Farther on, a jam of people pressed together, waiting to cross a bridge over the Pasig River. Tracks were being laid across the bridge to accommodate the new electric tram system that the colonial authority was building. American soldiers wearing white gloves directed the throng of pedestrians, carriages, and carts. All human life was there—priests and shopkeepers, beggars and gentlemen. An elegantly dressed lady sat in her carriage and looked over her fan as Truman and his band of natives passed.
In a nearby square, a group of local women dressed in apron skirts and brightly colored shawls stood chatting and shading themselves under a coconut palm. Truman flashed them a smile. There were some beauties among the native women. A barefoot man in dark trousers and a sleeveless shirt hurried past, carrying a pole across his shoulders with a large basket dangling from each end. Tainan stepped closer to peer inside and was almost knocked off his feet when the man stopped and turned around.
Though it wasn’t unheard of for one or two members of a mountain tribe to venture into the capital to trade, the presence in the downtown area of four dozen tribespeople dressed in loincloths was enough to turn heads. While the Igorrotes gawked and were gawked at in return, the group leaders, Julio, Fomoaley, Feloa, and Callahan shepherded the tribespeople to a sheltered spot in the shadow of a church to rest. Truman handed Julio some money and told him to get them something to eat and drink. The interpreter should also buy them some proper clothes; they couldn’t board the ship looking like that. He would return for them later.
Truman hurried down the street to the telegraph office. He was expecting to find a telegram and three thousand dollars from Edmund Felder. Felder had acted as executive officer of the Philippine Exposition Board at the St. Louis World’s Fair and at the close of the fair he had agreed to go into business with Truman and set up an Igorrote exhibition company. The deal was that if Truman did the legwork and recruited a group, Felder would cover the expense of getting the tribe to America.
The clerk in the telegraph office informed him that he had nothing for anyone named Truman Hunt. Truman ordered the man to look again. But still there was nothing for him. Truman slammed his hand down on the counter in anger. Without the money, his scheme would founder before it had even begun. He needed the money to buy the tickets to get the fifty-one Filipinos to the US and to pay for the food they would consume on the voyage. Helpless, he fired off an angry cable to Felder.
Their ship, the SS Minnesota, was due to depart for Seattle the next day. Truman paced up and down the dusty, cracked sidewalk outside the telegraph office, cursing Felder and trying to think of alternative ways to get his hands on three thousand dollars. He wasn’t prepared to let his plan falter. He fired off a flurry of telegrams. He informed friends and associates that he was sitting on the business opportunity of a lifetime and invited them to invest. For good measure, he sent a furious message Felder’s way. While he waited for replies, Truman visited his old cronies in Manila in a desperate attempt to raise enough money to get the Igorrotes aboard.
But it was too late. On the morning of March 26, 1905, the funnels of the Minnesota blasted a farewell to Manila and she sailed out of port without any of the Igorrotes on board. Truman’s mind raced. He would not be defeated. But how the heck could he scrounge up enough money to get the Igorrotes on a ship to the US? He must hold his nerve. He sent off a final round of telegrams, informing his friends and associates that he was giving them one last chance to buy into his Igorrote exhibition business and make their fortunes.
Truman then called in at the office of Dean Worcester, secretary of the interior of the Philippine Islands and a passionate imperialist. The two men were friendly and Worcester had given Truman’s scheme his full backing, believing that the exhibition in America of primitive “non-Christian tribes” like the Igorrotes was a powerful way to demonstrate that the Philippine people were far from ready for self-government. Worcester had informed Truman he would need to provide a bond before taking the tribespeople out of their own country. But when Truman called at Worcester’s office, he found his friend was traveling on business around the islands. Worcester’s deputy, who knew little of the matter, had given Truman a document to sign. The bond was set at ten thousand pesos. Truman hastily scribbled his signature, then departed.
Unbeknownst to Worcester’s deputy, lying underneath a pile of documents on Worcester’s desk was a note from the provincial governor of Lepanto-Bontoc objecting to Truman’s scheme and questioning whether he was a fit person to act as guardian of the tribe.
