Chapter XXII.
Splendid appearance of the Kalingas.—Dancing.—Lubuagan.—Basi.—Councils.—Bustles and braids.—Jewels and weapons.—Excellent houses.
The sight that greeted us was stirring, suggesting to the piously minded Bishop Heber’s unmatched lines:
“A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid.”
There must have been thousands of people, as many women as men, and almost as many children as women, all of whom set up a mighty shout as our little column emerged. But what especially and immediately caught the eye was the brilliancy of the scene. For, whereas the people so far encountered had impressed us by the sobriety of color displayed, these Kalingas blazed out upon us in the most vivid reds and yellows. Many of them, women as well as men, had on tight-fitting Moro jackets of red and yellow stripes; but whatever it was—skirt, jacket, or gee-string—only one pattern showed itself, the alternation of red and yellow, well brought out by the clear brown of the skin. As though this were not enough, some men had adorned their abundant black hair with scarlet hibiscus flowers, and all, or nearly all, wore plumes of feathers, one over each ear. Each ranchería has its distinctive plume; as, red with black tips, black with red, all red, white with black, and so on, some with notched and others with natural edges. Many men had axes on their hips. The whole effect was startling, and all the more that these people, erect, sinewy, of excellent build like their comrades farther south, were perceptibly taller, men five feet ten inches tall not being uncommon. Add to this a stateliness of walk and carriage, combined with a natural, wholly unconscious ease and grace of motion, and it is easy to imagine the fine impression made upon us by our first look upon these assembled people. It is not too much to say that the whole sight was splendid; but, more than this, under the surface of things, it was easy to catch at once the possibility of a real development by these people under any sort of opportunity whatever.
We had hardly dismounted before the dancing began, in general against the sun, as elsewhere. Each ranchería of the many present had its dancers, and all made a display. One event, if the sporting term be permissible, seemed to be a sort of “follow-my-leader”; the motions, however, being confined to the circle, across which the file would go from time to time, thus differing from any other dance seen. In some cases, the step was bold and lively; in others, slow and stately, with arms outstretched. The gansa music was not nearly so well marked as that of the Ifugaos; it seemed to lack definition (an opinion advanced with some hesitation, and which a professional musician might not agree with). Sometimes women only appeared; in fact, up here the sexes did not mix in the dance. If we had remained longer in this part of the country, perhaps the differences and characteristics of this expression of native genius would have stood out more clearly; but in our short time, with so much dancing going on, impressions necessarily overlapped. And, in any case, shortly after our arrival, night fell, putting an end to the show, and we betook ourselves to our quarters; Captain Harris, of the local Constabulary forces, most kindly receiving some of us in his house.
Kalinga is neither a race nor a tribe name, but a word meaning “enemy” or “outlaw,” as though the hand of the people that bear it had been against everybody’s else. These people have been great head-hunters, and have not yet entirely abandoned the practice, though it is steadily diminishing. It should be recollected, however, that it is only within the last three or four years that we have had any relations with them, Mr. Worcester’s first visit to Lubuagan having occurred in 1907. On this occasion, immediately on arriving, he was shut up with his party in a house; and all night a lively debate went on outside as to whether the next morning his head should be taken or not, his native interpreter informing him of the progress of opinion as the night wore on.
In some respects these Kalingas differed from the tribes already visited. Their superior height has already been noted. It may be noted further that they are sloe-eyed, and their eyes are wide apart. It is said that they have an infusion of Moro blood, brought in, many years ago, by exiles from Moroland turned loose on the north coast of Luzon by the Spaniards, with the expectation that the local tribes would kill them; instead, they intermarried. Among themselves they call their important men dato, a Moro title, and their Moro dress has already been mentioned. They will not marry outside of their own blood, and their women, so we were told, would not look at a white man.
Lubuagan itself is extremely well situated on a gigantic terrace-like slope, as though, as at Kiangan, an avalanche of earth had burst through the rim of encompassing mountains. Here live the Governor of the province and the inspector of Constabulary with a detachment; their houses, with the cuartel and public offices, are disposed around a sort of parade, divided into an upper and a lower terrace. Aguinaldo marched through the place during his flight, and left behind seventeen of his men, sick and wounded. He had no sooner gone than these were all taken out and beheaded. The native town lies above and just back of the parade, with its houses running well up on the slopes. These are, everywhere possible, terraced for rice, and so successfully that two crops are made every year, as against only one at Bontok and elsewhere. It follows that the Kalingas have more to eat than their relatives to the south, and that is perhaps one reason of their greater stature.
The morning of the 12th, our one full day at Lubuagan, broke clear, bright, and hot, and so the day remained. Events during the next few hours had no particular axis. We looked on mostly, though, of course, here as elsewhere, business there was to be dispatched. The upper terrace was the scene of crowded activity, being packed with people from sunrise to sunset. Dancing went on the whole day; the sound of the gansa never ceased. A particularly interesting dance was that of a number of little girls, eight or ten years of age, who went through their steps with the greatest seriousness and dignity, a very pretty sight. In yet another the performers, nine all told, grown men, attracted attention from the fact that the handles of their gansas were human lower jaws, apparently new, in the teeth of two of which gold fillings glistened. The Ifugaos, who, it will be recollected, had accompanied us from Banawe, also danced, their steps, motions, and music forming a sharp contrast. This dance over, Comhit could not restrain himself, but made a speech, in which he declared that “These people up here, the Kalingas, are very good people indeed, but not so good as the Ifugaos.” Fortunately, only his own people understood him. He had noticed on the way that the people we passed offered nothing to drink to the traveller, and had commented freely to Gallman on this lack of hospitality, so different from his country’s habits. We had nothing to complain of, however, on this score at Lubuagan, for basi circulated freely the whole day, being passed along sometimes in a tin cup, at others in a bamboo; everybody drank out of one and the same vessel. On the whole, this basi was poor stuff, not nearly so good as bubud. Harris told me after the day was over, and we had taken innumerable tastes, at least, of the brew (for one must drink when it is passed), that in preparing basi a dog’s heart,[1] cut up into bits, is added to the fermenting liquid to give it body. One man amused us by going around with a bamboo six inches or more in diameter and at least eight feet in length over his shoulder, and obligingly stopping to let his friends bend down the mouth and help themselves—a “long” drink if there ever was one!
