One of the officers stationed in Sulu told us of a hunting trip which he and several other men had taken with the Sultan and a high-ranking datto, a royal hunt through royal preserves. To the intense amusement of the Americans, the Moros insisted on taking their respective harems with them on the chase, and at night all slept in one large room, the three factions being separated only by curtains around raised platforms.
For some time the harems and their respective lords called back and forth to each other quite audibly, until the officers, worn out with their day’s shooting, fell asleep. About midnight the Americans were awakened by such frightful shrieks and blood-curdling yells that each instinctively felt for his revolver or rifle, fearing an attack from the fanatical Moslems. It transpired, however, that it was only a slave girl singing the Sultan to sleep! The officer described this musical effort as a most hideous uproar, saying that a note would be held almost to the bursting point, the breath being regained by an agonized, strangled sob, or else a bar would be yelled explosively between hissing, indrawn breaths, the effect not conforming to the laws of harmony as understood by Europeans.
On other hunting trips, when the Americans had been accompanied by Moro guides, great difficulty was found in procuring food suited to Mohammedan restrictions, the Moros even refusing bread because there might be lard in it, or because they had seen the soldier cooks grease the pans with that abomination; sardines were also prohibited for fear they had been soaked in animal fat; and bacon was of course accursed.
The officers were in despair until one old Moro came across some cans of baked beans among the rations. Beans! Assuredly a clean vegetable, and as such to be partaken of freely. So there they sat, good Moslems all, regaling themselves out of cans marked plainly on their gaudy labels, “Pork and Beans.” Moreover, they averred that the American article had an exceptionally fine Bavour, not in the least like the Philippine variety!
So strong is the Moros’ aversion to even touching pork, that while they will guide Americans where boar may be found, they themselves will take no part in the sport nor help carry the game home, and even when offered American prices a pound for the meat, that representing fabulous wealth to a Moro, he will not defile himself by so much as selling it.
Mr. Dean C. Worcester, in his delightful book, “The Philippine Islands,” gives a most interesting legend in explanation of the Moros’ aversion to pork. He says he made numerous attempts in Mindanao, Basilan, and Sulu to find out the origin of this curious distaste, but without avail, until one day the minister of justice, under “his Excellency Paduca Majasari Malauna Amiril Mauinin Sultan Harun Narrasid,” committed a bibulous indiscretion, and when the vivifying spirits were well amalgamated with his own he contributed the following narrative:
“Jesus Christ, called by the Moros Isa, was a man like ourselves, but great, and good, and very powerful. He was not a son of God. The Moros hate and kill the Christians because they teach that men could punish and kill a son of God.
“Mohamoud had a grandson and a grand-daughter, of whom he was very fond. As he was king of the world, Christ came to his house to visit him. Mohamoud, jealous of him, told him to prove his power by ‘divining’ what he had in a certain room, where, in fact, were his grandchildren. Christ replied that he had no wish to prove his power, and would not ‘divine’ (divinar). Mohamoud then vowed that if he did not answer correctly, he should pay for it with his life. Christ responded, ‘You have two animals in there, different from anything else in the world.’ Mohamoud replied, ‘No, you are wrong, and I will now kill you.’ Christ said, ‘Look first, and see for yourself.’ Mohamoud opened the door, and out rushed two hogs, into which Christ had changed his grandchildren.
“Moros are forbidden to tell this story to infidels, because it shows that Christ outwitted the great prophet. When my informant sobered up and realized what he had done, he hung around day after day, beseeching me not to let any one know what he had done, from which fact I inferred that he thought he had told me the truth, and not a fable invented for the occasion.”