Produced by Jeroen Hellingman





The Bontoc Igorot

by Albert Ernest Jenks




Letter of Transmittal

Department of the Interior, The Ethnological Survey,

MANILA, FEBRUARY 3, 1904.

Sir: I have the honor to submit a study of the Bontoc Igorot made
for this Survey during the year 1903. It is transmitted with the
recommendation that it be published as Volume I of a series of
scientific studies to be issued by The Ethnological Survey for the
Philippine Islands.

Respectfully,

Albert Ernst Jenks,

CHIEF OF THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY.

Hon. Dean C. Worcester,
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, MANILA, P. I.





Preface

After an expedition of two months in September, October, and November,
1902, among the people of northern Luzon it was decided that the Igorot
of Bontoc pueblo, in the Province of Lepanto-Bontoc, are as typical of
the primitive mountain agriculturist of Luzon as any group visited, and
that ethnologic investigations directed from Bontoc pueblo would enable
the investigator to show the culture of the primitive mountaineer of
Luzon as well as or better than investigations centered elsewhere.

Accompanied by Mrs. Jenks, the writer took up residence in Bontoc
pueblo the 1st of January, 1903, and remained five months. The
following data were gathered during that Bontoc residence, the previous
expedition of two months, and a residence of about six weeks among
the Benguet Igorot.

The accompanying illustrations are mainly from photographs. Some of
them were taken in April, 1903, by Hon. Dean C. Worcester, Secretary
of the Interior; others are the work of Mr. Charles Martin, Government
photographer, and were taken in January, 1903; the others were made
by the writer to supplement those taken by Mr. Martin, whose time
was limited in the area. Credit for each photograph is given with
the halftone as it appears.

I wish to express my gratitude for the many favors of the only other
Americans living in Bontoc Province during my stay there, namely,
Lieutenant-Governor Truman K. Hunt, M.D.; Constabulary Lieutenant (now
Captain) Elmer A. Eckman; and Mr. William F. Smith, American teacher.

In the following pages native words have their syllabic divisions
shown by hyphens and their accented syllables and vowels marked in the
various sections wherein the words are considered technically for the
first time, and also in the vocabulary in the last chapter. In all
other places they are unmarked. A later study of the language may
show that errors have been made in writing sentences, since it was
not always possible to get a consistent answer to the question as to
what part of a sentence constitutes a single word, and time was too
limited for any extensive language study. The following alphabet has
been used in writing native words.


A as in FAR; Spanish RAMO
A as in LAW; as O in French OR
AY as AI in AISLE; Spanish HAY
AO as OU in OUT; as AU in Spanish AUTO
B as in BAD; Spanish BAJAR
CH as in CHECK; Spanish CHICO
D as in DOG; Spanish DAR
E as in THEY; Spanish HALLE
E as in THEN; Spanish COMEN
F as in FIGHT; Spanish FIRMAR
G as in GO; Spanish GOZAR
H as in HE; Tagalog BAHAY
I as in PIQUE; Spanish HIJO
I as in PICK
K as in KEEN
L as in LAMB; Spanish LENTE
M as in MAN; Spanish MENOS
N as in NOW; Spanish JABON
NG as in FINGER; Spanish LENGUA
O as in NOTE; Spanish NOSOTROS
OI as in BOIL
P as in POOR; Spanish PERO
Q as CH in German ICH
S as in SAUCE; Spanish SORDO
SH as in SHALL; as CH in French CHARMER
T as in TOUCH; Spanish TOMAR
U as in RULE; Spanish UNO
U as in BUT
U as in German KUHL
V as in VALVE; Spanish VOLVER
W as in WILL; nearly as OU in French OUI
Y as in YOU; Spanish YA


It seems not improper to say a word here regarding some of my commonest
impressions of the Bontoc Igorot.

Physically he is a clean-limbed, well-built, dark-brown man of medium
stature, with no evidence of degeneracy. He belongs to that extensive
stock of primitive people of which the Malay is the most commonly
named. I do not believe he has received any of his characteristics,
as a group, from either the Chinese or Japanese, though this theory
has frequently been presented. The Bontoc man would be a savage if
it were not that his geographic location compelled him to become an
agriculturist; necessity drove him to this art of peace. In everyday
life his actions are deliberate, but he is not lazy. He is remarkably
industrious for a primitive man. In his agricultural labors he has
strength, determination, and endurance. On the trail, as a cargador
or burden bearer for Americans, he is patient and uncomplaining, and
earns his wage in the sweat of his brow. His social life is lowly,
and before marriage is most primitive; but a man has only one wife, to
whom he is usually faithful. The social group is decidedly democratic;
there are no slaves. The people are neither drunkards, gamblers,
nor "sportsmen." There is little "color" in the life of the Igorot;
he is not very inventive and seems to have little imagination. His
chief recreation -- certainly his most-enjoyed and highly prized
recreation -- is head-hunting. But head-hunting is not the passion
with him that it is with many Malay peoples.

His religion is at base the most primitive religion known -- animism,
or spirit belief -- but he has somewhere grasped the idea of one god,
and has made this belief in a crude way a part of his life.

He is a very likable man, and there is little about his primitiveness
that is repulsive. He is of a kindly disposition, is not servile,
and is generally trustworthy. He has a strong sense of humor. He is
decidedly friendly to the American, whose superiority he recognizes
and whose methods he desires to learn. The boys in school are quick
and bright, and their teacher pronounces them superior to Indian and
Mexican children he has taught in Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico.[1]

Briefly, I believe in the future development of the Bontoc Igorot
for the following reasons: He has an exceptionally fine physique for
his stature and has no vices to destroy his body. He has courage
which no one who knows him seems ever to think of questioning; he
is industrious, has a bright mind, and is willing to learn. His
institutions -- governmental, religious, and social -- are not
radically opposed to those of modern civilization -- as, for instance,
are many institutions of the Mohammedanized people of Mindanao and
the Sulu Archipelago -- but are such, it seems to me, as will quite
readily yield to or associate themselves with modern institutions.

I recall with great pleasure the months spent in Bontoc pueblo, and
I have a most sincere interest in and respect for the Bontoc Igorot
as a man.



Introduction

The readers of this monograph are familiar with the geographic location
of the Philippine Archipelago. However, to have the facts clearly in
mind, it will be stated that the group lies entirely within the north
torrid zone, extending from 4[degree] 40' northward to 21[degree]
3' and from 116[degree] 40' to 126[degree] 34' east longitude. It is
thus about 1,000 miles from north to south and 550 miles from east to
west. The Pacific Ocean washes its eastern shores, the Sea of Celebes
its southern, and the China Sea its western and northern shores. It
is about 630 kilometers, or 400 miles, from the China coast, and
lies due east from French Indo-China. The Batanes group of islands,
stretching north of Luzon, has members nearer Formosa than Luzon. On
the southwest Borneo is sighted from Philippine territory.

Briefly, it may be said the Archipelago belongs to Asia --
geologically, zoologically, and botanically -- rather than to Oceania,
and that, apparently, the entire Archipelago has shared a common
origin and existence. There is evidence that it was connected with
the mainland by solid earth in the early or Middle Tertiary. For a
long geologic time the land was low and swampy. At the end of the
Eocene a great upheaval occurred; there were foldings and crumplings,
igneous rock was thrust into the distorted mass, and the islands
were considerably elevated above the sea. During the latter part of
the Tertiary period the lands seem to have subsided and to have been
separated from the mainland.

About the close of the subsidence eruptions began which are continued
to the present by such volcanoes as Taal and Mayon in Luzon and Apo
in Mindanao. No further subsidence appears to have occurred after
the close of the Tertiary, though the gradual elevation beginning
then had many lapses, as is evidenced by the numerous sea beaches
often seen one above the other in horizontal tiers. The elevation
continues to-day in an almost invisible way. The Islands have been
greatly enlarged during the elevation by the constant building of
coral around the submerged shores.

It is believed that man had appeared in the great Malay Archipelago
before this elevation began. It is thought by some that he was in
the Philippines in the later Tertiary, but there are no data as yet
throwing light on this question.

To-day the Archipelago lies like a large net in the natural pathway
of people fleeing themselves from the supposed birthplace of the
primitive Malayan stock, namely, from Java, Sumatra, and the adjacent
Malay Peninsula, or, more likely, the larger mainland. It spreads
over a large area, and is well fitted by its numerous islands --
some 3,100 -- and its innumerable bays and coastal pockets to catch
up and hold a primitive, seafaring people.

There are and long have been daring Malayan pirates, and there is
to-day among the southern islands a numerous class -- the Samal --
living most of the time on the sea, yet they all keep close to land,
except in time of calm, and when a storm is brewing they strike out
straight for the nearest shore like scared children. The ocean currents
and the monsoons have been greatly instrumental in driving different
people through the seas into the Philippine net.[2] The Tagakola
on the west coast of the Gulf of Davao, Mindanao, have a tradition
that they are descendants of men cast on their present shores from
a distant land and of the Manobo women of the territory. The Bagobo,
also in the Gulf of Davao, claim they came to their present home in
a few boats generations ago. They purposely left their former land
to flee from head-hunting, a practice in their earlier home, but one
they do not follow in Mindanao. What per cent of the people coming
originally to the Archipelago was castaway, nomadic, or immigrant
it is impossible to judge, but there have doubtless also been many
systematic and prolonged migrations from nearby lands, as from Borneo,
Celebes, Sangir, etc.

Primitive man is represented in the Philippines to-day not alone by
one of the lowest natural types of savage man the historic world has
looked upon -- the small, dark-brown, bearded, "crisp-woolly"-haired
Negritos -- but by some thirty distinct primitive Malayan tribes or
dialect groups, among which are believed to be some of the lowest of
the stock in existence.

In northern Luzon is the Igorot, a typical primitive Malayan. He is
a muscular, smooth-faced, brown man of a type between the delicate
and the coarse. In Mindoro the Mangiyan is found, an especially lowly
Malayan, who may prove to be a true savage in culture. In Mindanao is
the slender, delicate, smooth-faced brown man of which the Subano, in
the western part, is typical. There are the Bagobo and the extensive
Manobo of eastern Mindanao in the neighborhood of the Gulf of Davao,
the latter people following the Agusan River practically to the
north coast of Mindanao. In southeastern Mindanao, in the vicinity
of Mount Apo and also north of the Gulf of Davao, are the Ata. They
are a scattered people and evidently a Negrito and primitive Malayan
mixture. In Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Isabela, and perhaps Principe,
of Luzon, are the Ibilao. They are a slender, delicate, bearded people,
with an artistic nature quite different from any other now known
in the island, but somewhat like that of the Ata of Mindanao. Their
artistic wood productions suggest the incised work of distant dwellers
of the Pacific, as that of the people of New Guinea, Fiji Islands,
or Hervey Islands. The seven so-called Christian tribes,[3] occupying
considerable areas in the coastwise lands and low plains of most of
the larger islands of the Archipelago, represent migrations to the
Archipelago subsequent to those of the Igorot and comparable tribes.

The last migrations of brown men into the Archipelago are historic. The
Spaniard discovered the inward flow of the large Samal Moro group --
after his arrival in the sixteenth century. The movement of this
nomadic "Sea Gipsy" Samal has not ceased to-day, but continues to
flow in and out among the small southern islands.

Besides the peoples here cited there are a score of others scattered
about the Archipelago, representing many grades of primitive culture,
but those mentioned are sufficient to suggest that the Islands have
been very effective in gathering up and holding divers groups of
primitive men.[4]








PART 1

The Igorot Culture Group


Igorot land

Northern Luzon, or Igorot land, is by far the largest area in the
Philippine Archipelago having any semblance of regularity. It is
roughly rectangular in form, extending two and one-half degrees north
and south and two degrees east and west.

There are two prominent geographic features in northern Luzon. One is
the beautifully picturesque mountain system, the Caraballos, the most
important range of which is the Caraballos Occidentales, extending
north and south throughout the western part of the territory. This
range is the famous "Cordillera Central" for about three-quarters
of its extent northward, beyond which it is known as "Cordillera del
Norte." The other prominent feature is the extensive drainage system of
the eastern part, the Rio Grande de Cagayan draining northward into the
China Sea about two-thirds of the territory of northern Luzon. It is
the largest drainage system and the largest river in the Archipelago.

The surface of northern Luzon is made up of four distinct types. First
is the coastal plain -- a consistently narrow strip of land, generally
not over 3 or 4 miles wide. The soil is sandy silt with a considerable
admixture of vegetable matter. In some places it is loose, and shifts
readily before the winds; here and there are stretches of alluvial
clay loam. The sandy areas are often covered with coconut trees, and
the alluvial deposits along the rivers frequently become beds of nipa
palm as far back as tide water. The plain areas are generally poorly
watered except during the rainy season, having only the streams of
the steep mountains passing through them. These river beds are broad,
"quicky," impassable torrents in the rainy season, and are shallow
or practically dry during half the year, with only a narrow, lazy
thread flowing among the bowlders.

This plain area on the west coast is the undisputed dwelling place
of the Christian Ilokano, occupying pueblos in Union, Ilokos Sur,
and Ilokos Norte Provinces. Almost nothing is known of the eastern
coastal plain area. It is believed to be extremely narrow, and has
at least one pueblo, of Christianized Tagalog -- the famous Palanan,
the scene of Aguinaldo's capture.

The second type of surface is the coastal hill area. It extends from
the coastal plain irregularly back to the mountains, and is thought
to be much narrower on the eastern coast than on the western -- in
fact, it may be quite absent on the eastern. It is the remains of a
tilted plain sloping seaward from an altitude of about 1,000 feet to
one of, say, 100 feet, and its hilly nature is due to erosion. These
hills are generally covered only with grasses; the sheltered moister
places often produce rank growths of tall, coarse cogon grass.[5]
The soil varies from dark clay loam through the sandy loams to quite
extensive deposits of coarse gravel. The level stretches in the hills
on the west coast are generally in the possession of the Christian
peoples, though here and there are small pueblos of the large Igorot
group. The Igorot in these pueblos are undergoing transformation,
and quite generally wear clothing similar to that of the Ilokano.

The third type of surface is the mountain country -- the "temperate
zone of the Tropics"; it is the habitat of the Igorot. From the western
coastal hill area the mountains rise abruptly in parallel ranges lying
in a general north and south direction, and they subside only in the
foothills west of the great level bottom land bordering the Rio Grande
de Cagayan. The Cordillera Central is as fair and about as varied
a mountain country as the tropic sun shines on. It has mountains up
which one may climb from tropic forest jungles into open, pine-forested
parks, and up again into the dense tropic forest, with its drapery
of vines, its varied hanging orchids, and its graceful, lilting fern
trees. It has mountains forested to the upper rim on one side with
tropic jungle and on the other with sturdy pine trees; at the crest
line the children of the Tropics meet and intermingle with those of
the temperate zone. There are gigantic, rolling, bare backs whose only
covering is the carpet of grass periodically green and brown. There
are long, rambling, skeleton ranges with here and there pine forests
gradually creeping up the sides to the crests. There are solitary
volcanoes, now extinct, standing like things purposely let alone when
nature humbled the surrounding earth. There are sculptured lime rocks,
cities of them, with gray hovels and mansions and cathedrals.

The mountains present one interesting geologic feature. The
"hiker" is repeatedly delighted to find his trail passing quite
easily from one peak or ascent to another over a natural connecting
embankment. On either side of this connecting ridge is the head of a
deep, steep-walled canyon; the ridge is only a few hundred feet broad
at base, and only half a dozen to twenty feet wide at the top. These
ridges invariably have the appearance of being composed of soft earth,
and not of rock. They are appreciated by the primitive man, who takes
advantage of them as of bridges.

The mountains are well watered; the summits of most of the mountains
have perpetual springs of pure, cool waters. On the very tops of some
there are occasional perpetual water holes ranging from 10 to 100 feet
across. These holes have neither surface outlet nor inlet; there are
two such within two hours of Bontoc pueblo. They are the favorite
wallowing places of the carabao, the so-called "water buffalo,"[6]
both the wild and the half-domesticated animals.

The mountain streams are generally in deep gorges winding in and out
between the sharp folds of the mountains. Their beds are strewn with
bowlders, often of immense size, which have withstood the wearing of
waters and storms. During the rainy season the streams racing between
the bases of two mountain ridges are maddened torrents. Some streams,
born and fed on the very peaks, tumble 100, 500, even 1,500 feet
over precipices, landing white as snow in the merciless torrent at
the mountain base. During the dry season the rivers are fordable at
frequent intervals, but during the rainy season, beginning in the
Cordillera Central in June and lasting well through October, even
the natives hesitate often for a week at a time to cross them.

The absence of lakes is noteworthy in the mountain country of
northern Luzon -- in fact, in all of northern Luzon. The two large
lakes frequently shown on maps of Cagayan Province, one east and one
west of the Rio Grande de Cagayan near the eighteenth parallel, are
not known to exist, though it is probable there is some foundation for
the Spaniards' belief in the existence of at least the eastern one. In
the bottom land of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, about six hours west
of Cabagan Nuevo, near the provincial border of Cagayan and Isabela,
there were a hundred acres of land covered with shallow water the last
of October, 1902, just at the end of the dry season of the Cagayan
Valley. The surface was well covered with rank, coarse grasses and
filled with aquatic plants, especially with lilies. Apparently the
waters were slowly receding, since the earth about the margins was
supporting the short, coarse grasses that tell of the gradual drying
out of soils once covered with water. In the mountains near Sagada,
Bontoc Province, there is a very small lake, and one or two others
have been reported at Bontoc; but the mountains must be said to be
practically lakeless.

Another mountain range of northern Luzon, of which practically no
details are known, is the Sierra Madre, extending nearly the full
length of the country close to the eastern coast. It seems to be an
unbroken, continuous range, and, as such, is the longest mountain
range in the Archipelago.

The fourth type of surface is the level areas. These areas lie mainly
along the river courses, and vary from a few rods in width to the
valley of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, which is often 50 miles in width,
and probably more. There are, besides these river valleys, varying
tracts of level plains which may most correctly be termed mountain
table-lands. The limited mountain valleys and table-lands are the
immediate home of the Igorot. The valleys are worn by the streams,
and, in turn, are built up, leveled, and enriched by the sand and
alluvium deposited annually by the floods. They are generally open,
grass-covered areas, though some have become densely forested since
being left above the high water of the streams.

The broad valley of the Rio Grande de Cagayan is not occupied
by the Igorot. It is too poorly watered and forested to meet his
requirements. It is mainly a vast pasture, supporting countless deer;
along the foothills and the forest-grown creek and river bottoms
there are many wild hogs; and in some areas herds of wild carabaos
and horses are found. Near the main river is a numerous population
of Christians. Many are Ilokano imported originally by the tobacco
companies to carry on the large tobacco plantations of the valley,
and the others are the native Cagayan.

The table-lands were once generally forested, but to-day many are
deforested, undulating, beautiful pastures. Some were cleared by
the Igorot for agriculture, and doubtless others by forest fires,
such as one constantly sees during the dry season destroying the
mountain forests of northern Luzon.

General observations have not been made on the temperature and humidity
of much of the mountain country of northern Luzon. However, scientific
observations have been made and recorded for a series of about ten
years at Baguio, Benguet Province, at an altitude of 4,777 feet,
and it is from the published data there gathered that the following
facts are gained.[7] The temperature and rainfall are the average
means deduced from many years' observations:



Month
Mean temperature
Number of rainy days
Rainfall


[DEGREE]F

INCHES

January
63.5
1
0.06

February
62.1
2
0.57

March
66.9
3
1.46

April
70.5
1
0.32

May
68.3
16
4.02

June
67.2
26
12.55

July
66.5
26
14.43

August
64.6
31
37.03

September
67.0
23
11.90

October
67.0
13
4.95

November
68.2
13
2.52

December
66.0
16
5.47


It is seen that April is the hottest month of the year and February is
the coldest. The absolute lowest temperature recorded is 42.10[degree]
Fahrenheit, noted February 18, 1902. Of course the temperature
varies considerably -- a fact due largely to altitude and prevailing
winds. The height of the rainy season is in August, during which it
rains every day, with an average precipitation of 37.03 inches. Baguio
is known as much rainier than many other places in the Cordillera
Central, yet it must be taken as more or less typical of the entire
mountain area of northern Luzon, throughout which the rainy season
is very uniform. Usually the days of the rainy season are beautiful
and clear during the forenoon, but all-day rains are not rare, and
each season has two or three storms of pelting, driving rain which
continues without a break for four or five days.


Igorot peoples

In several languages of northern Luzon the word "Ig-o-rot'" means
"mountain people." Dr. Pardo de Tavera says the word "Igorrote"
is composed of the root word "golot," meaning, in Tagalog, "mountain
chain," and the prefix "i," meaning "dweller in" or "people of." Morga
in 1609 used the word as "Igolot;" early Spaniards also used the word
frequently as "Ygolotes" -- and to-day some groups of the Igorot,
as the Bontoc group, do not pronounce the "r" sound, which common
usage now puts in the word. The Spaniards applied the term to the wild
peoples of present Benguet and Lepanto Provinces, now a short-haired,
peaceful people. In after years its common application spread eastward
to the natives of the comandancia of Quiangan, in the present Province
of Nueva Vizcaya, and northward to those of Bontoc.

The word "Ig-o-rot'" is now adopted tentatively as the name of the
extensive primitive Malayan people of northern Luzon, because it is
applied to a very large number of the mountain people by themselves and
also has a recognized usage in ethnologic and other writings. Its form
as "Ig-o-rot'" is adopted for both singular and plural, because it is
both natural and phonetic, and, because, so far as it is possible to
do so, it is thought wise to retain the simple native forms of such
words as it seems necessary or best to incorporate in our language,
especially in scientific language.

The sixteenth degree of north latitude cuts across Luzon probably as
far south as any people of the Igorot group are now located. It is
believed they occupy all the mountain country northward in the island
except the territory of the Ibilao in the southeastern part of the
area and some of the most inaccessible mountains in eastern Luzon,
which are occupied by Negritos.

There are from 150,000 to 225,000 Igorot in Igorot land. The census
of the Archipelago taken in 1903 will give the number as about
185,000. In the northern part of Pangasinan Province, the southwestern
part of the territory, there are reported about 3,150 pagan people
under various local names, as "Igorrotes," "Infieles" [pagans], and
"Nuevos Christianos." In Benguet Province there are some 23,000,
commonly known as "Benguet Igorrotes." In Union Province there are
about 4,400 primitive people, generally called "Igorrotes." Ilokos Sur
has nearly 8,000, half of whom are known to history as "Tinguianes"
and half as "Igorrotes." The Province of Ilokos Norte has nearly
9,000, which number is divided quite evenly between "Igorrotes,"
"Tinguianes," and "Infieles." Abra Province has in round numbers 13,500
pagan Malayans, most of whom are historically known as "Alzados" and
"Tinguianes." These Tinguian ethnically belong to the great Igorot
group, and in northern Bontoc Province, where they are known as Itneg,
flow into and are not distinguishable from the Igorot; but no effort is
made in this monograph to cut the Tinguian asunder from the position
they have gained in historic and ethnologic writings as a separate
people. The Province of Lepanto-Bontoc has, according to records,
about 70,500 "Igorrotes," "Tinguianes," and "Caylingas," but I believe
a more careful census will show it has nearer 100,000. Nueva Ecija is
reported to have half a hundred "Tinguianes." The Province of Nueva
Vizcaya has some 46,000 people locally and historically known as
"Bunnayans," a large group in the Spanish comandancia of Quiangan;
the "Silapanes," also a large group of people closely associated with
the Bunayan; the Isinay, a small group in the southern part of the
province; the Alamit, a considerable group of Silipan people dwelling
along the Alamit River in the comandancia of Quiangan; and the small
Ayangan group of the Bunayan people of Quiangan. Cagayan Province has
about 11,000 "Caylingas" and "Ipuyaos." Isabela Province is reported
as having about 2,700 primitive Malayans of the Igorot group; they
are historically known as "Igorrotes," "Gaddanes," "Calingas," and
"Ifugaos."

The following forms of the above names of different dialect groups of
Ig-o-rot' have been adopted by The Ethnological Survey: Tin-gui-an',
Ka-lin'-ga, Bun-a-yan', I-sa-nay', A-la'-mit, Sil-i-pan', Ay-an'-gan,
I-pu-kao', and Gad-an'.

It is believed that all the mountain people of the northern half
of Luzon, except the Negritos, came to the island in some of the
earliest of the movements that swept the coasts of the Archipelago
from the south and spread over the inland areas -- succeeding waves
of people, having more culture, driving their cruder blood fellows
farther inland. Though originally of one blood, and though they
are all to-day in a similar broad culture-grade -- that is, all are
mountain agriculturists, and all are, or until recently have been,
head-hunters -- yet it does not follow that the Igorot groups have
to-day identical culture; quite the contrary is true. There are many
and wide differences even in important cultural expressions which are
due to environment, long isolation, and in some cases to ideas and
processes borrowed from different neighboring peoples. Very misleading
statements have sometimes been made in regard to the Igorot -- customs
from different groups have been jumbled together in one description
until a man has been pictured who can not be found anywhere. All
except the most general statements are worse than wasted unless a
particular group is designated.

An illustration of some of the differences between groups of typical
Igorot will make this clearer. I select as examples the people of
Bontoc and the adjoining Quiangan district in northern Nueva Vizcaya
Province, both of whom are commonly known as Igorot. It must be
noted that the people of both areas are practically unmodified by
modern culture and both are constant head-hunters. With scarcely
one exception Bontoc pueblos are single clusters of buildings;
in Banawi pueblo of the Quiangan area there are eleven separate
groups of dwellings, each group situated on a prominence which may
be easily protected by the inhabitants against an enemy below them;
and other Quiangan pueblos are similarly built. As will be brought out
in succeeding chapters, the social and political institutions of the
two peoples differ widely. In Bontoc the head weapon is a battle-ax,
in Quiangan it is a long knife. Most of the head-hunting practices
of the two peoples are different, especially as to the disposition of
the skulls of the victims. Bontoc men wear their hair long, and have
developed a small pocket-hat to confine the hair and contain small
objects carried about; the men of Quiangan wear their hair short, have
nothing whatever of the nature of the pocket-hat, but have developed
a unique hand bag which is used as a pocket. In the Quiangan area a
highly conventionalized wood-carving art has developed -- beautiful
eating spoons with figures of men and women carved on the handles
and food bowls cut in animal figures are everywhere found; while
in Bontoc only the most crude and artless wood carving is made. In
language there is such a difference that Bontoc men who accompanied
me into the northern part of the large Quiangan area, only a long day
from Bontoc pueblo, could not converse with Quiangan men, even about
such common things as travelers in a strange territory need to learn.

It is because of the many differences in cultural expressions between
even small and neighboring communities of the primitive people of the
Philippine Archipelago that I wish to be understood in this paper
as speaking of the one group -- the Bontoc Igorot culture group;
a group however, in every essential typical of the numerous Igorot
peoples of the mountains of northern Luzon.



PART 2

The Bontoc Culture Group


Bontoc culture area

The Bontoc culture area nearly equals the old Spanish Distrito
Politico-Militar of Bontoc, presented to the American public in a
Government publication in 1900.[8]

The Spanish Bontoc area was estimated about 4,500 square
kilometers. This was probably too large an estimate, and it is
undoubtedly an overestimate for the Bontoc culture area, the northern
border of which is farther south than the border of the Spanish
Bontoc area.

The area is well in the center of northern Luzon and is cut off by
watersheds from other territory, except on the northeast. The most
prominent of these watersheds is Polis Mountain, extending along
the eastern and southern sides of the area; it is supposed to reach a
height of over 7,000 feet. The western watershed is an undifferentiated
range of the Cordillera Central. To the north stretches a large area
of the present Province of Bontoc, though until 1903 most of that
northern territory was embraced in the Province of Abra. The Province
of Isabela lies to the east; Nueva Vizcaya and Lepanto border the
area on the south, and Lepanto and Abra border it on the west.

The Bontoc culture area lies entirely in the mountains, and, with the
exception of two pueblos, it is all drained northeastward into the
Rio Grande de Cagayan by one river, the Rio Chico de Cagayan; but the
Rio Sibbu, coursing more directly eastward, is a considerable stream.

To-day one main trail enters Bontoc Province. It was originally
built by the Spaniards, and enters Bontoc pueblo from the southwest,
leading up from Cervantes in Lepanto Province. From Cervantes there
are two trails to the coast. One passes southward through Baguio in
Benguet Province and then stretches westward, terminating on the
coast at San Fernando, in Union Province. The other, the one most
commonly traveled to Bontoc, passes to the northwest, terminating on
the coast at Candon, in the Province of Ilokos Sur. The main trail,
entering Bontoc from Cervantes, passes through the pueblo and extends
to the northeast, quite closely following the trend of the Chico
River. In Spanish times it was seldom traveled farther than Bassao,
but several parties of Americans have been over it as far as the
Rio Grande de Cagayan since November, 1902. A second trail, also of
Spanish origin, but now practically unused, enters the area from the
south and connects Bontoc pueblo, its northern terminus, with the
valley of the Magat River far south. It passes through the pueblos
of Bayambang, Quiangan, and Banawi, in the Province of Nueva Vizcaya.

The main trail is to-day passable for a horseman from the coast
terminus to Tinglayan, three days beyond Bontoc pueblo. Practically
all other trails in the area are simply wild footpaths of the
Igorot. Candon, the coast terminus of the main trail, lies in the
coastal plain area about 4 1/4 miles from the sea. From the coast to
the small pueblo of Concepcion at the western base of the Cordillera
Central is a half-day's journey. The first half of the trail passes
over flat land, with here and there small pueblos surrounded by rice
sementeras. There are almost no forests. The latter half is through
the coastal hill area, and the trail frequently passes through small
forests; it crosses several rivers, dangerous to ford in the rainy
season, and winds in and out among attractive hills bearing clumps
of graceful, plume-like bamboo.

From Concepcion the trail leads up the mountain to Tilud Pass, historic
since the insurrection because of the brave stand made there by the
young, ill-fated General del Pilar. The climb to Tilud Pass, from
either side of the mountain, is one of the longest and most tedious in
northern Luzon. The trail frequently turns short on itself, so that
the front and rear parts of a pack train are traveling face to face,
and one end is not more than eight or ten rods above the other on the
side of the mountain. The last view of the sea from the Candon-Bontoc
trail is obtained at Tilud Pass. From Concepcion to Angaki, at the
base of the mountain on the eastern side of the pass, the trail is
about half a day long. From the pass it is a ceaseless drop down
the steep mountain, but affords the most charming views of mountain
scenery in northern Luzon. The shifting direction of the turning trail
and the various altitudes of the traveler present constantly changing
scenes -- mountains and mountains ramble on before one. From Angaki
to Cervantes the trail passes over deforested rolling mountain land,
with safe drinking water in only one small spring. Many travelers
who pass that part of the journey in the middle of the day complain
loudly of the heat and thirst experienced there.

Cervantes, said to be 70 miles from Candon, is the capital of the dual
Province of Lepanto-Bontoc. Bontoc pueblo lies inland only about 35
miles farther, but the greater part of two days is usually required to
reach it. Twenty minutes will carry a horseman down the bluff from
Cervantes, across the swift Abra -- if the stream is fordable --
and start him on the eastward mountain climb.

The first pueblo beyond Cervantes is Cayan, the old Spanish capital of
the district. About twenty-five years ago the site was changed from
Cayan to Cervantes because there was not sufficient suitable land
at Cayan. Cayan is about four hours from Cervantes, and every foot
of the trail is up the mountain. A short distance beyond Cayan the
trail divides to rejoin only at the outskirts of Bontoc pueblo; but
the right-hand or "lower" trail is not often traveled by horsemen. Up
and up the mountain one climbs from about 1,800 feet at Cervantes to
about 6,000 feet among the pines, and then slowly descends, having
crossed the boundary line between Lepanto and Bontoc subprovinces to
the pueblo of Bagnen -- the last one before the Bontoc culture area
is entered. It is customary to spend the night on the trail, as one
goes into Bontoc, either at Bagnen or at Sagada, a pueblo about two
hours farther on.

Only along the top of the high mountain, before Bagnen is reached,
does the trail pass through a forest -- otherwise it is always
climbing up or winding about the mountains deforested probably by
fires. Practically all the immediate territory on the right hand of
the trail between Bagnen and Sagada is occupied by the beautifully
terraced rice sementeras of Balugan; the valley contains more than a
thousand acres so cultivated. At Sagada lime rocks -- some eroded into
gigantic, massive forms, others into fantastic spires and domes --
everywhere crop out from the grassy hills. Up and down the mountains
the trail leads, passing another small pine forest near Ankiling
and Titipan, about four hours from Bontoc, and then creeps on and
at last through the terraced entrance way into the mountain pocket
where Bontoc pueblo lies, about 100 miles from the western coast,
and, by Government aneroid barometer, about 2,800 feet above the sea.


Marks of Bontoc culture

It is difficult and often impossible to state the essential difference
in culture which distinguishes one group of people from another. It
is more difficult to draw lines of distinction, for the culture of
one group almost imperceptibly flows into that of another adjoining it.

However, two fundamental institutions of the people of Bontoc seem to
differ from those of most adjoining people. One of these institutions
has to do with the control of the pueblo. Bontoc has not developed
the headman -- the "principal" of the Spaniard, the "Bak-nan'"
of the Benguet Igorot -- the one rich man who becomes the pueblo,
leader. In Benguet Province the headman is found in every pueblo,
and he is so powerful that he often dominates half a dozen outlying
barrios to the extent that he receives a large share, often one-half,
of the output of all the productive labors of the barrio. Immediately
north of the Bontoc area, in Tinglayan, the headman is again found. He
has no place whatever in Bontoc. The control of the pueblos of the
Bontoc area is in the hands of groups of old men; however, each
group, called "intugtukan," operates only within a single political
and geographic portion of the pueblo, so that no one group has in
charge the control of the pueblo. The pueblo is a loose federation
of smaller political groups.

The other institution is a social development. It is the olag,
an institution of trial marriage. It is not known to exist among
adjoining people, but is found throughout the area in which the
intugtukan exists; they are apparently coextensive. I was repeatedly
informed that the olag is not found in the Banawi area south of Bontoc,
or in the Tinglayan area east, or among the Tinguian to the north,
or in Benguet far southwest, or in Lepanto immediately southwest --
though I have some reason to believe that both the intugtukan and
olag exist in a crumbling way among certain Lepanto Igorot.

Besides these two institutions there are other differing marks of
culture between the Bontoc area and adjoining people. Some of these
were suggested a few pages back, others will appear in following pages.

Without doubt the limits of the spread of the common culture have
been determined mainly by the physiography of the country. One of the
two pueblos in the area not on the common drainage system is Lias,
but Lias was largely built by a migration from Bontoc pueblo -- the
hotbed of Bontoc culture. Barlig, the other pueblo not on the common
drainage system (both Barlig and Lias are on the Sibbu River), lies
between Lias and the other pueblos of the Bontoc culture area, and so
naturally has been drawn in line and held in line with the culture
of the geographic area in which it is located -- its institutions
are those of its environment.


The Bontoc man


Introduction

The Bontoc Igorot has been in Bontoc longer than the endurance of
tradition, for he says he never lived elsewhere, that he never drove
any people out before him, and that he was never driven; and has
always called himself the "I-pu-kao'" or "I-fu-gao'" -- the "people."

This word for people survives not only throughout the Province
of Bontoc but also far toward the northern end of Luzon, where it
appears as "Apayao" or "Yaos." Bontoc designates the people of the
Quiangan region as "I-fu-gao'," though a part of them at least have
a different name for themselves.

The Bontoc Igorot have their center in the pueblo of Bontoc,
pronounced "Ban-tak'," a Spanish corruption of the Igorot name
"Fun-tak'," a common native word for mountain, the original name
of the pueblo. To the northwest their culture extends to that of
the historic Tinguian, a long-haired folk physiographically cut off
by a watershed. To the east of the Cordillera Central the Tinguian
call themselves "It-neg'." To the northeast the Bontoc culture area
embraces the pueblo of Basao, stopping short of Tinglayan. The eastern
limit of Bontoc culture is fixed by the pueblos of Lias and Barlig,
and is thus about coextensive with the province. Southward the area
includes all to the top of the watershed of Polis Mountain, which
turns southward the numerous streams feeding the Rio Magat. The
pueblos south of this watershed -- Lubong, Gisang, Banawi, etc. --
belong to the short-haired people of Quiangan culture. To the west
Bontoc culture extends to the watershed of the Cordillera Central,
which turns westward the various affluents of the Rio del Abra. On
the southwest this cuts off the short-haired Lepanto Igorot, whose
culture seems to be more allied to that of Benguet than Bontoc.

The men of the Bontoc area know none of the peoples by whom they
are surrounded by the names history gives or the peoples designate
themselves, with the exception of the Lepanto Igorot, the It-neg',
and the Ilokano of the west coast. They do not know the "Tinguian"
of Abra on their north and northwest by that name; they call them
"It-neg'." Farther north are the people called by the Spaniards
"Nabayuganes," "Aripas," and "Ipugaos;" to the northeast and east
are the "Caylingas," "Comunanges," "Bayabonanes," "Dayags," and
"Gaddannes" -- but Bontoc knows none of these names. Bontoc culture
and Kalinga culture lie close together on the east, and the people of
Bontoc pueblo name all their eastern neighbors It-neg' -- the same
term they apply to the Tinguian to the west and northwest, because,
they say, they all wear great quantities of brass on the arms and
legs. To the south of Bontoc are the Quiangan Igorot, the Banawi
division of which, at least, names itself May'-yo-yet, but whom Bontoc
calls "I-fu-gao'." They designate the people of Benguet the "Igorot
of Benguet," but these peoples designate themselves "Ib-a-loi'" in
the northern part, and "Kan-ka-nay'" in the southern part, neither
of which names Bontoc knows.

She has still another set of names for the people surrounding her
-- people whom she vaguely knows are there but of whom or of whose
lands she has no first-hand knowledge. The people to the north are
"Am-yan'-an," and the northern country is "La'-god." The "Day'-ya"
are the eastern people, while "Bar'-lig" is the name of the eastern
and southeastern land. "Ab-a-ga'-tan" are the people of the south, and
"Fi'-lig ab-a-ga'-tan," is the south land. The people of the west are
"Loa'-od," and "Fi'-lig lao'-od," or "Lo'-ko" (the Provinces of Ilokos
Norte and Ilokos Sur) is the country lying to the west and southwest.

Some of the old men of Bontoc say that in the past the Igorot people
once extended to the seacoast in the Provinces of Ilokos Norte
and Ilokos Sur. This, of course, is a tradition of the prehistoric
time before the Ilokano invaded northern Luzon; but, as has been
stated, the Bontoc people claim never to have been driven by that
invasion, neither have they any knowledge of such a movement. It is
not improbable, however, that traditions of the invasion may linger
with the people nearer the coast and farther north.


Historical sketch

It is regretted that the once voluminous historical records and data
which the Spaniards prepared and kept at Bontoc were burned -- tons of
paper, they say -- probably late in 1898 or early in 1899 by Captain
Angels, an insurrecto. However, from scanty printed historical data,
but mostly from information gathered in Bontoc from Igorot and resident
Ilokano, the following brief sketch is presented, with the hope that it
will show the nature of the outside influences which have been about
Bontoc for the past half century prior to American occupation. It is
believed that the data are sufficiently truthful for this purpose,
but no claim is made for historical accuracy.

It seems that in 1665 the Spanish governor of the Philippines,
Governor-General D. Diego de Salcedo, sent an expedition from Manila
into northern Luzon. Some time during the three years the expedition
was out its influence was felt in Fidelisan and Tanolang, two pueblos
in the western part of the Bontoc culture area, for history says they
paid tribute.[9] It is not probable that any considerable party from
the expedition penetrated the Igorot mountain country as far as the
above pueblos.

After the year 1700 expeditions occasionally reached Cayan, which,
until about twenty-five years ago, as has been stated, was a Spanish
capital. In 1852 the entire territory of present Lepanto-Bontoc and a
large part of northern Nueva Vizcaya were organized as an independent
"distrito," under the name of "Valle de Cayan;"[10] and a few years
later, though the author does not give the date, Bontoc was established
as an independent "distrito."

The Spaniards and Ilokano in and about Bontoc Province say that it
was about fifty years ago that the Spaniards first came to Bontoc. The
time agrees very accurately with the time of the establishment of the
district. From then until 1899 there was a Spanish garrison of 200
or 300 men stationed in Bontoc pueblo. Christian Ilokano from the
west coast of northern Luzon and the Christian Tagalog from Manila
and vicinity were the soldiers.

The Spanish comandante of the "distrito," the head of the
political-military government, resided there, and there were also
a few Spanish army officers and an army chaplain. A large garrison
was quartered in Cervantes; there was a church in both Bontoc and
Cervantes. In the district of Bontoc there was a Spanish post at
Sagada, between the two capitals, Bontoc and Cervantes. Farther to the
east was a post at Tukukan and Sakasakan, and farther east, at Basao,
there was a post, a church, and a priest.

Most of the pueblos had Ilokano presidentes. The Igorot say that the
Spaniards did little for them except to shoot them. There is yet a
long, heavy wooden stock in Bontoc pueblo in which the Igorot were
imprisoned. Igorot women were made the mistresses of both officers and
soldiers. Work, food, fuel, and lumber were not always paid for. All
persons 18 or more years old were required to pay an annual tax of 50
cents or an equivalent value in rice. A day's wage was only 5 cents,
so each family was required to pay an equivalent of twenty days' labor
annually. In wild towns the principal men were told to bring in so
many thousand bunches of palay -- the unthreshed rice. If it was not
all brought in, the soldiers frequently went for it, accompanied by
Igorot warriors; they gathered up the rice, and sometimes burned the
entire pueblo. Apad, the principal man of Tinglayan, was confined six
years in Spanish jails at Bontoc and Vigan because he repeatedly failed
to compel his people to bring in the amount of palay assessed them.

They say there were three small guardhouses on the outskirts of Bontoc
pueblo, and armed Igorot from an outside town were not allowed to
enter. They were disarmed, and came and went under guard.

The Spanish comandantes in charge of the province seem to have remained
only about two years each. Saldero was the last one. Early in the
eighties of the nineteenth century the comandante took his command
to Barlig, a day east of Bontoc, to punish that town because it had
killed people in Tulubin and Samoki; Barlig all but exterminated
the command -- only three men escaped to tell the tale. Mandicota, a
Spanish officer, went from Manila with a battalion of 1,000 soldiers
to erase Barlig from the map; he was also accompanied from Bontoc
by 800 warriors from that vicinity. The Barlig people fled to the
mountains, losing only seven men, whose heads the Bontoc Igorot cut
off and brought home.

Comandante Villameres is reported to have taken twenty soldiers and
about 520 warriors of Bontoc and Samoki to punish Tukukan for killing
a Samoki woman; the warriors returned with three heads.

They say that in 1891 Comandante Alfaro took 40 soldiers and 1,000
warriors from the vicinity of Bontoc to Ankiling; sixty heads adorned
the triumphant return of the warriors.

In 1893 Nevas is said to have taken 100 soldiers and 500 warriors to
Sadanga; they brought back one head.

A few years later Saldero went to "clear up" rebellious Sagada with
soldiers and Igorot warriors; Bontoc reports that the warriors returned
with 100 heads.

The insurrectos appeared before Cervantes two or three months after
Saldero's bloody work in Sagada. The Spanish garrison fled before
the insurrectos; the Spanish civilians went with them, taking their
flocks and herds to Bontoc. A thousand pesos was the price offered
by the Igorot of Sagada to the insurrectos for Saldero's head when
the Philippine soldiers passed through the pueblo; but Saldero made
good his escape from Bontoc, and left the country by boat from Vigan.

The Bontoc Igorot assisted the insurrectos in many ways when they
first came. About 2 miles west of Bontoc is a Spanish rifle pit,
and there the Spanish soldiers, now swelled to about 600 men, lay
in wait for the insurrectos. There on two hilltops an historic sham
battle occurred. The two forces were nearly a mile apart, and at that
distance they exchanged rifle bullets three days. The Spaniards finally
surrendered, on condition of safe escort to the coast. For fifty years
they had conquered their enemy who were armed only with spear and ax;
but the insurrectos were armed with guns. However, the really hard
pressing came from the rear -- there were still the ax and spear --
and few soldiers from cuartel or trench who tried to bring food or
water for the fighting men ever reported why they were delayed.

The feeling of friendship between the Igorot and insurrectos was so
strong that when the insurrectos asked the Igorot to go to Manila
to fight the new enemy (the Americans), 400 warriors, armed only
with spear, battle-ax, and shield, went a three weeks' journey to
get American heads. At Caloocan, just outside Manila, they met the
American Army early in February, 1899. They threw their spears, the
Americans fired their guns -- "which must be brothers to the thunder,"
the Igorot said -- and they let fall their remaining weapons, and,
panic stricken, started home. All but thirteen arrived in safety. They
are not ashamed of their defeat and retreat; they made a mistake when
they went to fight the Americans, and they were quick to see it. They
are largely blessed with the saving sense of humor, and some of the
warriors who were at Caloocan have been known to say that they never
stopped running until they arrived home.

When these men told their people in Bontoc what part they and
the insurrectos played in the fight against the Americans, the
tension between the Igorot and insurrectos was at its greatest. The
insurrectos were evidently worse than the Spaniards. They did all
the things the Spaniards had done, and more -- they robbed through
falsehood. Consequently, insurrectos frequently lost their heads.

Major Marsh went through Bontoc close after Aguinaldo in December,
1899. The Igorot befriended the Americans; they brought them food
and guided them faithfully along the bewildering mountain trails
when the insurrectos split and scattered -- anywhere, everywhere,
fleeing eastward, northward, southward, in the mountains.

When Major Marsh returned through Bontoc, after following Aguinaldo
into the heart of the Quiangan area, he left in the pueblo some sixty
shoeless men under a volunteer lieutenant. The lieutenant promptly
appointed an Ilokano presidente, vice-presidente, secretary, and
police force in Bontoc and also in Sagada, and when the soldiers left
in a few weeks he gave seven guns to the "officials" in Bontoc and
two to those in Sagada. A short time proved that those "officials"
were untrustworthy men; many were insurrectos who had dropped
behind Aguinaldo. They persecuted the Igorot even worse than had the
insurrectos. They seemed to have the American Army behind them --
and the Igorot stood in awe of American arms.

The crisis came. An Igorot obtained possession of one of the guns,
and the Ilokano chief of police was killed and his corporal wounded.

This shooting, at the time apparently unpremeditated, but, in reality,
carefully planned and successfully executed, was the cause of the
arrival in Bontoc pueblo of the first American civilians. At that time
a party of twenty Americans was at Fidelisan, a long day northwest
of Bontoc; they were prospecting and sightseeing. The Ilokano sent
these men a letter, and the Igorot sent a messenger, begging them to
come to the help of the pueblo. Three men went on August 27, 1900;
they were Truman K. Hunt, M.D., Mr. Frank Finley, and Mr. Riley. The
disagreement was settled, and several Ilokano families left Bontoc
under the protection of Mr. Riley.

August 9, 1901, when the Board of Health for the Philippine Islands
was organized, Dr. Hunt, who had remained in Bontoc most of the
preceding year, was appointed "superintendent of public vaccination
and inspection of infectious diseases for the Provinces of Bontoc
and Lepanto." He was stationed at Bontoc. About that time another
American civilian came to the province -- Mr. Reuben H. Morley, now
secretary-treasurer of the Province of Nueva Vizcaya, who lived nearly
a year in Tulubin, two hours from Bontoc. December 14 Mr. William
F. Smith, an American teacher, was sent to Bontoc to open a school.

Early in 1902 Constabulary inspectors, Lieutenants Louis A. Powless and
Ernest A. Eckman, also came. May 28, 1902, the Philippine Commission
organized the Province of Lepanto-Bontoc; on June 9 Dr. Hunt was
appointed lieutenant-governor of the province. May 1, 1903, Dr. Hunt
resigned and E. A. Wagar, M.D., became his successor.

