2. According to Worcester's report (1903), largely culled from legal proceedings, most slaves sold in Nueva Vizcaya went for 80 to 120 pesos. Governor Pack (Philippine Commission 1903, v. 1:153) reported meanwhile that a cow would sell in Benguet for 80 to 100 pesos. Most slaves purchased by the Buguias traders were debtors, thieves, or captives from other Ifugao regions. [BACK]

3. Some locally minted coins passed as ''legitimate" (i.e., imperial). At least one observer (Lander 1904:513) took this "counterfeiting" as proof that the local people were becoming civilized! Buguias residents, however, remember their copper coins as having been struck on one side only, indicating that they were intended strictly for local use. (On American efforts to suppress Cordilleran minting, see File 1468, Record Group 350, The National Archives, Washington D.C.) [BACK]

4. It must be noted that the lowland Filipino elite generally despised the sometimes close association between the Americans and the Igorots. This sentiment is clearly evident in a translated newspaper editorial from 1913:

Notwithstanding the propinquity of the powers that be, who . . . are people ever disposed to sacrifice all on the alters of civilization and the progress of humanity, the Igorots of Baguio remain in the same state morally as when they were beside the Spanish, dirty, indecently clad, without any idea of what is required to keep up with the onward procession of humanity. And the worst of the thing is that those who should educate them and direct their intelligence along the roads of progress, take advantage of their state of ignorance to amuse themselves to the full, by their presence countenancing their feasts that the unfortunate people organize of a decidedly savage character. Before us we have a report that tells us recently there was held on these heights a canao (Igorot festival where they eat heartily of dogflesh and drink basi and dance frantically around the fires) and that at the feast all of the most prominent members of the administration in the locality put in an appearance. [From La Democracia March 25, 1913, held in The National Archives, Record Group 350, file 2388.]