THE ISLAND OF MINDORO. 
760 
walking may be attributed. They advance very timidly, especially 
the women, with the body stooping forwards, precisely like an 
ape, whose hands have been tied behind him, and who is con¬ 
sequently obliged to walk on his hind feet. 
We have already stated that they plant tobacco, buyo t sweet 
potatoes, gdbe and other roots; but there are some, although very 
few, who also plant rice. In one of the districts around Puerta 
Galera there is a Manguian who gathered in the year 1847 about 
400 cavanes of paddy or unhusked rice. But this man owed his 
humble prosperity to the relation in which he was placed with 
regard to the Christians of the coast, which had instilled into him 
principles of regularity and organization. The species of hus¬ 
bandry in which they employ themselves is called Caingy.* 
They select a spot of forest land not very far from their usual 
place of abode, fell the small trees, and destroy the larger ones 
with fire. Afterwards they make large bon-fires until all the 
branches of the larger trees and the trunks of the smaller ones are 
consumed, allowing the large trunks to be destroyed by the action 
of the sun and moisture. This laborious operation occupies a year 
and sometimes two, but when it is completed, all is festivity and 
diversion. On the day fixed for planting the seed, the proprietors 
of the Caingy with their wives, children, and friends, assemble 
together, when a mountain pig or a tamarao is killed and dressed, 
and each of them having partaken of as much as he requires, 
applies himself to his labour with a joyful heart. 
The men cut stakes of 5 or 6 feet long, and an inch and a half or 
two inches thick, one end of which is shaped into a diagonal point 
similar to that of a pen : they then form in rank, each weilding his 
stake, and commence making small holes in the ground a short 
distance apart, but without observing any symmetry or regularity 
in their operations. Behind them, and forming another parallel 
rank, come the women, each with her bundle or bcilatan of paddy, 
eight or ten grains of which arc deposited in every hole. In this 
manner they plant one or two cavanes in the course of a single 
hour. After this they have nothing to do but to keep the ground 
clear of weeds, which the virgin soil produces in great luxuriance, 
until the paddy is ready to be gathered, which will be in June and 
July or in November and December, on which occasions a suitable 
day is fixed, and the crop is gathered in with the same feasting and 
joy that had attended the sowing of the seed. 
It may be supposed that these plantations, possessing a virgin 
soil, and sheltered from the fury of the winds by the surrounding 
forest, would produce immense crops of rice. Nevertheless, either 
owing- to the want of an assiduous and scrupulous clearing from 
weeds which the plant requires, or on account of the number of 
* This word is probably identical with the Polynesian Kaluga , or plantation 
which is used at Rarotonga and many of the South Sea Islands. Translator. 
