CHAPTER XXIV

NON-CHRISTIAN TRIBE PROBLEMS

And now let us try to gain a clear appreciation of some of the problems actually presented by the existence of the non-Christian peoples of the Philippines.

They belong to twenty-seven tribes at the most. Probably this number will ultimately be somewhat further reduced. The number of dialects spoken is greatly in excess of the number of tribes, as the people of a single tribe sometimes speak three or four well-marked dialects.

The tribes are divided between two wholly distinct races, to wit, Negritos and Malays.

The Negritos are of very low mentality and are incapable of any considerable degree of civilization. Many of them are kept in a state of abject peonage, and not a few are held in actual slavery, by their Christian Filipino neighbours. In revenge for the abuses which they suffer they are prone to commit criminal acts, and the problem which they present resolves itself into protecting them from their neighbours and their neighbours from them. The latter thing would be easy enough if the former were practicable, but unfortunately their neighbours cannot be persuaded to let them alone, and never do it except under compulsion.

The people of all the Malay non-Christian tribes, with the exception of certain Negrito mestizos, are undoubtedly capable of attaining to a fairly high degree of civilization. Physically and, in my opinion, mentally the people of several of the hill tribes are decidedly superior to their lowland Filipino neighbours, who have degenerated to some extent as a result of less favourable climatic conditions and other causes.

In social development these Malay tribes vary from the semi-nomadic Mangyans of Mindoro to the highly civilized Tingians of Abra, who are in many ways superior to the Ilocanos with whom they live in close contact. Some of these tribes, like the Benguet-Lepanto Igorots and the Tingians, are peaceful agriculturists; others, like the wild Tingians of Apayao, the Kalingas, the Bontoc Igorots, the Ifugaos, the Ilongots, the Manobos and the Mandayas, are, or recently have been, fierce fighters prone to indulge in such customs as the taking of human heads for war trophies, or even the making of human sacrifices to appease their heathen divinities.

The Moros, who are numerically stronger than are the people of any other one tribe, stand in a class by themselves on account of their strong adherence to the Mohammedan faith and their inclination to propagate it by the sword. Who would hold them in check if the Americans were to go? Certainly not the Filipinos. They have never been able to do it in the past, and they cannot do it now.

All the non-Christian tribes have two things in common, their unwillingness to accept the Christian faith and their hatred of the several Filipino peoples who profess it. Their animosity is readily understood when it is remembered that their ancestors and they themselves have suffered grievous wrongs at the hands of the Filipinos. In spite of all protestations to the contrary, the Filipinos are absolutely without sympathy for the non-Christian peoples, and have never voluntarily done anything for them, but on the contrary have shamelessly exploited them whenever opportunity has offered. They have never of themselves originated one single important measure for the benefit of their non-Christian neighbours, and their attitude toward the measures which have been originated by Americans has always been one of active or passive opposition. Their real belief as to what should be done with the wild people is that they should be used if they can be made useful, but should be exterminated if they become troublesome. Governor Pablo Guzman, of Cagayan, actually said to me that the best thing to do with the wild people of Apayao, then supposed to number fifty-three thousand, might be to kill them all.

Americans have adopted a firm but kindly policy in dealing with the non-Christian tribes and have met with extraordinary success in winning their good-will and weaning them from the worst of their evil customs. Even with those of the Moros who live outside of the island of Joló considerable progress has been made. Head-hunting has been abolished among the Ifugaos, Igorots and Kalingas with an ease which was wholly unanticipated.

In all work for the wild people the attitude of governors and lieutenant-governors has proved to be a matter of fundamental importance. The problem in each province or subprovince has been a one-man problem. He who would succeed in handling wild men must be absolutely fearless, for if he is not, they are quick to discover the fact and to take advantage of it. He must protect his people from injustice and oppression, or they will lose faith in him. He must have a genuinely friendly feeling toward them, and must bear them no ill will even when they misbehave. They will not object to severe punishment when they know that it is deserved, but after being punished feel that the slate has been wiped clean, and that they are making a fresh start. They believe in letting by-gones be by-gones, and their officials should meet them half way in this.

