Chapter XVII.
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.