Negrillos or Negritos

(Spanish, diminutive of Negroes) is the name given by the Spaniards to certain Negro-like tribes inhabiting the interior of some of the Philippine Islands, and differing essentially both in features and manners from the Malay inhabitants of the Eastern archipelago. Among the planters and villagers of the plains they bear the name of Itas or Ajetas (pronounced Abetus). They are also called by the Spaniards Negritos del Monte, from their inhabiting the mountainous districts for the most part; and one of the islands where they are most numerous bears the name of Isla de los Negros. These Negritos are also known by the names Aeta, Aigta, Ite, Inapta, and Igolote or Igorote. They bear a very strong resemblance to the Negroes of Guinea, but are much smaller in size, averaging in height not more than four feet eight inches, whence their appellation. They are described as a short, small, but well-made and active people, the lower part of the face projecting like that of the African Negroes, the hair either woolly or frizzled, and the complexion exceedingly dark, but not quite so black as that of the Negroes. The Spaniards describe them as small, more slightly built, less black, and less ugly than the Negroes — Menos Negros y menos feos. All writers concur in speaking of them as sunk in the lowest depths of savagedom, wandering in the woods and mountains, without any fixed dwellings, and with only a strip of bark to cover their nakedness; sleeping in the branches of the trees, or among the ashes of the fires at which they had cooked their food. Their only weapons are the bow and arrow; and they live upon roots, wild fruits, and any sort of animals that they can surprise in their haunts or conquer in the chase. By the Malays they are despised and hated; and the buffalo-hunters in the woods, when they meet with them, do not scruple to shoot them down like wild beasts or game. "It has not come to my knowledge," says Mallat, "that a family of these Negroes ever took up their abode in a village. If the Mohammedan inhabitants make slaves of them, they will rather submit to be beaten to death than undergo any bodily fatigue; and it is impossible, either by force or persuasion, to bring them to labor... Prompted by an irresistible instinct to return to the place of their birth, they prefer a savage life to all the charms of civilization. It has occurred that individuals, who have taken Negritos during their infancy, and made sacrifices to give them an education, have found themselves suddenly abandoned by them" (2:95). The same writer, an ecclesiastic, speaks of them as gentle and inoffensive in their manners, whenever he himself came in contact with them; and although informed that some of them were cannibals, he was not inclined to believe the report. Dr. Carl Scherzer, the historian of the circumnavigation of the Novara, when at Manilla, had an opportunity of seeing a Negrita girl whom he thus describes: "This was a girl of about twelve or fourteen years of age, of dwarf-like figure, with woolly hair, broad nostrils, but without the dark skin and wide everted lips which characterize the Negro type. This pleasing-looking, symmetrically-formed girl had been brought up in the house of a Spaniard, apparently with the pious object of rescuing her soul from heathenism. The poor little Negrilla hardly understood her own mother-tongue, besides a very little Tagal, so that we had considerable difficulty in understanding each other." According to Spanish statements, the Negritos are found only in five of the Philippine Islands, viz. Luzon, Mindoro, Panay, Negros, and Mindanao, and are estimated at about 25,000 souls. A few exist, however, in the interior of some of the other islands in the Eastern archipelago; and they are scattered also, though in small numbers, through certain islands of Polynesia. They are altogether an island people, and are hence treated of by Prichard under the designation of Pelagian Negroes. By Dr. Pickering they are regarded as a distinct race, resembling the Papuan, but differing from it in the diminutive stature, the general absence of a beard, the projecting of the lower part of the face or the inclined profile, and the exaggerated Negro features. The hair, also, is more woolly than that of the Papuans, though far from equalling that of the Negroes in knotty closeness. By Latham the Negritos are classified under the subdivision of "Oceanic Mongolidae, C," which subdivision is further modified by him into the designation of "Amphinesians" and "Kelaenonesians." Muller, in his Allgemeine Ethnographie (Vienna, 1873), classifies them among the Papuans of the pure type, but Wallace considers them a totally distinct race, and, connecting