The following occurrence illustrates my point. Before all the settlements of Ifugao had been brought under control, Lieutenant-Governor Gallman had a headman acting as a policeman, who rendered invaluable service and was allowed to carry a gun. No one dreamed that he would ever be molested. When on a trip to Lingay he became overheated, and stopped to bathe in a stream, leaving his gun on the bank. Some young men improved the opportunity thus afforded to attack him. One of them threw a lance into him, and then they all started to run away. Such was his reputation and influence that he succeeded in compelling them to return and pull the lance out, but he was fatally hurt and soon died.

After his death they took his head and his gun, and immediately thereafter the Lingay people sent to Gallman a challenge to come and fight them. He promptly accepted their invitation, taking a few Ifugao soldiers with him. He found the country deserted. Women, children, pigs and chickens had been sent into the forested mountains. Roofs and board sides of houses had been removed so that there remained only the bare frameworks which could not readily be burned.

For some time Gallman encountered no opposition. He at last grew careless and walked into an ambush. He was met with a volley of stones and a volley of lances. Fortunately for him the stones arrived first and one of them, striking him in the face, knocked him senseless. Another injured his right hand and knocked his revolver from his grasp. The lances passed over him as he fell. He slid for some distance down the almost precipitous mountain side, and his soldiers thought him dead. When he recovered consciousness, he heard them talking close to him. They agreed that they must do two things: first, prevent his head from being taken; and, second, punish his assailants. Before he could call to them they charged the latter and scattered them right and left. Gallman staggered to his feet, hunted around until he found his revolver, and rejoined his men. It was known that their opponents had had ten guns before killing the policeman and taking his. There followed a marked unpleasantness, at the end of which Gallman had the eleven guns, and most of those who had been using them had been gathered to their fathers. He then returned to his station at Banaue.

Three days later the headmen of Lingay came walking in, shook hands and announced that they had had enough. Gallman asked them why they had been so foolish. They replied that as they already had ten guns, when they got one more the young men became overconfident, thought that they could whip the constabulary, get their guns also and dominate all that part of Ifugao. The old men said that they had warned the young fellows that their plan would result in disaster, but as they were not to be dissuaded, and as they were their young men, had finally joined in. They said, however, that they were glad things had come out as they had, for the young men would now behave themselves, and it is worthy of note that they have done so ever since.

Six weeks later, when I visited Banaue, the one survivor of the eleven gunmen came in and danced with the other Ifugaos on the plaza, apparently as happy as any of them.

How many Filipinos are there who have the courage, the kindliness, the knowledge of primitive human nature and the sympathy with it which would enable them to treat the really wild barbarians as Gallman and Hale have treated them? Thus far I have found one, and one only.

In a previous chapter [59] I have told the story of a Kalinga with whom I had just made friends according to the formula of his tribe who put his life in deadly peril twice within the space of twenty-four hours in order to save mine when it was gravely endangered by his fellow-tribesmen. Is such real friendship possible between Filipinos and non-Christians? Not at present. A lot of ancient history must first be lived down.

In the Philippines it has invariably been true that the wild man has in the past been more or less completely despoiled of the fruits of his labour by his so-called "Christian" neighbours whenever compelled to do business with them in order to obtain some of the necessaries of life. He is accustomed to receive a mere pittance for his products, and to pay enormous prices when he makes purchases. The opening of the so-called "government exchanges," which are stores where the products of the surrounding country are purchased and where the things required by the hill people are sold at a small margin of profit, has proved very useful in the establishment of friendly and helpful relations with them. In some places they have been persuaded to grow new and more profitable crops. Some of the Benguet Igorots, for instance, now raise strawberries for sale at Baguio, although a few years ago they had never seen them.

If in control, would the Filipinos reverse the policy they have heretofore always followed in commercial dealings with the wild men? Most assuredly not.

The Igorots, Ifugaos and Kalingas are adepts in the use of irrigation water, and know how to terrace the steepest mountain sides so as to employ it advantageously wherever it is available. The giving of help in running main irrigation ditches through rock has been especially appreciated by them. The money which we expend for this purpose goes for the establishment of proper grade lines, the providing of necessary supervision and the purchase of explosives and tools for rock work. The people concerned are more than glad to contribute all necessary labour free of charge.

Would the Filipinos continue to make funds available for such improvements in the wild man's country? A thousand times no! Before any one disputes me, let him show one instance where they have done any such thing in any one of the very numerous provinces where the expenditure of funds for non-Christians is under their control.

