The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon

From Ifugao to Kalinga

A Ride Through the Mountains of Northern Luzon

With an Appendix on the Independence of the Philippines

By
Cornélis De Witt Willcox,
Lieutenant-Colonel U.S. Army,
Professor United States Military Academy,
Officier d’Académie.

Kansas City, Mo., U.S.A.
Franklin Hudson Publishing Co.,
1912.

Copyright 1912 By Franklin Hudson Publishing Company.

To
J.G.H.

Table of Contents.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Chapter I

Highlanders of Northern Luzon.—Meaning of the word Igorrote.—Trails.—The Mountain Province.—Nature of the country.

Chapter II

Annual inspection of the mountain tribes.—We set out from Baguío.—Pangasinán Province.—Agno River.—Reception by the people.

Chapter III

Padre Juan Villaverde.—His great trail.—The beginning of the mountain journey.—Nozo.

Chapter IV

Early start.—Pine forest.—Vegetation.—Rest at Amugan.—The gansa—Boné.

Chapter V

Aritao.—Bubud.—Dúpax.—Start for Campote.

Chapter VI

The Ilongots and their country.—Efforts of our Government to reach these people—The forest trail.—Our first contact with the wild man.

Chapter VII

School at Campote—Our white pony, and the offer made for his tail.

Chapter VIII

Appearance of the Ilongots.—Dress.—Issue of beads and cloth.—Warrior Dance.—School work.—Absence of old women from meeting.

Chapter IX

Return to civilization.—Reception at Bambang.—Aglipayanos and Protestants.

Chapter X

Magat River.—Enthusiastic reception at Bayombong.—Speeches and reports.—Solano.—Ifugao “college yell.”—Bagábag.

Chapter XI

We enter the Mountain Province,—Payawan.—Kiangan, its position.—Anitos.—Speech of welcome by Ifugao chief.—Detachment of native Constabulary.—Visit of Ifugao chiefs to our quarters.—Dancing.

Chapter XII

Day opens badly.—Ifugao houses.—The people assemble.—Dancing.—Speeches.—White paper streamers.—Head-hunter Dance.—Cañao.

Chapter XIII

Dress of the people.—Butchery of carabao.—Prisoner runs amok and is killed.

Chapter XIV

Barton’s account of a native funeral.

Chapter XV

Visit to the Silipan Ifugaos at Andangle.—The Ibilao River.—Athletic feat.—Rest-house and stable at Sabig.

Chapter XVI

Change in aspect of country.—Mount Amuyao and the native legend of the Flood.—Rice terraces.—Benawe.—Mr. Worcester’s first visit to this region.—Sports.—Absence of weapons.—Native arts and crafts.

Chapter XVII

We ride to Bontok.—Bat-nets.—Character of the country.—Ambawan.—Difficulties of the trail.—Bird-scarers.—Talubin.—Bishop Carroll of Vigan.—We reach Bontok.—“The Star-spangled Banner.”—Appearance of the Bontok Igorot.—Incidents.

Chapter XVIII

Importance of Bontok—Head-taking—Atonement for bloodshed.—Sports.—Slapping game.

Chapter XIX

The native village.—Houses.—Pit-a-pit.—Native institutions.—Lumawig.

Chapter XX

We push on north.—Banana skirts.—Albino child.—Pine uplands.—Glorious view.

Chapter XXI

Deep Valley.—A poor ranchería.—Escort of boys.—Descent of Tinglayan Hill.—Sullen reception at Tinglayan.—Bangad.—First view of the Kalingas.—Arrival at Lubuagan.

Chapter XXII

Splendid appearance of the Kalingas.—Dancing.—Lubuagan.—Basi—Councils.—Bustles and braids.—Jewels and weapons.—Excellent houses.

Chapter XXIII

We leave the mountains.—Nanong.—Passage of the Chico.—The Apayao.—Tabuk.—The party breaks up.—Desolate plain—The Cagayán Valley.—Enrile.

Chapter XXIV

Tobacco industry.—Tuguegarao.—Caves.—The Cagayán River.—Barangayans.—Aparri.—Island of Fuga.—Sail for Manila.—Stop at Vigan.—Arrival at Manila.

Chapter XXV

Future of the Highlanders.—Origin of our effort to improve their condition.—Impolicy of any change in present administration.— Transfer of control of wild tribes to Christianized Filipinos.—Comparison of our course with that of the Japanese in Formosa.

