Savage Gentlemen is the memoir of Mabel Cook Cole, recounting the nearly four years she spent accompanying her husband, Dr. Fay-Cooper Cole, an anthropologist from the Field Museum of Natural History, during his extensive ethnological investigations across the Philippine Islands. The research, which took place during the American colonial period, was funded by Mr. Robert F. Cummings and aimed to collect artifacts and information from the non-Christian and so-called headhunting tribes of Luzon and Mindanao. The Coles traveled extensively through remote, and at times dangerous, territory, living among groups like the Tinguian and conducting research with the Bagobo and Bukidnon, among others. The narrative offers a unique, first-hand account of the daily life, customs, and spirit beliefs of these indigenous peoples in the early 20th century, capturing their interactions with the American researchers. The fieldwork was instrumental in building the Field Museum's collection of Philippine ethnology, which the introduction states was unrivaled at the time. The book serves as a historical record of cultures that were, in the view of the era, beginning to undergo rapid change due to external influences.
Savage gentlemen