The Inhabitants of the Philippines Part 50

Inhabitants.

Town of Isabela 921 Hamlet of San Pedro de Guihanan 130 Hamlet of Santa Barbara 50 Reduccion of Panigayan 25 Reduccion of Tabuc 12 Scattered Christians 12 Members of the Naval Station 86 variable.

Garrison of the Fort 40 ,, ------ 1276

The Moro population is distributed in about fifty villages or hamlets. They can turn out about 4400 fighting-men, and are considered valiant and hardy.

The Moros of Basilan, according to Father Foradada, have not the sanguinary instincts of those of Lake Lanao or of Jolo, and any outrages they commit are, he thinks, due to the instigations of the Moros of Jolo, who unfortunately keep up a communication with them and corrupt them.

Amongst the most influential Dattos of Basilan is Pedro Cuevas, a Tagal. He was formerly a convict, but escaped, and, by force of character and desperate courage, he became a leading man amongst the Moros. Having rendered some services to Spain, he received a pardon, and now has extensive plantations, a sugar-mill, and herds of cattle. He is, in fact, about the richest and most influential man in the island, and has become reconciled to the Church, and was much trusted both by the military and naval authorities and by the missionaries.

The map of the island is from a report of Father Cavalleria who went by sea right round it in 1893.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE TRIBES OF MINDANAO.

Visayas (1) [Old Christians].

In another part of the book I have given a description of the Visayas in their own islands, and have spoken of their enterprise and industry as manifested in the extent of their exports of sugar and hemp, and in their manufacture of textiles of the most varied kind.

The Visayas of Mindanao have been modified by their environment both for good and evil. Thus they are bolder and more warlike than their brethren at home, having had for centuries to defend themselves against bloodthirsty Moros. The Visayas of Caraga are especially valiant and self-reliant, and they needed to be so, for the Spaniards, whenever hard pressed by English, Dutch or Portuguese, had a way of recalling their garrisons, and leaving their dependents to shift for themselves. The Visaya of Mindanao, therefore, though not a soldier, is a fighting-man, and their towns possess a rudimentary defensive organisation called the somaten. This, I believe is a Catalan word, and indicates a body of armed townsmen called together by the church bell to defend the place against attack. This service is compulsory and unpaid.

The arms have been supplied by the Spanish Government, and have generally been of obsolete pattern. I have seen in Culion flint-lock muskets in the hands of the guards. Latterly, however, Remington rifles have been supplied, and they are very serviceable and quite suitable for these levies.

The Visayas have been the a.s.sistants of the missionaries, and from them come most of the school-masters and mistresses who instruct the children of the recently-converted natives.

Their language is fast extending, and their numbers are increasing, both naturally, and by a considerable voluntary immigration from the southern Visayas Islands.

To the inhabitants of these small islands, fertile Mindanao, with its broad lands, free to all, is what the United States were a generation ago to the cotters of Cork or Kerry--a land of promise.

There is, however, a demoralising tendency at work amongst the Visayas. The profits of bartering with the hill-men are so great, that they are tempted away from their agriculture, and from their looms, to take up this lucrative trade, in compet.i.tion with the Chinese.

The Visaya has one great advantage over the Chinaman; he has the courage to go up into the hills, and find his customers in their haunts. This the Celestial could not do, but has to remain at his store on the coast and await the hill-men.

Both traders cheat the hill-tribes most abominably.

Dr. Montano mentions a case which happened in Butuan in December, 1879.

A Visaya went into the interior taking with him some threads of different colours which he had purchased for seventy-five cents, and returned with jungle produce worth ten dollars. This he invested in beads, bra.s.s-wire, and other articles of trade, and returned to the woods. In a month he came back, bringing produce to the value of 100 dollars, and 400 dollars to his credit with the natives.

The tribes of Mindanao pay their debts with scrupulous exactness. If they die before paying, their sons a.s.sume the debt, and unless they are killed or taken as slaves by other races, the money is sure to be paid. Consequently, this rapacious usurer had sold them goods costing 10 dollars, 75 cents, for 510 dollars, of which 110 dollars in cash, and 400 dollars credit. It is satisfactory to learn that the commandant at Butuan made him disgorge, and freed the hill-men from their heavy debt.

