From time to time, I describe the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the lead characters. I have done so based on close consideration of my research. Anything that appears in quotation marks comes from a newspaper article, book, government report, official correspondence, court transcript, magazine, or journal article. Italicized dialogue that does not appear in quotation marks is imagined but is rooted in facts, real incidents, and a thorough examination of the character and circumstances of the people involved.
The Igorrotes were a national phenomenon in their day, yet they have been all but forgotten by history. Why? Perhaps this is because the Igorrote exhibition trade came to be regarded as a shameful episode in US history and in US-Filipino relations. Or maybe the popular culture of the day simply moved on to the next big thing, erasing the Igorrotes from the public consciousness. More than a century on, this extraordinary episode in history is a story that deserves to be told.
Researching this book I’ve often felt like a participant in a long and elaborate treasure hunt. It has lead from large institutions like the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library to the cluttered, dusty archives of various county courts, member-run genealogical societies, nonprofit history and heritage centers, local newspapers, and small-town libraries, and on to The National Library of the Philippines and the National Archives of the Philippines in Manila, and Bontoc Municipal Library.
The search was complicated by the fact that the Igorrotes’ names were often mangled by the journalists, ships’ clerks, immigration officers, court officials, and police whom they encountered. Misspellings, phonetic approximations, and simple guesses mean that individual tribespeople were often called by several different names during their time in the US. Additionally, the Igorrotes didn’t keep track of their own ages and they frequently changed their names throughout their lives. Typically they were given only one name at birth and did not adopt a family name as was customary in the West. When they arrived in America, most of the tribespeople in Truman’s group were assigned a second name or simply plucked one from thin air.
If the Igorrotes’ names have at times been perplexing, I’ve frequently been struck by the irony of Truman Hunt’s name. Not only does Truman become the focus of an international manhunt, we are also in a sense hunting for the “true man,” the real Truman Hunt behind the fanciful tales and headline-grabbing exploits.
Equally striking is the decency of the Igorrotes who conducted themselves with incredible dignity during their American sojourn despite the most extreme provocation. Ultimately, this is a story of a hero turned villain that makes us question who is civilized and who is savage.
1
From One Island to Another
BONTOC PUEBLO, NORTHERN PHILIPPINES, MARCH 1905
This is one of only two known surviving photographs of Truman Hunt and the Igorrotes. Taken at St. Louis, 1904.
IT WAS LATE in the evening when Dr. Truman Knight Hunt wrote the final name in the ledger. His body felt stiff as he eased himself out of his chair and stepped outside into the town—if a ramshackle collection of small, squat huts with dirt floors and thatched roofs could be called a town. There were no roads. In the distance he could make out the tribe’s rice terraces, which clung precariously to the surrounding mountainsides. Truman breathed in the night air. He felt as if he had met every Igorrote tribesman, woman, and child in the Philippine Islands that day. A hopeful crowd was still waiting to be seen, little flickers of red glowing in the fading light as they sucked on their pipes, sending puffs of smoke into the still air. Children had dozed off in their parents’ arms. A mangy-looking dog looked up and growled at the American stranger in a false show of strength. Truman picked up a stone and hurled it at the dog, which ran to take shelter behind a group of boys.
Truman gazed at the tribespeople who were gathered around campfires, cooking and chatting. They were barefoot and naked except for their breechcloths (known as wa´-nĭs in the local Bontoc dialect) and the little basket hats (suk´-lâng) that the men used to store their smoking pipes and tobacco. Aside from their bangs, which they chopped in a severe straight line, the men never cut their jet-black hair. Instead they greased it with fresh hog fat,1 rolled it up, and tucked it under their basket hats. The women wore theirs in a loose knot. Some had blankets draped around their shoulders. Men and women alike wore huge ear ornaments made of copper wire, bamboo, or even teeth, and necklaces made of copper or beads.2
By the light of the campfire, Truman could see the tribe’s intricate tattoos. They were made up of a series of fine India-ink lines, zigzags, and barbed-wire patterns that arced up over the men’s chests and down their arms. Every time they took another human head from an enemy village, the community celebrated with a month of feasting and by inking their bodies with new tattoos. Dogs were slaughtered and eaten as a centerpiece of the feast.
A group of naked children ran past the spot where Truman stood, playing the native version of tag.
Truman shouted to get the Igorrotes’ attention. Expectant faces looked up at him. The tribe’s language sounded strange in his American mouth as he told them he wouldn’t be interviewing anyone else. Anyone who hadn’t already been seen should go home. They needn’t bother coming back tomorrow. He had more than enough people and would be notifying the successful candidates shortly. A chorus of groans broke out. The tribespeople had been waiting all day and those who hadn’t met the white man who promised the opportunity of a lifetime were anxious to do so. He ignored them, turned, and walked back into his hut, closing the door firmly behind him.
