THE MATERIAL SIDES OF LIFE 77 
time for a precise knowledge of the very first beginning 
of the art in the Philippines. Agriculture may have 
been adopted time and again by disconnected peoples 
and under diverse conditions. Where natural conditions 
make the acquisition of a new cultural phase so exceed- 
ingly easy that a slight stimulus suffices, there is every 
probability that this stimulus first occurred in the very 
remote past. 

Fig. 11. Hunting Snare. Mangyan. 
The presence in the Philippines of some bands of 
Negritos that do not farm, does not in any way antago- 
nize this conclusion or seriously complicate the situation. 
Just in proportion as the majority of natives became 
dependent upon agriculture, they would require less 
territory for their maintenance. That territory would 
also tend to be concentrated in the lowlands, leaving the 
mountains and denser forests of little use or interest to 
them. This condition in turn would leave these wilder 
tracts wholly at the disposal of the less numerous hunt- 
ing peoples, and so enable these to live without being 