To sum up, the Visaya is a necessary man in Mindanao, and the immigration should be encouraged. All the Visaya towns bordering on the Moros should have their somatenes armed, exercised, and supplied with ammunition. Amongst Visayas are to be found plenty of men well suited to command these bands. As they are fighting the Moros for life and property, they may be trusted to stand up to them manfully.

The ill.u.s.tration shows a party of Visayas militia belonging to the town of Baganga, in Caraga, under a native officer of gigantic stature, Lieutenant Don Prudencio Garcia.

Mamanuas (2).

A hybrid race between Negritos and Malays.

They are not numerous, and live in the northern promontory of Surigao, from near the River Agusan to the east coast, south of Lake Mainit. They are, indeed, miserable wretches, wandering in the hills and forest without any fixed habitation, their only property a lance, a bolo, and some starveling curs.

Sometimes they plant a few sweet potatoes, and at certain times in the year they get wild honey; at other times they hunt the wild pig. They lay up no provisions, and wander about naked and hungry. They are difficult to convert, having no good qualities to work upon. They promise anything, but never perform, being able to give as a reason--some evil omen, for instance--that, on coming out in the morning, they have heard the cry of the turtle-dove (limbucun) on the left hand.

Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the zeal of the missionaries has not been wasted, and several reducciones of Mamanuas have been founded, and are progressing to some extent.

Man.o.bos (3).

The Man.o.bos are a warlike heathen race, widely extended in Mindanao. The great River Agusan, taking its rise in the district of Davao, in 7 N. lat.i.tude, falls into the Bay of Butuan about 9 N. lat.i.tude. Its general course is parallel to the eastern Cordillera, from which it receives numerous tributaries. At almost 8 15' N. lat.i.tude it expands, and forms four considerable lakes of no great depth, and varying in extent according to the season. They are partly covered by aquatic plants. These lakes are called Linao, Dagun, Dinagat and Cadocun; they are quite near each other. The Man.o.bos inhabit this s.p.a.cious valley from Moncado, in 7 45', to about 8 45'

N. lat.i.tude on the right bank, where they come in contact with the Mamanuas and Mandayas; but on the left bank they extend nearly to the sea, and up to the eastern slopes of the Central Cordillera. They even extend over the Cordillera to the head waters of the Rio Grande. They occupy the left bank of the Pulangui, and their southern frontier on the Rio Grande is at 7 30' N. lat.i.tude, where one of their chiefs, called the Datto Capitan Man.o.bo, lives. The river is navigable for vintas up to here, and, in 1863, the gunboat Taal, drawing six feet, steamed to within five miles of this point, say up to the River Simuni. They extend up the Pulangui to about 8 15' N. lat.i.tude. In appearance they have a Mongolian cast of feature. Their faces are longer than amongst the Mandayas; their noses are not flattened, but straight, and projecting, and slightly curved at the lower end. Their general aspect is robust; their stature is about 5 feet 7 inches. Their usual dress consists of short drawers reaching to the knee, and a sort of singlet, or short shirt.

They live in clans under a bagani, or head-murderer (see Mandayas for explanation), who is usually accompanied by his brothers-in-law. They are polygamists; still, the first wife is the head, and all the others must obey her. Each wife has her own house, just as the late Brigham Young's harem had at Salt Lake City. But they are satisfied with fewer than that prophet, there being none amongst their dattos who have nineteen wives. They are slaveholders, as the children taken in war become slaves, and all the work of cultivation is done by the women, children and slaves.

Their houses are built on piles, as are also their granaries. They cultivate on a considerable scale, and raise quant.i.ties of rice, maize, sweet potatoes and tobacco, not only to supply their own wants, but to sell in boat-loads to the Visayas. Their arms are lances, shields, swords and daggers, and, in some parts, bows and arrows. They are said to be expert archers where they use the bow. They raise numbers of horses for riding.

