The Philippine journal of science. [Vol. 57, no. 1]

THE DUMAGATS OF FAMY

By GENEROSO S. MACEDA
Of the National Museum Division, Bureau of Science, Manila
FIVE PLATES
INTRODUCTION
Investigations conducted by many authorities on the Philippine people have shown that the present civilized peoples of the
Philippines, those now called Filipinos, are not really native to
the Islands. The ancestors of the present Filipinos came from
across the seas and settled in the Islands. These ancestors were
in a rather high stage of civilization, and found in their new
home an aboriginal people in the lowest stage of culture.1 Naturally, the new-comers had the upper hand, and upon making
their homes drove the aborigines from the shores and rivers
that had been their homes into the interior.2
Hundreds of years elapsed, during which the Chinese came in
junks and traded occasionally with the new-comers.3 In 1521
the Spaniards discovered the Philippines and claimed them in
the name of the King of Spain. The civilization they found had
already risen to a comparatively high stage. The Malays had
brought with them the art of writing from across the sea, and
now had written records and documents. 'The missionaries,
however, in their excessive zeal to implant the Christian faith
among them, destroyed such writings as traces of paganism.4
As time passed, the aborigines were driven into the mountains by the growing population of the new-comers thriving
under Spanish rule and culture. From that time to the present,
these aborigines have dwelt in the mountains or along desolate
Barrows, David P., History of the Philippines 7-11.
2Fernandez, L. H., A Brief History of the Philippines 2.
3Fernandez, L. H., op. cit. 89-90; Craig, Austin, The Former Philippines
Thru Foreign Eyes 144-145; Barrows, David P., op. cit. 33.
Craig and Benitez, Philippine Progress Prior to 1898, 77.
235