The Spaniard was in Bontoc about fifty years. To summarize the Spanish
influence on the Igorot -- and this includes any influence which the
Ilokano or Tagalog may have had since they came among the people under
Spanish protection -- it is believed that no essential institution of
the Igorot has been weakened or vitiated to any appreciable degree. No
Igorot attended the school which the Spaniards had in Bontoc;
to-day not ten Igorot of the pueblo can make themselves understood
in Spanish about the commonest things around them. I fail to detect
any occupation, method, or device of the Igorot which the Spaniards'
influence improved; and the Igorot flatly deny any such influence.

The Spaniard put the institution of pueblo presidente pretty well
throughout the area now in province, but the presidente in no way
interferes with the routine life of the people -- he is the mouthpiece
of the Government asking for labor and the daily necessities of a
nonproductive, resident foreign population.

The "tax" levied was scarcely in the nature of a modern tax; it was
more the means taken by the Spaniard to secure his necessary food. In
no other way was the political life and organization of the pueblo
affected. In the realm of religion and spirit belief the surface
has scarcely been scratched. The only Igorot who became Christians
were the wives of some of the Christian natives who came in with the
Spaniard, mainly as soldiers. There are now eight or ten such women,
wives of the resident Ilokanos of Bontoc pueblo, but those whose
husbands left the pueblo have reverted to Igorot faith.

In the matter of war and head-hunting the effect of the Spaniard was
to intensify the natural instinct of the Igorot in and about Bontoc
pueblo. Nineteen men in twenty of Bontoc and Samoki have taken a human
head, and it has been seen under what conditions and influences some of
those heads were taken. An Igorot, whose confidence I believe I have,
an old man who represents the knowledge and wisdom of the people, told
me recently that if the Americans wanted the people of Bontoc to go out
against a pueblo they would gladly go; and he added, suggestively, that
when the Spaniards were there the old men had much better food than
now, for many hogs were killed in the celebration of war expeditions
-- and the old men got the greater part of the meat. The Igorot is a
natural head-hunter, and his training for the last sixty years seems
to have done little more for him than whet this appetite.


Somatology


Man

The Bontoc men average about 5 feet 4 1/8 inches in height, and have
the appearance of being taller than they are. Again and again one
is deceived by their height, and he repeatedly backs a 5-foot-7-inch
Igorot up against a 6-foot American, vainly expecting the stature of
the brown man to equal that of the white. Almost never does the Bontoc
man appear heavy or thickset, as does his brother, the Benguet Igorot
-- the human pack horse seen so constantly on the San Fernando-Baguio
trail -- muscularly one of the most highly developed primitive people
in the world to-day

Of thirty-two men measured from Bontoc and vicinity the shortest was
4 feet 9 1/8 inches and the tallest was slightly more than 5 feet 9
inches. The following table presents the average measurements of the
thirty-two men:

Average measurements of Bontoc men



Measurements


CM.

Stature
160.287

Spread of arms
165.684

Head length
19.212

Head breadth
15.203

Cephalic index (per cent)
79.1328

Nasal length
5.25625

Nasal breadth
4.1625

Nasal index (per cent)
79.191


From these measurements it appears that the composite man --
the average of the combined measurements of thirty-two men -- is
mesaticephalic. Among the thirty-two men the extremes of cephalic index
are 91.48 and 67.48. This first measurement is of a young man between
20 and 25 years of age. It stands far removed from other measurements,
the one nearest it being 86.78, that of a man about 60 years old. The
other extreme is 67.48, the measure of a young man between 25 and 30
years of age. Among the thirty-two men, nine are brachycephalic -- that
is, their cephalic index is greater than 80; twenty of the thirty-two
are mesaticephalic, with cephalic index between 75 and 80; and only
three are dolichocephalic -- that is, the cephalic index is below 75.

The nasal indexes of the thirty-two men show that the Bontoc man
has the "medium" or mesorhine nose. They also show that one is
very extremely platyrhine, the index being 104.54, and one is very
leptorhine, being 58.18. Of the total, five are leptorhine -- that
is, have the "narrow" nose with nasal index below 70. Seventeen men
are mesorhine, with the "medium" nose with nasal index between 70
and 85; and ten are platyrhine -- that is, the noses are "broad,"
with an index greater than 85.

The Bontoc men are never corpulent, and, with the exception of the
very old, they are seldom poor. During the period of a man's prime he
is usually muscled to an excellent symmetry. His neck, never long, is
well formed and strong and supports the head in erect position. His
shoulders are broad, even, and full muscled, and with seeming ease
carry transportation baskets laden with 75 to 100 pounds. His arms
are smoothly developed and are about the same relative length as the
American's. The hands are strong and short. The waist line is firm
and smaller than the shoulders or hips. The buttocks usually appear
heavy. His legs are generally straight; the thighs and calves are those
of a prime pedestrian accustomed to long and frequent walks. The ankles
are seldom thick; and the feet are broad and relatively short, and,
almost without exception, are placed on the ground straight ahead. He
has the feet of a pedestrian -- not the inturned feet of the constant
bearer of heavy burdens on the back or the outturned feet of the
man who sits or stands. The perfection of muscular development of
two-thirds of the men of Bontoc between the ages of 25 and 30 would
be the envy of the average college athlete in the States.

In color the men are brown, though there is a wide range of tone from
a light brown with a strong saffron undertone to a very dark brown
-- as near a bronze as can well be imagined. The sun has more to do
with the different color tones than has anything else, after which
habits of personal cleanliness play a very large role. There are men
in the Bontoc Igorot Constabulary of an extremely light-brown color,
more saffron than brown, who have been wearing clothing for only one
year. During the year the diet of the men in the Constabulary has
been practically the same as that of their darker brothers among whom
they were enlisted only twelve months ago. All the members of the
Constabulary differ much more in color from the unclothed men than
the unclothed differ among themselves. Man after man of these latter
may pass under the eye without revealing a tint of saffron, yet there
are many who show it faintly. The natural Igorot never washes himself
clean. He washes frequently, but lacks the means of cleansing the skin,
and the dirtier he is the more bronze-like he appears. At all times his
face looks lighter and more saffron-tinted than the remainder of his
body. There are two reasons for this -- because the face is more often
washed and because of its contrast with the black hair of the head.

The hair of the head is black, straight, coarse, and relatively
abundant. It is worn long, frequently more than half way to the hips
from the shoulders. The front is "banged" low and square across the
forehead, cut with the battle-ax; this line of cut runs to above and
somewhat back of the ear, the hair of the scalp below it being cut
close to the head. When the men age, a few gray hairs appear, and
some old men have heads of uniform iron-gray color. I have never seen
a white-haired Igorot. A few of the old men have their hair thinning
on the crown, but a tendency to baldness is by no means the rule.

Bontoc pueblo is no exception to the rule that every pueblo in the
Philippines has a few people with curly or wavy hair. I doubt whether
to-day an entire tribe of perfectly straight-haired primitive Malayan
people exists in the Archipelago. Fu-nit is a curly-haired Bontoc
man of about 45 years of age. Many people told me that his father
and also his grandfather were members of the pueblo and had curly
hair. I have never been able to find any hint at foreign or Negrito
blood in any of the several curly haired people in the Bontoc culture
area whose ancestors I have tried to discover.

The scanty growth of hair on the face of the Bontoc man is pulled
out. A small pebble and the thumb nail or the blade of the battle-ax
and the bulb of the thumb are frequently used as forceps; they never
cut the hair of the face. It is common to see men of all ages with
a very sparse growth of hair on the upper lip or chin, and one of
50 years in Bontoc has a fairly heavy 4-inch growth of gray hair on
his chin and throat; he is shown in Pl. XIII. Their bodies are quite
free from hair. There is none on the breast, and seldom any on the
legs. The pelvic growth is always pulled out by the unmarried. The
growth in the armpits is scant, but is not removed.

The iris of the eye is brown -- often rimmed with a lighter or darker
ring. The brown of the iris ranges from nearly black to a soft hazel
brown. The cornea is frequently blotched with red or yellow. The
Malayan fold of the upper eyelid is seen in a large majority of the
men, the fold being so low that it hangs over and hides the roots of
the lashes. The lashes appear to grow from behind the lid rather than
from its rim.

The teeth are large and strong, and, whereas in old age they frequently
become few and discolored, during prime they are often white and
clean. The people never artificially stain the teeth, and, though
surrounded by betel-nut chewers with dark teeth or red-stained lips,
they do not use the betel.

Since the Igorot keeps no record of years, it is impossible to know
his age, but it is believed that sufficient comparative data have
been collected in Bontoc to make the following estimates reliable:

At the age of 20 a man seems hardly to have reached his physical best;
this he attains, however, before he is 25. By 35 he begins to show the
marks of age. By 45 most of the men are fast getting "old"; their faces
are seamed, their muscles losing form, their carriage less erect, and
the step slower. By 55 all are old -- most are bent and thin. Probably
not over one or two in a hundred mature men live to be 70 years old.

The following census taken from a Spanish manuscript found in Quiangan,
and written in 1894, may be taken as representative of an average
Igorot pueblo:

Census of Magulang, district of Quiangan


Years
Females
Males

0 to 1
191
200

1 to 5
209
210

5 to 10
144
123

10 to 15
132
159

15 to 20
129
114

20 to 30
121
134

30 to 40
212
239

40 to 50
118
126

50 and over
79
62

Total
1,335
1,367


From this census it seems that the Magulang Igorot man is at his
prime between the ages of 30 and 40 years, and that the death rate
for men between the ages of 40 and 50 is nearly as great as the
death rate among children between 5 to 10 years of age, being 52.7
per cent. Beyond the age of 50 collapse is sudden, since all the men
more than 50 years old are less than half the number of those between
the ages of 40 and 50 years.


Woman

The women average 4 feet 9 3/8 inches in height. In appearance they
are short and stocky. Twenty-nine women from Bontoc and vicinity were
measured; the tallest was 5 feet 4 3/4 inches, and the shortest 4 feet
4 3/4 inches. The following table presents the average measurements
of twenty-nine women:

Average measurements of Bontoc women



Measurements


CM.

Stature
145.800

Spread of arms
149.603

Head length
18.593

Head breadth
14.706

Cephalic index (per cent)
79.094

Nasal length
4.582

Nasal breadth
3.608

Nasal index (per cent)
78.744


These measurements show that the composite woman -- the average
of the measurements of twenty-nine women -- is mesaticephalic. The
extremes of cephalic index are 87.64 and 64.89; both are measurements
of women about 35 years of age. Of the twenty-nine women twelve
are brachycephalic; twelve are mesaticephalic; and five are
dolichocephalic.

The Bontoc woman has a "medium," or mesorhine, nose, as is shown by
the above figures. Four of the twenty-nine women have the "narrow"
leptorhine nose with nasal index below 70; seven have platyrhine or
the "broad" nose with index greater than 85; while seventeen have the
"medium" or mesorhine nose with nasal index between 70 and 85. The
broadest nose has an index of 97.56, and the narrowest an index
of 58.53.

The women reach the age of maturity well prepared for its
responsibilities. They have more adipose tissue than the men, yet are
never fat. The head is carried erect, but with a certain stiffness
-- often due, in part, no doubt, to shyness, and in part to the fact
that they carry all their burdens on their heads. I believe the neck
more often appears short than does the neck of the man. The shoulders
are broad, and flat across the back. The breasts are large, full,
and well supported. The hips are broad and well set, and the waist
(there is no natural waist line) is frequently no smaller than the
hips, though smaller than the shoulders. Their arms are smooth and
strong, and they throw stones as men do, with the full-arm throw from
the shoulder. Their hands are short and strong. Their legs are almost
invariably straight, but are probably more frequently bowed at the
knees than are the men's. The thighs are sturdy and strong, and the
calves not infrequently over-large. This enlargement runs low down,
so the ankles, never slender, very often appear coarse and large. In
consequence of this heavy lower leg, the feet, short at best, usually
look much too short. They are placed on the ground straight ahead,
though the tendency to inturned feet is slightly more noticeable than
it is among the men.

Their carriage is a healthful one, though it is not always graceful,
since their long strides commonly give the prominent buttocks a jerky
movement. They prove the naturalness of that style of walking which, in
profile, shows the chest thrust forward and the buttocks backward; the
abdomen is in, and the shoulders do not swing as the strides are made.

It can not be said that at base the color of the women's skin differs
from that of the men, but the saffron undertone is more commonly
seen than it is in the unclothed men. It shows on the shaded parts
of the body, and where the skin is distended, as on the breast and
about certain features of the face.

The hair of the head is like that of the man's; it is worn long, and
is twisted and wound about the head. It has a tendency to fall out
as age comes on, but does not seem thin on the head. The tendency to
gray hairs is apparently somewhat less than it is with the men. The
remainder of the body is exceptionally free from hair. The growth in
the armpits and the pelvic hair are always pulled out by the unmarried,
and a large per cent of the women do not allow it to grow even in
old age.

Their eyes are brown, varied as are those of the men, and with the
Malayan fold of the upper eyelid.

Their teeth are generally whiter and cleaner than are those of their
male companions, a condition due largely, probably, to the fact that
few of the women smoke.

They seem to reach maturity at about 17 or 18 years of age. The
first child is commonly born between the ages of 16 and 22. At 23 the
woman has certainly reached her prime. By 30 she is getting "old";
before 45 the women are old, with flat, pendent folds of skin where
the breasts were. The entire front of the body -- in prime full,
rounded, and smooth -- has become flabby, wrinkled, and folded. It is
only a short time before collapse of the tissue takes place in all
parts of the body. An old woman, say, at 50, is a mass of wrinkles
from foot to forehead; the arms and legs lose their plumpness,
the skin is "bagged" at the knees into half a dozen large folds;
and the disappearance of adipose tissue from the trunk-front, sides,
and back -- has left the skin not only wrinkled but loose and flabby,
folding over the girdle at the waist.

The census of Magulang, page 42, should be again referred to, from
which it appears that the death rate among women is greater between
the ages of 40 and 50 years than it is with men, being 55.66 per
cent. The census shows also that there are relatively a larger number
of old women -- that is, over 50 years old -- than there are old men.


Child

The death rate among children is large. Of fifteen families in Bontoc,
each having had three or more children, the death rate up to the age
of puberty was over 60 per cent. According to the Magulang census
the death rate of children from 5 to 10 years of age is 63.73 per cent.

The new-born babe is as light in color as the average American babe,
and is much less red, instead of which color there is the slightest
tint of saffron. As the babe lies naked on its mother's naked breast
the light color is most strikingly apparent by contrast. The darker
color, the brown, gradually comes, however, as the babe is exposed
to the sun and wind, until the child of a year or two carried on its
mother's back is practically one with the mother in color.

Some of the babes, perhaps all, are born with an abundance of dark hair
on the head. A child's hair is never cut, except that from about the
age of 3 years the boy's hair is "banged" across the forehead. Fully
30 per cent of children up to 5 or 6 years of age have brown hair --
due largely to fading, as the outer is much lighter than the under
hair. In rare cases the lighter brown hair assumes a distinctly red
cast, though a faded lifeless red. Before puberty is reached, however,
all children have glossy black hair.

The iris of a new-born babe is sometimes a blue brown; it is decidedly
a different brown from that of the adult or of the child of five
years. Most children have the Malayan fold of the eyelid; the lower
lid is often much straighter than it is on the average American. When,
in addition to these conditions, the outer corner of the eye is higher
than the inner, the eye is somewhat Mongolian in appearance. About
one-fifth of the children in Bontoc have this Mongolian-like eye,
though it is rarer among adults -- a fact due, in part, apparently,
to the down curving and sagging of the lower lid as one's prime is
reached and passed.

Children's teeth are clean and white, and very generally remain so
until maturity.

The child from 1 to 3 years of age is plump and chubby; his front
is full and rounded, but lacks the extra abdominal development so
common with the children of the lowlands, and which has received from
the American the popular name of "banana belly." By the age of 7 the
child has lost its plump, rounded form, which is never again had by
the boys but is attained by the girls again early in puberty. During
these last half dozen years of childhood all children are slender and
agile and wonderfully attractive in their naturalness. Both girls and
boys reach puberty at a later time than would be expected, though data
can not be gathered to determine accurately the age at puberty. All the
Ilokano in Bontoc pueblo consistently maintain that girls do not reach
puberty until at least 16 and 17 years of age. Perhaps it is arrived
at by 14 or 15, but I feel certain it is not as early as 12 or 13 --
a condition one might expect to find among people in the tropics.


Pathology

The most serious permanent physical affliction the Bontoc Igorot
suffers is blindness. Fully 2 per cent of the people both of Bontoc
and her sister pueblo, Samoki, are blind; probably 2 per cent more
are partially so. Bontoc has one blind boy only 3 years old, but
I know of no other blind children; and it is claimed that no babes
are born blind. There is one woman in Bontoc approaching 20 years
of age who is nearly blind, and whose mother and older sister are
blind. Blindness is very common among the old people, and seems to
come on with the general breaking down of the body.

A few of the people say their blindness is due to the smoke in their
dwellings. This doubtless has much to do with the infirmity, as their
private and public buildings are very smoky much of the time, and
when the nights are at all chilly a fire is built in their closed,
low, and chimneyless sleeping rooms. There are many persons with
inflamed and granulated eyelids whose vision is little or not at all
impaired -- a forerunner of blindness probably often caused by smoke.

Twenty per cent of the adults have abnormal feet. The most common
and most striking abnormality is that known as "fa'-wing"; it is an
inturning of the great toe. Fa'-wing occurs in all stages from the
slightest spreading to that approximating forty-five degrees. It is
found widely scattered among the barefoot mountain tribes of northern
Luzon. The people say it is due to mountain climbing, and their
explanation is probably correct, as the great toe is used much as is
a claw in securing a footing on the slippery, steep trails during the
rainy reason. Fa'-wing occurs quite as commonly with women as with men,
and in Ambuklao, Benguet Province, I saw a boy of 8 or 9 years whose
great toes were spread half as much as those shown in Pl. XXV. This
deformity occurs on one or both feet, but generally on both if at all.

An enlargement of the basal joint of the great toe, probably a bunion,
is also comparatively common. It is not improbable that it is often
caused by stone bruises, as such are of frequent occurrence; they
are sometimes very serious, laying a person up ten days at a time.

The feet of adults who work in the water-filled rice paddies are dry,
seamed, and cracked on the bottoms. These "rice-paddy feet," called
"fung-as'," are often so sore that the person can not go on the trails
for any considerable distance.

I believe not 5 per cent of the people are without eruptions of
the skin. It is practically impossible to find an adult whose body
is not marked with shiny patches showing where large eruptions have
been. Babes of one or two months do not appear to have skin diseases,
but those of three and four are sometimes half covered with itching,
discharging eruptions. Babes under a year old, such as are most
carried on their mother's backs, are especially subject to a mass of
sores about the ankles; the skin disease is itch, called ku'-lid. I
have seen babes of this age with sores an inch across and nearly an
inch deep in their backs.

Relatively there are few large sores on the people such as boils
and ulcers, but a person may have a dozen or half a hundred itching
eruptions the size of a half pea scattered over his arms, legs,
and trunk. From these he habitually squeezes the pus onto his thumb
nail, and at once ignorantly cleans the nail on some other part of
the body. The general prevalence of this itch is largely due to the
gregarious life of the people -- to the fact that the males lounge in
public quarters, and all, except married men and women, sleep in these
same quarters where the naked skin readily takes up virus left on the
stone seats and sleeping boards by an infected companion. In Banawi,
in the Quiangan culture area, a district having no public buildings,
one can scarcely find a trace of skin eruption.

There are two adult people in Samoki pueblo who are insane; one of
them at least is supposed to be affected by Lumawig, the Igorot god,
and is said, when he hallooes, as he does at times, to be calling to
Lumawig. Bontoc pueblo has a young woman and a girl of five or six
years of age who are imbecile. Those four people are practically
incapacitated from earning a living, and are cared for by their
immediate relatives. There are two adult deaf and dumb men in Bontoc
pueblo, but both are industrious and self-supporting.

Igorot badly injured in war or elsewhere are usually killed at
their own request. In May, 1903, a man from Maligkong was thrown to
the earth and rendered unconscious by a heavy timber he and several
companions brought to Bontoc for the school building. His companions
immediately told Captain Eckman to shoot him as he was "no good." I
can not say whether it is customary for the Igorot to weed out those
who faint temporarily -- as the fact just cited suggests; however,
they do not kill the feeble aged, and the presence of the insane
and the imbecile shows that weak members of the group are not always
destroyed voluntarily.



PART 3

General Social Life


The pueblo

Bontoc and Samoki pueblos, in all essentials typical of pueblos in
the Bontoc area, lie in the mountains in a roughly circular pocket
called Pa-pas'-kan. A perfect circle about a mile in diameter might
be described within the pocket. It is bisected fairly accurately by
the Chico River, coursing from the southwest to the northeast. Its
altitude ranges from about 2,750 feet at the river to 2,900 at
the upper edge of Bontoc pueblo, which is close to the base of the
mountain ridge at the west, while Samoki is backed up against the
opposite ridge to the southeast. The river flows between the pueblos,
though considerably closer to Samoki than to Bontoc.

The horizon circumscribing this pocket is cut at the northeast,
where the river makes its exit, and lifting above this gap are two
ranges of mountains beyond. At the south-southeast there is another
cut, through which a small affluent pours into the main stream. At
the southwest the river enters the pocket, although no cut shows in
the horizon, as the stream bends abruptly and the farther range of
mountains folds close upon the near one.

Bontoc lies compactly built on a sloping piece of ground, roughly
about half a mile square. Through the pueblo are two water-cut ravines,
down which pour the waters of the mountain ridge in the rainy season,
and in which, during much of the remainder of the year, sufficient
water trickles to supply several near-by dwellings.

Adjoining the pueblo on the north and west are two small groves where
a religious ceremonial is observed each month. Granaries for rice are
scattered all about the outer fringe of dwellings, and in places they
follow the ravines in among the buildings of the pueblo. The old,
broad Spanish trail runs close to the pueblo on the south and east,
as it passes in and out of the pocket through the gaps cut by the
river. About the pueblo at the east and northeast are some fifteen
houses built in Spanish time, most of them now occupied by Ilokano
men with Igorot or half-breed wives. There also were the Spanish
Government buildings, reduced to a church, a convent, and another
building used now as headquarters for the Government Constabulary.

The pueblo, now 2,000 or 2,500 people, was probably at one time
larger. There is a tradition common in both Bontoc and Samoki that
in former years the ancestors of this latter pueblo lived northeast
of Bontoc toward the northern corner of the pocket. They say they
moved to the opposite side of the river because there they would
have more room. There they have grown to 1,200 or 1,500 souls. Still
later, but yet before the Spanish came, a large section of people
from northeastern Bontoc moved bodily to Lias, about two days to the
east. They tell that a Bontoc woman named Fank'-a was the wife of a
Lias man, and when a drought and famine visited Bontoc the section
of the pueblo from which she came moved as a whole to Lias, then a
small collection of people. Still later, La'-nao, a detached section
of Bontoc on the lowland near the river, was suddenly wiped out by
a disease.

The Igorot is given to naming even small areas of the earth within
his well-known habitat, and there are four areas in Bontoc pueblo
having distinct names. These names in no way refer to political or
social divisions -- they are not the "barrio" of the coast pueblos of
the Islands, neither are they in any way like a "ward" in an American
city, nor are they "additions" to an original part of the pueblo --
they are names of geographic areas over which the pueblo was built
or has spread. From south to north these areas are A-fu', Mag-e'-o,
Dao'-wi, and Um-feg'.


Ato

Bontoc is composed of seventeen political divisions, called
"a'-to." The geographic area of A-fu' contains four a'-to, namely,
Fa-tay'-yan, Po-lup-o', Am-ka'-wa, and Bu-yay'-yeng; Mag-e'-o contains
three, namely, Fi'-lig, Mag-e'-o, and Cha-kong'; Dao'-wi has six,
namely, Lo-wing'-an, Pud-pud-chog', Si-pa'-at, Si-gi-chan', So-mo-wan',
and Long-foy'; Um-feg' has four, Po-ki'-san, Lu-wa'-kan, Ung-kan',
and Cho'-ko. Each a'-to is a separate political division. It has
its public buildings; has a separate governing council which makes
peace, challenges to war, and accepts or rejects war challenges,
and it formally releases and adopts men who change residence from
one a'-to to another.

Border a'-to Fa-tay'-yan seems to be developing an offspring -- a
new a'-to; a part of it, the southwestern border part, is now known
as "Tang-e-ao'." It is disclaimed as a separate a'-to, yet it has a
distinctive name, and possesses some of the marks of an independent
a'-to. In due time it will doubtless become such.

In Sagada, Agawa, Takong, and near-by pueblos the a'-to is said to
be known as dap'-ay; and in Balili and Alap both names are known.

The pueblo must be studied entirely through the a'-to. It is only
an aggregate of which the various a'-to are the units, and all the
pueblo life there is is due to the similarity of interests of the
several a'-to.

Bontoc does not know when her pueblo was built -- she was always
where she now is -- but they say that some of the a'-to are newer than
others. In fact, they divide them into the old and new. The newer ones
are Bu-yay'-yeng, Am-ka'-wa, Po-lup-o', Cha-kong', and Po-ki'-san;
all these are border a'-to of the pueblo.

The generations of descendants of men who did distinct things are
kept carefully in memory; and from the list of descendants of the
builders of some of the newer a'-to it seems probable that Cha-kong'
was the last one built. One of the builders was Sal-lu-yud'; he had
a son named Tam-bul', and Tam-bul' was the father of a man in Bontoc
now some twenty-five years old. It is probable that Cha-kong' was
built about 1830 -- in the neighborhood of seventy-five years ago. The
plat of the pueblo seems to strengthen the impression that Cha-kong'
is the newest a'-to, since it appears to have been built in territory
previously used for rice granaries; it is all but surrounded by such
ground now.

One of the builders of Bu-yay'-yeng, an a'-to adjoining Cha-kong',
and also one of the newer ones, was Ba-la-ge'. Ba-la-ge' was the
great-great-great-grandfather of Mud-do', who is a middle-aged man
now in Bontoc. The generations of fathers descending from Ba-la-ge' to
Mud-do' are the following: Bang-eg', Cag-i'-yu, Bit-e', and Ag-kus'. It
seems from this evidence that the a'-to Bu-yay'-yeng was built about
one hundred and fifty years ago. These facts suggest a much greater
age for the older a'-to of the pueblo.

An a'-to has three classes of buildings occupied by the people --
the fawi and pabafunan, public structures for boys and men, and the
olag for girls and young women before their permanent marriage; and
the dwellings occupied by families and by widows, which are called
afong. Each of these three classes of buildings plays a distinct role
in the life of the people.


Pabafunan and fawi

The pa-ba-fu'-nan is the home of the various a'-to ceremonials. It
is sacred to the men of the a'-to, and on no occasion do the women
or girls enter it.

All boys from 3 or 4 years of age and all men who have no wives sleep
nightly in the pa-ba-fu'-nan or in the fa'-wi.

The pa-ba-fu'-nan building consists of a low, squat, stone-sided
structure partly covered with a grass roof laid on a crude frame of
poles; the stone walls extend beyond the roof at one end and form an
open court. The roofed part is about 8 by 10 feet, and usually is
not over 5 feet high in any part, inside measure; the size of the
court is approximately the same as that of the roofed section. In
some pa-ba-fu'-nan a part of the court is roofed over for shelter in
case of rain, but is not walled in. Under this roof skulls of dogs
and hogs are generally found tucked away. Carabao horns and chicken
feathers are also commonly seen in such places.

In many cases the open court is shaded by a tree. Posts are found
reared above most of the courts. Some are old and blackened; others
are all but gone -- a short stump being all that projects above the
earth. The tops of some posts are rudely carved to represent a human
head; on the tops of others, as in a'-to Lowingan and Sipaat, there
are stones which strikingly resemble human skulls. It is to the tops
of these posts that the enemy's head is attached when a victorious
warrior returns to his a'-to. Both the roofed and court sections
are paved with stone, and large stones are also arranged around the
sides of the court, some more or less elevated as seats; they are
worn smooth and shiny by generations of use. In the center of the
court is the smoldering remains of a fire. The only opening into the
covered part is a small doorway connecting it with the court. This
door is barely large enough to permit a man to squeeze in sidewise;
it is often not over 2 1/2 feet high and 10 inches wide. The occupants
of the pa-ba-fu'-nan usually sleep curled up naked on the smooth,
flat stones. A few people have runo slat mats, some of which roll up,
while others are inflexible, and they lie on these over the stone
pavement. Fires are built in all sleeping rooms when it is cold,
and the rooms all close tightly with a door.

In the court of the building the men lounge when not at work in
the fields; they sleep, or smoke and chat, tend babies, or make
utensils and weapons. The pa-ba-fu'-nan is the man's club by day,
and the unmarried man's dormitory by night, and, as such, it is the
social center for all men of the a'-to, and it harbors at night all
men visiting from other pueblos.

Each a'-to, except Chakong, has a pa-ba-fu'-nan. When the men of
Chakong were building theirs they met the pueblo of Sadanga in combat,
and one of the builders lost his head to Sadanga. Then the old men of
Chakong counciled together; they came to the conclusion that it was
bad for the a'-to to have a pa-ba-fu'-nan, and none has ever been
built. This absence of the pa-ba-fu'-nan in some way detracts from
the importance of the a'-to in the minds of the people. For instance,
in the early stages of this study I was told several times that there
are sixteen (and not seventeen) a'-to in Bontoc. The first list of
a'-to written did not include Chakong; it was discovered only when
the pueblo was platted, and at that time my informants sought to pass
it over by saying "It is Chakong, but it has no pa-ba-fu'-nan." The
explanation of the obscurity of Chakong in the minds of the Igorot
seems to be that the a'-to ceremonial is more important than the a'-to
council -- that the emotional and not the mental is held uppermost,
that the people of Bontoc flow together through feeling better than
they drive together through cold force or control.

The a'-to ceremonials of Chakong are held in the pa-ba-fu'-nan of
neighboring a'-to, as in Sigichan, Pudpudchog, or Filig, and this seems
partially to destroy the ESPRIT DE CORPS of the unfortunate a'-to.

Each a'-to has a fa'-wi building -- a structure greatly resembling to
the pa-ba-fu'-nan, and impossible to be distinguished from it by one
looking at the structure from the outside. The fa'-wi and pa-ba-fu'-nan
are shown in Pls. XXX, XXXI, and XXXII. Pl. XXIX shows a section of
Sipaat a'-to with its fa'-wi and pa-ba-fu'-nan. The fa'-wi is the
a'-to council house; as such it is more frequented by the old men
than by the younger. The fa'-wi also shelters the skulls of human
heads taken by the a'-to. Outside the pueblo, along certain trails,
there are simple structures also called "fa'-wi," shelters where
parties halt for feasts, etc., while on various ceremonial journeys.

The fa'-wi and pa-ba-fu'-nan of each a'-to are near together, and in
five they are under the same roof, though there is no doorway for
intercommunication. What was said of the pa-ba-fu'-nan as a social
center is equally true of the fa'-wi; each is the lounging place of
men and boys, and the dormitory of unmarried males.

In Samoki each of the eight a'-to has only one public building,
and that is known simply as "a'-to."

One is further convinced of an extensive early movement of the
primitive Malayan from its pristine nest by the presence of
institutions similar to the pa-ba-fu'-nan and fa'-wi over a vast
territory of the Asiatic mainland as well as the Asiatic Islands
and Oceania. That these widespread institutions sprang from the
same source will be seen clearly in the quotations appearing in the
footnote below.[11] The visible exponent of the institutions is a
building forbidden to women, the functions of which are several; it
is a dormitory for men -- generally unmarried men -- a council house,
a guardhouse, a guest house for men, a center for ceremonials of the
group, and a resting place for the trophies of the chase and war --
a "head house."



Olag

The o'-lag is the dormitory of the girls in an a'-to from the age of
about 2 years until they marry. It is a small stone and mud-walled
structure, roofed with grass, in which a grown person can seldom
stand erect. It has but a single opening -- a door some 30 inches
high and 10 inches wide. Occupying nearly all the floor space are
boards about 4 feet long and from 8 to 14 inches wide; each board is
a girl's bed. They are placed close together, side by side, laid on
a frame about a foot above the earth. One end, where the head rests,
is slightly higher that the other, while in most o'-lag a pole for a
foot rest runs along the foot of the beds a few inches from them. The
building as shown in Pl. XXXIII is typical of the nineteen found in
Bontoc pueblo -- though it does not show, what is almost invariably
true, that it is built over one or more pigsties. This condition is
illustrated in Pl. XXIX, where a widow's house is shown literally
resting above the stone walls of several sties. Unlike the fawi
and pabafunan, the o'-lag has no adjoining court, and no shady
surroundings. It is built to house the occupants only at night.

The o'-lag is not so distinctly an ato institution as the pabafunan and
fawi. Ato Ungkan never had an o'-lag. The demand is not so urgent as
that of some ato, since there are only thirteen families in Ungkan. The
girls occupy o'-lag of neighboring ato.

The o'-lag of Luwakan, of Lowingan, and of Sipaat (the last situated
in Lowingan) are broken down and unused at present. There are no
marriageable girls in any of these three ato now, and the small girls
occupy near-by o'-lag. These three o'-lag will be rebuilt when the
girls are large enough to cook food for the men who build. The o'-lag
of Amkawa is in Buyayyeng near the o'-lag of the latter; it is there
by choice of the occupants.

Mageo, with her twenty families, also has two o'-lag, but both are
situated in Pudpudchog.

The o'-lag is the only Igorot building which has received a specific
name, all others bear simply the class name.[12]

In Sagada and some nearby pueblos, as Takong and Agawa, the o'-lag
is said to he called If-gan'.

Mr. S. H. Damant is quoted from the Calcutta Review (vol. 61, p. 93)
as saying that among the Nagas, frontier tribes of northeast India --

Only very young children live entirely with their parents; ... the
women have also a house of their own called the "dekhi chang," where
the unmarried girls are supposed to live.

Again Mr. Damant wrote:

I saw Dekhi chang here for the first time. All the unmarried girls
sleep there at night, but it is deserted in the day. It is not much
different from any ordinary house.[13]

Separate sleeping houses for girls similar to the o'-lag, I judge,
are also found occasionally in Assam.[14]

Whereas, so far as known, the o'-lag occurs with the Igorot only among
the Bontoc culture group, yet the above quotations and references point
to a similar institution among distant people -- among some of the same
people who have an institution very similar to the pabafunan and fawi.


Afong

A'-fong is the general name for Bontoc dwellings, of which there are
two kinds. The first is the fay'-u (Pls. XXXIV and XXXVI), the large,
open, board dwelling, some 12 by 15 feet square, with side walls only
3 1/2 feet high, and having a tall, top-heavy grass roof. It is the
home of the prosperous. The other is the kat-yu'-fong (Pl. XXXVII),
the smaller, closed, frequently mud-walled dwelling of poor families,
and commonly of the widows.

The family dwelling primarily serves two purposes -- it is the place
where the man, his wife, and small child sleep, and where the entire
family takes its food.

The fay'-u is built at considerable expense. Three or four men are
required for a period of about two months to get out the pine boards
and timbers in the forest. Each piece of timber for any permanent
building is completed at the time it is cut from the tree, and is left
to season in the mountains; sometimes it remains several years. (See
Pl. XXXV.) When all is ready to construct the dwelling the owner
announces his intention. Some 200 men of the pueblo gather to erect
the building, and two or three dozen women come to prepare and cook
the necessary food, for, whereas no wage is paid the laborers, all
are feasted at the cost of much rice and several hogs and a carabao
or two. The toiling and feasting continue about ten days.

The following description of a fay'-u is of an ordinary dwelling
in Bontoc pueblo: The fay'-u are all constructed on the same plan,
though a few are larger than the one here described, and some few are
smaller. The front and back walls of the house are 3 feet 6 inches
high and 12 feet 6 inches long. The two side walls are the same height
as the ends, but are 15 feet 6 inches long. The rear wall is built of
stones carefully chinked with mud. The side walls consist each of two
boards extending the full length of the structure. The front wall is
cut near the middle from top to bottom with a doorway 1 foot 4 inches
wide; otherwise the front wall is like the two side walls, except
that it has a roughly triangular timber grooved along the lower side
and fitted over the top board as a cap. The doorposts are two timbers
sunk in the ground; their tops fit into the two "caps," and each has
a groove from top to bottom into which the ends of the boards of the
front wall are inserted. A few dwellings have a door consisting of a
single board set on end and swinging on a projection sunk in a hole in
a doorsill buried in the earth; the upper part of the door swings on a
string secured to the doorpost and passing through a hole in the door.

At each of the four corners of the building, immediately inside
the walls, is a post set in the ground and standing 6 feet 9 inches
high. The boards of the walls are tied to these corner posts, and the
greater part of the weight of the roof rests on their tops. Four other
posts, also planted in the ground and about as high as the corner
posts, stand about 4 feet inside the walls of the house equidistant
from the corner post and marking the corners of a rectangle about 5 1/2
feet square. They directly support the second story of the building.

There is no floor except the earth in the first story of the Bontoc
dwelling, and from the door at the front of the building to the two
rear posts of the four central ones there is an unobstructed passage
or aisle called "cha-la'-nan." At one's left, as he enters the door,
is a small room called "chap-an'" 5 1/2 feet square separated from
the aisle by a row of low stones partially sunk in the earth. The
earth in this room is excavated so that the floor is about 1 foot
lower than that of the remainder of the building, and in its center
the peculiar double wooden rice mortar is imbedded in the earth. It
is in the chap-an' that the family rice and millet is threshed. At the
left of the aisle and immediately beyond the chap-an', separated from
it by a board partition the same height as the outside walls of the
house, is the cooking room, called "cha-le-ka-nan' si mo-o'-to." It is
approximately the same size as the threshing room. There are neither
boards nor stones to cut this cooking room off from the open aisle of
the house, but its width is determined by a low pile of stones built
along its farther side from the outer house wall toward the aisle and
ending at the rear left post of the four central ones. In the face of
this stone wall are three concavities -- fireplaces over which cooking
pots are placed. Arranged along the outer wall, and about 2 feet high,
is a board shelf on which the water jars are kept.

At the right of the aisle, as one enters the building, is a broad
shelf about 12 feet long; in width it extends from the side wall
to the two right central posts. On this shelf, called "chuk'-so,"
are placed the various baskets and other utensils and implements of
everyday use. Beneath it are stored the small cages or coops in which
the chickens sleep at night. There are a few fay'-u in Bontoc in which
the threshing room and cooking room are on the right of the aisle
and the long bench is on the left, but they are very rare exceptions.

In the rear of the building is a board partition apparently extending
from one side wall to the other. The bench at the right of the aisle
ends against this partition, and on the left the stone fireplaces
are built against it. This rear section is covered over with boards
at the height of the outside wall, so that a low box is formed, 3 1/2
feet high and 4 1/4 feet wide. At the rear of the aisle a door 3 feet
high and 1 foot 4 inches wide swings into this rear apartment, which,
when the door is again closed, is as black as night. An examination of
the inside of this section shows it to be entirely walled with stones
except where the narrow door cuts it. By inside measure it is only
3 feet 6 inches wide and 6 feet 6 inches long. This is the sleeping
apartment, and is called ang-an'. As one crawls into this kennel he is
likely to place his hands among ashes and charred sticks which mark the
place for a fire on cold nights. The left end of the ang-an' contains
two boards or beds for the man and his wife. Each board is about 18
inches wide and 4 feet long; they are raised 2 or 3 inches from the
earth, and the head of the bed is slightly higher than the foot. A pole
is laid across the apartment at the lower end of the sleeping boards,
and on this the occupants rest their feet and toast them before the
small fire. At both ends of the ang-an', outside the store walls,
is a small hidden secret space called "kub-kub," in which the family
hides many of its choice possessions. During abundant camote[15]
gathering, however, I have seen the kub-kub filled with camotes. I
should probably not have discovered these spaces had there not been
so great a discrepancy between the inside measure of the sleeping
room and width of the building.

I know of no other primitive dwellings in the Philippines than
the ones in the Bontoc culture area which are built directly on
the ground. Most of them are raised on posts several feet from the
earth. Some few have side walls extending to the ground, but even
those have a floor raised 2, 3, or more feet from the ground and
which is reached by means of a short ladder.

The second story of the Bontoc dwelling is supported on the four
central posts. On all sides it projects beyond them, so that it
is about 7 feet square; it is about 5 feet high. A door enters the
second story directly from the aisle, and is reached by an 8-foot
ladder. This second story is constructed, floor and side walls, of
boards. The side walls cease at about the height of 2 feet where a
horizontal shelf is built on them extending outside of them to the
roof. It is about 2 feet wide and is usually stored with unthreshed
rice and millet or with jars of preserved meats. Just at the left on
the floor, as one enters the second story, is an earth-filled square
corner walled in by two poles. On this earth are three stones --
the fireplace, where each year a chicken is cooked in a household
ceremony at the close of rice harvests.

Rising above the second story is a third. In the smaller dwellings
this third story is only an attic of the second, but in the larger
buildings it is an independent story. To be sure, it is entered through
the floor, but a ladder is used, and its floor is of strong heavy
boards. It is at all times a storeroom, usually only for cereals. In
the smaller houses it amounts simply to a broad shelf about the height
of one's waist as he stands on the floor of the second story and his
head and upper body rise through the hole in the floor. In the larger
houses a person may climb into the third story and work there with
practically as much freedom as in the second.

The 5-foot ridgepole of the steep, heavy, grass roof is supported
by two posts rising from the basal timbers of the third story. The
roof falls away sharply from the ridgepole not only at the sides
but at the ends, so that, except at the ridge, the roof appears
square. Immediately beneath both ends of the ridgepole there is a small
opening in the grass through which the smoke of the cooking fires is
supposed to escape. However, I have scarcely ever seen smoke issue
from them, and, since the entire inner part of the building from the
floor of the second story to the ridgepole is thickly covered with
soot, it seems that little unconsumed carbon escapes through the
smoke holes. The lower part of the roof, for 3 1/2 feet, descends at
a less steep angle, thus forming practically an awning against sun
and rain. Its lower edge is about 4 feet from the ground and projects
some 4 feet beyond the side walls of the lower story.

The kat-yu'-fong, the dwelling of the poor, consists of a one-story
structure built on the ground with the earth for the floor. Some such
buildings have a partition or partial partition running across them,
beyond which are the sleeping boards, and there are shelves here and
there; but the kat-yu'-fong is a makeshift, and consequently is not
so fixed a type of dwelling as the fay'-u.

Piled close around the dwellings is a supply of firewood in the shape
of pine blocks 3 or 4 feet long, usually cut from large trees. These
blocks furnish favorite lounging places for the women. The people
live most of the time outside their dwellings, and it is there that
the social life of the married women is. Any time of day they may be
seen close to the a'-fong in the shade of the low, projecting roof
sitting spinning or paring camotes; often three or four neighbors
sit thus together and gossip. The men are seldom with them, being
about the ato buildings in the daytime when not working. A few small
children may be about the dwelling, as the little girls frequently
help in preparing food for cooking.

During the day the dwelling is much alone. When it is so left one
and sometimes two runo stalks are set up in the earth on each side
of the door leaning against the roof and projecting some 8 feet
in the air. This is the pud-i-pud', the "ethics lock" on an Igorot
dwelling. An Igorot who enters the a'-fong of a neighbor when the
pud-i-pud' is up is called a thief -- in the mind of all who see him
he is such.


The family

Bontoc families are monogamous, and monogamy is the rule throughout
the area, though now and then a man has two wives. The presidente of
Titipan has five wives, for each of whom he has a separate house, and
during my residence in Bontoc he was building a sixth house for a new
wife; but such a family is the exception -- I never heard of another.

Many marriage unions produce eight and ten children, though, since
the death rate is large, it is probable that families do not average
more than six individuals.


Childbirth

A woman is usually about her daily labors in the house, the mountains,
or the irrigated fields almost to the hour of childbirth. The child
is born without feasting or ceremony, and only two or three friends
witness the birth. The father of the child is there, if he is the
woman's husband; the girl's mother is also with her, but usually
there are no others, unless it be an old woman.

The expectant woman stands with her body bent strongly forward at
the waist and supported by the hands grasping some convenient house
timber about the height of the hips; or she may take a more animal-like
position, placing both hands and feet on the earth.

The labor, lasting three or four hours, is unassisted by medicines
or baths; but those in attendance -- the man as well as the woman --
hasten the birth by a gently downward drawing of the hands about the
woman's abdomen.

During a period of ten days after childbirth the mother frequently
bathes herself about the hips and abdomen with hot water, but has no
change of diet. For two or three days she keeps the house closely,
reclining much of the time.

The Igorot woman is a constant laborer from the age of puberty or
before, until extreme incapacity of old age stays the hands of toil;
but for two or three months following the advent of each babe the
mother does not work in the fields. She busies herself about the
house and with the new-found duties of a mother, while the husband
performs her labors in the fields.

The Igorot loves all his children, and says, when a boy is born,
"It is good," and if a girl is born he says it is equally "good" --
it is the fact of a child in the family that makes him happy. People in
the Igorot stage of culture have little occasion to prize one sex over
the other. The Igorot neither, even in marriage. One is practically
as capable as the other at earning a living, and both are needed in
the group.

Six or seven days after birth a chicken is killed and eaten by the
family in honor of the child, but there is no other ceremony --
there is not even a special name for the feast.

If a woman gives birth to a stillborn child it is at once washed,
wrapped in a bit of cloth, and buried in a camote sementera close to
the dwelling.


Twins

The Igorot do not understand twins, -- na-a-pik', as they say. Carabaos
have only one babe at a birth, so why should women have two babes? they
ask. They believe that one of the twins, which unfortunate one they
call "a-tin-fu-yang'," is an anito child; it is the offspring of an
anito.[16] The anito father is said to have been with the mother of
the twins in her unconscious slumber, and she is in no way criticised
or reproached.

The most quiet babe, or, if they are equally quiet, the larger one,
is said to be "a-tin-fu-yang'," and is at once placed in an olla[17]
and buried alive in a sementera near the dwelling.

On the 13th of April, 1903, the wife of A-li-koy', of Samoki, gave
birth to twin babies. Contrary to the advice and solicitations of the
old men and the universal custom of the people, A-li-koy' saved both
children, because, as he pointed out, an Ilokano of Bontoc had twin
children, now 7 years old, and they are all right. Thus the breaking
down of this peculiar form of infanticide may have begun.


Abortion

Both married and unmarried women practice abortion when for any
reason the prospective child is not desired. It is usual, however,
for the mother of a pregnant girl to object to her aborting, saying
that soon she would become "po'-ta" -- the common mate of several men,
rather than the faithful wife of one.

Abortion is accomplished without the use of drugs and is successful
only during the first eight or ten weeks of pregnancy. The abdomen
is bathed for several days in hot water, and the body is pressed
and stroked downward with the hands. The foetus is buried by the
woman. Only the woman herself or her mother or other near female friend
is present at the abortion, though no effort is made at secrecy and
its practice is no disgrace.


Child


Care of child in parents' dwelling

All male babes are called "kil-lang'" and all girl babes "gna-an'." All
live practically the same life day after day. Their sole nourishment is
their mother's milk, varied now and then by that of some other woman,
if the mother is obliged to leave the babe for a half day or so. When
the babe's first teeth appear it has a slight change of diet; its
attendant now and then feeds it cooked rice, thoroughly masticated
and mixed with saliva. This food is passed to the child's mouth
directly from that of the attendant by contact of lips -- quite as
the domestic canary feeds its young. The babes are always unclothed,
and for several months are washed daily in cold water, usually both
morning and night. It is a common sight at the river to see the mother,
who has come down with her babe on her back for an olla of water,
bathe the babe, who never seems at all frightened in the process,
but to enjoy it -- this, too, at times when the water would seem
to be uncomfortably cold. One often sees the father or grandmother
washing the older babes at the river.

But in spite of these baths the Igorot babe, at least after it has
reached the age of six or eight months, when seen in the pueblo is
almost without exception very dirty; a child of a year or a year and
a half is usually repulsively so. Its head has received no attention
since birth, and is scaly and dirty if not actually full of sores. Its
baths are now relatively infrequent, and its need of them as it plays
on the dirt floor of the dwelling or pabafunan even more urgent than
when it spent most of its time in the carrying blanket.

