Speaking of buying and selling women among the Moros, reminds me of an old Maharajah in Bongao who had never seen an American woman until the arrival of the Burnside. Of course all white women are considered very beautiful by these dusky savages, an evidence of how much they admire Europeans being found in the fact that they firmly believe in the Sultan’s Seventh Heaven all the wives of his harem will have white skins. Noticing the Maharajah’s absorbed interest in our appearance, the Governor, to our intense disgust, insisted upon asking the old fellow what he thought the quartermaster’s wife should be worth in dollars and cents. The toothless Maharajah took it all quite seriously, looked at the lady in question with much discrimination, pulled at his wisp of a billy-goat beard in contemplative silence, and after some minutes of deep thought replied that she should be worth about a hundred dollars, Mexican, an abnormally large amount, as Moro women seldom average over forty dollars, Mexican, apiece.
Then the irrepressible young man turned to me, asking at what the Maharajah thought I should be valued. Without a moment’s hesitation, the old sinner, to my chagrin and the uproarious delight of the whole party, appraised me at only eighty dollars, Mexican, and this despite the fact that I had smiled my pleasantest, in the hope that he would rate me at least as high as the quartermaster’s wife.
Datto Sakilon, whom we met next day, proved more diplomatic, for when asked what he thought we women should be worth in the Mohammedan market, replied that it was impossible to tell, because if Moro women could be bought for forty dollars apiece, an American woman should be worth at least a thousand. Not bad repartee for a barbarian! In return for his consideration, I must admit that he was the best dressed Moro we saw in Bongao. On the day in question he wore a suit of gray drill, made with the conventional tight trousers and vest-like coat, broken out at regular intervals in an eruptive fever of gorgeously coloured embroidery. A fez topped off this costume and added to its picturesqueness, while clumsy tan shoes of undeniable American make well-nigh ruined the whole effect.
Balbriggan undershirts, hideously utilitarian, are much worn by these Moros of Bongao in lieu of the skin-tight gaily coloured jacket, which combines so effectively with the snug trousers buttoned up the side with gold or silver buttons, and the bright turban or scarlet fez. But fancy the shock to one’s æstheticism at seeing coarse balbriggan allied to barbaric splendour. The Moros really looked more undressed so attired than if they had appeared without any coat at all, but they thought these shirts very elegant, and would buy them of the soldiers at every opportunity.
The women’s dress in Bongao, unlike that of northern Moros, is more typical than the men’s, and shows an even greater variety of colour, but because of their blackened teeth, which are often filed to an arch in front, these women, as a rule, are anything but pretty. Their hair is nearly always fringed over the forehead and temples, while at the back it is drawn into a knot, from which one end invariably straggles, giving a most untidy effect. The wealthier women wear their finger nails very long, in some instances almost as long as the finger itself, and often this nail is protected by an artificial shield of silver. All the women have their ears pierced, and many of them wear a round bone or stick, resembling a cigarette in shape and size, thrust through the aperture. Altogether they are as unlike European women as one could well imagine, and I do not blame the Sultan for looking forward to white wives in the hereafter, though I hope the celestial harem won’t have to blacken its teeth!
There was one beauty in Bongao, however, a slave girl of eighteen, so graceful and lithe that her every attitude suggested a bird just alighted for an instant from a flight through space. Her dark eyes were fringed by the longest of black lashes, and even her stained teeth could not detract from the curves of her pretty mouth. She had a self-satisfied consciousness of her own attractions, and was as imperious and overbearing as any American beauty, stamping her tiny foot in rage at our photographer’s lack of haste in taking her picture, and once walking away from the camera with a disdainful toss of her head. When, after much persuasion, she was finally induced to return, it was only to scowl sullenly at everybody with the most bewitching ill temper, poised so lightly that the very wind seemed to sway her slender figure back and forth like a flower on its stalk.
We called her the Belle of Bongao, and said all manner of nice things about her, which she repaid with a bold stare from under those wonderful lashes, and a contemptuous manner which said as plainly as words that American women were not much to look at, what with their ugly clothes and still uglier faces. She was glad she wasn’t so large and clumsy, and that her teeth weren’t white, nor her throat all screwed up in high bandages, and she smiled a little as she thought of her own attractions, for the Belle of Bongao had not learned she was a beauty for nought; and then, too, had she not cost eighty dollars, Mexican, the highest price ever paid in Tawi Tawi for a slave? Small wonder the little beauty rated her charms high.
It was in Bongao we first made the acquaintance of Toolawee, the chief vigilante of Sulu. It seems this personage had been sent to the Tawi Tawi Islands as pilot of the launch Maud, which, under his careful seamanship, was then lying high and dry on a coral reef within sight of the little garrison. Pirate under Spanish régime, chief of police under American administration, Toolawee is known to fame throughout the archipelago, though perhaps most of his reputation depends upon Mr. Worcester’s delightful account of him in “The Philippine Islands.” As all may remember, Toolawee acted in the capacity of guide, philosopher, and friend to Mr. Worcester and Doctor Bourns on their second visit to Sulu, many moons before our occupation of the place. Toolawee was at that time acting as “minister of war” to the nominal Sultan, having for reasons of his own become a renegade. Mr. Worcester says of him:
“A Moro by birth and training, he had thrown in his lot with the Spaniards. As a slight safeguard against possible backsliding, he was allowed a fine house within the walls, where he kept several wives and some forty slaves. Arolas reasoned that, rather than lose so extensive an establishment, he would behave himself. Later we had reason for believing that the precaution was a wise one....