The Lost Tribe of Coney Island

by Claire Prentice

  But the controversy surrounding the incident with the hen was nothing compared to that which would soon be provoked by another tribal ritual. Less than a week after the opening of the Igorrote Village, a woman turned up in a state of agitation, claiming her beloved dog, Prince, had been devoured by the Filipinos. According to Mrs. Mary Jackman, she had been visiting Luna Park with Prince and, after she was distracted by a circus performer, she turned around to find her pet dog had gone. At first Mrs. Jackman assumed the dog had found its own way home, but when she returned and discovered her house empty, she pointed the finger of blame at the Filipinos.

  The Coney police were called in to question the Igorrotes, with Julio and Truman translating. When that failed to yield results, Truman promised to undertake his own investigation under the watchful gaze of the Coney crowd. With Julio in tow, he mounted a theatrical search of the Igorrote enclosure. The public looked on eagerly as the two men searched the Igorrotes’ homes, rifling through their possessions before emerging every now and again to show that their hands were empty. Then Truman went over to a native kettle, sitting beside the fire. When he peered inside it, he discovered a number of bones. Holding them up, he declared that they “may belong to Prince.”6

  This show served its purpose. Cartoons appeared in the newspapers depicting the Igorrotes stealing dogs from American homes. CHAIN UP YOUR DOG, screamed the headlines. No one seemed to notice (or care) that Mrs. Jackman was the wife of the proprietor of Coney’s musical railways and a neighbor of Truman’s. In every sense the disappearance of Prince was an inside job. The American Humane Association came calling again. Truman was ready for them and insisted the dog feasts were a vital part of tribal life and could not be stopped.

  With combined glee and revulsion, the New York press reported that dog was the only meat the Igorrotes ever ate. In reality, the Igorrotes only ate dogmeat on special occasions like weddings, funerals, and after a successful head-hunting foray, but Truman had a showman’s impulse not to let the facts interfere with a good story. He informed the public that young, short-haired dogs of around four years of age were regarded by the Igorrotes to be the tastiest and were typically served boiled with sweet potatoes.

  The sacrifice of a dog was an important Igorrote custom and, though they were reluctant to say anything at first, some of the tribe felt the daily dog feasts at Coney were undermining their cultural significance. Not only that, but their bodies couldn’t digest all of the meat that they were being given. On behalf of them all, the tribal chief approached Julio with a request that they be allowed to return to a more varied and authentic diet of chicken, pork, fish, rice, beans, and vegetables, with occasional servings of dog.

  Julio was a gifted negotiator, trusted and well liked by the Igorrotes. They didn’t seem to mind that he was treated differently by their American bosses and that he was excused from the dancing and other tribal displays. The dogmeat problem was the first serious test of Julio’s loyalty, and he felt it deeply. But though he was eager to help his countrymen, he knew this was one battle he couldn’t win. Visitors came to Coney wanting to see the tribe eat dog, so eat dog they must. He decided that on this one occasion he would keep quiet. Truman wasn’t paying him twenty-five dollars a month to make trouble. In the Philippines he’d be lucky to be earning five dollars a month, even in a good government job or teaching post. If the rest of the group had stayed at home, with little or no education, they might never have had the chance to earn wages. Instead they would have faced a lifetime of tending their land and raising a few animals. Truman was paying them generously. For that they must learn to adapt and tolerate the occasional hardship. In time, Julio thought, the tribespeople would grow accustomed to the change in their diet. If they didn’t, well, then he would see what he could do.

  Life under Coney’s bright lights forced the Igorrotes to adapt in other ways too. The industrious mountain dwellers were accustomed to getting up before sunrise and going to bed when the sun set. In their new home, they continued to wake early but they had to stay up until midnight, putting on a show for their visitors. It was hard for some of them to stay awake and it wasn’t unheard of in the weeks following their arrival for one or two of the weary tribespeople to doze off.

  Friday was so awed by his surroundings that he found it difficult to sleep at all. Day and night he could hear music, shouting, and the sounds of people having fun. In northern Luzon, there was little noise to speak of, save for the birds and wild cats. Friday didn’t mind Coney’s noise but he yearned to see the source of it for himself. He would be content to stay within Luna Park’s gates if he could only catch a glimpse of the rest of the park and the amusements the visitors enjoyed.

