The Lost Tribe of Coney Island

by Claire Prentice

  At every station stop, Truman’s advance man had tipped off a new set of newspapermen that the Igorrotes, the latest sensation coming to Coney Island, were passing through town. The showman was never disappointed: a pack of newspapermen was always waiting. If there was time, Truman would arrange interviews and stunts with local reporters, joyfully spinning them lines. He sent word ahead to New York’s newspapers. A train was coming, and it carried the story of the century.

  Truman had a keen eye for what would excite Americans about the Igorrotes. He described the customs of the head-hunting Filipinos in vivid detail. At a time when America was expanding her global reach, her citizens were developing a fascination for savages and foreign cultures. Against this backdrop the Igorrotes were portrayed in the media as an exceptionally primitive people, living virtually naked in mud huts, hunting their neighbors’ heads and eating their own pets. In interviews, Truman portrayed himself as a paternalistic patron. The newspapers could not get enough of them: FROM LUZON TO LUNA: IGOROTS COMING, 51 STRONG, TO BUILD VILLAGE AT CONEY, read the headline in the New York Tribune on May 9, 1905.

  In Chicago the group, now well drilled in Truman’s choreographed antics, threw on their American shirts, skirts and pants, ready to change stations. Outside on the street, the Igorrotes stood in silent wonder. If Manila had seemed overwhelming, then this was on a whole new scale. Chicago was an assault on the senses. The air reeked, of what the Igorrotes did not know, crowds surged along the sidewalk, and the buildings seemed to disappear into the sky. At the turn of the century, Chicago was a bustling metropolis, home to two million people and some of the tallest, most handsome buildings in the world and proud of its hard-fought status as America’s second city. But it was also caked in grime and ridden with crime. The Igorrotes huddled together as the elevated train thundered along the tracks overhead, carrying thousands of commuters into the city. For the mountain-dwelling tribe, walking the city streets was like landing on the moon.

  A sense of relief washed over the Igorrotes when they reached the station and stepped in off the sidewalk. Truman asked a railroad worker where they would catch the train to New York City. The man pointed to a platform in the distance. Their new home was within striking distance. What would happen next would make the Igorrotes a household name.

  6

  Making an Entrance

  NEW YORK CITY, MAY 15, 1905

  Park Row station at the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge, 1905

  THE FILIPINOS’ PRIVATE car rolled into the train yards just north of New York’s Grand Central Station. It was wet, windy, and not yet daybreak. The train slowed and Julio gazed through the rain-streaked window at the dark, foreboding sky, the cold glass numbing his cheek. Great plumes of smoke billowed out as the train squealed and hissed to a halt. Julio could just make out a group of figures moving around in the murk outside. He strained to get a better look. Suddenly out of the gloom a pale face streaked in oil and grime pressed up against the glass, almost a mirror image of his own. Julio instinctively pulled his head back as the face opposite his opened its mouth and began to shout.

  The trainman couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He shouted to the other men working in the yard to come over. Within a few moments, a group had gathered around. They gawked through the window in slack-jawed amazement. Dark-skinned men and women wearing hardly any clothes peered back at them. One, a child with skin as black as coal, waved. Where, one of the trainmen wondered aloud, were they going? Madison Square Garden? To the port to catch a ship back to wherever they had come from? No, it must be Coney Island, insisted another, that was where the freaks of the world ended up. The trainmen would certainly have a story to tell their families that night. The foreman shouted at them to get back to work.

  The engineer let off the brakes, and the train trundled down the track toward Grand Central. It was just before 5:15 a.m. on Monday, May 15, 1905,1 when the Igorrotes’ car pulled up to the platform, giving a jolt, which woke the handful of tribespeople who were sleeping under a pile of rough military blankets. Grand Central was accustomed to welcoming eight hundred trains and seventy-five thousand passengers daily, but it had never seen a cargo like this.2 The Igorrotes experienced a now familiar blend of excited bewilderment. They had journeyed halfway across the world, and had rattled across eleven US states, through wide-open plains and busy railroad junctions. They had grown accustomed to new sights and sounds but nothing could have prepared them for their arrival in America’s greatest city.

