Anting-Anting Stories, and Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos Read online

  THE CONJURE MAN OF SIARGAO

  When I woke that morning, the monkey was sitting on the footboardof my bed, looking at me. Not one of those impudent beasts that donothing but grin and chatter, but a solemn, old-man looking animal,with a fatherly, benevolent face.

  All the same, monkeys are never to be trusted, even if you know moreabout them than I could about one which had appeared unannounced inmy sleeping room over night.

  "Filipe!" I shouted, "Filipe!"

  The woven bamboo walls of a Philippine house allow sound and air topass freely, and my native servant promptly entered the room.

  "Take that monkey away," I said.

  "Oh Senor," cried Filipe. "Never! You cannot mean it. The Conjureman of Siargao brought him to you this morning, as a gift. Much goodalways comes to the house which the Conjure man smiles on."

  "Who in the name of Magellan is the Conjure man, and why is he smilingon me?" I asked.

  "He is an old, old man who has lived back in the mountains for manyyears. He knows more conjure charms than any other man or woman inSiargao. The mountain apes come to his house to be fed, and peoplesay that he can talk with them. He left no message, but brought themonkey, and said that the beast was for you."

  "Well, take the creature out of the room while I dress, can't you?"

  "Si, Senor," Filipe replied; but the way in which he went about thetask showed that for him, at least, a gift monkey from the Conjure manof Siargao was no ordinary animal. The monkey, after gravely inspectingthe hand which Filipe respectfully extended to him, condescended tostep from the footboard of the bed upon it, and be borne from the room.

  After that the "wise man," for I gave the little animal this name,was a regular member of my family, and in time I came to be attached tohim. He was never mischievous or noisy, and would sit for an hour at atime on the back of a chair watching me while I wrote or read. He wasexpert in catching scorpions and the other nuisances of that kind whichmake Philippine housekeeping a burden to the flesh, and never afterhe was brought to me did we have any annoyance from them. He seemedto feel that the hunting of such vermin was his especial duty, and,in fact, I learned later that he had been regularly trained to do this.

  Chiefly, though, he helped me in the increase of prestige which he gaveme with the natives. Filipe treated me with almost as much respect ashe did the monkey, when he realised that for some inscrutable reasonthe Conjure man had chosen to favour me with his friendship. Thevillagers, after that early morning visit, looked upon my thatchedbamboo hut as a sort of temple, and I suspect more than once creptstealthily up conveniently close trees at night to try to peer betweenthe slats of which the house was built, to learn in that way if theycould, what the inner rooms of the temple were like.

  My house was "up a tree." Up several trees, in fact. Like most ofthose in Siargao it was built on posts and the sawed off trunksof palm trees. The floor was eight feet above the ground, and weentered by way of a ladder which at night we drew up after us, orrather I drew up, for since Filipe slept at home, the "wise man" andI had our house to ourselves at night. The morning the monkey came,Filipe was prevailed upon to borrow a ladder from another house,and burglarise my home to the extent of putting the monkey in.

  I had been in Siargao for two years, as the agent of a Hong Kong firmwhich was trying to build up the hemp industry there. That was beforethe American occupation of the islands. The village where I livedwas the seaport. I would have been insufferably lonesome if I hadnot had something to interest me in my very abundant spare time, forduring much of the year I was, or rather I had supposed I was, with theexception of the Padre, the only white man on the island. Twice a yearthe Spanish tax collector came and stayed long enough to wring everyparticle of money which he possibly could out of the poor natives, andthen supplemented this by taking in addition such articles of produceas could be easily handled, and would have a money value in Manila.

  The interest which I have referred to as sustaining me was inthe plants, trees and flowers of the island. I was not a trainednaturalist, but I had a fair knowledge of commercial tropic vegetationbefore I came to the island, and this had proved a good foundationto work on. Our hemp plantation was well inland, and in going to andfrom this I began to study the possibilities of the wild trees andplants. It ended in my being able to write a very fair description ofthe vegetation of this part of the archipelago, explaining how manyof the plants might be utilized for medicine or food, and the treesfor lumber, dyestuffs or food.

