114-115 MINDANAO "Mindanao, most important of the southern islands, was the second largest in the Philippine Group. It was inhabited by tribes speaking different dialects, in the hinterlands. These tribes frequently fought among themselves. "The Islands of Job, Tawitawi, and Siasi, to the southwest of Mindanao, were occupied. "In Mindanao the situation in the Lanao region which had never been brought under control by the Spaniards required extensive field operations, the most important of which was the assault on May 2nd, on the cotta, or fort at Bayan." The Spaniards had never succeeded in establishing their sovereity over the Mohammedans and tribal people in the interior of Mindanao, although there had been numerous expeditions following that of Rodriquez de Figuroa in the year 1596, which ended in disaster. The Moros were raiders by land and pirates by sea. They glorified in their defiance of Uncle Sam's law and order. They were head-hunters and slave traders. They practiced polygamy, and despised all persons whose skin was white. The Moros who fought the United States were not inspired by patriotic motives. They were fighting to perpetuate their institution of slavery, their license to rob on the high seas and raid neighboring Filipino tribes. The native rulers feared the loss of power and the suspicious Moslem population was inflamed against the Americans by chiefs and religious leaders who declared that the foreigners desired to destroy their faith. The Moros were barbaric, but not a primitive people. Many of their Mohammedan priests had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. The high-caste Moro was proud of his ancestry, some of them being able to trace back to the Thirteenth Century. The Moros were divided into tribes or clans which ranged in number of their members from three to four dozen to as many thousands. Each clan had its own territory which was known as a rancheria. At the head of the clan was a Dato, or a sultan, who was patriarchal authority over all its members. There were some 400 rancherias around flake Lanao, and in these about 150 sultans, all claiming to be of royal blood. Each Dato, or sultan, had his dwelling house enclosed by an earth and rock breastwork, from ten to twelve feet high, about the same number of feet in thickness at the bottom and tapering up to three feet at the top. This breastwork was matted together on the exterior with living bamboo, the trunk of an old bamboo being covered with stout thorns. This bamboo hedge was not only a protection, but it was also a perfect camouflage for these forts in their tropic surroundings. The breastworks were usually surrounded by ditches that varied in depth from five to thirty feet. In some instances there were two or more rows of these ditches. Between and outside the ditches were hidden pitfalls studded at the bottom with sharpened sticks. The sally-port, or entry way, was always narrow and indirect and therefore could not be raked with shot from the outside. Moreover, it was usually protected by a lantaca, or Moro cannon, loaded with slugs. Lantacas were also mounted on the parapets to fire through Barbette embrasures, and others mounted to fire through embrasures in the breastworks. This defensive work was known as a cotta. Here the followers of the Dato rallied to his or their own defense. But the Moros' favorite weapon was cold steel. In the folds of his sarong he always carried a dagger or, if a man of high caste, a kris. In battle he used the campilan, a two-handed, broad-bladed sword with razor edge. The Spaniards estimated that there were some three or four hundred thousand of these Moros living about Lake Lanao. |
|
The "WOLFHOUND PACK" Preserving our heritage for future generations of
Wolfhounds! Search powered by
|
