FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 29, 1904. 
My Friend Datto Pedro 
I wonder if you have ever seeia a man who looked for 
all the world like a catfish. I did once, way off in an 
out-of-the-way corner of the world, and it made me most 
awfully homesick. 
_ It brought back to my mind visions of a very small boy, 
sitting on the edge of "Pop" Hunter's father's coal dock, 
industriously fishing. The fishing wasn't very good there 
even in those days, but by close attention to business, a 
day with hook and line was usually rewarded by a string 
of a dozen or so perch and sunfish, with a chance of get- 
ting a catfish now and then, or better still, a bullhead. 
Just why it should have been considered a greater 
achievement to land a bullhead than a catfish, I don't re- 
member, if indeed I ever knew, but I am sure that it was, 
and one of the proudest moments of my life was on a 
summer's evening many years ago when I nonchalantly 
strolled up the front path leading to the house with the 
entire family assembled on the front porch, carelessly 
swinging a 3-pound bullhead at the end of my fish string, 
and trying to look as if such catches were every-day oc- 
currences tO' be taken as a matter of course. I remember, 
too, that I had a comfortable feeling that, come what 
might, my reputation was made, and that even if I never 
did anything else worth talking about, I still had brought 
credit enough on the family to' last them the rest of my 
days. To be sure, this feeling of satisfaction was lessened 
a little by the knowledge that if "Pop" Hunter's father 
hadn't happened along just when he did, the bullhead 
would most probably have caught me, and a funeral in- 
stead of a sort of triumphant entry resulted. All. this and 
more did this old Moro way -off in the mountains of Min- 
danao recall to my mind, just because he looked like a 
catfish. 
His name was Datto Pedro; only that wasn't his real 
name. His real name was Ahmi Deringbam, but we called 
him Datto Pedro, or Pedro, or Pete for short, and he 
answered to any of them indiscriminately ; that is, at first. 
Later when he became wealthy — which in Moroland 
means power and influence and all that, just as it does 
everywhere else — he rather insisted on the Datto, and 
even hinted that as soon as he had accumulated a little 
more money, a few more esclavos, and another wife or 
two, he might divulge himself in his true character of 
Sultan. 
One of the many strange customs of the Lake Moros is 
that they will never tell you their own name. If you wish 
to know the name of Datto A. you must ask Datto B., 
and vice-versa. It would be considered a serious breach 
of etiquette for you to ask Datto A. direct, and if you did 
so far forget the proprieties as to do so, he not only 
wouldn't tell you, but would be deeply offended as well. 
After Pedro and I became friends, I asked him one day 
why this was, and he told me the following story : 
"Once upon a time many, many years ago, there lived 
THE BABY AND HIS FATHER. 
in Moroland a man whose name was Kaw. Pie was a 
very brave warrior and made for himself a great reputa- 
tion among the Moros by his successes in battle and in the 
hunting field. But finally his victories turned his head; 
he became overbearing and proud, and went about shout- 
ing to any one he chanced to meet, 'I am Kaw the great 
warrior; do not forget my name, so that when you see me 
coming at the head of my men you may know who it is, 
and say to each other, it is Kaw the victorious, Kaw the 
brave, Kaw the unconquerable, Kaw the fierce, Kaw the 
greatest warrior on earth, Kaw the merciless to his ene- 
mies, and tremble,' and his wife would also boast that she 
was the wife of the great Kaw, and so on, until the people 
became tired of hearing the name of Kaw, and having it 
dinned into their ears morning, noon and night. Now it 
happened that just about this time when Kaw, from being 
looked up to and respected for what he had done, had lost 
the friendship and become the laughing stock of the 
people because of his boastfulness and pride, the Bul-bul, 
the most powerful and dreaded of all the evil spirits that 
live in Moroland, chanced to pass through the country and 
heard Kaw shouting his name and telling of what he had 
done. He stopped and asked who it was that thus pro- 
claimed his name so loudly and made such vainglorious 
boasts, and the people told him that it was Kaw, a war- 
rior whose victories had turned his head so that he could 
do nothing but go about telling everyone he met who he 
was and what he had done. So the Bul-bul, who hates 
pride and boastfulness, turned both Kaw and his wife 
into crows, and decreed that they and their descendants 
DATTO PEDRO AND GRANDE EARRIGA. 
should forever afterward cry their names to anyone who 
approached them ; and in order that the virtue of modesty 
might be cultivated among the Moro people, the Bul-bul 
further decreed that thereafter every Moro who need- 
lessly told his name to each chance acquaintance should 
meet the fate of Kaw and his wife, and be turned into a 
crow when he died. And that, mi capitan," said Pedro, 
"is the reason why no Moro will tell you his own name; 
it is because he does not wish to be turned into a crow 
when he dies." 
On account of this superstition most Moros of rank 
take the name of one of their children, usually that of 
the oldest boy, although not infrequently that of one of 
their daughters, and prefixing the word "ahmi," which 
means the father of, thereto, use it as their own. So 
Pedro's name wasn't Ahmi Deringbam, after all ; but any- 
how he did /00k like a catfish. 
