Dr. William Jones: Anthropology and Conquest

Having spent 6 months in the Ilongot territory between 1993-1994 doing awareness raising campaign on the effects of the Casecnan transbasin diversion dam, I came across a book written by Renato Rosaldo titled "Ilongot Headhunting 1883-1974: A Study in Society and History." Rosaldo's book drew my interest on William Jones who did research among the Ilongot people upstream of the Cagayan River from 1908-1909.

The cause of Jones' death is a natural consequence of having exhausted the patience of a host. He who spent a lifetime studying the ways of indigenous peoples (a term not yet used during his time) may have forgotten all what he learned about the people he observed for 16 months. I don't know, but I have a perception that some white men would not make good as anthropologists, because they seem to lack a virtue called patience.

Dr. Jones' death took a heavy toll on the Ilongot communities in the Tamsi area (now the town of Nagtipunan, Quirino Province). In fact, very few Ilongots could be found downstream of the Cagayan River today. Actual population count revealed that more Ifugao, Ibaloi and Kalanguya peoples are now inhabiting what was once the ancestral domain of several Ilongot clans: from the old Dumabato to Ipil in Echague, Isabela. The Yogad people who inhabited the downstream of Cagayan River now share territories with mainstream Ilocanos and other migrants from the Cordillera region.

Americans avenged Dr. Jones' death in a genocidal fashion, and the classic strategy of fitting natives against their fellow natives was used. Well, it reminds me of today's low intensity conflict applied against insurgent forces. As to the real number of Ilongot people killed by Lt. Turnbull's mercenaries, no one can tell as no survivor living today could testify.

I was tempted to ask the question: "Did Americans use the anthropological data gathered by Dr. Jones to complete the conquest of the Ilongot people?" If Spaniards took advantage of the natives' animist religion to effect a conquest by the cross and sword, there are indications that Americans used the "scientific way" of understanding the weaknesses of Ilongot natives to effect their brand of conquest.

Academicians will naturally argue that what Dr. William Jones did is just an empirical study of the Ilongot way of life. But that is not as simple as that. I am convinced that a widely accepted principle in research, i.e., a phenomenon being observed is affected by the manner of observing it, holds true in this case.

Sixty five (65) years later after Dr. Jones' death in 1909, American missionaries from the New Tribes Mission came to "evangelize" the Ilongot people. Since then, the Ilongot were "renamed" the Bugkalot people - a self-ascription they adopted after having abandoned the abominable practice of headhunting.

Americans must have realized that an indigenous community who practice headhunting rituals could never be colonized effectively. Hence, the only way left is to make the Ilongot people extinct. The New Tribes Missions' knowledge of the Ilongot language made possible the process of systematically erasing the collective ascription Ilongot (from "i-ghongot", meaning "from the forest"). Summer Institute of Linguistics provided the New Tribes Mission all the support they needed, e.g., translation of the Bible into the dialect, including the use of light planes. Having replaced their culture entirely, the New Tribes Mission was able to convince these people to call themselves a new name.

A sequel to Rosaldo's work

A Dominican priest, Fr. Pedro V. Salgado, also became interested on the Ilongots after our group had a discussion in Manila on the then planned Casecnan dam. Fr. Salgado was part of a network called Saranay Dagiti Umili ti Amianan, a Manila-based solidarity group for people's struggles in northern Luzon. The voluminous archives on the Ilongot people (called Ylongotes by Spanish friars) at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) were compiled by Father Pete to write another book on the Ilongots, which was published in 1994. Father Pete's work is a more expanded chronology of Ilongot history.

After reading through Fr. Pete's book, I came to understand how vast the former ancestral domain of the Ilongots has been - which comprises the northern part of Quezon Province (Baler and Maria Aurora), the notheastern tip of Nueva Ecija (Pantabangan), eastern Nueva Vizcaya (Kasibu, Dupax and Alfonso Castañeda), the whole of Quirino Province, and southern Isabela (Jones, San Agustin, Echague and Dinapigue).

The Ilongot people may have lost 3/4 of their original territory. But the struggle to defend inherent rights to land and resources shall remain a burning saga for the Ilongot people, as well as other indigenous peoples driven out of their ancestral domains.