In valour, and in disposition to come to close quarters in fighting, they resemble the Igorrotes of Luzon. They stand up squarely to the Moros, which few other races have the pluck to do. Like the Igorrotes, their religion consists in ancestor-worship, but they call their idols Dinatas instead of Anitos. They are much impressed by thunder, which they call the voice of the lightning, and a rainbow fills them with awe. Like the Tagals, and some races in British India, they consider the crocodile a sacred animal, and respectfully address it as grandfather. They also, like the old heathen Tagals, consider rocks, caves, or balete trees, as residences of spirits. They celebrate a feast in honour of the Dinatas after the harvest, and make sacrifices of swine.

Tag-Busan is their G.o.d of war, and it is usual amongst them to go on the war-path after the harvest is secured; the bagani, as high priest of this G.o.d, carries his talisman hung round his neck.

They make ambuscades, and attack neighbours or enemies in the most treacherous manner, either by setting fire to their houses and murdering them as they attempt to escape from the flames, or they cut through the piles supporting the houses, covering themselves with their shields interlocked whilst doing so, and spearing the occupants when the house falls. When an enemy has been felled, the bagani, taking a consecrated sword, never used in fighting, cuts open the chest, and immerses the talisman of the G.o.d in the blood; then, tearing out the heart or liver, he eats a piece. The Sacopes are not allowed this privilege, which belongs only to the chief, as the high priest of the G.o.d of war. The children of the slain are taken as slaves, and the young women for concubines. One of the prisoners is kept to be sacrificed in some cruel manner to Tag-Busan on the return of the expedition as a thank-offering.

The death of a relative requires to be atoned for by the murder of any innocent person pa.s.sing by, the avenger concealing himself near a path, and killing the first stranger who comes.

The Man.o.bos are very smart in handling canoes or rafts on their rivers, which are very dangerous to navigate, and have many rapids and whirlpools; the Pulangui even precipitates itself into a chasm, and runs underground for a league and a half. However, the terrible picture I have drawn of their habits is becoming year by year a thing of the past to thousands of Man.o.bos, although still kept up in places. The intrepidity of the Jesuit missionaries is proof against every danger and every privation, has carried them up the River Agusan, on which, at short distances apart, they have established towns or villages, and have brought many thousands of Man.o.bos within the Christian communion.

Father Urios, one of these missionaries, baptized 5200 heathen in one year, and now no less than twenty Christian towns or villages stand on the banks of the River Agusan and its tributaries, populated by perhaps fifteen thousand Man.o.bos, formerly heathens, who have given up their detestable practices and their murderous slave-raids to occupy themselves in cultivating the soil, whilst their children of both s.e.xes are receiving instruction from Visaya school-masters and mistresses. There is always a tendency to remontar amongst them, and sometimes nearly all the inhabitants of a village take to the woods and hills. Yet, secure from attack, the number of converts steadily increases. The Baganis have become gobernadorcillos, and their chief va.s.sals tenientes, jueces de paz, and cuadrilleros. Some of the old Baganis who were well off were so anxious not to be behind the Visayas, that they sent to Manila for hats, black cloth coats and trousers, and patent leather shoes, to wear on the great feasts of the Church, and on the occasion of the annual village festival.

This is a long way from human sacrifices to the Tag-Busan, and ceremonial cannibal rites, which these men formerly practised. I look on this warlike and vigorous race as capable of becoming valuable citizens, but they will require careful handling for some years to come. They must not be rushed, for, if alarmed by innovations, they may take to the woods en ma.s.se, and the labour of years will have been wasted.

I look to this tribe, when trained to use fire-arms, and stiffened with a few Americans, to destroy the power of the pirate races--the murderous, slave-hunting Moros, with whom it is useless to make treaties, who cannot be converted till the power of their dattos is broken, and who must be sternly put down by force unless the nascent civilisation of Mindanao is to be thrown back for a century.

In the beginning of June, 1892, a Bagani of the Man.o.bos performed the paghuaga, or human sacrifice, on a hill opposite Veruela, on the River Agusan. The victim was a Christian girl whom he had bought for the purpose from some slave-raiders.