In early 1905, Truman Hunt traveled to Bontoc and made the Bontoc Igorrotes an audacious offer: if they agreed to leave their family and friends behind for a year and journey with him to United States to put on a show of their native customs, he would pay them each $15 a month in wages.

At Coney Island, the Igorrotes performed a distorted version of their tribal rituals. They sang and danced, they held sham weddings and dog feasts with mutts brought from the pound.

Read more: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/igorrote-tribe-traveled-world-these-men-took-all-money-180953012

Original photo: Igorrotes on show at Coney Island, in the summer of 1905. (via Clair Prentice).

Please note: We digitally altered this photo.
#restored #igorot #Bontoc #Coney