By:Jad Oliver Domingo
The Negritos are a dark-skinned people that are ethnically different from other people in the Philippines that are mostly Malay in origins. The Negritos live in the mountains of Luzon and on the Philippine islands of Palawan, Panay, Negros, Cebu and Mindanao. Also known as the Aeta, Atta, Baluga, Batak, Dumagat, Mamanwa, Pugut. Negritos have dark skin, kinky “peppercorn” hair and little body hair and are small in size. Although they are linked more closely genetically to Asians than Africans, their appearance and traditional lifestyles are similar to that of the Pygmies of Africa. Negritos get almost all they need from the rain forest and never evolved agriculture. Negrito girls and boys of Northern Camarines and part of Quezon blacken their teeth to look attractive. The Negritos of the Philippines are believed to survivors of the original hunter because of their culture and religion.
Negritos are mostly animists but some have been converted to Christianity. Those that are animists have incorporated into their beliefs. All Negrito groups speak Austronesian languages. All the native languages of the Philippines are Austronesian languages. The languages the Negritos speak are usually more closely related to the languages of people that live around them than they are to the languages of other Negrito groups. Most are bilingual, speaking their own language and the language of their non-Negrito neighbors.
Negritos have traditionally lived on of hunting, gathering, fishing, marginal cultivation and symbiotic relationships with neighboring non-Negrito people. Some live in the forest lean-tos made from sticks and grasses and make clothes from the inner bark of trees. Most live in villages.
The traditional religion of all Philippine Negritos is animism Negrito religion is its noticeable lack of systematization. Consequently, it has a secondary place in Negrito ideology. Because the animistic beliefs and practices of Philippine Negritos are individualistic and sporadic, they exert less control over the people’s daily lives than do the religious systems of other, non-Negrito animistic societies in the Philippines. The Agta believe in a single high god and in a large number of supernatural spirit beings that inhabit their surrounding natural environment. Depending on the class of spirit, these various beings live in trees, underground, on rocky headlands, or in caves. two general classes of spirit beings in the Agta hayup creature and anito ghost.
Tribes in the Philippines 