THE RECONSTRUCTED CHURCH AT POINT HOPE This represents the united work of Bishop Rowe and Mr. Hoare, with eight native helpers furnish a spiritual home for the people of the bleak North! Mr. Hoare gives these further details of the construction and first services in the new sanctuary: "The bishop, myself, and eight natives tore the flat roof and end off the building which has been used for a church, and which was wholly unsuitable either for that or any other purpose; we raised the walls two and a half feet, added nine feet to the length of the building, raised a half-pitch roof and built an annex on either side of the church, making it cruciform in shape, sheathed it completely, and in five days finished it sufficiently to hold service in it the following Sunday. Of course there is a great deal of finishing work and painting to be done, but the Sunday services were not interrupted. On the Sunday the bishop confirmed forty-nine more candidates who had been prepared, making total of eighty confirmed since his arrival. Practically a corporate Communion was then held. It was a great joy to join in Holy Communion with so many who, but a few years ago, were living lives of heathenism, and are now, by their lives, evidencing their belief and faith in Christ." Are there, we wonder, many church buildings in what our Alaskan brothers call "the States" whose first service could be marked by the confirmation of fortynine persons? and do many bishops expect, in a single visitation, to lay hands upon eighty who have ratified their baptismal vows? Truly the missionary at Point Hope has been doing something more than make cemeteries and churches. That this at least is the opinion of his bishop is shown by the following quotation: "The condition of the work at Point Hope was most pleasing and encouraging. Mr. Hoare has accomplished a great deal, due in part to the effective work done by Mr. Knapp. It was a surprise and a joy to hear that congregation of Eskimos able to say or sing the responses of all the usual services, the Canticles, Psalter, and about fifty or more hymns. I dont know whether it would be possible to find another congregation anywhere so well trained. I heard this congregation repeat the Catechism from the beginning to the end almost perfectly. I confirmed eighty and it was interesting to know that a whole village of adults, with very few exceptions, received the Holy Communion." THE REV. WALTER C. CLAPP AND HILARY PITT-A-PIT CLAPP, WHO HELPED THE BONTOC MISSIONARIES IN THEIR FIRST STRUGGLES WITH IGOROT THE GOSPEL FOR THE BONTOC IGOROTS Τ By the Reverend Walter C. Clapp O grasp the significance of the translation of St. Mark's Gospel which is now in process of printing by the British and Foreign Bible Society, one must have at least an outline knowledge of the people for whom it has been made. At the risk therefore of repeating things which may be well known to some of our readers I must try to give such an outline. Your best and largest map of the Philippines will be needed, and here I must assume as a condition, which is, as the grammar rules say, "contrary to reality," that you can get a good one. In fact they are very scarce, almost nonexistent. But your map will at least show Manila, the capital city, situated on the large indentation on the western lower coast of Luzon, known as Manila Bay. It is a large city of about 250,000 people, of whom we may say, roughly, that 5,000 are Americans or Europeans -Spanish, English, Germans, chieflyand a much larger number, say 40,000, are Chinese. The others are Malays, called generally Filipinos, and, more particularly in and around Manila, they are of the important Tagalog tribe. I shall not take time now to describe these people intimately nor to tell what mission enterprises our Church is carrying on there among the various sorts of people in Manila; that would take more than one article by itself. All of the natives who dwell in coast towns, of which Manila is the chief, and in all parts of the Philippines except the southern, where we find the Mohammedan Moros, and except the mountainous interior of some of the islands, were, previously to the American occupation, under the rule of Spain for some three hundred years. For convenience and to be quite clear, and remembering the exception of the Moros, we may say, the "lowlanders" were all profoundly impressed with a degree of civilization and of Christianity by the Spaniards, their masters. The chief agents in this process were doubtless the frailes or priests of the monastic orders, notably the Do minicans, Augustinians and the Franciscans. It would take too long, and this is not the place, to give a discriminating account of their work and character; the good they did and the evils which they fostered. Readers of recent history of the Philippines know how, from a variety of causes, the frailes became obnoxious to the insurgent element among the Filipinos, and in the course of the war were driven out of their parochial cures in the provinces and were