The Coming of the Negritos. Ages after the disappearance of the "Dawn Man", the Negritos from the Asian mainland peopled the Philippines. They came about 25,000 years ago walking dry-shod through Malay Peninsula. Borneo, and the land bridges. Centuries after their arrival, the huge glaciers of ice melted and the increased volume of water raised the level of the seas and submerged the land bridges. The Philippines was thus cut off from the Asian mainland. The Negritos lived permanently in the archipelago and became the first inhabitants.
The Negritos are among the smallest peoples on earth. They are below five feet in height, with black skin, dark kinky hair round black eyes, and flat noses. Because of their black color and short stature, they were called Negritos (little black people) by the Spanish colonizers. In the Philippines they are known as Aeta, Ati, or Ita.
The Negritos were a primitive people with a culture belonging to the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic). They wandered in the forests and lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild fruits and roots. Their homes were temporary sheds made of jungle leaves and branches of trees. They wore little clothing. They had no community in life, hence they developed no government, writing, literature, arts, and sciences. They possessed the crudest kind of religion which was a belief in fetishes. They made fire by rubbing two dry sticks together to give them warmth. They had no pottery and never cooked their food. However, they were among they were among the world's best archers, being skilled in the use of the bow and arrow.
The Indonesians, First Sea-Immigrants. After the submergence of the land bridges, another Asian people migrated to the Philippines. They were the maritime Indonesians, who belonged to the Mongoloid race with Caucasian affinities. They came in boats, being the first immigrants to reach the Philippines by sea. Unlike the Negritos, they were a tall people, with height ranging from 5 feet 6 inches to 6 feet 2 inches.
It is said that two waves of Indonesia migration reached the Philippines. The first wave came about 3000 B.C.; the second wave about 1000 B.C. The Indonesians who came in the first migratory wave were tall in stature, slender in physique, and light in complexion. Those in the second migratory wave were shorter in height, bulkier in body, and darker in color.
The Indonesian culture was more advanced than that of the Negritos it belonged to the New Stone Age (Neolithic). The Indonesians lived in grass-covered homes with wooden frames, built above the ground or on top of trees. They practised dry agriculture and raised upland rice, taro (gabi), and other food crops. Their clothing was made from beaten bark and decorated with fine designs. They cooked their food in bamboo tubes, for they knew nothing of pottery. Their other occupations were hunting and fishing. Their implements consisted of polished stone axes, adzes, and chisels. For weapons, they had bows and arrows, spears, shields, and blowguns (sumpit). They had one domesticated animal - the dog.
Exodus of the Malays to the Pacific World. The seafaring Malays also navigated the vast stretches of the uncharted Pacific, discovering and colonizing new islands, as far south as Africa and Madagascar. Their unchronicled and unsung maritime exploits impressed the British Orientalist A.R. Cowen, who wrote: "The Malays indeed were the Phoenicians of the East, and apparently made even longer hauls than the Semitic mariners, their oceanic elbowroom giving them more scope than the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea."
The prehistoric Malays were the first discoveries and colonizers of the Pacific world. Long before the time of Columbus and Magellan, they were already expert navigators. Although they had no compass and other nautical devices, they made long voyages, steering their sailboats by the position of the stars at night and by the direction of the sea winds by day.
Malayan Immigration to the Philippines. In the course of their exodus to the Pacific world, the ancient Malays reached the Philippines. They came in three main migratory waves. The first wave came from 200 B.C. to 100A.D. The Malays who came in this wave were the headhunting Malays, the ancestors of the Bontoks, Ilongots, Kalingas, and other headhunting tribes in northern Luzon. The second wave arrived from 100 A.D. to 13th century. Those who came in this migratory wave were the alphabet-using Malays, the ancestors of the Visayans, Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Bicolanos, Kapampangans, and other Christian Filipinos. The third and last wave came from the 14th to 16th century A.D. The Muslim Malays were in this migratory wave and they introduced Islam into the Philippines.