Babes have no cradles or stationary places for rest or sleep. A babe,
slumbering or awake, is never laid down alone because of the fear that
an anito will injure it. At night the babe sleeps between its parents,
on its mother's arm. It spends its days almost without exception
sitting in a blanket which is tied over the shoulder of one of its
parents, its brother, or its sister. There it hangs, awake or asleep,
sitting or sprawling, often a pitiable little object with the sun
in its eyes and the flies hovering over its dirty face. Frequently a
child of only 5 or 6 years old may be seen with a babe on its back,
and older children are constant baby tenders. Babes may be found in
the fawi and pabafunan where the men are lounging (Pl. XXXII), and
the old men and women also care for their grandchildren. Grown people
quite as commonly carry the babe astride one hip if they have an empty
hand which they can put around it, and often a mother along the trail
carries it at her breast where it seemingly nurses as contentedly as
when in the shade of the dwelling.

Children are generally weaned long before they are 2 years old,
but twice I have seen a young pillager of 5 years, while patting
and stroking his mother's hips and body as she transplanted rice,
yield to his early baby instinct and suckle from her pendant breasts.

After the child is about 2 years of age it is not customary for it to
sleep longer at the home of the parents; the girl goes nightly to the
olag, and the boy to the pabafunan or the fawi. However, this is not
a hard-and-fast rule, and the age at which the child goes to the olag
or fawi depends much on circumstances. The length of time it sleeps
with the parents doubtless depends upon the advent or nonadvent of
another child. If a little girl has a widowed grandmother or aunt she
may sleep for a few years with her. During the warmer months one or
two children may sleep on the stationary broad bench, the chukso, in
the open part of the parents' house. It is safe to say that after the
ages of 6 or 7 all children are found nightly in the olag, pabafunan,
or fawi. I have seen a group of little girls from 4 to 10 years old,
immediately after supper and while some families were still eating,
sitting around a small blaze of fire just outside the door of their
olag. The Igorot child as a rule knows its parents' home only as a
place to eat. There is almost an entire absence of anything which
may be called home life.


Naming

The Igorot has no definite system of naming. Parents may frequently
change the name of a child, and an individual may change his during
maturity. There are several reasons why names are changed, but there
is no system, nor is it ever necessary to change them.

A child usually receives its first personal name between the years
of 2 and 5. This first name is always that of some dead ancestor,
usually only two or three generations past. The reason for this is
the belief that the anito of the ancestor cares for and protects its
descendants when they are abroad. If the name a child bears is that
of a dead ancestor it will receive the protection of the anito of the
ancestor; if the child does not prosper or has accidents or ill health,
the parents will seek a more careful or more benevolent protector in
the anito of some other ancestor whose name is given the child.

To illustrate this changing of names: A boy in Tukukan, two hours from
Bontoc, was first named Sa-pang' when less than a year old. At the
end of a year the paternal grandfather, An-ti'-ko, died in Tukukan,
and the babe was named An-ti'-ko. In a few years the boy's father died,
and the mother married a man in Bontoc, the home of her childhood. She
moved to Bontoc with her boy, and then changed his name to Fa-li-kao',
her dead father's name. The reason for this last change was because the
anito of An-ti'-ko, always in or about Tukukan, could not care for the
child in Bontoc, whereas the anito of Fa-li-kao' in Bontoc could do so.

The selection of the names of ancestors is shown by the following
generations:


1. Mang-i-lot'
    2. Cho-kas'
        3. Kom-ling'
            4. Mang-i-lot'
                5 A. Kom-ling'
                5 B. Ta-kay'-yeng
                5 C. Teng-ab'
                5 D. Ka-weng'


Mang-i-lot' (4) is the baby name of an old man now about 60 years old;
it was the name of his great-grandfather (1). Numbers 5 A, 5 B, 5 C,
and 5 D are the sons of Mang-i-lot' (4), all of whom died before
receiving a second name. The child Kom-ling' (5 a) was given the
name of his paternal grandfather (3). Ta-kay'-yeng (5 B) bears the
name of his maternal great-grandfather. Teng-ab' (5 C) and Ka-weng'
(5 D) both bear the names of uncles, brothers of the boy's mother. The
present name of Mang-i-lot' (4) is O-lu-wan'; this is the name of a
man at Barlig whose head was the first one taken by Mang-i-lot'. A
man may change his name each time he takes a head, though it is not
customary to do so more than once or twice.

Girls as well as boys may receive during childhood two or three names,
that they may receive the protection of an anito. In Igorot names there
is no vestige of a kinship group tracing relation through either the
paternal or maternal line.

The people are generally reticent about telling their names; and when
they do tell, the name given is usually the one borne in childhood;
an old man will generally answer " am-a'-ma," meaning simply "old man."


Circumcision

Most boys are circumcised at from 4 to 7 years of age. The act of
circumcision, called "sig-i-at'," occurs privately without feasting
or rite. The only formality is the payment of a few leaves of tobacco
to the man who performs the operation. There are one or two old men
in each ato who understand circumcision, but there is no cult for
its performance or perpetuation.

The foreskin is cut lengthwise on the upper side for half an
inch. Either a sharp, blade-like piece of bamboo is inserted in
the foreskin which is cut from the inside, or the back point of a
battle-ax is stuck firmly in the earth, and the foreskin is cut by
being drawn over the sharp point of the blade.

The Igorot say that if the foreskin is not cut it will grow long,
as does the unclipped camote vine. What the origin or purpose of
circumcision was is not now known by the people of Bontoc. The
practice is believed to have come with them from an earlier home;
it is widespread in the Archipelago.


Amusements

The life of little girls is strangely devoid of games and
playthings. They have no dolls and, I have never seen them play with
the puppies which are scattered throughout the pueblo much of the
year -- both common playthings for the girls of primitive people. It
is not improbable that the instinct which compels most girls, no
matter what their grade of culture, to play the mother is given full
expression in the necessary care of babes -- a care in which the
girls, often themselves almost babes, have a much larger part than
their brothers. Girls also go to the fields with their parents much
more than do the boys.

Girls and boys never play together in the same group. Time and
again one comes suddenly on a romping group of chattering, naked
little boys or girls. They usually run noiselessly into the nearest
foliage or behind the nearest building, and there stand unmoving,
as a pursued chicken pokes its head into the grass and seems to think
itself hidden. They need not be afraid of one, seeing him every day,
yet the instinct to flee is strong in them -- they do exactly what
their mothers do when suddenly met in the trail -- they run away,
or start to.

Several times I have found little girls building tiny sementeras with
pebbles, and it is probable they play at planting and harvesting the
crops common to their pueblo. They have one game called "I catch
your ankle," which is the best expression of unfettered childplay
and mirth I have ever seen.

After the sun had dropped behind the mountain close to the pueblo,
from six to a dozen girls ranging from 5 to 10 or 11 years of age came
almost nightly to the smooth grass plat in front of our house to play
"sis-sis'-ki" (I catch your ankle). They laid aside their blankets
and lined up nude in two opposing lines twelve or fifteen feet
apart. All then called: "Sis-sis'-ki ad wa'-ni wa'-ni!" (which is,
"I catch your ankle, now! now!"). Immediately the two lines crouched
on their haunches, and, in half-sitting posture, with feet side by
side, each girl bounced toward her opponent endeavoring to catch
her ankle. After the two attacking parties met they intermingled,
running and tumbling, chasing and chased, and the successful girl
rapidly dragged her victim by the ankle along the grass until caught
and thrown by a relief party or driven away by the approach of superior
numbers. They lined up anew every five or ten minutes.

During the entire game, lasting a full half hour or until night settled
on them or a mother came to take home one of the little, romping, wild
things -- just as the American child is called from her games to an
early bed -- peal after peal of the heartiest, sweetest laughter rang
a constant chorus. The boys have at least two systematic games. One is
fug-fug-to', in imitation of a ceremonial of the men after each annual
rice harvest. The game is a combat with rocks, and is played sometimes
by thirty or forty boys, sometimes by a much smaller number. The game
is a contest -- usually between Bontoc and Samoki -- with the broad,
gravelly river bed as the battle ground. There they charge and retreat
as one side gains or loses ground; the rocks fly fast and straight,
and are sometimes warded off by small basket-work shields shaped like
the wooden ones of war. They sometimes play for an hour and a half
at a time, and I have not yet seen them play when one side was not
routed and driven home on the run amid the shouts of the victors.

The other game is kag-kag-tin'. It is also a game of combat and of
opposing sides, but it is not so dangerous as the other and there are
no bruises resulting. Some half-dozen or a dozen boys play kag-kag-tin'
charging and retreating, fighting with the bare feet. The naked foot
necessitates a different kick than the one shod with a rigid leather
shoe; the stroke from an unshod foot is more like a blow from the fist
shot out from the shoulder. The foot lands flat and at the side of
or behind the kicker, and the blow is aimed at the trunk or head --
it usually lands higher than the hips. This game in a combat between
individuals of the opposing sides, though two often attack a single
opponent until he is rescued by a companion. The game is over when
the retreating side no longer advances to the combat.

The boys are constantly throwing reed spears, and they are fairly
expert spearmen several years before they have a steel-bladed spear
of their own. Frequently they roll the spherical grape fruit and
throw their reeds at the fruit as it passes.

Here, there, and everywhere, singly or in groups, boys perform the
Igorot dance step. A tin can in a boy's hands is irresistibly beaten in
rhythmic time, and the dance as surely follows the peculiar rhythmic
beating as the beating follows the possession of the can. As the
boys come stringing home at night from watching the palay fields,
they come dancing, rhythmically beating a can, or two sticks, or
their dinner basket, or beating time in the air -- as though they
held a gangsa[18]. The dance is in them, and they amuse themselves
with it constantly.

Both boys and girls are much in the river, where they swim and dive
with great frolic.

During the months of January and February, 1903, when there was much
wind, the boys were daily flying kites, but it is a pastime borrowed
of the Ilokano in the pueblo. Now and then a little fellow may be
seen with a small, very rude bow and arrow, which also is borrowed
from the Ilokano since the arrival of the Spaniard.



Puberty

Puberty is reached relatively late, usually between the fourteenth
and sixteenth years. No notice whatever is taken of it by the social
group. There is neither feast nor rite to mark the event either for
the individual or the group.

This nonobservance of the fact of puberty would be very remarkable,
since its observance is so widespread among primitive people,
were it not for the fact that the Igorot has developed the olag --
an institution calculated to emphasize the fact and significance
of puberty.


Life in olag

Though the o'-lag is primarily the sleeping place of all unmarried
girls, in the mind of the people it is, with startling consistency,
the mating place of the young people of marriageable age.

A common sight on a rest day in the pueblo is that of a young man
and woman, each with an arm around the other, loitering about under
the same blanket, talking and laughing, one often almost supporting
the other. There seems at all times to be the greatest freedom
and friendliness among the young people. I have seen both a young
man carrying a young woman lying horizontally along his shoulders,
and a young woman carrying a young man astride her back. However,
practically all courtship is carried on in the o'-lag.

The courtship of the Igorot is closely defined when it is said that
marriage never takes place prior to sexual intimacy, and rarely
prior to pregnancy. There is one exception. This is when a rich and
influential man marries a girl against her desires, but through the
urgings of her parents.

It is customary for a young man to be sexually intimate with one, two,
three, and even more girls at the same time. Two or more of them may
be residents of one o'-lag, and it is common for two or three men to
visit the same o'-lag at one time.

A girl is almost invariably faithful to her temporary lover, and this
fact is the more surprising in the face of the young man's freedom
and the fact that the o'-lag is nightly filled with little girls
whose moral training is had there.

Young men are boldly and pointedly invited to the o'-lag. A common form
of invitation is for the girl to steal a man's pipe, his pocket hat,
or even the breechcloth he is wearing. They say one seldom recovers
his property without going to the, o'-lag for it.

When a girl recognizes her pregnancy she at once joyfully tells her
condition to the father of the child, as all women desire children and
there are few permanent marriages unblessed by them. The young man,
if he does not wish to marry the girl, may keep her in ignorance of
his intentions for two or three months. If at last he tells her he
will not marry her she receives the news with many tears, it is said,
but is spared the gossip and reproach of others, and she will later
become the wife of some other man, since her first child has proved
her power to bear children.

When the mother notices her condition she asks who the father of the
child is, and on being told that the man will not marry her the mother
often tries to exert a rather tardy influence for better morals. She
says, "That is bad. Why have you done this?" (when the chances are
that the unfortunate, girl was born into a family of but one head);
"it will be well for him to give the child a sementera to work." About
the same time the young man informs his mother of his relations with
the girl, and of her condition, and again the maker of a people's
morals seems to attempt to mold the already hardened clay. She says,
"My son, that is bad. Why have you done it? Why do you not marry
her?" And the son answers simply and truthfully, "I have another
girl." Without attempt at remonstrance the father gives a rice
sementera to the child when it is 6 or 7 years old, for that is the
price fixed by the group conscience for deserting a girl with a child.

It is not usual for a married man to go to the o'-lag, though a
young man may go if one of his late mates is still alone. He is
usually welcomed by the girl, for there may yet be possibilities
of her becoming his permanent wife. A man whose wife is pregnant,
however, seldom visits the o'-lag, because he fears that, if he does,
his wife's child will be prematurely born and die.

The o'-lag is built where the girls desire it and is said to be
commonly located in places accessible to the men; this appears true
to one going over the pueblo with this statement in mind.

The life in the o'-lag does not seem to weaken the boys or girls
or cause them to degenerate, neither does it appear to make them
vicious. Whereas there is practically no sense of modesty among the
people, I have never seen anything lewd. Though there is no such
thing as virtue, in the modern sense of the word, among the young
people after puberty, children before puberty are said to be virtuous,
and the married woman is said always to be true to her husband.

According to a recent translator of Blumentritt[19] that author is
made to say (evidently speaking of the o'-lag):

Amongst most of the tribes [Igorot] the chastity of maidens is
carefully guarded, and in some all the young girls are kept together
till marriage in a large house where, guarded by old women, they
are taught the industries of their sex, such as weaving, pleating,
making cloth from the bark of trees, etc.

There is no such institution in Bontoc Igorot society. The purpose of
the o'-lag is as far from enforcing chastity as it well can be. The
old women never frequent the o'-lag, and the lesson the girls learn
there is the necessity for maternity, not the "industries of their
sex" -- which children of very primitive people acquire quite as a
young fowl learns to scratch and get its food.


Marriage

The ethics of the group forbid certain unions in marriage. A man may
not marry his mother, his stepmother, or a sister of either. He may
not marry his daughter, stepdaughter, or adopted daughter. He may
not marry his sister, or his brother's widow, or a first cousin by
blood or adoption. Sexual intercourse between persons in the above
relations is considered incest, and does not often occur. The line of
kin does not appear to be traced as far as second cousin, and between
such there are no restrictions.

Rich people often pledge their small children in marriage, though,
as elsewhere in the world, love, instead of the plans of parents, is
generally the foundation of the family. In February, 1903, the rich
people of Bontoc were quite stirred up over the sequel to a marriage
plan projected some fifteen years before. Two families then pledged
their children. The boy grew to be a man of large stature, while the
girl was much smaller. The man wished to marry another young woman, who
fought the first girl when visited by her to talk over the matter. Then
the blind mother of the pledged girl went to the dwelling, accompanied
by her brother, one of the richest men in the pueblo, whereupon the
father and mother of the successful girl knocked them down and beat
them. To all appearances the young lovers will marry in spite of the
early pledges of parents. They say such quarrels are common.

If a man wishes to marry a woman and she shares his desire, or
if on her becoming pregnant he desires to marry her, he speaks
with her parents and with his. If either of her parents objects,
no marriage occurs; but he does not usually falter, even though
his parents do object. They say the advent of a babe seldom fails
to win the good will of the young man's parents. In the case of the
girl's pregnancy, marriage is more assured, and her father builds or
gives her a house. The olag is no longer for her. In her case it has
served its ultimate purpose -- it has announced her puberty and proved
her powers of womanhood. In the case of a desire of marriage before
the girl is pregnant she usually sleeps in the olag, as in the past,
and the young man spends most of his nights with her. It is customary
for the couple to take their meals with the parents of the girl, in
which case the young man gives his labors to the family. The period
of his labors is usually less than a year, since it is customary for
him to give his affections to another girl within a year if the first
one does not become pregnant.

In other words their union is a true trial union. If the trial is
successful the girl's father builds her a dwelling, and the marriage
ceremony occurs immediately upon occupation of the dwelling. The
ceremony is in two parts. The first is called "in-pa-ke'," and at
that time a hog or carabao is killed, and the two young people start
housekeeping. The kap'-i-ya ceremony follows -- among the rich this
marriage ceremony occupies two days, but with the poor only one
day. The kap'-i-ya is performed by an old man of the ato in which
the couple is to live. He suggestively places a hen's egg, some rice,
and some tapui[20] in a dish before him while he addresses Lumawig,
the one god, as follows:

Thou, Lumawig! now these children desire to unite in marriage. They
wish to be blessed with many children. When they possess pigs, may
they grow large. When they cultivate their palay, may it have large
fruitheads. May their chickens also grow large. When they plant their
beans may they spread over the ground, May they dwell quietly together
in harmony. May the man's vitality quicken the seed of the woman.

The two-day marriage ceremony of the rich is very festive. The parents
kill a wild carabao, as well as chickens and pigs, and the entire
pueblo comes to feast and dance. It is customary for the pueblo to
have a rest day, called "fo-sog'," following the marriage of the
rich, so the entire period given to the marriage is three days. Each
party to the, marriage receives some property at the time from the
parents. There are no women in Bontoc pueblo who have not entered
into the trial union, though all have not succeeded in reaching the
ceremony of permanent marriage. However, notwithstanding all their
standards and trials, there are several happy permanent marriages
which have never been blessed with children. There are only two men
in Bontoc who have never been married and who never entered the trial
stage, and both are deaf and dumb.


Divorce

The people of Bontoc say they never knew a man and woman to separate
if a child was born to the pair and it lived and they had recognized
themselves married. But, as the marriage is generally prompted because
a child is to be born, so an unfruitful union is generally broken in
the hope that another will be more successful.

If either party desires to break the contract the other seldom
objects. If they agree to separate, the woman usually remains in their
dwelling and the man builds himself another. However, if either person
objects, it is the other who relinquishes the dwelling -- the man
because he can build another and the woman because she seldom seeks
separation unless she knows of a home in which she will be welcome.

Nothing in the nature of alimony, except the dwelling, is commonly
given by either party to a divorce. There are two exceptions --
in case a party deserts he forfeits to the other one or more rice
sementeras or other property of considerable value; and, again,
if the woman bore her husband a child which died he must give her a
sementera if he leaves her.


The widowed

If either party to a marriage dies the other does not remarry for
one year. There is no penalty enforced by the group for an earlier
marriage, but the custom is firmly fixed. Should the surviving person
marry within a year he would die, being killed by an anito whose
business it is to punish such sacrilege. The widowed frequently
remarry, as there are certain advantages in their married life. It
is quite impossible for a man or woman alone to perform the entire
round of Igorot labors. The hours of labor for the lone person must
usually be long and tiresome.

Most of the widowed live in the katyufong, the smaller dwelling
of the poor. The reason for this is that even if one has owned the
better class of dwelling, the fayu, it is generally given to a child
at marriage, the smaller house being sufficient and suitable for the
lone person, especially as the widowed very frequently take their
meals with some married child.


Orphans

Orphans without homes of their own become members of the household of
an uncle or aunt or other near relative. The property they received
from their parents is used by the family into whose home they go. Upon
marriage the children receive the property as it was left them,
the annual increase having gone to the family which cared for them.

If there are no relatives, orphans with property readily find a home;
if there are neither relatives nor property, some family receives the
children more as servants than as equals. When they are married they
are usually not given more than a dwelling.


The aged

There are few old and infirm persons who have not living
relatives. Among these relatives are usually descendants who have
been materially benefited by property accumulated or kept intact by
their aged kin. It is the universal custom for relatives to feed and
otherwise care for the aged. Not much can be done for the infirm,
and infirmity is the beginning of the end with all except the blind.

The chances are that the old who have no relatives have at least a
little property. Such persons are readily cared for by some family
which uses the property at the time and falls heir to it when the owner
dies. There are a very few blind persons who have neither relatives nor
property, and these are cared for by families which offer assistance,
and two of these old blind men beg rice from dwelling to dwelling.


Sickness, disease, and remedies

All disease, sickness, or ailment, however serious or slight, among
the Bontoc Igorot is caused by an a-ni'-to. If smallpox kills half a
dozen persons in one day, the fell work is that of an a-ni'-to; if a
man receives a stone bruise on the trail an a-ni'-to is in the foot and
must be removed before recovery is possible. There is one exception to
the above sweeping charge against the a-ni'-to -- the Igorot says that
toothache is caused by a small worm twisting and turning in the tooth.

Igorot society contains no person who is so malevolent as to cause
another sickness, insanity, or death. So charitable is the Igorot's
view of his fellows that when, a few years ago, two Bontoc men died
of poison administered by another town, the verdict was that the
administering hands were directed by some vengeful or diabolical
a-ni'-to.

As a people the Bontoc Igorot are healthful. It is seldom that an
epidemic reaches them; bubonic plague and leprosy are unknown to them.

By far the majority of deaths among them is due to what the Igorot
calls fever -- as they say, "im-po'-os nan a'-wak," or "heat of the
body" -- but they class as "fever" half a dozen serious diseases,
some almost always fatal.

The men at times suffer with malaria. They go to the low west coast as
cargadors or as primitive merchants, and they return to their mountain
country enervated by the heat, their systems filled with impure water,
and their blood teeming with mosquito-planted malaria. They get down
with fever, lose their appetite, neither know the value of nor have
the medicines of civilization, their minds are often poisoned with
the superstitious belief that they will die -- and they do die in
from three days to two months. In February, 1903, three cargadors
died within two weeks after returning from the coast.

Measles, chicken pox, typhus and typhoid fevers, and a disease
resulting from eating new rice are undifferentiated by the Igorot --
they are his "fever." Measles and chicken pox are generally fatal to
children. Igorot pueblos promptly and effectually quarantine against
these diseases. When a settlement is afflicted with either of them it
shuts its doors to all outsiders -- even using force if necessary;
but force is seldom demanded, as other pueblos at once forbid their
people to enter the afflicted settlement. The ravages of typhus and
typhoid fever may be imagined among a people who have no remedies
for them. The diseased condition resulting each year from eating new
rice has locally been called "rice cholera." During the months of
June, July, and August -- the two harvest months of rice and the one
following -- considerable rice of the new crop is annually eaten. If
rice has been stored in the palay houses until it is sweated it is
in every way a healthful, nutritious food, but when eaten before it
sweats it often produces diarrhea, usually leading to an acute bloody
dysentery which is often followed by vomiting and a sudden collapse --
as in Asiatic cholera.

In 1893 smallpox, ful-tang', came to Bontoc with a Spanish soldier
who was in the hospital from Quiangan. Some five or six adults and
sixty or seventy children died. The ravage took half a dozen in a day,
but the Igorot stamped out the plague by self-isolation. They talked
the situation over, agreed on a plan, and were faithful to it. All the
families not afflicted moved to the mountains; the others remained to
minister or be ministered to, as the case might be. About thirty-five
years ago smallpox wiped out a considerable settlement of Bontoc,
called La'-nao, situated nearer the river than are any dwellings
at present.

About thirty years ago cholera, pish-ti', visited the people, and
fifty or more deaths resulted.

Some twelve years ago ka-lag'-nas, an unidentified disease, destroyed
a great number of people, probably half a hundred. Those afflicted
were covered with small, itching festers, had attacks of nausea,
and death resulted in about three days.

Two women died in Bontoc in 1901 of beri-beri, called fu-tut. These
are the only cases known to have been there.

About ten years ago a man died from passing blood -- an ailment
which the Igorot named literally "in-is'-fo cha'-la or in-tay'-es
cha'-la." It was not dysentery, as the person at no time had a
diarrhea. He gradually weakened from the loss of small amounts of
blood until, in about a year, he died.

The above are the only fatal diseases now in the common memory of
the pueblo of Bontoc.

It is believed 95 per cent of the people suffer at some time, probably
much of the time, with some skin disease. They say no one has been
known to die of any of these skin diseases, but they are weakening and
annoying. Itch, ku'-lid, is the most common, and it takes an especially
strong hold on the babes in arms. This ku'-lid is not the ko'-lud
or gos-gos, the white scaly itch found among the people surrounding
those of the Bontoc culture area but not known to exist within it.

Two or three people suffer with rheumatism, fig-fig, but are seldom
confined to their homes.

One man has consumption, o'-kat. He has been coughing five or six
years, and is very thin and weak.

Diarrhea, or o-gi'-ak, frequently makes itself felt, but for only one
or two days at a time. It is most common when the locusts swarm over
the country, and the people eat them abundantly for several days. They
say no one, not even a babe, ever died of diarrhea.

Two of the three prostitutes of Bontoc, the cast-off mistresses of
Spanish soldiers, have syphilis, or na-na. Formerly one civilian was
afflicted, and at present four or five of the Constabulary soldiers
have contracted the disease.

Lang-ing'-i, a disease of sores and ulcers on the lips, nostrils,
and rectum, afflicted a few people three or four years ago. This
disease is very common in the pueblo of Ta-kong', but is reported as
never causing death.

Goiter, fi-kek' or fin-to'-kel, is quite common with adults, and is
more common with women than men.

Varicose veins, o'-pat, are not uncommon on the calves of both men
and women.

Many old people suffer greatly with toothache, called "pa-tug' nan
fob-a'." They say it is caused by a small worm, fi'-kis, which wriggles
and twists in the tooth. When one has an aching tooth extracted he
looks at it and inquires where "fi'-kis" is.

They suffer little from colds, mo-tug', and one rarely hears an
Igorot cough.

Headache, called both sa-kit' si o'-lo and pa-tug' si o'-lo, rarely
occurs except with fever.

Sore eyes, a condition known as in-o'-ki, are very frequently seen;
they doubtless precede most cases of blindness.

The Igorot bears pain well, but his various fatalistic superstitions
make him often an easy victim to a malady that would yield readily
to the science of modern medicine and from which, in the majority of
cases, he would probably recover if his mind could only assist his
body in withstanding the disease.

One is surprised to find that sores from bruises do not generally
heal quickly.

The Igorot attempts no therapeutic remedies for fevers, cholera,
beri-beri, rheumatism, consumption, diarrhea, syphilis, goiter, colds,
or sore eyes.

Some effort, therapeutic in its intent, is made to assist nature in
overcoming a few of the simplest ailments of the body.

For a cut, called "na-fa'-kag," the fruit of a grass-like herb named
la-lay'-ya is pounded to a paste, and then bound on the wound.

Burns, ma-la-fub-chong', are covered over with a piece of bark from
a tree called ta-kum'-fao.

Kay-yub', a vegetable root, is rubbed over the forehead in cases
of headache.

Boils, fu-yu-i', and swellings, nay-am-an' or kin-may-yon', are
treated with a poultice of a pounded herb called ok-ok-ong'-an.

Millet burned to a charcoal, pulverized, and mixed with pig fat is
used as a salve for the itch.

An herb called a-kum' is pounded and used as a poultice on ulcers
and sores.

For toothache salt is mixed with a pounded herb named ot-o'-tek and
the mass put in or around the aching tooth.

Leaves of the tree kay'-yam are steeped, and the decoction employed
as a bath for persons with smallpox.


Death and burial

It must be said that the Bontoc Igorot does not take death very
sorrowfully, and he does not take it at all passionately. A mother
weeps a day for a dead child or her husband, but death is said not to
bring tears from any man. Death causes no long or loud lamentation,
no tearing of the hair or cutting the body; it effects no somber
colors to deaden the emotions; no earth or ashes for the body --
all widespread mourning customs among primitive peoples. However,
when a child or mature man or woman dies the women assemble and sing
and wail a melancholy dirge, and they ask the departed why he went
so early. But for the aged there are neither tears nor wailings --
there is only grim philosophy. "You were old," they say, "and old
people die. You are dead, and now we shall place you in the earth. We
too are old, and soon we shall follow you."

All people die at the instance of an anito. There have been, however,
three suicides in Bontoc. Many years ago an old man and woman hung
themselves in their dwellings because they were old and infirm, and
a man from Bitwagan hung himself in the Spanish jail at Bontoc a few
years ago.

The spirit of the person who dies a so-called natural death is called
away by an anito. The anito of those who die in battle receive the
special name "pin-teng'"; such spirits are not called away, but the
person's slayer is told by some pin-teng', "You must take a head." So
it may be said that no death occurs among the Igorot (except the rare
death by suicide) which is not due directly to an anito.

Since they are warriors, the men who die in battle are the most
favored, but if not killed in battle all Igorot prefer to die in
their houses. Should they die elsewhere, they are at once taken home.

On March 19, 1903, wise, rich Som-kad', of ato Luwakan, and the oldest
man of Bontoc, heard an anito saying, "Come, Som-kad'; it is much
better in the mountains; come." The sick old man laboriously walked
from the pabafunan to the house of his oldest son, where he had for
nearly twenty years taken his food, and there among his children
and friends he died on the night of March 21. Just before he died a
chicken was killed, and the old people gathered at the house, cooked
the chicken, and ate, inviting the ancestral anitos and the departing
spirit of Som-kad' to the feast. Shortly after this the spirit of
the live man passed from the body searching the mountain spirit land
for kin and friend. They closed the old man's eyes, washed his body
and on it put the blue burial robe with the white "anito" figures
woven in it as a stripe. They fashioned a rude, high-back chair with
a low seat, a sung-a'-chil (Pl. XLI), and bound the dead man in it,
fastening him by bands about the waist, the arms, and head -- the
vegetal band entirely covering the open mouth. His hands were laid
in his lap. The chair was set close up before the door of the house,
with the corpse facing out. Four nights and days it remained there
in full sight of those who passed.

One-half the front wall of the dwelling and the interior partitions
except the sleeping compartment were removed to make room for those
who sat in the dwelling. Most of these came and went without function,
but day and night two young women sat or stood beside the corpse
always brushing away the flies which sought to gather at its nostrils.

During the first two days few men were about the house, but they
gathered in small groups in the vicinity of the fawi and pabafunan,
which were only three or four rods distant. Much of the time a blind
son of the dead man, the owner of the house where the old man died,
sat on his haunches in the shade under the low roof, and at frequent
intervals sang to a melancholy tune that his father was dead, that
his father could no longer care for him, and that he would be lonely
without him. On succeeding days other of the dead man's children,
three sons and five daughters, all rich and with families of their
own, were heard to sing the same words. Small numbers of women
sat about the front of the house or close in the shade of its roof
and under its cover. Now and then some one or more of them sang a
low-voiced, wordless song -- rather a soothing strain than a depressing
dirge. During the first days the old women, and again the old men,
sang at different times alone the following song, called "a-na'-ko"
when sung by the women, and "e-ya'-e" when by the men:

Now you are dead; we are all here to see you. We have given you all
things necessary, and have made good preparation for the burial. Do
not come to call away [to kill] any of your relatives or friends.

Nowhere was there visible any sign of fear or awe or wonder. The
women sitting about spun threads on their thighs for making skirts;
they talked and laughed and sang at will. Mothers nursed their babes
in the dwelling and under its projecting roof. Budding girls patted
and loved and dimpled the cheeks of the squirming babes of more
fortunate young women, and there was scarcely a child that passed in
or out of the house, that did not have to steady itself by laying a
hand on the lap of the corpse. All seemed to understand death. One,
they say, does not die until the anito calls -- and then one always
goes into a goodly life which the old men often see and tell about.

In a well-organized and developed modern enterprise the death of
a principal man causes little or no break. This is equally true in
Igorot life. The former is so because of perfected organization --
there are new men trained for all machines; and the latter is true
because of absence of organization -- there is almost no machinery
to be left unattended by the falling of one person.

On the third day the numbers increased. There were twenty-five or
thirty men in the vicinity of the house, on the south side of which
were half a dozen pots of basi,[21] from which men and boys drank
at pleasure, though not half a dozen became intoxicated. Late in
the afternoon a double row of men, the sons and sons-in-law of the
deceased, lined up on their haunches facing one another, and for half
an hour talked and laughed, counted on their fingers and gesticulated,
diagrammed on their palms, questioned, pointed with their lips and
nodded, as they divided the goodly property of the dead man. There
was no anger, no sharp word, or apparent dissent; all seemed to know
exactly what was each one's right. In about half an hour the property
was disposed of beyond probable future dispute.

There were more women present the third day than on the second,
and at all times about one-third more women than men; and there were
usually as many children about as there were grown persons. In all
the group of, say, 140 people, nowhere could one detect a sign of the
uncanny, or even the unusual. The apparent everydayness of it all to
them was what struck the observer most. The young women brushing away
the flies touched and turned the fast-blackening hands of the corpse
to note the rapid changes. Almost always there were small children
standing in the doorway looking into that blackened, swollen face,
and they turned away only to play or to loll about their mothers'
necks. Always there were women bending over other women's heads,
carefully parting the hair and scanning it. Women lay asleep stretched
in the shade; they talked, and droned, and laughed, and spun.

During the second day men had succeeded in catching in the mountains
one of the half-wild carabaos -- property of the deceased -- and this
was killed. Its head was placed in the house tied up by the horns
above and facing Som-kad', so the faces of the dead seemed looking
at each other, while on the third day the flesh, bones, intestines,
and hide were cooked for the crowd. During the third and fourth days
one carabao, one dog, eight hogs, and twenty chickens were killed,
cooked, and eaten.

On the fourth day the crowd increased. Custom lays idle all field
tools of an ato on the burial day of an adult of that ato; but the
day Som-kad' was buried the field work of the entire pueblo stood
still because of common respect for this man, so old and wise, so
rich and influential, and probably 200 people were about the house
all the day. By noon two well-defined groups of chanting old women
had formed -- one sitting in the house and the other in front of
it. Wordless, melancholy chants were sung in response between the
groups. The spaces surrounding the house became almost packed --
so much so that a dog succeeded in getting into the doorway, and the
threatenings and maledictions that drove it away were the loudest,
most disturbed expressions noted during the four days.

Before the house, which faced the west, lay the large pine coffin lid,
while to the south of it, turned bottom up, was the coffin with fresh
chips beside it hewn out that morning in further excavation. Children
played around the coffin and people lounged on its upturned
bottom. Near the front of the house a pot of water was always hot
over a smoldering, smoking fire. Now and then a chicken was brought,
light wood was tossed under the pot, the chicken was beaten to death
-- first the wings, then the neck, and then the head. The fowl was
quickly sprawled over the blaze, its feathers burned to a crisp, and
rubbed off with sticks. Its legs were severed from the body with the
battle-ax and put in the pot. From its front it was then cut through
its ribs with one gash. The back and breast parts were torn apart,
the gall examined and nodded over; the intestines were placed beneath
a large rock, and the gizzard, breast of the chicken, and back with
head attached dropped in the pot. During the killing and dressing
neither of the two men who prepared the feast hurried, yet scarcely
five minutes passed from the time the first blow was struck on the
wing of the squawking fowl until the work was over and the meat in
the boiling pot. The cooking of a fowl always brought a crowd of boys
who hung over the fragrant vessel, and they usually got their share
when, in about twenty minutes, the meat came forth. Three times in
the afternoon a fowl was thus distributed. Cooked pork was passed
among the people, and rice was always being brought. Twice a man went
through the crowd with a large winnowing tray of cooked carabao hide
cut in little blocks. This food was handed out on every side, people
tending children receiving double share. The people gathered and ate
in the congested spaces about the dwelling. The heat was intense --
there was scarcely a breath of air stirring. The odor from the body
was heavy and most sickening to an American, and yet there was no
trace of the unusual on the various faces.

New arrivals came to take their last look at Som-kad', now a black,
bloated, inhuman-looking thing, and they turned away apparently
unaffected by the sight.

The sun slid down behind the mountain ridge lying close to the pueblo,
and a dozen men armed with digging sticks and dirt baskets filed along
the trail some fifteen rods to the last fringe of houses. There they
dug a grave in a small, unused sementera plat where only the old,
rich men of the pueblo are buried. A group of twenty-five old women
gathered standing at the front of the house swaying to the right,
to the left, as they slowly droned in melancholy cadence:

You were old, and old people die. You are dead, and now we shall
place you in the earth. We too are old, and soon we shall follow you.

Again and again they droned, and when they ceased others within
the house took up the strain. During the singing the carabao head
was brought from the house, and the horns, with small section of
attached skull, chopped out, and the head returned to the ceiling of
the dwelling.

Presently a man came with a slender stick to measure the coffin. He
drove a nursing mother, with a woman companion and small child,
from comfortable seats on the upturned wood. The people, including
the group of old women, were driven away from the front of the house,
the coffin was laid down on the ground before the door, and an unopened
8-gallon olla of "preserved" meat was set at its foot. An old woman,
in no way distinguishable from the others by paraphernalia or other
marks, muttering, squatted beside the olla. Two men untied the bands
from the corpse, and one lifted it free from the chair and carried
it in his arms to the coffin. It was most unsightly, and streams of
rusty-brown liquid ran from it. It was placed face up, head elevated
even with the rim, and legs bent close at the knees but only slightly
at the hips. The old woman arose from beside the olla and helped lay
two new breechcloths and a blanket over the body. The face was left
uncovered, except that a small patch of white cloth ravelings, called
"fo-ot'," was laid over the eyes, and a small white cloth was laid
over the hair of the head. The burden was quickly caught up on men's
shoulders and hurried without halting to the grave. Willing bands
swarmed about the coffin. At all times as many men helped bear it
as could well get hold, and when they mounted the face of a 7-foot
sementera wall a dozen strong pairs of hands found service drawing
up and supporting the burden. Many men followed from the house one
brought the coffin cover and another the carabao horns -- but the
women and children remained behind, as is their custom at burials.

At the grave the coffin rested on the earth a moment[22] while a few
more basketfuls of dirt were thrown out, until the grave was about 5
feet deep. The coffin was then placed in the grave, the cover laid on,
and with a joke and a laugh the pair of horns was placed facing it
at the head. Instantly thirty-two men sprang on the piles of fresh,
loose dirt, and with their hands and the half dozen digging sticks
filled and covered the grave in the shortest possible time, probably
not over one minute and a half. And away they hurried, most of them
at a dogtrot, to wash themselves in the river.

From the instant the corpse was in the coffin until the grave was
filled all things were done in the greatest haste, because cawing
crows must not fly over, dogs must not bark, snakes or rats must not
cross the trail -- if they should, some dire evil would follow.

Shortly after the burial a ceremony, called "kap-i-yan si na-tu'," is
performed by the relatives in the dwelling wherein the corpse sat. It
is said to be the last ceremony given for the dead. Food is eaten
and the one in charge addresses the anito of the dead man as follows:

We have fixed all things right and well for you. When there was no rice
or chicken for food, we got them for you -- as was the custom of our
fathers -- so you will not come to make us sick. If another anito seeks
to harm us, you will protect us. When we make a feast and ask you to
come to it, we want you to do so; but if another anito kills all your
relatives, there will be no more houses for you to enter for feasts.

This last argument is considered to be a very important one, as all
Igorot are fond of feasting, and it is assumed that the anito has
the same desire.

The night following the burial all relatives stay at the house lately
occupied by the corpse.

On the day after the burial all the men relatives go to the river
and catch fish, the small kacho. The relatives have a fish feast,
called "ab-a-fon'," at the hour of the evening meal. To this feast
all ancestral anito are invited.

All relatives again spend the night at the house, from which they
return to their own dwellings after breakfast of the second day and
each goes laden with a plate of cooked rice.

In this way from two to eight days are given to the funeral rite,
the duration being greater with the wealthier people.

Only heads of families are buried in the large pine coffins, which
are kept ready stored beside the granaries everywhere about the
pueblo. As in the case of Som-kad', all old, rich men are buried in a
plat of ground close to the last fringe of dwellings on the west of
the pueblo, but all other persons except those who lose their heads
are buried close to their dwellings in the camote sementeras.

The burial clothes of a married man are the los-a'-dan, or blue
anito-figured burial robe, and a breechcloth of beaten bark, called
"chi-nang-ta'." In the coffin are placed a fa'-a, or blue cotton
breechcloth made in Titipan, the fan-cha'-la, a striped blue-and-white
cotton blanket, and the to-chong', a foot-square piece of beaten bark
or white cloth which is laid on the head.

A married woman is buried in a kay-in', a particular skirt made for
burial in Titipan, and a white blue-bordered waistcloth or la-ma. In
the coffin are placed a burial girdle, wa'-kis, also made in Titipan,
a blue-and-white-striped blanket called bay-a-ong', and the to-chong',
the small cloth or bark over the hair.

The unmarried are buried in graves near the dwelling, and these are
walled up the sides and covered with rocks and lastly with earth;
it is the old rock cairn instead of the wooden coffin. The bodies are
placed flat on their backs with knees bent and heels drawn up to the
buttocks. With the men are buried, besides the things interred with
the married men, the basket-work hat, the basket-work sleeping hat,
the spear, the battle-ax, and the earrings if any are possessed. These
additional things are buried, they say, because there is no family
with which to leave them, though all things interred are for the use
of the anito of the dead.

In addition to the various things buried with the married woman,
the unmarried has a sleeping hat.

Babes and children up to 6 or 7 years of age are buried in the
sementera wrapped in a crude beaten-bark mantle. This garment is
folded and wrapped about the body, and for babes, at least, is bound
and tied close about them.

Babies are buried close to the dwelling where the sun and storm
do not beat, because, as they say, babes are too tender to receive
harsh treatment.

For those beheaded in battle there is another burial, which is
described in a later chapter.



PART 4

Economic Life


Production

Under the title "Economic life" are considered the various activities
which a political economist would consider if he studied a modern
community -- in so far as they occur in Bontoc. This method was chosen
not to make the Bontoc Igorot appear a modern man but that the student
may see as plainly as method will allow on what economic plane the
Bontoc man lives. The desire for this clear view is prompted by the
belief that grades of culture of primitive peoples may be determined
by the economic standard better than by any other single standard.


Natural production

It would be impossible for the Bontoc Igorot at present to subsist
themselves two weeks by natural production. It is doubtful whether
at any time they could have depended for even as much as a day in a
week on the natural foods of the Bontoc culture area. The country
has wild carabaos, deer, hogs, chickens, and three animals which
the Igorot calls "cats," but all of these, when considered as a
food supply for the people, are relatively scarce, and it is thought
they were never much more abundant than now. Fish are not plentiful,
and judging from the available waters there are probably as many now
as formerly. It is believed that no nut foods are eaten in Bontoc,
although an acorn is found in the mountains to the south of Bontoc
pueblo. The banana and pineapple now grow wild within the area, but
they are not abundant. Of small berries, such as are so abundant in the
wild lands of the United States, there are almost none in the area. On
the outside, near Suyak of Lepanto, there is a huckleberry found so
plentifully that they claim it is gathered for food in its season.


Hunting

A large pile of rocks stands like a compact fortress on the mountain
horizon to the north of Bontoc pueblo. Here a ceremony is observed
twice annually by rich men for the increase of ay-ya-wan', the wild
carabao. It is claimed that there are now seventeen wild carabaos in
Ma-ka'-lan Mountain near the pueblo. There are others in the mountains
farther to the north and east, and the ceremony has among its objects
that of inducing these more distant herds to migrate to the public
lands surrounding the pueblo.

The men go to the great rock, which is said to be a transformed
anito, and there they build a fire, eat a meal, and have the ceremony
called "mang-a-pu'-i si ay-ya-wan'," freely, "fire-feast for wild
carabaos." The ceremony is as follows:



Ay-ya-wan ad Sa-ka'-pa a-li-ka is-na ma-am'-mung is-na.
Ay-ya-wan ad O-ki-ki a-li-ka is-na ma-am'-mung is-na.
Fay-cha'-mi ya'-i nan a-pu'-i ya pa'-tay.



This is an invitation addressed to the wild carabaos of the Sakapa
and Okiki Mountains to come in closer to Bontoc. They are also asked
to note that a fire-feast is made in their honor.

The old men say that probably 500 wild carabaos have been killed by
the men of the pueblo. There is a tradition that Lumawig instructed
the people to kill wild carabaos for marriage feasts, and all of those
killed -- of which there is memory or tradition -- have been used in
the marriage feasts of the rich. The wild carabao is extremely vicious,
and is killed only when forty or fifty men combine and hunt it with
spears. When wounded it charges any man in sight, and the hunter's
only safety is in a tree.

The method of hunting is simple. The herd is located, and as cautiously
as possible the hunters conceal themselves behind the trees near the
runway and throw their spears as the desired animal passes. No wild
carabaos have been killed during the past two years, but I am told
that the numbers killed three, four, six, seven, and eight years ago
were, respectively, 5, 8, 7, 10, and 8.

Seven men in Bontoc have dogs trained to run deer and wild boar. One
of the men, Aliwang, has a pack of five dogs; the others have one
or two each. The hunting dogs are small and only moderately fleet,
but they are said to have great courage and endurance. They hunt out
of leash, and still-hunt until they start their prey, when they cry
continually, thus directing the hunter to the runway or the place
where the victim is at bay.

Not more than one deer, og'-sa, is killed annually, and they claim
that deer were always very scarce in the area. A large net some 3
1/2 feet high and often 50 feet long is commonly employed in northern
Luzon and through the Archipelago for netting deer and hogs, but no
such net is used in Bontoc. The dogs follow the deer, and the hunter
spears it in the runway as it passes him or while held at bay.

The wild hog, la'-man or fang'-o, when hunted with dogs is a surly
fighter and prefers to take its chances at bay; consequently it is
more often killed then by the spearman than in the runway. The wild
hog is also often caught in pitfalls dug in the runways or in its
feeding grounds. The pitfall, fi'-to, is from 3 to 4 feet across,
about 4 feet deep, and is covered over with dry grass.

In the forest feeding grounds of Polus Mountains, between the Bontoc
culture area and the Banawi area to the south, these pitfalls are
very abundant, there frequently being two or three within a space
one rod square.

A deadfall, called "il-tib'," is built for hogs near the sementeras
in the mountains. These deadfalls are quite common throughout the
Bontoc area, and probably capture more hogs than the pitfall and the
hunter combined. The hogs are partial to growing palay and camotes,
and at night circle about a protecting fence anxious to take advantage
of any chance opening. The Igorot leaves an opening in a low fence
built especially for that purpose, as he does not commonly fence in the
sementeras. The il-tib' is built of two sections of heavy tree trunks,
one imbedded in the earth, level with the ground, and the other the
falling timber. As the hog enters the sementera, the weight of his
body springs the trigger which is covered in the loose dirt before
the opening, and the falling timber pins him fast against the lower
timber firmly buried in the earth. From half a dozen to twenty wild
hogs are annually killed by the people of the pueblo. They are said
to be as plentiful as formerly.

Bontoc pueblo does not catch many wild fowls. Fowl catching is an
art she never learned to follow, although two or three of her boys
annually catch half a dozen chickens each. The surrounding pueblos, as
Tukukan, Sakasakan, Mayinit, and Maligkong, secure every year in the
neighborhood of fifty to one hundred fowl each. The sa'-fug, or wild
cock, is most commonly caught in a snare, called "shi'-ay," to which
it is lured by another cock, a domestic one, or often a half-breed or
a wild cock partially domesticated, which is secured inside the snare
set up in the mountains near the feeding grounds of the wild fowls.

The shi'-ay when set consists of twenty-four si'-lu, or running loops,
attached to a cord forming three sides of an open square space. As the
snare is set the open side is placed against a rock or steep base of
a rise. The shi'-ay is made of braided bejuco, and when not in use. is
compactly packed away in a basket for the purpose (see Pl. XLIV). There
are also five pegs fitted into loops in the basket, four of which are
employed in pegging out the three sides of the snare, and the other
for securing the lure cock within the square. Only cocks are caught
with the shi'-ay, and they come to fight the intruder who guides them
to the snare by crowing his challenge. As the wild cock rushes at the
other he is caught by one of the loops closing about him. The hunter,
always hiding within a few feet of the snare, rushes upon the captive,
and at once resets his snare for another possible victim.

