Tagalog people

And they, too, have to assert their own self-determination within a region that victoriously won their self-determination, if I may.

Now, these settlers, as you call the Tagalogs, the Visayans, and the indigenous peoples, they have a say somehow because the law, the organic law that's now governing this process in this region will include the...

some seats within parliament reserved for them.

I think there are two each for the settlers, for religious leaders, for the indigenous peoples.

Then, as now, the Visayas occupied the central islands of the archipelago and some of the northern coast of Mindanao.

The Bikols, Tagalogs, and Pampangos were in the same parts of Luzon as we find them today.

The Ilocanos occupied the coastal plain facing the China Sea.

But since the arrival of the Spaniards, they have now expanded considerably, and their settlements are now numerous in Pangasinan, Nueva Vizcaya, and the valley of Cagayan.

I have brought with me handwriting with very good and correct lettering.

In Tigbaoan, I had in school a very small child who in three months' time learned, by copying from well-written letters that I sent him, to write enough better than I, and transcribed for me writings of importance very faithfully and without errors or mistakes.

Besides the Tagalogs, the Visayas, Pampangos, Pangasinans, and Ilokanos had alphabets, or more properly, syllabaries similar to this one.

Dr. Pardo de Tavera has gathered many data concerning them and shows that they were undoubtedly received by the Filipinos from a Sanskrit source.

"'I don't know.

Some days I think I could believe anything about this country.' "'Have you shown the book to anyone else, or told anyone what you make out of it?' no do not do so then that is all now i will keep the book he added putting the little brown volume inside his coat several days later the officer in charge of the quarters where the native prisoners were confined reported to the captain one of the prisoners keeps begging to be allowed to see you sir he said he says you told him he might go free shall i let him be brought up here yes send him up well said captain von tollig when the man appeared at headquarters and the orderly who had brought him had retired the little book seor you said i could have it back and go yes you may go i will have you sent safely through our lines but the book i have decided to keep the man's face grew ash-coloured with disappointment or anger but seor he protested you told me i know but i have changed my mind you can go if you wish without the book or not just as you choose then i will stay the tagalog said slowly adding a moment later my people will surely slay me if i go back to them without the book very well the captain called for the guard and the man was taken back to prison but later in the day an order was sent that he be released from confinement and put to work with some other captured natives about the camp during the next two or three weeks a stranger to tagalog methods of warfare might very reasonably have thought the war was ended so far as this island at least was concerned the natives seemed to have disappeared mysteriously even the men who had been longest in the service were puzzled to account for the sudden ceasing of the constant skirmishing which had been the rule before the picket lines were carried forward and the location of the camp followed from time to time as scouting parties returned to report the country clear of foes the advance would have been even more rapid except for the necessity of keeping communication open at the rear with the harbour where two american gunboats lay at anchor as a result one of the advances of the camp was pitched one night upon a broad plateau looking out upon the sea inland the ground rose to the thickly forest-clad slope of a mountain to which the american officers felt sure the tagalogs had finally retreated early in the evening when the heat of the day had passed a group of these officers were standing with captain von tollig in the centre of the camp examining the mountain slope with their glasses what did you say was the name of this place one of the officers asked a native deserter who had joined the american forces and at times had served as a guide to the expedition that is mount togonda he answered pointing to the hills before them and this swinging his hand around the plateau on which the camp's tents were pitched is la plaza del carabaos the captain's eyes met those of lieutenant smith la plaza del carabaos means the square of the water buffaloes as if with one thought the two men turned and looked out to sea the sun had set against the glowing western sky a huge rock at the plateau's farthest limit was outlined rough carved as the rock had been by the chisel of nature the likeness to a water buffalo's head was striking beyond the rock three islands lay in a line upon the sunset lighted water far out from the foot of the cliff the two men could hear the waves beating upon the sand this is an excellent place for a camp the captain said when he turned to his men again i think we shall find it best to stay here for some time Perhaps a month of respite from attack had made the sentries careless.

Perhaps it was only that the Tagalogs had spent the time in gathering strength.

No one can ever know just how that wicked slaughter of our soldiers in the campaign on that island did come about.

The Tagalogs swept down into the camp that night, as a hurricane might have blown the leaves of the mountain trees across the plateau.