He was tired after a long day, but was filled with a growing sense of confidence about his new business venture. One by one he had appraised each man, woman, and child who had stood before him. Truman’s criteria were simple. His tribespeople needed to be physically fit, sociable, and appealing—or at least not repulsive—to the eye. When they reached America, they would be put on show as live exhibits at fairs and amusement parks, so they couldn’t be frightened by those who would pay good money to see them. They must be strong enough to survive the crossing. His group had to be able to take instructions. He couldn’t stand willfulness and had sent anyone who had shown the slightest hint of it packing. In making his selection, Truman had relied on his gut. His instincts had served him well in his life so far.
As he eased his five-foot-eight-inch frame back into his chair, he sighed contentedly and congratulated himself on a good day’s work. He crossed his hands over his stomach and stretched his legs out under the desk. His mind wandered through some of the tribespeople who had auditioned for him that day. There was beautiful Daipan, known locally as the belle of the village, with her flashing black eyes and her exquisite singing voice, and Tainan, the high-spirited nine-year-old nicknamed “the little boy with the big voice” by his countrymen and women. After waiting awhile for the crowd outside his hut to disperse, Truman got up and opened the door just wide enough to shout through the crack for his assistant, Julio, to come. A young Filipino man beautifully dressed in a light brown American suit and highly polished leather shoes stepped forward.
When Truman had offered Julio twenty-five dollars a month to act as his assistant and translator, the twenty-one-year-old had jumped at the chance. He spoke Bontoc along with several other Filipino dialects, Spanish, and English, and was hungry for adventure. With the money he could earn in America, he would be set up for life.
Under the light of a smoky oil lantern, Truman and Julio ran through the names of the candidates who had caught Truman’s eye. Julio knew a number of those who had volunteered and his opinion on their character mattered to his boss. As Truman read out each name, Julio nodded his approval or indicated his doubts with a frown or a shake of the head. Truman went down his list, scoring out names and circling others. After conferring awhile with his young assistant, Truman selected forty-nine Igorrotes to journey with him and Julio to the Land of Opportunity. He added the name Friday Strong. The seven-year-old boy was an
orphan and a member of a different tribe, the Negritos, the Philippine aboriginals. With his mop of wiry black hair, his huge grin, and his natural exuberance, Friday was too cute to be left behind.
The tribespeople Truman selected were young; all but ten of his new recruits were aged thirty-five or under. They came from a number of villages and towns throughout the region and included married couples, close friends, and relatives along with others who had never met before. Friday was the youngest. The tribal elder Falino Ygnichen, who looked youthful and strong for his sixty-something years, was the oldest. With the exception of Julio, who was half Igorrote and half Ilocano, and Friday, they were all from the same tribe, the Bontoc Igorrotes, believed by anthropologists to be descended from the Malayans. They would later be referred to by Truman and his fellow Americans simply as “Igorrotes.”
Truman’s own relationship with the Igorrotes had begun after he enlisted with the First Regiment, Washington Infantry, following the 1898 outbreak of the Spanish-American War. A trained physician, he had transferred to the hospital corps and, after being honorably discharged in 1899, he stayed on in the Philippines. He and a group of fellow former soldiers traveled north of Bontoc to prospect for gold in an Igorrote region famed for its extensive gold and copper deposits.
Truman’s yearned-for fortune didn’t materialize and in 1900 he settled among the Igorrotes in Bontoc pueblo in northern Luzon, taking with him “his medicines and forceps.”3 Before long he was famed throughout the region as the “Apo Medico” and Igorrotes traveled miles on foot to beg him to treat their sick relatives in neighboring communities. In 1901, when the Board of Health for the Philippine Islands created the role of “superintendent of public vaccination and inspection of infectious diseases for the provinces of Bontoc and Lepanto,” Truman was the obvious man for the job.4
A cholera epidemic broke out the following year, and Truman volunteered to run the emergency hospital set up to house the diseased and the dying. He cut a heroic figure, laboring long hours in harrowing conditions and risking his own life to save his Filipino brothers and sisters.5
By the time he was made lieutenant governor of Lepanto-Bontoc in June 1902, he was viewed by the Igorrotes as a trusted friend and a “demi-God,” thanks to his history of saving lives and his ability to pull teeth, dress wounds, and set broken bones.6 In turn Truman viewed the Igorrotes as “the most virtuous and the happiest people . . . the most truthful, the most honest, the most industrious, the frankest, simplest, bravest, and best natured people . . . on earth.”7 This was despite the fact Truman had witnessed a head hunt at close quarters. In Bontoc each a´-to (village) had “a basket of soot-blackened skulls hidden away in a public building—they are all that remains of captured heads.”8 Some of the Igorrotes’ ways baffled Truman but mostly he found the tribespeople entertaining, good-humored, and easy to get along with. As their lieutenant governor, he was firm but fair, and spoke enough of the tribe’s complex dialect to make himself understood.