Appendix

These mountaineers or highlanders constitute perhaps, all other things being equal, as interesting a body of uncivilized people as is to be found on the face of the earth to-day. The Spaniards, of course, soon discovered their existence, the first mention of them being made by De Morga, in his “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas” (1609). He speaks1 of them as inhabiting the interior of a rough mountainous country, where are “many natives who are not pacified, nor has anyone gone into their country, who call themselves Ygolotes,” Here we have the first form, the classic form according to Retana, of the word now universally written Igorrote, or in English Igorot. The word itself means “highlanders,” golot being a Tagalog word for “mountain,” and I a prefix meaning “people of.” De Morga mentions the “Ygolotes” as owning rich mines of gold and silver, which “they work as there is need,” and he goes on to say that in spite of all the diligence made to know their mines, and how they work and improve them, the matter has come to naught, “because they are cautious with the Spaniards who go to them in search of gold, and say they keep it better guarded under ground than in their houses,”

The Spaniards at a very early date sent armed exploring parties through the highlands and maintained garrisons here and there down to our own time.2 But they never really held the country.

The Church, too, early entered this territory, the field being given over to the Dominicans,3 who furnished many devoted missionaries to the cause. But here, too, failure must be recorded in respect of permanency of results in the really wild parts of the Highlands. It has remained for our own Government to get a real hold of the people of these regions, to win their confidence, command their respect, and exact their obedience in all relations in which obedience is proper and just.

The indispensable material condition of success was to make the mountain country accessible. Only those who have had the fortune to travel through this country can realize how difficult this endeavor has been and must continue to be, chiefly because of the great local complexity of the mountain system, but also because of the severely destructive storms of this region, with consequent torrential violence of the streams affected. But little money, too, can be, or has been, spent for the necessary road-work. In spite of the difficulties involved, however, a system of road-making has been set on foot, the labor needed being furnished by the highlanders themselves in lieu of a road tax. Very briefly, the system is as follows:

(a) The first thing done is to open what is known as the “meter trail,” i.e., a trail one meter wide, at a grade not to exceed 6 per cent, and where possible to be kept at 4 per cent. At certain points where the absolute necessity exists, a 10 per cent grade is admissible for very short distances, as at river crossings, but only where a gentler grade would involve a long detour at great expense.

This “meter trail” weathers for one year, and thus automatically develops its own weak spots. These are repaired as fast as discovered (which is practically at once, by reason of constant supervision), and the trail thus hardens, as it were, into something approaching permanency.

(b) The next step in the history of the trail is to widen it to two meters, the same general course being followed as outlined in (a). As a satisfactory state of permanency is reached we come to

(c) The final widening, draining, and metalling of the trail to accommodate wagon traffic. The trail now becomes a permanent road.

In many cases only wooden tools have been available, and the lack of money has compelled a sparing use of explosives. Nevertheless under this system there now exist in the Mountain Province 730 miles of excellent horse trail of easy grade,4 and what is significant, the people of the highlands are using these trails, and so becoming peacefully acquainted with one another.

The Mountain Province itself is the outcome of the difficulties encountered in governing the wild tribes so long as these were left in provinces where either their interests were not paramount, or else the difficulties of administration were unduly costly or difficult. Established in 1908, it has a Governor, and each of its seven sub-provinces a Lieutenant-Governor, the sub-province as far as possible including people of one and of only one tribe. The creation of this province was a great step forward in promoting the welfare of the highlanders.

A word must be said here in explanation of the nomenclature of the mountain tribes. Generically, having in mind the meaning of the word, they are all Igorots. But it is the practice to distinguish the various elements of this great family by different names, restricting the term “Igorot” to special branches, as Benguet Igorot, Bontok Igorot, meaning those who live in Benguet or Bontok. The other members are known as Ifugao, Ilongot, Kalinga, and so on.5 Lastly, the following extract from the “Census of the Philippine Islands”6 gives some idea of the mountain system in which dwell the people whom we are about to visit.

“West of this Valley [the Cagayán] and separating it from the China Sea, stands a broad and complex system of mountains, known as the Caraballos Occidentales. Its length is nearly 200 miles, and its breadth, including the great spurs and subordinate ranges and ridges on either side, is fully one-third its length. The central range of the system forms the divide between the waters flowing to Cagayán River on the east and those flowing to the China Sea on the west. Its northern part bears the name Cordillera Norte. Farther south it is called Cordillera Central, while the southern portion is called Cordillera Sur.” “At its south end the Cordillera Sur swings to the east, and, under the name of Caraballos Sur, joins the Sierra Madre, or East Coast Range.”