  Outside, newspaper reporters and photographers jostled to get a view of the savages through the windows. They turned to each other as if to confirm what they were seeing. “The men looked the part of head-hunters with a vengeance,” observed one. “Both the men and women were tattooed from head to foot, the marks on the chest of some of the men indicating . . . that they were fully-fledged harvesters of heads. The women sat in the window smoking big, black cigars with great contentment, and one of them had two spools attached to large pieces of wire in her ears. Both sexes wore large brass earrings which were remarkably suggestive of the dog tags used in this city.”3

  Truman Hunt was usually cool under pressure. But today was different. After more than six months of planning, it was almost time for the show to begin. He could hardly wait. The Igorrotes were going to be the talk of Coney Island. No, of the nation. Before they left the train, he gave them a pep talk. Truman was an enthusiastic, if sometimes inexact, speaker of the Bontoc language. None of the tribe could mistake the energy of what he was saying but Julio had to step in from time to time to help when Truman couldn’t find the right words. The tribespeople were to be on their best behavior. Those who knew some English were permitted to speak to the reporters, provided they didn’t stray from the script they’d rehearsed with Truman and Julio on the journey.

  Egged on by Truman, Tainan and Friday began to cavort for the crowd. Fomoaley pushed to the front and puffed out his chest as he posed for the cameras. Around his neck the chief wore strings of beads decorated with what looked like human hair. Truman pointed out the tattoos on his body, which indicated his prowess as a headhunter. This was not the first time several of the photographers had stood this close to a murderer but, they thought, this one seemed remarkably good-humored. Hold up your spear and look angry so we can get a picture of you in a ferocious pose, shouted one of the photographers. Smiling graciously, the headhunter obliged.

  Reporters crowded around the Igorrotes and began shouting out questions. What do you think of America? Is it true that you eat dogs? Will you be hunting human heads here in America? Truman had a well-rehearsed answer at the ready. “The only heads they will take in this country will be those of the goddess of Liberty, inscribed on the good American dollar, at gay Coney Island this summer,” he said.4

  The newspapermen were struck by how friendly Truman and the tribespeople were with each other, laughing and joking in the Igorrotes’ native tongue. Truman had the air of an indulgent parent as he relayed the tale of how the superstitious tribespeople had spent the last part of the journey attempting to fight off the ghost of one of their countrymen who had died of pneumonia in Seattle and who they were convinced was haunting their train. Tunnels were particularly problematic. A couple of nights before their arrival in New York, the Igorrotes’ fears had reached a climax. It was late at night when one of them let out a bloodcurdling scream. Assuming that an intruder had burst into their train car, the tribesmen grabbed their battle-axes and yelled at the enemy to prepare to be massacred. The commotion had woken Truman, who, bleary-eyed, told them there was no one there. It was some time, the American added, before he could persuade the Filipinos to put down their arms.5 The reporters laughed.

  Behind the handful of Igorrotes who were reveling in the attention, many more stood rooted to the spot, struck dumb by the extraordinary scene of one of America’s biggest, busiest cities jolting to life. Newsboys yelled out the day’s top headlines, shoeshine boys were setting up shop, and the first wave of com
muters streamed through the station. Men carrying briefcases took a moment out of their busy lives to stop and stare, and children tugged at their mothers’ coats and pointed at the new arrivals. The Igorrotes peered back in awe at what they saw. The smell of hot coffee filled their nostrils.

  As the newspapermen asked their final questions, Truman bought a copy of the New York Times from a passing newsboy and scanned the front-page headlines. His eyes alighted on a report about a two-week battle on the southern Philippine island of Jolo between American troops and the followers of the outlaw chief of the Moro tribe, which had resulted in the deaths of three hundred Filipinos and seven Americans. The outlaw and his surviving army were reported to be in a swamp surrounded by American troops.6

  The Americans had made great progress in the Philippines, thought Truman, introducing a new system of law and order and building schools, roads, and hospitals, but there was still a lot of work to be done. And while President Theodore Roosevelt’s government liked to give the impression that American rule had been embraced as a force for good by the Philippine population, those who had been to the islands knew the reality was a good deal more complicated. Truman tucked the newspaper under his arm, and shouted to Julio and Callahan to herd the Igorrotes down a ramp leading to the subway platform. There they would board a train for the thirteen-minute ride downtown.