In dealing with tribes which have been accustomed to live by families, or small groups of families, and to select very inaccessible places for their homes, it is of course necessary to persuade them to live in larger groups and in reasonably accessible places before much progress can be made toward improving their condition. This is usually not a very difficult task if one goes about it in the right way.

In Bukidnon, for instance, where we are still bringing people down from the tree-tops, in which they and some of their ancestors have lived for centuries, and settling them in well-ordered and beautifully kept villages, when new arrivals come in to inspect the towns and interrogate me as to the conditions under which they may take up residence there, I often have conversations like this:--

"What about this life in town?"

"Look around and see for yourself. Talk with the people and hear what they have to say about it. They will tell you whether they like it or not, and why."

"But what do I have to do if I wish to live in town?"

"A piece of ground will be assigned to you and on it you must build a decent house like those you see. This house is for you and your family, not for me. I come here only once or twice a year and at the most stay over one night, so I do not need your house. The lieutenant-governor does not need it. When he comes he stays at the presidencia. He will not let any one take it away from you."

"Very well. What else?"

"You will have to build a good, tight fence around the lot given you and keep your domestic animals inside it. You must also clean it up thoroughly, removing all vegetation and filling all the low places so that water cannot stand in them. Then you must keep it clean."

"What is the use of that?"

"The búsaos [60] who cause sickness do not like clean places and stay away from them."

"I never heard of that."

"Ask the people who have tried keeping their yards clean, and they will tell you that it is true."

"Well, what else?"

"As long as you have to keep your yard clean you might as well plant something useful in it, so that you will get a good return for your labour."

"That is a good idea. Is there anything more?"

"Yes. You must take up a piece of the beautiful prairie land near town, build a fence around it to keep out the wild hogs and deer, and plant it with rice, camotes or something else that will give your family plenty of food and if possible leave a surplus to sell, so that you can buy better clothes with the money you make."

"But I cannot break this thick prairie sod."

"The ground will be ploughed for you the first time. After that you must look after it yourself."

"Is that all?"

"No. There is one additional very important thing. I am getting old and fat, [61] and I can no longer scramble around over these hills as I used to do. I want to come and see you every year, and find out how you are getting on. You will have to help build good trails for my big horse, working ten days every year, or paying two pesos, so that some one else can be hired to work in your place. Everything else that I have told you must be done, if you come to town, is for your benefit, not for mine, and even the trails are only partly for my benefit. You will find it easy and safe to travel over them, and when you want to go to market, your carabao will be able to pack three or four times as much as he can now carry over bad paths."

"Will I gain any other advantages by living in town?"

"Yes, two very important ones. You and your family will be safe from attack, and you will have a chance to send your children to school."

"Must I come and live in town if I do not want to?"

"By no means. If you prefer to live up a tree in the mountains, no one will interfere with you so long as you behave yourself. There are plenty of mountains and plenty of trees."

As a result of the simple arguments above outlined and of the protection and help given them, nearly all of the Bukidnon people have left the mountain fastnesses through which they have until recently been scattered, and are voluntarily taking up their residences in towns which in their way are models.

Could the Filipinos keep them in the towns where we have settled them? No; and they would not if they could. They would chase them back into the forests as they were doing when we made them stop it. Furthermore, they could not if they would. In September, 1912, I heard the people of eastern Bukidnon tell Governor Reyes of Misamis that if their territory were put back into his province, they would take to the hills and live with the Manobos.

One of the most important factors in winning and retaining the good will of the non-Christian peoples has been the extension to them of protection from the impositions of their Filipino neighbours. The following is a fair sample of the sort of thing to which they have in the past been subjected.

During my last trip through Bukidnon I learned that a long-haired mountaineer who had been encouraged to plant coffee and Manila hemp had acted on the suggestion, working very hard and establishing an excellent plantation which had prospered. When he had products ready for market he had taken them to the coast town of Balingasák. He did not speak the language of the Visayan Filipino inhabitants of that place, so fell into the hands of one of them who knew his dialect. This rascal helped him to sell his produce, but took a heavy commission for this service. The hillman was nevertheless delighted with the result, whereupon his "commissioner" suggested that what he really needed was a partner in town to sell his crops, so that he could spend his whole time in cultivating his fields and not have to go to market. This struck the hillman as a good idea. The Filipino made out what purported to be articles of partnership and the hillman signed them with his mark, in the presence of witnesses.

