Ilocanos

Ilocanos, a Malay people of Luzon (Philippine archipelago), where they occupy several districts in the provinces of Pangasinan, and the two Ilocos (North and South), named from them. They have also repeopled much of the Benguet valley after the extermination of its original Igorrot inhabitants during the wars of 1820 and 1830. They are a restless, enterprising people, who have sent out colonies in all directions, and founded settlements even in the Babayanes and Batanes archipelagoes. In this respect they are favourably distinguished from the Tagalas and other civilised Indians, who are remarkable chiefly for their extreme apathy and indolence. They live mainly on rice and fish, although cultivating maize, coffee, the grape, the cocoanut palm, and sugar, besides cotton, indigo, cacao, and the olive. They also own an excellent breed of horses, as well as herds of cattle, swine, and the buffalo, which they barter with the surrounding hill tribes. Since their reduction by Salcedo in the second half of the 16th century, all have become nominal Christians. Socially they form two distinct classes, the nobles and the cachianes, or serfs, who were formerly treated with great cruelty, but who have acquired a measure of civil rights since the revolts of 1762 and 1811. (Blumentritt.)