Various are the said objects in my possession, as well as a curious sacafuegos [firemaker] of which I am going to say a few words, which are due to the kindness and generosity of Don Procopio de Alcántara, judge of the village of Tagoloan. The sacafuegos consists of two cylinders of wood of great resisting power, and not very porous. One of them is hollow and the other solid. The latter, which is fitted very perfectly to the interior part of the former, has at one end a little tinder with very fine powdered sulphur. Having been prepared in this manner it is inserted a trifle at the said end into the hollow cylinder, and a smart blow is struck on it in order to send it all at once [into the hollow cylinder], and then by drawing it out quickly, the tinder is found to be alight and is immediately applied to the tobacco. That is no other than a small pneumatic flint and steel, such as is usually represented by the authors of books on physics.
They smoke the tobacco which they grow themselves, which is considered to be of the most excellent quality. They sell it in not small quantities in Cagayán in exchange for clothes or other objects that they need. Since the people of this race have been somewhat more civilized than those of others, they smoke the tobacco in small clay, wood, or horn pipes, which they make themselves, adding a small bamboo joint for a mouthpiece. They chew tobacco without swallowing it, as well as buyo. Instead of keeping the lime [for the buyo] in bamboo tubes beautifully worked, as do the Manobos and Mandayas, they keep it in small brass boxes, which are beautified with cunningly-made adornments, each one of which has its fitting ladle of the same metal, fashioned by means of a small chain.
In order to be more unembarrassed in their voyages, they use what they call salapa, which is a brass box in the form of a crescent which they fasten to the front of their girdle by cords. The lotoan or pouch which is adorned with rich and vari-colored embroidery, is also used by them in their excursions. In it they keep their money, tobacco, buyo, rice, etc., etc. Although they can undertake long voyages afoot, without giving out, and can well endure the discomforts of the road through mountains and woods, they are such good horsemen that however steep may be the ascents they never alight from their horses. The horse is generally caparisoned with one or two strings of hawk’s-bells, in the manner of the mule teams conducted by the muleteers of Cataluña, and they make as do the latter such a racket that they advise the traveler of their passing from a long distance.
They engage in the cultivation of the soil, and make extensive plantations of maize, which supply them not only with their ordinary food but also with goodly profits by selling it to the beach villages, thus obtaining in exchange many articles which they do not possess in the woods, salt being the chief. Since they do not count by months or by years, but by harvests, in order to know the time for their sowing they pay attention to the aspect of the sky. Accordingly, when they see certain constellations in the firmament which they designate by very curious and completely arbitrary names, since they know that they are, for example, those which precede the rainy season, they hasten to burn their trees and prepare the ground for sowing. I have seen the plow used for the cultivation of the soil, one somewhat different from those of España. He who guides it is never without his adze with which to cut the roots which he finds as the plow passes. For the finer labor, they use a small hoe with a short curved handle. Scarcely will one find a house of Buquidnons where there are not one or at times more small mills for grinding maize. They are made of two very hard stone cylinders. The inner is fixed on a wooden upright, while the upper is movable, and has an orifice in its center through which the maize is poured. The circular movement by which the grain is crushed is produced by a handle securely fastened to one side of the movable cylinder. An apparatus which I saw in Jasaán for removing cotton seed appeared very ingenious to me. It consists in the special gearing of the screws [engrenaje particular de las roscas] of two cylinders. Those cylinders being very close together allow the filaments of cotton to pass but not the seeds, which are as large as small peas. The motion is produced by means of a crank which is the continuation of the upper cylinder. The whole apparatus is wooden, but is operated with sufficient regularity although with some discomfort to the one operating it. Not a little time is given by the Monteses to the harvesting of abacá for they are not ignorant of the high price of that filament, in commerce. But to many of them their dream proves very contrary, for they often meet with Chinese traders, cunning as are no others, who exploit them by deceiving them in the price and weight, and what is worse, fill them with alcohol, by enticing them to drink deeply. In fact after the unfortunate fellows have used all the week in transacting the business they again return to their woods with the after effects of their intoxication, without abacá, without money, with some miserable gewgaws perhaps and a mind irritated by the deceit of which they were the victims. It would be advisable to impose an efficacious corrective on those exploiters of an evil class, and worse tricks, in favor of the poor Monteses. When the palay is harvested, on rising and before undertaking the ordinary labors, until daybreak, they generally sing popular songs, men and women alternating, either the history of their ancestors, or the prowess of one of their heroes, or some events of our first parents, Adam and Eve, corrupted and mixed as is supposed by their false beliefs. The airs of those songs are in general gloomy and monotonous. Their musical instruments are few and rudimentary, among them being the pulala, or bamboo clarinet, which has a very shrill sound, but which is the most appreciated; and instruments of bamboo resembling a flute; an imitation of a guitar (tiape) with only three strings; and the dayuray, or a very small drum whose box is made of the shell of the cocoanut or a bamboo tube.
