Upon the establishment of American rule a number of hemp planters settled along the coast and soon their inducements to laborers began to scatter the people, until today members of this tribe can be found as far north as Santa Cruz. The power and influence of the _datu_ has waned until he now has a following of less than two hundred people. Only that portion of the tribe which retired to the hills still maintains any semblance of their old prowess and even those groups are growing smaller year by year. At the height of their power the men of the tribe were noted as boat-builders[73] and fishermen. Fighting also took up a considerable portion of their time, for added to their desire for loot and slaves was a demand for victims imposed by the warrior deity. The women cultivated little patches of corn, camotes, and some cocoanuts, and at certain seasons all the members of the tribe went to the forest to gather sago, but aside from this the sea furnished most of their food supply. According to their own stories they did not cultivate rice until recent years, and Datu Bongkalasan insists that none of the people planted rice when he was a boy. It is his belief that all the ceremonies connected with the rice culture were learned from the Tagakaolo and Bila-an. [73] This art is now practically lost and their boats are secured from the Moro. From the Spanish writers[74] we hear little but evil of this people. They are spoken of as warlike, superstitious, treacherous, and vengeful as head-hunters "who expose the heads of their enemies on poles," and as slavers. From Father GISBERT[75] we learn that in 1886, about twelve hundred members of the tribe were converted to Christianity; but during the period following the departure of the Spaniards most of them deserted the faith and returned to the old life. Since American occupation they have been among the most troublesome people of Southern Mindanao, and only as late as 1911 were responsible for the death of a number of planters and the destruction of the plantations in the neighborhood of Nuin. They are rapidly breaking up as a tribe, and are intermarrying with the coast natives and hill tribes, from both of whom they are adopting artifacts and ideas. Already they have so altered their dwellings that we cannot refer to a typical Kulaman home; their house-hold utensils[76] are those of their neighbors, and this is true also of most of the clothing, although one special type will be mentioned later on. [74] BLAIR and ROBERTSON, Vol. LV, p. 556. [75] BLAIR and ROBERTSON, Vol. XLIII, p. 242. [76] Long narrow hemp cloth pillows (fig. 43) and round waterproof boxes with infitting, tray-like tops (fig. 44) are found in nearly every house. The use of these two articles is not confined to this people, but is typical of them. The same type of box is found among the Manobo of the Agusan river valley. FIG. 43. PART OF A HEMP CLOTH PILLOW COVER. FIG. 44. WATERPROOF BASKET WITH INFITTING TOP.