LUKBAN
of great accuracy in their projectiles . After all , a few shots fired now and then into a town served to prolong the war almost as well as a sharp attack . They did not hope to be able to drive back the Americans by rifle fire , but they did hope to force to scatter them into small detachments which would increase the expense and difficulty of operations and also the chances of being able to cut off stragglers and render attacks of the people of the towns practicable . Hence , they used anything which would make a lot of noise and send any sort of bullet into the air . 25
They soon learned that such ammunition was not effective unless fired from very close quarters . But even its possession made the guerrillas stronger than the people of the country , which undoubtedly had much to do with securing their cooperation , not only as bolomen but also in the digging of the pits placed in the trails and set about the towns . The authorities who followed the orders of Lukban had required the construction of pits . At the bottom was a set of sharp spikes of bamboo , sometimes poisoned . The pit was covered with leaves and soil upon a fragile framework , so that if a man stood upon it , he would fall through upon a spike . Bows were set in the jungle with a string set across a trail so that anyone stumbling over it would discharge a sharp bamboo shaft with a poisoned head .
The natives were experts in these contraptions since ancient times . These were done to catch animals . Now they used it against the Americans . But the latter learned fast . Many of the American volunteers had seen similar traps during the Indian wars back home . They knew how to avoid them or disengage them . 26
The clergy
Lukban ’ s reputation as a mason and an Aglipayan had preceded him . So months before his arrival , the Franciscan friars in Samar already packed up their things on the orders of their superior and fled to Iloilo and then to Manila , leaving the parishes to be manned by diocesan priests , many of whom were just newly ordained . So most of the parishes were without priests . Late in November 1899 , Lukban summoned all the priests to a conference in Catbalogan where he tried to convince them to throw off Rome ’ s authority and embrace Aglipayanism . After all , the new religion believed in everything that the old Catholic religion preached . But the native priests refused to withdraw their affiliation from Rome .
So when Lukban invited them , the priests refused to heed him . So he confiscated churches , beginning with that of Catbalogan , expelled the priests from their conventos , and converted the buildings into schools .
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