The shutters of the house across the street were closed. Under the balcony, near where the road was strewn with scarlet blossoms from the fire-tree, carpenters were hammering and sawing busily. Shaped by the antiquated bandsaw and the bolos, a rude coffin gradually assumed its grim proportions. A group of schoolboys, drawn by curiosity, looked on indifferently while keeping up a desultory game of tag. Upstairs, the women, dressed in the black veils of mourning, shuffling noiselessly around, were burning candles at the “Queen of Heaven’s” shrine. They murmured prayers mechanically—not without a certain reverence and awe—to usher the departing soul into the land beyond. A smoky wall-lamp, glimmering near the door, illuminated the black crucifix above the bed. In the dim candle-light vague shadows danced on the white walls. [164]
The priest had heard the last confession of José Pilar. Not that José had been one of the padre’s friends. In fact, he was suspected during the past year of having been a secret agent of Aglipay, the self-consecrated Bishop of Manila, and the target of the accusation and invective that the Church of Rome is so proficient in. The recent rulings of the order had abolished the confession fee; but the long road was uncertain and the dangers great. The padre rubbed his hands as he went out. He had received a “voluntary” contribution for his services, with the assurance that a series of masses would be ordered by the widow of José Pilar. Through the stiff palms, the cold sea, gray as steel, washed the far-distant shores of lonely islands, and the red glow of the setting sun had died away.
The padre thought about the plump goats and the chickens in the new stockade. The simple people brought their chickens to the convent, denying themselves all but the fish and rice. The mothers weaned their puny brats on rice; they stuffed them with it till their swollen paunches made a grotesque contrast with their skinny legs. [165]Childbirth is one of the minor incidents of Filipinia. Where is the house that doesn’t swarm with babies, like the celebrated residence of the old woman in the shoe? When one of these sparrows falls, the little song that dies is never missed.
How many times had Father Cipriano climbed the rickety ladder to the nipa dwellings, entering the closed room where the patient lay upon the floor! A gaping crowd of yokels stood around, while the old woman faithfully kneaded the abdomen. The native medicaster, having placed the green leaves on the patient’s temples, would be brewing a concoction of emollient simples. The open shirt disclosed upon the patient’s breast the amulet which had been blessed by Padre Cipriano, and was stamped with a small figure of a saint. The holy father smiled as he reflected how they spent their last cent for the funeral ceremonies, while the doctor’s fee would be about a dozen eggs. And even now that death had come to one not quite so ignorant and simple as the rest, the funeral celebrations would be but the more elaborate. Not every one who could afford a coffin [166]in Malingasag! And as the padre crossed the plaza he lighted a cigarette.
It was with feelings of annoyance that he saw before the side door of the church a tiny litter cheaply decorated with bright paper and red cloth. The yellow candles threw a fitful light over the little image on the bier. It was the image of a child, a thing of wax, clothed in a white dress, with a tinsel crown upon its head. One of the sacristans was drumming a tattoo upon the bells. The padre motioned him to discontinue. He would have his gin-and-water first, and then devotions, lasting twenty minutes. After devotions he could easily dispose of the small child. So the two humble women waited in patience at the door, and the cheap candles sputtered and went out before the good priest could find time to hurry through the unimportant funeral services that meant to him only a dollar or two at best in the depreciated silver currency. Already night was overshadowing the palm-groves as the pathetic little group filed out and trudged across the rice-pads toward the cemetery.
The Filipinos regard the American doctors [167]with suspicion. When a snakebite can be cured by a burnt piece of carabao horn, or when the leaves or bits of paper stuck upon the temple will relieve the fever or the dysentery, what is the use of drugs and medicines and things that people do not understand? Once, out of the kindness of his heart, an army doctor that I knew, prescribed a valuable ointment for a child afflicted by a running sore. The child was in a terrible condition, as the sore had eaten away the flesh and bone, leaving a large hole under the lower lip through which the roots of the teeth were all exposed. The parents had not washed the child for weeks. They actually believed that bathing was injurious when one was sick. The doctor, giving them directions how to use the medicine, asked them, as an experiment, what fee he might expect. He knew well that if the priest had asked this question, they would eagerly have offered everything they had. So he was not surprised when they replied that they were very poor, and that they did not think the service was worth anything. The doctor turned them away good naturedly, but they returned the next day with the medicine, reporting [168]that undoubtedly it was no good, because, forsooth, the child had cried when they applied it! As a peace-offering they brought a dozen miserable bananas.
