The Bontoc Igorot Part 2

Without doubt the limits of the spread of the common culture have been determined mainly by the physiography of the country. One of the two pueblos in the area not on the common drainage system is Lias, but Lias was largely built by a migration from Bontoc pueblo -- the hotbed of Bontoc culture. Barlig, the other pueblo not on the common drainage system (both Barlig and Lias are on the Sibbu River), lies between Lias and the other pueblos of the Bontoc culture area, and so naturally has been drawn in line and held in line with the culture of the geographic area in which it is located -- its inst.i.tutions are those of its environment.

The Bontoc man

Introduction

The Bontoc Igorot has been in Bontoc longer than the endurance of tradition, for he says he never lived elsewhere, that he never drove any people out before him, and that he was never driven; and has always called himself the "I-pu-kao'" or "I-fu-gao'" -- the "people."

This word for people survives not only throughout the Province of Bontoc but also far toward the northern end of Luzon, where it appears as "Apayao" or "Yaos." Bontoc designates the people of the Quiangan region as "I-fu-gao'," though a part of them at least have a different name for themselves.

The Bontoc Igorot have their center in the pueblo of Bontoc, p.r.o.nounced "Ban-tak'," a Spanish corruption of the Igorot name "Fun-tak'," a common native word for mountain, the original name of the pueblo. To the northwest their culture extends to that of the historic Tinguian, a long-haired folk physiographically cut off by a watershed. To the east of the Cordillera Central the Tinguian call themselves "It-neg'." To the northeast the Bontoc culture area embraces the pueblo of Basao, stopping short of Tinglayan. The eastern limit of Bontoc culture is fixed by the pueblos of Lias and Barlig, and is thus about coextensive with the province. Southward the area includes all to the top of the watershed of Polis Mountain, which turns southward the numerous streams feeding the Rio Magat. The pueblos south of this watershed -- Lubong, Gisang, Banawi, etc. -- belong to the short-haired people of Quiangan culture. To the west Bontoc culture extends to the watershed of the Cordillera Central, which turns westward the various affluents of the Rio del Abra. On the southwest this cuts off the short-haired Lepanto Igorot, whose culture seems to be more allied to that of Benguet than Bontoc.

The men of the Bontoc area know none of the peoples by whom they are surrounded by the names history gives or the peoples designate themselves, with the exception of the Lepanto Igorot, the It-neg', and the Ilokano of the west coast. They do not know the "Tinguian"

of Abra on their north and northwest by that name; they call them "It-neg'." Farther north are the people called by the Spaniards "Nabayuganes," "Aripas," and "Ipugaos;" to the northeast and east are the "Caylingas," "Comunanges," "Bayabonanes," "Dayags," and "Gaddannes" -- but Bontoc knows none of these names. Bontoc culture and Kalinga culture lie close together on the east, and the people of Bontoc pueblo name all their eastern neighbors It-neg' -- the same term they apply to the Tinguian to the west and northwest, because, they say, they all wear great quant.i.ties of bra.s.s on the arms and legs. To the south of Bontoc are the Quiangan Igorot, the Banawi division of which, at least, names itself May'-yo-yet, but whom Bontoc calls "I-fu-gao'." They designate the people of Benguet the "Igorot of Benguet," but these peoples designate themselves "Ib-a-loi'" in the northern part, and "Kan-ka-nay'" in the southern part, neither of which names Bontoc knows.

She has still another set of names for the people surrounding her -- people whom she vaguely knows are there but of whom or of whose lands she has no first-hand knowledge. The people to the north are "Am-yan'-an," and the northern country is "La'-G.o.d." The "Day'-ya"

are the eastern people, while "Bar'-lig" is the name of the eastern and southeastern land. "Ab-a-ga'-tan" are the people of the south, and "Fi'-lig ab-a-ga'-tan," is the south land. The people of the west are "Loa'-od," and "Fi'-lig lao'-od," or "Lo'-ko" (the Provinces of Ilokos Norte and Ilokos Sur) is the country lying to the west and southwest.

