the shutters of the house across the street were closed. under the balcony, near where the road was strewn with scarlet blossoms from the fire-tree, carpenters were hammering and sawing busily. shaped by the antiquated bandsaw and the bolos, a rude coffin gradually assumed its grim proportions. a group of schoolboys, drawn by curiosity, looked on indifferently while keeping up a desultory game of tag. upstairs, the women, dressed in the black veils of mourning, shuffling noiselessly around, were burning candles at the “queen of heaven’s” shrine. they murmured prayers mechanically—not without a certain reverence and awe—to usher the departing soul into the land beyond. a smoky wall-lamp, glimmering near the door, illuminated the black crucifix above the bed. in the dim candle-light vague shadows danced on the white walls. [164]
the priest had heard the last confession of josé pilar. not that josé had been one of the padre’s friends. in fact, he was suspected during the past year of having been a secret agent of aglipay, the self-consecrated bishop of manila, and the target of the accusation and invective that the church of rome is so proficient in. the recent rulings of the order had abolished the confession fee; but the long road was uncertain and the dangers great. the padre rubbed his hands as he went out. he had received a “voluntary” contribution for his services, with the assurance that a series of masses would be ordered by the widow of josé pilar. through the stiff palms, the cold sea, gray as steel, washed the far-distant shores of lonely islands, and the red glow of the setting sun had died away.
the padre thought about the plump goats and the chickens in the new stockade. the simple people brought their chickens to the convent, denying themselves all but the fish and rice. the mothers weaned their puny brats on rice; they stuffed them with it till their swollen paunches made a grotesque contrast with their skinny legs. [165]childbirth is one of the minor incidents of filipinia. where is the house that doesn’t swarm with babies, like the celebrated residence of the old woman in the shoe? when one of these sparrows falls, the little song that dies is never missed.
how many times had father cipriano climbed the rickety ladder to the nipa dwellings, entering the closed room where the patient lay upon the floor! a gaping crowd of yokels stood around, while the old woman faithfully kneaded the abdomen. the native medicaster, having placed the green leaves on the patient’s temples, would be brewing a concoction of emollient simples. the open shirt disclosed upon the patient’s breast the amulet which had been blessed by padre cipriano, and was stamped with a small figure of a saint. the holy father smiled as he reflected how they spent their last cent for the funeral ceremonies, while the doctor’s fee would be about a dozen eggs. and even now that death had come to one not quite so ignorant and simple as the rest, the funeral celebrations would be but the more elaborate. not every one who could afford a coffin [166]in malingasag! and as the padre crossed the plaza he lighted a cigarette.
it was with feelings of annoyance that he saw before the side door of the church a tiny litter cheaply decorated with bright paper and red cloth. the yellow candles threw a fitful light over the little image on the bier. it was the image of a child, a thing of wax, clothed in a white dress, with a tinsel crown upon its head. one of the sacristans was drumming a tattoo upon the bells. the padre motioned him to discontinue. he would have his gin-and-water first, and then devotions, lasting twenty minutes. after devotions he could easily dispose of the small child. so the two humble women waited in patience at the door, and the cheap candles sputtered and went out before the good priest could find time to hurry through the unimportant funeral services that meant to him only a dollar or two at best in the depreciated silver currency. already night was overshadowing the palm-groves as the pathetic little group filed out and trudged across the rice-pads toward the cemetery.
the filipinos regard the american doctors [167]with suspicion. when a snakebite can be cured by a burnt piece of carabao horn, or when the leaves or bits of paper stuck upon the temple will relieve the fever or the dysentery, what is the use of drugs and medicines and things that people do not understand? once, out of the kindness of his heart, an army doctor that i knew, prescribed a valuable ointment for a child afflicted by a running sore. the child was in a terrible condition, as the sore had eaten away the flesh and bone, leaving a large hole under the lower lip through which the roots of the teeth were all exposed. the parents had not washed the child for weeks. they actually believed that bathing was injurious when one was sick. the doctor, giving them directions how to use the medicine, asked them, as an experiment, what fee he might expect. he knew well that if the priest had asked this question, they would eagerly have offered everything they had. so he was not surprised when they replied that they were very poor, and that they did not think the service was worth anything. the doctor turned them away good naturedly, but they returned the next day with the medicine, reporting [168]that undoubtedly it was no good, because, forsooth, the child had cried when they applied it! as a peace-offering they brought a dozen miserable bananas.