herded some of them killed meantime in the main houses of their various orders in Manila; and from there many of them have been sent, some back to Spain, some to missions in China, doubtless, to return again to their parishes. The Spanish priests' work remains, I mean the Spanish work of which the priests were the directing factor. Their churches are in every town, large or small, and in architecture and dimensions bear tokens of that kind of fidelity to a worthy structural ideal which is too little seen in modern days. And the Spanish stamp is in all the peoplemuch Spanish blood of course is in them -and they talk, gesticulate, dance and sing like their teachers. But it is not of these "lowlanders" that I intend to speak further. Now what of those others, the mountain people, particularly of northern Luzon? Where shall we find them most typical? Who are they? Where did they come from? And how do they stand related to the ordinary lowland "Filipinos" of the various tribes? I have here propounded questions some of which no one seems to be able to answer. That the Igorots, like the 'lowlanders," are Malays seems certain, and also that in ancient times-how ancient no one knows-they came as immigrants from other lands. That they are related to other still existing tribes of Malays of the Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra seems to be indicated by the survival among the Igorots, in common with these distant peoples, of certain customs-their head-hunting, their spirit-cult, their community sleeping houses. But whether the Igorots have merely retained what other Philippine tribes once had, but gradually lost, or whether these mountain people were always different from the others, and came originally from another region, cannot yet be decided. Some hold that we have in the Igorots that unreconciled remnant of many tribes of immigrating Malays, who would not change their habits when others did, and would adopt neither Mohammedanism nor Christianity when religious pressure was exerted from the outside. They would maintain the old customs; they would believe in Lumawig and pay court to the ill-disposed spirits of the departed; they would cultivate their rice after the manner of their forefathers, and, to do this unmolested, they would betake themselves to the remote regions of the mountainous interior. Such a theory has a certain probability in its favor, and it accords with what many travellers tell us of their impression of these people-their natural virtue and valor, their industry and persistency, and their very evident conservatism and fear of innovation. Now, referring again to the map, let us go into their country. At about latitude 17° north, and something less than one half the distance from the west to the east coast of Luzon, you may find the town of Bontoc. Measured on the map, and with no Philippine experience to interpret, the distance from Manila looks inconsiderable. In fact it is less than 300 miles, travelling distance, an afternoon's journey of a fast railroad train. But practically it will take you hardly less, possibly much more, than ten days to get there. If you take the overland route, Luzon's one railroad will give you a lift for 125 miles to Dagupan, a stage will carry you some fifty more up to Baguio on the mountain ridge beyond which, for the greater part of 100 miles, you must rely upon a native pony traversing trails that have never known a wheeled vehicle, and that wind along the steeps and ridges of Luzon's backbone. The muscles are tired, the feet sore, but the eye is always delighted AN IGOROT PEDDLER OF THE TYPE SEEN IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF BONTOC with the prospect. You are often at a height of from 6,000 to 8,000 feet as you go along some "hogback," and the invigorating air gives you steadiness and courage to look down upon the summits of lesser mountains and into yawning cañons. And the people-you have been among "Igorots" chiefly, from Dagupan up. But the term "Igorot" is not an exact and invariable one. There are Pangasinan Igorots in the province of that name (consult map) and Benguet Igorots, and Lepanto Igorots, just as, if you had taken a water route and had By this contrast I have already indicated some of the characteristic marks of the Bontoc man, the best type of the conservative, tradition-loving Igorot of northern central Luzon. It is difficult, within brief limits, to describe adequately these sturdy people, who have resisted so long every outside influence. Spanish authority and religion were exercised in their region for, roughly speaking, fifty years, yet without apparent effect in changing their customs or making them desire Christianity. They terrace the mountains, pursue their wonderful systems of irrigation, raise their rice and camotes (sweet potatoes), scour the rivers for snails and fish, and they keep their propitiatory feasts for the anito (departed spirits) just as they have always done; and they will show you the place where Lumawig taught them how to |