

THE MATERIAL SIDES OF LIFE 101 
from China and distributed throughovt the Prilip- 
pines, serving as the most precious heirlooms of the 
natives. All the pagan tribes possess such jars, which 
are carefully preserved for use as rice wine containers in 
great religious feasts, and are parted with only on the 
most important occasions, such as blood feud settle- 
ments or marriage contracts. Morga wrote in 1609 
that among the Tagalog, Pampanga, Pangasinan, 
and Ilokano “certain earthenware jars are found among 
the natives. They are very old, of a brownish color, 
and not handsome. . .. The natives are unable to 
give any explanation of where and when they got them, 
for now they are not brought to the islands, or made 
there. The Japanese seek and esteem them .. . and 
keep them in brocade cases.’”’ Similar vessels went to 
Borneo, where certain types maintained a value, until 
recently, of $1500 to $3000. 
This imported ware, which the natives frequently do 
not recognize as Chinese but attribute to the gods or the 
beginning of the world, dates from the Sung and Ming 
dynasties and was probably manufactured in Kwang- 
tung province. There are two principal types: yellow- 
ish or brown jars ornamented with dragon patterns, 
made probably from the thirteenth to the fifteenth 
centuries; and blue or green pieces, undecorated, of the 
fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Both are a hard 
glazed ware, similar to Chinese household vessels, of no 
great value in that country, and were probably specially 
manufactured for export to Malaysia, where distance 
and rarity enhanced the price enormously. The natives 
seem to have felt themselves totally unable to imitate 
these pieces, and made no attempts to do so. 
The pottery which the Japanese obtained in the 
Philippines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
and still called Luzon ware, is of a different type, 

