THE ILONOOT OR IBILAO OF LUZON 523 



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/' " canni- 

 bals," 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. Some- 

 thing was learned about the mo^t accessible Ibilao, but no permanent 

 results followed. 2 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 



2 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. 