A spring snare, called kok-o'-lang, is employed by the Igorot in
catching both wild cocks and hens. It is set in their narrow runways
in the heavy undergrowth. It consists of two short uprights driven into
the ground one on either side of the path. These are bound together at
the tops with two crosspieces. Near the lower ends of these uprights is
a loose crosspiece, the trigger, which the fowl in passing knocks down,
thus freeing the short upright, marked C, in fig. 1. When this is freed
the loop, E, at once tightens around the victim, as the cord is drawn
taut by the releasing of the spring -- a shrub bent over and secured
by the upper end of the cord. This spring is not shown in the drawing.


FIGURE 1

Fig. 1. -- Spring snare, Kok-o'-lang. (A,
Kok-o'-lang; B, I-pit' C,
Ting'-a; D, Chug-shi'; E,
Lo-fid'.)


Bontoc has two or three quadrupeds which it names "cats." One of these
is a true cat, called in'-yao. It is domesticated by the Ilokano in
Bontoc and becomes a good mouser.[23] The kok-o'-lang is used to catch
this cat. Pl. XLVI shows with what success this spring snare may be
employed. The cat shown was caught in the night while trying to enter
a chicken coop. He was a wild in'-yao, was beautifully striped like
the American "tiger cat," and measured 35 inches from tip to tip. The
in'-yao is plentiful in the mountains, and is greatly relished by the
Igorot, though Bontoc has no professional cat hunters and probably
not a dozen of the animals are captured annually.

The Igorot claim to have two other "cats," one called "co'-lang,"
as large as in'-yao, with large legs and very large feet. A Spaniard
living near Sagada says this animal eats his coffee berries. The other
so-called "cat" is named "si'-le" by the Igorot. It is said to be
a long-tailed, dark-colored animal, smaller than the in'-yao. It is
claimed that this si'-le is both carnivorous and frugivorous. These
two animals are trapped at times, and when caught are eaten.

During the year the boys catch numbers of small birds, all of which
are eaten. Probably not over 200 are captured, however, during a year.

The ling-an', a spring snare, is the most used for catching birds. I
saw one of them catch four shrikes, called ta'-la, in a single
afternoon, and a fifth one was caught early the next morning. Pl. XLVII
shows the ling-an' as it is set, and also shows ta'-la as he is caught.

The kok-o'-lang is also employed successfully for such birds as
run on the ground, especially those which run in paths. The si-sim'
is another spring snare set on the open ground. Food is scattered
about leading to it, and is placed abundantly in an inclosure, the
entrance to which is through the fatal noose which tightens when the
bird perches on the trigger at the opening to the inclosure.

When the palay is in the milk a great many birds which feed upon it
are captured by means of a broom-like bundle of runo. As the birds fly
over the sementeras a boy sweeps his broom, the ka-lib', through the
flock, and rarely fails to knock down a bird. The ka-lib' is about 7
feet long, 2 1/2 inches in diameter at the base, and flattened and
broadened to 14 or 15 inches in width at the outer end. What the
ka-lib' really does for the boy is to give him an arm about 9 feet
long and a long open hand a foot and a quarter wide.


Fishing

The only water available to Bontoc pueblo for fishing purposes is the
river passing between it and her sister pueblo, Samoki. In the dry
season, where it is not dammed, the river is not over six and eight
rods across in its widest places, and is from a few inches to 3 feet
deep. All the water would readily pass, at the ordinary velocity of
the stream, in a channel 20 feet wide and 6 feet deep.

Three methods are employed in fishing in this river -- the first,
catching each fish in the hand; the second, driving the fish upstream
by fright into a receptacle; a third, a combined process of driving
the fish downstream by fright and by water pressure into a receptacle.

The Igorot seems not to have a general word for fish, but he has
names for the three varieties found in the river. One, ka-cho', a
very small, sluggish fish, is captured during the entire year. In
February these fish were seldom more than 2 inches in length, and
yet they were heavy with spawn. The ka-cho' is the fish most commonly
captured with the hands. It is a sluggish swimmer and is provided with
an exterior suction valve on its ventral surface immediately back of
the gill opening. This valve seems to enable the fish to withstand the
ordinary current of the river which, in the rainy season, becomes a
torrent. This valve is also one of the causes of the Igorot's success
in capturing the fish, which is not readily frightened, but clings to
the bed of the stream until almost brushed away, and then ordinarily
swims only a few inches or feet. Small boys from 6 to 10 years old
capture by hand a hundred or more ka-cho' during half a day, simply
by following them in the shallow water.

The ka-cho' is also caught in great numbers by the second or driving
method. Twenty to forty or more men fish together with a large,
closely woven, shovel-like trap called ko-yug', and the operation is
most interesting to witness. At the river beach the fishermen remove
all clothing, and stretch out on their faces in the warm, sun-heated
sand. Three men carry the trap to the middle of the swift stream, and
one holds it from floating away below him by grasping the side poles
which project at the upper end for that purpose. The two other men,
below the trap at its mouth, put large stones on their backs between
the shoulder blades, so they will not float downstream, and disappear
beneath the water. As quickly as possible, coming up a dozen times to
breathe during the process, they clear away the rocks below the trap,
piling them in it over its floor, until it finally sinks and remains
stationary on the cleared spot of sandy bed. Their task being ended,
the three trap setters come to shore, and sprawl on the hot sands to
warm their dripping skins, while the sun dries and toasts their backs.

Then the drivers or beaters enter the river and stretch in a line from
shore to shore about 75 feet below the trap. Each fellow squats in
the water and places a heavy stone on his back. One of the men calls,
and the row of strange, hump-backed creatures disappears beneath
the water. There the men work swiftly, and, as later appears,
successfully. Each turns over all the bowlders within his reach
as large or larger than his two fists, and he works upstream 4 to
6 feet. They come up blowing, at first a head here and there, but
soon all are up with renewed breath, waiting the next call to beat
up the prey. This process is repeated again and again, and each
time the outer ends of the line bend upstream, gradually looping
in toward the trap. When the line of men has become quite circular
and is contracting rapidly, a dozen other men enter the river from
the shore and line up on each side of the mouth of the trap, a flank
movement to prevent the fish running upstream outside the snare. From
the circle of beaters a few now drop out; the others are in a bunch,
the last stone is turned, and the prey seeks covert under the rocks
in the trap, which the flankers at once lift above the water. The
rocks are thrown out and the trap and fish carried to the shore.

In each drive they catch about three quarts of fish. These are dumped
into baskets, usually the carrying basket of the man, and when the
day's catch is made and divided each man receives an equal share,
usually about 1 pound per household. A procession of men and boys
coming in from the river, each carrying his share of fish in his
basket hat in his hand and the last man carrying the fish trap,
is a sight very frequently seen in the pueblo.

The ka-cho' is also caught in a small trap, called ob-o'-fu, by the
third method mentioned above. A small strip of shallow water along the
shore is quite effectually cut off from the remainder of the stream
by a row of rocks. The lower end of this strip is brought to a point
where the water pours out and into the upturned ob-o'-fu, carrying
with it the ka-cho' which happen to be in the swift current, the fish
having been startled from their secure resting places by the fishermen
who have gradually proceeded downstream overturning the stones.

A fish called "li'-ling," which attains a length of about 6 inches,
is also caught by the last-described method. It is not nearly so
plentiful as the ka-cho'.

One man living in Bontoc may be called a fisherman. He spends most
of his time with his traps in the river, and sells his fish to the
Ilokano and Igorot residents of the pueblo. He places large traps
in the deep parts of the stream, adjusts them, and revisits them by
swimming under the water, and altogether is considered by the Igorot
boys as quite a "water man." He catches each year many ka-cho' and
li'-ling, and one or more large fish, called "cha-lit." The cha-lit
is said to acquire a length of 3, 4, or 5 feet.

Women and small children wade about the river and pick up quantities of
small crabs, called "ag-ka'-ma," and also a small spiral shell, called
"ko'-ti." It is safe to say that every hour of a rainless day one or
more persons of Bontoc is gathering such food in the river. Immediately
after the first rain of the season of 1903, coming April 5, there
were twenty-four persons, women and small children, within ten rods
of one another, searching the river for ag-ka'-ma and ko'-ti.

The women wear a small rump basket tied around the waist in which they
carry their lunch to the rice sementeras, and once or twice each week
they bring home from a few ounces to a pound of small crustaceans. One
variety is named song'-an, another is kit-an', a third is fing'-a,
and a fourth is lis'-chug. They are all collected in the mud of
the sementeras.


Vegetal production

All materials for timbers and boards for the dwellings, granaries,
and public buildings, all wood for fires, all wood for shields, for
ax and spear handles, for agricultural implements, and for household
utensils, and all material for splints employed in various kinds of
basket work, and for strings (warp and woof) employed in the weaving
of Bontoc girdles and skirts, are gathered wild with no effort at
cultural production. There are three exceptions to this statement,
however. One small shrub, called "pu-ug'," is planted near the house
as a fiber plant, and is no longer known to the Igorot in the wild
state. Much of the bamboo from which the basket-work splints are made
is purchased from people west of Bontoc. And, lastly, there is no
doubt that a certain care is taken in preserving pine trees for large
boards and timbers and for coffins; there is a cutting away of dead
and small branches from these trees. Moreover, the cutting of other
trees and shrubs for firewood certainly has a beneficial effect upon
the forest trees left standing. In fact, all persons preserve the
small pitch-pine trees on private lands, and it is a crime to cut
them on another's land, although a poor man may cut other varieties
on private lands when needed.


Cultural production


Agriculture

In all of Igorot culture the most apparent and strikingly noteworthy
fact is its agriculture. In agriculture the Igorot has reached his
highest development. On agriculture hangs his claim to the rank of
barbarian -- without it he would be a savage.

Igorot agriculture is unique in Luzon, and, so far as known, throughout
the Archipelago, in its mountain terraces and irrigation.

There are three possible explanations of the origin of Philippine
rice terraces. First, that they (and those of other islands peopled
by primitive and modern Malayans, and those of Japan and China) are
indigenous -- the product of the mountain lands of each isolated area;
second, that most of them are due to cultural influences from one
center, or possibly more than one center, to the north of Luzon --
as influences from China or Japan spreading southward from island
to island; third, that they, especially all those of the Islands --
excluding only China -- are due to influences originating south of
the Philippines, spreading northward from island to island.

Terracing may be indigenous to many isolated areas where it is
found, and doubtless is to some; it is found more or less marked
wherever irrigation is or was practiced in ancient or modern
agriculture. However, it is believed not to be an original production
of the Philippines. Certain it is that it is not a Negrito art,
nor does it belong to the Moro or to the so-called Christian people.

Different sections of China have rice terraces, and as early as the
thirteenth century Chinese merchants traded with the Philippines,
yet there is no record that they traded north of Manila -- where
terracing is alone found. Besides, the Chinese record of the early
commerce with the Islands -- written by Chao Jukua about 1250 it is
claimed -- specifically states that the natives of the Islands were
the merchants, taking the goods from the shore and trading them even
to other islands; the Chinese did not pass inland. Even though the
Chinaman brought phases of his culture to the Islands, it would not
have been agriculture, since he did not practice it here. Moreover,
whatever culture he did leave would not be found in the mountains
three or four days inland, while the people with whom he traded were
without the art. The same arguments hold against the Japanese as the
inspirers of Igorot terraces. There is no record that they traded
in the Islands as early as did the Chinese, and it is safe to say,
no matter when they were along the coasts of Luzon, that they never
penetrated several days into the mountains, among a wild, head-hunting
people, for what the agricultural Igorot had to sell.

The historic cultural movements in Malaysia have been not from the
north southward but from Sumatra and Java to the north and east; they
have followed the migrations of the people. It is believed that the
terrace-building culture of the Asiatic islands for the production
of mountain rice by irrigation during the dry season has drawn its
inspiration from one source, and that such terraces where found to-day
in Java, Lombok, Luzon, Formosa, and Japan are a survival of very early
culture which spread from the nest of the primitive Malayan stock and
left its marks along the way -- doubtless in other islands besides
these cited. If Japan, as has Formosa, had an early Malayan culture,
as will probably be proved in due time, one should not be surprised
to find old rice terraces in the mountains of Batanes Islands and
the Loo Choo Islands which lie between Luzon and Japan.


Building the sementera

It must be noted here that all Bontoc agricultural labors, from the
building of the sementera to the storing of the gathered harvest,
are accompanied by religious ceremonials. They are often elaborate,
and some occupy a week's time. These ceremonials are left out of this
chapter to avoid detail; they appear in the later chapter on religion.

There are two varieties of sementeras -- garden patches, called
"pay-yo'" -- in the Bontoc area, the irrigated and the unirrigated. The
irrigated sementeras grow two crops annually, one of rice by irrigation
during the dry season and the other of camotes, "sweet potatoes," grown
in the rainy season without irrigation. The unirrigated sementera
is of two kinds. One is the mountain or side-hill plat of earth,
in which camotes, millet, beans, maize, etc., are planted, and the
other is the horizontal plat (probably once an irrigated sementera),
usually built with low terraces, sometimes lying in the pueblo among
the houses, from which shoots are taken for transplanting in the
distant sementeras and where camotes are grown for the pigs. Sometimes
they are along old water courses which no longer flow during the dry
season; such are often employed for rice during the rainy season.

The unirrigated mountain-side sementera, called "fo-ag'," is built by
simply clearing the trees and brush from a mountain plat. No effort
is made to level it and no dike walls are built. Now and then one is
hemmed in by a low boundary wall.

The irrigated sementeras are built with much care and labor. The earth
is first cleared; the soil is carefully removed and placed in a pile;
the rocks are dug out; the ground shaped, being excavated and filled
until a level results. This task for a man whose only tools are sticks
is no slight one. A huge bowlder in the ground means hours -- often
days -- of patient, animal-like digging and prying with hands and
sticks before it is finally dislodged. When the ground is leveled
the soil is put back over the plat, and very often is supplemented
with other rich soil. These irrigated sementeras are built along
water courses or in such places as can be reached by turning running
water to them. Inasmuch as the water must flow from one to another,
there are practically no two sementeras on the same level which
are irrigated from the same water course. The result is that every
plat is upheld on its lower side, and usually on one or both ends,
by a terrace wall. Much of the mountain land is well supplied with
bowlders and there is an endless water-worn supply in the beds of
all streams. All terrace walls are built of these undressed stones
piled together without cement or earth. These walls are called
"fa-ning'." They are from 1 to 20 and 30 feet high and from a foot
to 18 inches wide at the top. The upper surface of the top layer of
stones is quite flat and becomes the path among the sementeras. The
toiler ascends and descends among the terraces on stone steps made
by single rocks projecting from the outside of the wall at regular
intervals and at an angle easy of ascent and descent (see Pl. LIII).

These stone walls are usually weeded perfectly clean at least once
each year, generally at the time the sementera is prepared for
transplanting. This work falls to the women, who commonly perform it
entirely nude. At times a scanty front-and-back apron of leaves is
worn tucked under the girdle.

In the Banawi district, south of the Bontoc area, there are terrace
walls certainly 75 feet in height, though many of these are not stoned,
since the earth is of such a nature that it does not readily crumble.

It is safe to say that nine-tenths of the available water supply of
the dry season in the Bontoc area is utilized for irrigation. In some
areas, as about Bontoc pueblo, there is practically not a gallon of
unused water where there is space for a sementera.

A single area consisting of several thousand acres of mountain side
is frequently devoted to sementeras, and I have yet to behold a more
beautiful view of cultivated land than such an area of Igorot rice
terraces. Winding in and out, following every projection, dipping
into every pocket of the mountain, the walls ramble along like running
things alive. Like giant stairways the terraces lead up and down the
mountain side, and, whether the levels are empty, dirt-colored areas,
fresh, green-carpeted stairs, or patches of ripening, yellow grain,
the beholder is struck with the beauty of the artificial landscape
and marvels at the industry of an otherwise savage people.



Irrigating

By irrigation is meant the purposeful distribution of water over soil
by man by means of diverting streams or by the use of canals in the
shape of ditches or troughs for conveying and directing part of a
water supply, or by means of some other man-directed power to raise
water to the required level.

The Igorot employ three methods of irrigation: One, the simplest and
most natural, is to build sementeras along a small stream which is
turned into the upper sementera and passes from one to another, falling
from terrace to terrace until all water is absorbed, evaporated,
or all available or desired land is irrigated. Usually such streams
are diverted from their courses, and they are often carried long
distances out of their natural way. The second method is to divert a
part of a river by means of a stone dam. The third method is still more
artificial than the preceding -- the water is lifted by direct human
power from below the sementera and poured to run over the surface.

The first method is the most common, since the mountains in Igorot land
are full of small, usually perpetual, streams. There are practically no
streams within reach of suitable pueblo sites which are not exhausted
by the Igorot agriculturist. Everywhere small streams are carefully
guarded and turned wherever there is a square yard of earth that may
be made into a rice sementera. Small streams in some cases have been
wound for miles around the sides of a mountain, passing deep gullies
and rivers in wooden troughs or tubes.

Much land along the river valleys is irrigated by means of dams, called
by the Igorot "lung-ud'." During the season of 1903 there was one dam
(designated the main dam in Pl. LVII -- see also Pls. LV and LVI)
across the entire river at Bontoc, throwing all the water which did
not leak through the stones into a large canal on the Bontoc side of
the valley. Half a mile above this was another dam (called the upper
dam in Pl. LVII) diverting one-half the stream to the same valley,
only onto higher ground. Immediately below the main dam were two low
piles of stones (designated weirs) jutting into the shallow stream
from the Bontoc side, and each gathering sufficient water for a few
sementeras. Within a quarter of a mile below the main dam were three
other loose, open weirs of rocks, two of which began on a shallow
island, throwing water to the Samoki side of the river. In the stream
a short distance farther down a shallow row of rocks and gravel turned
water into three new sementeras constructed early in the year on a
gravel island in the river.

The main dam is about 12 feet high, 2 feet broad at the top, 8 or
10 at the bottom, and is about 300 feet long. It is built each year
during November and December, and requires the labor of fifteen
or twenty men for about six weeks. It is constructed of river-worn
bowlders piled together without adhesive. The top stones are flat on
the upper surface, and the dam is a pathway across the river for the
people from the time of its completion until its destruction by the
freshets of June or July.

The upper dam is a new piece of primitive engineering. It, with its
canal, has been in mind for at least two years; but it was completed
only in 1903. The dam is small, extending only half way across the
river, and beginning on an island. This dam turns water into a canal
averaging 3 feet wide and carrying about 5 inches of water. The
canal, called "a'-lak," is about 3,000 feet long from the dam at A
in Pl. LVII to the place of discharge into the level area at B. For
about 530 feet of this distance it was impossible for the primitive
engineer to construct a canal in the earth, as the solid rock of
the mountain dips vertically into the river. About fifty sections
of large pine trees were brought and hollowed into troughs, called
"ta-la'-kan," which have been secured above the water by means of
buttresses, by wooden scaffolding, called "to-kod'," and by attachment
to the overhanging rocks, until there is now a continuous artificial
waterway from the dam to the tract of irrigated land.

Considerable engineering sense has been shown and no small amount of
labor expended in the construction of this last irrigating scheme. The
pine logs are a foot or more in diameter, and have a waterway dug
in them about 10 or 12 inches deep and wide. These trees were felled
and the troughs dug with the wasay, a short-handled tool with an iron
blade only an inch or an inch and a half wide, and convertible alike
into ax and adz.

There seems to be a fall of about 22 feet between A at the upper
dam and B at the discharge from the troughs.[24] This fall in a
distance of about 3,000 feet seems needlessly great; however, the
primitive engineer has shown excellent judgment in the matter. First,
by putting the dam (upper dam) where it is, only half the stream had
to be built across. Second, there is a rapids immediately below the
dam, and, had the Igorot built his dam below the rapids, a dam of the
same height would have raised the water to a much lower level; this
would have necessitated a canal probably 10 or 12 feet deep instead
of three. Third, the height of the water at the upper dam has enabled
him to lay the log section of the waterway above the high-water mark
of the river, thus, probably, insuring more or less permanence. Had
the dam been built much lower down the stream the troughs would have
been near the surface of the river and been torn away annually by
the freshets, or the people would be obliged each year to tear down
and reconstruct that part of the canal. As it now is it is probable
that only the short dam will need to be rebuilt each year.

All dams and irrigating canals are built directly by or at the expense
of the persons benefited by the water. Water is never rented to persons
with sementeras along an artificial waterway. If a person refuses
to bear his share of the labor of construction and maintenance his
sementeras must lie idle for lack of water.

All sementera owners along a waterway, whether it is natural or
artificial, meet and agree in regard to the division of the water. If
there is an abundance, all open and close their sluice gates when they
please. When there is not sufficient water for this, a division is made
-- usually each person takes all the water during a certain period of
time. This scheme is supposed to be the best, since the flow should
be sufficient fully to flood the entire plat -- a 100-gallon flow in
two hours is considered much better than an equal flow in two days.

During the irrigating season, if there is lack of water, it becomes
necessary for each sementera owner to guard his water rights against
other persons on the same creek or canal. If a man sleeps in his house
during the period in which his sementeras are supposed to receive
water, it is pretty certain that his supply will be stolen, and, since
he was not on guard, he has no redress. But should sleep chance to
overtake him in his tiresome watch at the sementeras, and should some
one turn off and steal his water, the thief will get clubbed if caught,
and will forfeit his own share of water when his next period arrives.

The third method of irrigation -- lifting the water by direct human
power -- is not much employed by the Igorot. In the vicinity of Bontoc
pueblo there are a few sementeras which were never in a position to be
irrigated by running water. They are called "pay-yo' a kao-u'-chan,"
and, when planted with rice in the dry season, need to be constantly
tended by toilers who bring water to them in pots from the river,
creeks, or canals. On the Samoki side of the valley during a week or
so of the driest weather in May, 1903, there were four "well sweeps,"
each with a 5-gallon kerosene-oil can attached, operating nearly all
day, pouring water from a canal into sementeras through 60 or 80 feet
of small, wooden troughs.


Turning the soil

Since rice, called "pa-ku'." is the chief agricultural product of
the Igorot it will be considered in the following sections first,
after which data of other vegetable products will be given.

Turning the soil for the annual crop of irrigated rice begins in the
middle of December and continues nearly two months. The labor of
turning and fertilizing the soil and transplanting the young rice
is all in progress at the same time -- generally, too, in the same
sementera. Since each is a distinct process, however, I shall consider
each separately. Before the soil is turned in a sementera it has given
up its annual crop of camotes, and the water has been turned on to
soften the earth. From two to twenty adults gather in a sementera,
depending on the size of the plat, of which there are relatively few
containing more than 10,000 square feet. They commonly range from
30 square feet to 1,500 or 2,000. The following description is one
of several made in detail while watching the rice industry of the
Bontoc Igorot.

The sementera is about 20 by 50 feet, or about 1,000 square feet,
and lies in the midst of the large valley area between Bontoc and
Samoki. It is on the Samoki side of the river, but is the property of a
Bontoc family. There are two groups of soil turners in the sementera --
three men in one, and two unmarried women, an older married woman, and
a youth in the other. At one end of the plat two, and part of the time
three, women are transplanting rice. Four men are bringing fertilizer
for the soil. Strange to say, each of the men in the group of three is
"clothed" -- one wears his breechcloth as a breechcloth, and the other
two wear theirs simply as aprons, hanging loose in front. Three of the
men bringing fertilizer are entirely nude except for their girdles,
since they ford the river with their loads between the sementera and
Bontoc and do not care to wet their breechcloths; the other man wears
a bladder bag hanging from his girdle as an apron. One of the young
women turning the soil wears a skirt; the other one and the old woman
wear front-and-back aprons of camote vines; the youth with them is
nude. The three transplanters wear skirts, and one of them wears an
open jacket. Besides these there are three children in and about the
sementera; one is a pretty, laughing girl of about 9 years; one is
a shy, faded-haired little girl of 3 or 4 years; and the other is a
fat chunk of a boy about 5 years. All three are perfectly naked. It is
impossible to say what clothing these toilers wore before I went among
them to watch their work, but it is certain they were not more clothed.

Let us watch the typical group of the three women and the youth:
Each has a sharpened wooden turning stick, the kay-kay, a pole about
6 feet long and 2 inches in diameter. The four stand side by side
with their kay-kay stuck in the earth, and, in unison, they take one
step forward and push their tools from them, the earth under which
the tools are thrust falling away and crumbling in the water before
them. While it is falling away the toilers begin to sing, led by the
elder woman. The purport of the most common soil-turning song is this:
"It is hard work to turn the soil, but eating the rice is good." The
song continues while the implements are withdrawn from the earth
and jabbed in again in a new place, while the syllable pronounced
at that instant is also noticeably jabbed into the air. Again they
withdraw their implements and, singing and working in rhythmic unison,
again jab kay-kay and syllable. The implements are now thrust about
8 inches below the surface; the song ceases; each toiler pries her
section of the soil loose and, in a moment, together they push their
tools from them, the mass of soil -- some 2 feet long, 1 foot wide,
and 8 inches deep -- falls away in the water, and the song begins
again. As the earth is turned a camote, passed by in the camote
harvest, is discovered; the old woman picks it up and lays it on
the dry ground beside her. The little girl shyly comes for it and
stores it in a basket on the terrace wall with a few dozen others
found during the morning.

After a section of earth 10 or 15 feet square has been turned the
rhythmic labor and song ceases. Each person now grasps her kay-kay
with one hand at the middle and the other near the sharpened end and
with it rapidly crumbles and spreads about the new-turned soil. Now
they trample the bed thoroughly, throwing out any stones or pebbles
discovered by their feet, and frequently using the kay-kay further
to break up some small clod of earth. Finally a large section of
the sementera is prepared, and the toilers form in line abreast and
slowly tread back and forth over the plat, making the bed soft and
smooth beneath the water for the transplanting.

It is a delightful picture in the soil-turning season to see the acres
of terraces covered by groups of toilers, relieving their labors with
almost constant song.

I saw only one variation from the above methods in the Bontoc area. In
some of the large sementeras in the flat river bottom near Bontoc
pueblo a herd of seventeen carabaos was skillfully milled round and
round in the water, after the soil was turned, stirring and mixing
the bed into a uniform ooze. The animals were managed by a man who
drove them and turned them at will, using only his voice and a long
switch. It is impossible to get carabaos to many irrigated sementeras
because of the high terrace walls, but this herd is used annually in
the Bontoc river bottom.

After each rice harvest the soil of the irrigated sementera is turned
for planting camotes, but this time it is turned dry. More effort is
needed to thrust the kay-kay deep enough into the dry soil, and it
is thrust three or four times before the earth may be turned. Only
one-half the surface of a sementera is turned for camotes. Raised
beds are made about 2 feet wide and 8 to 12 inches high. The spaces
between these beds become paths along which the cultivator and
harvester walks. The soil is turned from the spaces used as paths
over the spaces which become beds, but the earth under the bed is
not turned or loosened.

Bontoc beds are almost invariably constructed like parallel-sided,
square-cornered saw teeth standing at right angles to the blade of the
saw, which is also a camote bed, and are well shown in Pl. LXII. In
Tulubin this saw-tooth bed also occurs, but the continuous spiral
bed and the broken, parallel, straight beds are equally as common;
they are shown in figs. 2 and 3.


Fig 2. -- Parallel camote beds.



Fig 3. -- Spiral camote beds.


The mountain-side sementera for camotes, maize, millet, and beans is
prepared simply by being scratched or picked an inch or two deep with
the woman's camote stick, the su-wan'. If the plat is new the grass is
burned before the scratching occurs, but if it is cultivated annually
the surface seldom has any care save the shallow work of the su-wan';
in fact, the surface stones are seldom removed.

In the season of 1903, the first rains came April 5, and the first
mountain sementera was scratched over for millet April 10, after five
successive daily rains.



Fertilizing

Much care is taken in fertilizing the irrigated sementeras. The hog
of a few pueblos in the Bontoc area, as in Bontoc and Samoki, is kept
confined all its life in a walled, stone-paved sty dug in the earth
(see Pl. LXXVII). Into this inclosure dry grasses and dead vines are
continually placed to absorb and become rotted by the liquids. As the
soil of the sementera is turned for the new rice crop these pigsties
are cleaned out and the rich manure spread on the beds.

The manure is sometimes carried by women though generally by men,
and the carriers in a string pass all day between the sementeras and
the pueblo, each bearing his transportation basket on his shoulder
containing about 100 pounds of as good fertilizer as agricultural
man ever thought to employ.

The manure is gathered from the sties with the two hands and is dumped
in the sementera in 10-pound piles about 5 feet apart after the soil
has been turned and trod soft and even.

It is said that in some sections of Igorot land dry vegetable matter
is burned so that ash may be had for fertilizing purposes.

I have seen women working long, dry grass under the soil in camote
sementeras at the time the crop was being gathered (Pl. LXIV),
but I believe fertilizers are seldom employed, except where rice
is grown. Mountain-side sementeras are frequently abandoned after
a few years' service, as they are supposed to be exhausted, whereas
fertilization would restore them.


Seed planting

Pad-cho-kan' is the name of the sementera used as a rice seed bed. One
or more small groups of sementeras in every pueblo is so protected from
the cold rains and winds of November and December and is so exposed to
the warm sun that it answers well the purposes of a primitive hotbed;
consequently it becomes such, and anyone who asks permission of the
owner may plant his seed there (see Pl. LXV).

The seed is planted in the beds after they have been thoroughly
worked and softened, the soil usually being turned three times. The
planting in Bontoc occurs the first part of November. November 15,
1902, the rice had burst its kernel and was above water in the Bontoc
beds. The seed is not shelled before planting, but the full fruit
heads, sin-lu'-wi, are laid, without covering, on the soft ooze, under
3 or 4 inches of water. They are laid in rows a few inches apart,
and are so close together that by the time the young plants are 3
inches above the surface of the water the bed is a solid mass of green.

Bontoc pueblo has six varieties of rice. Neighboring pueblos have
others; and it is probable that fifty, perhaps a hundred, varieties are
grown by the different irrigating peoples of northern Luzon. In Bontoc,
ti'-pa is a white beardless variety. Ga'-sang is white, and cha-yet'-it
is claimed to be the same grain, except it is dark colored; it is the
rice from which the fermented beverage, tapui, is made. Pu-i-a-pu'-i
and tu'-peng are also white; tu'-peng is sowed in unirrigated mountain
sementeras in the rainy season. Gu-mik'-i is a dark grain.

Camotes, or to-ki', are planted once in a long period in the sementeras
surrounding the buildings in the pueblo. There is nothing to kill them,
the ground has no other use, so they are practically perpetual.

The average size of all the eight varieties of Bontoc camotes is
about 2 by 4 inches in diameter. Six of the varieties are white and
two are red. The white ones are the following: Li-no'-ko, pa-to'-ki,
ki'-nub fa-fay'-i, pi-i-nit', ki-weng', and tang-tang-lab'. The red
ones are si'-sig and pit-ti'-kan.

To illustrate the many varieties which may exist in a small area I
give the names of five other camotes grown in the pueblo of Balili,
which is only about four hours from Bontoc. The Balili white camotes
are bi-tak'-no, a-go-bang'-bang, and la-ung'-an and the red are
gis-gis'-i and ta-mo'-lo.

Millet, called "sa'-fug," is sowed on the surface of the earth. The
sowing is "broadcast," but in a limited way, as the fields are usually
only a few rods square. The seed is generally sowed by women, who
carry a small basket or dish of it in one hand and scatter the seed
from between the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger of the free hand.

There are said to be four varieties of millet in Bontoc. Mo-di' and
poy-ned' are light-colored seeds; pi-ting'-an is a darker seed --
the Igorot says "black;" and si-nang'-a is the fourth. I have never
seen it but I am told it is white.

Maize, or pi'-ki, and beans, practically the only other seeds
planted, are planted annually in "hills." The rows of "hills" are
quite irregular. Maize, as is also millet, is planted immediately
after the first abundant rains, occurring early in April.

The Bontoc man has three varieties of beans. One is called ka'-lap;
the kernel is small, being only one-fifth of an inch long. Usually it
is pale green in color, though a few are black; both have an exterior
white germ. I'-tab is about one-third of an inch long. It is both
gray and black in color, and has a long exterior white germ. The third
variety is black with an exterior white germ. It is called ba-la'-tong,
and is about one-fourth of an inch in length.


Transplanting

Transplanting is always the work of women, since they are recognized
as quicker and more dexterous in most work with the hands than are
the men.

The women pull up the young rice plants in the seed beds and tie them
in bunches about 4 inches in diameter. They transport them by basket
to the newly prepared sementera and dump them in the water so they
will remain fresh.

As has been said, the manure fertilizer is placed about the sementera
in piles. The women thoroughly spread this fertilizer with their hands
and feet when they transplant (see Pl. LIX). When the soil is ready
the transplanter grasps a handful of the plants, twists off 3 or 4
inches of the blades, leaving the plant about 6 inches long, and, while
holding the plants in one hand, with the other she rapidly thrusts them
one by one into the soft bed. They are placed in fairly regular rows,
and are about 5 inches apart. The planter leans enthusiastically over
her work, usually resting one elbow on her knee -- the left elbow,
since most of the women are right-handed -- and she sets from forty
to sixty plants per minute.

When the sementeras are planted they present a clean and beautiful
appearance -- even the tips of the rice blades twisted off are
invariably crowded into the muddy bed to assist in fattening the crop.

As many as a dozen women often work together in one sementera to
hasten the planting. There are usually two or three little girls with
their mothers, who while away the hours playing work. They stuff up
the chinks of the stone walls with dirt and vegetable matter; they
carry together the few camotes discovered in this last handling of
the old camote bed; and they quite successfully and industriously
play at transplanting rice, though such small girls are not obliged
to work in the field.

Camotes are also transplanted. The women cut or pick off the "runners"
from the perpetual vines in the sementeras near the dwellings. These
they transplant in the unirrigated mountain sementeras after the
crops of millet and maize have been gathered.

The irrigated sementeras are also planted to camotes by transplanting
from these house beds. This transplanting lasts about six weeks in
Bontoc, beginning near the middle of July.

Some little sugar cane is grown by the Igorot of the Bontoc area. It
is claimed to grow up each year from the roots left at the preceding
harvest. At times new patches of cane are started by transplanting
shoots from the parent plants. It is said that in January the stalks
are cut and set in a rich mud, and that in the season of Baliling,
from about July 15 until early in September, the rooted shoots are
transplanted to the new beds.


Cultivating

The chief cultivation given to Igorot crops is bestowed on rice,
though all cultivated lands are remarkably free from weeds. The rice
sementeras are carefully weeded, "suckers" are pulled out, and the
beds are thinned generally, so that each plant will have all needful
chance to develop fruit. This weeding and thinning is the work of
women and half-grown children. Every day for nearly two months,
or until the fruit heads appear, the cultivators are diligently at
work in the sementeras. No tools or agricultural implements other
than bare hands are used in this work.

The men keep constant watch of the sementera walls and the irrigating
canals, repairing all, thus indirectly assisting the women in their
cultivation by directing water to the growing crop and by conserving
it when it is obtained.


Protecting

The rice begins to fruit early in April, at which time systematic
effort to protect the new grain from birds, rats, monkeys, and wild
hogs commences. This effort continues until the harvest is completed,
practically for three months. Much of this labor is performed by
water power, much by wind power, and about all the children and old
people in a pueblo are busied from early dawn until twilight in the
sementera as independent guards. Besides, throughout the long night
men and women build fires among the sementeras and guard their crop
from the wild hog. It is a critical time with the Igorot.

The most natural, simplest, and undoubtedly the most successful
protection of the grain is the presence of a person on the terrace
walls of the sementera, whether by day or night. Hundreds of fields
are so guarded each day in Bontoc by old people and children, who
frequently erect small screens of tall grass to shade and protect
themselves from the sun.

The next simplest method is one followed by the boys. They employ
a hollow section of carabao horn, cut off at both ends and about 8
inches in length; it is called "kong-ok'." This the boys beat when
birds are near, producing an open, resonant sound which may readily
be heard a mile.

The wind tosses about over the growing grain various "scarecrows." The
pa-chek' is one of these. It consists of a single large dry leaf,
or a bunch of small dry leaves, suspended by a cord from a heavy,
coarse grass 6 or 8 feet high; the leaf, the sa-gi-kak', hangs 4 feet
above the fruit heads. It swings about slightly in the breeze, and
probably is some protection against the birds. I believe it the least
effective of the various things devised by the Igorot to protect his
rice from the multitudes of ti-lin' -- the small, brown ricebird[25]
found broadly over the Archipelago.

The most picturesque of these wind-tossed bird scarers is the
ki'-lao. The ki'-lao is a basket-work figure swung from a pole and is
usually the shape and size of the distended wings of a large gull,
though it is also made in other shapes, as that of man, the lizard,
etc. The pole is about 20 feet high, and is stuck in the earth at such
an angle that the swinging figure attached by a line at the top of the
pole hangs well over the sementera and about 3 or 4 feet above the
grain (see Pl. LXVII). The bird-like ki'-lao is hung by its middle,
at what would be the neck of the bird, and it soars back and forth,
up and down, in a remarkably lifelike way. There are often a dozen
ki'-lao in a space 4 rods square, and they are certainly effectual,
if they look as bird-like to ti-lin' as they do to man. When seen
a short distance away they appear exactly like a flock of restless
gulls turning and dipping in some harbor.


FIGURE 4

Fig. 4. -- Bird scarer in rice field.


The water-power bird scarers are ingenious. Across a shallow,
running rapids in the river or canal a line, called "pi-chug'," is
stretched, fastened at one end to a yielding pole, and at the other to
a rigid pole. A bowed piece of wood about 15 inches long and 3 inches
wide, called "pit-ug'," is suspended by a line at each end from the
horizontal cord. This pit-ug' is suspended in the rapids, by which it
is carried quickly downstream as far as the elasticity of the yielding
pole and the pi-chug' will allow, then it snaps suddenly back upstream
and is ready to be carried down and repeat the jerk on the relaxing
pole. A system of cords passes high in the air from the jerking pole at
the stream to other slender, jerked poles among the sementeras. From
these poles a low jerking line runs over the sementeras, over which
are stretched at right angles parallel cords within a few feet of the
fruit heads. These parallel cords are also jerked, and their movement,
together with that of the leaves depending from them, is sufficient
to keep the birds away. One such machine may send its shock a quarter
of a mile and trouble the birds over an area half an acre in extent.

Other Igorot, as those of the upper Abra River in Lepanto Province,
employ this same jerking machine to produce a sharp, clicking sound in
the sementera. The jerking cord repeatedly raises a series of hanging,
vertical wooden fingers, which, on being released, fall against a
stationary, horizontal bamboo tube, producing the sharp click. These
clicking machines are set up on two supporting sticks a few feet
above the grain every three or four yards about the sementeras.

There are many rodents, rats and mice, which destroy the growing grain
during the night unless great care is taken to cheek them. The Igorot
makes a small dead fall which he places in the path surrounding the
sementera. I have seen as many as five of these traps on a single
side of a sementera not more than 30 feet square. The trap has a
closely woven, wooden dead fall, about 10 or 15 inches square; one
end is set on the path and the other is supported in the air above
it by a string. One end of this string is fastened to a tall stick
planted in the earth, the lower end is tied to a short stick --
a part of the "spring" held rigid beneath the dead fall until the
trigger is touched. The dead fall drops when the rat, in touching
the trigger, releases the lower end of the cord. The animal springs
the trigger either by nibbling a bait on it or by running against it,
and is immediately killed, since the dead fall is weighted with stones.

Sementeras near some forested mountains in the Bontoc area are pestered
with monkeys. Day and night people remain on guard against them in
lonely, dangerous places -- just the kind of spot the head-hunter
chooses wherein to surprise his enemy.

All border sementeras in every group of fields are subject to the
night visits of wild hogs. In some areas commanding piles of earth
for outlooks are left standing when the sementeras are constructed. In
other places outlooks are erected for the purpose. Permanent shelters,
some of them commodious stone structures, are often erected on these
outlooks where a person remains on guard night and day (Pl. LXVIII),
at night burning a fire to frighten the wild hogs away.

At this season of the year when practically all the people of the
pueblo are in the sementeras. it is most interesting to watch the
homecoming of the laborers at night. At early dusk they may be
seen coming in over the trails leading from the sementeras to the
pueblo in long processions. The boys and girls 5 or 6 years old or
more, most of them entirely naked, come playing or dancing along --
the boys often marking time by beating a tin can or two sticks --
seemingly as full of life as when they started out in the morning. The
younger children are toddling by the side of their father or mother,
a small, dirty hand smothered in a large, labor-cracked one; or else
are carried on their father's back or shoulder, or perhaps astride
their mother's hip. The old men and women, almost always unsightly
and ugly, who go to the sementera only to guard and not to toil, come
slowly and feebly home, often picking their way with a staff. There is
much laughing and coquetting among the young people. A boy dashes by
with several girls in laughing pursuit, and it is not at all likely
that he escapes them with all his belongings. Many of the younger
married women carry babies; some carry on their heads baskets filled
with weeds used as food for the pigs, and all have their small rump
baskets filled with "greens" or snails or fish.

A man may carry on his shoulder a huge short log of wood cut in the
mountains, the wood partially supported on the shoulder by his spear;
or he perhaps carries a large bunch of dry grass to be thrown into the
pigpen as bedding; or he comes swinging along empty handed save for
his spear used as a staff. Most of the returning men and boys carry
the empty topil, the small, square, covered basket in which rice for
the noon meal is carried to the sementera; sometimes a boy carries a
bunch of three or four, and he dangles them open from their strings
as he dances along.

For an hour or more the procession continues -- one almost-naked
figure following another -- all dirty, most of them doubtless tired,
and yet seemingly happy and content with the finish of their day of
toil. It is long after dark before the last straggler is in.


Harvesting

Rice harvesting in Bontoc is a delightful and picturesque sight to
an American, and a most serious religious matter to the Igorot.

Though ceremonials having to do with agriculture have purposely
been omitted from this chapter, yet, since one of the most striking
and important features of the harvesting is the harvest ceremonial,
it is thought best to introduce it here.

Sa-fo'-sab is the name of the ceremony. It is performed in a pathway
adjoining each sementera before a single grain is gathered. In the
path the owner of the field builds a tiny fire beside which he stands
while the harvesters sit in silence. The owner says:

"So-mi-ka-ka' pa-ku' ta-mo i-sa'-mi sik'-a kin-po-num' nan a-lang',"

which, freely rendered, means, "Palay, when we carry you to the
granary, increase greatly so that you will fill it."

As soon as the ceremonial is said the speaker harvests one handful
of the grain, after which the laborers arise and begin the harvest.

In the trails leading past the sementera two tall stalks of runo are
planted, and these, called "pud-i-pud'," warn all Igorot that they
must not pass the sementera during the hours of the harvest. Nor will
they ignore the warning, since if they do they are liable to forfeit
a hog or other valuable possession to the owner of the grain.

I spent half a day trying to get close enough to a harvesting party
to photograph it. All the harvesters were women, and they scolded our
party long and severely while we were yet six or eight rods distant;
my Igorot boys carrying the photographic outfit -- boys who had
lived four months in my house -- laughingly but positively refused
to follow me closer than three or four rods to the sementera. No
photographs were obtained at that time. It was only after the matter
was talked over by some of the men of the pueblo that photographs
could be willingly obtained, and the force of the warning pud-i-pud'
withdrawn for our party. Even during the time my Igorot boys were
in the trail by a harvest party all other Igorot passed around the
warning runo. The Igorot says he believes the harvest will be blasted
even while being gathered should one pass along a pathway skirting
any side of the sementera.

Several harvesters, from four to a dozen, labor together in
each sementera. They begin at one side and pass across the plat,
gathering all grain as they pass. Men and women work together,
but women are recognized the better harvesters, since their hands
are more nimble. Each fruited stalk is grasped shortly below the
fruit head, and the upper section or joint of the stalk, together
with the fruit head and topmost leaf, is pulled off. As most Bontoc
Igorot are right-handed, the plucked grain is laid in the left hand,
the fruit heads projecting beyond between the thumb and forefinger
while the leaf attached to each fruit head lies outside and below the
thumb. When the proper amount of grain is in hand (a bunch of stalks
about an inch in diameter) the useless leaves, all arranged for one
grasp of the right hand, are stripped off and dropped; the bunch
of fruit heads, topping a 6-inch section of clean stalk or straw is
handed to a person who may be called the binder. This person in all
harvests I have seen was a woman. She binds all the grain three,
four, or five persons can pluck; and when there is one binder for
every three gatherers the binder finds some time also to gather.

The binder passes a small, prepared strip of bamboo twice around
the palay stalks, holds one end between her teeth and draws the
binding tight; then she twists the two ends together, and the bunch
is secure. The bunch, the manojo of the Spaniard, the sin fing-e'
of the Igorot, is then piled up on the binder's head until a load
is made. Before each bunch is placed on the pile the fruitheads are
spread out like an open fan. These piles are never completed until
they are higher than the woman's arm can reach -- several of the last
bunches being tossed in place, guided only by the tips of the fingers
touching the butt of the straw. The women with their heads loaded
high with ripened grain are striking figures -- and one wonders at
the security of the loads.

When a load is made it is borne to the transportation baskets in some
part of the harvested section of the sementera, where it is gently slid
to the earth over the front of the head as the woman stoops forward. It
is loaded into the basket at once unless there is a scarcity of binders
in the field, in which case it awaits the completion of the harvest.

In all agricultural labors the Igorot is industrious, yet his humor,
ever present with him, brings relief from continued toil. The harvest
field is no exception, since there is much quiet gossip and jest
during the labors.

In 1903 rice was first harvested May 2. The harvest continued one
month, the crop of a sementera being gathered here and there as it
ripened. The Igorot calls this first harvest month the "moon of the
small harvest." During June the crop is ripened everywhere, and the
harvest is on in earnest; the Igorot speaks of it as the "moon of
the all harvest."

I had no view of the harvest of millet or maize; however, I have seen
in the pueblo much of each grain of some previous harvest. The millet
I am told, is harvested similarly to the rice, and the clean-stalked
bunches are tied up in the same way -- only the bunches are four or
five times larger.

The fruit head, or ears, of the maize is said to be plucked off the
stalks in the fields as the American farmer gathers green corn or
seed corn. It is stored still covered with its husks.

The camote harvest is continued fairly well throughout the
year. Undoubtedly some camotes are dug every day in the year from the
dry mountain-side sementeras, but the regular harvest occurs during
November and December, during which time the camotes are gathered
from the irrigated sementeras preparatory to turning the soil for
the transplanting of new rice.

Women are the camote gatherers. I never saw men, nor even boys,
gathering camotes. At no other time does the Igorot woman look so
animal like as when she toils among the camote vines, standing with
legs straight and feet spread, her body held horizontal, one hand
grasping the middle of her short camote stick and the other in the soil
picking out the unearthed camotes. She looks as though she never had
stood erect and never would stand erect on two feet. Thus she toils day
after day from early morning till dusk that she and her family may eat.


Storing

No palay is carried to the a-lang', the separate granary building,
or to the dwelling for the purpose of being stored until the entire
crop of the sementera is harvested. It may be carried part way,
but there it halts until all the grain is ready to be carried home.

It is spread out on the ground or on a roof in the sun two or three
days to dry before storing. When the grain is to be stored away an
old man -- any man -- asks a blessing on it that it may make men,
hogs, and chickens well, strong, and fat when they consume it. This
ceremony is called "ka-fo'-kab," and the man who performs it is known
by the title of "in-ka-fa'."

The Igorot granary, the a-lang', is a "hip-roofed" structure about 8
feet long, 5 wide, 4 feet high at the sides and 6 at the ridgepole. Its
sides are built of heavy pine planks, which are inserted in grooved
horizontal timbers, the planks being set up vertically. The floor
is about a foot from the earth. The roof consists of a heavy, thick
cover of long grass securely tied on a pole frame. It is seldom that
a granary stands alone -- usually there are two or more together, and
Bontoc has several groups of a dozen each, as shown in Pl. LXXII. When
built together they are better protected from the rain storms. The
roofs also are made so they extend close to the earth, thus almost
entirely protecting the sides of the structure from the storms. All
cracks are carefully filled with pieces of wood wedged and driven
in. Even the door, consisting of two or three vertical planks set in
grooved timbers, is laboriously wedged the same way. The building is
rodent proof, and, because of its wide, projecting roof and the fact
that it sets off the earth, it is practically moisture proof.

