The Inhabitants of the Philippines Part 36

Pampangos as Cultivators.

The towns of San Fernando, Guagua Bacolor, Mexico, Angeles, Candaba, and many others have been built up by Pampanga industry. They contain many fine houses, where the European traveller is sure of a hospitable reception.

The staple crop of Pampanga is sugar, and I shall explain their organisation for its cultivation and manufacture.

In Luzon the land is usually cultivated under an arrangement known as Aparceria.

The conditions of Aparceria vary according to the locality, and to established custom, since on the land near a town a smaller share is given to the cultivator than on land near the forests, where if he were not satisfied he might commence to clear land for himself. Also the land near the towns is more valuable than that at a distance for various reasons.

The following is an example of the terms usual in Pampanga. The land-owner provides:

A. Cleared land ready for the plough.

B. Sugar-cane points for the first planting.

C. Sugar-mill, boiling-pans and the building for same.

D. Money advances to keep the cultivator and his family, and for taking off the crop.

E. Carts for carrying the cane to the mill.

The cultivator, or inquilino, provides:

1. His labour and that of his family for ploughing, planting and cultivating the cane and fencing the plantations.

2. The ploughs and implements of husbandry.

3. The cattle (water buffaloes) for the above labours and for working the mill if it is a cattle mill.

The money advanced to the cultivator by the land-owner is charged 20 per cent. per annum interest.

For a daily task of 9 pilones from cattle-mills or 10 pilones from steam-mills there are employed:

2 Labourers to cut cane at 25 cents and food .50 cents.

1 Carter at 25 cents and food .25 2 Mill attendants at 25 cents and food .50 Sugar boiler and fireman at 25 cents and food .75 1 Mega.s.s carrier at 25 cents and food .25 ------ Mexican dollars 2.25

Or 25 cents per pilon.

Sugar Crop.

The land-owner pays the men's wages, and the cultivator gives them three meals a day and cigars.

The sugar-moulds (pilones) cost about 12 cents each, and the cost is divided between the parties.

In making up the account, 6 per cent. per annum is charged on the value of the land, machinery and building.

The mola.s.ses which drains from the sugar belongs to the land-owner.

These pilones are supposed to contain 140 lbs. of sugar when filled. They are placed upon a small pot to allow the mola.s.ses to drain off. When delivered their weight may be from 112 to 120 lbs. according to the time they have been draining. This sugar polarises about 80 per cent. according to circ.u.mstances and requires to be treated at the farderias in Manila to bring it up to an even sample before it is exported. The sugar loaves are cut up, sorted, crushed, mixed with other sugars, sun-dried, and a certain quant.i.ty of sand added before being put into bags for export as Manila Sugar, usually No. 7 or No. 9 Dutch standard. It will be seen from the above figures how moderate the expenses are. Of course each land-owner has a number of cultivators, and often a number of mills.

Notwithstanding the low price of sugar which has prevailed for many years, the provinces of Pampanga has made money out of it as the handsome houses of the land-owners in all their towns testify.

The sugar crop in Pampanga has never quite reached a million pilones, but has exceeded nine hundred thousand, say from fifty to sixty thousand English tons. The cane is crushed in small steam or cattle mills having three horizontal rollers.

These mills are mostly made in Glasgow and have now in Pampanga entirely superseded the Chinese mills with vertical rollers of granite or the native mills with vertical rollers of hard wood. [26]

In former years I pointed out, in a report written for General Jovellar, what a great advantage it would be to Pampanga if the planters would abandon the use of pilones and make sugar suitable for direct export and so obviate the manipulation in the farderias at Manila.

They could make a sugar similar to that produced in Negros and known as Ilo-ilo.

Now that the Philippines have pa.s.sed into the hands of the United States, I do not doubt that central sugar factories will be established and will turn out centrifugal sugars polarizing 96 per cent. similar to the Cuban sugar.

Pampangos as Fishermen.

