The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2)Worcester, Dean C. (Dean Conant)
History
The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2)
Worcester, Dean C. (Dean Conant)
Philippines; Philippines -- History -- 1898-1946
Toward noon we walked straight into an ambush laid for us in the runo
grass, discovering it only when Bakidan began to deliver a forceful
oration in which he set forth the fact that he had a right to stroll
down his own valley with a party of friends without being annoyed
by having his fellow tribesmen hide beside the trail and prepare to
throw lances.
Bakidan, who was himself a famous warrior, told these men that
they might kill us if they saw fit to do so, but must kill him
first. Apparently rather ashamed of themselves, they came out on to
the trail and slunk off to their town. Bakidan, greatly disgusted,
suggested that we follow them and lunch in their village just to show
that we were not afraid of them, and we did this.
After lunch I photographed a number of our late opponents, and we then
continued our journey, escorted by a Kalinga chief named Bogauit from
Took-Took. This man had previously descended to the Cagayan valley,
where he had seen white people, and hearing of our advent in the
Kalinga country, and fearing that we might have trouble in getting
carriers for our baggage, had come with his fighting men to help
us out.
The people of his village received us in a most friendly spirit,
and after attending a bit of a cañao organized in our honour, and
doing our best to entertain the crowd with a few simple experiments in
physics, and some sleight-of-hand tricks, we retired, as we supposed,
for a peaceful night's rest.
No such good fortune awaited us. We were aroused in the middle of
the night by a fearful din only to find our hut surrounded by a
great circle of armed men. The people who had attempted to ambush
us earlier in the day had repented of their action in letting us
pass through unharmed, had gathered a strong force of fighting men,
had surrounded our house and were now vociferously demanding to be
allowed to take our heads.
Old Bakidan was apparently fighting a duel with their chief in the
midst of the circle. The two men were dancing around each other with
cat-like steps, occasionally coming to close quarters and clashing
shields, then leaping apart, swinging their head-axes and obviously
watching for an opportunity to strike home. Had either of them gained
any decided advantage of position he would doubtless have used his
head-axe, and this would have started a fight which could have had
but one ending.
Owing to a mistake made when the ammunition for our trip was
purchased, we had just twenty-two revolver cartridges amongst us,
and in the darkness they would have been worth about as much as
so many firecrackers. The roof of the house was dry as tinder; a
blazing brand thrown on it would promptly have forced us into the
open. We should have been met by a flight of head-axes and lances,
and this book would not have been written!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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