THE HILL PEOPLE
Occasionally one passes a stranger on the street whose face bears the
unmistakable imprint of recent pain, a patient line of mouth and
haunting glow of eyes that have looked close into the eternal shadows.
Terry bore this look.
He unbuckled the Major's pack straps and relieving him of the load led
him into the shack he occupied. It was a small hut, roofed and sided
with grass woven into a bamboo lattice work; stilted six feet above
the ground it trembled under the Major's heavy tread. A woven bamboo
partition divided it into two small halves, and each room was bare
save for a slatted cot that served as chair by day and couch by night.
The breeze blew up through the strips of bamboo flooring.
Exhausted the Major sank down upon the hard cot but rose to sitting
posture to study Terry with bloodshot eyes.
"Terry," he said, "you're looking a little--what the folks back home
call 'peaked'."
Terry's face was a little haggard, his body a little slimmer, the
steady gray eyes were deeper set.
"Oh, I'm all right." He seated himself on the ledge of the window near
the Major. "You had a tight go of it last night. Did you hear the
little agong ring?"
"Yes."
"The young Hillmen wanted to wipe you out. I had to work pretty hard
with Ohto--the old chief--to persuade him to let you come in
unharmed." His face clouded. "I have been worried ever since you
started into the Hills."
"How did you know that I was coming?"
"Major, that's why I have been so worried about not being able to
start back--I knew that you would come as soon as you heard."
The Major flushed in quick pleasure at the unconscious tribute to his
friendship and his courage. He filled his pipe and smoked contentedly.
It was the biggest hour that he had ever known. Terry unharmed, well;
his own hazards surmounted; and the Hill Country penetrated at
last--the impossible again achieved by the Constabulary. He settled
back comfortably, using his pack as a pillow.
"Tell me all about it," he said.
"There is not much to tell, Major. You must already know all about the
way in which the Macabebes finished what Malabanan started, and of
Sakay's leap into the pool--did Sears dynamite that pool?"
Horror shadowed the steady eyes till the Major assured him that the
pool and its dweller were of the past.
"Major, that Sakay affair was pretty--bad: I keep wondering if I
missed him--I would hate to think that.... Well, I had not felt well
all day. I must have been exposed to that fever at Dalag and--"
"Yes, I guess you had! Merchant told me about that!"
Terry flushed and went on. "I started through the brush to get to the
doctor, but I must have been sicker than I thought, for I don't
remember anything after entering the woods. It's all a dream to me.
Something pulled me up this way--I've always hoped to be the one to
open up the Hills--and I kept coming. I remember lying down at dusk
and being picked up and carried through the night. I must have been
delirious for about ten days, but had conscious periods every day.
Every time I had a clear spell I swallowed several tablets of the
quinine Sears gave me. I guess that quinine saved me--I would like to
have Sears know about it.
"Those ten days are rather confused, of course, but I remember the
care the women gave me and some of their rough remedies. I came out of
the delirium two weeks ago but was pretty weak, so did not try to get
up, but lay there listening to their talk. Their dialect is quite like
the Bogobo--I think they're just a tribe of Bogobos separated from the
others by those infernal woods. I soon learned that they had spared me
and cared for me because they thought that I was daft. You know that
these primitive tribes never molest lunatics--they think that they are
possessed of devils which, if disturbed, will enter the heads of
whoever harms their present host. Probably I raved a good bit on the
way up, when they were following me.
"When they realized that I was sane the tribe split into two
factions--one wanted to finish me but the other insisted that my
coming was a good augury. It was rather queer to lie here and listen
to the arguments pro and con--I pulled pretty hard for the negative
contenders! The question was finally decided by the old chief, Ohto,
who announced that my fate would be determined when next the limoçons
sang. That settled the immediate question.
"The limoçon is a big species of pigeon that nests in the Hills. It
seldom sings, and then only at nightfall. It is reverenced by these
people, who believe that it sings prophecies of good or evil, the
character of the omen being determined by the point of the compass in
which it lights to offer its rare evening song. Direction is gauged
from where the Tribal Agong hangs--I will show you that after supper.
It is a queer superstition, Major: they think that a song in the west
means greatest harm--death by famine or disease or intra-tribal wars,
from the north the omen is ill but to a lesser degree, south is good,
but a song from the east augurs greatest happiness to their people."
The Major was pulling on a dead pipe, absorbed in Terry's story but
building into it all of the suffering and loneliness and suspense
which the lad ignored in the telling.
"They say that the limoçon has sung in the east but once since it
heralded the birth of Ohto, who is the greatest chief they ever had.
But it has sung in the west eight times--and each time it was followed
by the death of one of Ohto's family. Now the old man is the last of
his line. These things may have been mere coincidences but you can see
why they believe implicitly in their feathered oracles.
"A week ago, while I was still kept prisoned in this hut, the bird
sang in the south, an omen of sufficient favor to cause my release.
Since then I have been free to wander about--and if it had not sung,
my influence would have amounted to nothing when I pled for you. And I
might not have been here to plead.
"That's about all, Major, except as to what manner of folk these
Hillmen are, and that you will learn better for yourself."