  A short distance from where the Igorrotes stood, the new season at Coney Island was already underway. Among the Shoot the Chutes waterslides and the dancing horses, wedged between the fat lady and the scenic railway, a large, empty lot awaited the arrival of the Filipino tribe. The park lost money every minute the lot sat unoccupied and money was Coney’s lifeblood.

  The new season had gotten off to a promising start, despite the missing Igorrotes. Spirits were high on opening day, Saturday, May 13, 1905. The sweet smell of cotton candy mingled with the salty sea air. Ballyhoo men yelled, music blared, and men, women, and children swarmed off steamboats, trains, and open trams, dressed in their finery for the occasion and intent on having fun. They had come from all over New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and beyond. For most of them, a trip to Coney was a once-a-year escape from the daily grind.

  Coney Island was made of tall tales. The birthplace of the hot dog and the roller coaster, it was the poor man’s paradise, offering sensation for a nickel. Coney bent the rules of time and space. Its currency was the huge and the tiny, the ten-ton woman and the ten-inch man. Freaks and curiosities lived alongside detailed recreations of kingdoms from beyond the seas. Part Victorian cabinet of curiosities, part compendium of global delights, at Coney the extraordinary was commonplace and the humdrum of everyday life could be forgotten.

  By the early twentieth century, it was America’s most popular seaside resort. On summer Sundays a quarter of a million people could be found in its three big amusement parks—Luna Park, Steeplechase Park, and Dreamland. “If Paris is France, then Coney Island, between June and September, is the world,” declared Steeplechase’s owner, George Tilyou.7 For most visitors the train or steamboat ride to Coney was as close as they were likely to get to foreign travel.

  For the ten-cent park entrance fee, even the most hard-up visitor could stand on the picturesque banks of the Grand Canal at Luna Park’s very own replica of Venice. Those with an additional quarter to spare could treat their beloved to a gondola ride in authentic narrow boats propelled by men in striped jerseys and straw boater hats, or take them to the Japanese tea garden to be waited on by geisha girls in stunning floor-length gowns of the finest silk.

  If Coney was a fantastical land, it was a land with two kings. Just two years previously, Thompson and Dundy had plowed everything they owned, along with three quarters of a million borrowed dollars ($18.4 million in today’s money), into creating Luna Park. Money was so tight that when Thompson went to Dundy shortly before the grand opening requesting a couple of dollars to buy a new pair of trousers, Dundy, who controlled their finances, refused. In a bid to save money, the pair had been rooming together in an apartment with so many leaks in the roof that whenever it rained, they had to sleep under a canopy of umbrellas.

  But just seven weeks after the park opened in 1903, Thompson and Dundy had paid off all their debts. Before long, they were so rich that Thompson could afford to take up residence in a suite of rooms at the Algonquin Hotel, where he had a dumbwaiter installed so the chefs in the kitchens below could send their dishes upstairs to be served by his Japanese butler, Sato.

  Famously nicknamed “Sodom by the sea,” due to the criminals, prostitutes, and rowdy beer halls that had been a feature of the area since the resort’s early days in the 1880s, Coney Island had done a lot in recent years to clean up its act. This was due in no small part to the genius of the new breed of showmen like Thompson and Dundy, whose great innovation had been to enclose their amusement parks, giving them an excuse to charge an admission fee as well as keeping the riffraff out. True, a large criminal element still hung around the Bowery, but there they were somebody else’s problem.

  Grand hotels sprung up along the seafront, offering guests every luxury they could imagine, many imported directly from Europe, from Parisian soap in the bathrooms to luxurious Italian bed linens. The hotels had deep wraparound verandas and wide green lawns running down to the sea. The ornate dining rooms served menus of roast lamb, littleneck clams, and baked bluefish, followed by ice cream on a bed of meringue. Guests were treated to live music and fireworks while Pinkerton detectives patrolled the grounds to make sure undesirables stayed out.

