In Spanish days there was a comandancia known as Amburayan wedged in between the provinces of La Union and Ilocos Sur. After the American occupation this territory was at first organized as a part of Ilocos Sur, but it soon became necessary to make of it a separate subprovince and add it to Lepanto-Bontoc, to the end that its people might be adequately protected. In contact on two sides with Christian Filipinos, they were shamefully maltreated and oppressed, and they appealed to me for help.
Filipinos were graciously permitting them to cut firewood and lumber in the public forests, and taking the lion’s share of the products in return for their consent! They were debauching the Igorots with vino. I remember particularly the case of one unfortunate individual who owned five carabaos, two of which got to fighting. As usually happens with these animals, the one that was whipped ran away, and the victor blindly pursued it. Both charged over a precipice and broke their legs. The owner killed them, dressed them, and divided the meat among his family and friends. He was arrested, given a mock trial for killing carabaos without a license, and fined three carabaos—all he had left—which of course went to his persecutors!
Instances of this sort of thing could be indefinitely multiplied.
Amburayan was freed from the vino traffic soon after it became a subprovince of Lepanto-Bontoc. This alone was a great boon to its Igorot inhabitants, who little by little were helped to assert their rights as they gained greater confidence in their American lieutenant-governor and learned to go to him freely with their troubles. They had so long been helpless and hopeless that it was some time before they could be convinced that a new day had dawned for them.
And now let us betake ourselves to the country of the real wild man, and consider briefly past and present conditions in the subprovince of Ifugao.
The people of the tribe known as Ifugaos are a remarkable lot. Their country is almost entirely made up of exceptionally steep mountain sides with hardly a naturally level piece of ground in it. On almost precipitous slopes they have built wonderful series of irrigated rice terraces held in position by stone retaining walls which have been laid without mortar or cementing material of any kind, and are so skilfully constructed that they withstand even the terrific rains which sometimes occur during typhoons. Accurate rainfall statistics for Ifugao are not obtainable, but, as we have seen, in the neighbouring subprovince of Benguet, there is of record a period of twenty-four hours during which forty-nine and nine tenths inches of rain fell! Under such conditions as this, exceptionally good work is necessary to prevent structures of any sort built on mountain sides from sliding into the valleys below.
Up to the time of the American occupation the Ifugaos had always been inveterate head-hunters. Unlike the Bontoc Igorots, who depend on large numbers of fighting men for protection, they live in small villages usually placed in inaccessible spots which can be reached only by ascending the almost perpendicular rice-terrace walls.
Not only were the people of this tribe then constantly fighting among themselves, but they from time to time raided the Bontoc country or that of the Kalingas, and they persistently victimized the people of Nueva Vizcaya, making travel so unsafe on the main road between Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela that the Spaniards found it necessary to maintain several garrisons along it, and forbade private persons to pass over it without a military escort. Even so, parties of travellers were cut down from time to time, the savages making their attacks at the noon hour when Spanish soldiers had a way of going to sleep beside the road.
I have already narrated my earliest experiences in this subprovince, which occurred in 1903, and have called attention to the fact that when I returned in 1905 I was able to traverse it from east to west without the slightest danger. This condition of affairs was due to the efforts of Governor Louis G. Knight, supplemented by those of Captain L. E. Case of the Philippine constabulary, who had established his headquarters at Banaue and had exercised a strong influence over his unruly constituents.
Perhaps I ought to change my statement and say that order was established by Captain Case, assisted by Governor Knight. Captain Case was very fortunate in his dealings with the Ifugaos. He was a kindly man, who won their friendship at the outset. He resorted to stern measures only when such measures were so imperatively necessary that the Ifugaos themselves fully recognized the justice of employing them.