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.
From Banawe we rode to Bontok, thirty-five miles, in one day, May
7th. This day it rained, the only rain we had during the whole trip,
although the season was now on. But the disturbance in question was
due to a typhoon far to the southward; and as it passed off into the
China Sea, so did the day finally clear. Our first business this
morning was to cross the pass on Polis Mountain, some 6,400 feet
above sea-level, the highest elevation we reached. As we rode out of
Banawe we could see on the wooded sky-line to our right front a cut
as though of a road through the forest; it was not a road, of course,
but an opening normal to the crest of the ridge. Across this a net is
stretched, and the bats, flying in swarms by night to clear the top,
drop into the cut on reaching it, and so are caught in the net in
flying across. We saw several such bat-traps during our trip. In this
way these highlanders eke out their meager supply of meat. The bat in
question is not the animal we are familiar with, but the immensely
larger fruit bat, the flesh of which is readily eaten. Our trail
took us up, and sharply; by nine o'clock we had crowned the pass,
and stopped for chow and rest. In front of us, as we looked back,
plunged the deepest, sharpest valley yet seen, around the head
of which we had ridden and across which we could look down on the
Ifugao country we had just come from; down one side and up the other
could be traced the remains of the old Spanish trail, a miracle of
stupidity. To the right (west), but out of sight, lay Sapao, where the
rice-terraces have received their greatest development, rising from the
valley we were gazing into some 3,000 feet up the slope. Sapao, too,
is the seat of the Ifugao steel industry, so that for many reasons I
was sorry it was off our itinerary. The point where we were resting
has some interest from its associations, for our troops reached it
in their pursuit of Aguinaldo, at the end of a long day of rain,
and had to spend the night without food or fire or sleep. It was not
possible to light a pipe even, a _noche triste_ indeed. Most of the
men stood up all night, this being better than lying down in the mud;
to march on was impossible, as the country was then trailless, except
for the Spanish trail mentioned, to attempt which by night would have
been suicide. A tropical forest can be pretty dreary in bad weather,
almost as dreary as a Florida cypress swamp on a rainy Sunday.
We now made on, having crossed into Bontok sub-province, and by
midday had reached a point on the trail above an Igorot village
called Ambawan. Here we were met by a number of the officials of
the province, who gave us a sumptuous tiffin in the rest-house. And
here, too, we bought a number of baskets made in Ambawan, graceful
of design and well-woven, though small. Governor Evans offered an
escort of Constabulary through the next village, Talubin, the temper
of its inhabitants being uncertain, but Mr. Forbes declined it,
and ordered the escort sent back. We were riding as men of peace,
determined to mark our confidence in the good intentions and behavior
of the various _rancherías_ we passed through.
Immediately on leaving Ambawan, we had to drop from the new trail
(ours) to the old Spanish one for a short distance, for our trail
had run plump upon a rock, waiting before removal for a little money
to buy dynamite with. Having turned the rock, the climb back to the
new trail proved to be quite a serious affair, as such things go,
the path being so steep and so filled with loose sand and gravel
clattering down the slope at each step that only one man leading
his horse was allowed on it at a time, the next man not starting
till his predecessor was well clear at the top. A loss of footing
meant a tumble to the bottom, a matter of concern if we had all been
on the path together. But finally we all got up and moved on, this
time over the narrowest trail yet seen, a good part of the way not
more than eighteen or twenty inches wide, with a smooth, bare slope
of sixty to eighty degrees on the drop side, and the bottom of the
valley one thousand to fifteen hundred feet or more below us. Many
of us dismounted and walked, leading our horses for miles. With us
went an Igorot guide or policeman, who carried a spear in one hand,
and, although naked, held an umbrella over his head with the other,
and a civilized umbrella too, no native thing. However, it must be
admitted that it was raining.
