Volume V Part 21 (2/2)
Igarrote Religious Dance, Lepanto.
A sharp contrast were the Igorrotes. These appeared to be at bottom Malays, though Mongolian features marked many a face. They had withstood all attempts to christianize them, and stubbornly clung to their primitive mode of life as tillers of the soil. Mentally they were near savagery, entirely without ambition or moral outlook. Nevertheless they adhered to the American arms and rendered valuable porter service.
Their religion had elements of sun and ancestor wors.h.i.+p. The one tangible feature in it was the ”kanyan,” a drunken feast held on such occasions--fifteen in all--as marriage, birth, death, and serious illness. The feast began with an invocation to Kafunion, the sun G.o.d, and a dance much like that of the American Indians. Then came the drinking of tapi, a strong beer made from rice, and gorging with buffalo, horse, or dog meat, the last being the greatest delicacy. Till the Americans vetoed the practice, the Igorrotes were ”head hunters.”
The theory was that the brains of the captured head became the captor's.
The Igorrotes had magnificent chests and legs, and were extensively used as burden-bearers. Sustained by only a few bowlfuls of rice and some sweet potatoes, a man would carry fifty or even seventy-five pounds on his head or back all day over the most difficult mountain trails. The Igorrotes had a mild form of slavery, and, though good-natured and at times industrious, appeared utterly without spirit of progress. It was interesting to mark whether or not contact with a superior race would be a stimulus to them.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Igarrote Head Hunters with Head Axes and Spears.
A contrast, again, to the Igorrotes was presented by the Ilocoans, an intelligent, industrious, Christian people, eager for education, yet promising to cherish independent ideals the more dearly the more prosperous and advanced they became.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Six men on horseback.]
Native Moros-Interior of Jolo.
Most implacable of all the races were the Moros of the Sulu Islands.
Warlike, and despising labor, their terrible piracies had been curbed only within fifty years, and their depredations and slave raiding by land were never wholly prevented. They were suspiciously eager to ”a.s.sist” our forces in subduing the insurgents. The American authorities negotiated a treaty with the Sultan and his dattos, involving their submission to the United States. A provision of this treaty excited reprobation, that permitting a slave to buy his freedom, a recognition of slavery in derogation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution. The provision was excused as an absolutely necessary makes.h.i.+ft to put off hostilities till the United States had a freer hand.
Spain never governed a colony well. Her whole record outre-mer was of a piece with the enslavement and extermination of the gentle Caribs, with which it began. In slavery and the slave trade Anglo-Saxon conquistadors shared Spain's dishonor, but in sheer ugliness of despotism, in wholesale, systematic, selfish exploiting, and in corrupt and clumsy administration the Iberian monarchy surpa.s.sed all other powers ever called to deal with colonies. The truth of this indictment was, if possible, more manifest in the Philippines than anywhere else in the Spanish world.
The religious orders, which early achieved the conversion of Tagals, Visayas, and some other tribes, after generations of evangelical devotion, ceased to be aggressive religiously, growing opulent and oppressive instead. They were the pedestal of the civil government.
Their word could, and often did, cause natives to be deported, or even put to death. One of their victims was that beautiful spirit, Dr. Rizal, author of Noli me Tangere, the most learned and distinguished Malay ever known. He had taken no part whatever in rebellion or sedition, yet, because he was known to abominate clerical misrule, he was, without a scintilla of evidence that he had broken any law, first expatriated, then shot. This murder occurring December 30, 1896, did much to further the rebellion then spreading.
”Once settled in his position, the friar, bishop, or curate usually remained till superannuated, being therefore a fixed political factor for a generation, while a Spanish civil or military officer never held post over four years. The stay of any officer attempting a course at variance with the order's wishes was invariably shortened by monastic influence. Every abuse leading to the revolutions of 1896 and 1898 the people charged to the friars; and the autocratic power which each friar exercised over the civil officials of his parish gave them a most plausible ground for belief that nothing of injustice, of cruelty, of oppression, of narrowing liberty was imposed on them for which the friar was not entirely responsible. The revolutions against Spain began as movements against the friars.” [footnote: Abridged from Report of Taft Commission.]
Senator h.o.a.r wrote: ”I should as soon give back a redeemed soul to Satan as give back the people of the Philippine Islands to the cruelty and tyranny of Spain.”
Freemasonry in the Philippines was a redoubtable antagonist to the orders. There were other secret leagues, like the Liga Filipina, with the same aim, most of them peaceful. Not so the ”Katipunan,” which adopted as its symbol the well-known initials, ”K. K. K.,”
”Kataas-Ta.s.san, Kagalang-Galang, Katipunan,” ”sovereign wors.h.i.+pful a.s.sociation.” If the Ku-Klux Klan did not give the hint for the society's symbol the programmes of the two organizations were alike. The Katipunan was probably the most potent factor in the insurrection of 1896. Its cause was felt to be that of the whole Filipino people. In December, 1897, the conflict, as in Cuba, had degenerated into a ”stalemate.” The Spaniard could not be ousted, the Filipino could not be subdued. Spain ended the trouble for the time by promising reform, and hiring the insurgent leaders to leave the country. Only a small part, 400,000 Mexican dollars, of the promised sum was ever paid. This was held in Hong-Kong as a trust fund against a future uprising.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Emilio Aguinaldo.
Chief among the leaders s.h.i.+pped to Hong-Kong was Emilio Aguinaldo. He was born March 22, 1869, at Cavite, of which town he subsequently became mayor. His blood probably contained Spanish, Tagal, and Chinese strains.
He had supplemented a limited school education by extensive and eager contact with books and men. To a surprising wealth of information the young Filipino added inspiring eloquence and much genius for leaders.h.i.+p.
He had the ”remarkable gift of surrounding himself with able coadjutors and administrators.” The insurrection of 1896 early revealed him as the incarnation of Filipino hostility to Spain. Judging by appearances--his zeal in 1896, bargain with Spain in 1897, fighting again in Luzon in 1898, acquiescence in peace with the United States, reappearance in arms, capture, and instant allegiance to our flag--he was a s.h.i.+fty character, little worthy the great honor he received where he was known and, for a long time, here. But if he lacked in constancy, he excelled in enterprise. Spaniards never missed their reckoning more completely than in thinking they had quieted Aguinaldo by sending him to China with a bag of money.
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