The Gods of Banaue
Scotty reached out for the Hindu boy, but Chahda stepped nimbly aside.
"Not time for horseplay now," he said. "Or talk either. Houseboy will
hear. It important I stay under cover. You go up and eat. Later, if I
can, I will come to Manila Hotel. If I cannot, I will meet you in
Baguio."
The boys knew better than to argue. They each punched Chahda
affectionately as they passed him, then Rick knocked on the door, which
was instantly opened by a Filipino houseboy.
The houseboy led them up a steep flight of stairs into a huge living
room, sparsely furnished after the tropical fashion, but with exquisite
and expensive Chinese furniture of rosewood and teak. Tony Briotti came
to meet them, then introduced them to Dr. Remedios Okola and the
Honorable Irineo Lazada.
Dr. Okola, obviously, had a great deal of Spanish blood in his ancestry.
He was tall and lean, with a deeply lined face and a magnificent
hawklike nose. His hair was iron gray. He wore black dress trousers and
an open-neck slipover shirt of a very fine, almost transparent, fabric
heavily embroidered down the front. The shirt hung outside his trousers
in traditional style. This was the _barong_ Tagalog, the native Filipino
costume.
Where the Filipino archaeologist showed his Spanish blood, the Honorable
Irineo Lazada's face betrayed his Chinese ancestry. He was round of
face, and his eyes had the typical Mongoloid fold. He was dressed in an
expensive white sharkskin suit with a white American-style shirt and a
black tie. The tie was held in place by the biggest diamond Rick had
ever seen. He assumed it was real; no one would wear a phony one that
big.
Lazada had a huge Manila cigar in one hand and a fan in the other. By
some feat of legerdemain he managed to shake hands with the boys without
letting go of either.
"Come in, come in," he said genially. "Welcome to the Philippines. You
will have some refreshment? How about a coke?"
That suited the boys fine. Lazada waved a pudgy hand and a slippered
houseboy appeared like a genie, carrying two iced glasses of coke. Rick
was not in the least surprised. He had had his favorite American
beverage in more unexpected places than this.
Tony Briotti explained, "Dr. Okola and I just got here. We had a most
interesting day at the university. I was beginning to go into the
details of our expedition with Mr. Lazada."
"Please continue," Lazada said expansively.
Rick, who was sensitive to voices, had the impression that Mr. Lazada's
voice passed through a bath of highly refined oil before it emerged from
his thick lips. It wasn't exactly oily--just sort of overlubricated.
Lazada alternately smoked and fanned. "You were telling me of Spindrift
Island. Am I to gather that you are the only Spindrift scientist on this
expedition? And that these young men just came for the voyage?"
"By no means." Tony set Lazada straight. "Rick is our pilot and
electronics technician. Scotty is mechanic and camp manager."
"Pilot?" Lazada looked surprise.
Dr. Okola hastened to explain. "I neglected to tell Mr. Lazada that you
are bringing your own plane. Of course, sir, permission was obtained in
advance from the Philippine Aeronautics Authority."
"A helicopter, of course," Lazada said. "Nothing else would be of value
in Mountain Province. The only air-field is at Baguio."
"It's a four-place Sky Wagon," Rick said. "We hoped there might be some
suitable landing places."
Lazada shrugged. "Perhaps there are, but they are not regular airports.
Planes do not fly in that country. Both the mountains and the weather
are dangerous."
"Might it not be possible for them to land on the roadway at Bontoc and
then go over the mountains to Banaue by truck?" Dr. Okola asked.
"Perhaps." Lazada didn't seem too optimistic. "Exactly where do you
expect to find this golden skull?" He added, "I can tell you more about
the transportation you will need when I know that."
"We only know that it should be somewhere among the rice terraces," Tony
Briotti said. "I realize that they cover entire mountainsides. That is
why we came prepared to stay for some time if need be. There is so much
territory to cover with our equipment!"
"Many square miles," Lazada agreed. "What is the expression? A needle in
a haystack? Surely you must have some kind of clue."
"Just one," Dr. Okola said. "A dragon. Isn't that so, Dr. Briotti?"
Tony nodded. "That's what the translation of the Kwangara Island
artifacts said. The dragon is supposed to be guarding a cache of
religious objects, including the golden skull and other gold objects."
"You mean a gilt skull, of course," Lazada said.
"No, the description was quite clear. A skull of metallic gold."
"A miniature, probably."
"No, sir. The skull is actually larger than life size."
Lazada stopped slouching in his chair. "Incredible!"
Dr. Okola spoke up. "After all, Mr. Secretary, gold is mined right here
in the Philippines. In Mountain Province, in fact. And it is found in
many other parts of Asia."
Rick had a strange feeling as he watched Lazada's face. The Assistant
Secretary seemed to be licking his lips, although he wasn't actually
doing so. It was almost as though Lazada was doing sums in his head....
