Moro people

“ The chief abhors the white man because he interferes with the chiefʼs living by the labour of his tribe, and the tribesman himself is too ignorant even to contemplate emancipation. Subservience to the bidding of the wily Datto, poverty, squalidity, and tribal warfare for bravado or interest seem as natural to the Moro as the sight of the rising sun. Hence, when the Americans resolved to change all this and marched into the tribal territories for the purpose, the war-gongs rallied the fighting-men to resist the dreaded foe, unconscious of his mission of liberty under the star-spangled banner. ”

“ Although distrustful, lazy, and malignant, the Moro is consistent in his hatred for the unbeliever, and untiring on the war-path. Scorning all manner of work, he leads an active forest life, killing the wild pig, which religious scruples prevent his eating, and waging war against the neighboring tribes. He is a born slave-catcher and a pirate. He will drink sea-water when no other is available. He shows a diabolical cunning in the manufacture of his weapons. Nothing can be more terrible than the long, snaky blade of a Malay kriss. ”

“ Various events are related in regard to efforts to reduce these Moros who are less in number than is generally supposed, for though the Moros generally acquiesce in the Spanish proposals to assume village life, their willingness is only feigned. Those about the gulf are the “remains of powerful and warlike Moros, who in the not distant past collected tribute from the Mandayas and other heathens.” There are two classes of Moros, the datos, or aristocracy, and the common people. With the first rank must be included the panditas or priests. ”

“ While their religion and fanaticism render them almost foolhardy in a battle, if a Moro sees that he is beaten and that escape is possible, he will avail himself of opportunities to fight another day. If brought to bay, however, he is desperate, and in his more religious moments he will throw himself on a superior enemy, expecting a sure death, but confident of riding the white horse to paradise if he succeeds in spilling the blood of infidels. ”

“ Their system of government is patriarchal, and the chief of the tribe is called bandarra. They pay their tributes to the Moro datos as an annual rent for the lands which they cultivate. The women adorn their hands and legs in an insupportable manner, with huge brass rings; and they pierce their ears in which they place pendants more than one centimeter in diameter. The men allow their hair to grow like the heathens of other tribes, but do not tie it up like those tribes. Their weapons and industry show the influence that they have received from the Moros. ”

“ Their descendants inherit the same blood, bone, and brain; therefore it is to be inferred that, under a just Government, with security of life and property, the Moorish people might again rise and become, as their ancestors were, one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world.
‘At the present time the Government of Morocco is like a community of fishes. The giant fish feed upon those that are small, the smaller upon the least, and these again feed on the worms. ”

“ All in all, the Moro country is far below the northern islands in civilization whether the civilization is measured by a material, an intellectual, a political or a moral standard. But [203] even among the Moros I believe it is possible to introduce American ideas. Already some progress is being made in the establishment of schools, and Governor Findley has succeeded in interesting the natives in exchanges where trade is carried on according to American methods. While polygamy is still permitted, slavery is being exterminated and the natives are being shown the advantage of free labor. ”

“ When it is remembered that thousands upon thousands of slaves are imported into Morocco from the interior of Africa every year, that they become eventually "free," their children inheriting equal rights with other children, it is no longer a matter of wonder that the Moorish race shows signs of deterioration, that its people are effete. It is after meeting with men such as Hadj Cadour and many others, who hark back to the old type of chief and horseman and the desert [324] life, touched with the old vein of poetry and chivalry, that one regrets the things which are. ”

“ Though the generic term Moor is applied by Europeans to all the inhabitants of Morocco, there are really four distinct racial divisions of the population: the Berbers, who, being the earliest-known possessors of the land, are the genuine Moroccans, and are, when of unmixed blood, a very energetic and vigorous people, indeed; the Arabs, who are the descendants of the Mohammedan conquerors of the country and possess to the full the Arab characteristics of arrogance, indolence, and cruelty ”

“ Added to the terrors of the Moros is also the active injury inflicted by the Dutch, those heretics allying themselves even with the Moros to cause injury to the true Catholic faith. The peace between Spain and Holland comes as a most welcome relief to the colony. The Recollect villages and missions being in the very midst of the Moro territory are the worst afflicted by that scourge. Their pitiful petitions for aid fall on deaf ears, for at Manila, self interest rules, and trade is the syren of the hour, not religion. ”

“ Many American customs that do not entrench on the Holy Law have been adopted with no little avidity by the Moros, and the Stars and Stripes float over the home of every native fortunate enough to possess a flag. This is particularly noticeable in and around Zamboanga, but an officer belonging to the regiment stationed there told us a tale illustrating the Moro’s love for things American, that reads like a romance. ”

“ Among the newcomers were men who became powerful rulers, and they, in time, brought together many of the settlements which formerly had been hostile to each other and united them under the faith of Islam. Those who accepted the new faith adopted the dress and many of the customs of their teachers and came to be known as Moro. ”

“ During the harvest time there is a truce in these turbulent islands, but when the crops have been gathered, the natives become restless and long to sally forth to conquer. The myth that victory comes only to the tribe whose fire-tree has bloomed is implicitly believed, and impatiently the Moros await this announcement of the combat season. Paying no heed to their capital city, Manila, these merry little isles revel in intrigue, and there is no sport in Moroland that can compare with the combat. Tribes go forth to conquer and enslave others ”

“ For several years I had been watching Morocco as a man who follows the profession of ‘Special Correspondent’ always watches a place that promises exciting ‘copy.’ For many years trouble had been brewing there. On the Algerian frontier tribes were almost constantly at odds with the French; in the towns the Moors would now and then assault and sometimes kill a European; round about Tangier a brigand named Raisuli repeatedly captured Englishmen and other foreigners for the sake of ransom; and among the Moors themselves hardly a tribe was not at war with some other tribe or with the Sultan. ”

