
58 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
These two groups of pagans, who aggregate about 
two-thirds of a million or twice as much as the number of 
American Indians surviving in the United States, are of 
the greatest interest in that they undoubtedly reveal 
to us the appoximate condition in which all the Filipinos 
lived at the time of discovery. The resemblance of their 
society, arts, and religion, in spite of the separation of 
the two masses by many hundreds of miles of sea and 
land, is really very great. There can thus be no doubt 
that the intervening peoples, such as the Bisaya and 
Tagalog, must have shared in this community of cul- 
ture. A study of the Bontok or Bagobo therefore 
illuminates at innumerable points the rather cursory 
records which the early Spaniards left concerning the 
peoples now Christianized. 
There is however one difference observable between 
the pagans of Luzon and those of Mindanao. This is the 
kind and degree of their exposure to foreign influences 
in the pre-Spanish period. The inland districts of 
Mindanao seem to have absorbed considerably more 
from Hindu civilization than those of Luzon. It can- 
not be affirmed outright but this was due to the greater 
proximity of Mindanao to Borneo, and through it to 
Java and other western centers of early culture; for 
the Tagalog language, whose home is in Luzon, contains 
a larger proportion of Sanskrit words than any other. 
At some time or other, Hindu influences must therefore 
have reached Luzon as well as Mindanao and without 
first traversing the latter island. This being so, there 
seems no reason why the pagans of Luzon should not 
have absorbed as much of this higher civilization as the 
mountaineers of Mindanao. They were indeed un- 
questionably affected in some measure; but why they 
did not succumb more completely, is an unexplained 
fact. The reason may possibly be sought in topography. 
Ce —————— 
