Part 2

The stature of these men is "short," about the same mean as that of other Igorot given above. Two, however, belong to Topinard's "above medium" statures, being 1648 and 1681. These are unusually tall Igorot and it may be worth noting that both belong to the wealthy or "baknang" class. The taller is "Belasco" of Kabayan and the other "Akop" of Tublay. All are mesaticephalic and their indices cover the entire range of this class, 74 to 80. The most brachycephalic is "Belasco" and the next "Akop," the two of unusual stature. These men are less brachycephalic than the Igorot measured at Ambuklao and Kayapa, but the numbers in each case are too few to permit generalization. The group is platyrhinian for the greater part, four only being mesorhinian. On the whole this is a very homogeneous group of men. With two exceptions all are of about the same low stature, all mesaticephalic, all platyrhinian or nearly so. The hair of all is black, coarse, and straight, the body smooth and face as well, except that the men of Karao had a few mustache and chin hairs and seemed to be more hairy on the legs than the others. The profile of the nose was much alike in all, a straight short bridge, rounding bluntly at the end. The brows were rather prominent, especially in the Karao men.

In the same month I measured two men of Bugias, Benguet, and four of Suyok, Lepanto, all of whom were "Kankanay." These measurements were as follows:

Stature Arm-reach Cephalic Index Nasal Index

1452 1490 75.3 100.0 1470 1545 78.8 88.6 1518 1577 79.2 95.0 1621 1676 78.8 97.8 1558 1554 72.8 92.6 1571 1591 81.0 83.0

These men are all of low stature, long armed, all platyrhinian, but having a very varying head-shape, one being dolichocephalic (head length 195, breadth 142, and index 72.8), and one brachycephalic, 81.

On the same trip, at Benawi, I measured ten Ifugao men. All were adult, well formed, and of the laboring or "polista" class. Their measures are as follows:

Height Cephalic Index [3] Nasal Index [3]

1465 71.00 85 1501 71.65 93 1530 74.00 95 1534 76.50 97 1556 76.90 100 1567 77.26 100 1579 77.80 106 1581 79.60 106 1600 80.40 118 1606 83.50 119

The mean height and the amount of variation are almost exactly the same as those found in Benguet. All but two are of "short" stature, while one approaches that of a Negrito. The head index is generally mesaticephalic, but three are dolichocephalic and two brachycephalic, the amount of variation being surprising. All are platyrhinian, most of them excessively so. Their color was a dirty brown, with saffron undertone. The hair was black, abundant, and in every case wavy. The nose was flat, "bulbous," with a very rounding end, and deeply indented at root. The lips were full and prominent, the chin retreating, and eye-arches rather heavy. As these men sat together with their dark faces and abundant heads of wavy hair they had a suggestively Papuan appearance. Another peculiarity was their singularly depressed temples, which gave the face a very narrow diameter across the brow.

In the foregoing series we have altogether 53 Igorot, 8 of them women, whose physical characters may now be summarized. While this may seem a small number upon which to base conclusions, a few general statements may, with propriety, be made. [4]

Arranging serially the statures of the forty-five men, it is found that two of them are below 1450 mm., nine are between 1451 and 1500, fourteen between 1501 and 1550, thirteen between 1551 and 1600, five between 1501 and 1650, and two are above 1650 and below 1700. I believe that these figures are representative of all the Igorot stock. From a personal experience extending over a good many years I think it may be asserted that the Igorot in all parts of the cordillera present about the same statures as those which I have here given. Belasco and Akop would be recognized as very tall Igorot in any part of the mountains. Two of the above are pygmy and all but seven are below 1600, and correspond to Topinard's "below medium" statures. We may say, then, with positiveness that the Igorot is one of the exceptionally short races of mankind. With three or four exceptions the arm-reach is greater than the height, usually by 40 to 50 mm. Thus, the short stature is somewhat compensated for by long arms, heavy, robust bodies, and short, muscular legs.

The cephalic index of both men and women ranges from 70 to 96.3, a very surprising range. Ten are dolichocephalic, 71 to 74.6; twenty-nine are mesaticephalic, 75.2 to 79.7; twelve are brachycephalic, 80.4 to 84.8, and two are hyperbrachycephalic, 85 and 96.3. Thus the vast majority of heads are mesaticephalic with more tendency toward brachycephaly than to dolichocephaly.

The nose represents on the other hand surprising uniformity. Only three noses are mesorhinian, 75, 79.1, and 79.4, thirty-nine are full platyrhinian, while twenty-two have an index of 100 or more. The mean index is 95.

