Chapter XII.
Day opens badly.—Ifugao houses.—The people, assemble.—Dancing.—Speeches.—White paper streamers.—Head hunter dance.—Cañao.
Needless to say we were up betimes the next morning, May 2d, for the clans were to gather, and the day would hardly be long enough for all it was to hold. The day began ominously. As Kiangan is a sort of headquarters, it has a guard-house for the service of short imprisonments, a post-and-rail affair made of bamboo under the cuartel. For while our administration is kindly, these mountaineers from the first have had to learn, if not to feel as yet, that they must be punished if guilty of infringing such laws and discipline as have so far been found applicable. Accordingly, our guard-house held two men, sentenced for twenty days, for having threatened the life of one of their head men. Short as was the sentence, these two men had nevertheless dug a passage in the earthen floor of their quarters, and had just the night before opened the outer end of it, but not enough to admit the passage of a human body. A private of Constabulary, passing by this morning, stooped to examine this hole new to him, when one of the prisoners threw a spear at him, made of a stalk of runo[1] the head being a small strip of iron which he had kept concealed in his gee-string. So true was his aim that, although he had to throw his improvised spear between the rails, he nevertheless struck the private in the neck, cutting his jugular vein, so that in five minutes he was dead. The pen was now entered for the purpose of shackling the criminal, when he announced that he would kill any white man that laid hands on him. Upon Lieutenant Meimban of the Constabulary advancing, both of the prisoners rushed him. In the mellay that followed the murderer was shot and killed and his companion badly beaten up; Strong later had to put seventeen stitches in one scalp wound alone. Although the ranchería from which the murdered private came was two hours off, so that it usually took four hours to send a message and get an answer, yet an hour and a half after the man died a runner came in to ask for his body so it could be suitably buried. Altogether, this double killing damped our spirits considerably; for one thing, there was no telling how it would be received, particularly if there should be any excessive drinking of buhud; there were very few of us, mostly unarmed, and the Ifugaos were coming in hundreds at a time, so that long before the forenoon was well under way several thousands had collected. However, on moving out, we could not find that the cheerfulness of the people had been in the least disturbed.
Before beginning the business of the day we walked about the village and examined one or two houses. These are all of one room, entered by a ladder drawn up at night, and set up on stout posts seven or eight feet high; the roof is thatched, and the walls, made of wattle (suali), flare out from the base determined by the tops of the posts. In cutting the posts down to suitable size (say 10 inches in diameter), a flange, or collar, is left near the top to keep rats out; chicken-coops hang around, and formerly human skulls, too, were set about. But the Ifugaos, thanks to Gallman, as already said, have abandoned head-hunting, and the skulls in hand, if kept at all, are now hidden inside their owner’s houses, their places being taken by carabao heads and horns. One house had a tahibi, or rest-couch; only rich people can own these, cut out as they are of a single log, in longitudinal cross-section like an inverted and very flat V with suitable head- and foot-supports. The notable who wishes to own one of these luxurious couches gets his friends to cut down the tree (which is necessarily of very large size), to haul the log, and to carve out the couch, feeding them the while. Considering the lack of tools, trails, and animals, the labor must be incredible and the cost enormous. However, wealth will have its way in Kiangan as well as in Paris.
By the time we had done the village, the hour of business had come, and we moved up to the little parade in front of the cuartel, where an enormous crowd had already assembled. As at Campote, so here, and for the same reasons, very few old women were present, but about as many young ones and children as there were men. Our approach was the signal for the dancing to begin, and once begun, it lasted all day, the gansas never ceasing their invitation. Apparently anybody could join in, and many did, informal circles being formed here and there, for the Ifugaos, like all the other highlanders, dance around in a circle. Both men and women took part, eyes on a point of the ground a yard or so ahead, the knees a little bent, left foot in front, body slightly forward on the hips, left arm out in front, hand upstretched with fingers joined, right arm akimbo, with hand behind right hip. The musicians kneel, stick the forked-stick handle of the gansa in their gee-strings, with the gansa convex side up on their thighs, and use both hands, the right sounding the note with a downward stroke, the left serving to damp the sound. The step is a very dignified, slow shuffle, accompanied by slow turns and twists of the left hand, and a peculiar and rapid up-and-down motion of the right.
True to what had been said the day before, a particularly large circle was formed, and Cootes and I were invited to join, which we did; if any conclusion may be drawn from the applause we got (for the Ifugaos clap hands), why, modesty apart, we upheld the honor of the Service.
