Abstract
THE interest of the Philippine Islands to the ethnographer lies in the fact that they are the largest of the possessions of the United States, and the only one of importance in the Eastern hemisphere; that they form a considerable and growing nationality; and that they display in an unusually complete manner the stratification of races and cultures. Three types of race can be identified in the present population, and these may be arranged in the probable order of their arrival—the Negritos of the interior, a short, black people with an elementary type of religion and culture; the Indonesians, of the Mongoloid family, but presenting fewer specific Mongoloid features than the third race, the Malayans, occupying the coastal areas. As regards culture,, the remarkable fact is the predominance of Indian influence as compared with that of China, which provided little more than certain manufactured products. India did not furnish the Filipinos with a definitely crystallised religious cult, or, if so, this cult had already disappeared before the Europeans appeared on the scene. But there came from the Indian races, probably by Malay intervention, a mass of religious practices, ideas, and names, a considerable body of Sanskrit words, a system of writing, the art of metallurgy, a vast amount of mechanical and industrial knowledge, and unquestionably a much higher degree of civilisation than their predecessors had acquired. These facts are clearly brought out in the present handbook, which provides in small space much information, and is furnished with good maps and illustration.
Peoples of the Philippines.
Prof.
A. L.
Kroeber
By. (American Museum of Natural History: Handbook Series No. 8.) Pp. 224. (New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1919.)
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Peoples of the Philippines . Nature 105, 420 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105420c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105420c0