Daan-daang katutubong Pilipino, dinala sa Amerika noong 1904 para itampok sa tinatawag na ‘Human Zoo’ sa St. Louis World’s Fair. Ang ilan sa katutubo, hindi lang ginamit para pagkakitaan sa exhibit. Ang kanilang utak kasi, kinuha rin para pag-aralan sa Racial Brain Collection ng Smithsonian Institution. Ano ang dahilan sa likod ng eksperimentong ito?
Ang isa sa mga sinasabing kinuhanan ng utak para sa museo, ang 18-anyos na si Maura. Sino nga ba siya? Nasaan ang kanyang pamilya? Ang kasagutan, inakyat ni Jessica Soho sa bayan ng Mankayan sa Benguet. Ang buong kuwento, panoorin sa video.
Ang isa sa mga sinasabing kinuhanan ng utak para sa museo, ang 18-anyos na si Maura. Sino nga ba siya? Nasaan ang kanyang pamilya? Ang kasagutan, inakyat ni Jessica Soho sa bayan ng Mankayan sa Benguet. Ang buong kuwento, panoorin sa video.
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00:00 We will now go through the pages of our history.
00:07 Hundreds of Filipinos were brought to America to be a human display or exhibit.
00:15 Some of them came from the Cordillera tribes.
00:23 In 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition or St. Louis World's Fair was held in America.
00:32 Aside from exhibiting new technologies and inventions around the world,
00:39 modern transportation such as steamships and airships was also held.
00:45 There were also amusement parks and rides.
00:51 But the main attraction was the part of the forest park where not only animals but also real people were exhibited.
01:05 Here, 10,000 people from different parts of the world were displayed
01:10 as human displays for what was called the World's Largest Human Zoo.
01:19 Their appearance was like a real human, so they were also called Artificial Villages.
01:26 You show the wealth you got from different countries you conquered
01:32 to show that this is your power and you will spread it to the world.
01:36 Among the exhibits, there were the so-called Igurot Villages.
01:44 Aside from being a place for headhunters and dog eaters, the Igurot were considered primitive or not civilized.
01:53 In almost 8 months of the fair,
01:56 20 million people were counted from different parts of the world.
02:05 Until the dark side of the history of the world was discussed for the last time after more than 100 years.
02:16 This was after The Washington Post reported in America just last week
02:24 that some of the people who were found in the so-called Human Zoo
02:30 were not only used to earn money from the exhibit, but also to get money for their education.
02:38 In the Racial Brain Collection of the well-known Smithsonian Museum or Institution in America,
02:46 one of the so-called "brains" for the museum is the 18-year-old Igurota, Maura.
02:55 Who is Maura? Does she have a family? Do they know what happened to her?
03:01 There is no clear document about her identity and where she came from.
03:14 According to The Washington Post,
03:17 Maura is possibly one of 25 relatives from the Kankanae tribe who were encouraged to join America
03:26 from the community of Suyok in the town of Mangkayan in Benguet.
03:31 This Tuesday, I traveled for almost 10 hours to Mangkayan in Benguet,
03:38 where Maura and the other Kankanae were believed to have originated.
03:44 I just wonder if Maura was not taken from their community.
03:50 What happened to her? Did she have a family?
03:54 The life here is peaceful.
03:58 The vegetable fields are wide.
04:00 The mountains are often covered with clouds.
04:04 In 1904, when the Americans took some of the relatives from communities like this one here in Cordillera
04:12 to make human displays or exhibits at the World's Fair,
04:17 they gathered 25 people from a community here in Mangkayan in Benguet Province,
04:24 which is called Suyok.
04:26 Good morning, grandchild.
04:30 Hello.
04:31 She looks like a Gilucano.
04:33 This is where I met a family who were led by the people who were brought to America
04:39 to make exhibits at the World's Fair.
04:41 Thank you so much for inviting us to do this interview.
04:47 This is Father Leonardo, 62 years old.
04:50 He is the grandson of Buliyi, one of the 14 men from Suyok who were displayed in America.
04:57 Does Buliyi have any pictures?
04:59 Yes, she does.
05:00 There she is.
05:00 Good thing she has one.
05:01 Wow, she looks so healthy.
