Hence, visits to others than relatives and trips to distant points are not frequent. This is particularly true of the womenfolk. Here and there one finds a Manóbo man who travels fearlessly to distant settlements for the purpose of securing some object that he needs, but he never fails to carry his lance, and frequently, his shield; he is never off his guard, either on the trail or in the house he may be visiting.
During the greater social and religious gatherings the greatest vigilance is exerted by all concerned as everyone realizes beforehand the possibility of trouble. Hence bolos or daggers are worn even during meals. Enemies or others who are known to be at loggerheads are seated at a respectful distance from each other with such people around them as are considered friendly or at least neutral. This arrangement of guests is a very striking feature of a Manóbo meal and one of great importance, for it prevents many an untoward act. The host, in an informal way, sees to the distribution of the guests, and when his arrangement is not acceptable to any of the interested parties, a rearrangement is made and all seat themselves. This proceeding has nothing formal about it. The whole thing seems to be done by instinct.
EXTERNAL COMMERCIAL RELATIONS
EXPLOITATION BY CHRISTIAN NATIVES
The shameless spoliation3 practiced during my residence and travels in eastern Mindanáo (1905-1909) by Christian natives upon the Christianized and un-Christianized Manóbos is a subject that deserves special mention.
3Since the establishment in 1909 of government trading posts, this spoliation has practically ceased in the Agúsan Valley.
Exploitation by falsification.--The hill people, living in their mountain fastnesses out of communication with the more important traders, had to depend wholly for their needs on petty traders and peddlers of the Christian population. They were accordingly kept in absolute ignorance of the true value of the commodities that they required. False reports as to the value of rice, hemp, and vino were constantly spread. To-day, it would be a report of a war between China and Japan that caused a rise of several pesos in the price of a sack of rice. To-morrow, it would be an international complication between Japan and several of the great European powers which caused a paralysis in the exportation of hemp and a corresponding fall of several pesos in the value of it. These and numerous other fabrications were corroborated by letters purporting to come from Butuán, but in most cases written by one trader to another on the spot, with a view to giving plausibility to the lie. It was a common practice for the trader's friend or partner in Butuán to direct, usually by previous arrangement, two letters to him, in one of which was stated the true value of the commodity and in the other the value at which it was desired to purchase or to dispose of it. The latter letter was for public perusal and rarely failed to beguile the ignorant conquistas and Manóbos.
But it was not only in the exorbitant rates charged and in the unspeakably low prices paid for objects of merchandise that the Christian trader swindled his pagan fellow men. The use of false weights and measures was a second means. The Manóbo had little conception of a pikul4 or of an arroba5 of hemp, so that he was utterly at the mercy of the trader. The steelyards used by Christian traders from 1905 to 1908 were never less than 30 per cent out of true and frequently as much as 50 per cent. One pair of scales I found to be so heavily leaded that the hemp that weighed 25 pounds on them weighed between 38 and 39 pounds on a true English scales.