THE MANGYANS OP MINDORO. 145 



AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SUPPLY. 



All over Mindoro the Mangyans are agriculturists. Of course, 

 they catch a few birds and occasionally kill a wild hog with 

 lances or catch a taniarao,^^ a hog, or a carabao in a snare, but 

 by far the greater part of their food supply comes from culti- 

 vation of the soil. They follow the kaingin ^^ system as do also 

 most of their Christian neighbors ; that is, they make a new clear- 

 ing every year or at the most every two years, in which they plant 

 rice. The Mangyans know and value American axes highly. 

 When they have them, they use them in making clearings. 

 When they have no axes, bolos^^ are used for clearing the ground 

 of brush and trees. Even large trees are cut down. When the 

 brushwood is dry it is piled up and burned. The rice is planted 

 by making small holes in the ground with a pointed stick and 

 dropping 2 or 3 grains of rice into each hole. As one passes 

 through a field which has been planted a week or ten days 

 before, he notices grains of rice lying on the ground uncovered. 

 Probably for this reason a considerable percentage of the grain 

 does not sprout. 



Sometimes these clearings for rice are on level or rolling 

 land, as at Badyang and along the Bako River ; at other times on 

 the steepest of hillsides, as in the interior of Mindoro and near 

 Abra de Hog. Whether the land be steep, rolling, or level, the 

 unirrigated type of rice is always planted. Throughout Min- 

 doro, among the Mangyans, the crop is rarely, if ever, sufficiently 

 abundant so that the rice lasts from one harvest to another. 



In planting, the men make the little holes for the grains and 

 the women drop the seeds. The sticks used in this work are 

 placed together standing near the center of the clearings after 

 the planting is done. The Mangyans say that they do this to 

 protect the rice from the spirits in the ground whom they 

 have never seen, but who really exist according to the statements 

 of the old people. If these sticks are left lying on the ground, 

 the rice will fall down. This they say they learned from the 

 Tagalogs. 



" Bubalus mindorensis Heude. 



" A word which describes a common Philippine custom of clearing a 

 piece of ground, turning it over, and cultivating it for two or three years 

 until the weeds and grass become thick. This land is then abandoned and 

 another similar clearing made elsewhere. 



" A common name throughout the Philippines for the ordinai-y large 

 working knife. See footnote under "bolo" in Schneider's Notes on the 

 Mangyan Language, this number. 

 111310 — 3 



