4. THE SUBANU. 
The Haraforas are more opprest than the former. The Mahometan vassals 
are bound to accompany their lords on any sudden expedition, but the Hara- 
foras, being in a great measure excused from such attendance, pay yearly taxes 
which are not expected from the Mahometan vassals. ‘They pay a boiss or 
land tax. ‘Those vassals at Magindano (Kutabatu Valley) have what land 
they please, and the Mahometans on the seacoast, whether free or Kanakan 
(slaves), live mostly by trading with the Haraforas (heathen), while their own 
gardens produce them betel nuts, coconuts, and greens. 
Forrest evidently used the term “‘ Haraforas”’ in a generic sense as 
pertaining to Pagan peons wherever found. He writes of the “ Hara- 
foras’’ of New Guinea as subject to the control of their overlords. 
Blair and Robertson comment on this term as follows: 
Crawfurd in his Dictionary Ind. Islands explains this name as a corrup- 
tion of Alforas; it is not a native word at all, nor is it the generic name of any 
people whatsoever. It is a word of the Portuguese language, apparently 
derived from the Arabic article al and the preposition fora (without). The 
Indian Portuguese applied it to all people beyond their own authority or who 
were not subdued by them, and consequently to the wild races of the interior. 
It would seem to be equivalent to the ‘Indios bravos”’ of the Spaniards, as 
applied to the wild and unconquered tribes of America and the Philippines. 
THE HOME LAND. 
From the published records of the early Spanish discoveries, more 
especially from the writings of Father Francisco Combes (1667), in his 
History of Mindanao and Sulu, there is good reason to believe that 
the Subanu were the aborigines* of western Mindanao, viz: that portion 
of the great island lying west of the Isthmus of Tukuran, separating 
the bays of Iligan and Ilana. It was over this isthmus that the Spanish 
General Weyler (governor-general of the Philippines, 1889-1891) com- 
pleted, in 1890, a military trocha or line of fortified stations, named 
after members of the Spanish royal family, as Fort Cristina, Fort Isabel, 
and Fort Alfonso. In his plans for the subjugation of Mindanao, 
General Weyler constructed this trocha for the purpose of shutting out 
the Malanao Moros (Moros of the lake region) from the Subanu 
country (western Mindanao) and preventing further destructive raids 
upon the peaceful and industrious peasants of these hills. In further- 
ance of this project he proposed to the Spanish Cortes the granting of 
an appropriation for the construction of a canal across this isthmus, 
which he estimated could be accomplished with native labor at mod- 
erate expense, by following and improving the course of the Tukuran 
River and of the Lintogud stream connecting with Pangil Bay on the 
north, a branch of the much larger Iligan Bay. 
The military preparations at the Tukuran (south) end of the trocha 
consisted of a stone blockhouse at the mouth of the Tukuran River; 
*The term is properly used only as relative to later and dominant Malay races. We 
shall see that the Subanu are an older stock of the Visayan family, therefore Malays and 
comparatively late comers. ‘They have nothing in common with the persistent pygmy race 
of autochthons of whom the Aeta stand as type specimens—W. C. 