This description, it must be understood, gives no adequate idea of the local intricacy of the system, while at the same time it is precisely this intricacy, both vertical and horizontal, that increases the cost and difficulty of making roads, and that has served in the past to keep the inhabitants of these regions apart.

On account of the difficulties of supply and transportation, we were requested to bring no muchachos (boys—i.e., servants), so we had to shift for ourselves. Our baggage was very strictly limited; each man being allowed two parcels, one of bedding, and the other of clothes, neither to be more than could be easily carried on the back of a single cargador. Mr. Worcester took along for the whole party an ingenious apparatus of his own contrivance for boiling drinking-water, as all streams in the Philippines at a level lower than 6,000 feet have been found to contain amoebae,1 the parasitic presence of which in the intestines produces that frightful disease, amoebic dysentery. We were especially desired to leave our revolvers at home, and had no escort.

Accordingly, our mounts and kit having been sent on a day or two in advance, we set out from Baguio in motor-cars, April 26, at eight A.M., of an extraordinarily fine day. The day before it had rained mercilessly; not only that, but clouds and mists had enveloped us so that one could not see twenty yards ahead. We were nearing the rainy season, and conditions were uncertain, but this morning the gods were on our side and we could not have asked for better weather. We went down the splendid Benguet Road, following the bed of the Bued River2 to the railway, a drop of over 4,000 feet in thirteen miles. Strange to say, the stream had not risen at all, a fortunate circumstance, as one hundred and sixty bridges are crossed in the drop, and at times a rise will wash out not only the bridges, but all semblance of a road.3 At the railway we turned south over the great plain of Pangasinán. This, in respect of roads, is the show province of the Archipelago and deserves its reputation, one hundred and twenty miles having been built. Those we passed over this day would have been called good in France even. Our passage was of the nature of a progress, thanks to the presence of the Governor-General. Simple bamboo arches crossing the road greeted us everywhere, Mr. Forbes punctiliously raising his hat under every one. All the villages had decorated their houses; handkerchiefs, petticoats, red table-cloths, anything and everything had been hung out of the windows by way of flags and banners. Across the front of the municipal building of one village was stretched a banner with this inscription, “En honor de la venida del Gobernador General y de su Comitiva” (“In honor of the arrival of the Governor-General and of his retinue”), and then below on the next band, “Deseamos iener un pozo artesiano” (“We should like to have an Artesian well”), which led Mr. Worcester to remark that four years before the banner would have demanded “independencia” (independence), and not an Artesian well.

Even in Pangasinán, good roads must come to an end, and ours did as we neared the Agno River. For this blessed river is a curse to its neighborhood, and rises in flood from a stream say seventy-five yards wide to a rushing lake, if the expression be permitted, half a mile and more across. Our car finally refused to move; its wheels simply turned in situ, so deep was the sand. There was nothing for it but to walk to the river bank, where we were met with many apologies. A bamboo bridge had been built across the stream a few days before so that our cars might cross, but yesterday’s rain had washed it down, and would we try to cross on rafts? We looked at the rafts, bamboo platforms built over large bancas (canoes, double-enders cut out of a single log), the bamboos being lashed together with bejuco (rattan, the native substitute for nails), and decided that no self-respecting motor would stand such transportation, but would go to the bottom first by overturning. So we got our stuff aboard the rafts, were poled over, and made the rest of the journey to Tayug, our first considerable halt, in carromatas (the native two-wheeled, springless cart). Fortunately the distance was short, the carromata being an instrument of torture happily overlooked by the Spanish Inquisition.

At Tayug a great concourse of people welcomed us, with arches, flags, and decorations. The presidencia, or town hall, was filled with the notabilities, and Mr. Forbes was presented with an address by one of the señoritas. Suitable answer having been made, we adjourned, the men first, the women following when we had done, according to native custom, to the side rooms, where a surprisingly good tiffin had been got ready for us, venison, chickens, French rolls, dulces (sweets), whiskey and soda, Heaven knows what else, to which, all unwitting of our doom, we did full justice. About two miles beyond Tayug lies San Francisco, the initial point of our real mounted journey. The people along this part of the road had simply outdone themselves in the matter of arches, there being one at every hundred yards almost. At San Francisco the crowd was greater than at Tayug; and here was set out for us another sumptuous tiffin, in a house built the day before for this very purpose, of bamboo and nipa palm. Access to it was had by a ladder and we sat down at a table, while the señoras of the place waited on us, every inch of standing-room being occupied by people who had crowded in to see the performance of the Governor-General and of his comitiva! And perform we did—we had to! Ducks, chickens, venison, camotes (sweet potatoes), peppers, beer, red wine—no one would have thought that but three-quarters of an hour before we had just gone through the same thing. But it would have been the height of discourtesy to give way to our inclination by showing a lack of appetite; moreover, it is not often that a party is held in a house built to be used merely one hour. So we did honor to the occasion, but had to let out our belts before mounting immediately afterward.