Although they are so sunk in the darkness of heathenism they have some glimmerings of civilization among themselves, without doubt the vestige of the past Spanish domination, for they have their laws and courts for the punishment of theft and other crimes, laws which, transmitted from father to son, are reformed according to the greater or less discretion of the superior dato, to whom those who have been offended in a serious matter have recourse to demand justice. The dato, seated, and with his temples bound with his flaming pinditón and grasping in his right hand the famous quiap, has two subordinate datos sit near him, and then the criminal is immediately brought to his presence. Those who conduct him leave their spears thrust into the ground near the steps of that tribunal, so that no one in view of the crime of which the criminal is convicted dares to take the justice of the criminal into his own hands. The arguments for each side having been heard, after deliberation, the superior dato administers justice, together with the subordinate datos present at the act. The penalty decreed is executed without delay for the satisfaction of the aggrieved parties, the punishment of the offender, and the public warning of all. When the crime is not very serious, the offender is condemned to pay a certain number of large and small plates, to which a China jar is sometimes added, if the crime is somewhat greater. After the fine has been paid the one offended and the offender have to cleave with one single blow of the bolo, and at the same time a rattan which is held by the judges. If by accident the rattan should not be cut at one time, it is an evident sign that the opposing parties are still enemies, and, consequently, they yet look upon one another with care and dread.
It is a well-established fact among these heathens that he who kills a dato has committed so great a crime that it can never be erased, and the author and all his descendants are considered as slaves, and all have the right to reduce them to slavery whenever they wish.
I will mention here certain peculiar apprehensions and some of the superstitions of this race.
Whenever they offer any food or drink to guests, they first taste it in order to remove all suspicion of deceit or poison from their guests. Among the Monteses it is a lack of education and good breeding to mention their names in conversation. If any of them is asked “What is your name?” the one interrogated does not answer, but some other person of the group will say “His name is Colás.” In regard to the rest which man ought to take they say that it is better for him to imitate the birds, which go to bed at the setting of the sun and wake up at the reddening of the dawn. They say that the rainbow is the red girdle of two famous men, Banlac and Aguio, who mounted up to heaven by a great leap from the hill called Balábag, without any more being known of them. These heathens reckon by nights and not by days, so that their method of expression is as follows: “That voyage will last about six nights;” “After four nights we shall begin to build the house.” I mind me that the ancient Germans did the same thing, and I believe that some peoples of Oceanica had the same custom in remote times. When they are outside of their houses and away from their village or ranchería, when they see that the moon has a halo, they are persuaded that somebody is being judged in their village, and for fear that it may be one of their partisans they immediately return home, to see whether they can save the defendant. They are convinced that if it rains and the rays of the sun illumine, at the same time, such or such a distant wood, it is because the Buquidnons are at war in the said point, and the sun does not wish to hide its light so that they may fight with greater valor. If they hear the song of the bird limocon under certain circumstances, they do not leave their houses, for as they say some danger or ambush awaits them on the way. If the song surprises them on the road itself, in this or that position which they ascertain, they immediately return to their houses and refuse to continue for certain reasons. When they find the worm called lábud in the middle of the road they go back, for they assert that some sickness or misfortune would overtake them, if they did not do so. If they enter any house to visit those who live there, and during the conversation any cock or hen flies and passes in front of the stranger, the owners of the house immediately kill the bold bird, and it is eaten in friendly intercourse with the guest, in order to remove his fright and bring his soul back, which they believe has been separated from the body through fright and returns again to the same body joyfully. I could mention other interesting things of the same kind, but I leave them in order not to tire your Reverence.
When speaking of the dwellings of these heathens, one must distinguish between those who live in settlements and those who live in the woods. The former build their houses well spread out and comfortably, it being indispensable for them to have a projecting wing joined to the house itself in the manner of a gallery, open to the air on all sides except that by which it communicates with the interior. To this gallery is fitted the stairway, generally of wood, very simple in form and generally without balustrades. The materials employed are not always bamboo and nipa. I have seen the houses of Buquidnons which have board walls excellently constructed, very strong, but needing no nails, hammers, or saws. How is that? I will tell something about it. Here is the crucial point, as one generally says; for some boards are simply sewn to others. And I must tell another marvel so that with one surprise we are relieved of another. All the boards have six holes along their length three on one side and three on the other, and joining the boards by the edges they pass a bit of very fine and tough rattan through the said holes, and they are so tightly bound together that nails are not missed at all. Those who live scattered in the interior of the woods build their houses low, but raised very far above the ground through their fear of the spears of their enemies.
Very great is the respect that all these heathens show for their deceased. Accordingly, they generally bury them in their fields and with them the spear, bolo, and other precious things which they especially used during their lifetime. Along the place that the corpse occupies they heap up the earth, and form a small mound, and at short intervals in the ground they fasten certain tree trunks in the form of an X, on top of which they place the bark of a tree, which serves as a roof for the earth mound, which they consider as sacred. Never do they forget to suspend from the upper end of a large pole, a small sack of rice, on which the deceased supports himself until his soul takes according to them the long road to Mount Bolotucan. Bolotucan is the highest peak which dominates all the region comprehended between Jasaán and Lagónlong. When the deceased reaches the summit of the same he gets into heaven by jumping up, reaching a higher or lesser point according to the probity of his life, and there he will remain forever. All the relatives of the deceased, both men and women, make great demonstrations of grief when death occurs. They let their hair hang loose as a sign of mourning, and do not bind it up again until after a greater or less period, according to the love which they professed for the deceased.