Gold is heavy.... It would take a lot of gold to make a life-size skull,
even a hollow one.... Gold is worth thirty-five dollars an ounce,
legally. If smuggled into China, it would bring twice that....
"Tell me more of this dragon," Lazada invited.
Tony was glad to oblige. Next to actually working at his profession he
enjoyed talking about it. "The dragon is of the greatest importance
throughout the culture of the East. We followed its trail from the great
temple of Ankor Vat in Cambodia all the way to the sunken temple of Alta
Yuan."
Rick remembered vividly. He had been at the controls of the Submobile, a
hundred fathoms under the waters of the Pacific, when the first Alta
Yuan dragon came to light.
"The dragon was the incarnation of the chief god of the Alta Yuan
people. When an earthquake sank the temple, the people of the island
lost their gods. When we hauled the dragon back up and gave it to them,
nothing was too good for us." He paused. "By 'we' I mean the Spindrift
scientists. I was not among the lucky ones, since I had not yet joined
the Spindrift group."
Okola shared Tony's excitement over the Alta Yuan find. "I, too, was
very much interested in that expedition. And when I heard that the
artifacts brought from the bottom of the sea provided a possible
connection between the Philippines and that ancient culture, you can
imagine my excitement."
Rick could see that Lazada could not possibly imagine so much excitement
over an archaeological find, but was too courteous to say so.
"Then finding a similar dragon among the rice terraces would show a link
between our country and the ruins of Ankor Vat?" Lazada asked.
"Exactly," Tony replied.
Lazada rose. "Dinner is ready. Let us continue our discussion at the
table."
They went out to a balcony which overlooked a garden at the rear of the
house. A table set with the finest Chinese linen and delicate Siamese
silverware was waiting for them. Houseboys waited to serve them. Over a
dinner of broiled giant prawns, meat-stuffed rolls called _lumpia_, and
whole barbecued suckling pig called _lechon_, they continued their talk
of the expedition.
"What is the significance of the golden skull?" Lazada asked.
"I did not know until today," Tony answered. "I found out from my
esteemed colleague here. He has been doing some very hard work on it.
Will you answer, Dr. Okola?"
The Filipino archaeologist looked pleased, but he hastened to say, "The
credit is not mine alone. I had the invaluable assistance of one of my
graduate students, who is himself an Ifugao. A brilliant young man. Next
week I am attending a celebration at his home, in honor of his becoming
an assistant professor at the university."
"I'm sorry I didn't meet him," Tony Briotti said. "Did you mention his
name?"
"Nangolat. However, Mr. Lazada asked about the significance of the
golden skull. We were able to uncover a story about it among the many
Ifugao myths, a story of which I had not been aware until Dr. Briotti's
letters put me on the track. You realize that the Ifugao religion is
rich in myths. It is a very complicated religion with over a thousand
gods."
Scotty whistled. "They must have a god for nearly everything they say or
do."
"Just about," Dr. Okola agreed. "Even their universe is divided into
five regions. There is the known earth, _pugao_; the sky world,
_kabunian_; the region downriver, _lagod_; the region upriver, _daiya_;
and the underworld, _dalun_."
"What river?" Rick asked.
"Any river on which they happen to live," Okola answered. "No one knows
exactly what the original river of the Ifugaos might have been. You see,
they are immigrants. They came from the Chinese mainland, but we don't
know exactly when, or whether their original home was China. Perhaps we
will find out that it was Cambodia. We do know that their miraculous
rice terraces were started at least two thousand years ago."
"That makes them almost as old as the pyramids!" Scotty exclaimed.
"Quite right. The whole culture is quite astonishing. We think of them
as primitive people, but their history is more complex than our own.
However, we are speaking of heads. Heads have always been of the
greatest religious importance to the Ifugaos. They have been
head-hunters for religious and economic reasons for centuries. First
America, and then the Republic of the Philippines tried to stamp out the
custom. In general, we have succeeded. There is little or no
head-hunting now--so far as we know."
Lazada grunted. "The mountains are difficult to police. I doubt that we
know all that goes on. I wouldn't be surprised if a head wasn't taken
now and then. After all, the Ifugaos got the heads of two American
professors only a few years ago."
"The murders were for religious reasons," Okola explained. "Sacrifices
were needed for the rice crop. The unfortunate professors were on a
hiking trip, and they happened along at just the wrong moment."
Rick remembered newspaper reports of the incident. It had attracted
world-wide attention. The Ifugao natives responsible had been captured
by the Philippine constabulary, tried, and punished.
Okola continued, "We have traced back a thread through the complicated
maze of Ifugao myths. The thread leads to a legendary hero--the
leader-god who led the Ifugaos to the Philippines. The golden skull was
originally his own, turned to gold by the very power of the hero's
magic. After his death, of course. At first it was an ordinary skull,
then it turned to gold."