Some of the old men of Bontoc say that in the past the Igorot people once extended to the seacoast in the Provinces of Ilokos Norte and Ilokos Sur. This, of course, is a tradition of the prehistoric time before the Ilokano invaded northern Luzon; but, as has been stated, the Bontoc people claim never to have been driven by that invasion, neither have they any knowledge of such a movement. It is not improbable, however, that traditions of the invasion may linger with the people nearer the coast and farther north.

Historical sketch

It is regretted that the once voluminous historical records and data which the Spaniards prepared and kept at Bontoc were burned -- tons of paper, they say -- probably late in 1898 or early in 1899 by Captain Angels, an insurrecto. However, from scanty printed historical data, but mostly from information gathered in Bontoc from Igorot and resident Ilokano, the following brief sketch is presented, with the hope that it will show the nature of the outside influences which have been about Bontoc for the past half century prior to American occupation. It is believed that the data are sufficiently truthful for this purpose, but no claim is made for historical accuracy.

It seems that in 1665 the Spanish governor of the Philippines, Governor-General D. Diego de Salcedo, sent an expedition from Manila into northern Luzon. Some time during the three years the expedition was out its influence was felt in Fidelisan and Tanolang, two pueblos in the western part of the Bontoc culture area, for history says they paid tribute.[9] It is not probable that any considerable party from the expedition penetrated the Igorot mountain country as far as the above pueblos.

After the year 1700 expeditions occasionally reached Cayan, which, until about twenty-five years ago, as has been stated, was a Spanish capital. In 1852 the entire territory of present Lepanto-Bontoc and a large part of northern Nueva Vizcaya were organized as an independent "distrito," under the name of "Valle de Cayan;"[10] and a few years later, though the author does not give the date, Bontoc was established as an independent "distrito."

The Spaniards and Ilokano in and about Bontoc Province say that it was about fifty years ago that the Spaniards first came to Bontoc. The time agrees very accurately with the time of the establishment of the district. From then until 1899 there was a Spanish garrison of 200 or 300 men stationed in Bontoc pueblo. Christian Ilokano from the west coast of northern Luzon and the Christian Tagalog from Manila and vicinity were the soldiers.

The Spanish comandante of the "distrito," the head of the political-military government, resided there, and there were also a few Spanish army officers and an army chaplain. A large garrison was quartered in Cervantes; there was a church in both Bontoc and Cervantes. In the district of Bontoc there was a Spanish post at Sagada, between the two capitals, Bontoc and Cervantes. Farther to the east was a post at Tukukan and Sakasakan, and farther east, at Basao, there was a post, a church, and a priest.

Most of the pueblos had Ilokano presidentes. The Igorot say that the Spaniards did little for them except to shoot them. There is yet a long, heavy wooden stock in Bontoc pueblo in which the Igorot were imprisoned. Igorot women were made the mistresses of both officers and soldiers. Work, food, fuel, and lumber were not always paid for. All persons 18 or more years old were required to pay an annual tax of 50 cents or an equivalent value in rice. A day's wage was only 5 cents, so each family was required to pay an equivalent of twenty days' labor annually. In wild towns the princ.i.p.al men were told to bring in so many thousand bunches of palay -- the unthreshed rice. If it was not all brought in, the soldiers frequently went for it, accompanied by Igorot warriors; they gathered up the rice, and sometimes burned the entire pueblo. Apad, the princ.i.p.al man of Tinglayan, was confined six years in Spanish jails at Bontoc and Vigan because he repeatedly failed to compel his people to bring in the amount of palay a.s.sessed them.

They say there were three small guardhouses on the outskirts of Bontoc pueblo, and armed Igorot from an outside town were not allowed to enter. They were disarmed, and came and went under guard.

The Spanish comandantes in charge of the province seem to have remained only about two years each. Saldero was the last one. Early in the eighties of the nineteenth century the comandante took his command to Barlig, a day east of Bontoc, to punish that town because it had killed people in Tulubin and Samoki; Barlig all but exterminated the command -- only three men escaped to tell the tale. Mandicota, a Spanish officer, went from Manila with a battalion of 1,000 soldiers to erase Barlig from the map; he was also accompanied from Bontoc by 800 warriors from that vicinity. The Barlig people fled to the mountains, losing only seven men, whose heads the Bontoc Igorot cut off and brought home.