and then were gone again leaving death and wounds worse than death behind them when our men had rallied and had come back across the battle-ground they found among the others the captain lying dead outside his tent a tagalog dagger lay beside the body and the uniform had been torn apart until the officer's bare breast showed the first full moon of the month shone down upon the dead man's white still face THE CAVE IN THE SIDE OF CORON a barong is a moro native's favourite weapon with one deft whirl and then a downward slash of the keen steel blade he can cleave the skull of an opponent from crown to teeth or cut an arm clean from the shoulder socket when i was sent with a squad of brave men from my company to reconnoitre from mount halcon in the island of mindoro and the force was ambushed the way i saw the men meet death will always make me hate amoro why i was spared then and bound instead of being killed like the men i could not imagine later i knew the moros had no business to be on mindoro anyway their home was in mindanao far to the south but three hundred years of spanish attempt to rule them had left them still an untamed people and the war between the two races had been endless each year when the south-west monsoons had blown the moro war proas had gone northward carrying murder and pillage wherever they had appeared when the spanish were not too much occupied elsewhere they fitted out retaliatory expeditions which left effects of little permanence that year the moros had found not spaniards but a small force of american troops sent south from manila and from them had cut off my little scouting squad it made no difference to them that we were of another nation they cared nothing for a change in rulers we were white and christians that was enough we were to be slain the leader of the moros was a tall old man with glittering eyes set in a gloomy face i watched him as i lay bound on the deck of one of the war for fearing attack i suppose soon after my capture the sails had been spread and the fleet of boats turned to the south feed him the chief had said when night came on and pointed to me with his foot i thought then i had been saved from death for slavery and deemed that the worst fate possible i did not know the moral nature on the afternoon of the fifth day out we passed buswanga and approached a small rocky island which i afterwards learned was so far as could be seen no human habitation was near and far to the south stretched the unbroken waters of the sulu sea the chief gave an order in the morotang and a black and yellow flag was run up to the masthead in response to the signal all the proas of the fleet joined us in a little bay at the end of the island and dropped anchor at one side of the bay it would be possible to land and climb from there to the top of the island from which everywhere else as far as i could see a sheer cliff came down three hundred feet to where the waves beat against the jagged rocks at its base the smaller boats which had been towed behind the larger craft were cast off and brought alongside the chief's i was lifted into one and rode to a place where we could land my feet had been untied but my hands were still fastened behind my back two moros grasped me by the arms and guided me between them they would not let me turn my head but i could hear the voices of men following us the chief led the way he did not speak or pause until we had reached the level summit of the island when he did speak it was in spanish which he had learned that i understood we were halted on the very edge of the precipice far down below the little fleet of war prowass floated lightly on the water the black and yellow signal still fluttering from the flag-ship i could see now that the men that had come up the path behind me had brought a quantity of ropes perhaps there were thirty men in all i wondered what they were going to do with me but had decided that any fate was better than to be a moro slave men of mindanao said the chief you know our errand you know how often men of our band have been captured by the white men of the north to lie in prisons there where death comes so slowly that a barong blow would be paradise the few that have crept back to us weak hollow-eyed and trembling have only come to show us what it meant to starve and then have died the sky is just and gives us once and again a white man to whom we may show that the prophet's words an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth are just give the white dog his due Two men grasped me and wound a stout rope, coil after coil about me from my neck to my feet, until I was as helpless as a swathed Egyptian mummy.

One end of another rope was fastened in a slip-noose about my body, and a dozen of the men, sitting well back from the edge of the cliff, and bracing themselves one against another, paid out the rope.

And, yes, still studying her face.

We're going to take up.

And it's just the Tagalogs imposing their own view of what society should be.

Interesting.

I mean, it's not inherently wrong necessarily.

The Anting-Anting of Captain Von Tollig.

There had been a battle between the American forces and the Tagalogs, and the natives have been driven back.

The stone church of Santa Maria, around which the engagement had been hottest, and far beyond which the native lines had now been driven, had been turned into a hospital for the wounded Tagalogs left by their comrades on the field.

Beneath a broad thatched shed behind the church lay the bodies of the dead, stiff and still under the coverings of coconut fiber cloth thrown hastily over them.

The light of a full tropic moon threw the shadow of the roof over them like a soft brown velvet pall.

What I have translated was scattered over many pages, with disconnected signs and characters written in between.

The book was evidently intended to be looked upon as a mystic talisman, probably that the natives on this account might be sure to take good care of it.

All of the Tagalogs who can procure them carry these anting-anting.

Although its capital is distant but 120 miles from Manila, Mindoro is one of the least known islands in the archipelago.

Its pestiferous climate and the unsavory reputation of the renegade Tagalogs who inhabit its coasts having combined to discourage exploration, while there has been little to encourage exploration on the part of the Spanish, for the Mangyans have nothing to steal and could not well be taxed.

Mindoro was formerly known as the Granary of the Philippines on account of the enormous rice crops raised in the fertile lowlands to the east and west of its central mountain chain.

But the Mohammedan pirates from the south preyed upon its civilized inhabitants, decimating the population.

Oh, fuck off.

Tagalogs gave fools to the greatest squad on the planet.

Flash forward 157 years later.

Rutgers about to shit on all the haters.

The anting-anting of Captain Von Tollig.

There had been a battle between the American forces and the Tagalogs, and the natives have been driven back.

The stone church of Santa Maria, around which the engagement had been hottest and far beyond which the native lines had now been driven, had been turned into a hospital for the wounded Tagalogs left by their comrades on the field.

Beneath a broad thatched shed behind the church lay the bodies of the dead, stiff and still under the coverings of coconut fiber cloth thrown hastily over them.

The light of a full tropic moon threw the shadow of the roof over them like a soft brown velvet pall.

What I have translated was scattered over many pages, with disconnected signs and characters written in between.

The book was evidently intended to be looked upon as a mystic talisman, probably that the natives on this account might be sure to take good care of it.

All of the Tagalogs who can procure them carry these anting-anting.