slinging a tablet around his neck, a “valuable remedy against the pest,” the filipino thinks that he is reasonably secure against disease, and that if he becomes afflicted, it is the result of some transgression against heaven. i happened to receive a startling proof, however, of its efficacy when the padre’s house-boy, rather a bright young fellow, made me a present of his “remedy” and died the next day of cholera. still i have seen the “anting-anting,” which is supposed to render the wearer bullet-proof, pierced with the balls of the krag-jorgensen and stained with blood. although the visayans show considerable sympathy toward one when he is sick, the native dentist cutting out the tooth with a dull knife, we would consider almost too barbarous to practice in america. the igorrotes have a way of driving out the fever with a slow fire; but between this spartan method and visayan ignorance the choice is difficult. no wonder that the people drop off with [169]surprising suddenness. your laundryman or baker fails to come around some morning, and you ask one of your neighbors where he is. the neighbor, shifting his wad of buya to the other cheek, will gradually wake up and answer something ending in “ambut.” “ambut” is a convenient word for the visayan, as it means “don’t know,” and even if he is informed, the filipino often is too lazy or indifferent to explain. you finally discover some one more accommodating who replies: “why, haven’t you heard? he died the other day.”
sulkiness, one of the characteristics of the girls and boys, develops into surliness in men and billingsgate in women. and i have no doubt that little diega, the sulkiest and prettiest of the visayan beauties, in a few years will be gambling at the cock-fights, smoking cigars, and losing her money every sunday afternoon at mariana’s monte game. vulgarity with them goes down as wit, and the visayan women make a fine art of profanity. it is always the woman in a family quarrel who is most in evidence. and even the delicate adela when the infant richard fell downstairs [170]the other day, cried, “mother of god!” which she considered to be more appropriate than “jesus, marie, josep!”
on entering one of the common houses, you would be astonished at the pitiable lack of furnishings. the floor is made of slats of split bamboo, tied down with strips of cane. the walls are simply the dried nipa branches, fastened down with bamboo laths. the only pictures on the walls are the cheap prints of saints, the “lady of the rosary,” or illustrations clipped together with the reading matter from some stray american magazine. the picture of a certain popular shoe manufacturer is sometimes given the place of honor near the crucifix. if any attempt at decoration has been made, the lack of taste of the visayans is at once apparent. for the ancient fly-specked chromo of the “prospect of madrid” is as artistic in their eyes as though the advertisement of a certain cracker factory did not adorn the margin. the undressed pillars that support the house, run through the floor. the nipa shutters that protect the windows are propped open, making heavy awnings, and permitting a free circulation [171]of the breeze. there are no ceilings in these houses, and the entire framework of the roof is visible. a cheap red curtain, trimmed with lace, is draped before the entrance to the sleeping-room. while in the better frame-constructed residences an old spanish tester bed with a cane bottom may be seen in this apartment, here only the straw mats and the cotton bolsters are to be found. a basket hanging from a bamboo spring serves as a cradle for the baby, but it is a pretty lucky baby that indulges in this luxury, as most of the children, spreading the mats upon the floor at night, pillow their heads upon the bolsters, ten in a row, and go to sleep. a marble-topped table and a few chairs, formally arranged as though in preparation for a conclave, are the features of the larger homes; but generally the furniture consists of a long bench, a wooden table, and a camphorwood box, which contains the family treasures, and the key to which the woman of the house wears in her belt—a symbol of authority.