Truman was sweating when he arrived back at the telegraph office. The man behind the desk handed him a note. It was from one of his Manila contacts, Charles S. Moody, a former member of the American colonial administration. To Truman’s great relief, Moody was offering to put up the money needed to get the tribespeople to America, on condition that he traveled with them and got a percentage of the profits.
With the finances in place, Truman rushed to the ticket office. There the clerk informed him that he couldn’t get them on a ship to North America for another week. His best bet if he was in a hurry would be to secure the tribe’s passage on the Rubi, the Zafiro, or one of the other mail steamers that plied the waters between Manila and Hong Kong. There, if they were lucky, they might catch up with the Empress of China, which was sailing to Vancouver. Truman rushed down to the dock. Luckily, he had grown accustomed to flying by the seat of his pants.
3
The Journey from the Tropics
HONG KONG HARBOR, MARCH 29, 1905
The RMS Empress of China
THE TRIBESPEOPLE BENT their heads back as far as they could, but still they couldn’t see the tops of her funnels. Tainan felt a fluttering sensation in his stomach. With wide eyes, he jumped up, as if hoping the few extra inches would help him take in the ship’s full splendor. Standing on the dock in Hong Kong, Daipan wished her father were there to witness the incredible sight before them. The RMS Empress of China was a huge, hulking beauty, 455 feet long and weighing 5,900 tons. Julio reached out and took Maria’s hand. For the first time since they set out, Maria felt nervous. She had wanted to go to America again, but only now did the enormity of the journey ahead seem real. Fighting back tears, she smiled up at her husband and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
Built in England at a cost of $1.2 million, the Empress of China had two funnels and three masts, and could accommodate more than a thousand passengers and crew. The sea lapped against the steamship’s elegant bulk, creating a watery melody. Truman left the Igorrotes with Julio and Callahan and went to find a porter. Julio admired the way Truman did business. In Manila he had pulled out all the stops—and a fistful of dollar bills—to get them on a boat bound for Hong Kong. The sea had been choppy on the 360-mile voyage and Truman’s prize cargo had traveled wedged between mailbags and cattle.
The dock in Hong Kong pulsed with life. Rickshaws and horse-drawn carriages offloaded passengers who were whisked up gangplanks where clerks in crisp white cotton shirts and neatly pressed beige trousers inspected tickets and checked names. Men in dark blue overalls carrying packing cases darted onto the ship before reemerging empty-handed and ready for the next load. Other steamers in the harbor belched out clouds of black smoke. Engineers carried out last-minute checks and repairs. The sound of their hammers on the ship’s hull rang through the warm air.
Through the din of the dock, Fomoaley shouted to get their attention. With no Igorrote word for ship, he pointed up at the vessel and told the tribespeople that they would soon be boarding this “big canoe.”1 This would be their home for the next three weeks. Julio began tapping them on the shoulders and organizing them into small groups with Fomoaley, Feloa, Dengay,2 Callahan, and himself as group leaders. Only a handful of the twenty-eight Filipino males and twenty-three females now walking toward the ship had ever left the mountains before. Julio was sensitive enough to realize that many would be feeling apprehensive. As well as being Truman’s right-hand man, he felt it was his job to look afte
r the others, especially Tainan and little Friday who had no family to guide them. Friday had been upset to leave his dog behind in Manila, but Julio had consoled him. There would be plenty of dogs in America.
Truman was traveling on a tight budget. The Empress of China could accommodate one hundred and twenty first-class, fifty second-class, and six hundred steerage passengers. As Truman and Moody took their places in their second-class cabins, the group leaders led the Igorrotes down to their accommodations in steerage. Truman had instructed Callahan to stay with the tribe. He could return to his own cabin in time for dinner. Belowdecks, the tribespeople would be living in close quarters with passengers from Europe, Japan, and China.