Comandante Villameres is reported to have taken twenty soldiers and about 520 warriors of Bontoc and Samoki to punish Tukukan for killing a Samoki woman; the warriors returned with three heads.

They say that in 1891 Comandante Alfaro took 40 soldiers and 1,000 warriors from the vicinity of Bontoc to Ankiling; sixty heads adorned the triumphant return of the warriors.

In 1893 Nevas is said to have taken 100 soldiers and 500 warriors to Sadanga; they brought back one head.

A few years later Saldero went to "clear up" rebellious Sagada with soldiers and Igorot warriors; Bontoc reports that the warriors returned with 100 heads.

The insurrectos appeared before Cervantes two or three months after Saldero's b.l.o.o.d.y work in Sagada. The Spanish garrison fled before the insurrectos; the Spanish civilians went with them, taking their flocks and herds to Bontoc. A thousand pesos was the price offered by the Igorot of Sagada to the insurrectos for Saldero's head when the Philippine soldiers pa.s.sed through the pueblo; but Saldero made good his escape from Bontoc, and left the country by boat from Vigan.

The Bontoc Igorot a.s.sisted the insurrectos in many ways when they first came. About 2 miles west of Bontoc is a Spanish rifle pit, and there the Spanish soldiers, now swelled to about 600 men, lay in wait for the insurrectos. There on two hilltops an historic sham battle occurred. The two forces were nearly a mile apart, and at that distance they exchanged rifle bullets three days. The Spaniards finally surrendered, on condition of safe escort to the coast. For fifty years they had conquered their enemy who were armed only with spear and ax; but the insurrectos were armed with guns. However, the really hard pressing came from the rear -- there were still the ax and spear -- and few soldiers from cuartel or trench who tried to bring food or water for the fighting men ever reported why they were delayed.

The feeling of friendship between the Igorot and insurrectos was so strong that when the insurrectos asked the Igorot to go to Manila to fight the new enemy (the Americans), 400 warriors, armed only with spear, battle-ax, and shield, went a three weeks' journey to get American heads. At Caloocan, just outside Manila, they met the American Army early in February, 1899. They threw their spears, the Americans fired their guns -- "which must be brothers to the thunder,"

the Igorot said -- and they let fall their remaining weapons, and, panic stricken, started home. All but thirteen arrived in safety. They are not ashamed of their defeat and retreat; they made a mistake when they went to fight the Americans, and they were quick to see it. They are largely blessed with the saving sense of humor, and some of the warriors who were at Caloocan have been known to say that they never stopped running until they arrived home.

When these men told their people in Bontoc what part they and the insurrectos played in the fight against the Americans, the tension between the Igorot and insurrectos was at its greatest. The insurrectos were evidently worse than the Spaniards. They did all the things the Spaniards had done, and more -- they robbed through falsehood. Consequently, insurrectos frequently lost their heads.

Major Marsh went through Bontoc close after Aguinaldo in December, 1899. The Igorot befriended the Americans; they brought them food and guided them faithfully along the bewildering mountain trails when the insurrectos split and scattered -- anywhere, everywhere, fleeing eastward, northward, southward, in the mountains.

When Major Marsh returned through Bontoc, after following Aguinaldo into the heart of the Quiangan area, he left in the pueblo some sixty shoeless men under a volunteer lieutenant. The lieutenant promptly appointed an Ilokano presidente, vice-presidente, secretary, and police force in Bontoc and also in Sagada, and when the soldiers left in a few weeks he gave seven guns to the "officials" in Bontoc and two to those in Sagada. A short time proved that those "officials"

were untrustworthy men; many were insurrectos who had dropped behind Aguinaldo. They persecuted the Igorot even worse than had the insurrectos. They seemed to have the American Army behind them -- and the Igorot stood in awe of American arms.

The crisis came. An Igorot obtained possession of one of the guns, and the Ilokano chief of police was killed and his corporal wounded.

