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“They shall be burned: Those who by their strength or cunning have mocked at and escaped punishment; or who have killed young boys; or try to steal away the women of agorangs (rich men).

“Those shall be killed who profane sites where idols are kept, and sites where are buried the sacred things of their diuatas (spirits) and headmen.”

Testimonies of Occidental Writers All which bespeak a culture of no mean order, and occidental writers themselves have given it the credit that it deserves, as shown by the following testimonies:

“They had already reached a considerable degree of civilization at the time of the Spanish conquest.”—Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt.

“The inhabitants of these Islands were by no means savages, entirely unreclaimed from barbarism, before the Spanish advent in the sixteenth century. They had a culture of their own.”—John Foreman.

“The inhabitants of the Philippines possessed a culture of their own prior to the coming of the Spaniards to the Islands. Those along the coasts were the most advanced in civilization. Their material wealth was considerable. The chief occupations were agriculture, fishing, weaving, some manufacturing, and trade both inter-island and with the mainland, generally in the form of barter. They were expert navigators. They used standard weights and measures. The year was divided into twelve lunar months. They had a peculiar phonetic alphabet, wrote upon leaves, and had a primitive literature. The majority of the people are said to have been able to read and write.”—Justice George A. Malcolm.