From Jolo we sailed to Zamboanga, capital of the Moro province, and thence to Cottabato. At Zamboanga we met an entirely different class of Moros, more refined, better educated and less spectacular than those in the Sulu Islands, and were entertained by the American Army officers in the ancient Fortress del Pilar, which still bears the marks of many a conflict between the Moros and the Spaniards. We met here two very interesting men, Datto Mandi, a Moro, and Midel, a leading Filipino. Mandi was said to be, and looked, part Spaniard, though he denied the Spanish blood. He was the chief of a tribe of many thousands of people and wielded a wide influence which the American Government never sought to curtail. He was a good business man and intensely loyal to the Americans, giving substantial demonstrations of his loyalty whenever opportunity offered. He told the Commission what has since proved to be the truth about Moro customs relative to slavery, the administration, of justice and other matters, and displayed, altogether, a genuinely friendly and helpful attitude. Midel, the Filipino, was himself made a datto by Mandi and seemed inordinately proud of his rank. He was an odd individual with a doubtful record behind him. Sometime before we met him he had sent his son to be educated at the University of California, and it was he who delivered the province over to the American troops as soon as they arrived, having previously disposed of a couple of insurgent rivals of his own race who attempted to keep it out of American hands.
At Cottabato, a long day’s sailing from Zamboanga across Illana Bay, we met the Moros who inhabit the valley of the Rio Grande del Mindanao, a large and sinister looking river. We communicated with these people through their dattos, Piang and Ali. Piang is the most powerful datto in the province. He is the son of a Chinese carpenter and a common Moro woman, and he won his position through shrewdness, generosity to his people and native ability. Ordinarily a peaceful conservative he was not always at peace with Ali, who is inherently warlike and a datto of royal descent, but a couple of American Army officers, Colonel Brett and Major MacMahon, in charge of the post at Cottabato, not only adjusted their differences but induced the royal Ali to marry the commoner Piang’s daughter. Colonel Brett was Ali’s “best man,” while Major MacMahon stood sponsor for the bride. There are American Army officers who have seen strange service in our Far Eastern possessions.
A few years after the time of which I write a daughter of Datto Mandi was married at Iligan in northern Mindanao and, to quote from Foreman’s “History of the Philippines”: “Several American officers were present on the occasion, accompanied by a Spanish half caste who acted as their interpreter. The assembled guests were having a merry time when suddenly the festivities were interrupted by the intrusion of a juramentado Moro fanatic, who sprang forward with his campilán and at one blow almost severed the interpreter’s head from his body. Then he turned his attention to the other natives, mortally wounded two, and cut gashes in several others before he fell dead before the revolver shots fired by the American officers. After the dead and wounded were carried away and the pools of blood were mopped up, the wedding ceremony was proceeded with and the hymeneal festival was resumed without further untoward incident.”
We were very fortunate that, disturbed as conditions were, no “untoward incident” of this nature occurred to mar the serenity of our first great trip through the Islands.
To illustrate Datto Piang’s intense desire to establish his status as a loyal friend of the United States Government I think I must relate, in part, the conversation my husband had with him in regard to the gutta percha industry. The forests in the Rio Grande Valley and around Lake Lanao, in the northern part of the island were thought to be almost inexhaustible in their supply of gutta percha trees, and Piang was found to be a large dealer in the product. But inquiry elicited the information that the most primitive methods were employed in gathering the gum and that every year thousands of trees were destroyed, no idea of scientific conservation ever having entered the heads of the Moros. Mr. Taft asked Piang whether if we sent him an expert who knew how to have the trees treated he would undertake to enforce regulations which such an expert would frame. He said he acknowledged the sovereignty of the United States Government and held himself subject to its orders, everyone of which he would obey. Moreover, he would make all the other dattos obey the same orders whether they were willing to do so or not. Then Mr. Taft explained that the United States Government might desire to lay a cable from San Francisco to the Philippines and that one of the great items of expense in such an enterprise was the gutta percha. He was merely trying to impress upon Piang’s mind the immense value of his product and the necessity for its proper handling, but Piang immediately offered to make the United States a present of all the gutta percha it needed for a Pacific cable, declaring that all he wanted was a note from the authorities indicating the amount required. He would see that it was promptly gathered and delivered. Mr. Taft then told him that the United States always paid for whatever it received from any person, whether subject to its sovereignty or not, whereupon Piang declared that, anyway, he preferred to sell his gutta percha to the United States, and at a much lower price, too, than he was receiving from the Chinese dealers. He is just a clever, crafty Chinaman himself, is Datto Piang, but an interesting figure. After a thorough investigation of Cottabato and a right royal entertainment provided by a number of gorgeously attired dattos and sultans, of greater or less degree, who had gathered in the town to greet us, and gaze in wide-eyed curiosity upon us, we went on our way around the great island of Mindanao.
At Davao we saw thousands of acres of the highest hemp in the world, and a number of beautiful bead-bedecked hill tribes who had come down into coast civilisation for the purpose, no doubt, of seeing what we looked like.
These hill tribes are very interesting people. They are, perhaps, more picturesque than any of the other non-Christians, and they have developed to a fine point the art of making bead embroidered clothing. So beautiful and so unusual are these garments that the ladies in the party, forgetting everything else, made a grand rush to purchase some of them from the various tribesmen. Our eagerness, indeed, had finally to be restrained in order that attention might be given to the efforts of the Commission to enlighten the people as to our mission, but having patiently awaited the termination of business we returned to our search for the bead-work, only to find that the finer specimens could not by any process of cajolery be secured. Money meant nothing to the hillmen and we had no substitutes in the way of gewgaws to offer them. The only one of us who succeeded in getting a really good suit was Miss Anne Ide, and her success was the result of a curious incident. She met a chieftain gorgeously arrayed, and at a venture tried upon him the Samoan greeting and a Samoan song which she had learned in her childhood when her father was Chief Justice of the Samoan Islands. To her great surprise the Bogobo answered and seemed greatly pleased. He had already had conveyed to him the fact that the only thing the ladies wanted was bead clothing, so he indicated to Miss Ide that he would present to her his coat and pants, and without further ado, and much to her astonishment, he began to divest himself of these garments which she accepted with delight. The incident awakened natural curiosity on our part as to the relation between the Polynesian language of Samoa and the vernacular of the hill tribes around the Davao gulf.
From Davao we proceeded on our journey around Mindanao, sailing out into the open Pacific and up to the province of Surigao in the northeast corner of the island.
PICTURESQUE BEAD-BEDECKED BOGOBOS OF THE DAVAO COUNTRY