Note 1 — Chapter XII

Needless to say we were up betimes the next morning, May 2d, for the clans were to gather, and the day would hardly be long enough for all it was to hold. The day began ominously. As Kiangan is a sort of headquarters, it has a guard-house for the service of short imprisonments, a post-and-rail affair made of bamboo under the cuartel. For while our administration is kindly, these mountaineers from the first have had to learn, if not to feel as yet, that they must be punished if guilty of infringing such laws and discipline as have so far been found applicable. Accordingly, our guard-house held two men, sentenced for twenty days, for having threatened the life of one of their head men. Short as was the sentence, these two men had nevertheless dug a passage in the earthen floor of their quarters, and had just the night before opened the outer end of it, but not enough to admit the passage of a human body. A private of Constabulary, passing by this morning, stooped to examine this hole new [78] to him, when one of the prisoners threw a spear at him, made of a stalk of runo1 the head being a small strip of iron which he had kept concealed in his gee-string. So true was his aim that, although he had to throw his improvised spear between the rails, he nevertheless struck the private in the neck, cutting his jugular vein, so that in five minutes he was dead. The pen was now entered for the purpose of shackling the criminal, when he announced that he would kill any white man that laid hands on him. Upon Lieutenant Meimban of the Constabulary advancing, both of the prisoners rushed him. In the mellay that followed the murderer was shot and killed and his companion badly beaten up; Strong later had to put seventeen stitches in one scalp wound alone. Although the ranchería from which the murdered private came was two hours off, so that it usually took four hours to send a message and get an answer, yet an hour and a half after the man died a runner came in to ask for his body so it could be suitably buried. Altogether, this double killing damped our spirits considerably; for one thing, there was no telling how it would be received, particularly if there should be any excessive drinking of buhud; there were very few of [79] us, mostly unarmed, and the Ifugaos were coming in hundreds at a time, so that long before the forenoon was well under way several thousands had collected. However, on moving out, we could not find that the cheerfulness of the people had been in the least disturbed.