[12] Interesting information about Lake Lanao is given in the following letter from the Jesuit Juan Heras to his superior, dated at Tagoloan, October 6, 1890; it is printed in Cartas de los PP. de la Compañía de Jesús, cuad. ix (Manila, 1891), pp. 254, 255.
“Desiring to furnish to your Reverence as accurate information as possible regarding the lake of Malanao, we sent again for some men who lived there many years as slaves. They are an intelligent family. The father is a Tagálog, captured when he was a mere youth; he was carried to the Lake, and later married a girl, also a Tagálog who had been enslaved. They had three children, and when one of these was ten years old and another one somewhat older, they made their escape, in the year 74. The father and mother lived at the Lake more than twenty years; they settled in Jasaán, and lived there very happily after their children had been baptised. The father has traveled entirely around the lake by the highroad, and the second son had gone half-way round, from the northeastern end to Ganasi. The information, then, which they had given us—precisely the same both tunes, for they had been questioned previously, last March—is as follows:
“The length of the lake from north to south—or from the mouth of the Agus River (which empties near Iligan), to Ganasi, the point of departure for Lalabúan, which is on Illana Bay—is 24 hours of straight sailing, with steady rowing and the wind astern. The breadth from east to west is half the length. It has many promontories, which form large curves [in the coast]; and the shore is steep and rocky at Lúgud and Tugua, at which points vessels cannot find anchor. The lake contains four islets. A good highroad runs around the lake, which is interrupted only near Taraca, by the extensive mud flats which form the rice-lands (or basacanes). Taraca is the principal town, and the sultan lives there. The places which are noted as villages [i.e., on an accompanying map?] are not really such, but are the jurisdictions of the dattos. The settlement is one continuous street, with houses on both sides of the highroad almost all the way round the lake.
“The population is a large one, as several married couples live in the same house, and there are many dwellings. The people who have the reputation of being the bravest are those of Unayan, Bundayan, Ganasi, and Marántao. From Ganasi the highroad goes toward Lalabúan; it has no steep ascents or descents, nor does it cross large rivers; and by following this road Lalabúan is reached in one day. Half-way on this journey is the village of Limudigan, the sultan of Poalas, the richest of all those in the Lake region. Our informants state that the cannon are kept in Ganasi, in a large shed, to a considerable number. The places where the people have most guns are Maraui and Marántao; the number of firearms cannot be exactly stated, although these men say three are many of them. From Maraui one can go to Ganasi in three days, by taking the road to the right, and in four days by going to the left; it therefore takes seven days to make the trip around the lake—but the circuit of the lake is probably somewhat exaggerated. It is said that those people have many mosques. Maraui is on the Agus River, quite near the lake; these men say that there are many horses there. As to the exactness of these data, it is evident that we cannot be altogether certain; but it is certain that each of our informants has confirmed the other’s statements.”
In the same volume of Cartas is a valuable appendix by Father Pablo Pastells, in which he sets forth the importance of the plan formed by General Valeriano Weyler (governor of the islands during 1889–91) for completing the subjugation of Mindanao to the Spanish crown, and presents a brief historical sketch of the Spanish conquests in that island, and an account of conditions therein and of the natural resources of the country. He argues that the forcible expulsion of all its Mahometan tribes would be impossible, and that the proper way to hispanicize Mindanao must be the slow one—but sure, if the results of the labors of Jesuit missionaries among the Moros be considered—of education, the introduction of civilized modes of life (especially by the cultivation of the soil), a political organization like that already in vogue among the Tagálogs and other christianized peoples, the influence of the Christian religion in displacing their superstitious and false beliefs, governmental protection to the peaceable natives, and the promotion of migration of Filipinos from the northern islands to Mindanao, thus gradually colonizing the latter with industrious, civilized, and Christian inhabitants. Statistics are added to Father Pastells’s memorial, showing that the (Jesuit) missions of Mindanao contain (in 1892) a total Christian population of 191,493 souls; this number he compares with the list given by Murillo Velarde (1748; including all the missions of the Jesuits in Filipinas), which foots up to 209,527 souls. At the end of the Cartas is a map (dated March 19, 1892) of the “second and fifth districts”—i.e., those of Cagayán de Misamis and Cottabato—on a scale of ten kilometers to an inch; it contains the latest geographic data up to 1892, and is especially full in the Lanao region and the course of the Pulangi River or Rio Grande, the headwaters of that great river almost interlocking with those of the Cagayán and another large stream which empties into Macajalar Bay. The map also shows the native tribes that occupy the region which it depicts. [↑]
[13] Gabe or gabi is the native name (Tagal, Visayan, and Pampango) for the roots of Caladium esculentum (also known as Colocasia antiquorum), which are used considerably as food. This plant is frequently cultivated in the United States for its foliage, and is popularly called “elephant’s ears,” from the shape of the leaves. [↑]
[14] A bay or inlet at the southwest angle of Iligan Bay, extending 12 miles southwest, its inmost point lying but 13 miles from the northern extremity of Illana Bay, which is on the south side of Mindanao. The fort here mentioned must have been at the mouth of Lintogut River. [↑]
[15] Spanish, tierra de S. Pablo; but no information is available for its identification. [↑]
[16] One of the very rare allusions to this mode of conducting commerce, as used among the Moros, which—although common enough in all parts of the world from very early times, and practiced by most peoples who have risen beyond the savage condition—seems to have been even to the present time undeveloped among the Moros, partly on account of their fierce natures and the feuds among them, partly because of their habits of piracy, plunder, and bloodshed. Of especial interest in this connection is the account published in the New York Outlook, December 23, 1905, of the “Moro Exchange” established at Zamboanga, Mindanao (July, 1904), by Captain John P. Finley, governor of Zamboanga district. Intended from the outset to replace slavery and piracy by honest labor, it has gradually gained the respect and coöperation of the Moro chiefs; and by taking advantage of their talent for trade is exerting a wide and strong influence in the development of industry and peaceful relations among them. This exchange even in its first year had a volume of business amounting to $128,000; and now its daily transactions run from 500 to 800 pesos, while in the Zamboanga district it has fourteen branches. [↑]
[17] Spanish, al reir del alba, literally, “at the smile of the dawn.” [↑]