in the different tribes.  Isabelo de los Reyes reports that the Tinguianes, who inhabit the mountain forests of the northern cordilleras of Luzon, produce figures of stars, snakes, birds, etc., on children 7 to 9 years old.  Hans Meyer describes the pattern of the Igorots.  There appears to exist a great variety of symbols; for example, on the arms, straight and crooked lines crossing one another; on the breast, feather-like patterns.  Least frequently he saw the so-called Burik designs, which extended in parallel bands across the breast, the back, and calves, and give to the body the appearance of a sailor’s striped jacket.  It is very remarkable that the human form never occurs.

What is true concerning tattooing on so many Polynesian islands holds also completely here.  But reliable descriptions are so few, and especially there is such a meager number of useful drawings, that it would not repay the trouble to assemble the scattered data.  At least it will suffice to discover whether among them there are genuine tribal marks or to investigate concerning the distribution of separate patterns.  Those known show conclusively that in the matter of tattooing the Filipinos are not differentiated from the islanders of the Pacific; they form, moreover, an important link in the chain of knowledge which demonstrates the genetic homogeneity of the inhabitants.  The tattooings of the eastern islanders are comparable only to those of African aborigines, with which last they furnish many family marks, made out and recognized.  It is desirable that a trustworthy collection of all patterns be collected before the method becomes more altered or destroyed.

[Teeth alterations.] Next to the skin, among the wild tribes the teeth are modified in the most numerous artificial alterations.  The preferable custom, common in Africa, of breaking out the front teeth in greater or less number has not, so far as I remember, been described among the Filipinos; I only mention that while I was making a revision of our Philippine crania, two of them turned up in which the middle upper incisors had evidently been broken out for a long time, for the alveolar border had shrunk into a small quite smooth ridge, without a trace of an aveolus.  It is otherwise with the pointing of the incisors, especially the upper ones, which, also is not common.  I must leave it undecided whether the sharpening is done by filing or by breaking off pieces from the sides.  The latter should be in general far more frequent.  In every case the otherwise broad and flat teeth are brought to such sharp points as to project like those of the carnivorous animals.  I have met with this condition several times on Negrito skulls and furnished illustrations of them.  On a Zambal skull, excavated by Dr. A. B. Meyer and which I lay before you, the deformation is easy to be seen.  I called attention at the time to the fact that among the Malays an entirely different method of modifying the teeth is in vogue, in which a horizontal filing on the front surface is practiced and the sharp lower edge is straightened and widened.  Already the elder Thevenot has accented this contrast when he says: