Note 2 — Chapter IX

This mission field was located in the eastern part of what is now the province of Nueva Ecija (formed at the beginning of the nineteenth century), on the Rio Grande of Pampanga and its tributary the Santor, nearly half-way from the source of the former to its mouth; the peoples here mentioned evidently dwelt at first on the heights of the Caraballo de Baler—part of the Caraballo Sur range, from which flow northward the waters of the Magat and the Rio Grande of Cagayan; and southward the Rio Grande and the Rio Chico (respectively “great river” and “little river” of Pampanga). The name “Buquid” apparently simply designates them as dwellers in the mountain forests. The Italons—a name of the same signification, applied by the Gaddans to the Ilongots dwelling in the Caraballo mountains of Nueva Ecija and Príncipe (who are called Ibilao by their Isinay neighbors north of that range)—and Abacas lived on the headwaters of the Rio Grande and Rio Chico. Barrows says (Census of Philippines, i, p. 437): “The Ibilao who inhabit the mountains of Nueva Ecija are among the most persistent head hunters of northern Luzón. Their raids upon the Christian settlements of Nueva Ecija are incessant, and they have repeatedly taken lives in the vicinity of Carranglán and Pantabangán within the last two or three years.” (See also ut supra, pp. 470, 471.) ↑