56 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
Mohammedan Peoples. The Mohammedan 
peoples have been conspicuous in Philippine history 
for their propensity to war and piracy, and the fact that 
they maintained their independence unbroken until 
near the end of the period of Spanish occupancy. Even 
then they were only half subdued, and were largely 
left by the Spaniards to their own devices. But in 
numbers they have always been weaker than the 
Christians. Today there are but little over three 
hundred thousand Mohammedans in the archipelago 
as against more than eight million Christians. In fact, 
the Mohammedans are outnumbered more than two to 
one by the pagans. They have remained almost wholly 
restricted to southern Mindanao and the Sulu chain of 
islands. The Spaniards applied to them the name 
Moros, ‘‘Moors,”’ which, of course, meant nothing but 
Mohammedans. The designation has however stuck, 
and inasmuch as Mohammedan tribes are all very 
similar in customs and in their attitude toward the 
foreigner, it remains a very convenient group name. 
It is true that the Moro are not wholly uniform, 
especially on the side of language; but the differences 
between them have not been primarily ethnic, as in the 
remainder of the Philippines, but political. The Mo- 
hammedan introduced, along with his religion, the idea 
of the sultanate or kingship, and the native who em- 
braced Islam soon came to think of himself as a follower 
of such and such a lord or over-lord, with his residence 
in this or that little capital, rather than as a member of 
one or another nationality. The fluctuating fortunes 
of the sultanates rested very largely on the personal 
character and abilities of the temporary occupant of the 
throne. The most important states were those of Sulu 
and of Cotabato or Magindanao. ‘The latter was 
situated at the mouth of the great Magindanao River 