From this comparison I think we may assert that in the mountain people of the southern half of the cordillera of Luzon we have a very short, long-armed, muscular race of dark brown color varying to saffron, with coarse black hair that is usually straight but in Bontok is sometimes wavy, and in Kiangan regularly so, full lips, retreating chin, flat, broad noses rounding at the end and deeply depressed at the root, with an extraordinarily high nasal index, and heads that have great variation in shape but are usually mesaticephalic or brachycephalic.

May we then draw a few conclusions? Obviously this is not a typical Malay type. To a possible basis of primitive Malayan stock some other racial element or elements have been added and thoroughly incorporated. The wide range in shape of head may be taken, I think, as probable evidence of such mingling of types. The color, the straight or slightly wavy black hair, and the temperament (the "psyche") of the Igorot show the Malay or Oceanic Mongol derivation. The short stature and limbs, the long arms, the shape and index of the nose, the occasional heads of hair that are too wavy for the Malay and would be unheard of in the Mongol--these things are Negrito, or at least they are characteristic of the black race of Oceanica. The variability in shape of head would be puzzling were it not for the fact that both the Malayan and the black races of the Indian archipelago show a wide variability in this character of the head. These reflections have already suggested the theory that I have to propose for the origin of the Igorot, that he is an old, thoroughly fused mixture of the aboriginal Negritos, who still survive in a few spots of the cordillera, and an intrusive, Malayan race, who, by preference or by press of foes behind them, scaled the high mountains and on their bleak and cold summits and canyon slopes laboriously built themselves rock-walled fields and homes, in which they have long been acclimated. The culture of the Igorot has been greatly modified and advanced by the rigors of his habitat, but it is Malayan at base, as are the languages which he speaks. Except in one or two localities where there has been recent mixture with the still existing Negrito he does not make use of the bow and arrow, which are Negrito weapons, but uses the shield and spear for close fighting and the jungle knife or an interesting modification, the "headax," for both fighting and work.

While the above expressed hypothesis of the origin of the Igorot appears to me to have much probability, for a similar theory to explain the Malay type of the Ilongot or Ibilao I feel even stronger confidence. This curious people occupies a very broken mountain area formed by the junction of the Sierra Madre with the Caraballo Sur. This is the headwaters of the Kagayan river and to a less degree of the Pampanga. Besides being wholly mountainous it is covered with thick and well nigh impenetrable jungle, in which the scattered homes of these wild people are hidden and protected. They have long had the worst of reputations as head hunters and marauders, and little information about them has circulated except wild rumors of their strange appearance and treacherous ferocity.

They have been described as "very tall," "heavily bearded," "light in color," "white," and of a type elsewhere unknown in the Philippines. For most of these reports there is no foundation. My experience with this people is limited to two visits to two different communities, in 1902 to a group in the jurisdiction of Nueva Vizcaya and in 1909 to a community in the mountains back of Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija. On the first visit measurements and notes were made of four men and three women. Their stature was found to be as follows:

Men Women

1480 1386 1518 1440 1553 1510 1590

The average stature of these men was 1535, a little less than the average stature of Igorot, and so a very short human height. The cephalic index for the seven, and the nasal index for six (one missing) are as follows:

Cephalic Index Nasal Index

79.7 77.5 80.7 82.5 80.8 88.6 83.8 88.6 85.1 88.7 87.1 90.9 88.0

All are brachycephalic except one (79.7), and all are platyrhinian but one.

In the second community I measured twelve men and five women, with the following results:

Stature Men Stature Women Cephalic Index Nasal Index

1610 1453 89 100 1583 1450 87 98 1582 1441 86 95 1580 1422 85.9 95 1570 1412 85 94 1544 84 93 1532 83.7 90 1503 83.3 89 1486 83 89 1467 81 88 1439 81 87.8 81 87 1240 (a boy) 80 87 80 83 79 82 79 82 76 76

The height of these men presents a wider variation, as would be expected in the larger number (1601 to 1437), but the mean and the general results are the same. The head index is brachycephalic except in the case of three, and all are platyrhinian, or nearly so, except one. Thus in these Ilongot we have a short race, even shorter than the Igorot, brachycephalic and platyrhinian. Their hair is wavy, except when it is curly. It is usually worn long. The face is occasionally hairy; a few individuals have been seen with sparse but quite long, curly beards. Their eyes are larger, finer, and more open than is usual in the Igorot and the Malay. One peculiarity of the face is noticeable: it narrows rapidly from the cheek bones to the chin, giving the face a pentagonal shape. The color may be a little lighter than in the Igorot, who is more exposed to sunlight than the Ilongot of the forest, and it is much lighter than in the Negrito, but by no means light enough to justify any likeness to either white or Mongol races.

