Ilongot Men of Puludpud in the Former Spanish Commandery of Principe.
One carries a bow and arrow, the other a spear with a point which detaches itself from the shaft to which it is attached by a long cord. The dragging shaft impedes the escape of the animal that has been speared until the hunters can come up and dispatch it.
The primitive Malayan is full of beliefs and dreads of the malignant spirits which throng his environment. These are the spirits of forest, trees, cañons, streams and sea; horribly conceived monsters and ghouls, and furthermore, and omnipresent in the affairs of the living, are the spirits of the dead—the ghosts. The Negrito, on the contrary, seems to be very little disturbed by such beliefs. His elementary religious notions leave him free for the most part from terror by night or by day. Where troubled with conceptions of “anito” or “diwata” it is almost certain that he has been learning at the feet of some demon-worshipping Malayan. Now, the Ilongot appear to have religious ideas that have come from various sources. Those of Nueva Vizcaya, with whom I talked, professed belief in spirits and called them “bĕ tung”; the spirits of the dead were “gi na vá.” The Ilongot of Patakgao, curiously, have been affected by Christian nomenclature. The ruling spirit or spirits is “apo sen diot” (“apo” meaning lord or sir and “diot” being a corruption of Dios). They had no word for heaven, but mentioned “Impiĕdno” (Infierno). They said that when people die “they go to the mountains.” They bury the dead near their houses in a coffin of bark (ko ko). They said that there were no “aswang” (malignant monsters believed in by the Christian Filipinos) in their mountains. They stated that prayer is a frequent observance; that they prayed when some one is sick or injured. “When an animal is killed we pray before cutting up the animal,” and as stated above prayer is offered before the dangerous ascent of trees. In one house I saw a little bundle of grasses which was put there, following prayer made “at the first time when we are eating the new rice.” Prayer is then made that rats may not destroy the harvest or other ill occur to crops.
These notes are too fragmentary to give any definite idea of what the religion of the Ilongot may be, but two other things observed had religious significance. When our party reached the vicinity of the community at Patakgao, we encountered in the bed of the cañon we were following a curious contrivance placed over the running water. Two stakes had been set up, and attached horizontally was a branch twelve feet long, five or six feet from the ground. A chicken had been sacrificed here and its blood had been daubed along this pole in at least eighteen different stains. Feathers had been tied to the ends of the upright poles and midway between them a curiously whittled stick of shavings was tied perpendicularly and the giblets and head of the fowl stuck upon it. Our guide, who was a Christian native from a small barrio which has some relations with this community, pronounced this contrivance to be a warning against further approach, in fact a “dead line.” But later, Bŭliŭd, one of the important men of Patakgao, insisted that it was an offering made for the cure of their wounds received a few days before in a fight with hostile Ilongot.
In the houses of the Ilongot at Bayyait were many curiously whittled sticks suspended from the rafters. Some of these were of irregular shape like a ray of lightning; many were bunches of shavings, singularly suggestive of the prayer sticks of the Ainu.
The language of the Ilongot is predominantly Malayan. It contains a large bulk of words identical or related to the surrounding Malayan tongues. There are a few Sanskrit or Indian words, “pagi” (palay, “paddy,” the unhulled rice) and “pana” for arrow, both words widely diffused in Malaysia. But besides, there is a doubtful element which does not seem to be Malayan; at least no similar words or roots occur in any of the other vocabularies of primitive peoples of northern Luzon collected by me. The Ilongot continually makes use of a short ŭ, which sometimes becomes the German sound ü as in “buh dük,” a flower. These sounds can not be imitated by the Christian people in contact with them. This is a condition similar to what we find in Negrito speech, where, with a preponderance of terms occurring in Malayan languages, are often a number of totally distinct and usually eccentric words and sounds.
Finally, it is manifest that the Ilongot are a problem to the government of the islands. What is to be done with such people as these? They can not be allowed to continue, as they have done, to harass and murder the peaceful population of Nueva Ecija, northern Pangasinan and Nueva Vizcaya. Some means must be found to restrain them. Humanity does not permit their extermination. Steps are now being taken to do something to get them in hand. The exploring parties above referred to have opened the way. The communities organized under teachers of the Bureau of Education seem to promise something as well. Last fall when I left the islands search was being made for the right sort of an American teacher to put in charge of school interests at Baler, with jurisdiction over the Ilongot villages appurtenant thereto. The people of Patakgao since my visit have accepted an invitation, then made, to send their young men and boys to the barrio of San Juan, a village in the mountains back of Pantabangan, where a school is conducted and where several of these youth are now living in charge of a native man in whom the Ilongot have confidence. The Bureau of Education meets the slight expenses of this educational experiment. This work of social development, here as in a thousand similar places in the Philippines, will be best done by the American teacher, but the task is inviting only to the man in whom the spirit of youth and adventure and fascination with human problems runs strong.
Mr. Murphy’s last report concluded, “I believe the schools can do these people a great amount of good and solve the government’s worst problems. The work, however, is dangerous, as the man who undertakes it has no protection but his own diplomacy in handling the people. If trouble comes it will be from the young bucks, desirous of gaining a reputation.”