The mists prevented any general view of the country; as a matter of
fact, we were at such an elevation as to be riding in the clouds,
which had come down by reason of the rain. However, the valleys below
us were occasionally in plain enough sight, showing some cultivation
here and there, rice and _camotes_, the latter occasionally in queer
spiral beds. The bird-scarers, too, were ingenious: a board hung
by a cord from another cord stretched between two long and highly
flexible bamboos on opposite banks of a stream, would be carried
down by the current until the tension of its cord became greater
than the thrust of the stream, when it would fly back and thus cause
the bamboo poles to shake. This motion was repeated without end,
and communicated by other cords suitably attached to other bamboo
poles set here and there in the adjacent rice-paddy. From these hung
rough representations of birds, and a system was thus provided in a
state of continious agitation over the area, frequently of many acres,
to be protected. The idea is simple and efficacious.
This long stretch terminated in a land-slide leading down into the dry,
rocky bed of a mountain stream. At the head of the slide we turned our
mounts loose, and all got down as best we could, except Mr. Forbes,
who rode down in state on his cow-pony. Once over, we crossed a
village along the edge of a rice-terrace, in which our horses sank
almost up to their knees. As the wall was fully fifteen feet high,
a fall here into the paddy below would have been most serious; it
would have been almost impossible to get one's horse out. However,
all things come to an end; we crossed the stream below by a bridge,
one at a time (for the bridge was uncertain), and found ourselves
in Talubin, where we were warmly greeted by Bishop Carroll of Vigan
and some of his priests. The Bishop, who was making the rounds of his
diocese, had only a few days before fallen off the very trail we had
just come over, and rolled down, pony and all, nearly two hundred feet,
a lucky bush catching him before he had gone the remaining fourteen
hundred or fifteen hundred.
Talubin somehow bears a poor reputation; its inhabitants have a
villainous look, owing, no doubt, in part to their being as black and
dirty as coal-heavers. This in turn is due to the habit of sleeping
in closed huts without a single exit for the smoke of the fire these
people invariably make at night, their cook-fire probably, for they
cook in their huts. However this may be, the people of this _ranchería_
showed neither pleasure nor curiosity on seeing us, and I noticed that
a Constabulary guard was present, patrolling up and down, as it were,
with bayonets fixed and never taking their eyes off the natives that
appeared. These Igorots lacked the cheerfulness and openness of our
recent friends, the Ifugaos. Their houses were not so good, built
on the ground itself, and soot-black inside. The whole village was
dirty and gloomy and depressing, and yet it stands on the bank of a
clean, cheerful stream. However, the inevitable _gansas_ were here,
but silent; one of them tied by its string to a human jaw-bone as a
handle. This, it seems, is the fashionable and correct way to carry
a _gansa_. At Talubin the sun came out, and so did some bottles of
excellent red wine which the Bishop and his priests were kind enough
to give us. But we did not tarry long, for Bontok was still some miles
away. So we said good-bye to the Bishop and his staff and continued
on our way. The country changed its aspect on leaving Talubin:
the hills are lower and more rounded, and many pines appeared. The
trail was decidedly better, but turned and twisted right and left,
up and down. The country began to take on an air of civilization--why
not? We were nearing the provincial capital; some paddies and fields
were even fenced. At last, it being now nearly five of the afternoon,
we struck a longish descent; at its foot was a broad stream, on the
other side of which we could see Bontok, with apparently the whole
of its population gathered on the bank to receive us. And so it was:
the grown-ups farther back, with marshalled throngs of children on the
margin itself. As we drew near, these began to sing; while fording,
the strains sounded familiar, and for cause: as we emerged, the
"Star-Spangled Banner" burst full upon us, the shock being somewhat
tempered by the _gansas_ we could hear a little ahead. We rode past,
got in, and went to our several quarters, Gallman and I to Governor
Evans's cool and comfortable bungalow.
