A Historian dies, but his story lives
A Historian dies, but his story lives
by Joel R. Dizon
EDITORIAL [Gold Ore, Oct. ?, 1993]
William Henry Scott, renowned historian who authoried 15 books in Philippine history including The Discovery of the Igorots, is dead. He was 72 years old.
Scott is a respected authority in Philippine history. His works in chronicling Cordillera culture and history marked the true discovery of the Igorots — not by the Spanish conquistadores nor by the slangy American occupiers who followed them, but by the Filipinos. Indeed, it marked a self-discovery of the Igorots by the Igorots themselves.
A former professor in the University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, Trinity College, St. Andrew’s Theological Seminary, and headmaster of the St. Mary’s School in Sagada, Mt. Province, William Henry Scott first came to the Philippines in 1954.
Although he wrote 15 history books and countless scholarly articles on Cordillera history and ethnography and in Philippine Historiography, The Discovery of the Igorots was his greatest contribution to posterity.
In it, Scott capsulized 18 years of work, faithfully following a cold trail of yellowed parchment records in some of the most obscure dustbins of history in the world: the Dominican Province, the Augustinian archives in Villadolid, Spain, the archives of the Indies in Seville and the Archivo Historico Nacional in Madrid.
He knew the Igorots better than most Igorots knew themselves. Scott was born an American, but died an Igorot.
It wasn’t the volume of facts that he unearthed about the Igorots, however, that make his work exceptional. It is not just the work itself (although it was prodiguous) that is remarkable, but the heart behind it - that which faithfully and sensitively captured the deepest of Igorot sentiments. He wrote the story of lthe Igorots from the perspective of one, rather than from the standpoint of an outsider looking in, the “generalized others” to which he properly belonged.
A bird writes a book on all there is to know about being a fish. But to do that, the bird had to shed off his wings and feathers first, dive into the water, grow fins and gills knowing fully that he’ll never be the same again. Once a fish, he was able to make the other fish know how beautiful and graceful they looked swimming beneath the silvery waters from a vantage point he himself will never see again. The fish finally had the correct regard of himself.
This was what William Henry Scott did — a fine job for which all of us Cordillerans by blood and Cordillerans by heart are eternally indebted.
William Henry Scott is the cold water that douses over that archaic and immature thought that only if you are a native-born Cordilleran can you ever truly understand the Igorot heart.
The historian is dead but his story lives. ***jrd
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