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I chewed some of it before them; it was insupportably bitter, but otherwise not injurious in its natural state. But the Ajetas make a preparation of it, the secret of which they refused to impart to me. When their poison is made up as a paste, they give to their arms a thin coating of it, about an eighth of an inch in thickness.
The first day the ceremony was rather long; but the second day the number lessened, and I was allowed to pursue my examination of the character of my hosts. I had retained the woman who spoke Tagaloc, and in the long conversations which I held with her, she initiated me thoroughly in all their customs and usages. The Ajetas have no religion; they do not adore any star.
All the weapons of the Ajetas are poisoned; a simple arrow could not cause a wound so severe as to stop a strong animal, such as a deer, in its course; but if the dart has been smeared with the poison known to them, the smallest puncture of it produces in the wounded animal an inextinguishable thirst, and death ensues upon satisfying it.
I went instantly to the spot where Alila had made his important discovery, and having disencumbered the canoe from the sand with which it was partly covered, I soon became certain that, with some bamboos, and by stopping a few cracks, it would be staunch enough to take us over the Pacific ocean, away from the Ajetas.
The Ajetas, perched on the tops of the trees, waited for us and attacked us, without our having any means of defence. Fortunately night came to our aid; their arrows, usually so sure, were badly directed, and did not touch us.
However, we shall not forget you." My friend Adolphe Barrot visits me at Jala-Jala The Bamboo Cane The Cocoa-Nut Tree The Banana Majestic Forests of Gigantic Trees The Leeches A Tropical Storm in a Forest An Indian Bridge "Bernard the Hermit" We arrive at Binangon-de-Lampon The Ajetas Veneration of the Ajetas for their Dead Poison used by the Ajetas I carry away a Skeleton We Embark on the Pacific in an old Canoe, reach Maoban, and ultimately arrive at Jala-Jala.
We proceeded with great caution, for we found ourselves in the district peopled by Ajetas. At night we concealed our fire, and each of us in turn kept watch, for what we dreaded most was a surprise. One morning, while marching in silence, we heard before us a number of shrill voices, resembling rather the cries of birds than human sounds.
An hour after her departure, the young man is sent to find out his bride. If he has the good luck to find her, and to bring her back to her parents before sunset, the marriage is concluded, and she becomes his wife without fail; but if, on the contrary, he returns to the camp without her, he is not allowed to renew his addresses. Among the Ajetas old age is highly respected.
I have already stated that the Ajetas did not often wait for the death of a person to put him into the ground. As soon as the last honours are rendered to a deceased, it is requisite, conformably to their usages, to take revenge for his death.
It is probable, and almost incontestible, that the Philippine Islands were primitively peopled by aborigines, a small race of negroes still inhabiting the interior of the forests in pretty large numbers, called Ajetas by the Tagalocs, and Négritos by the Spaniards.
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