The people of the Philippines, their religious progress and preparation for spiritual leadership in the Far East,

424 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES

women are so terrified by the aswang that many of them
become nervous, their appetites fail, and they cannot sleep,
with the result that they lose flesh and give birth to small weak
babies. The dissipation of this pernicious superstition is a
national service. Women are also surrounded by taboos which
interfere with the proper nurture and care of their children.
For example it is widely believed that a woman should not
nurse her child when she is cooking or ironing, since it is supposed that her milk is altered by the heat. If she has not
nursed her baby for several hours, her milk is supposed to be
unfit for food and must be removed from her breast before
the baby may nurse. When a child is sick, saliva is rubbed
over all of its body, a practice which is particularly pernicious
if the saliva happen to come from the mouth of a tubercular
person.
In a brilliant article called "Saints, Superstition and Sanitation," Mr. E. K. Higdon of Manila contends that "the
Catholic Church, instead of dispelling the ignorance which
makes superstition possible, has for four centuries drilled into
the minds of the people a type of teaching calculated to increase
their belief in, their fear of, and their dependence upon, spirits,
good and bad." He asserts that "there is a direct connection
between saint-worship as practiced here, and the fact that
seventy per cent of the people born in the Philippine Islands
die before they are twenty-one years of age." The people,
he believes, put faith in the Roman Catholic novenas, and
fail to take proper sanitary or medical precautions. These
novenas, think Dr. Pardo T. H. Tavera 1 and Mr. Higdon, are
partly to blame for the fact that a third of the Filipino babies
die before they are a year old. "Why should a woman be
very much concerned about the care of her newborn baby?
Saint Vincent Ferrer has done wonders for mothers in years
gone by; he will continue to do them if he is given a chance.
For example this is recorded in his novena:
"'A woman gave birth to a piece of meat without a human
aspect. It was offered to Saint Vicente accompanied by a
mass. At the epistle, it had a head; at the gospel, it had
1"Legacy of Ignorantism,' Dr. P. T. H. Tavera, pp. 25 ff.