“ This tribe of freebooters appears to be quite a distinct set of people; they seem to have an invincible aversion to the Mahometan religion, and worship the sun and fire; they speak a different language from the rest of the inhabitants, a mixture of African and the old Arabic; all which circumstances favour their own report of themselves, which is, that they are the genuine descendants of the original inhabitants. They look down upon the more civilized Moors with contempt, and consider them as the real usurpers of their country, and the plunderers of their property. ”

“ A writer on the East has said of the Moors that they are the Puritans of Islam, and the first glimpse of Morocco will attest the truth of this. Not a Moor has laid aside the jeleba and the corresponding headgear, turban or fez. In the streets of Tangier—of all Moorish towns the most ‘contaminated’ with Christians—there is not a tramway or a hackney cab. Not a railway penetrates the country anywhere, not a telegraph, nor is there a postal service. Except for the discredited Sultan (whose ways have precipitated the disruption of the Empire) not a Moor has tried the improvements of Europe. ”

“ He married in the land of his conquest, and the ties of faith were soon strengthened by the ties of blood and kinship; and as the first generation passed and the second generation followed, the conqueror and the conquered became one in blood and sympathy, one in faith, and one in purpose. A new dynasty which stood for Islam, for progress, and for civilization arose on the ruins of barbarism and heathenism. Savage and fierce as the Moros look, they are greatly superior to the surrounding pagans who inhabit the hills and the interior of Mindanao. ”

“ I think it wiser on the part of the Commission to postpone the consideration of the Moro question until we have passed legislation to meet needs that are more pressing throughout the northern part of these possessions of the United States. For a great many years to come there will be no question of popular government in the Moro country; the Moros do not understand popular government, do not desire it, and are entirely content with the control by their dattos. ”

“ But for my part there is no sentimental feeling for Morocco. That a government is old is no reason, for me, that it should be maintained. Because the Moors have always ridden horses, I see no reason why they should not ride in carriages or even in trains. In fact, I sympathise with the unfortunate beasts of burden and with the suffering Moors themselves. I was not affected, like the great French writer, more by the beauty and the romance of the country than by the horror and distress ”

“ Since the Moros do not agree in any part, and much less here, where we have so many other good and numerous races, it would be very politic, in my opinion, to encourage the spirit of the Moros who are attempting to separate from their datos and panditas, so that the latter may become isolated and without any authority. ”

“ The produce of the looms of Morocco to-day equals in beauty and taste, if it does not surpass, [Pg 95] that of any country. At Tetuan the Mosaics are now made which adorn the Alhambra. Science has departed, but is that an essential of greatness? When a nation sinks to the barbarism that follows light, it is indifferent to honour: it hates itself more than its foe or conqueror. The Moor is not such.
The Moors at home are more wedded than any Mussulman people to their usages; more fanatic, more abhorrent of all intercourse with strangers. When they come to Europe they make themselves at home. ”

“ True, whilst this very man enjoys his wealth and place he oppresses all the tribe to the utmost of his power; but still I fancy that hardly a Moor alive would change the desultory Eastern tyranny, which he has suffered under all his life, and under which his fathers groaned since the beginning of the world, for the six-monthly visit of the tax p. 43collector as in Algeria. When people in Morocco speak of Algeria they admit the safety of the roads, the gathered harvests, no hostile intervention coming between the sickle and the wheat ”

“ Swarms of servants and slaves hung around in every available door, all of them in Moro costume, with the exception of the small children, and they were legion, who revelled in the luxury of bare brown skins, and, strange to say, did not look at all undressed, as would Caucasian children under similar conditions, the dark skins rather suggesting a spontaneous covering. ”

“ Originally immigrants from Borneo, from Celehes or Ternate, with some Arab admixture, the Moros have for centuries filled their harems with the women of the hill-tribes, and with Tagal and Visayas and even Spanish women, taken in their piratical excursions. They are now a very mixed race, but retain all their war-like characteristics.
Cut off from the sea by the Spanish Naval forces, they turned with greater energy than ever to the plundering and enslaving of their neighbours, the hill-men. These poor creatures, living in small groups, could offer but little resistance, and fell an easy prey. ”

“ Morocco as it is is a very fine place spoiled by civilization. Not nice civilization but the dregs of it, the broken down noblemen of Spain and cashiered captains of England and the R—— L——'s of America. They hunt and play cricket and gamble and do nothing to maintain what is best in the place or to help what is worst. I love the Moors and the way they hate the Christian and the scorn and pride they show. They seem to carry all the mystery and dignity of Africa and of foreign conquests about them, and they are wonderfully well made and fine looking and self-respecting. ”

“ It is that, and not knowing what the morrow may bring, that has brought me to the writing of this last love letter should either of us pass into the shadow of things.
On the nearby Island of Mindanao live the savage fanatics, the Moros. These people have been a terror to the Spaniards and are the nightmare of our own men. They are Mohammedans, and the fiercest, most treacherous fighters of all the Philippine Islands. They cannot be civilized, they cannot be conquered, they can only be killed. There is a bloody tradition about them and the Spaniards ”

“ The term Moro is used to describe the Mohammedan Filipino and includes a number of tribes occupying the large island of Mindanao, the smaller islands adjacent to it and those of the Sulu archipelago.
The northeast corner of Mindanao is separated from the island of Leyte by the Surigao Strait, and that part of Mindanao has considerable sprinkling of Christian Filipinos, but both that island and the Sulus can be considered Moro country. The Americans recognize the difference between the two groups of islands and administer government according to different plans. ”