Most palay is stored in the granaries in the small bunches tied at
harvest. The a-lang' is carefully closed again after each sementera
crop has been put in. There are granaries in Bontoc which have
not been opened, it is said, in eight or more years, except to
receive additional crops of palay, and yet the grain is as perfectly
preserved as when first stored. Some palay, especially that needed
for consumption within a reasonable time, is stored in the upper part
of the family dwelling.

Maize and millet are generally stored in the dwelling, in the second
and third stories, since not enough of either is grown to fill an
a-lang', it is said.

Camotes are sometimes stored in the granary after the harvest of
the irrigated fields. Often they are put away in the kubkub, the two
compartments at either end of the sleeping room on the ground floor
of the dwelling. At other times one sees bushels of camotes put away
on the earth under the broad bench extending the full length of the
dwelling. In the poorer class of dwellings the camotes are frequently
dumped in a corner.

Beans are dried and shelled before storing and are set away in a
covered basket, usually in the upper part of the dwelling. Only one
or two cargoes are grown by each family, so little space is needed
for storage.

Since rice is the staple food and may be preserved almost
indefinitely. the Igorot has developed a means and place to care for
it. Maize and millet, while probably capable of as long preservation,
are generally not grown in sufficient quantity to require more storage
space than the upper part of the dwelling affords. The Igorot has not
developed a way to preserve his camotes long after harvest; they are
readily perishable, consequently no place has been differentiated as
a storehouse.


Expense and profit

An irrigated sementera 60 by 100 feet, having 6,000 square feet of
surface, is valued at two carabaos, or, in money, about 100 pesos. It
produces an average annual crop of ten cargoes of palay, each worth
1 peso. Thus there is an annual gross profit of ten per cent on the
value of the permanent investment.

It requires ten men one day to turn the soil and fertilize the
plat. The wage paid in palay is equivalent to 5 cents per laborer,
or 50 cents. Five women can transplant the rice in one day; cost,
25 cents. Cultivating and protecting the crop falls to the members
of the family which owns the sementera, so the Igorot say; he claims
never to have to pay for such labor. Twenty people can harvest the
crop in a day; cost, 1 peso.

The total annual expense of maintaining the sementera as a productive
property is, therefore, equivalent to 1.75 pesos. This leaves 8.25
pesos net profit when the annual expense is deducted from the annual
gross profit. A net profit of 8.25 per cent is about equivalent to
the profit made on the 10,000-acre Bonanza grain farms in the valley
of the Red River of the North, and the 5,000-acre corn farm of Iowa.


Zooculture

The carabao, hog, chicken, and dog are the only animals domesticated
by the Igorot of the Bontoc culture area.

Cattle are kept by Benguet Igorot throughout the extent of the
province. Some towns, as Kabayan, have 300 or 400 head, but the Bontoc
Igorot has not yet become a cattle raiser.

In Benguet, Lepanto, and Abra there are pueblos with half a hundred
brood mares. Daklan, of Benguet, has such a bunch, and other pueblos
have smaller herds.

In Bontoc Province between Bontoc pueblo and Lepanto Province a few
mares have recently been brought in. Sagada and Titipan each have
half a dozen. Near the east side of the Bontoc area there are a few
bunches of horses reported among the Igorot, and in February, 1903, an
American brought sixteen head from there into Bontoc. These horses are
all descendants of previous domestic animals, and an addition of half
a hundred is said to have been made to the number by horses abandoned
by the insurgents about three years past. Some of the sixteen brought
out in 1903 bore saddle marks and the brands common in the coastwise
lands. These eastern horses are not used by the Igorot except for food,
and no property right is recognized in them, though the Igorot brands
them with a battle-ax brand. He exercises about as much protecting
control over them as the Bontoc man does over the wild carabao.


Carabao

The people of Bontoc say that when Lumawig came to Bontoc they had
no domestic carabaos -- that those they now have were originally
purchased, before the Spaniards came, from the Tinguian of Abra
Province.

There are in the neighborhood of 400 domestic carabaos owned in Bontoc
and Samoki. Most of them run half wild in the mountains encircling
the pueblos. Such as are in the mountains receive neither herding,
attention in breeding, feed, nor salt from their owners. The young
are dropped in February and March, and their owners mark them by
slitting the ear, each person recognizing his own by the mark.

A herd of seventeen, consisting of animals belonging to five
owners, ranges in the river bottom and among the sementeras close
to Bontoc. These animals are more tame than those of the mountains,
but receive little more attention, except that they are taught to
perform a certain unique labor in preparing the sementeras for rice,
as has been noted in the section on agriculture. This is the only
use to which the Bontoc carabao is put as a power in industry. He
is seldom sold outside the pueblo and is raised for consumption,
chiefly on various ceremonial occasions.

Four men in Bontoc own fifty carabaos each. Three others have a
herd of thirty in joint ownership. Others own five and six each,
and again a single carabao may be the joint property of two and even
six individuals. Carabaos are valued at from 40 to 70 pesos.


Hog

Bontoc has no record of the time or manner of first acquiring the hog,
chicken, or dog. The people say they had all three when Lumawig came.

Sixty or 70 per cent of the pigs littered in Bontoc are marked
lengthwise with alternate stripes of brick-red or yellowish hair,
the other hair being black or white; the young of the wild hog is
marked the same. All the pigs, both domestic and wild, outgrow this
red or yellow marking at about the age of six months, and when they
are a year old become fine-looking black hogs with white marking not
unlike the Berkshire of the States. There is no chance to doubt that
the Igorot domestic hog was the wild hog in the surrounding mountains
a few generations ago.

The Bontoc hog is bred, born, and raised in a secure pen, yet wild
blood is infused direct, since pigs are frequently purchased by
Bontoc from surrounding pueblos, most of whose hogs run half wild and
intermingle with the wild ones of the mountains. That the domestic
hog in some places in northern Luzon does thus interbreed with the
wild ones is a proved fact. In the Quiangan area I was shown a litter
of half-breeds and was told that it was customary for the pueblo sows
to breed to the wild boar of the mountains.

The Bontoc hog in many ways is a pampered pet. He is at all times kept
in a pen and fed regularly three times each day with camote vines
when in season, with camote parings, and small camotes available,
and with green vegetal matter, including pusleys, gathered by the
girls and women when there are no camote vines. All of his food is
carefully washed and cooked before it is given to him.

The pigsty consists of a pit in the earth about 4 feet deep, 5
or 6 feet wide, and 8 or 12 feet long. It is entirely lined with
bowlders, and the floor space consists of three sections of about
equal size. One end is two or more feet deeper than the other, and it
is into this lower space that the washings of the pen are stored in
the rotted straw and weeds, and from which the manure for fertilizer
is taken. The other end is covered over level with the outside earth
with timbers, stones, and dirt; it is the pig's bed and is entered
by a doorway in the stone wall. Most of these "beds" have a low,
grass roof about 30 inches high over them. Underneath the roof is an
opening in the earth where the people defecate. Connecting the "bed"
section and the opposite lower section of the sty is an incline on
which the stone "feed" troughs are located.

As soon as a pig is weaned he is kept in a separate pen, and one family
may have in its charge three or four pens. The sows are kept mainly
for breeding, and there are many several years old. The richest man in
Bontoc owns about thirty hogs, and these are farmed out for feeding and
breeding -- a common practice. When one is killed it is divided equally
between the owner and the feeder. When a litter of pigs is produced
the bunch is divided equally, the sow remaining the property of the
owner and counting as one in the division. Throughout the Island of
Luzon it is the practice to leave most male animals uncastrated. But
in Bontoc the boar not intended for breeding is castrated.

Hogs are raised for ceremonial consumption. They are commonly bought
and sold within the pueblo, and are not infrequently sold outside. A
pig weighing 10 pounds is worth about 3 pesos, and a hog weighing 60
or 70 pounds is valued at about 12 pesos.


Chicken

The Bontoc domestic chickens were originally the wild fowl, found in
all places in the Archipelago, although some of them have acquired
varied colorings and markings, largely, probably, from black and
white Spanish fowl, which are still found among them. The markings
of the wild fowl, however, are the most common, and practically all
small chickens are marked as are their wild kin. The wild fowl bears
markings similar to those of the American black-breasted red game,
though the fowls are smaller than the American game fowl. Each of
the twelve wild cocks I have had in my hands had perfect five-pointed
single combs, and the domestic cock of Bontoc also commonly has this
perfect comb. I know of no people within the Bontoc area who now
systematically domesticate the wild fowl, though this was found to be
the custom of the Ibilao southeast of Dupax in the Province of Nueva
Vizcaya. Those people catch the young wild fowl for domestication.

The Bontoc domestic fowl are not confined in a coop except at night,
when they sleep in small cages placed on the ground in the dwelling
houses. In the daytime they range about the pueblo feeding much in
the pigpens, though they are fed a small amount of raw rice each
morning. Their nests are in baskets secured under the eaves of the
dwelling, and in those baskets the brooding hens hatch their chicks,
from eight to twenty eggs being given a hen. The fowl is raised
exclusively for ceremonial consumption, and is frequently sold in
the pueblo for that purpose, being valued at from half a peso to a
peso each. A wild fowl sells for half a peso.

In Banawi of the Quiangan area, south of Bontoc, one may find large
capons, but Bontoc does not understand caponizing.


Dog

The dog of the Bontoc Igorot is usually of a solid color, black,
white, or yellow, really "buckskin" color. Where he originated is
not known. He has none of the marks of the Asiatic dog which has left
its impress everywhere in the lowlands of the west coast of Luzon --
called in the Islands the "Chino" dog, and in the States the "Eskimo"
dog. The Igorot dog is short-haired, sharp-eared, gaunt, and sinewy,
with long legs and body. In height and length he ranges from a
fair-sized fox terrier to a collie. I fail to see anything in him
resembling the Australian dingo or the "yellow cur" of the States. The
Ibilao have the same dog in two colors, the black and the "brindle"
-- the brown and black striped. In fact, a dog of the same general
characteristics occurs throughout northern Luzon. No matter what may be
his origin, a dog so widely diffused and so characteristically molded
and marked must have been on the island long enough to have acquired
its typical features here. The dog receives little attention from
his owners. Twice each day he is fed sparingly with cooked rice or
camotes. Except in the case of the few hunting dogs, he does nothing
to justify his existence. He lies about the dwelling most of the time,
and is a surly, more or less evil-tempered cur to strangers, though
when a pueblo flees to the mountains from its attacking enemies the
dog escapes in a spiritless way with the women and children. He is
bred mainly for ceremonial consumption.

In Benguet the Igorot eats his dog only after it has been reduced
to skin and bones. I saw two in a house so poor that they did not
raise their heads when I entered, and the man of the house said
they would be kept twenty days longer before they would be reduced
properly for eating. No such custom exists in Bontoc, but dogs are
seldom fat when eaten. They are not often bought or sold outside the
pueblo. A litter of pups is generally distributed about the town, and
dogs are constantly bought and sold within the pueblo for ceremonial
purposes. They are valued at from 2 to 4 pesos.


Clothing production


Man's clothing

Up to the age of 6 or 7 years the Igorot boys are as naked as when
born. At that time they put on the suk'-lang, the basket-work hat
worn on the back of the head, held in place by a cord attached at
both sides and passing across the forehead and usually hidden by
the front hair. The suk'-lang is made in nearly all pueblos in the
Bontoc culture area. It does not extend uninterruptedly to the western
border, however, since it is not worn at all in Agawa, and in some
other pueblos near the Lepanto border, as Fidelisan and Genugan,
it has a rival in the headband. The beaten-bark headband, called
"a-pong'-ot," and the headband of cloth are worn by short-haired men,
while the long-haired man invariably wears the hat. The suk'-lang
varies in shape from the fez-like ti-no-od' of Bontoc and Samoki,
through various hemispherical forms, to the low, flat hats developing
eastward and perfected in the last mountains west of the Rio Grande
de Cagayan. Barlig makes and wears a carved wooden hat, either
hemispherical or slightly oval. It goes in trade to Ambawan.

The men of the Bontoc area also have a basket-work, conical rain
hat. It is waterproof, being covered with beeswax. It is called
"seg-fi'," and is worn only when it rains, at which time the suk'-lang
is often not removed.

About the age of 10 the boys frequently affect a girdle. These girdles
are of four varieties. The one most common in Bontoc and Samoki is the
song-kit-an', made of braided bark-fiber strings, some six to twelve
in number and about 12 feet long. They are doubled, and so make the
girdle about 6 feet in length. The strings are the twisted inner bark
of the same plants that play a large role in the manufacture of the
woman's skirt. This girdle is usually worn twice around the body,
though it is also employed as an apron, passing only once around the
body and hanging down over the genitals (see Pl. XXI). Another girdle
worn much in Tukukan, Kanyu, and Tulubin is called the "i-kit'." It
is made of six to twelve braided strings of bejuco (see Pl. LXXX). It
is constructed to fit the waist, has loops at both ends, passes once
around the body, and fastens by a cord passing from one loop to the
other. Both the sang-ki-tan' and the i-kit' are made by the women. A
third class of girdles is made by the men. It is called ka'-kot,
and is worn and attached quite as is the i-kit'. It is a twisted rope
of bejuco, often an inch in diameter, and is much worn in Mayinit. A
fourth girdle, called "ka'-ching," is a chain, frequently a dog chain
of iron purchased on the coast, oftener a chain manufactured by the
men, and consisting of large, open links of commercial brass wire
about one-sixth of an inch in diameter.

At about the age of puberty, say at 15, it is usual for the boy to
possess a breechcloth, or wa'-nis. However, the cloth is worn by a
large per cent of men in Bontoc and Samoki, not as a breechcloth but
tucked under the girdle and hanging in front simply as an apron. Within
the Bontoc area fully 50 per cent of the men wear the breechcloth
simply as an apron.

There are several varieties of breechcloths in the area. The simplest
of these is of flayed tree bark. It is made by women in Barlig,
Tulubin, Titipan, Agawa, and other pueblos. It is made of white
and reddish-brown bark, and sometimes the white ones are colored
with red ocher. The white one is called "so'-put" and the red one
"ti-nan'-ag." Some of the other breechcloths are woven of cotton
thread by the women. Much of this cotton is claimed by the Igorot
to be tree cotton which they gather, spin and weave, but much also
comes in trade from the Ilokano at the coast. Some is purchased in the
boll and some is purchased after it has been spun and colored. Many
breechcloths are now bought ready made from the Ilokano.

Men generally carry a bag tucked under the girdle, and very often
indeed these bags are worn in lieu of the breechcloth aprons -- the
girdle and the bag apron being the only clothing (see Pl. CXXV and
also Frontispiece, where, from left to right, figs. 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7
wear simply a bag). One of the bags commonly worn is the fi-chong',
the bladder of the hog; the other, cho'-kao, is a cloth bag some 8
inches wide and 15 inches long. These cloth bags are woven in most
of the pueblos where the cotton breechcloth is made.

Old men now and then wear a blanket, pi'-tay, but the younger men
never do. They say a blanket is for the women.

Some few of the principal men in many of the pueblos throughout the
area have in late years acquired either the Army blue-woollen shirt,
a cotton shirt, or a thin coat, and these they wear during the cold
storms of January and February, and on special social occasions.

During the period of preparing the soil for transplanting palay
the men frequently wear nothing at the middle except the girdle. In
and out of the pueblo they work, carrying loads of manure from the
hogpens to the fields, apparently as little concerned or noticed as
though they wore their breechcloths.

All Igorot -- men, women, and children -- sleep without breechcloth,
skirt, or jacket. If a woman owns a blanket she uses it as a covering
when the nights are cold. All wear basket-work nightcaps, called
"kut'-lao." They are made to fit closely on the head, and have a small
opening at the top. They may be worn to keep the hair from snarling,
though I was unable to get any reason from the Igorot for their use,
save that they were worn by their ancestors.


Woman's clothing

From infancy to the age of 8 and very often 10 years the little girls
are naked; not unfrequently one sees about the pueblo a girl of a dozen
years entirely nude. However, practically all girls from about 5 years,
and also all women, have blankets which are worn when it is cold, as
almost invariably after sundown, though no pretense is made to cover
their nakedness with them. During the day this pi'-tay, or blanket, is
seldom worn except in the dance. I have never seen women or girls dance
without it. The blankets of the girls are usually small and white with
a blue stripe down each side and through the middle; they are called
"kud-pas'." Those of the women are of four kinds -- the ti-na'-pi,
the fa-yi-ong', the fan-che'-la, and the pi-nag-pa'-gan. In Barlig,
Agawa, and Tulubin the flayed tree-bark blanket is worn; and in
Kambulo, east of Barlig, woven bark-fiber blankets are made which
sometimes come to Bontoc.

Before a girl puts on her lu-fid', or woven bark-fiber skirt, at
about 8 or 10 years of age, she at times wears simply the narrow
girdle, later worn to hold up the skirt. The skirt is both short and
narrow. It usually extends from below the navel to near the knees. It
opens on the side, and is frequently so scant and narrow that one leg
is exposed as the person walks, the only part of the body covered on
that side being under the girdle, or wa'-kis -- a woven band about 4
inches wide passing twice around the body (see Pl. XXIII). The women
sometimes wear the braided-string bejuco belt, i-kit', worn by the men.

The lu-fid' and the wa'-kis are the extent of woman's ordinary
clothing. For some months after the mother gives birth to a child
she wears an extra wa'-kis wrapped tightly about her, over which the
skirt is worn as usual. During the last few weeks of pregnancy the
woman may leave off her skirt entirely, wearing simply her blanket
over one shoulder and about her body. Women wear breechcloths during
the three or four days of menstruation.

During the period when the water-soaked soil of the sementera is turned
for transplanting palay the women engaged in such labor generally lay
aside their skirts. Sometimes they retain a girdle and tuck an apron of
camote leaves or of weeds under it before and behind. I have frequently
come upon women entirely naked climbing up and down the steep, stone
dikes of their sementeras while weeding them, and also at the clay
pits where Samoki women get their earth for making pottery. In May,
1903, it rained hard every afternoon for two or three hours in Bontoc
pueblo, and at such times the women out of doors uniformly removed
their clothing. They worked in the fields and went from the fields
to their dwellings nude, wearing on their heads while in the trail
either their long, basket rain protector or a head covering of camote
vines, under which reposed their skirts in an effort to keep them
dry. Sometimes while passing our house en route from the field to the
pueblo the women wore the girdle with the camote-vine apron, called
pay-pay. Often no girdle was worn, but the women held a small bunch
of leaves against the body in lieu of an attached apron. Sometimes,
however, their hands were occupied with their burdens, and their
nudity seemed not to trouble them in the least. The women remove their
skirts, they say, because they usually possess only one at a time,
and they prefer to go naked in the rain and while working in the wet
sementeras rather than sit in a wet skirt when they reach home.

Few women in the Bontoc area wear jackets or waists. Those to the
west, toward the Province of Lepanto, frequently wear short ones,
open in front without fastening, and having quarter sleeves. Those
women also wear somewhat longer skirts than do the Bontoc women.

In Agawa, and near-by pueblos to the west, and in Barlig and
vicinity to the east, the women make and wear flayed-bark jackets
and skirts. From Barlig bark jackets for women come in trade
to Tulubin. They are not simply sheets of bark, but the bark is
strengthened by a coarse reinforcement of a warp sewed or quilted.

Many of the women's skirts and girdles woven west of Bontoc pueblo
are made also of the Ilokano cotton. The skirts and girdles of Bontoc
pueblo and those found commonly eastward are entirely of Igorot
production. Four varieties of plants yield the threads; the inner
bark is gathered and then spun or twisted on the naked thigh under
the palm of the hand (see Pl. LXXXIII).

All weaving in Igorot land is done by the woman with the simplest
kind of loom, such as is scattered the world over among primitive
people. It is well shown in Pl. LXXXIV, which is a photograph of a
Lepanto Igorot loom.


Implement and utensil production


Introduction

It is only after one has brought together all the implements and
utensils of an Igorot pueblo that he realizes the large part played
in it by basket work. Were basketry and pottery cut from the list of
his productions the Igorot's everyday labors would be performed with
bare hands and crude sticks.

Where is the Igorot's "stone age"? There are stone hammers and
stones used as anvils in the ironsmith's shop. There are stone
troughs or bowls in most pigpens in which the animal's food is
placed. Very rarely, as in the Quiangan area, one sees a large, flat
stone supported a foot or two from the earth by other stones. It
is used as a bench or table, but has no special purpose. There are
whetstones for sharpening the steel spear and battle-ax; there is the
stone of the "flint-and-steel" fire machine; and of course stones are
employed as seats, in constructing terrace walls, in dams, and in the
building of various inhabited structures, but that is all. There is no
"stone age" -- no memory of it -- and, if the people were swept away
to-day, to-morrow would reveal no trace of it. It is believed that
the Igorot is to-day as much in the "stone age" as he ever has been
in his present land. He had little use for stone weapons, implements,
or utensils before he manufactured in iron.

Before he had iron he was essentially a user and maker of weapons,
implements, utensils, and tools of wood. There are many vestiges of
the wood age to-day; several show the use of wood for purposes usually
thought of as solely within the sphere of stone and metal. Among
these vestiges may be noted the bamboo knife used in circumcision;
the sharp stick employed in the ceremonial killing of domestic hogs
in Benguet; the bamboo instrument of ten or a dozen cutting blades
used to shape and dress the hard, wooden spear shafts and battle-ax
handles; the use of bamboo spearheads attached to hard-wood shafts;
and the bamboo spikes stuck in trails to impale the enemy.

In addition to the above uses of wood for cutting flesh and working
wood there follow, in this and subsequent chapters, enough data
regarding the uses of wood to demonstrate that the wood age plays a
large part in the life of a primitive people prior to the common use
of metals. Without metals there was practically no occasion for the
development of stone weapons and tools in a country with such woods
as the bamboo; so in the Philippines we find an order of development
different from that widespread in the temperate zones -- the "stone
age" appears to be omitted.


Wooden implements and utensils

The kay-kay (Pl. LXI) is one of the most indispensable wooden tools
in Igorot land. It is a hard-wood implement from 5 to 7 feet long,
sharpened to a dull, flat edge at one end; this end is fire tempered
to harden and bind the fibers, thus preventing splitting and excessive
wear. The kay-kay is obtained in the mountains in the vicinity of most
pueblos, so it is seldom bought or sold. It is the soil-turning stick,
used by both men and women in turning the earth in all irrigated
sementeras for rice and camotes. It is also employed in digging
around and prying out rocks to be removed from sementeras or needed
for walls. It is spade, plow, pickax, and crowbar. A small per cent of
the kay-kay is shod with an iron point, rendering them more efficient,
especially in breaking up new or sod ground.

The su-wan', the woman's camote stick, is about 2 feet long and an
inch in diameter (Pl. LXXV). It is a heavy, compact wood, and is
used by the woman until worn down 6 or 8 inches, when it usually
becomes the property of a small girl for gathering wild plants for
the family pigs. The su-wan' of the woman of Bontoc and Samoki comes,
mostly in trade, from the mountains near Tulubin. It is employed in
picking the earth loose in all unirrigated sementeras, as those for
camotes, millet, beans, and maize. It is also used to pick over the
earth in camote sementeras when the crop is gathered. Perhaps 1 per
cent of these sticks is shod with an iron point. Such an instrument
is of genuine service in the rough, stony mountain lands, but is
not so serviceable as the unshod stick in the irrigated sementeras,
because it cuts and bruises the vegetables.

The most common wooden vessel in the Bontoc area is the kak-wan',
a vessel, or "pail" holding about six or eight quarts. In it the
cooked food of the pigs is mixed and carried to the animals. Every
household has two or more of them.

A few small, poorly made wooden dishes, called "chu'-yu," are found
in each dwelling, from which the people eat broth of fish or other
meats. All are of inferior workmanship and, in common with all things
of wood made by the Igorot, are the product of the man's art. Both
the knife and fire are used to hollow out these bowls.

A long-handled wooden dipper, called "ka-od'," is found in every
dwelling. It belongs with the kak-wan', the pig-food pail.

Tug-on' is a large, long-handled spoon used exclusively as a drinking
dipper for the fermented liquor called "sa-fu-eng'."

Fa'-nu is a wooden ladle employed in cooking foods.

A few very crude eating spoons, about the size of the dessert spoon
of America, are found in most dwellings. They are usually without
ornament, and are called "i-chus'."


Metal implements and utensils

The wa'-say is the only metal implement employed at all commonly in the
area; it is found in each family. It consists of an iron, steel-bitted
blade from an inch to an inch and a half in width and about 6 inches
in length. It is attached to the short, wooden handle by a square haft
inserted into the handle. Since the haft is square the implement may
be instantly converted into either an "ax" with blade parallel to
the handle or an "adz" with blade at right angle to the handle.

This is the tool used in felling and cutting up all trees, and in
getting out and dressing all timbers and boards. It is the sole
carpenter tool, unless the man by chance possess a bolo.

There are no metal agricultural implements in common use. As was noted
earlier in the chapter, the soil-turning stick and the woman's camote
stick are now and then shod with iron, but they are rare.

There are a few large, shallow Chinese iron boilers in the area,
used especially for boiling sugar, evaporating salt in Mayinit,
and for cooking carabao or large quantities of hog on ceremonial
occasions. There are probably not more than two or three dozen such
boilers in Bontoc pueblo, though they are becoming much more plentiful
during the past three years -- since the Igorot has more money and
goes more often to Candon on the coast, where he buys them.


Pottery

Most of the pottery consumed in the Bontoc area is the product
of Samoki, the sister pueblo of Bontoc. Samoki pottery meets no
competition down the river to the north until in the vicinity of
Bitwagan, which makes and vends similar ware both up and down the
river. To the south there is also competition, since Data makes and
sells an excellent pot to Antedao, Fidelisan, Sagada, Titipan, and
other near-by pueblos. It is probable, also, that Lias and Barlig, to
the east, are supplied with pottery, and, if so, that their source is
Bitwagan. But Bitwagan and Data pots are really not competitors with
those of Samoki; they rather supply areas which the Samoki potters
can not reach because of distance and the hostility of the people.

There are no traditions clustering around pottery making in Samoki. The
potters say they taught themselves, and have always made earthenware.

To-day Samoki pottery is made of two clays -- one a reddish-brown
mineral dug from pits several feet deep on the hillside, shown in
Pl. LXXXII, and the other a bluish mineral gathered from a shallow
basin situated on the hillside nearer the river than the pits, and
in which a little water stands much of the year.

Formerly Samoki made pottery of only the brown clay, and she used
cut grass intermixed for a temper, but she claims those earlier pots
were too porous to glaze well. Consequently the experiment was made
of adding the blue surface clay, in which there is a considerable
amount of fresh and decaying vegetable matter -- probably sufficient
to give temper, although the potters do not recognize it as such.

Samoki consists of eight ato, one of which is I-kang'-a. occupying
the outer fringe of dwellings on the northwest side of the pueblo. It
is claimed that all of the women of I-kang'-a, whether married or
single, are potters. Even women who marry men of the I-kang'-a ato,
and who come to that section of the pueblo to live, learn and follow
the potter's art. A few married women in other ato also manufacture
pottery. They seem to be married daughters of I-kang'-a ato.

A fine illustration of community industry is presented by the ato
potters of Samoki. It could not be learned that there are any definite
regulations, other than custom, demanding that all women of I-kang'-a
manufacture pots, or any regulation which forces daughters of that
ato to discontinue the art when they marry outside. But custom has
fixed quite rigidly such a regulation, and though, as just stated,
a few I-kang'-a women married into other ato of Samoki do manufacture
pottery, yet no I-kang'-a women married into other pueblos carry on
the art. It may be argued that a lack of suitable clay has thwarted
manufacture in other pueblos, but clay is common in the mountains of
the area, and the sources of the materials used in Samoki are readily
accessible to at least the pueblo of Bontoc, where also there are
many Samoki women living.

The clay pits lie north of Samoki, between a quarter and a half
of a mile distant, and the potters go to them in the early morning
while the earth is moist, and dig and bring home the clays. The woman
gathers half a transportation basket of each of the clays, and while
at the pits crudely works both together into balls 4 or 5 inches in
diameter. In this form the clay is carried to the pueblo.

All the pottery is manufactured in the shade of the potter's dwelling,
and the first process is a thorough mixing of the two clays. The balls
of the crudely mixed material are put into a small, wooden trough, are
slightly moistened, and then thoroughly worked with a wooden pestle,
the potter crouching on her haunches or resting on her knees during
the labors. She is shown in Pl. LXXXIX A. After the clay is mixed
it is manipulated in small handfuls, between the thumb and fingers,
in order that all stones and coarse pieces of vegetable matter may
be removed. When the mortarful has thus been handled it is ready for
making pots.

A mass of this clay, thoroughly mixed and plastic, is placed on a
board on the earth before the kneeling or crouched potter. She pokes
a hole in the top of this mass with thumbs and fingers, and quickly
enlarges it. As soon as the opening is large enough to admit one hand
it is dug out and enlarged by scraping with the ends of the fingers,
and the clay so gathered is immediately built onto the upper rim of the
mass. The inside is next further scraped and smoothed with the side
of the forefinger. At this juncture a small mass of clay is rolled
into a strip between the hands and placed on the upper edge of the
shaping mass, completely encircling it. This roll is at once shaped by
the hands into a crude, flaring rim. A few swift touches on the outer
face of the crude pot removes protruding masses and roughly shapes the
surface. The rim is moistened with water and smoothed inside and out by
the hand and a short, round stick. This process is well illustrated in
Pl. XC. The first stage of manufacture is completed and the vessel is
set in the sun with the rim of an old broken pot for a supporting base.

In the course of a few hours the shaped and nearly completed rim
of the pot becomes strong and set by the heat of the sun. However,
the rough and irregular bowl has apparently retained relatively a
larger amount of moisture and is in prime condition to be thinned,
expanded, and given final form. The pot is now handled by the rim,
which is sufficiently rigid for the purpose, and is turned about on
its supporting base as is needed, or the base is turned about on the
earth like a crude "potter's wheel." A smooth discoidal stone, some 4
or 5 inches in diameter, and a wooden paddle are the instruments used
to shape the bowl. The paddle is first dipped in water and rubbed over
one of the flattish surfaces of the stone slightly to moisten it, and
is then beaten against the outer surface of the bowl, while the stone,
tapped against the inner surface, prevents indenting or cracking,
and, by offering a more or less nonresisting surface, assists in
thinning and expanding the clay. After the upper part of the bowl
has been thus completed the potter sits on her feet and haunches,
with her knees thrust forward from her. Again and again she moistens
her paddle and discoidal stone, and continues the spanking process
until the entire bowl of the pot is shaped. It is then set in the
sun to dry -- this time usually bottom side up.

After it has thoroughly dried, both the inner and outer surfaces are
carefully and patiently smoothed and polished with a small stone,
commonly a ribbon agate. During this process all pebbles found
protruding from the surface are removed and the pits are filled with
new clay thoroughly smoothed in place, and the thickness of the pot
is made more uniform. The vessel is again placed on its supporting
base in the sun, and kept turned and tilted until it has become well
dried and set. Two and sometimes three days are required to bring
a pot thus far toward completion, though during the same time there
are several equally completed by each potter.

There remains yet the burning and glazing. Samoki burns her pots
in the morning before sunrise. Immediately on the outskirts of the
pueblo there is a large, gravelly place strewn with thin, black ash
where for generations the potters coming and going have completed
their primitive ware. Usually two or more firings occur each week,
and several women combine and burn their pots together. On the earth
small stones are laid upon which one tier of vessels is placed, each
lying upon its side. Tier upon tier of pots is then placed above the
first layer, each on its side and each supported by and supporting
other pots. The heat is supplied by pine bark placed beneath and
around the lower layer. The pile is entirely blanketed with dead
grass tied in small bunches which has been gathered, prepared, and
kept in the houses of the potters for the purpose. The grass retains
its form long after the blaze and glow have ceased, and clings about
the pile as a blanket, checking the wasteful radiation of heat and
cutting out the drafts of air that would be disastrous to the heated
clay. As this blanket of grass finally gives way here and there the
attending potters replenish it with more bunches. The pile is fired
about one hour; when sufficiently baked the pots are lifted from
the fire by inserting in each a long pole. Each potter then takes
a vessel at a time, places it red hot on its supporting base on the
earth before her, and immediately proceeds, with much care and labor,
to glaze the rim and inside of the bowl. The glaze is a resin obtained
in trade from Barlig. It is applied to the vessel from the end of
a glazing stick -- sometimes a pole 6 or 7 feet long, but usually
about a yard in length. After the rim and inner surface of the bowl
have been thoroughly glazed the potter begins on another vessel --
turning the last one over to one or two little girls, from 4 to 6
years of age, who find great happiness in smearing the outer surface
of the now cooling and dull-brown pot with resin held in bunches in
the hands. This outer glaze, applied by the young apprentices, who,
in play, are learning an art of their future womanhood, is neither
so thick nor so carefully laid as is the glaze of the rim and inner
surface of the vessel. When the glazing is completed the pot is still
too hot to be borne in the hands; however, the glaze has become rigid
and hard.

Analyses made at the Bureau of Government Laboratories, Manila, show
that the clays used in the Samoki pots contain the following mineral:

Analyses of Samoki pottery clays


Minerals.
Brown pit clay
Blue surface clay


Per cent
PER CENT

Silica
54.46
60.99

Oxide of aluminum
16.77
17.71

Ferric oxide of iron
11.14
9.53

Oxide of calcium
0.53
0.59

Loss by ignition
16.81
10.65

Oxide of magnesium
Trace
Trace

Oxide of potassium
Trace
 --

Oxide of sodium
 --
Trace

Carbon dioxide
 --
Trace


The botanist of the Bureau of Government Laboratories[26] says in
the report of his analysis of the resin used to glaze these pots:

This gum is known as Almaciga (Sp.). It is produced by some
species of the dipterocarpus or shorea -- which it is impossible
to determine. ... It should not be confounded with the other common
almaciga from the trees of the genus Agathis.

The Government analyst[27] who analyzed the clays and examined the
finished and glazed pots says of the Samoki pot that about two-thirds
of the organic matter in the clay is consumed in the baking or burning
of the pot. The organic matter in the middle one-third of the wall
of the pot is not consumed. The clay is a remarkably hard one and
is difficult of ignition; this is the reason it makes good cooking
vessels. He further says that the glaze is not a true glaze. It seems
that the resin does nothing except lose its oils when applied to the
red-hot pots, and there is left on the surface the unconsumed carbon.


Basket work

All basket work is done by the men. Much of the time when they are in
the fawi or pabafunan, gossiping and smoking, they are busied making
the ordinary and necessary utensils of the field and dwelling. The
basket work is all crude, with the possible exception of some of the
hats worn by the men.

As is brought forth later under the head of "Commerce," much basket
work is done by only one or two communities, and from them passes
in trade over a large area. Most of the basket work of the area is
of bejuco or bamboo. There are two varieties of bamboo used in the
area -- a'-nis and fi'-ka. A'-nis is found in the area and fi'-ka is
brought in in trade from the southwest.

The most important piece of basket work is the ki-ma'-ta, the
man's transportation basket, made of a'-nis bamboo; it is shown in
Pl. CXX. It is made by many pueblos, and is found throughout the
area. It consists of two baskets joined firmly to a light, wooden
crossbar called "pa'-tang." The entire ki-ma'-ta weighs about 5 pounds,
and with it the Igorot carries loads weighing as much as 100 pounds.

The man has another basket called "ko-chuk-kod'," which is used
frequently by him, also sometimes by women, for carrying earth when
building the sementeras. The ko-chuk-kod' is made in Bontoc and
Samoki. It is not shown in any of the illustrations, but is quite
similar to the tay-ya-an', or large transportation basket of the woman,
yet is slimmer. It is also similar in shape and size to the woman's
transportation basket in Benguet which is worn on the back supported
by a headband.

The woman has two important a'-nis bamboo transportation baskets,
which are constantly employed. One called "lu'-wa," the shallow lower
basket shown in Pl. LXXV, is made only in Samoki; the other tay-ya-an',
shown in Pl. XCIII, holds about three pecks. It is made only in Bontoc
and Samoki.

Ag-ka-win' is the small rump basket almost invariably worn by women
when working in the irrigated sementera. It is of fi'-ka bamboo, is
made commonly in Bontoc and Samoki, and occasionally in Tulubin. The
field toiler often carries her lunch to the field in the ag-ka-win',
and when she returns the basket is usually filled with crustaceans
and mollusks picked up in the wet sementera or gathered in the river,
or with weeds or grasses to be cooked as "greens."

The woman's rain protector, a scoop-shaped affair about 4 feet long,
called "tug-wi'," is said to be made only in Ambawan and Barlig. It
consists of a double weave of coarse splints, between which is a
waterproof layer of a large palm leaf. It is worn over the head,
and is an excellent protection from the rain. It may well have been
suggested to primitive man by the banana leaf, which I have repeatedly
seen carried over the head and back by the Igorot in many sections
of northern Luzon during the rains. I have also seen it used many
times in Manila by Tagalog who were caught out in a storm without an
umbrella. The rain protector is shown lying in front of the house in
Pl. XXXVII.

Tak-o-chug' is the man's dirt scoop made of a'-nis bamboo. It resembles
the tug-wi' in shape, but is only about 1 1/2 feet long. It is employed
in handling earth, and conveying the dirt to the ko-chuk-kod', or
dirt transportation basket.

A basket very similar to tak-o-chug', but called "sug-fi'," is employed
by the woman in her housework in handling vegetables. It is shown in
Pl. XCIV, containing camote parings.

The to'-pil is the man's "dinner pail." It is made of a'-nis bamboo,
is a covered basket, and is constructed to contain from one and a
half to three quarts of solid food. In it men and boys carry their
lunch to the fields. All the pueblos make the to'-pil.

Another basket, called "sang'-i," is generally employed in carrying the
man's food. It is used for long trips from home, although I have seen
it used simply for carrying the field lunch. It is made of bejuco in
Ambawan, Barlig, and Tulubin, and passes widely in the area through
commerce. It is worn on the back, secured by bejuco straps passing
in front of the shoulders.

Fang'-ao is the sang'-i with a waterproof bejuco covering. As it
is worn on the back, the man appears to be wearing a cape made of
hanging vegetable threads. This is the basket commonly known as the
"head basket," but it is used for carrying food, blankets, anything,
on the trail. It is made in Ambawan, Barlig, and Kanyu, and is found
pretty well scattered throughout the area. It is shown, front and
back view, in Pl. XCV.

Fa'-i si gang'-sa is an open-work bejuco basket, in shape very similar
to the sang'-i, used to carry the gang'-sa, or metal drum. It is worn
slung on the back as is the sang'-i.

A house basket holding about a peck, called "fa-lo'-ko," is made
of a'-nis bamboo. It is used in various capacities, for vegetables
and cereals, in and about the house. It is made in all the pueblos
and is shown in Pl. XCIV. A few other household baskets are often
found. Among these are the large, bottle-shaped locust basket, i-wus',
a smaller basket, ko'-lug, of the same shape used to hold threshed
rice, and the open-work spoon basket, so'-long, which usually hangs
over the fireplace in each dwelling.

The large winnowing tray, lig-o', shown bottom up in Pl. XCIII, is
made in Samoki and Kanyu of a'-nis bamboo. There are two sizes of
winnowing trays, both of which are employed everywhere in the area.

Several small a'-nis bamboo eating trays, called "ki'-ug," are shown
in Pl. XCIV. These food dishes are used on ceremonial occasions,
and some of them can not be purchased. They are made in all pueblos.

Samoki alone is said to make the rice sieve, called "a-ka'-ug. It
passes widely in the pueblo.

Aside from these various basket utensils and implements there are
the three kinds of fish traps described in the section on fishing.

There are also three varieties of basket-work hats. The rain hat called
"seg-fi'," is made in Bontoc, and may be in imitation of those worn
nearer the western coast. This with the suk-lang, the pocket hat
always worn by the men and boys, and the kut'-lao. or sleeping hat,
worn by children and adults of both sexes, are described under the
head of "Clothing."


Weapon production

Igorot weapons are few and relatively simple. The bow and arrow,
used wherever the Negrito is in Luzon, is not known to the Igorot
warrior of the Bontoc culture area. Small boys in Bontoc pueblo
make for themselves tiny bows 1 1/2 or 2 feet long with which they
snap light arrows a few feet. But the instrument is of the crudest,
merely a toy, and is a thing of the day, being acquired from the
culture of the Ilokano who live in the pueblo. The Igorot claim they
never employed the bow and arrow, and, to-day at least, consider the
question as to their ever using it as very foolish, since, they say,
pointing to the child's toy, "It is nothing."

In 1665 -- 1668 Friar Casimiro Diaz wrote of the Igorot that they
used arrows,[28] but it is believed his statement did not apply to
the Bontoc man. Igorot-like people throughout northern Luzon commonly
do not have this weapon, yet the large Tinguian group of Abra, west
and north of Bontoc, and the Ibilao of southeastern Nueva Vizcaya,
Nueva Ecija, and adjacent Isabela employ the bow constantly.

The natural projectile weapon of the Negrito is the bow and arrow;
that of the Malayan seems to be the blowgun -- at present, however,
largely replaced by the spear, though in some southern islands,
especially in Paragua, it has held its own.



Wooden weapons

Shields are universally made and used by the Igorot. They are made
by the men of each pueblo, and are seldom bought or sold. They are
cut from single pieces of wood, and are generally constructed of very
light wood, though some are heavy. The hand grip is cut in the solid
timber. is almost invariably made for the left hand, and will usually
accommodate only three fingers -- the thumb and little finger remaining
outside the grip and free to press forward the upper and lower ends
of the shield, respectively, slanting it to glance a blow of a spear.

Within the present boundary of Bontoc Province there are three
distinct patterns of wooden shields in use in three quite distinct
culture areas. There is still another shield immediately beyond the
western border of the province but which is believed to be produced
also in the Bontoc area.

First, is the shield of the Bontoc culture area. It is usually about
3 feet long and 1 foot wide, is blackened with a greasy soot, though
now and again one in original wood is seen. The upper part or "chief"
of the shield is cut, leaving three points projecting several inches
above the solid field; the lower end or "base" is cut, leaving two
points. Across both ends of the shield is a strengthening lace of
bejuco, passing through perforations from front to back. The front
surface of the shield is most prominent over the deep-cut hand grip
at the boss or "fess point," toward which a wing approaches on both
the dexter and sinister sides of the front of the shield, being carved
slightly on the field. This is the usual Bontoc shield, but some few
have meaningless straight-line decorations cut in the field.

In the Tinglayan culture area, immediately north of Bontoc, the usual
shield is very similar to the above, except that various sections
of both the face and back of the shield are of natural wood or are
colored dull red. The strengthening of bejuco lacings and the raised
wings are also found.

Still farther north is the Kalinga shield -- a slim, gracefully formed
shield, differing from the typical Bontoc weapon chiefly in its more
graceful outline. It is of a uniform black color and has the bejuco
lacings the same as the others.

The fourth variety, made at Bagnen, immediately across the Bontoc
border, in Lepanto, and probably also made and certainly used near at
hand in Bontoc, is quite similar to the Bontoc type but is smaller
and cruder. It is uncolored, and on its front has crude drawings of
snakes and frogs (or perhaps men) drawn with soot paint.

Banawi area, south of the Bontoc area. has a shield differing
markedly from the others. It is longer, usually somewhat wider,
and not cut at either end. The lower end is straight across at right
angles to the sides; the upper end rises to a very obtuse angle at
the middle. The front is usually much plainer than is that of the
other shields mentioned.

Throughout the Bontoc area there is a spear with a bamboo blade,
entirely a wooden weapon. The spear is employed in warfare, and is
losing its place only as iron becomes plentiful enough and cheap
enough to substitute for the bamboo blades or heads. Even in sections
in which iron spears are relatively common the wooden spear is used
much in warfare, since spears thrown at an enemy are frequently lost.

Sharp-pointed bamboo spikes are often stuck in the trails of war
parties when they are returning from some foray in which they have
been successful. These spikes are from about 6 inches in length,
as among the people of the Bontoc area, to 3 or more feet, as among
the Ibilao of southeastern Nueva Vizcaya. The latter people nightly
place these long spikes, called "luk'-dun," in the trails leading to
their dwellings. They are placed at a considerable angle, and would
impale an intruder in the groin or upper thigh, inflicting a cruel
and disabling wound. The shorter spikes either cut through the bottom
of the foot or stab the instep or leg near the ankle. They are much
dreaded, and, though crude, are very effective weapons.


Metal weapons

The metal spear blade or head is a product of Igorot
workmanship. Baliwang, situated about six hours north of Bontoc,
makes most of the metal spear blades used in the Bontoc area. Sapao,
located about a day and a half to the south, makes excellent metal
blades, but they seldom reach the Bontoc culture area, although
blades of inferior production from Sapao are found in Ambawan, the
southernmost pueblo of the area.

Baliwang has four smithies, in each of which two or three men labor,
each man in a smithy performing a separate part of the work. One
operates the bellows, another feeds the fire and does the heavy
striking during the initial part of the work, and the other -- the
real blade maker, the artist -- directs all the labor, and performs
the finer and finishing parts of the blade production.

The smithies are about 12 feet square without side walls. They have
a grass roof sloping to within 3 feet of the earth, enlarging the
shaded area to near 20 feet square. Near one side of the room is
the bellows, called "op-op'," consisting of two vertical, parallel
wooden tubes about 5 feet long and 10 inches in diameter, standing
side by side. Each tube has a piston or plunger, called "dot-dot';"
the packing ring of the piston is of wood covered with chicken
feathers, making it slightly flexible at the rim, so it fits snugly
in the tube. The lower end of the bellows tubes rests in the earth,
4 inches above which a small bamboo tube leads the compressed air
to the fireplace from each bellows tube. These small tubes, called
"to-bong'," end near an opening through a brick at the back of the
fire, and the air forced through them passes on through the brick
to the burning charcoal. The outer end of the to-bong' is cut at
an angle, and as the tubes end outside the opening in the brick,
the air inbreathed by the bellows, as the plungers are raised, is
drawn from back of the fireplace -- thus the fire is not disturbed.

The fuel is an inferior charcoal prepared by the Igorot from pine. This
bellows is found throughout the Archipelago and is evidently a Malayan
product. It is believed that it came to Bontoc with the Igorot from
their earlier home and is not, as some say, a Chinese invention.[29]
The Igorot manufacturer of metal pipes uses exactly the same kind of
bellows, except that it is very much smaller, and so appears like a
toy. It is poorly shown in Pl. CIX.

Much of the iron now employed in the manufacture of Igorot weapons is
Chinese bar iron coming from China to the Islands at Candon, in Ilokos
Sur. However, the people readily make weapons from any iron they may
acquire, greatly preferring the scraps of broken Chinese cast-iron
pots, vessels purchased primarily for making sugar. In his choice of
cast iron the Igorot exhibits a practical knowledge of metallurgy,
since cast iron makes better steel than wrought iron -- that is,
as he has to work.


FIGURE 5

Ironsmith's stone hammer.


The anvils of the smithy, numbering four or five, are large rocks set
solidly in the earth. The hammers are nearly all stone, though some
of the workmen have a small iron hammer used in finishing the weapons.

There are several varieties of stone hammers. One weighing about
30 pounds is 16 inches long, 10 inches wide, and from 4 to 6 inches
thick. An inch-deep groove is cut in both edges of the hammer, and
into these grooves the short, double wooden handle is attached by a
withe. Another hammer, similar to the above in shape and attachment,
is about one-third its size and weight. There is a still smaller
hammer lashed with leather bands to a single, straight wooden handle;
and there is also a round hammer stone about 3 inches in diameter
without handle or attachment, which hammer, together with the larger
one last mentioned, is largely superseded in some of the smithies by
the metal hammer.

The bellows operator sits squatting on a slight platform the height
of the bellows, and constantly works the plungers up and down with
rhythmic strokes.

Two men at first handle the hot iron -- one, the real blade maker,
holds the white-hot metal with long-handled iron pinchers (purchased
in Candon) and his helper wields the 30-pound hammer. He stands with
legs well apart, grasps the heavy hammer with both hands, and swings
it back and forth between his legs. The blow is struck at the downward,
backward swing.

