Much better, now that I have the bus and Metrolink schedules fixed (or so I thought). Plumbed the archives, looking for photographs and World's Fair catalogs and magazines; worked myself to a nauseated state looking through months of the Post-Dispatch on microfilm. But now I have a whole stack of photocopies and notes to add to my article.
Here's an excerpt from a spectator's letter to his wife, dated June 20, 1904 (from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company Collection):
I went up to the Philippine Village to-day and saw the wild, barbaric Igorots, who eat dogs, and are so vicious that [they] are fenced in, and guarded by a special constabulary. They are absolutely naked, men and women, with the exception of a towel wound around their loins and up through legs. They have a wild look in their eyes, and are deathly afraid of cameras. The officials will not allow any one to take snap shots of them, for it arouses their ire and they will throw bolos, knifes or spears at anyone attempting it. It seems that to them it is an omen of bad luck to be photographed, and they leave when they see a camera.Also hung out with my apartment-mate, Jess Tabasa, from Watsonville -- just about the friendliest guy here -- and we talk on and on about his life as part of the Bridge generation. Later on we walked half a mile back to Breakaway Cafe; the waitpeople not only remembered me, they also told me that they overcharged me last night! Later on, after a few beers, we can barely calculate how to split the tab....They are the lowest type of civilizatIon I ever saw and thirst for blood... In the Moro village the men and women are not so barbaric, though they are vicious -- the name Moro signifies "head-hunters" and it is said they always lop off the heads of their victims...
Oscar Penaranda turns out to be our third apartment-mate; he commits a misdemeanor within ten minutes of coming through the door.
Posted by the wily filipino at July 25, 2004 12:26 PM