  When Julio returned to the village after a trip to the store one afternoon, Friday begged the interpreter to take him with him the next time. Julio didn’t want to upset the boy, so he said he would ask Truman. Friday’s belly rumbled as he imagined the American candies he would buy at the store.

  Still smiling at the thought of his sugary feast, Friday walked over to where a group of the women and girls were busy weaving, and sat down at their feet. An immense cigar dangled permanently from the corner of the boy’s mouth. To the American visitors it looked odd, but the boy had been smoking for as long as he could remember. Just as Julio had promised back in Manila, Friday had a new playmate, a filthy mutt, which had so far been spared the fate of the other dogs brought to the tribe from the New York pound. It had become the young boy’s constant companion.

  The women chatted and laughed while Friday threw stones for the dog to chase. Tiring of this game, the Negrito waited until none of the women were looking, then he reached up and hurriedly tied one of their dangling threads to the dog’s tail. He then picked up a stick and threw it. The mutt ran after the stick, pulling the women’s threads with him. The women leaped up and began to shout. Running after the dog, they attempted to untangle him and recover their handiwork. Friday stood watching the chaos with satisfaction until Fomoaley strode over and slapped him across the shoulders. The young boy sloped off to find some other source of entertainment.

  The mud had barely set on the walls of the tribe’s huts before they were enveloped in yet another outcry, this time over their lack of clothing. Coney Island society, never known for its high morals, was shocked by the Filipinos’ scanty attire and, according to a report in the New York Morning Telegraph, “for the first time in its life, protested.”7 Never one to shy away from publicity, Truman waded into the debate, insisting that it was “imperative” that the tribespeople be allowed to wear their own minimal clothing. “They would die of colds were they to wear our heavy clothing,”8 said the doctor inexplicably. The truth, of course, was that if he covered them up, he knew no one would come and see them.

  In early June, Willis Brooks, a reporter from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, stopped by and said he wanted to write a big article on the Filipino tribe for the front page of that weekend’s paper. Truman was away and had left George Fuller, Friday’s guardian who had recently joined them in New York, in charge.

  Like Truman, Fuller had served with the US Army in the Philippines and had gotten to know the tribespeople there. Fuller was happy to show the journalist around, but he stressed that his esteemed colleague, Dr. Hunt, was the number-one authority on the tribe, and “probably knows more about the Igorrotes than any other white man on earth.”9

  During their long association with the tribe, Fuller and Truman had both formed the opinion that the Igorrotes were the most honest people they had ever encountered. “We have to handle these little people as carefully as you would dynamite. They are so punctiliously truthful themselves that the smallest of white lies on our part would rob us of their confidence and friendship,”10 said Fuller. “There is nothing halfway about them. They give you either their full confidence or none; and when they withdraw their confidence all friendship is at an end . . . They are frankly, openly, courageously your enemy until you can convince them that you did not mean to de
ceive them . . . If an Igorrote makes a promise to you, no matter how trivial it seems to you, he will fulfill it if it costs him his life.”

  Brooks was accompanied by a cartoonist who’d come along to sketch the tribe. He wandered through the village with Julio, observing the Igorrotes as they went about their daily activities. He drew Manidol the medicine man, who was delighted to learn that his face would be in the newspaper and asked Julio to buy him a copy so he could show it to his friends back home. Julio agreed, secretly amused at the tribesman’s vanity.

  The cartoonist walked around the village and noticed a pretty young woman whom Julio informed him was Daipan. The artist asked her if she would be willing to pose for a sketch. Blushing, Daipan agreed. He sat down and rested his sketchbook on his lap. He drew quickly and began asking her questions as he worked. How old are you? She told him she was around sixteen, and that she was the daughter of a distinguished headhunter who had been killed during the Spanish-American War. The girl’s eyes filled with tears. He looked at her sympathetically, then wrote her name underneath the sketch alongside the words “the belle of the village.” It was an opinion shared by the reporter, who noted that she was “a plump little thing, shapely and far from ugly to look upon.”11

  The most entertaining subject, though, was Friday. The boy danced around and tried out the handful of English phrases and words he’d picked up. Though the Negrito boy didn’t like dogmeat, he was happy to oblige when the cartoonist asked him to demonstrate how he looked and felt before and after a dog feast. For the “before” sketch, Friday looked pained, as if he would die if he didn’t taste the dog’s succulent flesh in the next instant. For the “after” drawing, the young boy puffed out his belly and clutched his sides as if he might burst. When he was finished, the artist thanked the boy and slipped him a nickel.