A few months later he sent a valuable shipment of coffee and hemp to his "partner." When weeks had passed without his hearing from it, he went to Balingasák to find out what was wrong, whereupon his "partner" stated that he was greatly obliged to him for his trouble in cultivating and harvesting the products of the farm. The hillman demanded his share of the returns and the "partner" calmly assured him that he had no share, having sold his farm at the time of his last visit. Investigation proved that this ignorant man had signed a bill of sale for his place.

Lieutenant-Governor Fortich interested himself in the case and caused suit to be brought against the rascally "partner" for stealing the hillman's produce. The fiscal, or public prosecuting, officer was a bright young Filipino who had recently graduated from an American university. Nevertheless, he had the suit thrown out of court because the "partner" of the hillman claimed that the farm was his, and a question of property ownership could not be conveniently determined in connection with a criminal suit.

At this stage of events I took a hand and brought the matter to the attention of the Honourable Gregorio Araneta, secretary of finance and justice. The fiscal had suggested that the wild man could bring a civil suit for damages against his "partner." How could this helpless barbarian have gone to Cagayan, hired a lawyer and lived there while his case was pending? He was absolutely helpless. Naturally, I was not. Another suit was brought and the "partner" was sentenced to pay a fine and was given a term in jail.

This is no isolated case. The wild men are constantly deprived of their crops or their lands; cheated in the sale of their products and in their purchases; arrested and fined on trumped-up charges; compelled to work for others without compensation; charged by private individuals for the privilege of using government forests or taking up public lands; and badgered and imposed upon in a thousand and one other ways.

If the Filipinos were put in control, would there rise up among them unselfish men who would check the rapacity of their fellows, and extend to the helpless peoples the protection they now enjoy?

At all events, those who have made it their business to protect the people of the non-Christian tribes have not been popular among the Filipinos. As a precautionary measure, I warned every man appointed governor of, or lieutenant-governor in, a special government province that he must expect sooner or later to be accused of many of the crimes recognized by existing laws. Every such man who does his duty eventually has false, and usually foul, charges brought against him. A common, and indeed the favourite, complaint is that he has been guilty of improper relations with women. The Filipino is an expert in framing up cases of this sort, and seems to take special delight in it, partly no doubt because such charges are so excessively difficult to disprove.

Cruel abuse of the wild men, or their families; falsification of public documents; misappropriation of public funds; adultery; rape,--these are all common charges, while more than one of my subordinates has been accused of murder, and one has actually been brought into court on such a charge. It is certainly no sinecure to be an officer of a special government province.

A potent means of winning the undying regard of the wild man is to cure him when he is sick, or heal him when he is injured. Hospitals have already been established in two of the special government provinces and are doing untold good. Practically every officer of these provinces carries a set of simple remedies with him when he travels, and treats the sick without compensation as opportunity offers, but this work is as yet in its infancy.

The Filipinos have not doctors enough to heal their own sick. Would they remember to heal the wild men? Hardly.

Several of the wild tribes have progressed much more rapidly during the brief period since the American occupation than have any of the Filipino peoples, and if given adequate protection and friendly assistance they will continue to progress. Their splendid physiques and high intelligence, no less than their truthfulness, honesty and morality, certainly make them well worth saving.

Under Filipino rule the more helpless of these tribes would speedily come under the control of their former oppressors, but people like the Ifugaos, Bontoc Igorots, Kalingas and wild Tingians would fight to the death before submitting to them, and there would result a guerrilla warfare as endless and disastrous as that which has lasted so long between the Dutch and the Achinese. There is every theoretical reason to believe that the Filipinos would adopt toward such hostile primitive peoples the policy of extermination which the Japanese have been so vigorously carrying out in dealing with the hill people of northern Formosa, who do not differ in any important respect from the hill people of northern Luzón, with whom such helpful and friendly relations have now been established.

We have encouraged the primitive Philippine peoples to stand up for their rights. We have promised them our protection and help if they would do it, and thus far we have kept our promise. To break it now, and turn them over to the tender mercies of the Filipinos, who have never ceased to make threats as to what they will do when they get the chance, would in my opinion be a crime against civilization.

The Moros openly boast that if the Americans go they will raid the Christian towns, and this is no idle threat. They will most assuredly do it.

