Epilogue

This epilogue reflects on the author's experience while serving as a supporting participant in a grant project known as the Philippine Youth Leadership Program (PYLP). In the closing days of the program, all Filipino participants came together to perform a “Philippine Culture Night.” A conversation between the author and an observer revealed the supposed ubiquity of American culture around the world. If “American” culture is so ubiquitous, then Americans are in no need of discovery, definition, or exhibition, by themselves or by others. This creates an uncomfortable lack of reciprocity in which the dynamics of cultural exhibition are reduced to an asymmetrical “you dance for me, but I never dance for you; I discover, observe, define, and preserve the things of this world, but I am not subjected to those processes by others.” Yet this notion betrays a certain postcolonial cultural narcissism in which the legacies of empire often loom larger in the minds of former colonizing nations than they do in the minds of nations formerly colonized. It cannot be forgotten that “live exhibits” and cultural performers are ultimately agents unto themselves, choosing and participating in representations that are independent of how observers may attempt to objectify them. This was certainly the case for the Moros at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

Measuring Moros

This chapter examines the role of Moro bodies in the quantification of humanity at the St. Louis World's Fair. Although Moro bodies were routinely quantified in a variety of contexts, the real measure of the Moros' physical prowess was to be established in a grand athletic spectacle known as “Anthropology Days.” With the 1904 Olympics as a backdrop, anthropologist William J. McGee hoped the Anthropology Days would provide an undeniable comparison between “savage” and “civilized” athletes, thus diminishing emphasis on biological development and endorsing culture and technology as the primary measure of human difference. Ultimately, the Moros' role in the quantification of humanity served an important double function. The “semi-civilized” Moros allowed for notions of Caucasian superiority while simultaneously offering an analogy of physical and cultural improvement for all people, thus affirming the efficacy of colonial tutelage and universal human potential. In this way, the Moros were embedded firmly within the central arch of human evolution rather than on its extremes. Unlike “savage” live exhibits or indeed the exceptional Olympic athletes, Moros were more akin to average American patrons.

Nostalgia and the Familiar Savage

This chapter discusses how both the Philippine and the Moro villages were designed and constructed to demonstrate the “deficiencies of the past,” which was marked by savagery. This stark comparison provided a pedagogical context meant to guide patrons toward affirmative conclusions regarding American state and industrial power. Yet, despite these aims, fairgoers brought their own deeply ambivalent feelings about modernity, which they channeled into unexpected demands for nostalgic indulgence. The chapter then considers the two broad characteristics that served to define the Moros as familiar historic subjects to nostalgic Americans. First, the Moros were seen as industrious, with a particular disposition toward innovation and the acquisition of wealth. Second, fairgoers were also tantalized by the more taboo aspects of savagery. Many Americans were particularly fascinated by Moro slavery and polygamy.

Introduction

This introductory chapter provides a background of the Philippine Village exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. Despite the supposedly comprehensive nature of the Philippine display, the exhibit was ultimately called upon to serve two sometimes divergent scientific and pedagogical functions. On the one hand, the Philippine Village was a self-contained exhibit, set apart as an inclusive continuum of indigenous types ranging from the “head-hunting,” “dog-eating,” savage Igorots to the highly civilized Philippine Scouts and Constabulary. By viewing these communities in quick successive comparison, onlookers could draw broad lessons from the “demotic” differences in dress, materials, cultural customs, and habits. The Philippine exhibit was also meant to be an interactive display promoting a sense of otherization and cultural affirmation. This book examines a particularly soft spot in the subjective and contested colonial discourse between colonizer and colonized at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition—that of the Philippine Muslims, also known as Moros. The chapter then describes the Moro Village, which was constructed to effectively commodify and exoticize the mundane aspects of Moro life.