Every now and then the orators had their turn, for a resounding “Whoo-o-ee!” would silence the multitudes, and some speaker would mount the tribune and give vent to an impassioned discourse. One of these bore on the killing of the prisoner that morning: the orator declared that he was a bad man, and that he had met with a just end, that the people must understand that they must behave themselves properly, and so on. I forget how many speeches were made; but the tribune was never long unoccupied. Another performance of the day was the distribution of strips of white onion-skin paper. On one of his previous trips Mr. Worcester had noticed that the people had taken an old newspaper he had brought with him, cut it up into strips, and tied them to the hair by way of ornament. Acting on this hint, it is his habit to take with him on his trips to this country thousands of strips, and everybody gets a share according to rank, a chief five, his wife four, an ordinary person three, and little children two. Accordingly, he spent hours this day handing out these strips, for this was a duty that could not be delegated: the strips must come from the hands of the “Commission” himself. By afternoon, every man, woman, and child—and there were thousands of them all told—was flying these white streamers from the head, the combined resulting effect being pleasing and graceful. Meanwhile the people kept on coming from their rancherías, one arrival creating something of a stir, being that of the Princesa, wife of the orator who had welcomed us the day before. She came in state, reclining in a sort of bag hanging from a bamboo borne on the shoulders of some of her followers. She had an umbrella, and, if I recollect aright, was smoking a cigar. On emerging from her bag, a circle formed about her, and she was graciously pleased to dance for us, no one venturing to join her. As she was fat and scant o’ breath,[2] her performance, was characterized by portentous deliberation, precision, and dignity, and was as palpably agreeable to her as it was curious to us.
The great performance of the morning, however, was a head-hunter dance, arranged by Barton; that is, he had gone out a day or two before and told a neighboring ranchería, that they must furnish a show of the sort for the apos whose visit was imminent. But, according to the old women of the village, he had made a great mistake in that he said it was not necessary to hold a cañao in advance. A cañao (buni in Ifugao), as already explained, is a ceremonious occasion, celebrated by dancing, much drinking of bubud, the killing of a pig, speeches. Whenever an affair of moment is in hand, such as a funeral or a head-hunting expedition, a cañao is held. Our entire stay at Kiangan might be called a cañao, or, rather, it was made up of cañaos. Now when Barton, two or three days before, refused to cañao, the old women shook their heads, declaring that something would happen, and the killings of the morning were at once summoned as proof that they were right and he was wrong. However this may be, not long after the Princesa’s dance we heard below us a cadenced sound and saw a long column in file slowly approaching. Its head was formed of warriors armed with spears and shields stained black with white zig-zags across; the leading warrior walked backward, continually making thrusts at the next man with his spear. A pig had immediately preceded, trussed by his feet to a bamboo, and interfering mightily with the music that followed. This was percussive in character, and was produced by twenty-five or thirty men beating curved instruments, made of very hard, resonant wood, with sticks. These musicians marched along almost doubled over, and would lean in unison first to the right and then to the left, striking first one end, then the other of their instruments, which they held in the middle by a bejuco string from a hole made for the purpose. The note was not unmusical. Many of the men had their head-baskets on their backs, and one or two of them the palm-leaf rain-coat. I had never imagined that it was possible for human beings to advance as slowly as did these warriors; in respect of speed, our most dignified funerals would suffer by comparison. The truth is, they were dancing. They got up the hill at last, however; laid the pig down in the middle of the vast circle that had instantly formed, and then began the ceremonious head-dance. Two or three men, after various words had been said, would march around in stately fashion, winding up at the pig, across whose body they would lay their spears. On this an old man would run out, and remove the spears, when the thing would be repeated. At last, a tall, handsome young man, splendidly turned out in all his native embellishments, on reaching the pig, allowed his companions to retire while he himself stood, and, facing his party with a smile, said a few words. Then, without looking at his victim, and without ceasing to speak, he suddenly thrust his spear into the pig’s heart, withdrawing it so quickly that the blade remained unstained with blood; as quick and accurate a thing as ever seen! Of course, this entire cañao was full of meaning to the initiated. Barton said it was a failure, and he ought to know; but it was very interesting to us. I was particularly struck by the bearing of these men, their bold, free carriage and fearless expression of countenance.
[1] Runo is a stiff reed grass growing to several feet, the mountain cousin of the cogon of the plains.