The Major rose and stepped to the door where they could survey the
village, unseen by the brown people who now swarmed the hard-packed
clearing. They were a squat race. The men, G-stringed, displayed the
same powerful physique that had marked the warrior who had conducted
the Major, the women were clad in a single width of homespun cotton
which draped from waist to knee and passed up over breast and back to
knot at the right shoulder. Men, women and children were all long
haired, and marked alike with broad, high cheek-boned faces flattened
across the bridge of the nose. Their slightly thickened lips and
widened nostrils were offset by large, intelligent eyes. They were
grouped about the fires which burned in the center of the village, the
women tending the pots which steamed over the coals. The fresh hide of
a buck lay in the center of the ring of fires amid heaps of yams and
unthreshed rice.
"Community cooking," explained Terry. "The young men hunt, the older
ones farm, the girls weave and the old women cook. The scheme works
out well in such a simple manner of living. Such government as they
have is a blending of a little democracy with strong patriarchism. The
old chief, Ohto, lets them have their own way about the little
things, but when he speaks it is the law."
"How numerous are they?"
"Six or eight thousand. This is the largest of nine villages scattered
around the crown of the mountain. Ohto rules them all."
He pointed to a wide lane leading through the fringe of woods into
another and smaller clearing a few hundred feet south.
"That is where Ohto lives. No one approaches his house unless sent
for. You--we--are to have an audience with him to-night. He set the
time at moonrise."
"A husky lot," commented the Major. "They're bigger than the Bogobos,
and lighter skinned--but they sure don't get much chance to tan in
these woods!"
"They're a wild lot, Major, but you'll like them."
They saw a woman leave the circle of fires and approach their hut
bearing two crude dishes. She hesitated near the door, nervously
searching the newcomer with timid black eyes, but reassured by Terry's
low word she climbed the bamboo steps and laid before them a supper of
venison, yams and boiled rice, then scampered out with a twinkle of
brown legs.
While they ate the Major outlined the news of Davao. Terry, tired of
the monotonous fare, finished quickly and sat on the threshold,
looking out upon the savages who squatted at supper about the fires.
"Major," he said, "we arrived here at a strange time. These people are
all worked up over the question as to who shall succeed Ohto as chief
of the tribe. You remember I told you that he has no relatives, that
they have all died off. His last grandson died three years ago. He was
to have married--"
He broke off and turned to face the Major. "You may remember my
reporting a Bogobo tale to the effect that a Spanish baby had been
abducted?"
"Yes, we looked it up, Terry. It was true."
"It's true all right. She is here! A wonderful girl, Major, beautiful,
wildly reared but--well, you may see her to-night for yourself. She
was stolen by these people when she was an infant and Ohto's grandson
was three years old, stolen to become his bride when both came of age.
That is the way they keep their chieftain strain fresh--by stealing
children from outside tribes and mating them when they grow up.
Ahma--that is her name--is the only white child they ever abducted.
"But Ohto's grandson died a year before the marrying age. She has
grown up in Ohto's household, has been taught their beliefs, dresses
like them except that as his adopted daughter she is entitled to finer
things. She is one of them except for the whiteness of her skin. One
of them, yet ... different."
His voice trailed off into a silence in which the subdued murmurings
of the Hill People sounded loud.
The Major stirred where he lay stretched on the hard couch: "Who will
succeed this Ohto, then?"
Terry roused himself. "The tribe is wrought up over this problem, as
well as the problem of our presence here. They gather every night and
discuss the matter. Some want to select a new chief among the young
men and train him so that he will be ready when Ohto dies, others
insist that Ahma--this girl--shall select a husband from among them
and thus raise him automatically to chieftainship. But she laughs at
them all, though there are plenty of aspirants for the honor. The old
chief has said nothing--he just sits and thinks.
"He loves Ahma with all of the wild love of a savage for the young he
has cared for since infancy. He seems to consider her happiness even
above the wishes and welfare of the tribe."
"Terry, you said this girl is 'different.' How different?"
Terry shrugged his shoulders, rose and secured their hats before
answering.
"You will probably see her to-night, Major. Come, I want to show you
the Tribal Agong."
Leaving the shack they threaded through the tiers of huts and crossed
through the fringe of trees that surrounded the village, coming out at
the foot of the cone. The huge monolith rose some eight hundred feet
above the tableland on which the village was built. Its symmetrical
slopes were smooth and steep. A goat could not have found footing
anywhere upon its precipitous sides.
A winding shelf had been cut out of the rock to serve as a trail. It
wound round the cone a dozen times in an ascent of several hundred
feet where it terminated, high above where they stood, in a niche
twenty feet square. Niche and trail had been chipped out of solid rock
and were worn smooth by the rains of many years. Here and there the
smooth surface was checkered with fissures, marks of erosion and
earthquake.
The Major, head bent far back, breathed deeply:
"Sus-marie-hosep!" he exclaimed.
High above the spot where they stood a granite arm had been carved
over the rock platform in which the winding trail ended, and from this
arm a mammoth bronze agong hung suspended over them.
"Why, I always thought those stories of the Giant Agong were
just--why, how in thunder did they get it up there? And how did they
cast it? Why--Sus-marie-hosep!"
