Note 64 — Chapter IX

As a proof of what I have said, and of the many things which I could add, I give below the relation of what happened to me about one year ago. I was on my way from Cuaba to Mati, and was accompanied by a young man of about twenty years of age of the Mandaya race. He together with his mother and two younger sisters had formerly been captured by the Moro datos of the bay of Mayo. When we reached Valete, pointing to a gagátpat tree,64 he said to me: “Father, they bound my mother by the hands and neck to that branch, and left her half hanging there while they ate and rested.” “And what was their reason for binding your mother there in so inhuman a manner,” I asked. “In order that, since she would be tired out,” he replied, “by the forced position in which they kept her, she might not have the strength to escape on the journey from this place to Súmlug.” I believe that that unfortunate woman is no longer living. The Moros took her to Daron and no more has been heard of her, in spite of the repeated efforts which her son has made to find her. The latter having escaped from that bondage and having become a Christian, has not ceased to employ all the resources that his filial love has roused in him in order to see whether he can discover the abiding-place of his dear mother. He thinks that the Moros of Daron sold her to the Bagabos, and that the latter sacrificed her according to their custom.