These smiths weld iron, and also temper it to make steel. The following
detailed picture of a welding observed in a Baliwang smithy may be
duplicated there any day. The two pieces of iron to be welded were
separately heated a dull red. One was then laid on the other and both
were cooled with water. Wet earth, gathered for the occasion at the
side of the smithy, was then put over them; while still covered they
were inserted again in the fire. When red-hot they were withdrawn,
the little mound of earth covering the two pieces of iron being still
in place but having been brought also to a red heat. A few light blows
fell on the red mass, and it was again returned to the fire. Four times
the iron was withdrawn and received a few blows with a light hammer
wielded by the master smith. On being withdrawn the fifth time half a
dozen blows were struck by the helper with the 30-pound hammer. Again
the iron was heated, but when removed the sixth time the welding was
evidently considered finished, as the shaping of the weapon was then
begun. Weldings made by these smiths seem to be complete.

The tempering done by the Igorot is crude, and is such as may be seen
in any country blacksmith shop in the States. The iron is heated and
is tempered by cooling in a small wooden trough of water. There is
great difference in the quality of the steel turned out by the Igorot,
even by the same man, though some men are recognized as more skillful
than others.

There are four styles of spear blades made by Baliwang. The one most
common is called "fal-feg'." It is a simple, single-barbed blade,
and ranges from 2 inches to 6 inches in length. This style of blade
is the most used in warfare, and the smaller, lighter blades are
considered better for this purpose than the heavier ones.

The fang'-kao, or barbless lance blade, is next common in use. It is
not a war blade, but is used almost entirely in killing carabaos and
hogs. There is one notable exception to this statement -- Ambawan
has almost no other class of spear. These blades range from 4 to 12
or 14 inches in length.

The other two blades, si-na-la-wi'-tan and kay-yan', are relatively
rare. The former is quite similar to the fal-feg', except that instead
of the single pair of barbs there are other barbs -- say, from one
to ten pairs. This spear is not considered at all serviceable as a
hunting spear, and is not used in war as much as is the fal-feg'. It
is prized highly as an anito scarer. When a man passes alone in
the mountains anito are very prone to walk with him; however, if
the traveler carries a si-na-la-wi'-tan, anito will not molest him,
since they are afraid when they see the formidable array of barbs.

Kay-yan' is a gracefully formed blade not used in hunting, and
employed less in war than is si-na-la-wi'-tan. Though the Igorot
has almost nothing in his culture for purely aesthetic purposes, yet
he ascribes no purpose for the kay-yan' -- he says it looks pretty;
but I have seen it carried to war by war parties.

The pueblo of Sapao makes superior-looking steel weapons, though many
Igorot claim the steel of the Baliwang spear is better than that from
Sapao. In Quiangan I saw a fang'-kao, or lance-shaped blade made
in Sapao, having six faces on each side. The five lines separating
the faces ran from the tang to the point of the blade, and were as
regular and perfect as though machine made. The best class of Sapao
blades is readily distinguishable by its regular lines and the smooth
and perfect surface finish.

All spearheads are fastened to the wooden shaft by a short haft or tang
inserted in the wood. An iron ferrule or a braided bejuco ferrule is
employed to strengthen the shaft where the tang is inserted. A conical
iron ferrule or cap is also placed on the butt of the shaft. This
ferrule is often used, as the spear is always stuck in the earth
close at hand when the warrior works any distance from home; and as
he passes along the steep mountain trails or carries heavy burdens
he commonly uses the spear shaft as a staff.

The spear shafts are made by the owner of the weapon, it not being
customary for anyone to produce them for sale. Some of them are rather
attractively decorated with brass and copper studs, and a few have
red and yellow bejuco ferrules near the blade. In some pueblos of the
Bontoc area, as at Mayinit, spear shafts are worked down and eventually
smoothed and finished by a flexible, bamboo knife-blade machine. It
consists of about a dozen blades 8 or 10 inches in length, fastened
together side by side with string. The blades lie one overlapping the
other like the slats of an American window shutter. Each projecting
blade is sharpened to a chisel edge. The machine is grasped in the
hand, as shown in fig. 6, and is slid up and down the shaft with a
slight twisting movement obtained by bending the wrist. The machine
becomes a flexible, many-bladed plane.

Baliwang alone makes the genuine Bontoc battle-ax. It is a strong,
serviceable blade of good temper, and is hafted to a short, strong,
straight wooden handle which is strengthened by a ferrule of iron
or braided bejuco. The ax has a slender point opposed to the bit or
cutting edge of the blade. This point is often thrust in the earth
and the upturned blade used as a stationary knife, on which the Igorot
cuts meats and other substances by drawing them lengthwise along the
sharp edge. The bit of the ax is at a small angle with the front and
back edges of the blade, and is nearly a straight line. The axes are
kept keen and sharp by whetstones collected and preserved solely for
the purpose. Besao, near Sagada, quarries and barters a good grade
of whetstone.


FIGURE 6

Bamboo spear-shaft dresser.


A slender, long-handled battle-ax now and then comes into the area
in trade from the north. Balbelasan, of old Abra Province, but now in
the northern part of extended Bontoc Province, is one of the pueblos
which produce this beautiful ax. The blade is longer and very much
slimmer than the Bontoc blade, but its marked distinguishing feature
is the shape of the cutting edge. The blade is ground on two straight
lines joined together by a short curved line, giving the edge the
striking form of the beak of a rapacious bird. The slender, graceful
handle, always fitted with a long iron ferrule, has a process on the
under side near the middle. The handle is also usually fitted with
a decorated metal ferrule at the tip and frequently is decorated for
its full length with bands of brass or tin, or with sheets of either
metal artistically incised.

The Balbelasan ax is not used by the pueblos making it, or at least
by many of them, but finds its field of usefulness east and northeast
of Bontoc pueblo as far as the foothills of the mountains west of
the Rio Grande de Cagayan. I was told by the Kalinga of this latter
region that the people in the mountain close to the Cagayan in the
vicinity of Cabagan Nuevo, Isabela Province, also use this ax.

In the southern and western part of the Bontoc area the battle-ax
shares place with the bolo, the sole hand weapon of the Igorot of
adjoining Lepanto, Benguet, and Nueva Vizcaya Provinces.

The bolo within the Bontoc area comes from Sapao and from the Ilokano
people of the west coast. The southern pueblo in the Bontoc area,
Ambawan, uses the bolo of Sapao to the entire exclusion of the
battle-ax. Tulubin, the next pueblo to Ambawan, and only an hour
from it, uses almost solely the Baliwang battle-ax. Such pueblos as
Titipan and Antedao, about three hours west of Bontoc, use both the
ax and bolo, while the pueblos further west, as Agawa, Sagada, Balili,
Alap, etc., use the bolo exclusively -- frequently an Ilokano weapon.

The Sapao bolo is, in appearance, superior to that of Ilokano
manufacture. It is a broad blade swelling markedly toward the center,
and is somewhat similar in shape to the barong of the Sulu Moro of
the Sulu Archipelago. This weapon finds its chief field of use in the
Quiangan and Banawi areas. In these districts the bolo is fitted with
an open scabbard, and the bright blade presents a novel appearance
lying exposed against the red scabbard. The Igorot manufacturer of the
bolo does not make the scabbard, and most of the bolos used within
the Bontoc area are sheathed in the closed wooden scabbard commonly
found in Lepanto and Benguet.


Pipe production, and smoking

The Igorot of Bontoc area make pipes of wood, clay, and metal. All
their pipes have small bores and bowls. In Benguet a wooden pipe is
commonly made with a bowl an inch and a half in diameter; it has
a large bore also. In Banawi I obtained a wooden pipe with a bowl
8 1/4 inches in circumference and 4 inches in height, but having a
bore averaging only half an inch in diameter.

Nearly all pueblos make the pipes they use, but pipes of clay and metal
are manufactured by the Igorot for Igorot trade. I never learned that
wooden pipes are made by them for commercial purposes.

The wooden pipe of the area varies from simple tubular forms, exactly
like a modern cigar holder, to those having bowls set at right angle
to the stem. All wooden pipes are whittled by the men, and some of
them are very graceful in form and have an excellent polish. They are
made of at least three kinds of wood -- ga-sa'-tan, la-no'-ti, and
gi-gat'. Most pipes -- wooden, clay, or metal -- have separable stems.

A few men in Agawa, a pueblo near the western border of the area, make
beautiful clay pipes, called "ki-na-lo'-sab." The clay is carefully
macerated between the fingers until it is soft and fine. It is then
roughly shaped by the fingers, and afterwards, when partially hardened,
is finished with a set of five light, wooden tools.

The finished bowls are in three different colors. When baked about
nine hours the pipes come forth gray. Those coming out red have been
burned about twelve hours, usually all night. The black ones are made
by reburning the red bowls about half an hour in palay straw.

Two men in Sabangan and one each in Genugan and Takong -- all western
pueblos -- manufacture metal "anito" pipes. To-day brass wire and
the metal of cartridge shells are most commonly employed in making
these pipes.

The process of manufacture is elaborate and very interesting. First a
beeswax model is made the exact size and shape of the finished metal
pipe. All beeswax, called "a-tid'," used in pipe making comes from
Barlig through Kanu, and the illustration (Pl. CVIII) shows the form
in which it passes in commerce in the area. A small amount of wax
is softened by a fire until it can be flattened in the palm of the
hand. It is then rolled around a stick the size of the bore in the
bowl. The outside of the wax bowl is next designed as is shown in the
illustration (Pl. CVIII). A careful examination of the illustration
will show that the design represents the sitting figure of a man. He
is resting his elbows on his knees and holding his lower jaw in his
hands -- eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingers are all represented. This
design is made in the wax with a small knife. The wax for the short
stem piece is flattened and folded around a stick the size of the
bore of the stem. The stem piece is then set into the bowl and the
design which was started on the bowl is continued over the stem.

When the wax pipe is completed a projecting point of wax is attached
to the base of the pipe, and the whole is imbedded in a clay jacket,
the point of wax, however, projecting from the jacket. The clay used
by the pipe maker is obtained in a pit at Pingad in the vicinity of
Genugan. Around the wax point a clay funnel is built. The clay mold,
called "bang-bang'-a," is thoroughly baked by a fire. In less than
an hour the mold is hardened and brown, and the wax pipe within it
has melted and the wax been poured out of the mold through the gate
or opening left by the melting point of wax, leaving the mold empty.

A small Malayan bellows, called "op-op'," the exact duplicate in
miniature of the double tubular bellows described in the preceding
section on "metal weapons," furnishes the draught for a small charcoal
fire. The funnel of the clay mold is filled with pieces of metal, and
the entire thing is buried in the fired charcoal. In fifteen minutes
the metal melts and runs down through the gate at the bottom of the
funnel into the hollow, wax-lined mold. Since the entire mold is hot,
the metal does not cool or harden promptly, and the pipe maker taps and
jars the mold in order to make the metal penetrate and fill every part.

The mold is set aside to cool and is then broken away from the metal
core. To-day the pipe maker possesses a file with which to smooth and
clean the crude pipe. Formerly all that labor, and it is extensive,
was performed with stones.

It requires two men to make the "anito" pipes -- tin-ak-ta'-go. One
superintends all the work and performs the finest of it, and the
second pumps the bellows and smooths and cleans the pipe after it is
cast. The two men make four pipes per day, but the purchaser of an
"anito" pipe puts days of toil on the metal, smoothing and perfecting
it by cleaning and digging out the design until it becomes really a
beautiful bit of primitive art.

When a pueblo wants a few tin-ak-ta'-go it sends for the manufacturer,
and he comes to the pueblo with his helper and remains as long as
necessary. Ay-o'-na, of Genugan, annually visits Titipan, Ankiling,
Sagada, Bontoc, and Samoki. He usually furnishes all material,
and receives a peseta for each pipe, but the pueblo furnishes the
food. In this way a pipe maker is a journeyman about half the year.

Tukukan makes a smooth, cast-metal pipe, called "pin-e-po-yong'," and
Baliwang makes tubular iron pipes at her smithies. They are hammered
out and pounded and welded over a core. I have seen several of such
excellent workmanship that the welded seam could not be detected on
the surface.

In the western part of the area both men and women smoke, and some
smoke almost constantly. Throughout the areas occupied by Christians
children of 6 or 7 years smoke a great deal. I have repeatedly seen
girls not over 6 years of age smoking rolls of tobacco, "cigars,"
a foot long and more than an inch in diameter, but in Bontoc area
small children do not smoke. In most of the area women do not smoke
at all, and boys seldom smoke until they reach maturity.

In Bontoc the tobacco leaf for smoking is rolled up and pinched off
in small sections an inch or so in length. These pieces are then
wrapped in a larger section of leaf. When finished for the pipe the
tobacco resembles a short stub of a cigar. Only half a dozen whiffs
are generally taken at a smoke, and the pipe with its tobacco is
then tucked under the edge of the pocket hat. Four pipes in five as
they are seen sticking from a man's hat show that the owners stopped
smoking long before they exhausted their pipes.



Fire making

The oldest instrument for fire making used by the Bontoc Igorot is
now seldom found. However, practically all boys of a dozen years know
how to make and use it.

It is called "co-li'-li," and is a friction machine made of two
pieces of dry bamboo. A 2-foot section of dead and dry bamboo is split
lengthwise and in one piece a small area of the stringy tissue lining
the tube is splintered and picked quite loose. Immediately over this,
on the outside of the tube, a narrow groove is cut at right angles
to it. This piece of bamboo becomes the stationary lower part of
the fire machine. One edge of the other half of the original tube is
sharpened like a chisel blade. This section is grasped in both hands,
one at each end, and is at first slowly and heavily, afterwards more
rapidly, drawn back and forth through the groove of the stationary
bamboo, making a small conical pile of dry dust beneath the opening.

After a dozen strokes the sides of the groove and the edge of the
friction piece burn brown, presently a smell of smoke is plain, and
before three dozen strokes have been made smoke may be seen. Usually
before one hundred strokes a larger volume of smoke tells that the
dry dust constantly falling on the pile has grown more and more
charred until finally a tiny friction-fired particle falls, carrying
combustion to the already heated dust cone.

The machine is carefully raised, and, if the fire is permanently
kindled, the pinch of smoldering dust is inserted in a wisp of dry
grass or other easily inflammable material; in a minute or two flames
burst forth, and the fire may be transferred where desired.

The pal-ting', the world-wide flint and steel-percussion fire machine,
is found with all Bontoc men.

At Sagada there is a ledge of exposed and crumbling rock from which
most of the men of the western part of the Bontoc culture area obtain
their "flint." The "steel" is any piece of iron which may be had --
probably a part of the ferrule from the butt of a spear shaft is used
more than is any other one kind of iron.

The pal-ting' is secured either in a very small basket or a leather
roll which is fastened closed by a string. In this receptacle a small
amount of dry tree cotton is also carried. The pal-ting' receptacle
is carried about in the large bag hanging at the girdle.

Fire is made by a tiny percussion-heated particle of the stone as it
flies away under the sharp, glancing blow of the "steel" and catches
in the dry cotton held by the thumb nail on the upper surface of
the stone.

If the fire maker wishes to light his pipe, he tucks the smoldering
cotton lightly into his roll of tobacco; a few draws are sufficient to
ignite the pipeful. If an out-of-door fire is desired the cotton is
first used to ignite a dry bunch of grass. Should the fire be needed
in the dwelling, the cotton is placed on charcoal. Blowing and care
will produce a good, blazing wood fire in a few minutes.

To-day friction matches are known throughout the area, although
probably not one person in one hundred has ever owned a box of matches.

The fire syringe, common west of Bontoc Province among the Tinguian,
is not known in the Bontoc culture area.


Division of labor

Under this title must be grouped all forms of occupations which are
considered necessary to the life of the pueblo.

Up to the age of 5 or 6 years Bontoc children do not work. As has been
said in a previous chapter, during the months of April and May many
little girls from 5 to 10 work and play together for long hours daily
gathering a few varieties of wild plants close about the pueblo for
food for the pigs. This labor is unnecessary as soon as the camote
vines become large enough for gathering. During June and July these
same girls gather the camote vines for pig food. About August this
labor falls to the women.

Mention has also been made of the fact that during the latter half
of April and May the boys and girls of all ages from 6 or 7 years to
13 or 14 guard the palay sementeras against the birds from earliest
dawn till heavy twilight.

Little girls often help about the dwelling by paring camotes for the
forthcoming meal.

At all times the elder children, both boys and girls, are baby tenders
while their parents work.

Man is the sole hunter and warrior, and he alone fishes when traps
or snares are employed.

Only men go to the mountains to cut and bring home firewood and lumber
for building purposes; widowed women sometimes bring home dead fallen
wood found along the trails. Only men construct the various private and
public buildings. They alone build the stone dikes of the sementeras
and construct the irrigating ditches and dams; they transport to
the pueblo most of the harvested palay. They manufacture and vend
basi, and prepare the salted meats. They make all weapons, and all
implements and utensils for field and household labors. Contrary
to a widespread custom among primitive people, as has been noted,
the Igorot man constructs all basket work, whether hats, baskets,
trays, or ornaments, and bindings of weapons and implements. Men
are the workers of all metal and stone. They are the only cargadors,
though in the Kiapa area of Benguet Province women sometimes go on
the trails as paid burden bearers for Americans.

Only men are said to tattoo and circumcise. They determine the days
of rest and of ceremony for the pueblo, and all pueblo ceremonies are
in their hands; so also are the ceremonies of the ato -- only men are
"priests," except for private household ceremonials.

Men constitute the "control element" of the pueblo. They are the
legislative, executive, and judicial power for the pueblo and each
ato; they are considered the wisdom of their people, and they alone,
it is said, give public advice on important matters.

The woman is the only weaver of fabrics and the only spinner of
the materials of which the fabrics are made. On the west coast the
Ilokano men do a great deal of the spinning, but the Igorot man has not
imitated them in the industry, though he has often seen them. Women
are the sole potters of Samoki, and they alone transport and vend
their wares to other pueblos. In the Mayinit salt industry only the
woman tends the salt house, gathering the crude salt solution.

Only the women plant the rice seed, and they alone transplant the
palay; they also care for the growing plants and harvest most of the
crops. In the transplanting and harvesting of palay the woman is given
credit for greater dexterity than the man; men harvest palay only when
sufficient women can not be found. Women plant, care for, harvest,
and transport to the pueblo all camotes, millet, maize, and beans.

The men and women together construct and repair irrigated sementeras,
men usually digging the earth while the women transport it. Together
they prepare the soil of irrigated sementeras, and carry manure
to them from the pigpens. Men at times do the women's work in
harvesting, and women sometimes assist the men to carry the harvest
to the pueblo. Either threshes out and hulls the rice, though the
woman does more than half this work. Both prepare foods for cooking,
cook the meals, and serve them. Both bring water from the river
for household uses, though the woman brings the greater part. Each
tends the babe while the other works in the field. Both care for the
chickens and pigs, even to cooking the food for the latter. Men and
women catch fish by hand in the river, manufacture tapui, and in the
salt industry both evaporate the salt solution and vend the salt.

In the treatment of the sick and the driving out of afflicting anito,
men and women alike serve.

Little work is demanded of the old people, though the labors they
perform are of great value to the pueblo, as the strong are thus
given more time for a vigorous industrial life.

Great service is rendered the pueblo by the councils of the old men,
and they are the "priests" of all ceremonials, except those of the
household.

The old men do practically nothing at manual labor in the
field. However, numbers of old men and women guard the palay sementeras
from the birds, and they frequently tend their grandchildren about
the pueblo. They also bring water from the river to the dwelling.

Old women seem generally busy. They prepare and cook foods, and they
spin materials for women's skirts and girdles. The blind women share
in these labors, even going to the river for water.

By labor of the group is meant the common effort of two or more people
whose everyday possessions and accumulations are not in common, as
they are in a family, to perform some definite labor which can be
better done by such effort than by the separate labors of the several
members of the group.

A pueblo war probably represents the largest necessary
group-occupation, because at such time all available warriors unite in
a concerted effort. Next to this, though possibly coming before it,
is the group assembled for the erection of a dwelling. As has been
noted, all dwellings are built by a group, and when a rich man's
domicile is to be put up a great many people assemble -- the men to
erect the dwelling, and the women to prepare and cook the food. A
great deal of agricultural labor is performed by the group. New
irrigation ditches are built by, or at the instance of, all those
who will benefit by them. The dam built annually across the river
at Bontoc pueblo is constructed by all, or at the instance of all,
who benefit from the additional irrigation water. Wild carabaos are
hunted by a group of men, and the domestic carabaos can be caught
only when several men surround and attack them.

All interpueblo commerce is carried on by a group of people. Almost
never does a person pass from one pueblo to another alone, and commerce
is the chief thing which causes the interpueblo communication. These
groups of traveling merchants consist of from two or three persons
to a dozen or more -- as in the case of the Samoki pottery sellers.


Wages, and exchange of labor

The woman receives the same wage as the man. There are two reasons
why she should. First, all labor is by the day, so the facts of
sickness and maternity never keep the woman from her labor when she
is expected and is depended on; and, second, she is as efficient in
the labors she performs as is the man -- in some she is recognized
as more efficient. She does as much work as a man, and does it as
well or better. It is worth so much to have a certain work done in a
particular time, and the Igorot pays the wage to whomever does the
work. The growing boy or girl who performs the same labors as an
adult receives an equal wage.

Not only do the people work by the day, but they are paid daily
also. Every night the laborer goes to the dwelling of his employer
and receives the wage; the wages of unmarried children are paid to
their parents.

To all classes of laborers dinner and sometimes supper is supplied. For
weeding and thinning the sementeras of young palay and for watching
the fruiting palay to drive away the birds, the only wage is these
two meals. But this labor is light, and frightening away the birds is
usually the work of children or very old people who can not perform
hard labors. In all classes of work for which only food is given,
much time is left to the laborers in which the men may weave their
basket work and the women spin the bark-fiber thread for skirts.

Five manojos of palay is the daily wage for all laborers except
those mentioned in the last paragraph. This is the wage of the wood
gatherer in the mountains, of the builder of granaries, sementeras,
irrigating ditches, and dikes, and of those who prepare soils and
who plant and harvest crops.

There is much exchange of labor between individuals, and even between
large groups of people, such as members of an ato. Formerly exchange
of labor was practiced slightly more than at present, but to-day,
as has been noted, all dwellings are built by the unpaid labor
of those who come for the accompanying feast and "good time," and
because their own dwellings were or will be built by such labor. A
great deal of agricultural labor is now paid for in kind; practically
all the available labor in an ato turns out to help a member when a
piece of work is urgent. However, it is not customary for poor people
to exchange their labor, since they constantly need food for those
dependent on them. When the poor man desires a wage for his toil he
needs only to tell some rich person that he wishes to work for him --
both understand that a wage will be paid.


Distribution

By the term "distribution" is here meant the ordinary division of
the productions of Bontoc area among the several classes of Igorot
in the area -- in other words, what is each person's share of that
which the area produces?

It must be said that distribution is very equitable. Wages are
uniform. No man or set of men habitually spoils another's accumulations
by exacting from him a tax or "rake off." There is no form of gambling
or winning another's earnings. There are no slaves or others who
labor without wages; children do not retain their own wages until
they marry, but they inherit all their parents' possessions. There is
almost no usury. There is no indigent class, and the rich men toil
as industriously in the fields as do the poor -- though I must say
I never knew a rich man to go as cargador on the trail.


Theft

Higher forms of society, even such society as the Christianized
Filipinos of the coastal cities, produce and possess a considerable
number of people who live and often raise families on personal
property stolen and carried away from the lawful owners. Almost no
thief in the Bontoc area escapes detection -- the society is too
simple for him to escape -- and when he is apprehended he restores
more than he took away. There is no opportunity for a thief class
to develop, consequently there is no chance for theft to distort the
usual equitable division of products.


Conquest

Conquest, or the act of gaining control and acquisition of another's
property by force of arms, is not operative in the Bontoc area. Moro
and perhaps other southern Malayan people frequently capture people
by conquest whom they enslave, and they also bring back much valuable
loot in the shape of metals and the much-prized large earthen jars.

Certain Igorot, as those of Asin, make forcible conquests on their
neighbors and carry away persons for slavery. Asin made a raid westward
into Suyak of Lepanto Province in 1900, and some American miners joined
the expedition of natives to try to recover the captives. But Bontoc
has no such conquests, and, since the people have long ago ceased
migration, there is no conquest of territory. In their interpueblo
warfare loot is seldom carried away. There is practically nothing in
the form of movable and easily controlled valuable possessions, such
as domestic cattle, horses, or carabaos, so the usual equilibrium of
Bontoc property distribution has little to disturb it.

The primitive agriculturist is thought of in history as the victim of
warlike neighbors who make predatory forays against him, repeatedly
robbing him of his hard-earned accumulations. In Igorot land this
is not the case. There are no savage or barbaric people, except the
Negritos who are not agriculturists. Sometimes, however, some of
the Igorot groups descend to the settlements of the Christians in
the lowlands and in the night bring back a few carabaos and hogs. The
Igorot of Quiangan are noted for such robberies made on the pueblos of
Bagabag and Ibung to the south in central Nueva Vizcaya. Sometimes,
also, one Igorot group speaks of another as Busol, or enemy, and
says the Busol come to rob them in the night. I believe, however,
from inquiries made, that relatively very small amounts of property
pass from one Igorot group to another by robbery or conquest.

The Bontoc Igorot appears to be in a transition stage, not usually
emphasized, between the communism of the savage or barbarian in which
each person is said to have a share as long as necessities last, and
the more advanced forms of society in which many classes are able to
divert to their own advantage much which otherwise would not come
to them. The Igorot is not a communist, neither in any sense does
he get the monopolist's share. He is living a life of such natural
production that he enjoys the fruits of his labors in a fairer way
than do many of the men beneath him or above him in culture.



Consumption

Under this title will be considered simply the foods and beverages
of the people. No attempt will be made to treat of consumption in
its breadth as it appears to the economist.


Foods

There are few forms of animal life about the Igorot that he will not
and does not eat. The exceptions are mainly insectivora, and such
larger animals as the mythology of the Igorot says were once men --
as the monkey, serpent-eagle, crow, snake, etc. However, he is not
wholly lacking in taste and preference in his foods. Of his common
vegetable foods he frequently said he prefers, first, beans; second,
rice; third, maize; fourth, camotes; fifth, millet.

Rice is the staple food, and most families have sufficient for
subsistence during the year. When rice is needed for food bunches
of the palay, as tied up at the harvest, are brought and laid in the
small pocket of the wooden mortar where they are threshed out of the
fruit head. One or two mortarsful is thus threshed and put aside on
a winnowing tray. When sufficient has been obtained the grain is put
again in the mortar and pounded to remove the pellicle. Usually only
sufficient rice is threshed and cleaned for the consumption of one
or two days. When the pellicle has been pounded loose the grain is
winnowed on a large round tray by a series of dexterous movements,
removing all chaff and dirt with scarcely the loss of a kernel of
good rice.

The work of threshing, hulling, and winnowing usually falls to the
women and girls, but is sometimes performed by the men when their
women are preoccupied. At one time when an American wished two or
three bushels of palay threshed, as horse food for the trail, three
Bontoc men performed the work in the classic treadmill manner. They
spread a mat on the earth, covered it with palay, and then tread,
or rather "rubbed," out the kernels with their bare feet. They often
scraped up the mass with their feet, bunching it and rubbing it in
a way that strongly suggested hands.

Rice is cooked in water without salt. An earthern pot is half filled
with the grain and is then filled to the brim with cold water. In
about twenty minutes the rice is cooked, filling the vessel, and
the water is all absorbed or evaporated. If there is no great haste,
the rice sets ten or fifteen minutes longer while the kernels dry out
somewhat. As the Igorot cooks rice, or, for that matter, as the native
anywhere in the Islands cooks it, the grains are not mashed and mussed
together, but each kernel remains whole and separate from the others.

Cooked rice, ma-kan', is almost always eaten with the fingers, being
crowded into the mouth with the back of the thumb. In Bontoc, Samoki,
Titipan, Mayinit, and Ganang salt is either sprinkled on the rice
after it is dished out or is tasted from the finger tips during the
eating. In some pueblos, as at Tulubin, almost no salt is eaten at
any time. When rice alone is eaten at a meal a family of five adults
eats about ten Bontoc manojo of rice per day.

Beans are cooked in the form of a thick soup, but without salt. Beans
and rice, each cooked separately, are frequently eaten together;
such a dish is called "sib-fan'." Salt is eaten with sib-fan' by
those pueblos which commonly consume salt.

Maize is husked, silked, and then cooked on the cob. It is eaten from
the cob, and no salt is used either in the cooking or eating.

Camotes are eaten raw a great deal about the pueblo, the sementera,
and the trail. Before they are cooked they are pared and generally
cut in pieces about 2 inches long; they are boiled without salt. They
are eaten alone at many meals, but are relished best when eaten with
rice. They are always eaten from the fingers.

One dish, called "ke-le'-ke," consists of camotes, pared and sliced,
and cooked and eaten with rice. This is a ceremonial dish, and is
always prepared at the lis-lis ceremony and at a-su-fal'-i-wis or
sugar-making time.

Camotes are always prepared immediately before being cooked, as they
blacken very quickly after paring.

Millet is stored in the harvest bunches, and must be threshed before it
is eaten. After being threshed in the wooden mortar the winnowed seeds
are again returned to the mortar and crushed. This crushed grain is
cooked as is rice and without salt. It is eaten also with the hands --
"fingers" is too delicate a term.

Some other vegetable foods are also cooked and eaten by the
Igorot. Among them is taro which, however, is seldom grown in the
Bontoc area. Outside the area, both north and south, there are large
sementeras of it cultivated for food. Several wild plants are also
gathered, and the leaves cooked and eaten as the American eats
"greens."

The Bontoc Igorot also has preferences among his regular flesh
foods. The chicken is prized most; next he favors pork; third, fish;
fourth, carabao; and fifth, dog. Chicken, pork (except wild hog),
and dog are never eaten except ceremonially. Fish and carabao are
eaten on ceremonial occasions, but are also eaten at other times --
merely as food.

The interesting ceremonial killing, dressing, and eating of chickens is
presented elsewhere, in the sections on "Death" and "Ceremonials." It
is unnecessary to repeat the information here, as the processes
are everywhere the same, excepting that generally no part of the
fowl, except the feathers, is unconsumed -- head, feet, intestines,
everything, is devoured.

The hog is ceremonially killed by cutting its throat, not by
"sticking," as is the American custom, but the neck is cut, half
severing the head. At Ambuklao, on the Agno River in Benguet Province,
I saw a hog ceremonially killed by having a round-pointed stick an
inch in diameter pushed and twisted into it from the right side behind
the foreleg, through and between the ribs, and into the heart. The
animal bled internally, and, while it was being cut up by four men
with much ceremony and show, the blood was scooped from the rib basin
where it had gathered, and was mixed with the animal's brains. The
intestines were then emptied by drawing between thumb and fingers,
and the blood and brain mixture poured into them from the stomach
as a funnel. A string of blood-and-brain sausages resulted, when the
intestines were cooked. The mouth of the Bontoc hog is held or tied
shut until the animal is dead. The Benguet hog could be heard for
fifteen minutes at least a quarter of a mile.

After the Bontoc hog is killed it is singed, cut up, and all put in
the large shallow iron boiler. When cooked it is cut into smaller
pieces, which are passed around to those assembled at the ceremonial.

Fish are eaten both ceremonially and privately whenever they
may be obtained. The small fish, the kacho, are in no way
cleaned or dressed. Two or three times I saw them cooked and
eaten ceremonially, and was told they are prepared the same way
for private consumption. The fish, scarcely any over 2 inches in
length, were strung on twisted green-grass strings about 6 inches in
length. Several of these strings were tied together and placed in an
olla of water. When cooked they were lifted out, the strings broken
apart, and the fish stripped off into a wooden bowl. Salt was then
liberally strewn over them. A large green leaf was brought as a plate
for each person present, and the fish were divided again and again
until each had an equal share. However, the old men present received
double share, and were served before the others. At one time a man
was present with a nursing babe in his arms, and he was given two
leaves, or two shares, though no one expected the babe could eat its
share. After the fish food was passed to each, the broth was also
liberally salted and then poured into several wooden bowls. At one
fish feast platters of cooked rice and squash were also brought and
set among the people. Handful after handful of solid food followed
its predecessor rapidly to the always-crammed mouth. The fish was
eaten as one might eat sparingly of a delicacy, and the broth was
drunk now and then between mouthfuls.

Two other fish are also eaten by the Igorot of the area, the liling,
about 4 to 6 inches in length -- also cooked and eaten without dressing
-- and the chalit, a large fish said to acquire the length of 4 feet.

Several small animals, crustaceans and mollusks, gathered in the
river and picked up in the sementeras by the women, are cooked
and eaten. All these are considered similar to fish and are eaten
similarly. Among these is a bright-red crab called "agkama."[30]
This is boiled and all eaten except part of the back shell and the
hard "pinchers." A shrimp-like crustacean obtained in the irrigated
sementeras is also boiled and eaten entire. A few mollusks are eaten
after being cooked. One, called kitan, I have seen eaten many times;
it is a snail-like animal, and after being boiled it is sucked into the
mouth after the apex of the shell has been bitten or broken off. Two
other animals said to be somewhat similar are called finga and lischug.

The carabao is killed by spearing and, though also eaten simply as
food, it is seldom killed except on ceremonial occasions, such as
marriages, funerals, the building of a dwelling, and peace and war
feasts whether actual events at the time or feasts in commemoration.

The chief occasion for eating carabao merely as a food is when an
animal is injured or ill at a time when no ceremonial event is at
hand. The animal is then killed and eaten. All is eaten that can be
masticated. The animal is neither skinned, singed, nor scraped. All is
cut up and cooked together -- hide, hair, hoofs, intestines, and head,
excepting the horns. Carabao is generally not salted in cooking, and
the use of salt in eating the flesh depends on the individual eater.

Sometimes large pieces of raw carabao meat are laid on high racks
near the dwelling and "dried" in the sun. There are several such
racks in Bontoc, and one can know a long distance from them whether
they hold "dried" meat. If one pueblo, in the area exceeds another in
the strength and unpleasantness of its "dried" meat it is Mayinit,
where on the occasion of a visit there a very small piece of meat
jammed on a stick-like a "taffy stick" -- and joyfully sucked by a
2-year-old babe successfully bombarded and depopulated our camp.

Various meats, called "it-tag'," as carabao and pork, are "preserved"
by salting down in large bejuco-bound gourds, called "fa'-lay,"
or in tightly covered ollas, called "tu-u'-nan." All pueblos in the
area (except Ambawan, which has an unexplained taboo against eating
carabao) thus store away meats, but Bitwagan, Sadanga, and Tukukan
habitually salt large quantities in the fa'-lay. Meats are kept thus
two or three years, though of course the odor is vile.

The dog ranks last in the list of regular flesh foods of the Bontoc
man. In the Benguet area it ranks second, pork receiving the first
place. The Ibilao does not eat dog -- his dog is a hunter and guard,
giving alarm of the approaching enemy.

In Bontoc the dog is eaten only on ceremonial occasions. Funerals
and marriages are probably more often celebrated by a dog feast than
are any other of their ceremonials. The animal's mouth is held closed
and his legs secured while he is killed by cutting the throat. Then
his tail is cut off close to the body -- why, I could not learn,
but I once saw it, and am told it always is so. The animal is singed
in the fire and the crisped hair rubbed off with sticks and hands,
after which it is cut up and boiled, and then further cut up and
eaten as is the carabao meat.

Young babies are sometimes fed hard-boiled fresh eggs, but the Igorot
otherwise does not eat "fresh" eggs, though he does eat large numbers
of stale ones. He prefers to wait, as one of them said, "until
there is something in the egg to eat." He invariably brings stale
or developing eggs to the American until he is told to bring fresh
ones. It is not alone the Igorot who has this peculiar preference --
the same condition exists widespread in the Archipelago.

Locusts, or cho'-chon, are gathered, cooked, and eaten by the Igorot,
as by all other natives in the Islands. They are greatly relished,
but may be had in Bontoc only irregularly -- perhaps once or twice
for a week or ten days each year, or once in two years. They are
cooked in boiling water and later dried, whereupon they become crisp
and sweet. By some Igorot they are stored away, but I can not say
whether they are kept in Bontoc any considerable time after cooking.

The locusts come in storms, literally like a pelting, large-flaked
snowstorm, driving across the country for hours and even days at a
time. All Igorot have large scoop nets for catching them and immense
bottle-like baskets in which to put them and transport them home. The
locust catcher runs along in the storm, and, whirling around in it with
his large net, scoops in the victims. Many families sometimes wander
a week or more catching locusts when they come to their vicinity, and
cease only when miles from home. The cry of "enemy" will scarcely set
an Igorot community astir sooner than will the cry of "cho'-chon." The
locust is looked upon by them as a very manna from heaven. Pi-na-lat'
is a food of cooked locusts pounded and mixed with uncooked rice. All
is salted down in an olla and tightly covered over with a vegetable
leaf or a piece of cloth. When it is eaten the mixture is cooked,
though this cooking does not kill the strong odor of decay.

Other insect foods are also eaten. I once saw a number of men
industriously robbing the large white "eggs" from an ant nest in
a tree. The nest was built of leaves attached by a web. Into the
bottom of this closed pocket the men poked a hole with a long stick,
letting a pint or more of the white pupae run out on a winnowing tray
on the earth. From this tray the furious ants were at length driven,
and the eggs taken home for cooking.


Beverages

The Igorot drinks water much more than any other beverage. On the
trail, though carrying loads while the American may walk empty handed,
he drinks less than the American. He seldom drinks while eating,
though he makes a beverage said to be drunk only at mealtime. After
meals he usually drinks water copiously.

Ba-si is the Igorot name of the fermented beverage prepared from sugar
cane. "Ba-si," under various names, is found widespread throughout
the Islands. The Bontoc man makes his ba-si in December. He boils
the expressed juice of the sugar cane about six hours, at which time
he puts into it a handful of vegetable ferment obtained from a tree
called "tub-fig'." This vegetable ferment is gathered from the tree
as a flower or young fruit; it is dried and stored in the dwelling
for future use. The brewed liquid is poured into a large olla,
the flat-bottom variety called "fu-o-foy'" manufactured expressly
for ba-si, and then is tightly covered over and set away in the
granary. In five days the ferment has worked sufficiently, and the
beverage may be drunk. It remains good about four months, for during
the fifth or sixth month it turns very acid.

Ba-si is manufactured by the men alone. Tukukan and Titipan manufacture
it to sell to other pueblos; it is sold for about half a peso per
gallon. It is drunk quite a good deal during the year, though mostly
on ceremonial occasions. Men frequently carry a small amount of it
with them to the sementeras when they guard them against the wild hogs
during the long nights. They say it helps to keep them warm. One glass
of ba-si will intoxicate a person not accustomed to drink it, though
the Igorot who uses it habitually may drink two or three glasses before
intoxication. Usually a man drinks only a few swallows of it at a time,
and I never saw an Igorot intoxicated except during some ceremony and
then not more than a dozen in several months. Women never drink ba-si.

Ta-pu-i is a fermented drink made from rice, the cha-yet'-it variety,
they say, grown in Bontoc pueblo. It is a very sweet and sticky rice
when cooked. This beverage also is found practically everywhere in the
Archipelago. Only a small amount of the cha-yet'-it is grown by Bontoc
pueblo. To manufacture ta-pu-i the rice is cooked and then spread on a
winnowing tray until it is cold. When cold a few ounces of a ferment
called "fu-fud" are sprinkled over it and thoroughly stirred in; all
is then put in an olla, which is tied over and set away. The ferment
consists of cane sugar and dry raw rice pounded and pulverized together
to a fine powder. This is then spread in the sun to dry and is later
squeezed into small balls some 2 inches in diameter. This ferment will
keep a year. When needed a ball is pulverized and sprinkled fine over
the cooked rice. An olla of rice prepared for ta-pu-i will be found
in one day half filled with the beverage.

Ta-pu-i will keep only about two months. It is never drunk by the
women, though they do eat the sweet rice kernels from the jar,
and they, as well as the men, manufacture it. It is claimed never
to be manufactured in the Bontoc area for sale. A half glass of the
beverage will intoxicate. At the end of a month the beverage is very
intoxicating, and is then commonly weakened with water. Ta-pu-i is
much preferred to ba-si.

The Bontoc man prepares another drink which is filthy, and, even they
themselves say, vile smelling. It is called "sa-fu-eng'," is drunk at
meals, and is prepared as follows: Cold water is first put in a jar,
and into it are thrown cooked rice, cooked camotes, cooked locusts,
and all sorts of cooked flesh and bones. The resulting liquid is drunk
at the end of ten days, and is sour and vinegar-like. The preparation
is perpetuated by adding more water and solid ingredients -- it does
not matter much what they are.

The odor of sa-fu-eng' is the worst stench in Bontoc. I never closely
investigated the beverage personally -- but I have no reason to doubt
what the Igorot says of it; but if all is true, why is it not fatal?


Salt

Throughout the year the pueblo of Mayinit produces salt from a number
of brackish hot springs occupying about an acre of ground at the
north end of the pueblo.

Mayinit has a population of about 1,000 souls, probably half of whom
are directly interested in salt production. It is probable that the
pueblo owes its location to the salt springs, although adjoining it
to the south is an arable valley now filled with rice sementeras,
which may first have drawn the people.

The hot springs slowly raise their water to the surface, where it
flows along in shallow streams. Over these streams, or rather sheets of
sluggish water, the Igorot have built 152 salt houses, usually about
12 feet wide and from 12 to 25 feet long. The houses, well shown in
Pl. CXV, are simply grass-covered roofs extending to the earth.

There is no ownership in the springs to-day -- just as there is no
ownership in springs which furnish irrigating water -- one owns the
water that passes into his salt house, but has no claim on that which
passes through it and flows out below. So each person has ownership of
all and only all the water he can use within his plant, and the people
claim there are no disputes between owners of houses -- as they look
at it, each owner of a salt house has an equal chance to gather salt.

The ground space of the salt house is closely paved with cobblestones
from 4 to 6 inches in diameter. The water passes among the bases of
these stones, and the salt is deposited in a thin crust over their
surface. (See Pl. CXVI.)

These houses are inherited, and, as a consequence, several persons
may ultimately have proprietary interest in one house. In such a case
the ground space is divided, often resulting in many twig-separated
patches, as is shown in fig. 7.

About once each month the salt is gathered. The women of the family
work naked in the stream-filled house, washing the crust of salt from
the stones into a large wooden trough, called "ko-long'-ko." Each
stone is thoroughly washed and then replaced in the pavement. The
saturated brine is preserved in a gourd until sufficient is gathered
for evaporation.


FIGURE 7

Ground plan of Mayinit salt house.


Two or more families frequently join in evaporating their salt. The
brine is boiled in the large, shallow iron boilers, and from half a
day to a day is necessary to effect the evaporation. Evaporation is
discontinued when the salt is reduced to a thick paste.

The evaporated salt is spread in a half-inch layer on a piece of banana
leaf cut about 5 inches square. The leaf of paste is supported by two
sticks on, but free from, a piece of curved broken pottery which is
the baking pan. The salt thus prepared for baking is set near a fire
in the dwelling where it is baked thirty or forty minutes. It is then
ready for use at home or for commerce, and is preserved in the square,
flat cakes called "luk'-sa."

Analyses have been made of Mayinit salt as prepared by the crude
method of the Igorot. The showing is excellent when the processes
are considered, the finished salt having 86.02 per cent of sodium
chloride as against 90.68 per cent for Michigan common salt and 95.35
for Onondaga common salt.

Table of salt composition


Constituent elements
Mayinit salt[31]
Common fine --


Saturated brine
Evaporated salt
Baked salt
Michigan salt[32]
Onondaga salt.


PER CENT
PER CENT
PER CENT
PER CENT
PER CENT

Calcium sulphate
0.73
1.50
0.46
0.805
1.355

Sodium sulphate
.92
6.28
10.03
 --
 --

Sodium chloride
7.95
72.19
86.02
90.682
95.353

Insoluble matter
2.14
.16
.45
 --
 --

Water
88.03
19.19
1.78
6.752
3.000

Undetermined
.23
.68
.1.26
 --
 --

Calcium chloride
 --
 --
 --
.974
.155

Magnesium chloride
 --
 --
 --
.781
.136

Total
100
100
100
99.994
99.999


One house produces from six to thirty cakes of salt at each baking. A
cake is valued at an equivalent of 5 cents, thus making an average
salt house, producing, say, fifteen cakes per month, worth 9 pesos
per year. Salt houses are seldom sold, but when they are they claim
they sell for only 3 or 4 pesos.


Sugar

In October and November the Bontoc Igorot make sugar from cane. The
stalks are gathered, cut in lengths of about 20 inches, tied in bundles
a foot in diameter, and stored away until the time for expressing
the juice.

The sugar-cane crusher, shown in Pl. CXVIII, consists of two sometimes
of three, vertical, solid, hard-wood cylinders set securely to revolve
in two horizontal timbers, which, in turn, are held in place by two
uprights. One of the cylinders projects above the upper horizontal
timber and has fitted over it, as a key, a long double-end sweep. This
main cylinder conveys its power to the others by means of wooden cogs
which are set firmly in the wood and play into sockets dug from the
other cylinder. Boys commonly furnish the power used to crush the cane,
and there is much song and sport during the hours of labor.

Two people, usually boys, sitting on both sides of the crusher, feed
the cane back and forth. Three or four stalks are put through at a
time, and they are run through thirty or forty times, or until they
break into pieces of pulp not over three or four inches in length.

The juice runs down a slide into a jar set in the ground beneath
the crusher.

The boiling is done in large shallow iron boilers over an
open fire under a roof. I have known the Igorot to operate the
crusher until midnight, and to boil down the juice throughout the
night. Sugar-boiling time is known as a-su-fal'-i-wis.

A delicious brown cake sugar is made, which, in some parts of the
area, is poured to cool and is preserved in bamboo tubes, in other
parts it is cooked and preserved in flat cakes an inch in thickness.

There is not much sugar made in the area, and a large part of the
product is purchased by the Ilokano. The Igorot cares very little for
sweets; even the children frequently throw away candy after tasting it.


Meals and mealtime

The man of the family arises about 3.30 or 4 o'clock in the morning. He
builds the fires and prepares to cook the family breakfast and the
food for the pigs. A labor generally performed each morning is the
paring of camotes. In about half an hour after the man arises the
camotes and rice are put over to cook. The daughters come home from
the olag, and the boys from their sleeping quarters shortly before
breakfast. Breakfast, called "mang-an'," meaning simply "to eat,"
is taken by all members of the family together, usually between 5 and
6 o'clock. For this meal all the family, sitting on their haunches,
gather around three or four wooden dishes filled with steaming hot food
setting on the earth. They eat almost exclusively from their hands,
and seldom drink anything at breakfast, but they usually drink water
after the meal.

The members of the family who are to work away from the dwelling
leave about 7 or 7.30 o'clock -- but earlier, if there is a rush of
work. If the times are busy in the fields, the laborers carry their
dinner with them; if not, all members assemble at the dwelling and
eat their dinner together about 1 o'clock. This midday meal is often
a cold meal, even when partaken in the house.

Field laborers return home about 6.30, at which time it is too dark
to work longer, but during the rush seasons of transplanting and
harvesting palay the Igorot generally works until 7 or 7.30 during
moonlight nights. All members of the family assemble for supper, and
this meal is always a warm one. It is generally cooked by the man,
unless there is a boy or girl in the family large enough to do it,
and who is not at work in the fields. It is usually eaten about 7 or
7.30 o'clock, on the earth floor, as is the breakfast. A light is used,
a bright, smoking blaze of the pitch pine. It burns on a flat stone
kept ready in every house -- it is certainly the first and crudest
house lamp, being removed in development only one infinitesimal step
from the Stationary fire. This light is also sometimes employed at
breakfast time, if the morning meal is earlier than the sun.

Usually by 8 o'clock the husband and wife retire for the night,
and the children leave home immediately after supper.