The Major gazed up till the muscles at the back of his neck ached:
"Why, it must be fifteen feet in diameter--that striking knob is--why,
the thing must weigh six or seven tons!"
With this last thought the Major moved uneasily to one side. Terry
grinned at him.
"I felt that same way when I first stood under it, but I've been up
there. That flimsy-looking arm on which it hangs is two feet thick and
chiseled out of solid granite to form a bracket. I think you are right
about its size--the striking knob in the center is about six inches
wide."
The Major shook his head, still bewildered: "Terry, I feel as if this
is all a dream--being up here on Apo, this cold air, the smell of the
pines, and now this thing here--Sus-marie-hosep!"
"The old Bogobo woman who told me of hearing the Agong insisted that
she would live to hear it rung again. It is never rung except at the
marriage of a chieftain or the birth of his heir. These Hillmen
fairly worship it. They have the most absurd legends as to how it was
cast and hung up there, and of the reasons for the wonderful tone they
say it sounds. They believe that the souls of all the dead limoçons
live on in it forever and that when it is sounded they all burst forth
in song."
The sun exhausted its last white rays and sank below the low hills
beneath them. Terry moved forward into the narrow trail and indicated
to the Major that he should follow. They ascended slowly, the shelf
narrowing so that by the time they had mounted twice about the base of
the crag they were forced to advance by careful side steps, their
backs against the cliff. Terry stopped at the fourth spiral, his hands
gripping the jagged projections, his back tight against the cliff, and
when the Major reached his side he nodded significantly toward the
horizon.
The Major slowly withdrew his eyes from the dizzying abruptness of the
fall beneath them, and followed Terry's rapt gaze. The great panorama
of the Gulf lay unfolded beneath their aerie.
The sun, glowing pink against the crag, cast its huge shadow over the
now tiny huts beneath them. Dusk was already falling over the great
sloping forest that stretched from beneath their feet far into the
Mindanao fastnesses and ended in a dim horizon where pink-blue of sky
melted into the misted billows of distant hills. Far southward the
Celebes was faintly outlined, a frosted mirror framed by primeval
verdure, and to the east the slopes extended down mile upon mile,
flattened, then leveled to edge the great sweep of the gulf.
They stood tight against the clear crest while the swift shadows
gathered the Gulf into its fold. The little valleys faded, and
blackened, and the lower hills disappeared. The gulf narrowed,
shortened, and dissolved into the night. The dark crept swiftly up the
slopes as if envious of the ruby crown set on Apo's forehead by the
abdicating sun.
A steady wind, cool and fragrant with the odorous pines, streamed
against them, forced their bodies hard against the crag. The Major,
enraptured of the vast grandeur, voiced his exaltation.
"Jiminy!" he said. "The top of the world! An empire!--an empire of
hemp! And our flag covers it all!"
Receiving no answer, he carefully pivoted his head so as to face
Terry, and was humbled by what he saw. Terry's face, white in the fast
fading light, was exalted, glowed like that of an esthetic of the
Middle Ages, his eyes shone with a vision wider than that disclosed
from the mountain top.
"Terry, what do you see--in all this?" the Major asked.
The wind whipped his words into space. He repeated, louder.
Terry stirred slightly, answered vaguely, his gaze still fixed upon
the tremendous shadowed expanse below them: "I was thinking of a ...
dozen words ... spoken upon another mountain, words that seem very
real ... and make one feel very small ... in such a place as this."
The Major puzzled, gave it up. He was on the point of asking
explanation when Terry spoke.
"We had best get down from here, Major. It is getting darker."
It took them but a few minutes to work their way down, but the crag
reared black against ten thousand stars when they reached the base. In
the regions near the equator the sun courses in hot hurry.
Returned to the hut, the Major sat on the window ledge and Terry at
the threshold. The night was chill with the clear crispness of
altitude. The Major sniffed the pine-laden breeze gratefully.
"We have found a new Baguio," he said.
Terry assented, absentmindedly.
The Major nursed his empty pipe, studying the savages who grouped
around the fires to warm their almost naked bodies. Occasionally one
or two would detach themselves from the groups and approach near where
the two white men sat illumined by the flames, staring at these
strangers in frank curiosity, silent, inscrutable, unafraid. Noticing
the glint of fire upon a nearby row of long-shafted spears which
reared their vicious barbs eight feet above the ground into which they
had been thrust, the Major spoke to Terry.
"Your pistol?"
Terry motioned toward his room; "In there. They never bothered me
about it--probably don't know what a pistol is."
The Major, thinking of the sensation the opening of the Hill Country
would create, of the Governor's joy when he should hear the news, of
the added prestige for his Service, turned to Terry to express
something of his thoughts. But he desisted when he saw by Terry's
flame-illumined countenance that he had forgotten his presence, for
there was something about the lean wistful face that made his
detachment inviolable.
Soon the moon rose above the level of the plateau and flooded the
village with a filtered glow. Terry rose.
"Ohto ordered me to bring you at moonrise." He waited until the Major
had secured the gifts he had packed up, then led the way through the
lane into the smaller clearing.