thies are usually
those farthest removed from the coast traders. Where communication
is easy and trade unrestricted, the native industry has vanished,
or is on the wane. To-day the forges of the Bontoc Igorot, of the
Tinguian-Kalinga border villages, and of Apayao, are turning out
superior weapons, but elsewhere in the northwestern districts the pagan
people have either lost the art, or make only very inferior articles.

It is certain that iron-working has long been known, not only in the
Philippines, but throughout Malaysia, and it is likewise evident that
these regions secured the art from the same source as did the people
of Assam, Burma, and eastern Madagascar, for the description of the
Tinguian forge and iron-working which follows would, with very little
modification, apply equally well to those in use in Southern Mindanao,
Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Assam, Burma, and Madagascar. [227]

Long before the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines, the Chinese
had built up such a lively trade in iron bars and caldrons that it was
no longer necessary for the natives to smelt their own iron ore; if
indeed they ever did so. [228] This trade metal was widely distributed,
and then reworked by the local smiths. Even to-day the people of
Balbalasang make the long journey to Bangued, or even to Vigan,
to secure Chinese iron, which they carry back to their mountain forges.

There is no positive proof that the Filipinos formerly mined and
smelted iron, but there is a strong probability that they did so, prior
to the introduction of trade metal. It has already been noted that the
Tinguian type of forge and the method of handling and tempering iron
is widespread in Malaysia; and, as will be seen later, this process
is not that in use among the Chinese, so that it is unlikely that the
art was introduced by them. In furnishing iron ready for forging,
they were simply supplying in a convenient form an article already
in use, and for which there was an urgent demand. In the islands to
the south we find that many of the pagan tribes do now, or did until
recently, mine and smelt the ore. _Beccari_ [229] tells us that the
Kayan of Borneo extract iron ore found in their own country. _Hose_
and _McDougall_ say that thirty years ago nearly all the iron worked
by the tribes of the interior of Borneo was from ore found in the
river beds. At present most of the pagans obtain the metal from the
Chinese and Malay traders, but native ore is still