DAMPIER’s ACCOUNT OF THE PHILIPPINES. 65
of both hands to keep them off they will creep into one’s noftrils and mouth too, if thelips are not {hut very clofe; fo that from their infancy being thus annoyed with thefeinfedls they do never open their eyes as other people: and therefore they cannot feefar unlefs they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at fomewhat over them.
They have great bottle-nofes, pretty full lips, and wide mouths; the two fore-teethof their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women, old and young ; whe-ther they draw them out I know not; neither have they any beards. They are longvifaged, and of a very unpleafing afpeft, having no one graceful feature in their faces.Their hair is black, fhort and curled, like that of the negroes, and not long and lanklike the common Indians. The colour of their {kins, both of their faces and the reftof their body, is coal-black, like that of the negroes of Guinea .
They have no fort of cloaths but a piece of the rind of a tree tied like a girdle abouttheir waifts, and a handful of long grafs, or three or four fmall green boughs full ofleaves, thruft under their girdle to cover their nakednefs.
They have no houfes, but lie in the open air without any covering : the earth beingtheir bed and the heaven their canopy. Whether they cohabit one man to one woman,or promifcuoufly, I know not; but they do live in companies, twenty or thirty men,women, and children together. Their only food is a fmall fort of fi(h, which they getby making wares of ftone acrofs little coves or branches of the fea ; every tide bringingin the fmall fifh and there leaving them for a prey to thefe people, who conftantlyattend there to fearch for them at low water. This fmall fry I take to be the top oftheir filhery. They have no inftruments to catch great filh fliould they come, andfuch feldom {lay to be left behind at low water; nor could we catch any fifh with ourhooks and lines all the while we lay there. In other places at low water they feek forcockles, mufcles, and periwincles: of thefe fhell-fifh there are fewer {till, fo that theirchiefeft dependence is upon what the fea leaves in their wares ; which be it much orlittle they gather up, and march to the places of their abode. There the old peoplethat are not able to ftir abroad by reafon of their age, and the tender infants, waittheir return ; and what Providence has bellowed on them they prefently broil on thecoals, and eat it in common. Sometimes they get as many fifh as makes them a plenti-ful banquet, and at other times they fcarce get every one a tafte ; but be it little ormuch that they get every one has his. part, as well the young and tender, the oldand feeble, who are not able to go abroad, as the ftrong and lufty. When they haveeaten they lie down till the next low water, and then all that are able march out, ber or da Y> ra * n or fhine, it is all one, they muft attend the wares or elfe they muftfall, for the earth affords them no food at all. There is neither herb, root, pulfe norany fort of grain for them to eat, that we faw ; nor any fort of bird or beaft that theycan catch, having no inftruments wherewithal to do fo.
I did not perceive that they did worfhip any thing. Thefe poor creatures have a fortof weapon to defend their ware, or fight with their enemies, if they have any that willinterfere with their poor filhery. They did at firft endeavour with their weapons torighten us, who lying alhore deterred them from one of their filhing-pjaces. Someoi them had wooden fwords, others had a fort of lances. The fword is a piece ofwood fhaped fomewhat like a cutlafs. The lance is a long ftraight pole {harp at oneend, and _ hardened afterwards by heat. I faw no iron nor any other fort of metal jtherefore it is probable they ufe ftone-hatchets, as fome Indians in America do, defcribedin Chap. IV. 5
Plow they get their fire I know not, but probably as Indians do out of wood. I haveleen the Indians of Bon-Airy do it, and have myfelf tried the experiment: they take a
VOL. xi. k flat