Rice Cultivation In Bicol

The rice harvest is effected in a peculiar manner.

The rice which is soonest ripe is cut for 10%. The labourer receives for his toil the tenth bundle for himself.

At this time of year, rice is very scarce, lack is imminent, and labour reasonable.

The more fields, however, that ripen, the higher become the reapers’ wages, rising to 20-50%.

The Executive sometimes considers it to be necessary to force the people to the harvest by corporal punishment and imprisonment, in order to prevent a large portion of the crop from rotting on the stalk.

Nevertheless, in very fruitful years, a part of the harvest is lost. The rice is cut halm by halm (as in Rice Knife in Java) with a peculiarly formed knife. Without it, they use the sharp-edged flap of a mussel* found in the ditches of the rice-fields, which one has only to stoop to pick up.

A quiñon of the best rice land is worth from 60 to 100 dollars (8-13 thalers per acre).

Rice fields on rising grounds are dearest, as they:

• are not exposed to devastating floods as are those in the plain
• may be treated so as to insure the ripening of the fruit at the time when the highest price is to be obtained

A ganta of rice is sufficient to plant 4 topones (1 topon=1 loan). From this, 100 manojos (bundles) are gathered. Each of which yields half a ganta of rice.

The old ganta of Nága, however, is equal to a modern ganta and a half. The produce may be calculated at 75 cabanes per quiñon, about 93 bushels per acre.*

In books, 250 cabanes are usually stated to be the average produce of a quiñon. But that is an exaggeration.

The fertility of the fields certainly varies very much. But, when it is considered that the land in the Philippines is never manured, but depends, for the maintenance of its vitality, exclusively upon the overflowing of the mud wbich is washed down from the mountains, it may be believed that the first numbers better express the true average.

• Probably the Anodonta Purpurea, according to V. Martens.

In Java, the harvest in many provinces amounts to only 50 cabanes per quiñon. Some have 3 times this amount.

In China, with the most careful culture and abundant manure, it amounts to 180 cabanes. †

Besides rice, they cultivate the camote (sweet potatoe, Convolvulus batatas).

This flourishes like a weed. It is sometimes planted to eradicate the weeds from soil intended for coffee or-cacao.

It spreads out into a thick carpet, and is an inexhaustible storehouse to its owner, who, the whole year through, can supply his wants from his field.

Gabi (Caladium), Ubi (Dioscorea), maize, and other kinds of grain, are likewise cultivated.

After the rice harvest, the buffaloes, horses, and bullocks, are allowed to graze on the fields.

During the rice culture, they remain in the gogonales—cane-fields which arise in places once cultivated for mountain-rice and afterwards abandoned. [Gogo is the name of a cane 7 to 8 feet high, Saccharum sp.).

Transport then is almost impossible, because during the rainy season the roads are impassable, and the cattle find nothing to eat.

The native does not feed his beast, but allows it to perish from hunger when it cannot support itself.

In the wet season of the year, a buffalo frequently falls down from starvation while drawing a cart.

The costs are:

The native horses are not esteemed at Manila, because they have no stamina.

The bad water, the bad hay, and the great heat of the place at once point out the reason ; otherwise it would be profitable to export horses in favourable seasons to Manila, where they would fetch twice their value.

• 1 ganta = 3 litres. 1 quiñon = 100 loànes = 2.79495 hectares = 6.89 acres. 1 cabán = 25 gantas.

† Scherzer, “ Miscellaneous Information."

Horses in the Philippines

According to Morga, there were neither horses nor asses on the island until the Spaniards imported them from China and New Spain.*

They were at first small and vicious. Horses were imported also from Japan, “not swift but powerful, with large heads and thick manes, looking like Friesland horses ; ” † The breed improved rapidly.

Those born in the country, mostly cross-breeds, drive well.

Black cattle are generally in the hands of a few individuals. Some of them in Camarines possess as many as 3,000 head. But they are hardly saleable in the province, although they have been exported profitably for some years past to Manila.

The black cattle of the province are small but nutritious. They are never employed for labour, and the cows are not milked.

