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 José 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.[1] 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
- ↑ A brief account of the people about Binatangan was published by a missionary in 1891 in "El Correo Sino-Annamita," Vol. XXV. "Una Visita a los Rancherias de Ilongotes." by Father Buenaventura Campa.