There are some Pampanga fishermen on the River Betis, at San Jose, and amongst the labyrinth of creeks and mangrove swamps forming the north-western sh.o.r.es of Manila Bay.

Their avocation is not dest.i.tute of danger, for these swamps are the home of the alligator. [27] Although they are not as large as some I have seen in the River Paraguay or on the River Daule, in Ecuador, they are quite large enough to seize a horse or a man. I was once visiting Fr. Enrique Garcia, the parish priest of Macabebe, when a native woman came in and presented him with a dollar to say a Ma.s.s in thanksgiving for the escape of her husband from death that morning. She told us that he was pushing a shrimp-net in shallow water when the buaya seized him by the shoulder. The fisherman, however, called upon his patron saint, and putting out his utmost strength, with the aid of Saint Peter, succeeded in extricating himself from the reptile's jaws and in beating him off. His shoulder, however, was badly lacerated by the alligator's teeth. It was lucky for him that he was in shallow water, for the alligator usually holds its prey under water and drowns it.

The Pampangos also fish on the Rio Grande, the Rio Chico, and in the Pinag de Candaba. This latter is an extensive swampy plain, partly under cultivation in the dry season, partly laid out as fish-ponds.

The Nipa palm grows in abundance in the delta of the Betis, and small colonies of half-savage people are settled on dry spots amongst these swamps engaged in collecting the juice or the leaves of this tree. The stems are punctured and the juice runs into small vessels made of cane. It is collected daily, poured into jars and carried in small canoes to the distillery where it is fermented and distilled.

The distilleries are constructed in a very primitive manner, and are worked by Chinese or Chinese half-breeds.

The produce is called Vino de Nipa, and is retailed in the native stalls and restaurants.

The leaves are doubled and sewn with rattan strips upon a small piece of bamboo, they are taken to market upon a platform laid across the gunwales of two canoes. This arrangement is called bangcas mancornadas, canoes yoked together. The nipa is sold by the thousand, and serves to thatch the native houses anywhere, except in certain parts of Manila and other towns where its use is forbidden on account of the great danger of its taking fire.

From circ.u.mstances that have come under my own observation, I believe it to be a fact that when trade in nipa thatch is dull, the canoe-men set fire to the native houses in the suburbs of Manila to make a market. I have noticed more than once that houses have commenced to burn from the upper part of the thatched roof where they could not have caught fire accidentally. The Province of Pampanga extends to the westward, as far as the crests of the Zambales mountains, and the Cordillera of Mabanga is included within its boundaries. There is but little cultivated land beyond the town of Porac to the westward. Here the Pampangos trade with the Negritos, who inhabit the Zambales range, getting from them jungle produce in exchange for rice, tobacco, sugar, and other articles. Occasionally the Negritos steal cattle from the Pampangos or at times murder one of them if a good opportunity presents itself.

Pampangos as Hunters.

The natives of this part of the province are good wood-men and hunters.

In addition to taking game by nets and ambuscade, some of them hunt the deer on ponies which are trained to run at full speed after the game, up or down hill, and to get near enough for the rider to throw or use his lance.

Being at Porac in 1879 with the late Major Deare, 74th Highlanders (now 2nd Batt. Highland Light Infantry), an enthusiastic sportsman, we saw two men who had practised this sport for years, and were told that their arms, ribs, legs and collar-bones had been broken over and over again. We saw them gallop down a rocky and precipitous descent after a deer at full speed.

We could only wonder that they were alive if that was a sample of their hunting. Their saddles were fitted with strong martingales and cruppers and with triple girths so that they could not shift. The saddles themselves were of the usual native pattern, like miniature Mexicans. The men were light weights.

N.B.--If any reader of this contemplates travelling in the Philippines, let him take a saddle with him. It should be as small as he could comfortably use, and light. The ponies are from twelve to thirteen hands high, but are remarkably strong and clever. I know from experience that a good one will carry fourteen stone over rough ground with safety.