Transportation

The human is the only beast of burden in the Bontoc area. Elsewhere
in northern Luzon the Christianized people employ horses, cattle,
and carabaos as pack animals. Along the coastwise roads cattle and
carabaos haul two-wheel carts, and in the unirrigated lowland rice
tracts these same animals drag sleds surmounted by large basket-work
receptacles for the palay. The Igorot has doubtless seen all of these
methods of animal transportation, but the conditions of his home are
such that he can not employ them.

He has no roads for wheels; neither carabaos, cattle, nor horses could
go among his irrigated sementeras; and he has relatively few loads of
produce coming in and going out of his pueblo. Such loads as he has
can be transported by himself with greater safety and speed than by
quadrupeds; and so, since he almost never moves his place of abode,
he has little need of animal transportation.

To an extent the river is employed to transport boards, timbers,
and firewood to both Bontoc and Samoki during the high water of the
rainy season. Probably one-fourth of the firewood is borne by the
river a part of its journey to the pueblos. But there is no effort
at comprehensive water transportation; there are no boats or rafts,
and the wood which does float down the river journeys in single pieces.

The characteristic of Bontoc transportation is that the men invariably
carry all their heavy loads on their shoulders, and the women as
uniformly transport theirs on their heads.

In Benguet all people carry on their backs, as also do the women of
the Quiangan area.

In all heavy transportation the Bontoc men carry the spear, using the
handle as a staff, or now and then as a support for the load; the women
frequently carry a stick for a staff. Man's common transportation
vehicle is the ki-ma'-ta, and in it he carries palay, camotes, and
manure. He swings along at a pace faster than the walk, carrying
from 75 to 100 pounds. He carries all firewood from the mountains,
directly on his bare shoulders. Large timbers for dwellings are borne
by two or more men directly on the shoulders; and timbers are now,
season of 1903, coming in for a schoolhouse carried by as many as
twenty-four men. Crosspieces, as yokes, are bound to the timbers with
bark lashings, and two or four men shoulder each yoke.

Rocks built into dams and dikes are carried directly on the bare
shoulders. Earth, carried to or from the building sementeras, in the
trails, or about the dwellings, is put first in the tak-o-chug', the
basket-work scoop, holding about 30 or 40 pounds of earth, and this
is carried by wooden handles lashed to both sides and is dumped into
a transportation basket, called "ko-chuk-kod'." This is invariably
hoisted to the shoulder when ready for transportation. When men carry
water the fang'-a or olla is placed directly on the shoulder as are
the rocks.

When the man is to be away from home over night he usually carries his
food and blanket, if he has one, in the waterproof fang'-ao slung on
his back and supported by a bejuco strap passing over each shoulder
and under the arm. This is the so-called "head basket," and, as a
matter of fact, is carried on war expeditions by those pueblos that
use it, though it is also employed in more peaceful occupations. As
a cargador the man carries his burdens on the shoulder in three ways
-- either double, the cargo on a pole between two men; or singly,
with the cargo divided and tied to both ends of the pole; or singly,
with the cargo laid directly on the shoulder.

Women carry as large burdens as do the men. They have two commonly
employed transportation baskets, neither of which have I seen a man
even so much as pick up. These are the shallow, pan-shaped lu'-wa
and the deeper, larger tay-ya-an'. In these two baskets, and also at
times in the man's ki-ma'-ta, the women carry the same things as are
borne by the men. Not infrequently the woman uses her two baskets
together at the same time -- the tay-ya-an' setting in the lu'-wa,
as is shown in Pls. CXIX and CXXI. When she carries the ki-ma'-ta she
places the middle of the connecting pole, the pal-tang on her head,
with one basket before her and the other behind. At all times the
woman wears on her head beneath her burden a small grass ring 5 or 6
inches in diameter, called a "ki'-kan." Its chief function is that of
a cushion, though when her burden is a fang'-a of water the ki'-kan
becomes also a base -- without which the round-bottomed olla could
not be balanced on her head without the support of her hands.

The woman's rain protector is often brought home from the camote
gardens bottom up on the woman's head full of camote vines as food
for the pigs, or with long, dry grass for their bedding. And, as has
been noted, all day long during April and May, when there were no
camote vines, women and little girls were going about bearing their
small scoop-shaped sug-fi' gathering wild vegetation for the hogs.

Almost all of the water used in Bontoc is carried from the river to the
pueblo, a distance ranging from a quarter to half a mile. The women
and girls of a dozen years or more probably transport three-fourths
of the water used about the house. It is carried in 4 to 6 gallon
ollas borne on the head of the woman or shoulder of the man. Women
totally blind, and many others nearly blind, are seen alone at the
river getting water.

About half the women and many of the men who go to the river daily
for water carry babes. Children from 1 to 4 years old are frequently
carried to and from the sementeras by their parents, and at all
times of the day men, women, and children carry babes about the
pueblo. They are commonly carried on the back, sitting in a blanket
which is slung over one shoulder, passing under the other, and tied
across the breast. Frequently the babe is shifted forward, sitting
astride the hip. At times, though rarely, it is carried in front of
the person. A frequent sight is that of a woman with a babe in the
blanket on her back and an older child astride her hip supported by
her encircling arm.

When one sees a woman returning from the river to the pueblo at
sundown a child on her back and a 6-gallon jar of water on her head,
and knows that she toiled ten or twelve hours that day in the field
with her back bent and her eyes on the earth like a quadruped, and
yet finds her strong and joyful, he believes in the future of the
mountain people of Luzon if they are guided wisely -- they have the
strength and courage to toil and the elasticity of mind and spirit
necessary for development.


Commerce

The Bontoc Igorot has a keen instinct for a bargain, but his importance
as a comerciante has been small, since his wants are few and the
state of feud is such that he can not go far from home.

His bargain instinct is shown constantly. The American stranger is
charged from two to ten times the regular price for things he wishes
to buy. Early in April of the last two years the price of palay
for the American has, on a plea of scarcity, advanced 20 per cent,
although it has been proved that there is at all times enough palay
in the pueblo for three years' consumption.

Rather than spoil a possible high price of a product, outside pueblos
have left articles overnight with Bontoc friends to be sold to the
American next day at his own price, and when those pueblos came again
to vend similar wares the high prices were maintained.


Barter

Most commerce is carried on by barter. Within a pueblo naturally having
neither stores nor a legalized currency people trade among themselves,
but the word "barter" as here used means the systematic exchange of
the products of one community for those of another.

To note the articles produced for commerce by two or three pueblos will
give a fair illustration of the importance which interpueblo commerce
carried on entirely by barter has assumed among the Igorot. of the
Bontoc culture group, though the comerciante rarely remains from home
more than one night at a time.

The luwa, the woman's shallow transportation basket, is made by the
pueblo of Samoki only, and it is employed by fifteen or eighteen other
pueblos. Samoki also makes the akaug, or rice sieve, which is used
commonly in the vicinity. Bontoc and Samoki alone make the woman's
deeper transportation basket, the tayyaan, and it is used quite as
extensively as is the luwa.

The sleeping hat is made only by Bontoc and Samoki; it goes extensively
in commerce. The large winnowing tray employed universally by the
Igorot is said to be made nowhere in the vicinity except in Samoki and
Kamyu. Bontoc and Samoki alone make the man's dirt scoop, the takochug,
and it is invariably employed by all men laboring in the sementeras.

Neither Bontoc nor Samoki is within the zone of bejuco, from
which a considerable part of their basket work is made, and, as a
consequence, the raw material is bartered for from pueblos one or
two days distant. Barlig furnishes most of the bejuco. Every manojo
of Bontoc and Samoki palay is tied up at harvest time with a strip of
one variety of bamboo called "fika" made by the pueblos from sections
of bamboo brought in bundles from a day's journey westward to barter
during April and May. The rain hat of the Bontoc man is coated with
beeswax coming in trade from Barlig, as does also the clear and pure
resin used by the women of Samoki in glazing their pots.

Towns to the east of Bontoc, such as Tukukan, Sakasakan, and Tinglayan,
grow tobacco which passes westward in trade from town to town nearly,
if not quite, through the Province of Lepanto. It doubles its value
for about every day of its journey, or at each trading.

Samoki pottery and the salt of Mayinit offer as good illustrations as
there are of the Igorot barter. A dozen loads of earthenware, from
sixty to seventy-five pots, leave Samoki at one time destined for a
single pueblo (see Pl. CXXIII). The Samoki pot is made for a definite
trade. Titipan uses many of a certain kind for her commercial basi and
the potters say that they make pots somewhat different for about all
the two dozen pueblos supplied by them. The potter has learned the art
of catering to the trade. There is not only a variety of forms made
but the capacity of the fangas ranges from about one quart to ten and
twelve gallons, and each variety is made to satisfy a particular and
known demand. Samoki ware seldom passes as far east as Sakasakan, only
four or five hours distant, because similar ware is made in Bituagan,
which supplies not only Sakasakan but the pueblos farther up the river.

There are supposed to be between 280 and 290 families dwelling
in Bontoc, and, at a conservative estimate, each family has eight
fangas. Each dwelling of a widow has several, so it is a fair estimate
to say there are 300 dwellings in the pueblo, having a total of 2,400
fangas. Samoki has about 1,200 fangas in daily use. The estimated
population of the several towns that use Samoki pots is 24,000.

There is about one pot per individual in daily use in Bontoc and
Samoki, and this estimate is probably fair for the other pueblos. So
about 24,000 Samoki pots are daily in use, and this number is
maintained by the potters. Igorot claim the average life of a fanga
of Samoki is one year or less, so the pueblo must sell at least
24,000 pots per annum. At the average price of 5 centavos about the
equivalent of 1,200 pesos come to the pueblo annually from this art,
or about 40 pesos for each of the thirty potters, whether or not she
works at her art. A few years ago, during a severe state of feud,
Samoki pots increased in value about thirty-fold; it is said that the
potters purchased carabao for ten large ollas each. To-day the large
ollas are worth about 2 pesos, and carabaos are valued at from 40 to
70 pesos.

Mayinit salt passes in barter to about as many pueblos as do the
Samoki pots, but while the pots go westward to the border of the
Bontoc culture area the salt passes far beyond the eastern border,
being bartered from pueblo to pueblo. It does not go far north of
Mayinit, or go at all regularly far west, because those pueblos within
access of the China Sea coast buy salt evaporated from sea water by
the Ilokano of Candon. In April at two different times twelve loads
of Candon salt passed eastward through Bontoc on the shoulders of
Tukukan men, but during the rainy season and the busy planting and
harvesting months Mayinit salt supplies a large demand.

In Bontoc and Samoki there are about one hundred and fifty gold
earrings which came from the gold-producing country about Suyak,
Lepanto Province. Carabaos are almost invariably traded for
these. Sometimes one carabao, sometimes two, and again three are
bartered for one gold earring. During the months of March and April
the pueblo of Balili traded three of these earrings to Bontoc men
for carabaos, and this particular form of barter has been carried on
for generations.

Balili, Alap, Sadanga, Takong, Sagada, Titipan and other pueblos
between Bontoc pueblo and Lepanto Province to the west weave
breechcloths and skirts which are brought by their makers and disposed
of to Bontoc and adjacent pueblos. Agawa, Genugan, and Takong bring in
clay and metal pipes of their manufacture. Much of these productions
is bartered directly for palay. If money is paid for the articles it
is invariably turned into palay, because this is the greatest constant
need of manufacturing Igorot pueblos.


Sale

The Spaniard left his impress on the Igorot of Bontoc pueblo in no
realm probably more surely than in that of the appreciation of the
value of money.

The sale instinct, and not the barter instinct, is foremost now in
Bontoc and Samoki when an American is a party to a bargain, and
this is true in all pueblos on the main trail to Lepanto and the
west coast. But one has little difficulty in bartering for Igorot
productions if he has things the people want -- such as brass wire,
cloth for the woman's skirt, the man's breechcloth, a shirt, or
coat. In many pueblos the people try to buy for money the articles
the American brings in for barter, although it is true that barter
will often get from them many things which money can not buy. To
the northeast and south of Bontoc barter will purchase practically
anything.

The conditions of peace among the pueblos since the arrival of the
Americans and the money which is now everywhere within the area have
been the important factors in helping to develop interpueblo commerce
from barter to sale.

Most of the clothing worn in the pueblos of Lepanto Province is made
from cotton purchased for money at the coast. With few exceptions the
breechcloths and blankets worn by Bontoc and Samoki are purchased for
money, though it is not very many years since the bark breechcloth made
in Titipan and Barlig was worn, and in Tulubin, only two hours distant,
Barlig blankets and breechcloths of whole bark are worn to-day.

One week in April a Bontoc Igorot traded a carabao to an Ilokano of
Lepanto Province for a copper ganza, the customary way of purchasing
ganzas, and the following week another Bontoc man sold a carabao for
money to another Lepanto Ilokano.

The Baliwang battle-ax and spear are now more generally sold for
money than is any other production made or disposed of within the
Bontoc area. They are said to-day to be seldom bartered for.


Medium of exchange

That a people with such incipient social and political institutions
as has the Bontoc Igorot should have developed a "money" is
remarkable. The North American Indian with his strong tendency and
adaptability to political organization had no such money. Nothing
of the kind has been presented as belonging to the Australian of
ultrasocial development, and I am not aware that anything equal
has been produced by other similar primitive peoples. However,
it seems not improbable that allied tribes (say, of Malayan stock)
which have solved the problem of subsistence in a like way have a
similar currency, although I find no mention of it among four score
of writers whose observations on similar tribes of Borneo have come
to hand, and nothing similar has yet been found in the Philippines.

The Bontoc Igorot has a "medium of exchange" which gives a "measure
of exchange value" for articles bought and sold, and which has a
"standard of value." In other words he has "good money" probably the
best money that could have been devised by him for his society. It
is his staple product -- palay, the unthreshed rice.

Palay is at all times good money, and it is the thing commonly
employed in exchange. It answers every purpose of a suitable medium
of exchange. It is always in demand, since it is the staple food. It
is kept eight or ten years without deterioration. Except when used to
purchase clothing, it is seldom heavier or more difficult to transport
than is the object for which it is exchanged. It is of very stable
value, so much so that as a purchaser of Igorot labor and products
its value is constant; and it can not be counterfeited.

Aside from this universal medium of exchange the characteristic
production of each community, in a minor way, answers for the community
the needs of a medium of exchange.

Samoki buys many things with her pots, such as tobacco and salt
from Mayinit; cloth from Igorot comerciantes, breechcloth and basi
from the Igorot producers; chickens, pigs, palay, and camotes from
neighboring pueblos. Mayinit uses her salt in much the same way,
only probably to a less extent. Salt is not consumed by all the people.

To-day, as formerly, the live pig and hog and pieces of pork and
carabao meat are used a great deal in barter. As far back as the
pueblo memory extends pigs have been used to purchase a particularly
good breechcloth called "balakes," made in Balangao, three days east
of Bontoc.

In all sales the medium of exchange is entirely in coin. Paper will not
be received by the Igorot. The peso (the Spanish and Mexican silver
dollar) passes in the area at the rate of two to one with American
money. There is also the silver half peso, the peseta or one-fifth
peso, and the half peseta. The latter two are not plentiful. The only
other coin is the copper "sipen."

No centavos (cents) reach the districts of Lepanto and Bontoc from
Manila, and for years the Igorot of the copper region of Suyak and
Mankayan, Lepanto, have manufactured a counterfeit copper coin
called "sipen." All the half-dozen copper coins current in the
active commercial districts of the Islands are here counterfeited,
and the "sipen" passes at the high rate of 80 per peso; it is common
and indispensable. A crude die is made in clay, and has to be made
anew for each "sipen" coined. The counterfeit passes throughout
the area, but in Tinglayan, just beyond its eastern border, it is
not known. Within two days farther east small coins are unknown,
the peso being the only money value in common knowledge.


Measure of exchange value

The Igorot has as clear a conception of the relative value of two
things bartered as has the civilized man when he buys or sells for
money. The value of all things, from a 5-cent block of Mayinit salt
to a P70 carabao, is measured in palay. To-day, as formerly, every
bargain between two Igorot is made on the basis of the palay value
of the articles bought or sold. This is so even though the payment
is in money.


Standard of value

The standard of value of the palay currency is the sin fing-e' --
the Spanish "manojo," or handful -- a small bunch of palay tied up
immediately below the fruit heads. It is about one foot long, half head
and half straw. The value of such a standard is not entirely uniform,
and yet there is a great uniformity in the size of the sin fing-e',
and all values are satisfactorily taken from it.


Palay currency

An elaborate palay currency has been evolved from the standard,
of which the following are the denominations:



Denomination
Number of handfuls

Sin fing-e'
1

Sin i'-ting
5

Chu'-wa i'-ting
10

To-lo' i'-ting
15

I'-pat i'-ting
20

Pu'-ak or gu'-tad
25

Sin fu tek'
50

Sin fu-tek' pu'-ak
75

Chu'-wa fu-tek'
100

To-lo' fu-tek'
150

I'-pat fu-tek'
200

Li-ma' fu-tek'
250

I-nim' fu-tek'
300

Pi-to' fu-tek'
350

Wa-lo' fu-tek'
400

Si-am' fu-tek'
450

Sim-po'-o fu-tek'
500

Sin-o'-po
1,000



Trade routes

Commerce passes quite commonly within the Bontoc culture area from
one pueblo to the next, and even to the second and third pueblos if
they are friends; but the general direction is along the main river
(the Chico), southwest and northeast, since here the people cling. This
being the case, those living to the south and north of this line have
much less commerce than those along the river route. For instance,
practically no people now pass through Ambawan, southeast of Bontoc. It
is the last pueblo in the area along the old Spanish calzada between
the culture areas of Bontoc and Quiangan to the south. No people live
farther southward along the route for nearly a day, and the first
pueblos met are enemies of Ambawan, fearful and feared. The only
commerce between the two culture areas over this route passes when a
detachment of native Constabulary soldiers makes the journey. Naturally
the area traversed by a comerciante is limited by the existing
feuds. The trader will not go among enemies without escort.

Besides the general trade route up and down the river, there is one
between Bontoc and Barlig to the east via Kanyu and Tulubin. At Barlig
the trail splits, one branch running farther eastward through Lias
and Balangao and the other going southward through the Cambulo area
-- a large valley of people said to be similar in culture to those
of Quiangan.

Another route from Bontoc leaves the main trail at Titipan and joins
the pueblos of Tunnolang, Fidelisan, and Agawa in a general southwest
direction. From Agawa the trail crosses the mountains, keeping its
general southwest course. It turns westward at the Rio Balasian,
which it follows to Ankiling on the Rio del Abra. The route is then
along the main road to Candon on the coast via Salcedo.

Mayinit, the salt-producing pueblo, has her outlet on the main
trail via Bontoc, but she also passes eastward to the main trail at
Sakasakan, going through Baliwang, the battle-ax pueblo. She has no
outlet to the north.


Trade languages and traders

Since the commerce is to-day nearly all interpueblo, the common
language of the Igorot is used almost exclusively in trade. While
the Spaniards were occupying the country, Chinamen -- the "Chino"
of the Islands -- passed up from the coast as far as Bontoc, and even
farther; the Ilokano also came. They brought much of the iron now in
the country, and also came with brass wire, cloth, cotton, gangsas,
and salt. These two classes of traders took out, in the main, the
money and carabaos of the Igorot, and the Spaniard's coffee, cocoa,
and money. To-day no comerciante from the coast dares venture farther
inland than Sagada. Of the tradesmen the Chinese did not apparently
affect the trade language at all, since the Chino commonly employs
the Ilokano language. The Spanish gave the words of salutation, as
"Buenos dias" (good day) and "a Dios" (adieu); he also gave some
of the names of coins. The peso, the silver dollar, is commonly
called "peho." However, the medio peso is known as "thalepi," from
the Ilokano "salepi." The peseta is called "peseta;" and the media
peseta is known as "dies ay seis" (ten and six), or, simply, "seis"
-- it is from the Spanish, meaning sixteen quartos.

The Ilokano language was the more readily adopted, since it is of
Malayan origin, and is heard west of the Igorot with increasing
frequency until its home is reached on the coast. Among the Ilokano
words common in the language of commerce are the following:

Ma'-no, how much; a-sin', salt; ba'-ag, breechcloth; bu-ya'-ang, black;
con-di'-man, red; fan-cha'-la, blanket, white, with end stripes;
pas-li-o', Chinese bar iron from which axes, spears, and bolos are
made; ba-rot', brass wire; pi-nag-pa'-gan, a woman's blanket of
distinctive design.

An Americanism used commonly in commercial transactions in the area,
and also widely in northern Luzon, is "no got." It is an expression
here to stay, and its simplicity as a vocalization has had much to
do with its adoption.


Stages of commerce

The commerce of the Igorot illustrates what seems to be the first
distinctively commercial activity. Preceding it is the stage of barter
between people who casually meet and who trade carried possessions
on the whim of the moment. If we wish to dignify this kind of barter,
it may properly be called "Fortuitous Commerce."

The next stage, one of the two illustrated by the Igorot of the
Bontoc culture area, is that in which commodities are produced
before a widespread or urgent demand exists for them in the minds
of those who eventually become consumers through commerce. Such
commodities result largely from a local demand and a local supply of
raw materials. Gradually they spread over a widening area, carried
by their producers whose home demand is, for the time, supplied, and
who desire some commodity to be obtained among another people. Such
venders never or rarely go alone to exchange their goods, which,
also, are seldom produced by simply one person, but by a number of
individuals or a considerable group. The motive prompting this commerce
is the desire on the part of the trader to obtain the commodity for
which he goes. In order to obtain it in honor, he attempts to thrust
his own productions on the others by carrying his commodities among
them. Commerce in this stage may be called "Irregular Intrusive
Commerce." It also has its birth and development in barter.

A higher stage of commerce, an immediate outgrowth of the preceding,
is that in which the producer anticipates a known demand for
his commodity, and at irregular times carries his stock to the
consumers. This commerce may be called "Irregular Invited Commerce." It
is in this stage that a medium of exchange is likely to develop. This
class of commerce is also in full operation in Bontoc to-day.

A higher form is that in which the producer keeps a supply of his
commodity on hand. and periodically displays it repeatedly in a known
place -- a "market." This stage also may be developed simply through
barter, as is seen among certain pueblo Indians of southwestern United
States, but the Bontoc man has not begun to dream of a "market" for
satisfying his material wants. Such commerce may be called "Periodic
Free Commerce." It is widespread in the Philippines, displaying both
barter and sale. In many places in the Archipelago to-day, especially
in Mindanao, periodic commerce is carried on regularly on neutral
territory. Market places are selected where products are put down
by one party which then retires temporarily, and are taken up by the
other party which comes and leaves its own productions in exchange.

Growing out of these monthly, semimonthly, weekly, biweekly, and
triweekly markets, as one sees them in the Philippines, is a still
higher form of commerce carried on very largely by sale, but not
entirely so. It may be called "Continual Free Commerce."


Property right

The idea of property right among the Igorot is clear. The recognition
of property right is universal, and is seldom disputed, notwithstanding
the fact that the right of ownership rests simply in the memory
of the people -- the only property mark being the ear slit of the
half-wild carabao.

The majority of property disputes which have come to light since
the Americans have been in Bontoc probably would not have occurred
nor would the occasion for them have existed in a society of Igorot
control. It is claimed in Bontoc that the Spaniard there settled most
disputes which came to him in favor of the party who would pay the
most money. In this way, it is said, the rich became the richer at the
expense of the poor. This condition is suggested by recent RECLAMOS
made by poor people. Again, since the American heard the RECLAMOS
of all classes of people, the poor who, according to Igorot custom,
forfeited sementeras to those richer as a penalty for stealing palay,
have come to dispute the ownership of certain real property.


Personal property of individual

Most articles of personal property are individual. Such property
consists of clothing, ornaments, implements, and utensils of
out-of-door labor, the weapons of warfare, and such chickens, dogs,
hogs, carabaos, food stuffs, and money as the person may have at the
time of marriage or may inherit later.

Four of the richest men of Bontoc own fifty carabaos each, and one of
them owns thirty hogs. Two other men and a woman, all called equally
rich, own ten head of carabaos each. Others have fewer, while two of
the ten richest men in the pueblo, have no carabaos. Some of these men
have eight granaries, holding from two to three hundred cargoes each,
now full of palay. Carabaos are at present valued in Bontoc at about
50 pesos, and hogs average about 8 pesos. All rich people own one or
more gold earrings valued at from one to two carabaos each.

The so-called richest man in Bontoc, Lak-ay'-eng, has the following
visible personal property:



Articles
Value in peso

Fifty carabaos, at 50 pesos each
2,500

Thirty hogs, at 8 pesos each
240

Eight full granaries, with 250 1-peso cargoes
2,000

Eight earrings, at 75 pesos each
600

Coin from sale of palay, hogs, etc.
1,000

Total
6,340


The above figures are estimates; it is impossible to make them
exact, but they were obtained with much care and are believed to be
sufficiently accurate to be of value.


Personal property of group

All household implements and utensils and all money, food stuffs,
chickens, dogs, hogs, and carabaos accumulated by a married couple
are the joint property of the two.

Such personal property as hogs and carabaos are frequently owned by
individuals of different families. It is common for three or four
persons to buy a carabao, and even ten have become joint owners of
one animal through purchase. Through inheritance two or more people
become joint owners of single carabao, and of small herds which they
prefer to own in common, pending such an increase that the herd may
be divided equally without slaughtering an animal. Until recent years
two, three, and even four or five men jointly owned one battle-ax.

As the Igorot acquires more money, or, as the articles desired become
relatively cheaper, personal property of the group (outside the family
group) is giving way to personal property of the individual. The
extinction of this kind of property is logical and is approaching.


Real property of individual

The individual owns dwelling houses, granaries, camote lands about
the dwellings and in the mountains, millet and maize lands. in the
mountains, irrigated rice lands, and mountain lands with forests. In
fact, the individual may own all forms of real property known to
the people.

It is largely by the possession or nonpossession of real property
that a man is considered rich or poor. This fact is due to the more
apparent and tangible form of real than personal property. The ten
richest people in Bontoc, nine men and a woman, own, it is said,
in round numbers one hundred sementeras each. The average value
of a sementera is 10 pesos for every cargo of palay it produces
annually. A sementera producing 10 cargoes is rated a very good one,
and yet there are those yielding 20, 25, 30, and even 40 cargoes.

It is practically impossible to get the truth concerning the value of
the personal or real property of the Igorot in Bontoc, because they
are not yet sure the American will not presently tax them unjustly,
as they say the Spaniard did. But the following figures are believed
to be true in every particular. Mang-i-lot', an old man whose ten
children are all dead, and who says his property is no longer of
value because he has no children with whom to leave it, is believed
to have spoken truthfully when he said he has the following sementeras
in the five following geographic areas surrounding the pueblo:


Geographic area
Number of sementeras
Number of cargoes produced

Magkang
6
15

Kogchog
3
5

Felas
1
8

Toyub
1
5

Samuiyu
2
10

Total
13
43


These sementeras produce the low average of 3 1/3 cargoes. The
average value of Mang-i-lot's' sementeras, then, is 33 1/3 pesos --
which is thought to be a conservative estimate of the value of the
Bontoc sementera. Mang-i-lot' is rated among the lesser rich men. He
is relatively, as the American says, "well-to-do." However, when a
man possesses twenty sementeras he is considered rich.

The richest man in Bontoc, with one hundred sementeras, has in them,
say, 3,330 pesos worth of real property in addition to his 6,340
pesos of personal property.

It is claimed that each household owns its dwelling and at least two
sementeras and one granary, though a man with no more property than
this is a poor man and some one in his family must work much of the
time for wages, because two average sementeras will not furnish all
the rice needed by a family for food.

A dwelling house is valued at about 60 pesos, which is less than it
usually costs to build, and a granary is valued at about 10 or 15
pesos. It is constructed with great care, is valueless unless rodent
proof, and costs much more than its avowed valuation.

Title to all buildings, building lands in the pueblo, and irrigated
rice lands is recognized for at least two generations, though
unoccupied during that time. They say the right to such unoccupied
property would be recognized perpetually if there were heirs. At
least it is true that there are now acres of unused lands, once
palay sementeras, which have not been cultivated for two generations
because water can not be run to them, and the property right of the
grandsons of the men who last cultivated them is recognized. However,
if one leaves vacant any unirrigated agricultural mountain lands --
used for millet, maize, or beans -- another person may claim and
plant them in one year's time, and no one disputes his title.


Real property of group

All real property accumulated by a man and woman in marriage is their
joint property as long as both live and remain in union.

No form of real property, except forests, can be the joint property
of other individuals than man and wife. Forests are most commonly the
property of a considerable group of people -- the descendants of a
single ancestral owner. The lands as well as the trees are owned, and
the sale of trees carries no right to the land on which they grow. It
is impossible even to estimate the value of any one's forest property,
but it is true that persons are recognized as rich or poor in forests.


Public property

Public lands and forests extend in an irregular strip around most
pueblos. There is no public forest, or even public lands, between
Bontoc and Samoki, but Bontoc has access to the forests lying beyond
her sister pueblo. Neither is there public forest, or any forest,
between Bontoc and Tukukan, and Bontoc and Titipan, though there
are public lands. In all other directions from Bontoc public forests
surround the outlying private forests. They are usually from three
to six hours distant. From them any man gathers what he pleases, but
until the American came to Bontoc the Igorot seldom went that far for
wood or lumber, as it was unsafe. Now, however, the individual will
doubtless claim these lands, unless hindered by the Government. In
this manner real property was first accumulated -- a man claimed
public lands and forests which he cared for and dared to appropriate
and use. There have been few irrigated sementeras built on new water
supplies in two generations by people of Bontoc pueblo. The "era of
public lands" for Bontoc has practically passed; there is no more
undiscovered water. However, three new sementeras were built this year
on an island in the river near the pueblo, and are now (May, 1903) full
of splendid palay, but they can not be considered permanent property,
as an excessively rainy season will make them unfit for cultivation.


Sale of property

Personal property commonly passes by transfer for value received from
one party to another. Such a thing as transfer of real property from
one Igorot to another for legal currency is unknown; the transfer is
by barter. The transfer of personal property was considered in the
preceding section on commerce.

Real property is seldom transferred for value received except at the
death of the owner or a member of the family; at such times it is
common, and occurs from the necessity of quantities of food for the
burial feasts and the urgent need of blankets and other clothing for
the interment.

Again, camote lands about the dwellings are disposed of to those
who may want to build a dwelling. Dwellings are also disposed of if
the original occupant is to vacate and some other person desires to
possess the buildings.

Death may destroy one's personal property, such as hogs and
carabaos, but almost never does an Igorot "lose his property," if
it is real. Only a protracted family sickness or a series of deaths
requiring the killing of great numbers of chickens, hogs, and carabaos,
and the purchase of many things necessary for interment can lose to
a person real property of any considerable value.

There is no formality to a "sale" of property, nor are witnesses
employed. It is common knowledge within the ato when a sale is on,
and the old men shortly know of and talk about the transaction --
thenceforth it is on record and will stand.


Rent, loan, and lease of property

Until recent years, long after the Spaniards came, it was customary
to loan money and other forms of personal property without interest
or other charge. This generous custom still prevails among most of
the people, but some rich men now charge an interest on money loaned
for one or more years. Actual cases show the rate to be about 6 or 7
per cent. The custom of loaning for interest was gained from contact
with the Lepanto Igorot, who received it from the Ilokano.

It is claimed that dwellings and granaries are never rented.

Irrigated rice lands are commonly leased. Such method of cultivation
is resorted to by the rich who have more sementeras than they can
superintend. The lessee receives one-half of the palay harvested,
and his share is delivered to him. The lessor furnishes all seed,
fertilizers, and labor. He delivers the lessee's share of the harvest
and retains the other half himself, together with the entire camote
crop -- which is invariably grown immediately after the palay harvest.

Unirrigated mountain camote lands are rented outright; the rent is
usually paid in pigs. A sementera that produces a yield of 10 cargoes
of camotes, valued at about six pesos, is worth a 2-peso pig as annual
rental. In larger sementeras a proportional rental is charged -- a
rental of about 33 1/3 per cent. All rents are paid after the crops
are harvested.



Inheritance and bequest

As regards property the statement that all men are born equal is as
false in Igorot land as in the United States. The economic status of
the present generation and the preceding one was practically determined
for each man before he was born. It is fair to make the statement that
the rich of the present generation had rich grandparents and the poor
had poor grandparents, although it is true that a large property is
now and then lost sight of in its division among numerous children.

Children before their marriage receive little permanent property
during the lives of their parents, and they retain none which they
may accumulate themselves. A mother sometimes gives her daughter
the hair dress of white and agate beads, called "apong;" also she
may give a mature daughter her peculiar and rare girdle, called
"akosan." Either parent may give a child a gold earring; I know of
but one such case. This custom of not allowing an unmarried child to
possess permanent property is so rigid that, I am told, an unmarried
son or daughter seldom receives carabaos or sementeras until the
death of the parents, no matter how old the child may be.

At the time of marriage parents give their children considerable
property, if they have it, giving even one-half the sementeras they
possess. If parents are no longer able to cultivate their lands when
their children marry, they usually give them all they have, and their
wants are faithfully met by the children.

The conditions presented above are practically the only ones in which
the property owner controls the disposition of his possessions which
pass in gift to kin.

The laws of inheritance and bequest are as firmly fixed as are the
customs of giving and not giving during life.

Since all the property of a husband and wife is individual, except
that accumulated by the joint efforts of the two during union, the
property of each is divided on death. The survivor of a matrimonial
union receives no share of the individual property of the deceased
if there are kin. It goes first to the children or grandchildren. If
there are none and a parent survives, it goes to the parent. If there
are neither children, grandchildren, nor parents it goes to brothers
and sisters or their children. If there are none of these relatives
the property goes to the uncles and aunts or cousins. This seems to
be the extent of the kinship recognized by the Igorot. If there are
no relatives the property passes to the survivor of the union. If
there is no survivor the property passes to that friend who takes up
the responsibilities of the funeral and accompanying ceremonies. The
law of inheritance, then, is as follows: First, lineal descendants;
second, ascendants; third, lateral descendants; fourth, surviving
spouse; fifth, self-appointed executor who was a personal friend of
the deceased.

Primogeniture is recognized, and the oldest living child, whether
male or female, inherits slightly more than any of the others. For
instance, if there were three or four or five sementeras per child,
the eldest would receive one more than the others.

This law of primogeniture holds at all times, but if there are three
boys and one girl the girl is given about the same advantage over
the others, it is said, as though she were the eldest. If there are
three girls and only one boy, no consideration is taken of sex. When
there are only two children the eldest receives the largest or best
sementera, but he must also take the smallest or poorest one.

It is said that division of the property of the deceased occurs during
the days of the funeral ceremonies. This was done on the third day
of the ceremonies at the funeral of old Som-kad', mentioned in the
section on "Death and Burial?" The laws are rigid, and all that is
necessary to be done is for the lawful inheritors to decide which
particular property becomes the possession of each. This is neither
so difficult nor so conducive of friction as might seem, since the
property is very undiversified.


Tribute, tax, and "rake off"

There is no true systematic tribute, tax, or "rake off" among
the Bontoc Igorot, nor am I aware that such occurs at all commonly
sporadically. However, tribute, tax, and "rake off" are all found in
pure Malayan culture in the Archipelago, as among the Moros of the
southern islands.

Tribute may be paid more or less regularly by one group of people
to a stronger, or to one in a position to harass and annoy -- for
the protection of the stronger, or in acknowledgment of submission,
or to avoid harassment or annoyance. Nothing of the sort exists in
Bontoc. The nearest approach to it is the exchange of property,
as carabaos or hogs, between two pueblos at the time a peace is
made between them -- at which time the one sueing for peace makes
by far the larger payment, the other payment being mere form. This
transaction, as it occurs in Bontoc, is a recognition of submission
and of inferiority, and is, as well, a guarantee of a certain amount of
protection. However, such payments are not made at all regularly and do
not stand as true tributes, though in time they might grow to be such.

Nothing in the nature of a tax for the purpose of supporting a
government exists in Bontoc. The nearest approach to it is in a
practice which grew up in Spanish time but is of Igorot origin. When
to-day cargadors are required by Americans, as when Government supplies
must be brought in, the members of each cargador's ato furnish him
food for the journey, though the cargador personally receives and
keeps the wage for the trip. The furnishing of food seems to spring
from the feeling that the man who goes on the journey is the public
servant of those who remain -- he is doing an unpleasant duty for his
ato fellows. If this were carried one step further, if the rice were
raised and paid for carrying on some regular function of the Igorot
pueblo, it would be a true tax. It may be true, and probably is, in
pure Igorot society that if men were sent by an ato on some mission
for that ato they would receive support while gone. This would readily
develop into a true tax if those public duties were to be performed
continually, or even frequently with regularity.

"Rake off," or, as it is known in the Orient, "squeeze," is so common
that every one -- Malay, Chino, Japanese, European, and American --
expects his money to be "squeezed" if it passes through another's
hands or another is instrumental in making a bargain for him. In
much of the Igorot territory surrounding the Bontoc area "rake off"
occurs -- it follows the advent of the "headman." It is one of the
direct causes why, in Igorot society, the headman is almost always
a rich man. During the hunting stage of human development no "rich
man" can come up, as is illustrated by the primitive hunter folk of
North America. As soon, however, as there are productions which may
be traded in, there is a chance for one man to take advantage of his
fellows and accumulate a part of their productions -- this opportunity
occurs among primitive agricultural people. The Bontoc area, however,
has no "headman," no "rich man," and, consequently, no "rake off."



PART 5

Political Life and Control

It is impossible to put one's hand on any one man or any one group
of men in Bontoc pueblo of whom it may be said, "Here is the control
element of the pueblo."

Nowhere has the Malayan attained national organization. He is known
in the Philippines as a "provincial," but in most districts he is
not even that. The Bontoc Igorot has not even a clan organization,
to say nothing of a tribal organization. I fail to find a trace of
matriarchy or patriarchy, or any mark of a kinship group which traces
relationship farther than first cousins.

The Spaniard created a "presidente" and a "vice-presidente" for the
various pueblos he sought to control, but these men, as often Ilokano
as Igorot, were the avenue of Spanish approach to the natives --
they were almost never the natives' mouthpiece. The influence of
such officials was not at all of the nature to create or foster the
feeling of political unity.

Aside from these two pueblo officers the government and control
of the pueblo is purely aboriginal. Each ato, of which, as has
been noted, there are seventeen, has its group of old men called
"in-tug-tu'-kan." This in-tug-tu'-kan is not an organization,
except that it is intended to be perpetual, and, in a measure,
self-perpetuating. It is a thoroughly democratic group of men, since
it is composed of all the old men in the ato, no matter how wise or
foolish, rich or poor -- no matter what the man's social standing may
be. Again, it is democratic -- the simplest democracy -- in that is
has no elective organization, no headmen, no superiors or inferiors
whose status in the in-tug-tu'-kan is determined by the members of the
group. The feature of self-perpetuation displays itself in that it
decides when the various men of the ato become am-a'-ma, "old men,"
and therefore members of the in-tug-tu'-kan. A person is told some
day to come and counsel with the in-tug-tu'-kan, and thenceforth he
is a member of the group.

In all matters with which the in-tug-tu'-kan deals it is supreme
in its ato, but in the ato only; hence the opening statement of
the chapter that no man or group of men holds the control of the
pueblo. The life of the several ato has been so similar for such
a number of generations that, in matters of general interest, the
thoughts of one in-tug-tu'-kan will be practically those of all
others. For instance, there are eight ceremonial occasions on which
the entire pueblo rests from agricultural labors, simply because each
ato observes the same ceremonials on identical days. In one of these
ceremonials, all the men of the entire pueblo have a rock contest
with all the men of Samoki. Again, when a person of the pueblo has
been killed by another pueblo treacherously or in ambush, or in any
way except by fair fight, the pueblo as a unit hastens to avenge the
death on the pueblo of the slayer.

In such matters as these -- matters of common defense and offense,
matters of religion wherein food supply is concerned -- custom has
long since crystallized into an act of democratic unity what may
once have been the result of the councils of all the in-tug-tu'-kan
of the pueblo. It is customary for an ato to rest from agricultural
labor on the funeral day of any adult man, but the entire pueblo thus
seeks to honor at his death the man who was old and influential.

There is little differentiation of the functions of the
in-tug-tu'-kan. It hears, reviews, and judges the individual
disagreements of the members of the ato and makes laws by determining
custom. It also executes its judgments or sees that they are
executed. It makes treaties of peace, sends and accepts or rejects
challenges of war for its ato. In case of interato disagreements
of individuals the two in-tug-tu'-kan meet and counsel together,
representing the interests of the persons of their ato. In other
words, the pueblo is a federation made up of seventeen geographical
and political units, in each of which the members recognize that their
sanest, ripest wisdom dwells with the men who have had the longest
experience in life; and the group of old men -- sometimes only one man
and sometimes a dozen -- is known as in-tug-tu'-kan, and its wisdom is
respected to the degree that it is regularly sought and is accepted
as final judgment, being seldom ignored or dishonored. In matters of
a common interest the pueblo customarily acts as a unit. Probably
could it not so act, factions would result causing separation from
the federation. This state of things is hinted as one of the causes
why the ancestors of present Samoki separated from the pueblo of
Bontoc. The fact that they did separate is common knowledge, and
a cause frequently assigned is lack of space to develop. However,
there may have been disagreement.


Crimes, detection and punishment

Theft, lying to shield oneself in some criminal act, assault and
battery, adultery, and murder are the chief crimes against Igorot
society.

There are tests to determine which of several suspects is guilty of
a crime. One of these is the rice-chewing test. The old men of the
ato interested assemble, in whose presence each suspect is made to
chew a mouthful of raw rice, which, when it is thoroughly masticated,
is ejected on to a dish. Each mouthful is examined, and the person
whose rice is the driest is considered guilty. It is believed that
the guilty one will be most nervous during the trial, thus checking
a normal flow of saliva.

Another is a hot-water test. An egg is placed in an olla of boiling
water, and each suspect is obliged to pick it out with his hand. When
the guilty man draws out the egg the hot water leaps up and burns
the forearm.

There is an egg test said to be the surest one of all. A battle-ax
blade is held at an angle of about 60 degrees, and an egg is placed
at the top in a position to slide down. Just before the egg is freed
from the hand the question is asked "Is Liod (the name of the man
under trial) guilty?" If the egg slides down the blade to the bottom
the man named is innocent but if it sticks on the ax he is guilty.

There is also a blood test employed in Bontoc pueblo, and also to
the west, extending, it is said, into Lepanto Province. An instrument
consisting of a sharp spike of iron projecting about one-sixteenth of
an inch from a handle with broad shoulders is placed against the scalp
of the suspects and the handle struck a sharp blow. The projecting
shoulder is supposed to prevent the spike from entering the scalp
of one farther than that of another. The person who bleeds most is
considered guilty -- he is "hot headed."

I was once present at an Igorot trial when the question to be decided
was whether a certain man or a certain woman had lied. The old men
examined and cross-questioned both parties for fully a quarter of an
hour, at which time they announced that the woman was the liar. Then
they brought a test to bear evidence in binding their decision. They
killed a chicken and cut it open. The gall was found to be almost
entirely exposed on the liver -- clearly the woman had lied. She looked
at the all-knowing gall and nodded her acceptance of the verdict. If
the gall had been hidden by the upper lobe of the liver, the verdict
would not have been sustained.

If a person steals palay, the injured party may take a sementera from
the offender.

If a man is found stealing pine wood from the forest lands of another,
he forfeits not only all the wood he has cut but also his working ax.

The penalty for the above two crimes is common knowledge, and if the
crime is proved there is no longer need for the old men to make a
decision -- the offended party takes the customary retributive action
against the offender.

Cases of assault and battery frequently occur. The chief causes are
lovers' jealousies, theft of irrigating water during a period of
drought, and dissatisfaction between the heirs of a property at or
shortly following the time of inheritance.

It is customary for the old men of the interested ato to consider all
except common offenses unless the parties settle their differences
without appeal.

A fine of chickens, pigs, sementeras, sometimes even of carabaos,
is the usual penalty for assault and battery.

Adultery is not a common crime. I was unable to learn that the
punishment for adultery was ever the subject for a council of the old
men. It seems rather that the punishment -- death of the offenders
-- is always administered naturally, being prompted by shocked and
turbulent emotions rather than by a council of the wise men. In
Igorot society the spouse of either criminal may take the lives
of both the guilty if they are apprehended in the crime. To-day
the group consciousness of the penalty for adultery is so firmly
fixed that adulterers are slain, not necessarily on the spur of
the moment of a suspected crime but sometimes after carefully laid
plans for detection. A case in question occurred in Suyak of Lepanto
Province. A man knew that his faithless wife went habitually at dusk
with another man to a secluded spot under a fallen tree. One evening
the husband preceded them, and lay down with his spear on the tree
trunk. When the guilty people arrived he killed them both in their
crime, thrusting his spear through them and pinning them to the earth.

Among a primitive people whose warfare consists much in ambushing and
murdering a lone person it is not always possible to predict whether
the taking of human life will be considered a criminal act or an act
of legitimate warfare.

It is considered warfare by the group of the murdered person, and as
such to be met by return warfare unless the group of the murderer is
a friendly one and at once comes to the offended people to sue for
continued peace. This applies to political groups within a pueblo as
well as to the people of distinct pueblos.

When murder is considered simply as a crime, its punishment may be
one of two classes: First, the murderer may lose his life at the
hands of his own group; second, the crime may be compounded for the
equivalent of the guilty man's property. In this case the settlement
is between the guilty person and the political group of the victim,
and the value of the compound is consumed by feastings of the group. No
part of the price is paid the family of the deceased as a compensation
for the loss of his labor and other assistance.

The three following specific cases of misdemeanors will illustrate
somewhat, more fully the nature of differences which arise between
individuals in pure Igorot society:

In Samoki early in November, 1902, Bisbay pawned an iron pot --
a sugar boiler -- to Yagao for 4 pesos. In about two months, when
sugar season was on, Bisbay went to redeem his property, but Yagao
would neither receive the money nor give up the boiler. The old men
of the ato counseled together over the matter, and, as a result,
Yagao received the 4 pesos and returned the pot, and the matter was
thus amicably settled between the two.

Early in January, 1903, Mowigas, of the pueblo of Ganang, cut and
destroyed the grasshopper basket of Dadaag, of the pueblo of Mayinit,
and also slightly cut Dadaag with his ax, but did not attempt to kill
him. The cause of the assault was this: Mowigas had killed a chicken
and was having a ceremonial in his house at the time Dadaag passed
with his basket of grasshoppers. According to Igorot custom he should
not have taken grasshoppers past a house in which such a ceremony was
being performed. The breach made it necessary to hold another ceremony,
killing another chicken. Old men from Mayinit, the pueblo of Dadaag,
came to Ganang and told Mowigas he would have to pay 3 pesos for his
conduct, or Mayinit would come over and destroy the town. He paid the
money, whereas the basket was worth only one-sixth the price. Trouble
was thus averted, and the individuals reconciled. In this case the
two pueblos are friends, but Mayinit is much stronger than Ganang,
and evidently took advantage of the fact.

In January, 1903, a woman and her son, of Titipan, stole camotes of
another Titipan family. The old men of the two ato of the interested
families fined the thieves a hog. The fine was paid, and the hog
eaten by the old men of the two ato.

Very often the fine paid by the offender passes promptly down the
throats of the jury. However, it is the only compensation for their
services in keeping the peace of the pueblo, so they look upon it as
their rightful share -- it is the "lawyer's share" with a vengeance.


PART 6

War and Head-Hunting

En-fa-lok'-net is the Bontoc word for war, but the expression
"na-ma'-ka" -- take heads -- is used interchangeably with it.

For unknown generations these people have been fierce
head-hunters. Nine-tenths of the men in the pueblos of Bontoc and
Samoki wear on the breast the indelible tattoo emblem which proclaims
them takers of human heads. The fawi of each ato in Bontoc has its
basket containing skulls of human heads taken by members of the ato.

There are several different classes of head-hunters among primitive
Malayan peoples, but the continuation of the entire practice is
believed to be due to the so-called "debt of life" -- that is, each
group of people losing a head is in duty and honor bound to cancel
the score by securing a head from the offenders. In this way the
score is never ended or canceled, since one or the other group is
always in debt.

