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Yet, like our Indians, the better Tagbanuas and Calamianes try to heal the sick through the aid of drugs and charms and incantations, and they have their medicine man or papalyan. There is in the forest a strange little fellow, known as the man of the wood, who has the power of giving to these doctors the art of healing.
When an islander in the Calamianes province dies his friends ask the corpse where it would like to be buried, naming several places, and lifting the body after each question. When the body seems to rise lightly the dead man has said, "Yes."
The alcaldes were said to influence the commanders of the cruisers, and the latter to overreach the alcaldes; but both usually made common cause. According to the Diario de Manila, March 14, 1866, piracy on the seas had diminished, but had not ceased. Paragua, Calamianes, Mindoro, Mindanao, and the Bisayas still suffer from it.
The people of the Cuyos and Calamianes groups lived in constant terror of the Mindoro pirates, and tulisanes, who paid them frequent visits. I myself have been at Calapan, the capital of the province, when the Spanish officials did not dare to go without armed escort as far as the outskirts of the town for fear of being captured and held for ransom.
The Calamianes are a group of high islands lying between the northeast end of Palawan and Mindoro, and extending between the parallels of 11 degrees 39 minutes and 12 degrees 20 minutes N., and the meridians of 119 degrees 47 minutes and 120 degrees 23 minutes E. Busuanga, the largest island of the group, is about 34 miles in extent NW. by W. and SE. by E., and 18 miles broad.
In some of these islands pearl oysters are found, especially in the Calamianes, where some have been obtained that are large and exceedingly clear and lustrous. Neither is this means of profit utilized. In all parts, seed pearls are found in the ordinary oysters, and there are oysters as large as a buckler. There are also very large sea turtles in all the islands.
The chiefest and best known are Luzon, Mindoro, Tendaya, Capul, Burias, Mazbate, Marinduque, Leite, Camar, Ybabao, Sebu, Panay, Bohol, Catenduanes, Calamianes, Mindanao, and others of less renown. The first island conquered and colonized by the Spaniards was Sebu. From there the conquest was started and continued in all the neighboring islands.
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