The Head Hunters of Northern LuzonWillcox, Cornélis De Witt
History
The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon
Willcox, Cornélis De Witt
Igorot (Philippine people); Luzon (Philippines) -- Description and travel
Deep valley.--A poor _ranchería_.--Escort of boys.--Descent of
Tinglayan Hill.--Sullen reception at Tinglayan.--Bangad.--First
view of the Kalingas.--Arrival at Lubuagan.
We were off early the next morning, the 11th, our destination
being Lubuagan, the capital of the Kalinga country. We had a long,
hard day before us. As I was about to mount, I noticed that Doyle,
Mr. Forbes's groom, looked seedy, and learned that Bubud had broken
loose in the night and gone the rounds of the herd, kicking every
animal in it before he could be caught, and so robbing poor Doyle
of a good part of his sleep. After riding a bit through the pines,
the ground apparently dropped off in front of us out of sight, rising
in a counter slope on the other side, in a great green wall from which
sprang a hogback; only this time it was a razor-back, so sharp was its
edge, up which back and forth ran the trail. It was another of those
deep knife-like valleys; this one, however, challenging our passage,
and justly, for it was more cañon than valley, and it took us nearly
two hours to cross it. But it was worth the trouble and time. For
imagine a cañon with forested sides and carpeted in green from the
stream in its bed to the highest bounding ridge! Near the top we came
upon a bank of pitcher-plants, the pitchers of some of them being fully
six inches long. A mile or so farther on, we halted and dismounted
near a little _ranchería_, Butbut by name, in a corner of the hills,
the people of which had been assembled for the "Commission." These
were the only physically degraded-looking people we saw on the trip;
small of stature, feeble-looking and spiritless. The reason was not
far to seek: it is probable that they live hungry, through lack of
suitable ground for rice-cultivation, and because their neighbors
are hostile. Now, I take it on myself to say that it is just this
sort of thing that will come to an end if Mr. Worcester is allowed to
carry out his policies. For, with free communication and diminishing
hostility, interchange of commodities must needs take place. Indeed,
the relations existing between _rancherías_ are nothing but our own
system of high protection carried to a logical extreme by imposing
a prohibitive tariff on heads! Fundamentally, granted an extremely
limited food-supply, every stranger is an enemy, and the shortest
way to be rid of the difficulty involved in his presence is to reduce
him to the impossibility of eating.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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