8 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
largely hypothetical. The problem in these parts of the 
world may be compared to the task of tracing the life 
history of an individual without direct knowledge of the 
events of his career, merely as a reconstruction from his 
condition at the present moment, his relations with other 
personalities, and such documents and tangible evi- 
dences as he may carry with him. Such a reconstruction 
is not of course impossible, but it is naturally difficult, 
indirect, and approximate. 
In the Philippines it is true that direct historical 
records also go back only four hundred years. But a 
constellation of circumstances has brought it about 
that the various ancient and modern influences that 
have reached the islands are often traceable to their 
sources. The result is that whereas in Africa or native 
America we can almost never tell offhand whether a 
particular institution or name or invention is three 
hundred or three thousand years old, and large masses 
of circumstantial evidence must be analyzed before an 
answer to such questions may be even attempted, we 
can, in the Philippines, very often see that one custom 
is very ancient and primitive, that a second must have 
reached the archipelago subsequently and from a foreign 
source, and that the third is a quite recent importation. 
In other words, the stratification of civilization is 
much better preserved in the Philippines than in most 
other parts of the world which the ethnologist deals 
with. The task of tracing this stratification, and dis- 
tinguishing through it the outlines of development, is 
therefore comparatively fruitful. This does not mean 
that obscure points are lacking and that no problems 
remain to be solved. But the contours of the cultural 
events of the last two thousand years are substantially 
clear. We can peel off layer after layer of civilization 
and come to its original kernel with some assurance of 

