Colonel Alexander Rodgers, Governor of Jolo. (See below)
U.S. Military Meets the Moros
The Philippines were ceded to the United States under the 1898 Treaty of Paris, sparking resistance immediately in the predominately Christian north and later in the Sunni Muslim south. . . .
The latter judgement was clearly an understatement, as the U.S. Army and Navy found themselves engaged with an enemy who quickly earned a place as one of the bravest, most dedicated, and resourceful adversaries yet encountered. It also highlighted for the U.S. military the impact of Islamic religious fervor mobilized in pursuit of what many Moros still consider their wholly earned and justified right to independence.
Moros were poorly armed in comparison with U.S. soldiers, whose basic weapon was the .30 Krag-Jorgensen rifle (M1892 and M1896 models with 5-shot magazine), backed up by Gatling and Hotchkiss guns, and several models of light cannon. Moros possessed a variety of older weapons including muzzle-loaders and some primitive brass cannon. It was the Moros' skill and surprising effectiveness in using edged weapons that generated the greatest respect and fear, however. U.S. troops came to recognize and understand the capabilities of the barung with its foot-and-a-half leaf-shaped blade; the three-and-a-half foot kampilan long sword, traditional fighting weapon of the Maguindanao and Maranao Moros; and the sword most identified with the Moros, the kris, a superb weapon of varying length which often had the distinctive wavy-edged blade that became famous at the time.7
Moros were extremely effective at jungle, forest, and swamp ambushes and also fought well from their forts, called cottas (or kutas). Moro attacks on moving columns or sleeping encampments were sudden, often involving bloody hand-to-hand fighting, as kris- and spear-wielding Moros closed quickly with better-armed Americans and used their edged weapons and spears to great effect. As one specialist from the period noted, "American troops had not participated in such fighting since Revolutionary War days."8 Traditional problems associated with counter-insurgency operations made their early appearance. For example, distinguishing Moro male combatants from females--who sometimes were combatants as well--was an enduring problem since women were attired in much the same way as male fighters. In an effort to reduce non-combatant casualties, U.S. Army orders forbade firing on groups of Filipinos which contained women. This order prompted one derisive soldier rhyme a la Kipling that captured the way some troops saw the dilemma:
If a lady wearin' britches is a-hidin' in the ditches,
An' she itches fer me ears as souvenirs,
Must I arsk, afore I twists 'er, "Air you miss or air you mister?"
How shall a bashful man decide the dears?9
Another phenomenon noted by many U.S. military and other official observers was the extraordinary vitality of many Moro fighters and their capacity to continue coming even after being shot multiple times. While attributable in large measure to the character of a brave and determined warrior people, there was another dimension rooted in the Moros practice of Islam that in various forms has resonance today in the "suicide-attacks" or "constructive self-destruction" around the world undertaken by Muslim fighters in varying interpretations of Qur'anic imperatives to oppose infidels.10
Juramentado and jihad
Americans quickly came to be more familiar with this dimension, which the Spanish earlier had learned well--Spanish soldiers and officials called it juramentado, roughly translated into "oath-taking". This practice--based on Sulu Moro interpretations of jihad--consisted of elaborate dedication and purification rites conducted with family and religious authorities. Those who went through this dedication swore to kill as many Christians as possible before dying, the reward being ascent into Paradise. juramentados could attack in groups of individually, and the sudden assaults of those "running jurmamentado" became a constant concern.
From the Muslim view, this description was far from adequate. Rather, as contemporary Moro Islamic insurgent spokesmen describe it, Moro
…mujahideen took it as a personal duty to Allah to continue to fight to the death, even if a Muslim leader surrendered. It became common for a lone Muslim mujahid to attack American soldiers and camps, killing many of them before losing his life. The Spanish and Americans disparagingly called this act juramentado or amok; Muslims refer to this as sabil or prang sabil, from the Arabic jihad fi sabilillah.11
In any case, accounts abounded of seemingly peaceful Moros suddenly drawing kris or and killing multiple American soldiers or civilians before being killed themselves. The replacement of the .38 caliber Army revolver with the harder hitting .45 caliber automatic was in part a consequence of the difficulty in stopping juramentados. Other practices--reportedly yielding short-term results but likely generating longer-term negative consequences--were implemented by U.S. military officials unable to find other effective countermeasures. One such approach was said to have carried out by Colonel Alexander Rodgers, Governor of Jolo:
All Moros who ran juramentado were killed and laid out in the market place with slaughtered pigs placed above them. The Mohammedan abhors all contact with pork and the resulting contact of the dead juramentado with the pig neutralized the beneficial effects of the rite itself. Colonel Rodgers became known to the Moros as "The Pig," and juramentados took themselves hurriedly to other districts.12 To 21st Century Filipino commentators, the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon immediately suggested juramentado. One observer noted that "the decision of the <11 September> hijackers to kill as many people as possible and have themselves killed in the process is reminiscent of the Muslim juramentados in Zamboanga and Jolo in the southern Philippines during the American colonization of the islands in the early 1900s."13
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/sword.htm#end12 It was Colonel Alexander Rodgers of the 6th Cavalry who accomplished by taking advantage of religious prejudice what the bayonets and Krags had been unable to accomplish. Rodgers inaugurated a system of burying all dead juramentados in a common grave with the carcasses of slaughtered pigs. The Mohammedan religion forbids contact with pork; and this relatively simple device resulted in the withdrawal of juramentados to sections not containing a Rodgers. Other officers took up the principle, adding new refinements to make it additionally unattractive to the Moros. In some sections the Moro juramentado was beheaded after death and the head sewn inside the carcass of a pig. And so the rite of running juramentado, at least semi-religious in character, ceased to be in Sulu. The last cases of this religious mania occurred in the early decades of the century. The juramentados were replaced by the amucks. .. who were simply homicidal maniacs with no religious significance attaching to their acts.
http://www.bakbakan.com/junglep/jp-17.html