  While Coney was changing the face of leisure, it was also making its mark on popular culture. Luna Park was immortalized by the popular vaudeville singer Billy Murray in the song “Meet Me Down At Luna, Lena.” In the song, a young man by the name of Herman invites the object of his desires, a German girl, Lena, to join him for a day out at Luna Park, “a real place for lovers,” where they would ride on Thompson’s famous attraction, A Trip to the Moon:

  Meet me down at Luna, Lena

  Meet me at the gate.

  Do not disappoint me, Lena

  I’ll be there at eight.

  We’ll make the trip up to the moon,

  For that is the place for a lark.

  So meet me down at Luna, Lena

  Down at Luna Park.8

  By 1905 Thompson and Dundy knew their business inside out, and they knew that the Igorrotes were destined to be the standout hit of the new season. The Kings of Coney had taken out advertisements in all the major New York newspapers to boast of their newest attraction. Reporters came to interview Thompson and Dundy, who informed them that the Igorrotes were bringing bamboo, straw, and other building materials with them from the Philippines. “They will build their own peculiar houses, and will live exactly as if they were in their own mountain home,” said Thompson.9 For a quarter—the highest fee charged at any of Luna’s attractions—visitors would gain access to a scene straight from the wilds of the Philippines: Igorrotes weaving baskets, making copper pipes, cooking, and carving shields and spears. If they were lucky—and they would be lucky “every hour, on the hour”—they might witness the Igorrotes performing tribal dances, head-hunting chants, and spear-throwing demonstrations.

  Thompson and Dundy didn’t like to be kept waiting. They’d received a telegram from Truman informing them that he would be arriving with the Igorrotes that same day. There was nothing for it but to wait.

  Goose bumps pricked Friday’s arms as he stood on the platform at the Park Row elevated train station in lower Manhattan. He gazed down at the tracks just in time to see a rat scurry along the rails below. He held up the small mirror from which he was never parted and attempted to throw the light of the morning sun into the rodent’s eyes. He edged closer for a better look as the creature’s long tail disappeared through a crack. Maria reached forward and grabbed the boy by the arm. Reluctantly, Friday stepped back, clutching the mirror tightly in his hand. As the Igorrotes waited on the platform for a train to
take them over the Brooklyn Bridge, the city streets were waking up below them. Commuters hurried along the sidewalk accompanied by the roar of streetcars delivering New York’s newspapermen, attorneys, and government officials to their offices.

  Along the platform, Julio reflected that he knew almost nothing about New York beyond the scraps he had gleaned from his conversations with Truman. It had been two months since they had left the Philippines. And here they were, just a short train ride from the place they would soon call home. Julio was excited about the challenge ahead. When he came to America the last time, he was just another member of the group. This time was different. He was their leader, of sorts, and he felt the weight of responsibility on his young shoulders.

  Feloa had been one of the first to volunteer to take part in Truman’s scheme. If he stayed in the Philippines, he knew that life would bring few surprises. He had already married his sweetheart, and together they had had four children. It had been hard to leave them behind, but Feloa wanted to provide his family with a better future. If he had not taken this opportunity, he would forever have wondered what might have been. Feloa looked at the American men and women waiting for the train, then gazed down at his own clothes.

  Before they left Seattle, Truman had spent $1.41 on new clothes for the entire group, intended to keep out the cold and minimize unwanted attention when they made their way through towns and cities.10 But even with the addition of long skirts and pants, the tattooed, bead-wearing tribespeople looked incongruous among the early-morning collection of businessmen, salesclerks, and secretaries. A few feet from where Feloa stood, a young woman stole a polite sideways glance. When the tribesman looked up, she turned her head away hurriedly.

  The Igorrotes were late, Truman could no longer remember by how many days. Ever since his posting to the wilds of Bontoc, his timekeeping had become atrocious. While stationed there he had planned to spend one Christmas with the soldiers at the nearest American army base 150 miles away, but he’d lost track of time and turned up ten days late. Truman was used to doing things his own way. Besides, the Igorrotes were the biggest attraction of the year—the owners of Luna Park could afford to wait. Anticipation would only make the reward sweeter.