150 MILLER. 



Mangyan country seem to be but little used, as in calling a per- 

 son they do not use the name, but merely a call to attract atten- 

 tion. Men sometimes do not even know their wives' names, if 

 one may believe what they say. However, I suspect that this 

 is not true. The statement was probably made for fear that 

 they would be asked to give their wives' names and from a 

 reluctance to do so. 



CHILDREN. 



Children are usually born in the house where the parents 

 live. No special house is built for the prospective mother. The 

 father is often present at the birth but it is the old women who 

 assist the mother. Many children are still-born, and the mother, 

 too, often dies. Twins are sometimes born, but the people told 

 me they had never heard of triplets. 



Gardner says of the Hampangan Mangyans that — 



Infanticide by burial alive is allowed and even considered praiseworthy 

 in time of scarcity, and is defended on the ground that the mother who 

 suckles her child will most probably die, but if she has all her strength 

 and time to give to the search for food, she will probably live. 



The people near Abra de Hog say that infanticide is never 

 practised. They say they want children. 



Circumcision is not common among the Mangyans, but there 

 are those near Abra de Hog who practise it. The operation is 

 performed with a knife or a bolo, and at any time between the 

 ages of 1 and 14. They say that the operation is for the greater 

 convenience of a man after marriage. I was told that the boys 

 suffer no ill effects as a result of it. 



DEATH AND BURIAL. 



At several places the Mangyans said that they were formerly 

 more numerous than now. Near Abra de Hog many have died 

 from hemorrhage of the lungs and from small-pox, but not from 

 cholera. They do not seem to be a prolific people. 



Burial customs vary widely from place to place. At Burabud 

 in a small jagged cave in a limestone cliff were the remains of 

 8 people (3 children and 5 adults) wrapped in their clothes and 

 laid on small bamboo platforms. This was the burial place 

 of one family. The man whose relatives were buried here said 

 that this place was for his family only and that he did not 

 know where other people put their dead. It does not seem 

 likely that the latter part of this statement is true. In this 

 place it is customary to bury a dead person for a year, then to 



