lture distributed along the route by which
it must have traveled. We find, however, that few terraces exist in
Mindanao and northern Borneo; and the former, at least, are of recent
introduction. [202] There is also negative evidence that such fields
were rare along the coasts at the time of the Spanish invasion. In
the early documents we meet with frequent statements that the people
were agriculturists and raised considerable quantities of rice and
vegetables in their clearings; but the writer has discovered only
two instances in which mention is made of terraced fields. [203] Had
extensive terraces existed on the coast, it seems certain that some
notice must have been taken of them. Yet in the mountains of central
and northwestern Luzon, in districts remote from coast influences,
are found some of the most remarkable fields of this type in Malaysia;
terraces representing such an expenditure of labor that they argue
for a long period of construction.

The proof is not absolute, but, in view of the foregoing, the writer is
inclined to the belief that the Igorot and the Tinguian brought their
rice culture with them from the south, and that the latter received
it from a source common to them and to the people of Java and Sumatra.

Many writers who have discussed the rice culture of the East Indies
are inclined to credit its introduction to Indian colonists, [204]
but _Campbell_ [205] holds to the belief that it was practised
centuries before the Christian era and prior to the Hindu invasion of
Java. There seems to be no dissent, however, among these writers to
the belief that its introduction antedated the arrival of the European
in the Orient by several centuries. The fact that dry land farming,
carried on with planting sticks and the like, is still found among the
Igorot and Tinguian, and for that matter all over the Philippines,
cannot be advanced as an argument that the irrigated fields are of
recent date, for upland fields and primitive tools are still used in
Java and Sumatra, where, as we have just seen, the wet field culture
is an old possession.

_Magical Rites and Ceremonies Connected with the Rice_.--The importance
of rice to this people is nowhere better evidenced than in the numerous
and, in some cases, elaborate rites with which its cultivation and
care is attended. Some of these observances appear to be purely
magical, while others are associated with the consulting of omens,
acts of sacrifice, propitiati