88 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
Gabi or taro is of rather more importance. It has a 
wide distribution in Oceania. : 
Of palms and trees yielding fruits or other edible 
products, the Philippines contain many varieties that 
have been made use of since the prehistoric period: 
the sago, coconut, breadfruit, durian, orange, lemon, 
lime, and banana being the principal. 
The sago palm—its name is East Indian—is im- 
portant in many portions of the Philippines. In 
1582 it was reported to furnish the principal food supply 
on Mindanao. ‘This tree requires practically no care 
after it has a proper start. 
The coconut palm’ was grown everywhere near the 
coast, but was of relatively less importance to the 
natives than in some of the smaller and more meagerly 
vegetated islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans. 
The same may be said of the breadfruit. The banana 
was perhaps of more consequence for the textile fiber— 
‘“Manila hemp’’—which one of its smaller varieties 
yields, than as a source of food. 
Sugar cane was indigenous to the islands, at least 
was cultivated nearly everywhere when the Spaniards 
entered. It was long one of the principal plantation 
crops; but the ancient Filipinos grew it for themselves 
in order to ferment from it a wine or rum. Such wine, 
made either from sugar cane or from rice or sometimes 
from the sap of the nipa palm, was consumed in large 
quantities by every tribe, but invariably as an accom- 
paniment of religious feasting. 
The proportions of the subsistence of the Ifugao are 
computed to be as follows. Rice, 32 percent; sweet 
potatoes, 42; maize, 4; all other crops, 6; total from 
agriculture, 84. Domestic animals, partly imported, 
614. Small clams from the flooded rice fields, 8; all 
other game, fish, or wild plant foods, 1144. It is evident 

