Preface

Summary

Shortly after we left the Philippines in November 1974, Manila newspapers published stories of an assembly of The New Bugkalut Nation. Led by “Chieftan Gomiad” (in my transcription, Rumyad), several hundred of the people popularly known as Ilongot met and appealed to the Philippine National Government for support and education, announcing that their traditional practice of headhunting was now officially foresworn. The tone of the articles, which spoke of schooling, land development, and irrigation, differed markedly from that of newspaper reports Renato Rosaldo and I had read before and during our fieldwork with the Ilongots, beginning in 1967. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, we read headlines that spoke of “Ilongots on the Warpath,” reports of picnickers beheaded, of a “mating season” that required “braves” to offer up a Christian head to future in-laws, and of conclaves where proven warriors had sworn blood brotherhood with lowland authorities. As late as June 1967 – three months before our departure for the Philippines – the Manila Daily Mirror reported “Ilongots Embracing Civilization: Headhunting Ritual Abandoned,” but on May 14, 1968 – when we were beginning to feel some confidence in our grasp of the Ilongot language – the Manila Chronicle warned local sportsmen, “To Hunters: Don't Lose Your Heads”: “Fire trees are in bloom and Ilongot headhunters are again on the warpath. The bloom of fire trees is said to arouse the primitive instincts of the Nueva Vizcaya Ilongots and goad them into leaving their forest homes to hunt for ‘heads’.”