on climbing the outside stairway to the living-rooms you find your passage blocked by a small fence. in trying to step over this [172]you nearly crush a naked baby, and a yellow dog snaps venomously at your heels. you enter the main room, where the pony-saddle and the hemp-scales may be stored. the filipinos are great visitors, and you will find a ring of old men squatting upon the benches like so many hens, chewing the betel-nut and nursing their enormous feet. some fellow in the corner, with a chin like a sea-urchin, strums a tune monotonously on an old guitar. your host arises, offers you a glass of gin and a cigar or cigarette, and asks you to “lincoot dinhi.” so, at his invitation, you sit down, and are expected to begin the conversation. such conversation is enlightening and runs somewhat like this:
“yes, thank you, i am very well; yes, we are all well. everything is well.... the beer of the americans is very good.... whisky is very strong.... the filipino whisky is not good for anything.... it is very dull here. it is not our custom to have pretty girls.... what is your salary? all the americans are very rich. we are all very poor.... the horses in america are very large. [173]why?... if the people want me, i will be elected mayor. but let them decide.... after a while will you not let me have some medicine? the wife has beri-beri very bad.”
the family arises with the chickens. for the filipino boy no chores are waiting to be done. the ponies and the dogs are never fed. nobody seems to care much for the animals. with the exception of the fighting-cock, chickens, dogs, pigs, and carabaos are left to forage for themselves. the pigs and dogs are public scavengers, and the poor curs that howl the night long, till you wish that they were only allowed to bay the moon in daytime, stalk the barren shores or rice-pads in the hope of preying upon carrion. a filipino dog, though pinched and starved, has not the courage even to catch a young kid by the ear, and much less to say “boo” to a goose. it is surprising how the ponies, feeding upon the coarse grass, ever become as wiry as they do. evidently, to the filipino, animals do not have feelings; for they often ride their ponies furiously, though the creature’s back may be a running sore. in using wooden saddles they forget to place a [174]pad beneath them, and the saddle thus becomes an instrument of torture.
after the morning bath in the cool river, a cup of chocolate or a little bowl of rice will serve for breakfast. then the women attend morning mass and kneel for half an hour on the hard tiles. it is still early in the day, and the fantastic mountains, with their wonderful lights and shadows, are just throwing off the veil of mist. now, in the clear light, the huge, swelling bosom of the hills, the densely-timbered slopes beyond, stand out distinctly, like a picture in a stereoscope. the heavy forests, crowded with gigantic trees, seem like a mound of bushes thickly bunched. off to the left rises a barren ridge, that might have been the spine of some old reptile of the mezozoic age; and in the center a plutonic ampitheater—the council-chamber of the gods—is swept by shadows from the passing clouds, or glorified for a brief moment by a flood of light.
the boys are then sent out to catch one of the ponies for their father, who is going to inspect his hemp plantation on the foot-hills. his progress will at first be rather slow; for he is a great chatterbox, [175]and if he finds some crony along the road, he will dismount and drink a glass of tuba with him, or dicker with him over an exchange of fighting cocks. the birds are then brought out, and the two men squat down, with the birds in hand, and set them pecking at each other to display their fine points. but the string of hombres, with their bolos slung about their waists, making for the mountains, reminds the planter that he must be getting on. his fields are let out to these fellows, who will pay him a proportion of the hemp which they can strip. although the process of preparing hemp is primitive and slow, the green stalk being stripped by an iron comb, the laboring man can prepare enough in one day to supply his family with “sow sow” for an entire week. if he would work with any regularity, especially in the wild hemp-fields, he would soon be “independent,” and could buy the hemp from others, which could be sold at a profit to the occasional hemp-boats that come into port. the only capital required is one or two bull-carts and carabaos, a storehouse, and sufficient rice or money to secure his first invoice of hemp. the [176]men who carry it in from the mountains, either on their own backs or on carabaos, sell it for cash or its equivalent in rice at the first store.