"Then the skull has something to do with head-hunting?" Rick asked.
"Indeed it does. It is apparently the chief object to which heads are
sacrificed--or was, before it was lost. The golden skull is _almaduan_,
the very soul stuff of the Ifugaos."
"How was it lost?" Scotty inquired.
"In a war," Okola said, quite seriously, "between the _kabunian_, the
gods of the sky world, and the _dalun_, the gods of the underworld. The
_dalun_ won. They took the head and disappeared into the ground
somewhere in Banaue. Behind them, they left a great taboo. If an Ifugao
tries to follow them into the underworld to reclaim the skull, great
misfortune will come. An earthquake will destroy the terraces. The
people will starve. They will be haunted by the _dodingerot_--ghouls who
dwell in tombs and bite the faces of intruders."
"Then the Ifugaos will take a dim view of our hunting their golden
skull," Rick guessed.
"They might if they knew about it," Dr. Okola said. "Actually, what I
have just told you is almost forgotten lore. I doubt that the Ifugao man
in the street--or, properly, man in the rice terraces--has ever heard of
it. A few old priests may remember."
Irineo Lazada clapped his hands and rose. "Coffee in the living room,
gentlemen. You know, I begin to have some hope for this golden skull. I
had not really taken your expedition seriously until Dr. Okola's
recital."
Tony Briotti picked him up quickly. "Then that is why you have failed to
issue our permit?"
Rick stopped in his tracks. Was there trouble about their permit? He had
wondered about the reason for this dinner with the Assistant Secretary
of the Interior. Perhaps it was to persuade him.
Lazada smiled. "The government doesn't want to stir up trouble among the
mountain tribes. We do not have enough constabulary for police duty in
the mountains. A small detachment at Baguio is the best we can do."
"I assure you that we will not stir up trouble," Tony Briotti said.
"Of course not. And so I will issue your permit."
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary," Dr. Okola said. "This will mean a great deal
to the Philippines. Dr. Briotti assures me that Spindrift will not ask
for anything to be removed from the islands. The golden skull, if it is
found, will remain right here, perhaps at the university's museum."
"Such a treasure would need to be well guarded," Lazada chuckled. "We do
have thieves in the Philippines, as does every other country." Again he
seemed to be licking his lips without actually doing so.
Over a second cup of coffee they laid their plans. Lazada would instruct
the district road commissioner at Bontoc to co-operate with them in
every way, since that official came under his jurisdiction. Through the
district commissioner they could hire any laborers they might need. The
commissioner also would arrange for Rick's plane to land on the highway
at Bontoc when necessary. Since there was little traffic, landing would
present no real problems. They could use the district office at Bontoc,
and make it their headquarters.
Dr. Okola sighed, "I can't tell you how sorry I am that you come in the
midst of a school seminar. If you are still searching at the end of next
week, I will join you. But until then, it will be impossible."
"But you will send us a good guide who knows the area," Tony reminded
him.
"Yes. He will be at your hotel in the morning. His name is Angel
Manotok, and you can trust him with no hesitation. He speaks Igorot and
Ifugao, as well as the Filipino dialects of this region. He can drive a
truck, and he can cook reasonably well." Okola pronounced the man's name
in the Spanish way, "Ahng-hel."
"Sounds like a handy guy to have around," Scotty remarked.
"Yes," Rick agreed. "Besides, it's nice to have an angel in the party."
The hour was late. The boys and Tony Briotti bade good night to Lazada
and Okola, refused the offer of another coke but accepted a ride back to
the hotel in Lazada's car. As they left the house the boys looked for
Chahda. There was a Sikh at the gate, but he was a big man. Chahda was
not in sight.
Lazada's car turned out to be a brand-new Cadillac with a special maroon
paint job and a monogram about four inches square on every door.
Evidently the Assistant Secretary believed in personal advertising.
They were tired. The ride back to the Manila Hotel was made in silence,
except for a brief report to Tony that all was in readiness for the trip
to Baguio on the first leg of their journey.
At the hotel desk they picked up their room keys. The boys had one room,
Tony another. The rooms were on the second floor, so they walked
upstairs instead of bothering with the slow elevators.
"Good night, boys," Tony said wearily. He inserted his key and swung the
door open, then stiffened as a crash sounded in the room. Rick and
Scotty snapped out of their weary haziness and leaped into the room
behind Tony in time to see a figure dive headlong from the window.
Rick yelled in horror. They rushed to the window, expecting to see the
man dead on the ground below. Instead, they saw him swing lightly from
the branch of a flame tree and drop to the ground. He ran across Dewey
Boulevard and was lost in the darkness under the walls of Intramuros.