But it was not all basi and dancing: councils were held, the visiting rancherías profiting by the opportunity of enforced peace to clear up issues. At these councils, which came off in the open, on the parade, the people of the rancherías interested would sit on the ground in a circle, maintaining absolute silence, while their spokesmen, a head man from each, walked around in the circle. The man who had the floor, so to say, would remain behind and address his adversary in the debate, who meantime kept on walking around with his back turned squarely on the speaker. As soon as the argument in hand had been made, both would countermarch, and the listener would now become the speaker. A great part of the debate was taken up on both sides by a recital of the crimes and misdemeanors of which the other party had been guilty. In one of these councils, one debater—wearing civilized dress, by the way—suddenly broke through the circle and disappeared, much to our astonishment, until it was explained that his opponent in the debate had charged him with having recently poisoned six persons; as this was perilously near the truth, the criminal simply ran away. The accuser was a fine-looking man, splendidly dressed, of a haughty countenance, displaying the greatest contempt for all the arguments addressed to him, his impatience being marked by “Hás!” accompanied by stamping on the ground the while and striking it with the butt of his spear. This chief was in confinement at Lubuagan, but, to save his face, Governor Hale had enlarged him during our stay.
Naturally there was an opportunity during the day of observing many things in some detail. Who shall say, for example, that the Kalingas are not civilized? The women and girls all wear bustles, a continuous affair made of bejuco, an endless roll, in short, of varying radius, that over the small of the back being considerably the greatest. The top of the skirt is tucked in all round, instead of being directly on the skin, as farther south. In further proof of the local civilization, the women wear false hair. One matron was obliging enough to undo her coiffure for our benefit, and held out by its end, for our admiring inspection, a mighty wisp nearly three feet long. She put it back on for us after the manner, as I have since been informed, of a coronet braid. The men gave fewer evidences of civilization, unless smoking cigars in holders will serve. However, one man brought up his wife and children and regularly introduced them to us, the woman doing her part with great coolness, while the children gave every sign of terror. This incident struck me as being very unusual. Everyone had on at least one necklace, and some three or four necklaces, of dog-teeth, of agate beads (these being immensely prized, agate not being native to the Philippines), or of anything else the form, color, and hardness of which could make it answer for purposes of ornament. One young woman had on sleigh-bells, the tinkle of which we heard before we saw its source, an incongruous sound in those parts. These bells must have been brought down by Chinese trading from the plains of Manchuria. Two or three young men displayed what looked like lapis lazuli around their necks, but what turned out at closer quarters to be pieces of a blue china dinner-plate. They had cut out the white interior and then divided the rim radially, the jewels thus formed being all of the same size and shape, with perfectly smooth edges. Here, too, were the same pill-box hats as those seen at Bontok, some elaborately beaded and costing from one to five carabaos apiece; in one case the lid of a tomato tin had been pressed into service as a hat. But the finest thing of all was the head-ax, a beautiful and cruel-looking weapon, the head having on one side an edge curving back toward the shaft, and on the other a point. To keep the weapon from slipping out of the hand, a stud is left in the hard wood shaft, about two-thirds of the way from the head, the shaft itself being protected by a steel sheathing half way down; the remainder being ornamented with decorative brass plates and strips, and the end shod in a ferrule of silver. The top of the ax is not straight, but curved, both edge and point taking, as it were, their origin in this curve; the edge is formed by a double chamfer, the ax-blade being of uniform thickness. All together, this weapon is perhaps more original and characteristic than any other native to the Philippine Archipelago. With it goes the Kalinga shield of soft wood, made in one piece, with the usual three horns or projections at the top and two at the bottom. These projections, however, are cylindrical, and the outside ones are continued down the edge of the shield and so form ribs. In the ordinary Igorot shield the horns are flat, merely prolonging the surface of the shield, or else presenting only a very small relief. As usual, a lacing of bejuco across top and bottom protects the shield against a separation in the event of an unlucky stroke splitting it in two.
We found the town unusually clean. Public latrines exist, and public drinking-tanks, both put in by Governor Hale, and highly approved of the people. The houses themselves were the best we had seen, some of them hexagonal in ground plan, and built of hard woods. The pigs stay underneath, to be sure, but their place is kept clean. Rich men have rows of plates, the dinner-plates of civilization, all around their houses, and take-up floors of split bamboo are common, being rolled up and washed in the neighboring stream with commendable frequency. All together, Lubuagan made the impression of an affluent, not to say opulent, center, inhabitated by a brave, proud, and self-respecting people.
[1] De La Gironière, in his “Aventures d’un Gentilhomme Breton aux Iles Philippines,” describes (Chapter V.) a feast, at which he had, while on a visit to the Tinguianes, to drink human brains mixed with basi. Whatever De La Gironière says must be received with considerable caution; but Pickering, a prosaic and matter-of-fact Britisher, speaking of the Formosan savages, says that “they mixed the brains of their enemies with wine.” (“Pioneering in Formosa,” p. 153).