I took advantage of the remaining hour or so of daylight to get a
general view of things. One's first impression of the Bontok Igorot
is that he is violent and turbulent; it is perhaps more correct to
say that, as compared with the Ifugao, he lacks discipline. It is
certain that he is taller, without being stronger or more active
or better built; in fact, as one goes north, the tribes increase in
height and in wildness. The women share in the qualities noted. Both
men and women were all over the place, and much vigorous dancing was
going on. Using the same _gansa_ as the Ifugao, the Igorot beats
it on the convex side with a regular padded drumstick, whereas
the Ifugao uses any casual stick on the concave side. Moreover,
the Bontok dancers went around their circle, beating their _gansas_
the while, in a sort of lope, the step being vigorous, long, easy,
and high; as in all the other dances seen, the motion was against
the sun. The _gansa_ beat seemed to be at uniform intervals, all full
notes. While our friends the Ifugaos were, on the whole, a quiet lot,
these Bontok people seemed to be fond of making a noise, of shouting,
of loud laughter. They appeared to be continually moving about, back
and forth, restlessly and rapidly as though excited. On the whole, the
impression produced by these people was not particularly agreeable;
you felt that, while you might like the Banawe, you would always be
on your guard against the Bontok. But it must be recollected that we
had no such opportunity to see these people as we enjoyed in the case
of Banawe and Andangle. The occasion was more exciting; they were
more on show. It is not maintained that these are characteristics,
simply that they appeared to be this afternoon and, indeed, during
the remainder of our stay.
Individuals appeared to be friendly enough, though these were
chiefly the older men. One of them, a total stranger to me, came up
and intimated very clearly that he would like the transfer of the
cigar I was smoking from my lips to his. In a case like this, it is
certainly more blessed to give than to receive, but in spite of this
Scriptural view of the matter, I nevertheless naturally hesitated to
be the party of even the second part in a liberty of such magnitude,
and on such short acquaintance, too. However I gave him the cigar;
he received it with graciousness. I found now that I must give cigars
to all the rest standing about, and, after emptying my pockets, sent
for two boxes. An expectant crowd had in the meantime collected below,
for we were standing on the upper veranda of Government House, and,
on the two hundred cigars being thrown out to them all at one time,
came together at the point of fall in the mightiest rush and crush
of human beings I ever saw in my life. A foot-ball scrimmage under
the old rules was nothing to it. Very few cigars came out unscathed,
but the scramble was perfectly good-humored.
Of weapons there was almost none visible, no shields or spears,
but here and there a head-ax. The usual fashion in clothes prevailed;
gee-string for the men, and short sarong-like skirt for the women. Hair
was worn long, many men gathering it up into a tiny brimless hat, for
all the world like Tommy Atkins's pill-box, only worn squarely on the
apex of the skull, and held on by a string passed through the hair in
front. In this hat the pipe and tobacco are frequently carried. Many
of these hats are beautifully made, and decorated; straw, dyed of
various colors, being combined in geometrical patterns. Ordinary ones
can be easily got; but, if ornamented with beads or shell, they command
very high prices, one hundred and fifty pesos or more. Many men were
elaborately tattooed, the pattern starting well down the chest on each
side and running up around the front of the shoulder and part way down
the arm. If, as is said, this elaborate tattoo indicates that its owner
has killed a human being, then Bontok during our stay was full of men
that had proved their valor in this particular way. Earrings were very
common in both sexes; frequently the lobe was distended by a plug of
wood, with no appreciable effect of ornament, and sometimes even torn
open. In that case the earring would be held on by a string over the
ear. One man came by with three earrings in the upper cartilage of
each ear, one above the other. Still another had actually succeeded in
persuading nature to form a socket of gristle just in front of each
ear, the socket being in relief and carrying a bunch of feathers. A
few men had even painted their faces scarlet or yellow. No one seemed
to know the significance of this habit (commoner farther north than at
Bontok), but the paint was put on much after the fashion prevailing
in Manchuria, and, if possibly for the same reason, certainly with
the same result. The pigment or color comes from a wild berry.