This shooting, at the time apparently unpremeditated, but, in reality, carefully planned and successfully executed, was the cause of the arrival in Bontoc pueblo of the first American civilians. At that time a party of twenty Americans was at Fidelisan, a long day northwest of Bontoc; they were prospecting and sightseeing. The Ilokano sent these men a letter, and the Igorot sent a messenger, begging them to come to the help of the pueblo. Three men went on August 27, 1900; they were Truman K. Hunt, M.D., Mr. Frank Finley, and Mr. Riley. The disagreement was settled, and several Ilokano families left Bontoc under the protection of Mr. Riley.

August 9, 1901, when the Board of Health for the Philippine Islands was organized, Dr. Hunt, who had remained in Bontoc most of the preceding year, was appointed "superintendent of public vaccination and inspection of infectious diseases for the Provinces of Bontoc and Lepanto." He was stationed at Bontoc. About that time another American civilian came to the province -- Mr. Reuben H. Morley, now secretary-treasurer of the Province of Nueva Vizcaya, who lived nearly a year in Tulubin, two hours from Bontoc. December 14 Mr. William F. Smith, an American teacher, was sent to Bontoc to open a school.

Early in 1902 Constabulary inspectors, Lieutenants Louis A. Powless and Ernest A. Eckman, also came. May 28, 1902, the Philippine Commission organized the Province of Lepanto-Bontoc; on June 9 Dr. Hunt was appointed lieutenant-governor of the province. May 1, 1903, Dr. Hunt resigned and E. A. Wagar, M.D., became his successor.

The Spaniard was in Bontoc about fifty years. To summarize the Spanish influence on the Igorot -- and this includes any influence which the Ilokano or Tagalog may have had since they came among the people under Spanish protection -- it is believed that no essential inst.i.tution of the Igorot has been weakened or vitiated to any appreciable degree. No Igorot attended the school which the Spaniards had in Bontoc; to-day not ten Igorot of the pueblo can make themselves understood in Spanish about the commonest things around them. I fail to detect any occupation, method, or device of the Igorot which the Spaniards'

influence improved; and the Igorot flatly deny any such influence.

The Spaniard put the inst.i.tution of pueblo presidente pretty well throughout the area now in province, but the presidente in no way interferes with the routine life of the people -- he is the mouthpiece of the Government asking for labor and the daily necessities of a nonproductive, resident foreign population.

The "tax" levied was scarcely in the nature of a modern tax; it was more the means taken by the Spaniard to secure his necessary food. In no other way was the political life and organization of the pueblo affected. In the realm of religion and spirit belief the surface has scarcely been scratched. The only Igorot who became Christians were the wives of some of the Christian natives who came in with the Spaniard, mainly as soldiers. There are now eight or ten such women, wives of the resident Ilokanos of Bontoc pueblo, but those whose husbands left the pueblo have reverted to Igorot faith.

In the matter of war and head-hunting the effect of the Spaniard was to intensify the natural instinct of the Igorot in and about Bontoc pueblo. Nineteen men in twenty of Bontoc and Samoki have taken a human head, and it has been seen under what conditions and influences some of those heads were taken. An Igorot, whose confidence I believe I have, an old man who represents the knowledge and wisdom of the people, told me recently that if the Americans wanted the people of Bontoc to go out against a pueblo they would gladly go; and he added, suggestively, that when the Spaniards were there the old men had much better food than now, for many hogs were killed in the celebration of war expeditions -- and the old men got the greater part of the meat. The Igorot is a natural head-hunter, and his training for the last sixty years seems to have done little more for him than whet this appet.i.te.

Somatology

Man

The Bontoc men average about 5 feet 4 1/8 inches in height, and have the appearance of being taller than they are. Again and again one is deceived by their height, and he repeatedly backs a 5-foot-7-inch Igorot up against a 6-foot American, vainly expecting the stature of the brown man to equal that of the white. Almost never does the Bontoc man appear heavy or thickset, as does his brother, the Benguet Igorot -- the human pack horse seen so constantly on the San Fernando-Baguio trail -- muscularly one of the most highly developed primitive people in the world to-day

Of thirty-two men measured from Bontoc and vicinity the shortest was 4 feet 9 1/8 inches and the tallest was slightly more than 5 feet 9 inches. The following table presents the average measurements of the thirty-two men:

Average measurements of Bontoc men

Measurements

CM.

Stature 160.287