o8 THE EARLY MALAYS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS 



Long afterward this race received from the Spaniards the 

 name of Negritos (little blacks). 17 Once numerous and dis- 

 tributed throughout the islands 18 they are now confined to a 

 few provinces while their number is very small 19 and believed 

 to be rapidly diminishing. Yet it is long since active warfare 

 between them and the Malay intruder has decimated the 

 former's ranks. Their present decline seems rather due to a 

 prolonged process of amalgamation, largely at their expense, 

 with the incoming race. Dr. Barrows long since expressed 

 his conviction that 



"Much has been made of the 'Indonesian' theory and far too 

 much of Pre-Spanish Chinese influence, but the result to the 

 physical types found in the Philippines of the constant absorp- 

 tion of the Negrito race into the Malayan, and the wide prev- 

 alence of Negrito blood in all classes of islanders, has been 

 generally overlooked. . . 



"I shall not attempt here" he adds "to estimate the pro- 

 portion of Negrito blood in the Christian peoples of the Philip- 

 pines — Bisaya, Bikol, Tagalog, Ilokano, etc., — further than to 

 express my conviction that in certain regions it is very large and 

 has greatly modified the primitive Malayan type." 20 

 This mixture of blood has produced in certain parts of 

 the Philippines, groups which, though not pure Negritos, 

 resemble them to a degree more or less considerable according 

 to the amount of Malay infusion. The Bataks 21 of Palawan 

 are practically Negritos 22 while the Tagbanuas 23 of the same 

 island are predominantly Malayan with a Negrito strain. 24 



17 They are known among the other natives by various names, as 

 Baluga, Aeta, Dumagat. Id. 18. 



18 Meyer, Distribution of Negritos (1899), 4. 



19 Dr. H. Otley Beyer in his recent work on the "Population of the 

 Philippine Islands in 1916" estimates (p. 22) the Negritos at about 

 36,000 or less than ^ of 1% of the total population. 



20 The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines, American 

 Anthropologist (N. S.) XII, 358, 364. 



21 On this small but interesting group see Venturello, Manners and 

 Customs of the Palawan Tribes, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 

 Vol. 48, pt. 4 ; Miller, The Bataks of Palawan, Philippine Ethnological 

 Survey Publications, Vol. II, pt. II. 



22 Reed, Negritos of Zambales, 22 ; Barrows, The Negrito in the 

 Philippines, 363. 



23 See Venturello (M. H.) Manners and Customs of the Tagbanuas 

 and other Palawan Tribes, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 

 Vol. 48, pt. 4. Judge Norberto Romualdez, a member of the Philip- 

 pine Academy, has written a monograph on the "Tagbanwa Alphabet" 

 which, he says, "bears such similarity to the ancient Filipino writing, 

 that no room for doubt exists of its community of origin with the 

 latter." He adds in a note : 



"The Mangyans of Mindo'ro also still use their own alphabet, 

 which is substantially the same as the Tagbanwa. The Mangyan 

 characters, however, are more angular, probably due to the 

 material in which they write, chiefly bamboo." 



24 Barrows, The Negrito in the Philippines, 363 ; Reed, Negritos of 

 Zambales, 22. 