Slinging a tablet around his neck, a “valuable remedy against the pest,” the Filipino thinks that he is reasonably secure against disease, and that if he becomes afflicted, it is the result of some transgression against heaven. I happened to receive a startling proof, however, of its efficacy when the padre’s house-boy, rather a bright young fellow, made me a present of his “remedy” and died the next day of cholera. Still I have seen the “anting-anting,” which is supposed to render the wearer bullet-proof, pierced with the balls of the Krag-Jorgensen and stained with blood. Although the Visayans show considerable sympathy toward one when he is sick, the native dentist cutting out the tooth with a dull knife, we would consider almost too barbarous to practice in America. The Igorrotes have a way of driving out the fever with a slow fire; but between this Spartan method and Visayan ignorance the choice is difficult. No wonder that the people drop off with [169]surprising suddenness. Your laundryman or baker fails to come around some morning, and you ask one of your neighbors where he is. The neighbor, shifting his wad of buya to the other cheek, will gradually wake up and answer something ending in “ambut.” “Ambut” is a convenient word for the Visayan, as it means “don’t know,” and even if he is informed, the Filipino often is too lazy or indifferent to explain. You finally discover some one more accommodating who replies: “Why, haven’t you heard? He died the other day.”
Sulkiness, one of the characteristics of the girls and boys, develops into surliness in men and billingsgate in women. And I have no doubt that little Diega, the sulkiest and prettiest of the Visayan beauties, in a few years will be gambling at the cock-fights, smoking cigars, and losing her money every Sunday afternoon at Mariana’s monte game. Vulgarity with them goes down as wit, and the Visayan women make a fine art of profanity. It is always the woman in a family quarrel who is most in evidence. And even the delicate Adela when the infant Richard fell downstairs [170]the other day, cried, “Mother of God!” which she considered to be more appropriate than “Jesus, Marie, Josep!”
On entering one of the common houses, you would be astonished at the pitiable lack of furnishings. The floor is made of slats of split bamboo, tied down with strips of cane. The walls are simply the dried nipa branches, fastened down with bamboo laths. The only pictures on the walls are the cheap prints of saints, the “Lady of the Rosary,” or illustrations clipped together with the reading matter from some stray American magazine. The picture of a certain popular shoe manufacturer is sometimes given the place of honor near the crucifix. If any attempt at decoration has been made, the lack of taste of the Visayans is at once apparent. For the ancient fly-specked chromo of the “Prospect of Madrid” is as artistic in their eyes as though the advertisement of a certain cracker factory did not adorn the margin. The undressed pillars that support the house, run through the floor. The nipa shutters that protect the windows are propped open, making heavy awnings, and permitting a free circulation [171]of the breeze. There are no ceilings in these houses, and the entire framework of the roof is visible. A cheap red curtain, trimmed with lace, is draped before the entrance to the sleeping-room. While in the better frame-constructed residences an old Spanish tester bed with a cane bottom may be seen in this apartment, here only the straw mats and the cotton bolsters are to be found. A basket hanging from a bamboo spring serves as a cradle for the baby, but it is a pretty lucky baby that indulges in this luxury, as most of the children, spreading the mats upon the floor at night, pillow their heads upon the bolsters, ten in a row, and go to sleep. A marble-topped table and a few chairs, formally arranged as though in preparation for a conclave, are the features of the larger homes; but generally the furniture consists of a long bench, a wooden table, and a camphorwood box, which contains the family treasures, and the key to which the woman of the house wears in her belt—a symbol of authority.
On climbing the outside stairway to the living-rooms you find your passage blocked by a small fence. In trying to step over this [172]you nearly crush a naked baby, and a yellow dog snaps venomously at your heels. You enter the main room, where the pony-sa............