05:04 She came from the museum.
05:05 She looks like my grandmother.
05:08 On their walls are other portraits of their people who were also part of the World's Fair.
05:15 These pictures on the wall are pictures of some of the participants who went to the 1904 World's Fair.
05:25 How did you get these pictures?
05:27 Our relative, Tony Vongan, got them from the museum.
05:32 Are these people identified?
05:35 Yes.
05:35 Who are they?
05:36 We have the names.
05:37 Seng Wah.
05:38 The youngest boy who went there.
05:41 How old was Seng Wah?
05:42 Seng Wah was six, I think.
05:44 According to some studies, not all of the people who were brought to America were brought back to life here in the Philippines.
05:52 Some of them died of illness and illness while traveling.
05:56 One of them was Maura.
05:59 Maura was born a few days before the exhibition started.
06:03 Her fellow countrymen went to the exhibition to see her grave.
06:08 According to some books, Maura did not return to the Philippines.
06:13 She and her relatives were brought back from different parts of the world.
06:19 They were served and studied in the museum.
06:23 Did you get any stories from others?
06:26 Because 25 people came here from Suyok.
06:30 My mother only knew that her father went with Charles Petit, the husband of her aunt.
06:39 Charles Petit was an American soldier who married a Suyok woman, Dang Usan, who was a sister of Buli'i.
06:48 Petit was one of the first group of Igorot brought to America.
06:55 He was the one who brought them.
06:57 All of the relatives were called.
06:59 So most likely, you said all 25 people came from one place, right?
07:05 There's a possibility because the relatives were all from Asanue.
07:10 Do you know why she was brought to America?
07:13 In my brother's story, he said that our ancestors were brought to the US
07:19 to show the culture and custom and tradition of the Kanconakay.
07:23 What was your reaction when this news came out?
07:26 That your ancestors were brought here and were made human displays?
07:31 When I found out, I was hurt and I was bleeding.
07:34 I was wondering why our relatives were only used to exploit their own personal interests.
07:41 I was just sad that that was the way they were treated.
07:45 That what they experienced there was not right.
07:48 The Igorot were chosen by the officials to eat dogs several times a week for the viewers.
07:55 Even though they rarely did this in the Philippines.
07:58 It was a stereotype about Filipinos that still exists until now.
08:03 They were called "savages" by the officials and the media.
08:07 They were fed by dogs because that's what they know they're doing here.
08:12 They didn't know that there are specific occasions when that is done.
08:16 Yes, yes.
08:18 It was like an offering to cleanse the bad customs and customs of the tribes that came from the Philippines.
08:28 They didn't respect it.
08:29 According to other sources, there are other relatives who still continue to exploit.
08:36 Even after the World's Fair, there are still people who came to Europe to display.
08:42 But because these people have no decent intentions, others were told to just wander around.
08:49 Some of them were also killed by starvation.
08:52 But the people of Suyok, like Buli'i, were lucky to return.
08:58 What did you know about Maora? Who has information?
09:00 We don't know.
09:01 We don't know who he is and who his relatives are.
09:05 It's so sad. There's no one left, only Bacas and Trisman.
09:09 That's the hard part.
09:11 But if what you said earlier is true, that people used to hang out and get to know each other,
09:17 did you also have a son, Maora?
09:19 Yes, ma'am.
09:20 When you described him, he has a lot of tattoos.
09:24 According to the former vice mayor who went to the U.S.,
09:28 everyone who came here to Suyok has tattoos.
09:31 All 25 have tattoos?
09:33 That's what he said.
09:34 In your opinion, is it not true that if you have a tattoo, you have a high position or status in the community?
09:40 There are a lot of people who want to have a tattoo, a war record,
09:44 to be safe, as protection, so that they won't kill their record as a member of the royal family.
09:49 Sometimes, there are rumors that Maora was married to an American soldier, Petit.
09:56 That means Maora and Dang Usan, Buli'i's brother, are one.
10:02 The first edition of the report of the elders from the U.S. that was published in the clan book,
10:09 when I saw that, I thought, "Oh, it's Maora, not Dang Usan."
10:12 In the second edition that was edited in 2004,
10:19 Maora was different.