In these people we have, I am quite sure, a mixture of primitive Malayan and Negrito, with more Negrito than in the case of the Igorot. Stature, curly hair, short head, and broad, flat nose--these are all negritic characters, as is also the hairiness of the face and body. In fact there can be no doubt of the presence of Negrito blood in the Ilongot, for the process of assimilation can be seen going on. The Negrito of a comparatively pure type is a neighbor of the Ilongot on both the south and the north. Usually they are at enmity, but this does not, and certainly has not in the past, prevented commingling. The culture of the Ilongot is intermediate, or a composite of Malayan and Negrito elements. He uses the bow and arrow of the Negrito and the spear of the Malayan as well. There are few things in the ethnography of the Ilongot that seem unusual and for which the culture of neither Malay nor Negrito does not provide an explanation. One curious peculiarity, however, is an aptitude and taste for decorative carving, applied to the door posts, lintels, and other parts of his house, to the planting sticks of the woman, to the rattan frame of his deer-hide rain-hat, etc. But except for this there seems little that is not an inheritance from the two above strains or a development due to isolation in these mountainous forests that have long been his home.

In concluding this account of the Ilongot I cannot forbear calling attention to what appears to me a striking resemblance between them and the "Sakay" of the Malay peninsula as these latter are photographed and described in Skeat and Blagden's Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula. There, as in the Philippines, we have a wavy-haired people (the Sakay) located in between, and obviously mingling with, the Negrito ("Semang") on the north and the primitive ("Jakun") Malayan on the south. The type is clearly intermediate between these two races, and every Sakay community seems to contain individuals that exhibit both pronounced Negrito and Malayan characters. There seem to be no culture elements in the ethnography of the Sakay that are not found in the life of Semang, Jakun, or allied peoples. And yet, in the face of what would seem to be the obvious and natural supposition that the Sakay is a half-breed of the Semang and Jakun, our authors, following Professor Rudolf Martin (Die Inlandstaemme der malayischen Halbinsel), discover in the Sakay a distinct race of wholly different origin from the Semang and Jakun--but allied to the Veddahs of Ceylon! This seems to me to be creating a far-fetched theory where none is necessary. While I have not had an opportunity of studying the Sakay at first hand, I am tolerably familiar with Negrito and primitive Malayan, and the results of their intermarriage, and every fresh examination of the texts and illustrations above referred to increases my belief that the Sakay, like so many of the types of the Philippines, is an exhibit to the widely diffused Negrito element in Malayan peoples.

University of California, Berkeley.

THE ILONGOT OR IBILAO OF LUZON

By Dr. David P. Barrows

University of California

Reprinted from the Popular Science Monthly, December, 1910.

The grewsome practise of taking human heads is particularly associated with the Igorot peoples of the Cordillera of Luzon. These all engage in it or have done so until recently. But to-day the most persistent and dreaded headhunters are neither Igorot nor inhabitants of the Cordillera; they are a wild, forest-dwelling people in the broken and almost impenetrable mountain region formed by the junction of the Sierra Madre range with the Caraballo Sur. They have been called by different names by the peoples contiguous to them on the north, west and south, "Italon," "Ibilao," "Ilongot" or "Ilungut." The last designation would for some reasons be the preferred, but "Ibilao," or as it is quite commonly pronounced locally through northern Nueva Ecija, "Abilao," has perhaps the widest use. [5]

There are no early records of these people and until late in his rule the Spaniard knew almost nothing of them. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, the valley of the Magat was occupied and the mission of Ituy founded, out of which came the province of Nueva Vizcaya, with its converted population of Gaddang and Isinay. To reach Ituy from the south the trail followed up the valley of the Rio Pampanga almost to its sources and then climbed over the Caraballo Sur to the headwaters of the Magat. On this trail along the upper waters of the Pampanga grew up several small mission stations, Pantabangan and Karanglan, with a population of Pampanga and Tagalog people drawn from the provinces to the south. After more than a hundred years these small towns are still almost the only Christian settlements in northern Nueva Ecija. From the time of their establishment we find references to the "Ilongotes" who inhabited the mountains to the east and were spoken of as "savages," "treacherous murderers," "cannibals," and wholly untamable. Much as described a hundred years ago they have continued to the present day. Their homes are in thick mountain jungle where it is difficult to follow them, but, from time to time they steal out of the forests to fall upon the wayfarer or resident of the valley and leave him a beheaded and dismembered corpse.