A double deck of bunks made from rough wooden boards ran along both sides of the ship, fore to aft. Another row ran along the middle of the ship with a narrow corridor on either side. It was dark and damp, with open hatches in the deck providing limited natural light and ventilation. The more experienced travelers in steerage claimed the best bunks, amidships, where the pitching and rolling of the vessel was at its least pronounced. If the ship was full, as many as six passengers would cram into one bunk. The Igorrotes and their fellow passengers discovered they were in luck—the Empress wasn’t sailing at capacity that day. Though there was room to spread out, most of the Filipinos still chose to huddle three or four to a bunk. Before they departed, Truman had provided them with military blankets to sleep under and Western clothes to keep their bodies warm and their flesh concealed. But the Empress had barely set sail before they’d removed the long trousers and skirts. Already they loathed how the foreign clothes rubbed against their skin and hindered their movement.
Over the next twenty days and nights, they would travel eight thousand, five hundred miles across the Pacific under the command of Captain Rupert Archibald, a Canadian-born master mariner of Irish descent. On previous voyages, the vessel’s distinguished passengers had included the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, who traveled from Yokohama to Vancouver in a luxurious stateroom. This time around passengers included the English cricketing legend Lord Hawke, Lord and Lady Castlereagh, finely dressed but rather colorless members of the British aristocracy, and grizzled survivors of the SS Tacoma, a blockade runner that had been captured by the Japanese after it became caught in ice in the Soya Strait between Russia and Hokkaido. The Filipino tribe was not famous, at least not yet, and there would be no luxuries for them belowdecks.
Up above in the grand dining room, the wealthy passengers celebrated their departure with fine wines and the choice of five cuts of meat. Down in steerage the Igorrotes gathered at long unadorned tables in front of their bunks and poked through a watery stew full of lumps of gristle. Julio looked around the table and caught Feloa’s eye. The two men smiled. Little had they known a few short years ago that their lives would bring them here.
Their enthusiasm for the trip was shared by the youngest members of the group. Not so long ago, Friday was an orphan being raised by a poor distant relative. When that relative had sold him to an American for less than one US dollar in order to buy food, Friday had cried himself to sleep. Now here he was, on his way back to America. He wanted to live there forever. His friend Tainan didn’t know what he was looking forward to most—the incredible American inventions the nikimalika had described seeing, like telephones and automobiles, or the candies they had let him sample.
Some of the Igorrote women sat in their bunks chatting. They were too nervous to eat. Daipan was happy-go-lucky and not normally prone to introspection. But tonight anxiety had gotten ahold of her and, try as she might, she couldn’t shake it. What if she hated America? What if the people they encountered were not kind to them? What if someone in her family back home got sick when she wasn’t around to help? Maria’s mind was also awhirl. Just as she laid one worry to rest, a dozen more flooded in to take its place. As the wife of Truman’s assistant, Maria felt a responsibility to look after the other women and the children. She was only eighteen years old herself but she had her husband with her for support. A number of the tribespeople were traveling without any relatives. Maria forced her own worries from her mind and turned her attention to the girls beside her.
Daipan imagined herself at home, surrounded by her family. A hot tear formed in the corner of her eye. Maria looked over just as the tear began its slow descent. Taking a seat on the edge of Daipan’s bunk, she put a hand on the young woman’s arm. Daipan tried hard not to cry but the effort was too much. Soon her whole body was racked with aching sobs. The more she cried, the more her body shook and the better she felt. Maria put her arm around her. When finally her tears were spent, Daipan looked into Maria’s dark brown eyes and managed a weak smile. Before long some of the other women and children came over and crowded into the bunk. Maria pulled the blankets up to cover them all. And that was how they slept that first night at sea, snuggled up together, a dozen or so, packed like sardines into one narrow bunk.