Were American control to be withdrawn before the civilization of the wild tribes had been effected, their future would be dark indeed. Under continued American control they can be won over to civilized ways, and will in the end become mentally and morally, as they now are physically, superior to the lowlanders.

No man has been blessed with better subordinates than I have had to assist me in the work carried on under my direction for the non-Christian tribes of the Philippines. I wish it clearly understood that it is to the loyalty and efficiency of these men that the results which have been obtained are due. Fearlessly, tirelessly, uncomplainingly, they have borne their heavy shares of the white man's burden, finding their greatest reward in the respect, gratitude, and in many cases the affection, of those whom they have so faithfully and effectively served.

Think of Pack, weakened by illnesses which twice brought him within a hair's breadth of death, wearing himself out riding over the Mountain Province trails, many of which he himself had laboriously built, in order to keep the little handful of men who control its 400,000 non-Christian inhabitants up to the high-water mark of efficiency, when he could have gone home any day and spent his remaining years in leisurely comfort; of Bryant, wandering for weeks on end through the trackless forests of Nueva Vizcaya in order to get in touch with Ilongot savages who were a good deal more than "half devil" with the balance not "half child" but peculiarly treacherous, vicious and savage man; of Offley, packing the bare necessities of life on his own back while he struggled out to the coast from the centre of Mindoro, where his frightened carriers had deserted him; of Kane, burning in the heat of the lowlands or soaked and shivering on chilly mountain crests, while building new roads and keeping old ones open for traffic; of Lewis, trying to cover a territory large enough to tax the energies of three men, and in his efforts to do so riding until so weary that at night he fell from his horse unable to dismount; of Fortich, a Filipino lieutenant-governor, faithfully carrying out the white man's policy and protecting the Bukidnons from his own people who charged him with murder because he drove them from their prey; of Gallman, risking his life a thousand times in a successful individual effort to bring 125,000 head-hunting savages under effective control and to establish relations of genuine friendship with them; of Hale, turning tattooed Kalinga devils into effective officers for the maintenance of law and order, or making a bundle of the lances thrown at him and sending them back to the people who threw them with a mild suggestion that it was impolite to treat a would-be friend in such an unceremonious way; of Johnson, tramping through the reeking filth of the Butuan swamps with a cancer eating away the bone of his leg, and referring to it as "a little swelling" when asked what made him lame; of Bondurant, spending the last afternoon of his life in pursuing Moro outlaws through that worst of all tropical infernos, a mangrove swamp, when burning with pernicious malarial fever and fighting for the very breath of life; of Miller, faithful unto death!

We are wont to quote with feeling the familiar words, "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend," but what shall we say of the love of duty of men like Miller and Bondurant, who in doing their country's work cheerfully laid down their lives for an alien people?

While in the United States in 1910 I read Rudyard Kipling's "If" and thereafter did not rest until I had sent a copy of it to each governor and lieutenant-governor employed in the special provincial government service of the Philippine Islands. Kipling wrote for these men of mine up in the hills without knowing it. They understand him and he would understand them.

There is not one of them who has not learned to

"... fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run";

not one whose personal experience has left him deaf to the appeal of the lines:--

"If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about don't deal in lies, Or being hated don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise."

Furthermore, each of them has again and again finished on his nerve. Did not the words,--

"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'"

run through Bondurant's mind that last afternoon when he was following Moro outlaws through a foul mangrove swamp, while his senses reeled with the fever which was so soon to end his life?

In his wonderful quadruplet of stanzas Kipling has fixed one criterion of manhood which it is hard indeed to meet:--

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools."

I beg my fellow-countrymen to remember that the non-Christians of the Philippines constitute an eighth of the population; that the work undertaken for their physical, mental and moral advancement has succeeded far beyond the hopes of those who initiated it; that its results would go down like a house of cards if American control were prematurely withdrawn. Shall the men who have devoted their lives to these things be forced to watch them broken, and then be denied the poor privilege of building them up again? If the splendid results of so much efficient, faithful, self-sacrificing and successful effort were to be lost, would not the dead who gave their lives for them turn in their graves?

The greatest of the non-Christian tribe problems in the Philippines at present is, "Shall the work go on?"

There is one satisfaction which no man can take from those of us who have worked for the advancement of these backward and hitherto neglected peoples. We have shown what can be done!

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