The Philippine Islands present a complex of interpenetrating cultural layers. The original settlers came in groups from various places in the Pacific over a long period. These people, representing many diverse cultures, made use of some goods traded into the Philippines and modified others, using local raw materials.
The Hanunoo Ethnic Group
The Hanunoo, who dwell in the Mindoro Island mountains in the Philippines, subsist by fishing and farming. Geographic isolation and little contact with outsiders resulted in a high degree of self-sufficiency. Due to this remoteness, they still retain an ancient Indic writing. Most other Philippine peoples adopted the Roman alphabet along with Christianity in the 16th century. Incised on palm spathes or on bamboo tubes with a sharp knife, the Indic writing is read in columns, from bottom to top and left to right. Most inscriptions are love songs, which boys and girls learn to read and write from their elders in order to collect a large repertory of traditional songs. The Hanunoo make extensive and ingenious use of bamboo for musical instruments, traps, and cooking utensils, Strings of small red beads, their most highly valued possession, read the Hanunoo from China by way of Europe.
The Bagobo Ethnic Group
The Bagobo are Malays who live on the coast of Mindanao in the Philippines. Dwelling in villages, they hunt, fish, and cultivate gardens. They ware divided into freemen and war slaves taken in battle, and have a sophisticated code of laws. Bamboo and rattan account for their entire material culture except for their elaborate dress of profusely decorated beaded garments and ornaments. Women do the weaving and beading. Only warriors who have killed enemies had the right to wear garments dyed the color of blood (tankalu); the more live taken, the darker the shade of red and the more articles of clothing allowed. Today, this privilege extends to women of rank and young sons of chiefs.
Negrito Ethnic Group
The Negrito forest dwellers descend from the earliest Philippines inhabitants. Today, the material culture of these pygmy people reflects borrowing from their Malay neighbors. In exchange for forest products, Negritoes receive cloth, gongs, and metals for bolo blades and arrow points from surrounding people. Their personal apparel includes rattan neck and arm ornaments, boar-bristle leg decorations, and a bamboo comb trimmed with king-fish feathers. Banding together in the forest, they hunt pigs and deer and gather wild honey, fruits and roots. The roots, together with barks and herbs, Negritoes skillfully convert into medicine. During times of merrymaking, Negritoes dance to the musical accompaniment of flutes, zithers, gongs, drums, and jew’s-harps.