Boredom was not a feeling that the Igorrotes gave in to readily. At home their days were divided between tending their crops, animals, and children; hunting; cooking; eating; and sleeping. Time dragged on board the ship. With nothing else to do, they unpacked their native musical instruments, and began to play. Their impromptu concert was watched with interest and, in some quarters, with annoyance by their fellow passengers, who stayed within their own ethnic groups. Callahan, who had been sent by Truman to check up on the tribe, couldn’t stand the high-pitched screeching of their instruments and stomped back to his own cabin for some peace and quiet. Maria lay awake for a long time at night, listening to the roar of the engine and the creaking and groaning of the cables that steered the rudder. It took her awhile to get used to the sensation of the ship moving beneath her body. Tainan had befriended one of the ship’s cats, a skinny creature with straggly black fur. After every meal he rushed to deliver scraps of food he had saved to his new friend, distracting the cat from its job as chief rat catcher.
Rodents, fleas, and germs thrived on board. The Igorrotes’ custom of keeping their hair long, both men and women, made them susceptible to catching lice. Their tribal clothes did little to keep out the cold. Several of them caught chills. Many got seasick. From time to time, the matron would come down to check on the health of the steerage passengers. The seasick Igorrotes were provided with beef tea, chicken broth, and arrowroot from the ship’s store. Some were suspicious of the potions and left them untouched; others were grateful for whatever relief they could provide. There were primitive lavatories on each side of the ship. When the sea was rough, the hatches leading up onto the deck had to be closed, and the air below deck grew foul.
After catching a glimpse inside the boiler room one day, Fomoaley became fascinated by the flames, which burned in the heart of the ship. He rushed to describe the sight to the others: “A great fire burned all the time . . . I was afraid that it would burn us all up, but the white men knew how to shut it up.”3 The chief took to lurking in the doorway near the boiler room, hoping that the men would let him peer into the flames again.
Truman felt cramped in his second-class cabin, but he was a good deal more comfortable than his new employees. Each morning he took the time to dress in his finest clothes. He was a self-made man who believed in dressing to impress. After all, you never knew whom you might meet around the next corner. Truman broke up the monotony of the long days at sea with regular visits to the salon and the smoking room, and strolls round the deck. Usually he ate with Moody and Callahan, and sometimes with men and women they had met on the journey, but as the ship sailed north to Japan he chose to dine alone. He was in a melancholy frame of mind. The enforced inactivity of sea travel didn’t suit him, and he didn’t feel like making small talk. Truman wondered what Sallie was doing. Good old Sallie. Once upon a time he would never have imagined himself with someone like her. She was so different from his first wife, the kind, gentle, self-sacrificing Myrtle. Sallie was feisty, high-spirited, and spoiled. She could be stubborn and infuriating but
he adored everything about her. Sallie’s father said she’d inherited her hot blood from her Irish mother, who’d passed away when Sallie was an infant.
The announcement that the ship would soon be docking at Kobe interrupted Truman’s thoughts. In the Japanese port, Truman took the opportunity to stretch his legs. He visited the telegraph office, where he sent a note to Sallie, telling her all was well and that he was due to arrive in Vancouver on April 18. He would be in touch again when they landed to make arrangements to meet up with her. He wired the organizers of the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland, Oregon; and sent another telegram to Frederic Thompson and Elmer “Skip” Dundy, the owners of Luna Park, the newest and best of the Coney Island amusement parks. With interest in the Igorrotes on the East and West coasts, Truman saw no reason why he couldn’t do business with both parties, for the right price. He suggested to the Lewis and Clark organizers that he meet them to discuss an Igorrote exhibit, and then he invited Thompson and Dundy to make him an offer, stressing that they weren’t the only party bidding.
The showman also sent messages to newspaper editors. He knew that if he sent a steady stream of tidbits ahead to excite the American public, he would have a ready-made audience waiting for them when they landed. He informed the editors that the Igorrotes hunted the heads of their neighbors for sport, then celebrated the kill with a month of feasting and by having new tattoos inked on their chests. He described how the Igorrotes, with their brown bodies covered only in flimsy loincloths, writhed and gyrated to the sound of tom-tom drums at their tribal feasts. To seal their reputation as uncivilized and exotic, he added that they ate dog and that the men, women, and children alike were all ferocious cigar smokers. The American public was in for a treat.
The Lost Tribe of Coney Island Page 4