  Fuller took Brooks inside one of the Igorrotes’ huts. He explained that they were homebodies by nature who rarely traveled more than three miles from their villages, making this appearance at Luna Park a unique opportunity for the public to witness the tribe up close.

  Noticing the axes that every Igorrote man possessed, Brooks asked Fuller to tell him about the tribe’s head-hunting custom. Fuller explained that every Igorrote town was at war with its neighbors. A head hunt began with a tribesman throwing a rock at an approaching enemy. Then one of the other men in his group would throw a spear at the enemy’s abdomen. If it struck him, a young Igorrote who had not taken a head before would be given the honor of slicing the still breathing victim’s head off with his virgin ax. “The Igorrotes go out hunting enemies just as we hunt bears,”12 explained Fuller, picking up an ax. “When a hunter has killed an enemy of his people, he cuts his head off with a hatchet such as you see here and brings it home in this sort of basket.” He held up a basket that one of the men had finished weaving (all basket work was traditionally done by the men). After the kill the other men often joined in, hacking off the slain enemy’s hands, feet, arms, and legs so that soon only his torso was left. The reporter sat wide-eyed. Fuller continued, “Then they tattoo one of those fancy lines upon his breast. Every line means a head.”13

  After a successful head hunt, the village would erupt into a celebration, with singing, dancing, and feasting. The following morning the head was taken to the river to be washed. The lower jaw was cut from the head, boiled to remove the flesh, and turned into a handle for the victor’s gang´-sa, a gong-like instrument. There followed a month of feasting and holidays. Carabao, hogs, dogs, and chickens were killed and eaten. No work except that which was absolutely necessary was performed. Why do they do it? asked Brooks. What would the man have done? Nothing, said Fuller with a smile, they do it because they are bored and want some excitement.14

  Brooks shook hands with Fuller and Fomoaley and prepared to leave. Gathering up his belongings, the reporter felt a shiver run down his spine as he eyed the many lines inked on the tribal chief’s chest.

  Over the coming weeks, the Igorrotes cemented their reputation as Coney’s biggest attraction. The public couldn’t get enough of them. Those who could afford to returned again and again. Some visitors had favorite Igorrotes, typically children, for whom they brought gifts and money. There were offers of adoption, education, and patronage. They received parcels of clothes, candies, and cigars from all over the country.

  Before long news of the Igorrotes’ arrival at Coney reached the White House. Among the dignitaries who came to see them in 1905 was President Theodore Roosevelt’s eldest daughter, Alice, then aged twenty-one. Miss Roosevelt arrived at Coney in a touring car with a group of friends, as guests of the philanthropist, investor, and racehorse breeder Payne Whitney. They toured the park grounds, trailed by a gaggle of press agents.

  In the Igorrote enclosure, Alice and her friends were greeted by Julio, wearing his signature American suit and leather shoes. Behind him, the rest of the “savages,” wearing their most festive G-strings, blankets, and beads, got down on their knees to welcome her. Miss Roosevelt told Julio that she planned to follow in her father’s footsteps and visit the Philippines herself as part of an American diplomatic and trade mission to Japan, and the Far East later that year. The visiting VIP and her friends then watched with evident pleasure as the tribe sang and danced.15

  Soon the Igorrotes’ fame spread across the country. Souvenir postcards had been popular since the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. By the time the Igorrotes arrived at Coney, stalls up and down the beachfront were selling hundreds of thousands of postcards each week, featuring photographs of the Eskimos, the Lilliputian village, and the big wheel. Vacationers scrawled messages on them boasting of the fun they were having and sent them to friends and family back home. One of the most popular postcards in the summer of 1905 featured a tall man dressed as Uncle Sam in red and white striped trousers, a blue jacket, and a top hat. There was nothing special about Uncle Sam, an out-of-work actor who strode the boardwalk all day, drumming up interest in Coney’s attractions. But surrounding him and looking up at Uncle Sam was a family of diminutive Igorrotes. The image symbolized an encounter between two worlds. Just ten miles from downtown Manhattan, metropolis of the modern age, Stone Age men and women were living in a village by the sea.

