A Tinguian tribesman using a long blowgun. Photo from the book The Tinguian, by Fay-Cooper Cole (1922)
The Filipino word for blowgun is sumpit or sumpitan. Used by the natives for both hunting and warfare, the blowgun is among the Philippine weapons described in details by Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of Ferdinand Magellan. “Those people of Polaoan [Palawan] go naked as do the others: almost all of them cultivate their fields.