  One who has not been there cannot begin to understand the possibilitiesof the forests under the hands of a man who really knows them. Oneof the first things which interested me was a bet Filipe made withme that he could serve me a whole meal, sufficient and palatable,and use nothing but bamboo in doing this.

  The only thing Filipe asked to have to work with was a "machete,"a sharp native sword. With this he walked to the nearest clump ofbamboo, split open a dry joint, and cutting out two sticks of acertain peculiar shape made a fire by rubbing them together. Havinggot his fire he split another large green joint, the center of whichhe hollowed out. This he filled with water and set on the fire, whereit would resist the action of the heat until the water in it boiled,just as I have seen water in a pitcher plant's leaf in America set onthe coals of a blacksmith's fire and boiled vigorously. In this waterhe stewed some fresh young bamboo shoots, which make a most deliciouskind of "greens," and finally made me from the wood a platter offwhich to eat and a knife and fork to eat with. I acknowledged thathe had won the bet.

  It was on one of the excursions which I made into the forest in mystudy of these natural resources, that I met the Conjure man. I hadbeen curious to see him ever since he had called on me that morningbefore I was awake, and left the "wise man," in lieu of a card, butinquiry of Filipe and various other natives invariably elicited thereply that they did not know where he lived. I learned afterwardsthat the liars went to him frequently, for charms and medicines touse in sickness, at the very time they were telling me that they didnot even know in what part of the forest his home was. Later eventsshowed that fear could make them do what coaxing could not.

  It happened that one of my expeditions took me well up the side of amountain which the natives called Tuylpit, so near as I could catchtheir pronunciation. I never saw the name in print. The mountain'ssides were rocky enough so that they were not so impassable onaccount of the dense under-growth as much of the island was, and I hadmuch less trouble than usual going forward after I left the regular"carabaos" (water buffalo) track.

  I had gone on up the mountain for some distance, Filipe, as usual,following me, when, turning to speak to him, I found to my amazementthat the fellow was gone. How, when or where he had disappeared Icould not imagine, for he had answered a question of mine only amoment before.

  If I had been surprised to find myself alone, I was ten times moresurprised to turn back again and find that I was not alone.

  A man stood in the path in front of me, an old man, but standing wellerect, and with keen dark eyes looking out at me from under shaggywhite eyebrows.

  I knew at once, or felt rather than knew, for the knowledge wasinstinctive, that this must be the Conjure man of Siargao, but I wasdumbfounded to find him, not, as I had supposed, a native, but a whiteman, as surely as I am one. Before I could pull myself together enoughto speak to him, he spoke to me, in Spanish, calling me by name.

  "You see I know your name," he said, and then added, as if he sawthe question in my eyes, "Yes, it was I who brought the monkey toyour house. I knew so long as he was there no man or woman on thisisland would molest you.

  "You wonder why I did it? Because in all the time you have been here,and in all your going about the island, you have never cruelly killedthe animals, as most white men do who come here. The creatures of theforest are all I have had to love, for many years, and I have likedyou because you have spared them. How I happened to come here first,and why I have stayed here all these years, is nothing to you. Quitelikely you would n
ot be so comfortable here alone with me if youknew. Anyway, you are not to know. You are alone, you see. Your servanttook good care to get out of the way when he knew that I was coming."

  "How did you know my name," I made out to ask, "and so much about me?"

  "The natives have told me much of you, when they have been to mefor medicines, which they are too thickheaded to see for themselves,although they grow beneath their feet. Then I have seen you many timesmyself, when you have been in the forest, and had no idea that I,or any one, for that matter, was watching you."

  "Why do I see you now, then?" I asked.

  "Because the desire to speak once more to a white man grew too strongto be resisted. Because you happened to come, to-day, near my home,to which," he added, with a very courteous inclination of his head,"I hope that you will be so good as to accompany me."

  I wish that I could describe that strange home so that others couldsee it as I did.