  8

  Divided Loyalties

  LUNA PARK, JULY 1905

  The Igorrotes at Luna Park, with Julio on the far right, sitting next to Maria, and Friday on the far left

  IN THE TWO months they had been living among the eight-thousand-strong Coney community, Julio had made a few friends outside the village. He often went to visit Judy the elephant, and took her fruit whenever he had some. Her trainer, Barlow, showed Julio the leathery spot behind Judy’s huge flapping ears where she loved to be patted. He also met Alexander, “the Hindu Magician,” who lived in a hut behind the Igorrote Village, and whose act involved firing lead balls from his mouth. Alexander had been a big hit at the Hippodrome and had been invited by Thompson to transfer his act over to Luna Park. Julio enjoyed watching his tricks and hearing his stories of the many places he had been, but the truth was the Filipino interpreter frequently felt out of place among the “freaks” and human curiosities at Coney. He didn’t feel as if he was one of them, but neither was he one of the bosses or managers. He had plenty of friends in the Igorrote Village but his job as Truman’s assistant created a distance between him and his countrymen and women. The animals were easy company.

  That day as he walked out through the park gates and onto Surf Avenue to buy provisions, the interpreter thought back to the first time he had ventured outside alone into the crowded New York streets. Though he would never have admitted it to anyone, he had felt overwhelmed by the great throngs of people and more than a little afraid. Of what, he wasn’t sure. But he had forced himself to keep going. In time the fear had turned to wonder. Now he loved these expeditions. He wandered alone among the day-trippers and vacationers, looking at the ladies’ long dresses and picture hats and at the men’s elegant suits, and imagined that one
day he and Maria would dress like that. He was already planning to buy a straw boater as soon as he had enough money. But that day he hardly noticed the other people on the street.

  He pulled open the door of the store and two young men, not far from his own age, emerged from inside. They were laughing at some tale one of them had told. Julio stood back to let them pass and watched them for a moment. Sighing, he went inside. It dawned on Julio that, for the first time since leaving home, he felt lonely. He couldn’t mention it to Maria. It had been his idea to come, and besides he knew that Maria had been feeling homesick lately. He had to be strong for her.

  Julio scooped up an armful of candies and cookies. He asked the man behind the counter for some of their cheapest tobacco. Truman gave him an allowance each week to buy supplies for the tribe, but the money didn’t last long. Standing in the store, Julio was suddenly overcome with an unfamiliar sadness. In that moment he would have given anything to talk to his older brother, Nicasio. The two of them shared a similar temperament, and they were both hardworking, intellectually curious, and ambitious. Julio wondered what Nicasio would say if he could see him now. He would probably tell Julio to stop feeling so sorry for himself. The thought made the interpreter smile. He took his groceries off the counter. Truman had given him an incredible opportunity and he must make the most of it.

  Julio walked over to the door but a headline in one of the newspapers stopped him in his tracks: IGORROTES AND WHITES IN BATTLE.1 He stepped forward to take a closer look. The article described how Thompson and Dundy had been summoned to the Igorrote Village early that morning after a huge fight broke out between the Filipinos and the white residents of Coney Island. The cause, it claimed, was the tribe’s love of dogmeat. So greedy were they for the succulent canine flesh, they had broken into the stables housing Albert Carre’s circus under cover of darkness and stolen several fox terriers and a Russian wolfhound. When the circus man awoke, he immediately noticed the missing animals and rushed to find the culprits. The smoldering embers of a fire had led him to the Igorrote Village, where he found singed dog hairs scattered all over the place. According to the article, forty men rushed to punish the Igorrotes, carrying pitchforks, whips, and shovels. The Igorrotes reportedly grabbed their spears and let out shrill war cries. Only when the elephant trainer intervened by turning the hose on the Igorrotes did the battle subside. Fearing that the Igorrotes would try to stage a similar theft again, Thompson said he had erected a twenty-foot-tall fence around the Filipinos and had sent all the Luna Park special policemen to watch over the tribe. Julio was even mentioned in the article as innocently denying the thefts.2