Truman had gotten the idea to exhibit his own group of Igorrotes at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. Held to mark America’s progress, the exposition was attended by twenty million Americans and featured exhibits from sixty-two countries. Thirteen hundred Filipinos from a dozen different tribes made up the Philippine Reservation, which covered forty acres and cost $1.5 million.9 The Filipino tribes were exhibited in an anthropological diorama, surrounded by their native spears, drums, textiles, and pottery, and were presented as ranging from the Visayans, a “high and more intelligent class of natives” to the Moros, who were “fierce followers of Mohammed,” the “monkey-like” Negritos, and the “picturesque” Igorrotes.10
Truman, who by this point had lived among the Igorrotes for several years and was one of the few Americans who could claim to know them well, had been made manager of the Igorrote Village in St. Louis. There he had watched with interest as Americans of all walks of life had flocked to see the scantily dressed, head-hunting, dog-eating Igorrotes in numbers far outstripping the organizers’ most ambitious projections. The spirited Igorrotes were naturally outgoing and proved so popular they had become one of the biggest moneymakers at the fair, bringing in two hundred thousand dollars, three times more than any of the other Filipino tribes on exhibit.
At St. Louis a great debate had raged over whether the Igorrotes offended public decency by wearing only their G-strings. Fair organizers ordered Truman to cover the tribespeople in breeches made of “brilliant green and yellow and red silk.”11 A newspaper reporter summed up the view of many disappointed visitors when he wrote, “the Igorrote is endowed with a skin so beautiful it would be a crime to hide it.”12 When news of the controversy reached the White House, President Roosevelt declared that “if we were to have Igorrotes at the World’s Fair, we should have real Igorrotes.”13 The trousers came off and news of the row made headlines from coast to coast, driving visitor numbers yet higher. In the words of one newspaperman, “the peculiarities of this one group of Philippine natives have done more than any other agency or feature toward advertising the greatest of all International Expositions.”14
Despite the Filipinos’ popularity with the public, America’s presence in the Philippines had bitterly divided US public opinion. Among those who denounced the idea of an American empire were the industrialist Andrew Carnegie and the writer Mark Twain, who wrote of America’s “assassination of the liberties of the people of the Archipelago.”15 William McKinley, who was president when America colonized the Philippines, had always insisted that America’s motives were honorable, stating, “The Philippines are ours, not to exploit, but to develop, to civilize, to educate, to train in the science of self-government. This is the path of duty which we must follow, or be recreant to a mighty trust committed to us.”16 When it became clear that Theodore Roosevelt, who assumed office after McKinley was assassinated, had no plans for the prompt return of the islands to the Filipino people, the Anti-Imperialist League grew increasingly vocal. It campaigned in the press, on the streets, and in the corridors of power, pressing its case that America should withdraw from the Philippine archipelago on racial, moral, and economic grounds.
Against this political backdrop, the display of the Filipinos at St. Louis had an imperialist objective: to show that the civilizing American presence in the Philippines could only improve the lives of the savages. Though the display of the Filipinos was intended to be a one-off, Truman knew an opportunity when he saw one. He wanted to exhibit the Igorrotes in America again, this time in a more commercial setting.
Julio had been part of the group that traveled to St. Louis, along with his wife, Maria, and Friday Strong. The experience had given Julio a taste of the world beyond his doorstep and had whetted his appetite for more. When Julio had returned to Bontoc to begin recruiting for Truman’s new exhibition group, he had not known what to expect. The Igorrotes were homebodies who typically ventured no more than the distance from their huts to the family rice fields. Some of the men went farther afield to trade or on their head-hunting expeditions, but it was rare for them to travel more than a day’s journey from home. Julio was not certain whether many of them would be prepared to leave their families behind to journey to the other side of the world. But Truman was promising wages of fifteen dollars a month for each Igorrote who joined his venture, an incredibly large sum for the mountain people.
At first the tribespeople had come slowly, led by the brave younger ones, then in family groups and clusters of friends, picking their way through densely wooded forests and along winding dirt paths in search of the white man. Truman’s proposal was audacious. Leave home. Leave family and friends behind. Board a ship and journey thousands of miles to a place where untold riches and adventures awaited. For the Igorrotes, who had no word for ship and who bartered with beeswax and tobacco, the opportunity to see the world beyond the mountains of Bontoc was an unimaginable prospect. Yet as soon as word got out, they came in numbers Truman could only have dreamed of. More than three hundred of them tu
rned out that day.17
Truman’s appeal for volunteers had been helped by the fact that returning veterans of the St. Louis World’s Fair had become the closest thing their region had to celebrities, parading their American clothes, radios, flashlights, candies, and toys in front of their astonished neighbors. They included Antero, Truman’s former houseboy, who posed for a photographer from the Seattle Daily Times in a G-string and silk top hat, carrying opera glasses and a cane.18 A new term was coined to describe those who journeyed to America, nikimalika—“Malika” meaning America19—and they were treated with a mix of awe and envy.
Satisfied with his selections, Truman handed the final list of names to Julio and told him to inform the successful candidates.20
Every trace of light had vanished from the sky by the time Julio walked out of Truman’s hut. Clearing his throat loudly to get the Igorrotes’ attention, he explained that he was going to read out the names of those who had been selected to go to America. This group should wait behind for further instructions. Anyone who did not hear his or her name should go home. As Julio read out the names, there were gasps of joy, surprise, and disappointment. Several tribespeople who had not been selected begged Julio to persuade his new boss to let them go. Julio was sympathetic but firm, explaining that the decision was final.
The Lost Tribe of Coney Island Page 2
