
SOCIETY 165 
The spear in its most ancient form was tipped with 
bamboo; but wherever iron was sufficiently abundant, 
the point was replaced by one of that material. 
Bows and Blowguns. The bow is often spoken of 
as if it were the weapon distinctive of the Negrito. It 
is true that the little black man chiefly relies upon the 
bow; but he is timid and a hunter rather than a 
fighter. It by no means follows that because he made 
much use of it, the brown Filipino did not own the 
weapon. Asa matter of fact, the bow and arrow enjoy 
very much wider use in the Philippines than it is gener- 
ally alleged. Artieda in 1576, speaking generally or of 
the central islands, describes large bows more powerful 
than those of the English archers; and Chirino and 
Morga, but little later, refer to the use of bows in some 
provinces, including certain of the Tagalog districts. 
The Sambal, until their subjugation, were famous for 
their skill with the weapon. Among the pagans of 
Luzon, the Tinggian as well as the Ilongot constantly 
use the bow and arrow; and the intervening tribes, such 
as the Bontok, retain it in the form of a child’s toy. 
The Nabaloi and Kankanai were shooting when the 
Spaniards first came among them. At the opposite 
end of the archipelago nearly all the uncivilized peoples 
of Mindanao use arrows for hunting as well as warfare. 
The Mangyan of Mindoro are in the same class. More- 
over, the word for bow which recurs in almost every 
Filipino dialect is a form of the generic root word com- 
mon to all the Malayo-Polynesian languages. 
It is thus probable that the bow was once as widely 
diffused among the brown as among the black peoples. 
The hunting tribes were forced to cling to its employ- 
ment, and scarcely learned other weapons. Those, 
on the other hand, that came to depend uponagriculture, 
and these in time formed the majority, had less reason 