The natives generally feed on fish, crabs, mussels, and wild herbs instead of rice. They prefer the flesh of the buffalo to that of the ox. But they eat it only on feast-days.

The old race of sheep, imported by the Spaniards previous to this century, still flourishes and is easily propagated. Those occasionally brought from Shanghai and Australia are considered to be deficient in endurance, unfruitful, and generally short-lived.

• More than one hundred years later, Father Taillandier writes :-“ The Spaniards have brought cows, horses, and sheep from America ; but these animals cannot live there on account of the dampness and inundations."- Letters from Father Taillandier to Father Willard.]

† At the present time the Chinese horses are plump, large-headed, hairy, and with bushy tails and manes. The Japanese horses were elegant and enduring, similar to the Arabian. Good Manila horses are of the latter type, and are much prized by the Europeans in Chinese sea-port towns.

Sheep

Mutton is procurable every day in Manila.

In the interior, however, at least in the eastern provinces, very rarely. Although the rearing of sheep might there be carried on without difficulty, and in many places most profitably.

The people are too idle to take care of the young lambs, which they complain are torn to pieces by the dogs when they wander about free.

The sheep appear to have been acclimatized with difficulty.

Morga says that they were brought several times from New Spain, but did not multiply. So in his time, this kind of domestic animal did not exist.

Pigs

Pork is eaten by wealthy Europeans only when the hog has been brought up from the litter at home.

In order to prevent its wandering away, it is usually enclosed in a widemeshed, cylindrical hamper of bamboo, upon filling which it is slaughtered.

The native hogs are too nauseous for food, the animals maintaining themselves almost entirely on human excrement.

Crawford observes that the names of all the domestic animals in the Philippines belong to foreign languages.

Those of the dog, swine, goat, buffalo, cat, even of the fowl and the duck, are Malay or Javanese.

Those of the horse, ox, and sheep, are Spanish.

Until these animals were first imported from Malay, the aborigines were less fortunate in this respect than the Americans, who at least had the alpaca, llama, and vicuña.

The names likewise of most of the cultivated plants, such as rice, yams, sugar-cane, cacao and indigo, are Malay, as well as those for silver, copper, and tin.

Of the words relating to commerce, 1/3 is Malay to which belong most of the terms used in trades, as well as the denominations for weights and measures.

The calendar so far as it exists,—and for numbers, besides the words for writing, reading, speaking, and narrative.

On the other hand, only a small number of terms which refer to war are borrowed from the Malay.

Referring to the degree of civilisation which the Philippines possessed previous to their intercourse with the Malays, Crawford concludes from the purely domestic words that they cultivated no corn, their vegetable food consisting of batata and banana.

They had not a single domestic animal.

They were acquainted with iron and gold, but with no other metal, and were clothed in stuffs of cotton and alpaca, woven by themselves.

They had invented a phonetic alphabet.

Their religion consisted in the belief in good and evil spirits and witches, in circumcision, and in divination by the stars.

They therefore were superior to the inhabitants of the South Sea, inasmuch as they possessed gold, iron, and woven fabrics, and inferior to them in that they had neither dog, pig, nor fowl.

The above sketch of pre-Christian culture has been put together only with the help of defective linguistic sources, comparing it with the present.

Assuming it is true, then the Philippines is indebted to the Spaniards for their current considerable progress.

The Spaniards have imported the horse, the bullock, and the sheep, maize, coffee, sugar-cane, cacao, sesame, tobacco, indigo, many fruits, and probably the batata, which they met with in Mexico under the name of camotli.*

From this circumstance the term camote, universal in the Philippines, appears to have had its origin. Crawford wrongly considers it a native term.

According to Dr. Witmack, recent opinion is that the batata is indigenous both to America and India as it has 2 names in Sanskrit, sharkarakanda and ruktaloo.

With the exception of embroidery, the natives have made but little progress in industries, in the weaving and the plaiting of mats. The handicrafts are entirely carried on by the Chinese.

• Compare Hernandez, “ Opera Omnia”; Torquemada, “ Monarchia Indica."

The exports consist of rice and abaca.

