museums of 

 Germany, denies their affinity to the Papuans, 

 finding the head more monkey-like in form, 

 the glaliella extraordinarily developed, the 

 frontal prominences slight, and traces of a 

 frontal median crest ; the temporal region 

 elevated bej'oud the parietal protuberances, 



NEGRITOS OF LUZON. 



and not quite one-third of an inch behind 

 the coronal suture ; width at lower part of 

 nose verj' great. The bones are weak and 

 delicate, the tibiae laterall}- fiattened, the hu- 

 merus often perforated at the elbow, with a 

 twist different from that of the European. 

 They have undoubtedlj' been crossed by in- 

 vasions of other tribes, both dohcocephalic 

 (like the Malaj's) and brachycephalic (like 

 the Mongolians). It is, therefore, extremely 

 difficult to trace 

 a n y pure race 

 characters, as is 

 evident from the 

 conflicting state- 

 ments of ethnol- 

 ogists. 



It seems to me 

 that this people, 

 the Negrillo of 

 Dr. Charles 

 Pickering (1848), 

 and b^' him, and, 

 after him, bj' 

 Semper and Miil- 

 ler, classed as 

 Papuans, — or, 

 as Wallace main- 

 tains, of Asiatic 

 origin, like the 

 Andaman-island- 

 ers, — must be 

 regarded as es- 

 sentially Papu- 

 ans, — Asiatic 

 Papuans, if j-ou 

 please ; that is, 

 a mixture of this 

 race with the 

 Polynesians, like 

 the Fijians and 

 most of the Pa- 

 cific-islanders, 

 as distinguished 

 from the present 

 inhabitants of 

 New Guinea. 

 And this, I think, is warranted, whether we 

 judge by the shape of the skull, the color of 

 the skin, or the character of the hair. If 

 originally Papuans, they have bj- persecu- 

 tion retrograded, until now the evolutionist 

 maj- find in them the nearest approach to 

 Darwin's ' missing link.' The Negrito, in 

 his village, is not far above such an ape as 

 might have been the ancestor of man, with the 

 cerebral convolutions of the orang, the skull 

 of the chimpanzee, the limbs of the gorilla, and 