Here are a few instances occurring in recent years which came under my own notice or investigation. In 1902, the presidente of Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, informed me that four women had been killed while fishing a short distance from the town. In March of the same year, a party of Ilongot crossed the upper part of Nueva Ecija and in a barrio of San Quentin, Pangasinan, killed five people and took the heads of four. In November, 1901, near the barrio of Kita Kita, Nueva Ecija, an old man and two boys were killed, while a little earlier two men were attacked on the road above Karanglan, one killed and his head taken. In January, 1902, Mr. Thomson, the superintendent of schools, saw the bodies of two men and a woman on the road, six miles south of Karanglan, who had been killed only a few moments before. The heads of these victims had been taken and their breasts completely opened by a triangular excision, the apex at the collar bone and the lower points at the nipples, through which the heart and lungs had been removed and carried away. As late as a year ago (1909), on the trail to San Jose and Punkan, I saw the spot where shortly before four men were murdered by Ilongot from the "Biruk district." These men were carrying two large cans of "bino" or native distilled liquor, from which the Ilongot imbibed, with the result that three of their party were found drunk on the trail and were captured. These are only a few out of numerous instances, but they explain why the great fertile plains of northern Nueva Ecija are undeveloped and why the few inhabitants dwell uneasy and apprehensive.

There have been no successful attempts to subdue or civilize these people. Between 1883 and 1893, the missionary friar, Francisco Eloriaga, founded the Mission of Binatangan in the forested hills east of Bayombong, and the Spanish government had the project of erecting it into a "politico-military commandancia," but so far as I know did not reach the point of sending there an officer and detachment. Something was learned about the most accessible Ibilao, but no permanent results followed. [6] Since the American occupation, however, progress has been made in our knowledge and control of this people. In October, 1902, the writer, at that time chief of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, and engaged in a preliminary reconnaissance of the pagan peoples of northern Luzon, made a trip with a small party to one of their communities in the mountains east of Bambang. Photographs, measurements and notes on their language and social institutions were made. In January, 1906, Mr. Dean C. Worcester, secretary of the interior, approached these people from the north, by ascending the Kagayan river. His party started from a station of the Tabacalera Company, south of Echague, and from there rode through fine forest to a "sitio" called Masaysayasaya. From here they "started at dawn and about noon passed the 'dead line' set by the Ilongotes. A little before sundown reached Dumabato, an Ilongote and Negrito settlement, which had been the headquarters of Sibley, [7] the deserter. Here were found a few filthy Ilongotes and some fine Negritos."

In the spring of 1908, Dr. William Jones, of the Field Columbian Museum, began a residence among the Ilongot of the upper Kagayan and lived with them continuously until nearly a year had passed, when he was killed by them. His notes and specimens were fortunately preserved and, when published, should constitute the most original and important contribution ever made to Philippine ethnology. Dr. Jones was part American Indian, a member of the Sac and Fox tribe. He was not only a brilliant scientist, but one of the most engaging and interesting men I have ever known--a man to cleave to. Here are brief extracts from two letters written by him from the Ibilao country, valuable, I think, not only for the information they contain about this people, but for the light they throw upon him and his manner of work.

May 26, 1908. I am at present among the Ilongotes of the Cagayan, where I am having the most enjoyable time since my arrival in the islands. These people are wilder than the Igorrotes. We made friends at the beginning and the friendship has grown wider and stronger every succeeding day. I have a shack high up on poles where I dwell with great comfort. And plenty of food is to be had always; wild hog and venison in the jungle on either side of the river; lurong and liesas in the river; wild honey back on the mountain side; bananas, beans, camote and other things from the cultivated patches, and rice which has been saved from last season. For the last fortnight the people have been clearing in the jungle for sementeras. [8] I wish you might hear the sweet melody of the songs of boys and women at work in the clearings, songs sung to the spirits of the trees and for good crops. Ilongot society is much simpler than that of the Igorote; there is little if any of what may be called village life. There is a house here, another yonder and so on here and there along the river. Places near the river are reached by going on balsas [9] and away from the river the trails are dim and indistinct. I do not know where I shall end up. I am heading up-stream. It may be that I shall find myself going west and southwest into the country of the Ilongotes, who are enemies of the ones I am now with. I have to go much lighter than what I am now to keep up with the little black Negrito. He is like a flea; here to-day, there to-morrow, and ever on the move when food is gone, and at rest, when he has a supply, long enough to consume it. He is at outs with the particular people I am with at present.