Pedro was a captain of industry; he appeared in our 
camp shortly after the battle of Bayang, which was fought 
just twelve days after we arrived in the lake country, and 
was the biggest little fight that took place in the Philip- 
pines. His mission in life at that time was to sell to us 
unsuspecting Americans various and sundry Moro arms 
for about seven times their actual value if he could get it; 
gradually coming down to a fair price if he couldn't, and 
we wanted what he had badly enough to dicker with him 
a couple of days for it. Like all orientals, Pedro dearly 
loved to drive a hard bargain, and always began by ask- 
ing at least three times what he was willing to take for 
anything he had for sale. The Moros carry this method 
of trading to such extremes that many of us adopted the 
scheme of dividing the price first asked by five and offer- 
ing that, gradually increasing our offer until one-third of 
the original price asked was reached, and stopping there; 
we usually got what we wanted somewheres in between. 
Sometimes when the Moro held out too long we found it 
to be a good plan to toss the price we were willing to 
give on the ground before him and then refuse to talk any 
more about it. They were rarely strong enough to resist 
the sight of the actual money, and nearly always closed the 
bargain. There was one thing they could never understand, 
however, and that was why one of our silver dollars, 
"which," said Pedro, "was no larger and sometimes not 
so large as a peso" should be worth two of them, and 
I am sure that they do not understand why it is to this 
day. I have often seen them give fifty-five cents of our 
money for a peso at a time when the latter was only 
worth about forty cents. 
Pedro found the knives he brought in to sell to us on 
the battlefield where the Moros engaged in the fight had 
dropped them, or dropped with them, as the case might 
be, in trying to make their escape. Once found he would 
take them home, clean thern up, put new handles on them, 
and bring them in to us and swear by all his gods that 
they were family heirlooms. At this time Pedro was not 
what you would have called prosperous; in fact, he once 
informed me_ in a burst of confidence he was "mucho 
pobre," nor did his appearance belie his words. 
After he had exhausted the market for knives, he took 
to building bamboo tent floors, doing the work himself, 
assisted only by his nephew, a bright little chap about 
twelve years old, named Lomocdi. His method of build- 
ing a floor was interesting, and was as follows : First he 
would go out into the brush and get a dozen or so long 
bamboos as big around at the butt as he could find, which 
was usually about five or six inches in diameter. These 
he cut to the required length and placed on the ground 
parallel to each other and about a foot apart. Then with 
his working bolo he would cut strips of bamboo an inch 
or so wide and as long as the width of the tent, using 
both hands and one foot for the purpose, for the Moros 
all have semi-prehensile toes and can readily hold or pick 
up light articles with them. These strips were laid across 
the bamboos at right angles and fastened firmly to them 
with withes of split rattan, each strip being bound 
separately and forced as close to the one next to it as 
possible. When it was finished, it made the very finest 
kind of a tent floor, light, strong, easily kept clean, and, 
when well made, very durable. I used one of them in my 
tent at Camp Vicars for eight months, and it was as good 
the day I left as it was when first made. Over these 
floors we spread petatties, mats woven of grass by the 
Moro women, some of them being very soft and fine and 
often beautifully colored. The Moros use them for all 
sorts of purposes, but principally to sleep on or under, 
and a floor thus covered added greatly to the comfort of 
a tent. 
Pedro did well building floors. Of course it couldn't 
last forever, but about the time he had supplied every- 
one in camp with them, it became necessary to hire Moros 
to cut grass for the horses and mules. Pedro's bid for this 
work was the lowest; he was given the contract, and his 
fortune was made. The grass contract was worth at 
least two hundred pesos a month to him, and with the 
capital thus obtained he went into the business of supply- 
ing us with beef cattle when they could be had. He 
started a pony pack train between camp Vicars and Mala- 
bang on the coast which could carry more freight, animal 
for animal, than our mule trains ; a contract to supply 
fire-wood followed the one for grass, and he became a 
very prosperous Moro indeed. It was then that he began 
to be hard of hearing when addressed by any other title 
than Datto. In fact, he made so much money that the 
other friendlies began to clamor for a share of the work, 
and we had to divide the various contracts among them, 
turn and turn about, for a month at a time, but no one 
did the work so well or gave the satisfaction as did_ 
Pedro. , 
It was amusing to watch Pedro as he became more and 
more prosperous gradually emerge from a very ugly 
caterpillar indeed into a butterfly whose gorgeousness Sol- 
omon in all his glory might have equalled, but I am sure 
could never have surpassed. The first time I saw him 
DATTO PEDRO, GRANDE BARRIGA AND LOMOCDI. 
he was clad only in a very soiled breech-clout, a turban, 
and a broad grin, with Lomocdi for his only follower ; the 
last time I' laid eyes on him, which was the day I left 
Camp Vicars, he was attired in a brilliant scarlet and 
black turban, a pale green silk jacket made very tight in 
the body and fastened with small silver buttons, the 
sleeves of which were at least six inches too long and 
wrinkled all the way up his arms in consequence like 
a mousquetaire glove; a gaudy ancold or sash, a silk 
sarong draped around his waist, and a pair of old rose 
and black striped silk pantaloons, very baggy about the 
thighs and tapering down to the ankles, around which 
they were snugly fastened with small silver buttons like 
those on the jacket; and instead of Lomocdi being his 
only follower, he had three attendants to wait upon him 
and carry his kris, buyers and umbrella, besides forty 