on saturdays, the boys go to the mountains to buy eggs. their first stop is the hacienda on the outskirts of the town—a large, cool nipa house, with broad verandas, situated in a grove of palms. around the veranda are the nests of woven baskets where the chickens are encouraged to lay eggs. sucking a juicy mango, they proceed upon their journey through a field of sugar-cane. they stop perhaps at the rude mill where the brown sugar is prepared and molded in the shells of cocoanuts. they quench their thirst here with a stick of sugar-cane, and, peeling the sweet stalk with their teeth, they disappear beyond the hill. now they have reached a wonderful country, where the monkeys and the parrots chatter in the trees. they can set traps for little parrots with a net of fine thread fastened to the branches. only a little further on is a small mountain barrio, where naked, lazy men lie in the sun all day, and the women weave bright-colored blankets on their looms. returning with their handkerchiefs tied [177]full of eggs, the boys reach home about sundown. the thought of being late to supper never worries them; the filipino is notoriously unpunctual at meals. the boys will cook their own rice, and spread out the sleeping-mat wherever the sunset finds them. one shelter is as good as another, and they just as often sleep away from home as in their own beds. their parents never worry about the children, for they know that, like bo-peep’s sheep, they will come back some time, and it doesn’t make much difference when.
early in april the rice-fields are flooded by the irrigation ditches that the river or the mountain streams have filled with water. a plow made of the notch of a tree is used to break the soil. a carabao is used for this work, as it is impossible to mire him even in the deepest mud. the boys and girls, together with the men and women, wearing enormous sun-hats—in the crown of which there is a place for cigarettes and matches—and with bared legs, work in the steaming fields throughout the planting season. as the rice grows taller, the crows are frightened away by strings of flags manipulated from a station in the center of the [178]paddy. scarecrows are built whenever there are any clothes to spare; but as the filipino even utilizes rags, the scarecrow often has to go in shocking négligée. after the harvest season, when the entire village reaps the rice with bolos, the dry field is given over to the ponies, and the carabaos, and the white storks, who never desert their burly friend, the carabao, but often are seen perching on his back. the work of husking and pounding the crop then occupies the village.
if you should be invited in to dinner by a filipino family, you would expect to eat boiled rice and chicken. they would place a cuspidor on one side of your chair to catch the chicken bones, which you would spit out from your mouth. the food would be cooked in dishes placed on stones over an open fire. the cook and the muchachos never wash their hands. they wash the dishes only by pouring some cold water on them and letting them dry gradually. the cook will rinse the glasses with his hand. how would you like to eat a chicken boiled with its pin-feathers on, or find a colony of red ants in your soup? the poorer families seldom go through the formality [179]of serving meals. as soon as the rice and guinimos are cooked, the children and their parents squat around the bowl and help themselves, holding a lump of salt in one hand, and using the other for a fork or spoon. the women do what little marketing needs to be done, and though the filipino acts in most things lavishly, the women can drive close bargains, and will scold like ale-wives if they find the measure short even by so much as a single guinimo.
the guinimo is probably the smallest creature with a vertebra known to the world of science—a small fish—and it strikes one as amusing when the people count them out so jealously. but all their marketing is done on retail lines. potatoes, eggs, and fruit sell for so much apiece. a single fish will be chopped up so as to go around among the customers, while the measures used in selling rice and salt are so small that you can not take them seriously. the transaction reminds you of your childhood days when you were playing “keep store” with a nickel’s worth of candy on the ironing-board.
at easter-time, or during the celebration of [180]the “santa cruz,” an enterprising family will get up a singing bee. perhaps a wheezy organ will be brought to light, and the musician then officiates behind the instrument. his bare feet work the pedals vigorously, and his body sways in rhythm with the strains. as the performance is continuous, arriving or departing guests do not disturb the ceremony. there seems to be a special song for this occasion, the words of which must be repeated over and over as the music falls and rises in a dismal wail. refreshments of holland gin and tuba keep the party going until long after midnight.
as you walk down the long dusty street at evening, you will be half suffocated by the smoke and the rank odor of the burning cocoanut-husks over which the supper is being cooked. then you remember how the broiling beefsteak used to smell “back home,” and even dream about grandmother’s kitchen on a baking day. and as you pass by the poor nipa shacks, you hear the murmur of the evening prayer pronounced by those within. it is a prayer from those who have but little and desire no more.
