IFUGAO COUPLE.
Some of these Bontoc Igorots are skilful smiths, and they make excellent earthen pots and clay pipes. They have interesting athletic sports of their own and take to those of the Americans. They are especially fond of beads, which are wound in their hair or hung about the neck, and greatly value large white stones, caring little for agates, so highly prized by the Kalingas.
Into Bontoc for this great occasion had been brought warriors and women from the Kalingas and Ifugaos, with Igorots from about, some from a distance of several days' travel; and for the first time these warring tribes, who only two years before were taking each other's heads, came peacefully together, and watched each other with as much interest as they watched us.
The adventures of the American lieutenant governors read like romances, and here they were before us with their following: the Kalingas more dangerous and warlike than the Ifugaos, and the Ifugaos more picturesque and interesting than the Igorots, and all together making a never-to-be-forgotten scene.
There were, too, several small companies of native constabulary, for these hill men make splendid soldiers and take great pride in their arms and uniform, and have proved loyal to the death. All the different tribes and the constabulary had turned out to receive the Secretary, and it was a vociferous and noisy yelling crowd that streamed about in irregular procession. We were, some of us, taken to a government house that was comfortable, and took our meals at a club which the officials have built and which is quite pathetically complete, and that evening we did little before turning in—the first evening since we had landed in the Islands when we were able to turn in at a reasonable hour with the prospect of sleeping as late as we pleased next day.
Next day was a day of festivities, a cañao, for from morning till night there was dancing by these fantastic peoples, whom so few white men have ever seen. We were waked early enough, alas! by the ganzas—the tom-toms—and there were parades of the different tribes through the town. A small grandstand had been erected in the plaza, and there we stood with the Secretary and the few white teachers and the missionaries from about, while the procession was reviewed.
The constabulary came first, dressed only in loin cloths of different colours below the waist, but with the regulation khaki uniform blouse and cap above. They are officered by Americans and a few natives, and are most military, notwithstanding the strange appearance of their bare legs. Some companies were very well drilled, and they gave exhibitions of different manuals as well as any regular white soldiers might have done.
The wild Kalingas came past next, most picturesque, with their feather headdresses of red and yellow, and spears and head axes, and their brightly coloured loin cloths, and the women in scant but gay garments, and not at all ashamed in their nakedness. And these gave their characteristic dances, with outstretched arms, hopping and prancing about in a circle, all the time looking down into the center of the circle about which they dance (where the head of the decapitated is supposed to be). There were innumerable tom-toms, which they play with variations, so as to make much rhythm and movement, and the women joined in the dancing, more moderately, some with big cigars in their mouths and looking extremely indifferent. Then, when they danced in a circle, some would prance into the center with shield and ax and pretend attacks upon each other, and leap about and grow excited; and this sort of thing they kept up all day (and part of the night, too) off and on.[21]
The Ifugaos followed and passed by, and gave their dances, which are the same with a difference, but each was ended with a mighty shout, after which one of the head men would step forward and deliver a rattling speech, and they greeted the Secretary variously but cordially—for they like our American rule, indeed, they have never had any other, for the Spaniards never attempted to come in and control them.