10:20 Dang Usan was the one who married Maora.
10:23 But he was not Charles Petit's husband.
10:26 He was not.
10:26 That's the correction in the first list of the clan book.
10:34 In the first information, or first edition of their clan book,
10:39 Maora was O'Nib or O'Ning, but their clan book has a corrected edition.
10:47 O'Nib, O'Ning, and Carmina were different.
10:50 They were the only people who were Charles Petit's wife.
10:54 He was different from Maora.
10:56 This is the grave of the American, Charles Petit,
11:00 and this is his wife, Dang Usan or O'Nib or O'Ning.
11:06 They were brought back here to Suyok before they died.
11:10 In the hope that Maora's identity would be clear and the story of other clan members would be alive,
11:17 the author and publisher, Candy Kimpo Gurley,
11:22 who did research about the World's Fair since 2005,
11:27 wrote a book about this.
11:29 We saw a picture of an Igorot who was a dancer.
11:35 I was intrigued and I did my research.
11:37 The first book I wrote was called "Bone Talk."
11:40 It's a joke because "Bone Talk" was how the Americans pronounced "Bone Talk."
11:44 They're not just primitive.
11:45 There's a reason why they believe what they believe.
11:47 I wrote the book and the story was revealed to me.
11:50 I realized we were abused by these very people that we look up to.
11:55 And the importance of the book is everybody should know because who we are today,
11:59 that feeling of being inferior, that's not who we really should be.
12:03 We are better than we think.
12:04 A group of journalists also started an investigative report about Maora's story.
12:12 14 of them are Filipinos.
12:15 One of them is Regine Cabato.
12:19 This started with a tip from Claire Healy, a reporter in the Washington Post in D.C.
12:26 She found Janna Añonuevo Langholz,
12:29 an activist and artist who did research about the graves of Filipinos who went to the 1904 World's Fair.
12:38 She traced the lineage and the story of what happened to some Filipinos at the World's Fair started there.
12:44 Maora was also there.
12:46 Janna was looking for what happened to her, what happened to her body, where she was buried.
12:52 From there, it was traced that some of the graves went to Smithsonian.
12:56 Here at the U.S. National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution,
13:01 the collection of brains or brain specimens from more than 255 species around the world is stored.
13:11 This is part of the so-called racial brain collection.
13:15 An anthropologist, Alice Herdlichka, experimented
13:20 to see if the theory that the brain of Filipinos is inferior or lower in rank
13:29 compared to the brains of whites like the Americans.
13:32 23 of the specimens are the brains or parts of the brains of Filipino natives.
13:39 One of them is the one Maora believes in.
13:43 In July 1904, two Filipino bodies were discovered by Herdlichka.
13:49 According to the Smithsonian's documents,
13:51 the remains of a white Filipino named Suyok were taken by Maora.
14:00 The sad part is that the brain was studied.
14:03 There was a request from relatives, but all of them were deprived of their freedom.
14:11 More than 100 years later, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
14:17 now has the intention to restore some of the preserved brains in their collection, including Maora's.
14:26 During colonialism, this was the normal way of treating colonial people.
14:33 What they really saw in these people was just human.
14:36 Especially the act of repeating, of taking responsibility for what we did wrong.
14:44 It means that we recognize that what we did was wrong as a lesson in history that should not be repeated.
15:04 For me, the US did a favor to us.
15:12 They did a favor to us to restore what they liked in what they did wrong.
15:19 Because of the reports that came out in the Washington Post,
15:25 they were able to tell their stories. We were able to get to know them one by one.
15:29 The news that was released was good for us who did not know what happened back then.
15:37 They were not just names on a list, they were stories.
15:42 It's so sad that they were not told. We are the only ones who will tell them.
15:48 They were not just statistics or numbers or names.
15:51 They had stories, they had personal histories, and they had families and descendants like you.
15:58 The civilization of the world has come a long way,
16:02 including our view of our different races.
16:07 It's not too late to correct the mistakes of history
16:12 and make it clear that no race is invincible.
16:17 All are equal.
16:19 Thank you for sharing with us the story of your ancestors.
16:25 Thank you.
16:26 [Music]
16:42 Thank you so much, Kapuso.
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