  Imagine a big, broad house, thatched, and built of bamboo, like allof those in Siargao, that the earthquakes need not shake them down,but built, in this case, upon the ground. A man to whom even the snakesof the forest were submissive, as they were to this man, had no needto perch in trees, as the rest of us must do, in order to sleep insafety. Above the house the plumy tops of a group of great palm treeswaved in the air. Birds, more beautiful than any I had ever seenon the island, flirted their brilliant feathers in the trees aroundthe house, and in the vines which laced the tops of the palm treestogether a troop of monkeys was chattering. The birds showed no fearof us, and one, a gorgeous paroquet, flew from the tree in which ithad been perched and settled on the shoulder of the Conjure man. Themonkeys, when they saw us, set up a chorus of welcoming cries, andbegan letting themselves down from the tree tops. My guide threw ahandful of rice on the ground for the bird, and tossed a basket oftamarinds to where the monkeys could get them. Then, having placedme in a comfortable hammock woven of cocoanut fibre, and brought mea pipe and some excellent native tobacco, he slung another hammockfor himself, and settled down in it to ask me questions.

  Imagine telling the news of the world for the last quarter of a centuryto an intelligent and once well-educated man who has known nothing ofwhat has happened in all that time except what he might learn fromignorant natives, who had obtained their knowledge second hand fromSpanish tax collectors only a trifle less ignorant than themselves.

  Just in the middle of a sentence I became aware that some one waslooking at me from the door of the house behind me. Somebody orsomething, I had an uncomfortable feeling that I did not quite knowwhich. I twisted around in the hammock to where I could look.

  An enormous big ape stood erect in the doorway, steadying herselfby one hand placed against the door casing. She was looking at meintently, as if she did not just know what to do.

  My host had seen me turn in the hammock. "Europa," he said, and thenadded some words which I did not understand.

  The huge beast came towards me, walking erect, and gravely held out along and bony paw for me to shake. Then, as if satisfied that she haddone all that hospitality demanded of her, she walked to the furtherend of the thatch verandah and stood there looking off into the forest,from which there came a few minutes later the most unearthly and yetmost human cry I ever heard.

  I sprang out of my hammock, but before I could ask, "what wasthat?" the big ape had answered the cry with another one as weird asthe first.

  "Sit down, I beg of you," my host said. "That was only Atlas, Europa'smate, calling to her to let us know that he is nearly home. Theystartled you. I should have introduced them to you before now."

  While he was still talking, another ape, bigger than the first, camein sight beneath the palms. Europa went to meet him, and they cameto the house together.

  As I am a living man that enormous animal, uncanny looking creature,walked up to me and shook hands. The Conjure man had not spoken to him,that was certain. If any one had told him to do this it must have beenEuropa. The demands of politeness satisfied, the strange couple wentto the farther side of the verandah and squatted down in the shade.

  "Can you talk with them?" I suddenly made bold to ask.

  "Who told you I could?" the Conjure man inquired sharply.

  "Filipe," I said.

  But his question was the only answer my question ever received.

  Later, when I said it was time for me to start for home, he set me outa meal of fruit and boiled rice. I quite expected to hear him orderEuropa to wait on the table, but he did not, and when I came away,and he came with me down the mountain as far as the "carabaos" track,the two big apes stayed on the verandah as if to guard the house.

  When we parted at the foot of the mountain, although I am sure hehad enjoyed my visit, my strange host did not ask me to come again,and when he gently declined my invitation for him to come and see me,I did not repeat it. I had a feeling that it would do no good to urgehim, and that if a time ever came when he wanted to see me again hewould make the wish known to me of his own accord.

  It was not more than a month after my visit to the mountain homethat the Spanish tax collector came for his semi-annual harvest. Theboat which brought him would call for him a month later, and inthe intervening time he would have got together all the propertywhich could be squeezed or beaten out of the miserable natives. Thisparticular man had been there before, and I heartily disliked him,as the worst of his kind I had yet seen. Inasmuch as he representedthe government to which I also had to pay taxes and was, except forthe Padre, about the only white man I saw unless it was when some ofour own agents came to Siargao, I felt disgusted when I saw that thisman had returned. He brought with him, on this trip, as a servant,a good-for-nothing native who had gone away with him six monthsbefore to save his neck from the just wrath of his own people for acrime which he had committed. Secure in the protection afforded byhis employer's position, and the squad of Tagalog soldiers sent tohelp in collecting the taxes, this man had the effrontery to comeback and swell about among his fellow people, any one of whom wouldhave cut his throat in a minute if they could have done it withoutfear of detection by the tax collector.

