26 THE SUBANU. 
CHARACTERISTICS AND HABITS. 
The Subanu are lighter in color than either the Moros or the Fili- 
pinos who surround them. ‘They have high foreheads, but rather flat 
noses; mild countenances, with well-set and expressive eyes. ‘The hair 
is long, straight, and jet-black. While these people are not wholly 
beardless, usually very little hair appears upon the face. ‘The head is 
covered with a heavy mat that is coarse and refractory. When the 
men permit the hair to grow long, they fold and tie it in a knot at the 
back of the head, as do the women. ‘The latter do not approve of the 
men wearing long hair, looking upon it as a mark of weakness. The 
women use their turban or head-cloth to hold the hair in place. They 
sometimes do up with the hair a braid of hemp or banana fiber dyed of a 
color to match the hair. ‘This fiber braid is used as a switch of false 
hair to augment the mass where the natural hair is thin and insufficient 
from any cause. Sometimes a small tuft of hair grows upon the chin of 
the males, and the possessor favors and protects it with much patience 
and pride. 
The limbs are well rounded, clean, and supple. ‘The whole form is 
attractive in youth and in middle age, because of fine muscular develop- 
ment, light color, and general freedom from deformities. The young 
women are graceful in form, of pleasing countenance, modest and indus- 
trious. All native women in the tropics lose their attractive features 
early in life, owing to the climate, the severities of motherhood, and the 
burdensome life of the wife. No form of labor is too severe for a Subanu 
woman to undertake. The men are fairly industrious asa class and, 
besides preparing their kaingins for seeding and following later with the 
harvest and storage of crops, they make long journeys on foot in search 
of forest products (wax, copal, nuts, and gutta-percha) which they may 
exchange for cloth, beads, wire, iron, and steel at the markets or with 
passing traders. 
The large toe of many males is turned inward to a marked degree, 
giving the appearance of abnormally projecting away from the other 
toes and beyond them. ‘This peculiar development suggests a prehen- 
sory employment of the member. ‘The big toe is used frequently for 
holding fiber and bejuco while braiding them into rope and for other 
purposes. 
Men do not use bows and arrows; children employ them as toys. 
The first clothing of a boy is a loin cloth; that of a girl a petticoat. 
Children go naked until the age of puberty. ‘The facts of sexual life 
are not hidden from the children; they grow up with them as a matter 
of course. Marriageable young men and maidens are not segregated 
in separate houses, as with some tribes. The family is held intact with 
the father as absolute ruler. Girls have little or no recreation, but are 
occupied with household duties from atenderage. Boys play and hunt. 