Now the Spaniards in the Philippines at best were but poor road- or trail-makers. Indeed, in the matter of trails they were simply stupid, in some cases actually going straight up a hill and down the other side, when the way around was no longer, and of course far easier to maintain. But Padre Juan Villaverde of the Dominicans was a great and honorable exception. Quite apart from this aspect, we hear so much that is evil of the friars that it is a pleasure, when possible, to point out the good they did, a thing more frequently possible than people imagine it is. For Father Villaverde gave his life to missionary work among the hill-people, seeking in every way to better their condition materially as well as morally. Born in 1841, as early as 1868 we find him on duty at Bayombong, in Nueva Vizcaya, the province we were about to enter. From the first he seems to have been impressed by the possibilities of the country in which he was laboring; and, foreseeing that good communications would ultimately settle most of the questions relating to the highlanders, he built trails, trails that are still in use, whereas nearly all the others (but few in number) established by the Spaniards have been abandoned by us, where Nature has not indeed saved us the trouble by washing them out of existence. For thirty years Villaverde worked unceasingly, building roads and bridges and churches, and striving to civilize the people among whom he lived; but his chief work, that by which his memory is kept green to this day, is the great trail from the otherwise almost inaccessible province of Nueva Vizcaya, across the Caraballos to the Central Valley of Luzon, where access to the outer world by rail becomes possible. This trail is officially designated by his name, and is maintained by Government. This was the one we were about to enter upon.1 Accordingly we thanked our kind hosts of San Francisco; and at last set out on our real trip. But, curious and eager as I felt to engage upon it, I could not help regretting that this part of our journey was over, that we had to turn our backs on the smiling plains of Pangasinán, its hospitable and courteous people. The day had been so cool and fresh, and our progress so easy; flat as was the country, it had its charm, the charm of cultivated plains, relieved by lanes of feathered bamboos, by clumps of nodding palms, by limpid streams. But we were off, nevertheless, the Governor-General on a cow-pony, nearly all the rest on Arabs and thoroughbreds, Van Schaick and I riding mountain ponies. We had fifteen miles to go to reach our first resting-place.

Crossing a stream, we began to climb at once, and as we rose the plain of Central Luzon began to unroll itself below us, with our road of the morning stretching out in a straight white line through the green rice-fields. Far to the west we now and then caught glimpses of Lingayen Gulf, with the Zambales Mountains in full view running south and bordering the plain, while still farther to the south Mount Arayat2 rose abruptly from its surrounding levels. Now Arayat is plainly visible from Manila. Here and there solitary rocky hills, looking for all the world like ant-heaps, but in reality hundreds of feet high, broke the uniformity of the plains. Flooded as the whole landscape was with brilliant sunshine, the view was exquisite in respect both of form and of color. But as we moved on, turning and twisting and ever rising, we were soon confined to just the few yards the sinuosities of the trail would allow us to see at one time. For a part of the way the country was rocky, hills bare and fire-swept; not a tree or shrub suggested that we were in the tropics. Soon pines began to appear, and then thickened, till the trail led through a pine forest, pure and simple, the ground covered with green grass, and the whole fresh and moist from recent rains. It was up and down and around and around. Not a sign of animal life did we see, not a trace of human beings.

I was disgusted, and still more disconcerted, this afternoon, to find my pony going badly. He was perfectly willing to walk, but at a most dignified rate, selected by himself. He apparently had no objection to catching up the party every now and then, but only to relapse into his funeral walk, after contact had been re-established. But then Cootes took the lead that afternoon, and as his thoroughbred had had two days’ rest, and breasted all the rises with apparent joyousness, nobody was able to keep up, until Mr. Worcester took the head with his black, a powerful but reasonable animal. However, everybody gets into camp sooner or later, and so did we all at a resting-point called Nozo, where we all turned in after supper, for reveille was to be at three o’clock. This had been a great day of contrasts in a descending scale, from motors, electric lights, and telephones in the morning to our solitary camp in the mountains at night, surrounded by watch-fires and guarded by Constabulary sentinels. This, by the way, was the only time we were so guarded.