The province exports about twice as much rice as it consumes. A large quantity of it goes to Albáy which produces only abaca as it is less adapted for the cultivation of rice.

A fair share goes to North Camarínes, wbich is very mountainous, and little fertile.

The rice can hardly be shipped to Manila, as there is no high road to the south side of the province, near to the principal town.

The transport by water from the north side, and the eastern portion of Luzon would greatly increase its price.

The imports are confined to the little that is imported by Chinese traders.

The traders are almost all Chinese, who alone possess shops in which clothing materials and woollen stuffs, partly of native and partly of European manufacture, women’s embroidered slippers, and counterfeit jewellery, may be obtained.

The whole amount of capital invested in these shops certainly does not exceed 200,000 dollars.

In the remaining pueblos of Camarines, there are no Chinese merchants. Consequently, the inhabitants are obliged to get their supplies from Nága.

The land belongs to the State, but is let to any one who will build on it.

The usufruct passes to the children. It ceases only when the land remains unemployed for 2 whole years. Afterwards, it is competent for the Executive to dispose of it to another person.

Philippine Houses

Every family possesses its own house. The young husband generally builds with the assistance of his friends.

In many places, it does not cost more than 4-5 dollars. He can, if necessary, build it himself free of expense, with the simple aid of the wood knife (bolo), and of the materials to his hand, bamboo, Spanish cane, and palm-leaves.

These houses are always built on piles on account of the humidity of the soil. It often consist of a single shed, which serves for all the uses of a dwelling, and are the cause of great laxity and of foul habits.

The whole family sleeps there in common. Every passenger is a welcome guest.

A fine house of boards for the family of a Cabeza perhaps costs nearly 100 dollars. The possessions of such a family in stock, furniture, ornaments, &c. (of which they are obliged to furnish an annual inventory), would range in value between 100-1,000 dollars.

Some reach even as much as 10,000, while the richest family of the whole province is assessed at 40,000 dollars.

In general, every pueblo supplies its own necessaries, and produces little more.

To the indolent native, especially of the eastern provinces, the village in which he was born is the world. He leaves it only under the most pressing circumstances.

Were it otherwise even, the strictness of the poll-tax would place great obstacles in the way of gratifying the desire for travel, generated by that oppressive impost.

The native eats 3 times a day—about 7 A.M., 12, and at 7 or 8 in the evening.

Those engaged in severe labour consume at each meal a chupa of rice. The common people, half a chupa at breakfast, one at mid-day, and half again in the evening, altogether two chupas.

Each family reaps its own supply of rice, and preserves it in barns, or buys it winnowed at the market. In the latter case purchasing only the quantity for one day or for the individual meals.

The average retail price is 3 cuartos for 2 chupas (14 chupas del Rey for 1 real).

To free it from the husk, the quantity for each single meal is rubbed in a mortar by the women.

This is in accordance with ancient custom. But it is also due to the fear lest, otherwise, the store should be too quickly consumed.

The rice, however, is but half cooked ; and it would seem that this occurs in all places where it constitutes an essential part of the sustenance of the people, as may be seen, indeed, in Spain and Italy. Salt and much Spanish pepper (capsicum) are eaten as condiments;

The latter, originally imported from America, growing all round the houses.

To the common cooking-salt the natives prefer a so-called rock-salt, which they obtain by evaporation from sea-water previously filtered through ashes; and of which one chinanta (12lbs. German) costs about 2 reals. The consumption of salt is extremely small.

The luxuries of the natives are buyo* and cigars. A cigar costs 1 cuarto. A buyo much less.

Cigars are rarely smoked, but are cut up into pieces, and chewed with the buyo.

The women also chew buyo and tobacco, but, as a rule, very moderately.

But they do not also stain their teeth black, like the Malays.

The young and pretty adorn themselves assiduously with veils made of the areca-nut tree, whose stiff and closely packed parallel fibres, when cut crosswise, form excellent toothbrushes.

They bathe several times daily, and surpass the majority of Europeans in cleanliness.

Every native, above all things, keeps a fighting-cock. Eeven when he has nothing to eat, he finds money for cock-fighting.