  I noticed, though, that the servant was particularly careful to sleepin the same house with his master, and did not go home at night,as Filipe did. The government representative had a house of his own,which was occupied only when he was on the island. It was somewhatlarger than the other houses of the place, but like them was builton posts well up from the ground, and reached by a ladder which couldbe taken up at will, as, I noticed, it always was at night.

  When the collector had been in Siargao less than a week, I wassurprised to have him come to my place one day and ask me abruptlyif I had ever seen any big apes in my excursions over the island.

  I am obliged to confess that I lied to him very promptly and directly,for I told him at once that I never had. You see there had come intomy mind at once what the lonely old man on the mountain had saidabout men who came and killed the animals he loved, and I could seeas plainly as when I left them there, the two big apes sitting on theverandah of his home, watching us as we came down the mountain path,and waiting to welcome him when he came home.

  The "wise man," sitting on top of the tallest piece of furniturein the room, to which he had promptly mounted when my caller camein, said nothing, but his solemn eyes looked at me in a way whichmakes me half willing to swear that he had understood every word,and countenanced my untruthfulness.

  The tax collector looked up at the monkey suspiciously, as if hesometime might have heard how the animal came into my possession,as, in fact, I had reason afterwards to think he had.

  "Caramba," he grunted. "I have reason to think there are big apeshere. Juan," his black-leg--in every sense of the word--servant,"has told me there is an old man here who has tamed them. He says heknows where the man lives, back in the mountains.

  "If I can find a big ape while I am here, this time," he went on,"I mean to have him or his hide. There was an agent for a museum ofsome kind in
England, in Manila when I came away, and he told me hewould give me fifty dollars for the skin of such a beast."

  He went on talking in this way for quite a while, but I did notmore than half hear what he was saying, for I was trying to thinkof some way in which I could send word to the old man to guard hiscompanions. I finally decided, however, that Juan, though quite vileenough to do such a thing, would never dare to guide his employer tothe Conjure man's house.

  I did not properly measure the heart of a native doubly driven byhate of a former master from whom he is free, and fear of a masterby whom he is employed at the present time.

  The very next day Juan went to the Conjure man's house, and in hismaster's name demanded that one of the apes be brought, dead or alive,to the tax collector's office.

  The only answer he brought back, except a slashed face on which theblood was even then not dry, was:

  "Does a father slay his children at a stranger's bidding?"

  The next day I was in the forest all day long. When I came homein the edge of the evening, and passed the tax collector's house,I said words which I should not wish to write down here, although Ialmost believe that the tears which were running down my cheeks at thetime washed the record of my language off the recording angel's book,just as they would have blotted out the words upon this sheet of paper.

  Europa, noble great animal, lay dead on the ground in front of thehouse, the slim, strong paw, like a right hand, which she had reachedout to welcome me, drabbled with dirt where it had dragged behind the"carabaos" cart in which she had been brought, and which had beenhardly large enough to hold her huge body.

  I knew it was Europa. I would have known her anywhere, even ifFilipe, white with fear and rage, had not told me the story when Ireached home.

  Juan had guided the tax collector to the mountain home in an evilmoment when its owner and Atlas, by some chance were away. The Spaniardhad shot Europa, standing in the door, as I had seen her standing,and the two men had brought the body down the mountain.

  I think Filipe, and perhaps the other natives, expected nothing lessthan that the village, if not the whole island, would be destroyed byfire from the sky, that night, or swallowed up in the earth, but thenight passed with perfect quiet. Not a sound was heard, nor a thingdone to disturb our sleep, or if, as I imagine was the case with someof us who did not sleep, our peace.

  Only, in the morning, when no one was seen stirring about the taxcollector's house, and then it grew noon and the lattices were notopened or the ladder let down, the Tagalog soldiers brought anotherladder and put it against the house, and I climbed up and went in,to find the two men who stayed there, the Spaniard and Juan, dead onthe floor. Their swollen faces, black and awful to look at, I haveseen in bad dreams since. On the throat of each were the blue marksof long, strong fingers.

  And the body of Europa was gone.