[1] A fermented alcoholic beverage made from rice.
[2] Cañao is the word commonly used by the northern Luzón wild men in designating a feast or ceremony. In Ahayao it is also used as an adjective to designate a place which may not be approached, being then equivalent to “taboo.”
[3] Lieutenant Gilmore, U.S.N., was captured at Baler in the summer of 1899, and held a prisoner for many months.
[4] The only tribes of which I have not seen representatives inhabit the region of the gulf of Davao in Mindanao. It is doubtful whether they are really tribally distinct from the Bagobos, Bilanes and other tribes living near the coast.
Chapter XXI
The Government of the Non-Christian Tribes
When I visited Benguet in July and August of 1900, I found conditions there such that the early establishment of civil government seemed practicable and desirable. The people had taken no part in the insurrection and nowhere in the province was there any resistance to American authority. An act providing for the government of the province and its settlements was accordingly passed on November 23, 1900, Benguet being thus the first province to pass from the control of the military.
In drafting this act I was fortunate in having the coöperation of Mr. Otto Scheerer, a German citizen who had lived for a number of years among the Benguet Igorots, understood them fully and was most kindly disposed toward them.
The Benguet law, in considerably amplified form, was applied to Nueva Vizcaya when that province was organized on January 28, 1902, and on April 7, 1902, a carefully considered act entitled “An Act providing for the Establishment of Local Civil Governments in the Townships and Settlements of Nueva Vizcaya” was passed by the commission.