them with the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, is of opinion that they are probably of Asiatic rather than of Polynesian origin; and Peschel, in his Volkerkunde (2d ed. Leipsic, 1875), prefers to call them Asiatic Papuans, in distinction from Australian Papuans. The Negritos out of the Philippine Islands are found for the most part in the islands embraced under the latter designation, as New Guinea, New Ireland, Solomon's Isles, Louisiade, New Caledonia, and Tasmania or Van Diemen's Land. Except in the last-mentioned island, however, the Negritos, strictly speaking — that is, the blackish people with woolly hair — do not preponderate over the other native tribes less strongly marked with Negro features; while in Tasmania itself the race has almost entirely disappeared, amounting at present to not more than two or three dozen souls. Dr. Pickering is of opinion that "the Negrito race once occupied more space than it does at this time, and that it has in many instances preceded the dissemination of other races." We conclude with a description of a Negrito native of Erromango (the island where the missionary Williams was murdered), supplied to Dr. Pickering by Horatio Hales, his associate in the United States exploring expedition. "He was about five feet high," says Mr. Hales, "slender and long limbed; he had close woolly hair, and retreating arched forehead, short and scanty eyebrows, and small snub nose, thick lips (especially the upper), a retreating chin, and that projection of the jaws and lower part of the face which is one of the distinctive characteristics of the Negro race... Placed in a crowd of African blacks, there was nothing about him by which he could have been distinguished from the rest." The Negritos have no religion, and adore no star. It appears, however, that they have transmitted to the Sanguianes (a brown race inhabiting the neighborhood), or have learned from the latter, the practice of worshipping for a day a rock or the trunk of a tree in which they find a resemblance to some animal or other. Then they leave it, and think no more about idols until they meet with some other fantastical form, which becomes a new object of an equally frivolous worship. Living in a state altogether primitive, these savages possess no instruments of music; and their language, which resembles the chirruping of birds, contains only a few words incredibly difficult of acquisition by the stranger who tries to learn them. They are faithful in marriage, and have only one wife. When a young man has made his choice, his friends or parents ask the consent of the girl. It is never refused. The day is chosen, and in the morning, before sunrise, the girl is sent into the forest, where she hides herself, or not, according to her inclination towards her suitor. An hour afterwards the young man is sent to seek her; and if he has the good luck to find her, and bring her back to her friends before sunset, the marriage is consummated, and she is his wife forever. But if, on the contrary, he returns without her, he must give up all further claim. Old age is very much respected among the Negritos, and it is always one of the eldest who governs their assemblies. All the savages of this race live in great families of sixty or eights, and stray in the forests without any fixed residence. They hold the dead in great veneration. For several years they resort to their graves for the purpose of depositing a little tobacco and betel upon them. The bow and arrows of the deceased are suspended over his grave on the day of interment, and, according to their belief, he emerges every night from the grave to go hunting. They do not always wait for the death of the afflicted before burying them. Immediately after the body has been deposited in the grave it becomes necessary, according to their usages, that the death should be avenged. The hunters of the tribe go out with their lances and arrows to kill the first living creature they meet with, whether a man, a stag, a wild hog, or a buffalo. When on a journey in search of a victim, they take the precaution of breaking off the young shoots of the shrubs they pass by, leaving the ends hanging in the direction of their route, in order to warn neighbors and travellers to avoid the path they are taking in search of a man or a beast to be offered up; for if one of their own people fall into their hands, even he is sacrificed as the expiatory victim. See Mallat, Les Philippines, etc. (Paris, 1846, 2 volumes, 8vo), 2:94 sq.; De la Gironiere, Vingt Annees aux Philippines (Paris, 1853), page 294 sq.; Earl, Native Races of the Indian Archipelago (Lond. 1853), chapters 7, 8; Semper, Die Philippinen u. ihre Bewohner (Wirzburg, 1869).