The Negrito and allied types in the Philippines, by David P. Barrows.

THE ILONGOT OR IBILAO OF LUZON 523
northern Nueva Ecija. From the time of their establishment we find
references to the "Ilongotes" who inhabited the mountains to the east
and were spoken of as "savages," "treacherous murderers," "cannibals," and wholly untamable. Much as described a hundred years ago
they have continued to the present day. Their homes are in thick
mountain jungle where it is difficult to follow them, but, from time to
time they steal out of the forests to fall upon the wayfarer or resident
of the valley and leave him a beheaded and dismembered corpse.
Here are a few instances occurring in recent years which came
under my own notice or investigation. In 1902, the presidente of
Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, informed me that four women had been
killed while fishing a short distance from the town. In March of the
same year, a party of Ilongof crossed the upper part of Nueva Ecija
and in a barrio of San Quentin, Pangasinan, killed five people and took
the heads of four. In November, 1901, near the barrio of Kita Kita,
Nueva Ecija, an old man and two boys were killed, while a little earlier
two men were attacked on the road above Karanglan, one killed and
his head taken. In January, 1902, Mr. Thomson, the superintendent
of schools, saw the bodies of two men and a woman on the road, six
miles south of Karanglan, who had been killed only a few moments
before. The heads of these victims had been taken and their breasts
completely opened by a triangular excision, the' apex at the collar bone
and the lower points at the nipples, through which the heart and lungs
had been removed and carried away. As late as a year ago (1909),
on the trail to San Jose and Punkan, I saw the spot where shortly
before four men were murdered by Ilongot from the " Biruk district."
These men were carrying two large cans of "bino" or native distilled
liquor, from which the Ilongot imbibed, with the result that three of
their party were found drunk on the trail and were captured. These
are only a few out of numerous instances, but they explain why the
great fertile plains of northern Nueva Ecija are undeveloped and why
the few inhabitants dwell uneasy and apprehensive.
There have been no successful attempts to subdue or civilize these
people. Between 1883 and 1893, the missionary friar, Francisco
Eloriaga, founded the Mission of Binatangan in the forested hills east
of Bayombong, and the Spanish government had the project of erecting
it into a "politico-military commandancia," but so far as I know did
not reach the point of sending there an officer and detachment. Something was learned about the most accessible Ibilao, but no permanent
results followed.2 Since the American occupation, however, progress
has been made in our knowledge and control of this people. In October,
1902, the writer, at that time chief of the Bureau of Non-Christian
2A brief account of the people about Binatangan was published by a
missionary in 1891 in "El Correo Sino-Annamita," Vol. XXV. "Una Visita
a los Rancherias de Ilongotes," by Father Buenaventura Campa.