It seems not improbable that the heads may have been cut off first
as the best way of making sure that a fallen enemy was certainly
slain. The head was at all events the best proof to a man's tribesmen
of the discharge of the debt of life; it was the trophy of success
in defeating the foe. Whatever the cause of taking the head may have
been with the first people, it would surely spread to others of a
similar culture who warred with a head-taking tribe, as they would
wish to appear as cruel, fierce, and courageous as the enemy.

Henry Ling Roth[33] quotes Sir Spencer St. John as follows concerning
the Seribas Dyaks of Borneo (p. 142):

A certain influential man denied that head-hunting is a religious
ceremony among them. It is merely to show their bravery and manliness,
that it may be said that so-and-so has obtained heads. When they
quarrel it is a constant phrase, "How many heads did your father or
grandfather get?" If less than his own number, "Well, then, you have
no occasion to be proud!" Thus the possession of heads gives them
great considerations as warriors and men of wealth, the skulls being
prized as the most valuable of goods.

Again he quotes St. John (p. 143):

Feasts in general are: To make their rice grow well, to cause the
forest to abound with wild animals, to enable their dogs and snares
to be successful in securing game, to have the streams swarm with
fish, to give health and activity to the people themselves, and to
insure fertility to their women. All these blessings the possessing
and feasting of a fresh head are supposed to be the most efficient
means of securing.

He quotes Axel. Dalrymple as follows (p. 141)

The Uru Ais believe that the persons whose heads they take will become
their slaves in the next world.

On the same page he quotes others to the same point regarding other
tribes of Borneo.

Roth states (p. 163):

From all accounts there can be little doubt that one of the chief
incentives to getting heads is the desire to please the women. It may
not always have been so and there may be and probably is the natural
blood-thirstiness of the animal in man to account for a great deal
of the head-taking.

He quotes Mrs. F. F. McDougall in her statement of a Sakaran legend
of the origin of head-taking to the effect that the daughter of their
great ancestor residing near the Evening Star "refused to marry until
her betrothed brought her a present worth her acceptance." First
the young man killed a deer which the girl turned from with disdain;
then he killed and brought her one of the great monkeys of the forest,
but it did not please her. "Then, in a fit of despair, the lover went
abroad and killed the first man he met, and, throwing his victim's
head at the maiden's feet, he exclaimed at the cruelty she had made
him guilty of; but, to his surprise, she smiled and said that now
he had discovered the only gift worthy of herself" (p. 163). In the
three following pages of his book the author quotes three or four
other writers who cite in detail instances wherein heads were taken
simply to advance the slayer's interests with women.

As showing the passion for head-hunting among these people, St. John
tells of a young man who, starting alone to get a head from a
neighboring tribe, took the head of "an old woman of their own tribe,
not very distantly related to the young fellow himself." When the
fact was discovered "he was only fined by the chief of the tribe and
the head taken from him and buried" (p. 161).

Again (p. 159):

The maxim of the ruffians (Kayans) is that out of their own country
all are fair game. "Were we to meet our father, we would slay him." The
head of a child or of a woman is as highly prized as that of a man.

Mr. Roth writes that Mr. F. Witti "found that the latter (Limberan)
would not count as against themselves heads obtained on head-hunting
excursions, but only those of people who had been making peaceful
visits, etc. In fact, the sporting head-hunter bags what he can get,
his declared friends alone excepted" (p. 160).

The Ibilao of Luzon, near Dupax, of the Province of Nueva Vizcaya,
give the name "debt of life" to their head-hunting practice; but they
have, in addition, other reasons for head taking. No man may marry who
has not first taken a head; and every year after they harvest their
palay the men go away for heads, often going journeys requiring a
month of time in order to strike a particular group of enemies. The
Christians of Dupax claim that in 1899 the Ibilao took the heads of
three Dupax women who were working in the rice sementeras close to
the pueblo. These same Christians also claim that they have seen a
human head above the stacks of harvested Ibilao palay; and they claim
the custom is practiced annually, though the Ibilao deny it.

Some dozen causes for head-hunting among primitive Malayan peoples
have been here cited. These include the debt of life, requirements
for marriage, desire for abundant fruitage and harvest of cultivated
products, the desire to be considered brave and manly, desire for
exaltation in the minds of descendants, to increase wealth, to secure
abundance of wild game and fish, to secure general health and activity
of the people, general favor at the hands of the women, fecundity of
women, and slaves in the future life.

From long continuance in the practice of head-hunting, many beliefs
and superstitions arise to foster it, until in the minds of the
people these beliefs are greater factors in its perpetuation than the
original one of the debt of life. The possession of a head, with the
accompanying honor, feasts, and good omens, seems in many cases to
be of first importance rather than the avenging of a life.

The custom of head taking came with the Igorot to Luzon, a custom of
their ancestors in some earlier home. The people of Bontoc, however,
say that their god, Lumawig, taught them to go to war. When, a very
long time ago, he lived in Bontoc, he asked them to accompany him
on a war expedition to Lagod, the north country. They said they did
not wish to go, but finally yielded to his urgings and followed
him. On the return trip the men missed one of their companions,
Gu-ma'-nub. Lumawig told them that Gu-ma'-nub had been killed by
the people of the north. And thus their wars began -- Gu-ma'-nub
must be avenged. They have also a legend in regard to head taking:
The Moon, a woman called "Kabigat," was sitting one day making a
copper pot, and one of the children of the man Chalchal, the Sun,
came to watch her. She struck him with her molding paddle, cutting
off his head. The Sun immediately appeared and placed the boy's head
back on his shoulders. Then the Sun said to the Moon: "Because you
cut off my son's head, the people of the Earth are cutting off each
other's heads, and will do so hereafter."

With the Bontoc men the taking of heads is not the passion it seems
to be with some of the people of Borneo. It, is, however, the almost
invariable accompaniment of their interpueblo warfare. They invariably,
too, take the heads of all killed on a head-hunting expedition. They
have skulls of Spaniards, and also skulls of Igorot, secured when on
expeditions of punishment or annihilation with the Spanish soldiers.

But the possession of a head is in no way a requisite to marriage. A
head has no part in the ceremonies for palay fruitage and harvest,
or in any of the numerous agricultural or health ceremonies of the
year. It in no way affects a man's wealth, and, so far as I have been
able to learn, it in no way affects in their minds a man's future
existence. A beheaded man, far from being a slave, has special honor
in the future state, but there seems to be none for the head taker. As
shown by the Lumawig legend the debt of life is the primary cause
of warfare in the minds of the people of Bontoc, and it is to-day a
persistent cause. Moreover, since interpueblo warfare exists and head
taking is its form, head-hunting is a necessity with an individual
group of people in a state of nature. Without it a people could have
no peace, and would be annihilated by some group which believed it
a coward and an easy prey.

There is no doubt that the desire to be considered brave and manly has
come to be a factor in Bontoc head taking. In my presence an Igorot
once told a member of ato Ungkan that the men of his ato were like
girls, because they had not taken heads. The statement was false,
but the pronounced judgment sincere. In this connection, also, it
may be said that although the taking of a head is not a requisite
to marriage, and they say that it does not win the men special favor
from the women, yet, since it makes them manly and brave in the eyes
of their fellows, it must also have its influence on the women.

The desire for exaltation in the minds of descendants also has
a certain influence -- young men in quarrels sometimes brag of the
number of heads taken by their ancestors, and the prowess or success
of an ancestor seems to redound to the courage of the descendants; and
it is an affront to purposely and seriously belittle the head-hunting
results of a man's father.

There can be no doubt that head-hunting expeditions are often made
in response to a desire for activity and excitement, with all the
feasting, dancing, and rest days that follow a successful foray. The
explosive nature of a man's emotional energy demands this bursting of
the tension of everyday activities. In other words, the people get to
itching for a head, because a head brings them emotional satisfaction.

It is believed that now the people of the two sister pueblos, Bontoc
and Samoki, look on war and head-hunting somewhat as a game, as a
dangerous, great sport, though not a pastime. It is a test of agility
and skill, in which superior courage and brute force are minor factors.

Primarily a pueblo is an enemy of every other pueblo, but it is
customary for pueblos to make terms of peace. Neighboring pueblos are
usually, but not always, friendly. The second pueblo away is usually
an enemy. On most of our trips through northern Luzon cargadors and
guides could readily be secured to go to the nearest pueblo, but in
most cases they absolutely refused to go on to the second pueblo,
and could seldom be driven on by any argument or force. The actual
negotiations for peace are generally between some two ato of the
two interested pueblos, since the debt of life is most often between
two ato.

Bontoc and Samoki claim never to have sued for peace -- a statement
probably true, as they are by far the largest body of warriors in
the culture area, and their war reputation is the worst. When one
ato agrees on peace with another the entire pueblo honors the treaty.

The following peace agreements have been sought by outside pueblos in
recent years of the following ato of Bontoc: Sakasakan sued for peace
from Somowan, and Barlig from Pudpudchog; Tulubin, from Buyayyeng;
Bitwagan, from Sipaat; Tukukan sought peace from both Amkawa and
Polupo, and Sabangan also from Polupo; Sadanga, from Choko; and
Baliwang, from Longfoy.

The relations with two of these pueblos, Barlig and Sadanga, however,
are now not peaceful. Bontoc has many kin in Lias, some two days
to the east, the trail to which passes Barlig; but communication
between these pueblos of kin has ceased, because of the attitude of
Barlig. Communication between Bontoc and Tinglayan, northeast of the
Bontoc area on the river, has also ceased, because of the enmity of
Sadanga, which lies close to the trail between the two pueblos.

The peace ceremonial, to which a hog or carabao is brought by the
entreating people and eaten by the two parties to the agreement,
is called "pwi-din." The peace is sealed by some exchange, as of a
battle-ax for a blanket, the people sued having the better part of
the trade.

It now and then happens that of two pueblos at peace one loses a head
to the other. If the one taking the head desires continued peace,
some of its most influential men hasten to the other pueblo to talk
the matter over. Very likely the other pueblo will say, "If you wish
war, all right; if not, you bring us two carabaos, and we will still
be friends." If no effort for peace is made by the offenders, each
from that day considers the other an enemy.

There is a formal way of breaking the peace between two pueblos: Should
ato Somowan of Bontoc, for instance, wish to break her peace with
Sakasakan she holds a ceremonial meeting, called "men-pa-kel'." In
this meeting the old men freely speak their minds; and when all
matters are settled a messenger departs for Sakasakan bearing a
battle-ax or spear -- the customary token of war with all these Bontoc
peoples. The life of the war messenger is secure, but, if possible,
he is a close relative of the challenged people. There is no record
that such a person was ever killed while on his mission. The messenger
presents himself to some old man of the ato or pueblo, and says,
"In-ya'-lak nan sud-sud in-fu-sul'-ta-ko," which means, roughly,
"I bring the challenge of war."

If the challenge is accepted, as it usually is, an ax or spear is
given the messenger, and he hastens home to exclaim to his people,
"In-tang-i'-cha men-fu-sul'-ta-ko" -- that is, "They care to contest
in war."

A peace thus canceled is followed by a battle between practically all
the men of both sides. It is customary for the challenging people,
within a few days, to appear before the pueblo of their late friends,
and the men at once come out in answer to the challenging cries of
the visitors -- "Come out if you dare to fight us?" Or it may he that
those challenged appear near the other pueblo before it has time to
back its challenge.

If the challenged pueblo does not wish to fight, the spokesman tells
the messenger that they do not wish war; they desire continued
friendship; and the messenger returns to his people, not with a
weapon of war, but with a chicken or a pig; and he repeats to his
people the message he received from the old man.

After a peace has been canceled the two pueblos keep up a predatory
warfare, with a head lost here and there, and with now and then a
more serious battle, until one or the other again sues for peace,
and has its prayer granted. In this predatory warfare the entire
body of enemies, one or more ato, at times lays in hiding to take a
few heads from lone people at their daily toil. Or when the country
about a trail is covered with close tropical growth an enemy may hide
close above the path and practically pick his man as he passes beneath
him. He hurls or thrusts his spear, and almost always escapes with his
own life, frequently bursting through a line of people on the trail,
and instantly disappearing in the cover below. Should the injured
pueblo immediately retaliate, it finds its enemies alert and on guard.

At two places near the mountain trail between Samoki and Tulubin is a
trellis-like structure called "ko'-mis." It consists of several posts
set vertically in the ground, to which horizontal poles are tied, The
posts are the stem and root sections of the beautiful tree ferm. They
are set root end up, and the fine, matted rootlets present a compact
surface which the Igorot has carved in the traditional shape of the
"anito." Some of these heads have inlaid eyes and teeth of stone. Hung
on the ko'-mis are baskets and frames in which chickens and pigs have
been carried to the place for ceremonial feasting.

These two ko'-mis were built four years ago when Bontoc and Samoki had
their last important head-hunting forays with Tulubin. When Bontoc or
Samoki (and usually they fight together) sought Tulubin heads they
spent a night at one of the ko'-mis, remaining at the first one,
if the signs were propitious -- but, if not, they passed on to the
second, hoping for better success. They killed and ate their fowls and
pigs in a ceremony called "fi-kat'," and, if all was well, approached
the mountains near Tulubin and watched to waylay a few of her people
when they came to the sementeras in the early morning. If a crow flew
cawing over the trail, or a snake or rat crossed before the warriors,
or a rock rolled down the mountain side, or a clod of earth caved
away under their feet, or if the little omen bird, "i'-chu," called,
the expedition was abandoned, as these were bad omens.

The ceremony of the ko'-mis is held before all head-hunting
expeditions, except in the unpremeditated outburst of a people to
immediately punish the successful foray or ambush of some other. The
ko'-mis is built along all Bontoc war trails, though no others are
known having the "anito" heads. So persistent are the warriors if
they have decided to go to a particular pueblo for heads that they
often go day after day to the ko'-mis for eight or ten days before
they are satisfied that no good omens will come to them. If the omens
are persistently bad, it is customary for the warriors to return to
their ato and hold the mo-ging ceremony, during which they bury under
the stone pavement of the fawi court one of the skulls then preserved
in the ato.

In this way they explode their extra emotions and partially work off
their disappointment.

Occasionally a town has a bad strain of blood, and two or three men
break away without common knowledge and take heads. The entire body
of warriors in the pueblo where those murdered lived promptly rises
and pours itself unheralded on the pueblo of the murderers. If these
people are not warned the slaughter is terrible -- men, women, and
children alike being slain. None is spared, except mere babes, unless
they belong to the offended pueblo, marriage having taken them away
from home. Preceding a known attack on a pueblo it is customary for
the women and children to flee to the mountains, taking with them the
dogs, pigs, chickens, and valuable household effects. However, Bontoc
pueblo, because of her strength, is not so evacuated -- she expects
no enemy strong enough to burst through and reach the defenseless.

In the Banawi area, where the dwellings are built on prominences
frequently a hundred or more feet above the surrounding territory,
they say the women often remain and assist in the defense by hurling
rocks. They are safer there than they would be elsewhere.

Men go to war armed with a wooden shield, a steel battle-ax, and
one to three steel or wooden spears. It is a man's agility and skill
in keeping his shield between himself and the enemy that preserves
his life. Their battles are full of quick, incessant springing
motion. There are sudden rushes and retreats, sneaking flank movements
to cut an enemy off. The body is always in hand, always in motion,
that it may respond instantly to every necessity. Spears are thrown
with greatest accuracy and fatality up to 30 feet, and after the
spears are discharged the contest, if continued, is at arms' length
with the battle-axes. In such warfare no attitude or position can
safely be maintained except for the shortest possible time.

Challenges and bluffs are sung out from either side, and these
bluffs are usually "called." In the last Bontoc-Tulubin foray a fine,
strapping Tulubin warrior sung out that he wanted to fight ten men --
he was taken at his word so suddenly that his head was a Bontoc prize
before his friends could rally to assist him.

In March we were returning from a trip to Banawi of the Quiangan area,
and were warned we might be attacked near a certain river. As we
approached it coming down a forested mountain side three or four men
were seen among the trees on the farther side of the stream. Presently
they called their dogs, which began to bark; then our Bontoc Igorot
Constabulary escort "joshed" the supposed enemy by loudly caning dogs
and hogs. Presently the calls worked themselves into a rhythmic chorus
for all like a strong college yell, "A'-su, a'-su, a'-su, a'-su,
fu'-tug, fu'-tug, fu'-tug, fu'-tug." It is probable the men across
the river were hunting wild hogs, but at the time the Constabulary
considered the dog calls simply a bluff, which they "called" in the
only way they could as they continued down the mountain trail.

Rocks are often thrown in battle, and not infrequently a man's leg
is broken or he is knocked senseless by a rock, whereupon he loses
his head to the enemy, unless immediately assisted by his friends.

There is little formality about the head taking. Most heads are
cut off with the battle-ax before the wounded man is dead. Not
infrequently two or more men have thrown their spears into a man who
is disabled. If among the number there is one who has never taken a
head, he will generally be allowed to cut this one from the body,
and thus be entitled to a head taker's distinct tattoo. However,
the head belongs to the man who threw the first disabling spear,
and it finds its resting place in his ato. If there is time, men of
other ato may cut off the man's hands and feet to be displayed in
their ato. Sometimes succeeding sections of the arms and legs are
cut and taken away, so only the trunk is left on the field.

Frequently a battle ends when a single head is taken by either side --
the victors calling out, "Now you go home, and we will go home; and
if you want to fight some other day, all right!" In this way battles
are ended in an hour or so, and often in half an hour. However,
they have battles lasting half a day, and ten or a dozen heads are
taken. Seven pueblos of the lower Quiangan region went against the
scattered groups of dwellings in the Banawi area of the upper Quiangan
region in May, 1902. The invaders had seven guns, but the people of
Banawi had more than sixty -- a fact the invaders did not know until
too late. However, they did not retire until they had lost a hundred
and fifty heads. They annihilated one of the groups of the enemy,
getting about fifty heads, and burned down the dwellings. This is by
far the fiercest Igorot battle of which there is any memory, and its
ferocity is largely due to firearms.

When a head has been taken the victor usually starts at once for his
pueblo, without waiting for the further issue of the battle. He brings
the head to his ato and it is put in a small funnel-shaped receptacle,
called "sak-o'-long," which is tied on a post in the stone court of
the fawi. The entire ato joins in a ceremony for the day and night;
it is called "se'-dak." A dog or hog is killed, the greater part of
which is eaten by the old men of the ato, while the younger men dance
to the rhythmic beats of the gangsa. On the next day, "chao'-is,"
a month's ceremony, begins. About 7 o'clock in the morning the old
men take the head to the river. There they build a fire and place
the head beside it, while the other men of the ato dance about it
for an hour. All then sit down on their haunches facing the river,
and, as each throws a small pebble into the water he says, "Man-i'-su,
hu! hu! hu! Tukukan!" -- or the name of the pueblo from which the head
was taken. This is to divert the battle-ax of their enemy from their
own necks. The head is washed in the river by sousing it up and down
by the hair; and the party returns to the fawi where the lower jaw is
cut from the head, boiled to remove the flesh, and becomes a handle
for the victor's gangsa. In the evening the head is buried under the
stones of the fawi.

In a head ceremony which began in Samoki May 21, 1903, there was a
hand, a jaw, and an ear suspended from posts in the courts of ato
Nag-pi', Ka'-wa, and Nak-a-wang', respectively. In each of the eight
ato of the pueblo the head ceremony was performed. In their dances the
men wore about their necks rich strings of native agate beads which at
other dances the women usually wear on their heads. Many had boar-tusk
armlets, some of which were gay with tassels of human hair. Their
breechcloths were bright and long. All wore their battle-axes, two of
which were freshly stained halfway up the blade with human blood --
they were the axes used in severing the trophies from the body of
the slain.

On the second day the dance began about 4 o'clock in the morning, at
which time a bright, waning moon flooded the pueblo with light. At
every ato the dance circle was started in its swing, and barely
ceased for a month. A group of eight or ten men formed, as is shown
in Pl. CXXXI, and danced contraclockwise around and around the small
circle. Each dancer beat his blood and emotions into sympathetic
rhythm on his gangsa, and each entered intently yet joyfully into the
spirit of the occasion -- they had defeated an enemy in the way they
had been taught for generations.

It was a month of feasting and holidays. Carabaos, hogs, dogs,
and chickens were killed and eaten. No work except that absolutely
necessary was performed, but all people -- men, women, and children --
gathered at the ato dance grounds and were joyous together.

Each ato brought a score of loads of palay, and for two days women
threshed it out in a long wooden trough for all to eat in a great
feast. This ceremonial threshing is shown in Pl. CXXXII. Twenty-four
persons, usually all women, lined up along each side of the trough,
and, accompanying their own songs by rhythmic beating of their pestles
on the planks strung along the sides of the trough, each row of happy
toilers alternately swung in and out, toward and from the trough,
its long heavy pestles rising and falling with the regular "click,
click, thush; click, click, thush!" as they fell rebounding on the
plank, and were then raised and thrust into the palay-filled trough.

After heads have been taken by an ato any person of that ato -- man,
woman, or child -- may be tattooed; and in Bontoc pueblo they maintain
that tattooing may not occur at any other time, and that no person,
unless a member of the successful ato, may be tattooed.

After the captured head has been in the earth under the fawi court of
Bontoc about three years it is dug up, washed in the river, and placed
in the large basket, the so-lo'-nang, in the fawi, where doubtless it
is one of several which have a similar history. At such time there is
a three-day's ceremony, called "min-pa-fa'-kal is nan mo'-king." It
is a rest period for the entire pueblo, with feasting and dancing,
and three or four hogs are killed. The women may then enter the fawi;
it is said to be the only occasion they are granted the privilege.

In the fawi of ato Sigichan there are at present three skulls of men
from Sagada, one of a man from Balugan, and one of a man and two of
women from Baliwang. Probably not more than a dozen skulls are kept
in a fawi at one time. The final resting place of the skull is again
under the stones of the fawi. Samoki does not keep the skull at all;
it remains where buried under the ato court. As was stated before, a
skull is generally buried under the stones of the fawi court whenever
the omens are such that a proposed head-hunting expedition is given
up. They are doubtless, also, buried at other times when the basket
in the fawi becomes too full. Sigichan has buried twenty-eight skulls
in the memory of her oldest member -- making a total of thirty-five
heads taken, say, in fifty years. Three of these were men's heads
from Ankiling, nine were men's heads from Tukukan, three were men's
heads from Barlig, three were men's heads and four women's heads from
Sabangan, and six were men's heads from Sadanga. During this same
period Sigichan claims to have lost one man's head each to Sabangan
and Sadanga.

No small children's skulls can be found in Bontoc, though some other
head-hunters take the heads even of infants. In fact, the men of
Bontoc say that babes and children up to about 5 years of age are not
killed by the head-hunter. If one should take a child's head he would
shortly be called to fate by some watchful pinteng in language as
follows: "Why did you take that babe's head? It does not understand
war. Pretty soon some pueblo will take your head." And the pinteng
is supposed to put it into the mind of some pueblo to get the head
of that particularly cruel man.

The friends of a beheaded person take his body home from the scene
of death. It remains one day sitting in the dwelling. Sometimes a
head is bought back from the victors at the end of a day, the usual
price paid being a carabao. After the body has remained one day in
the dwelling it is said to be buried without ceremony near the trail
leading to the pueblo which took the head. The following day the entire
ato has a ceremonial fishing in the river, called "mang-o'-gao" or
"tid-wil." A fish feast follows for the evening meal. The next day
the mang-ay'-yu ceremony occurs. At that time the men of the ato,
go near the place where their companion lost his head and ask the
beheaded man's spirit, the pinteng, to return to their pueblo.

Pl. CXXXVI shows the burial of a beheaded corpse in Banawi in April,
1903.[34] After the head-taking the body was set up two days under the
dwelling of the dead man, and was then carried to the mountain side
in the direction of Kambulo, the pueblo which killed the man. It was
tied on a war shield and the whole tied to a pole which was borne by
two men, as is shown in Pl. CXXXV. The funeral procession was made
up as follows: First, four warriors proceeded, one after the other,
along a narrow path on the dike walls, each beating a slow rhythm
with a stick on the long, black, Banawi war shield, each shield,
however, being striped differently with white-earth paint. The corpse
was borne next, after which followed about a dozen more warriors,
most of whom carried the white-marked shield -- an emblem of mourning.

About half a mile from the dwelling the party left the sementeras and
climbed up a short, steep ascent to a spot resembling the entrance to
the earth burrow of some giant animal, and there the strange corpse was
placed on the ground. A small group of people, including one old woman,
was awaiting the funeral party. At the back end of the burrow two men
tore away the earth and disclosed a small wall of loose stones. These
they removed and revealed a vertical entrance in the earth about 2 feet
high and 2 1/2 feet wide. Through this small opening one of the men
crawled, and crouching in the narrow sepulcher scraped up and threw
out a few handfuls of earth. We were told that the corpse before us
was the fifth to be placed in that old tomb, all being victims of the
pueblo of Kambulo, and four of whom were descendants of the first man
buried at that place -- certainly "blood vengeance" with a vengeance.

We were without means of understanding the two or three simple oral
ceremonies said over the body, but the woman played a part which it
is understood she does not in the Bontoc area. She carried a slender,
polished stick, greatly resembling a baton or "swagger stick," and
with this stood over the gruesome body, thrusting the stick again
and again toward and close to the severed neck, meanwhile repeating a
short, low-voiced something. After the body was cut from its shield
a blanket was wrapped about it -- otherwise it was nude, save for a
flayed-bark breechcloth -- and it was set up in the cramped sepulcher
facing Kambulo, and sitting supported away from the earth walls by four
short wooden sticks placed upright about it. An old bamboo-headed spear
was broken in the shaft and the two sections placed with the corpse.

The stones were again piled across the entrance, and when all was
closed except the place for one small stone a man gave a few farewell
thrusts through the opening with a stick, uttering at the same time
a short low sentence or two. The final stone was placed and the earth
heaped against the wall.

The pole to which the corpse was tied when borne to the burial
was placed horizontally before the tomb, supported with both ends
resting on the high side walls of the burrow, and on it were hung a
dozen white-bark headbands which were worn, evidently, as a mark of
mourning, by many of the men who attended the burial.

How long it would be, in a state of nature, before the tomb would be
required for another burial is a matter of chance, but a relative,
frequently a son, nephew, or brother of the dead man, would be expected
to avenge the dead man on the pueblo of Kambulo, with chances in
favor of success, but also with equal chances of ultimate loss of
the warrior's head and burial where six kinsmen had preceded him.



PART 7

AEsthetic Life

There is relatively little "color" in the life of the Bontoc
Igorot. In the preceding chapter reference was made to the belief
that this lack of "color," the monotony of everyday life, has to
do with the continuation of head-hunting. The life of the Igorot is
somber-hued indeed as compared with that of his more advanced neighbor,
the Ilokano.


Dress

The Bontoc Igorot is not much given to dress -- under which term are
considered the movable adornments of persons. Little effort is made
by the man toward dressing the head, though before marriage he at
times wears a sprig of flowers or of some green plant tucked in the
hat at either side. The young man's suklang is also generally more
attractive than that of the married man. With its side ornaments of
human-hair tassels, its dog teeth, or mother-of-pearl disks, and its
red and yellow colors, it is often very gay.

About one hundred and fifty men in Bontoc and Samoki own and sometimes
wear at the girdle a large 7-inch disk of mother-of-pearl shell. It is
called "fi-kum'," and its use is purely ornamental. (See Pls. LXXX and
XXX.) It is valued highly, and I have not known half a dozen Igorot to
part with one for any price. This shell ornament is widespread through
the country east and also south of the Bontoc area, but nowhere is it
seen plentifully, except on ceremonial days -- probably not a dozen
are worn daily in Bontoc.

Other forms of adornment, though only a means to a permanent end, are
the ear stretchers and variety of ear plugs which are worn in a slit in
the ear lobe preparing it for the earring -- the sing-sing, which all
hope to possess. The stretcher consists of two short pieces of bamboo
forced apart and so held by two short crosspieces inserted between
them. The bamboo ear stretcher is generally ornamented by straight
incised lines. The plugs are not all considered decorative. Some
are bunches of a vegetable pith (Pl. CXXXVIII), others are wads of
sugar-cane leaves. Some, however, are wooden plugs shaped quite like
an ordinary large cork stopper of a bottle (Pl. CXXXVII). The outer
end is often ornamented by straight incised lines or with red seeds
affixed with wax or with a small piece of a cheap glass mirror roughly
inlaid. The long ear slit is not the end sought, because if the owner
despairs of owning the coveted earring the stretchers and plugs are
eventually removed and the slit contracts from an inch and one-half
to a quarter of an inch or less in length. The long slit is desired
because the people consider the effect more beautiful when the ring
swings and dangles at the bottom of the pendant ear. The gold earring
is the most coveted, but a few silver and many copper rings are worn
in substitution for the gold.


FIGURE 8

Metal earrings.
(A, gold; B, copper (both are two or three generations old and their
patterns are no longer made); C, copper; D, silver.)


This is practically the extent of the everyday adornment worn by the
boys and men. Small boys sometimes wear a brass-wire bracelet; but
the brass wire, so commonly worn on the wrists, ankles, and necks of
the people east, north, and south of the Bontoc area, is not affected
by the people of Bontoc.

As has been mentioned, there is an unique display of dress by the
man at the head-taking ceremony of the ato, when some of the dancers
wear boar-tusk armlets, called "ab-kil'," and a boar-tusk necklace,
called "fu-yay'-ya."

The necklace quite resembles the Indian bear-claw necklace, but it
is worn with the tusks pointing away from the breast, not toward
it, as is the case with the Indian necklace. There are about six of
these necklaces in Bontoc, and it is almost impossible to buy one,
but the armlets are more plentiful. They are worn above the biceps,
and some are adorned with a tuft of hair cut from a captured head.

The movable adornments of the woman are very similar to those of
the man.

The unmarried woman wears the flowers or green sprigs in the hair,
though less often than does the man. She wears the ear stretchers, ear
plugs, and earrings exactly as he does. Probably 60 per cent of men and
women in some way dress one ear; probably half as many dress both ears.

The chief adornment of the woman is her hairdress. It consists of
strings of various beads, called "a-pong'." The hair is never combed
in its dressing, except with the fingers, but the entire hair is
caught at the base of the skull and lightly twisted into a loose roll;
a string of beads is put beneath this twist at the back and carried
forward across the head. The roll is then brought to the front of the
head around the left side; at the front it is tucked forward under the
beads, being thus held tightly in place. The twist is carried around
the head as far as it will extend, and the end there tucked under the
beads and thus secured. One and not infrequently two additional strings
of beads are laid over the hair, more completely holding it in place.

The first string of beads placed on the head usually consists of
compact, glossy, black seeds. Frequently brass-wire rings are regularly
dispersed along the string. These beads are shown in Pl. CXLII. The
second string, with its white, lozenge-shaped stone beads (Pl. CXXXIX),
is very striking and attractive against the black hair. This string
reaches its perfection when it is composed solely of spherical agate
beads the size of small marbles and the longer white stone beads
placed at regular intervals among the reddish agates. It is practically
impossible to purchase these beads, since they are heirlooms. The third
string is usually of dog teeth. They are strung alternately with black
seeds or with sections of dog rib. This string is worn over the hair,
running from the forehead around the back of the head, the white teeth
resting low on the back hair, and making a very attractive adornment
as they stand, points out, against the black hair. (See Pl. CLII.)

Igorot women dress their hair richly in their important ceremonials. In
an in-pug-pug' ceremony of Sipaat ato in Bontoc I saw women wearing
seven strings of agate beads on their hair and about their necks. The
woman loves to show her friends her accumulated wealth in heirlooms,
and the ato or pueblo ceremonies are the most favorable opportunities
for such display. All these various hairdress beads are of Igorot
manufacture.

I have seen Tukukan women come to Bontoc wearing a solid diadem about
the hair. It consisted of a rattan foundation encircling the head,
covered with blackened beeswax studded with three parallel rows of
encircling bright-red seeds. It made a very striking headdress.

Now and then a woman is seen wearing beads around the neck, but the
Bontoc woman almost never has such adornment. They are seen frequently
in pueblos to the west, however. The beads for everyday wear are
seeds in black, brown, and gray. There is also a small, irregular,
cylindrical, wooden bead worn by the women. It is sometimes worn in
strings of three or four beads by men. I believe it is considered of
talismanic value when so worn.

Many women in Mayinit and some women of Bontoc wear the heirloom
girdle, called "a-ko'-san," made of shells and brass wire encircling
a cloth girdle (see Pl. CXL). The cloth is made in the form of a long,
narrow wallet, practically concealed at the back by the encircling wire
and shells. Within this wallet the cherished agate and white stone
hairdress is often hidden away. In Mayinit this girdle is frequently
worn beneath the skirt, when it becomes, in every essential and in
the effect produced, a bustle. I have never seen it so worn in Bontoc.


Decoration

Under this head are classed all the forms of permanent adornment of
the person.

First must be cited the cutting and stretching of the ear. Whereas
the long, pendant earlobe is not the end in itself, nor is the long
slit always permanent, yet the mutilation of the ear is permanent
and desired. In a great many cases the lobe breaks, and the two,
and even three, long strips of lobe hanging down seem to give their
owner certain pride. Often the lower end of one of these strips is
pierced and supports a ring. The sexes share alike in the preparation
for and the wearing of earrings.

The woman has a permanent decoration of the nature of the "switch"
of the civilized woman. The loose hair combed from the head with the
fingers is saved, and is eventually rolled with the live hair of the
head into long, twisted strings, some of which are an inch in diameter
and three feet long; some women have more than a dozen of these twisted
strings attached to the scalp. This is a common, though not universal,
method of decorating the head, and the mass of lard-soaked, twisted
hair stands out prominently around the crown, held more or less in
place by the various bead hairdresses. (See Pls. CXLI and CXLII.)


Tattoo

The great permanent decoration of the Igorot is the tattoo. As has
been stated in Chapter VI on "War and Head-Hunting," all the members
-- men, women, and children -- of an ato may be tattooed whenever a
head is taken by any person of the ato. It is claimed in Bontoc that
at no other time is it possible for a person to be tattooed. But
Tukukan tattooed some of her women in May, 1903, and this in spite
of the fact that no heads had recently been taken there. However,
the regulations of one pueblo are not necessarily those of another.

In every pueblo, there are one or more men, called "bu-ma-fa'-tek,"
who understand the art of tattooing. There are two such in Bontoc --
Toki, of Lowingan, and Finumti, of Longfoy -- and each has practiced
his art on the other. Finumti has his back and legs tattooed in an
almost unique way. I have seen only one other at all tattooed on the
back, and then the designs were simple. A large double scallop extends
from the hip to the knee on the outside of each of Finumti's legs.

The design is drawn on the skin with ink made of soot and water. Then
the tattooer pricks the skin through the design. The instrument used
for tattooing is called "cha-kay'-yum." It consists of from four to
ten commercial steel needles inserted in a straight line in the end
of a wooden handle; "cha-kay'-yum" is also the word for needle. After
the pattern is pricked in, the soot is powdered over it and pressed in
the openings; the tattooer prefers the soot gathered from the bottom
of ollas.

The finished tattoo is a dull, blue black in color, sometimes having a
greenish cast. A man in Tulubin has a tattoo across his throat which
is distinctly green, while the remainder of his tattoo is the common
blue black. The newly tattooed design stands out in whitish ridges,
and these frequently fester and produce a mass of itching sores
lasting about one month (see Pl. CXLVII).

The Igorot distinguishes three classes of tattoos: The chak-lag',
the breast tattoo of the head taker; pong'-o, the tattoo on the arms
of men and women; and fa'-tek, under which name all other tattoos
of both sexes are classed. Fa'-tek is the general word for tattoo,
and pong'-o is the name of woman's tattoo.

It is general for boys under 10 years of age to be tattooed. Their
first marks are usually a small, half-inch cross on either cheek or a
line or small cross on the nose. One boy in Bontoc, just at the age
of puberty, has a tattoo encircling the lower jaw and chin, a wavy
line across the forehead, a straight line down the nose, and crosses
on the cheeks; but he is the youngest person I have seen wearing the
jaw tattoo -- a mark quite commonly made in Bontoc when the chak-lag',
or head-taker's emblem, is put on.

The chak-lag' is the most important tattoo of the Igorot, since it
marks its wearer as a taker of at least one human head. It therefore
stands for a successful issue in the most crucial test of the fitness
of a person to contribute to the strength of the group of which he is
a unit. It no doubt gives its wearer a certain advantage in combat --
a confidence and conceit in his own ability, and, likely, it tends
to unnerve a combatant who has not the same emblem and experience. No
matter what the exact social importance or advantage may be, it seems
that every man in Bontoc who has the right to the emblem shows his
appreciation of the privilege, since nine-tenths of the men wear the
chak-lag'. It consists of a series of geometric markings running
upward from the breast near each nipple and curving out on each
shoulder, where it ends on the upper arm. The accompanying plates
(CXLIII to CXLIX) give an excellent idea of the nature and appearance
of the Igorot tattoo -- of course, reproductions in color would add
to the effect. The distinctness of the markings in the photographs
is about normal.

The basis of the designs is apparently geometric. If the straight-line
designs originated in animal forms, they have now become so
conventional that I have not discovered their original form.

The Bontoc woman is tattooed only on the arms. This tattoo begins
close back of the knuckles on the back of the hands, and, as soon
as it reaches the wrist, entirely encircles the arms to above the
elbows. Still above this there is frequently a separate design on
the outside of the arm; it is often the figure of a man with extended
arms and sprawled legs.

The chak-lag' design on the man's breast is almost invariably
supplemented by two or three sets of horizontal lines on the biceps
immediately beneath the outer end of the main design. If the tattoo
on the arms of the woman were transferred to the arms of the man,
there would seldom be an overlapping -- each would supplement the
other. On the men the lines are longer and the patterns simpler than
those of the women, where the lines are more cross-hatched and the
design partakes of the nature of patch-work.

It was not discovered that any tattoo has a special meaning, except
the head-taker's emblem; and the Igorot consistently maintains that
all the others are put on simply at the whim of the wearer. The face
markings, those on the arms, the stomach, and elsewhere on the body,
are believed to be purely aesthetic. The people compare their tattoo
with the figures of an American's shirt or coat, saying they both look
pretty. Often a cross-hatched marking is put over goiter, varicose
veins, and other permanent swellings or enlargements. Evidently they
are believed to have some therapeutic virtue, but no statement could
be obtained to substantiate this opinion.

As is shown by Pls. CXLVIII and CXLIX, the tattoo of both Banawi men
and women seems to spring from a different form than does the Bontoc
tattoo. It appears to be a leaf, or a fern frond, but I know nothing
of its origin or meaning. There is much difference in details between
the tattoos of culture areas, and even of pueblos. For instance,
in Bontoc pueblo there is no tattoo on a man's hand, while in the
pueblos near the south side of the area the hands are frequently
marked on the backs. In Benguet there is a design popularly said to
represent the sun, which is seen commonly on men's hands. Instances
of such differences could be greatly multiplied here, but must be
left for a more complete study of the Igorot tattoo.


Music


Instrumental music

The Bontoc Igorot has few musical instruments, and all are very
simple. The most common is a gong, a flat metal drum about 1 foot in
diameter and 2 inches deep. This drum is commonly said to be "brass,"
but analyses show it to be bronze.

Two gongs submitted to the Bureau of Government Laboratories, Manila,
consisted, in one case, of approximately 80 per cent copper, 15 per
cent tin, and 5 per cent zinc; in the other case of approximately 84
per cent copper, 15 per cent tin, 1 per cent zinc, and a trace of iron.

Early Chinese records read that tin was one of the Chinese imports
into Manila in the thirteenth century. Copper was mined and wrought
by the Igorot when the Spaniards came to the Philippines, and they
wrote regarding it that it was then an old and established industry
and art. It may possibly be that bronze was made in the Philippines
before the arrival of the Spaniard, but there is no proof of such
an hypothesis.

The gong to-day enters the Bontoc area in commerce generally from
the north -- from the Igorot or Tinguian of old Abra Province --
and no one in the Provinces of Benguet or Lepanto-Bontoc seems to
know its source. Throughout the Archipelago and southward in Borneo
there are metal drums or "gongs" apparently of similar material but
of varying styles. It is commonly claimed that those of the Moro are
made on the Asiatic mainland. It is my opinion that the Bontoc gong,
or gang'-sa, originates in China, though perhaps it is not now imported
directly from there. It certainly does not enter the Island of Luzon
at Manila, or Candon in Ilokos Sur, and, it is said, not at Vigan,
also in Ilokos Sur.

In the Bontoc area there are two classes of gang'-sa; one is called
ka'-los, and the other co-ong'-an. The co-ong'-an is frequently larger
than the other, seems to be always of thicker metal, and has a more
bell-like and usually higher-pitched tone. I measured several gang'-sa
in Bontoc and Samoki, and find the co-ong'-an about 5 millimeters
thick, 52 to 55 millimeters deep, and from 330 to 360 millimeters in
diameter; the ka'-los is only about 2 to 3 millimeters thick. The
Igorot distinguishes between the two very quickly, and prizes the
co-ong'-an at about twice the value of the ka'-los. Either is worth
a large price to-day in the central part of the area -- or from one
to two carabaos -- but it is quite impossible to purchase them even
at that price.

Gang'-sa music consists of two things -- rhythm and crude harmony. Its
rhythm is perfect, but though there is an appreciation of harmony as
is seen in the recognition of, we may say, the "tenor" and "bass"
tones of co-ong'-an and ka'-los, respectively, yet in the actual
music the harmony is lost sight of by the American.

In Bontoc the gang'-sa is held vertically in the hand by a cord passing
through two holes in the rim, and the cord usually has a human lower
jaw attached to facilitate the grip. As the instrument thus hangs
free in front of the player (always a man or boy) it is beaten on the
outer surface with a short padded stick like a miniature bass-drum
stick. There is no gang'-sa music without the accompanying dance,
and there is no dance unaccompanied by music. A gang'-sa or a tin
can put in the hands of an Igorot boy is always at once productive
of music and dance.

The rhythm of Igorot gang'-sa music is different from most primitive
music I have heard either in America or Luzon. The player beats 4/4
time, with the accent on the third beat. Though there may be twenty
gang'-sa in the dance circle a mile distant, yet the regular pulse
and beat of the third count is always the prominent feature of the
sound. The music is rapid, there being from fifty-eight to sixty full
4/4 counts per minute.

It is impossible for me to represent Igorot music, instrumental
or vocal, in any adequate manner, but I may convey a somewhat
clearer impression of the rhythm if I attempt to represent it
mathematically. It must be kept in mind that all the gang'-sa are
beaten regularly and in perfect time -- there is no such thing as
half notes.

The gang'-sa is struck at each italicized count, and each unitalicized
count represents a rest, the accent represents the accented beat
of the gang'-sa. The ka'-los is usually beaten without accent and
without rest. Its beats are 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1,
2, 3, 4; etc. The co-ong'-an is usually beaten with both accent and
rest. It is generally as follows: 1, 2, 3', 4; 1, 2, 3', 4; 1, 2,
3', 4; 1, 2, 3', 4; etc. Sometimes, however, only the first count
and again the first and second counts are struck on the individual
co-ong'-an, but there is no accent unless the third is struck. Thus
it is sometimes as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1,
2, 3, 4; etc.; and again 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2,
3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; etc. However, the impression the hearer receives
from a group of players is always of four rapid beats, the third one
being distinctly accented. A considerable volume of sound is produced
by the gang'-sa of the central part of the area; it may readily be
heard a mile, if beaten in the open air.

In pueblos toward the western part of the area, as in Balili, Alap,
and their neighbors, the instrument is played differently and the
sound carries only a few rods. Sometimes the player sits in very
un-Malayan manner, with legs stretched out before him, and places
the gang'-sa bottom up on his lap. He beats it with the flat of both
hands, producing the rhythmic pulse by a deadening or smothering of a
beat. Again the gang'-sa is held in the air, usually as high as the
face, and one or two soft beats, just a tinkle, of the 4/4 time are
struck on the inside of the gang'-sa by a small, light stick. Now
and then the player, after having thoroughly acquired the rhythm,
clutches the instrument under his arm for a half minute while he
continues his dance in perfect time and rhythm.

The lover's "jews'-harp," made both of bamboo and of brass, is found
throughout the Bontoc area. It is played near to and in the olag
wherein the sweetheart of the young man is at the time. The instrument,
called in Bontoc "ab-a'-fu," is apparently primitive Malayan, and is
found widespread in the south seas and Pacific Ocean.

The brass instrument, the only kind I ever saw in use except as
a semitoy in the hands of small boys, is from 2 to 3 inches in
length, and has a tongue, attached at one end, cut from the middle
of the narrow strip of metal. (The Igorot make the ab-a'-fu of
metal cartridges.) A cord is tied to the instrument at the end at
which the tongue is attached, and this the player jerks to vibrate
the tongue. The instrument is held at the mouth, is lightly clasped
between the lips, and, as the tongue vibrates, the player breathes a
low, soft tune through the instrument. One must needs get within 2 or
3 feet of the player to catch the music, but I must say after hearing
three or four men play by the half hour, that they produce tunes the
theme of which seems to me to bespeak a genuine musical taste.

I have seen a few crude bamboo flutes in the hands of young men,
but none were able to play them. I believe they are of Ilokano
introduction.

A long wooden drum, hollow and cannon-shaped, and often 3 feet and
more long and about 8 inches in diameter, is common in Benguet, and
is found in Lepanto, but is not found or known in Bontoc. A skin
stretched over the large end of the drum is beaten with the flat
of the hands to accompany the music of the metal drums or gang'-sa,
also played with the flat of the hands, as described, in pueblos near
the western border of Bontoc area.


Vocal music

The Igorot has vocal music, but in no way can I describe it -- to say
nothing of writing it. I tried repeatedly to write the words of the
songs, but failed even in that. The chief cause of failure is that the
words must be sung -- even the singers failed to repeat the songs word
after word as they repeat the words of their ordinary speech. There
are accents, rests, lengthened sounds, sounds suddenly cut short --
in fact, all sorts of vocal gymnastics that clearly defeated any
effort to "talk" the songs. I believe many of the songs are wordless;
they are mere vocalizations -- the "tra la la" of modern vocal music;
they may be the first efforts to sing.

I was told repeatedly that there are four classes of songs, and only
four. The mang-ay-u-weng', the laborer's song, is sung in the field
and trail. The mang-ay-yeng' is said to be the class of songs rendered
at all ceremonies, though I believe the doleful funeral songs are of
another class. The mang-ay-lu'-kay and the ting-ao' I know nothing
of except in name.

Most of the songs seem serious. I never heard a mother or other person
singing to a babe. However, boys and young men, friends with locked
arms or with arms over shoulders, often sing happy songs as they walk
along together. They often sing in "parts," and the music produced
by a tenor and a bass voice as they sing their parts in rhythm, and
with very apparent appreciation of harmony, is fascinating and often
very pleasing.


Dancing

The Bontoc Igorot dances in a circle, and he follows the circle
contraclockwise. There is no dancing without gang'-sa music, and it
is seldom that a man dances unless he plays a gang'-sa. The dance
step is slower than the beats on the gang'-sa; there is one complete
"step" to every full 4/4 count. At times the "step" is simply a
high-stepping slow run, really a springing prance. Again it is a
hitching movement with both feet close to the earth, and one foot
behind the other. The line of dancers, well shown in Pls. CXXXI, CLI,
and CLII, passes slowly around the circle, now and again following
the leader in a spiral movement toward the center of the circle and
then uncoiling backward from the center to the path. Now and again
the line moves rapidly for half the distance of the circumference,
and then slowly backs a short distance, and again it all but stops
while the men stoop forward and crouch stealthily along as though in
ambush, creeping on an enemy. In all this dancing there is perfect
rhythm in music and movements. There is no singing or even talking --
the dance is a serious but pleasurable pastime for those participating.

As is shown also by the illustrations, the women dance. They throw
their blankets about them and extend their arms, usually clutching
tobacco leaves in either hand -- which are offerings to the old men and
which some old man frequently passes among them and collects -- and
they dance with less movement of the feet than do the men. Generally
the toes scarcely leave the earth, though a few of the older women
invariably dance with a high movement and backward pawing of one foot
which throws the dust and gravel over all behind them. I have more than
once seen the dance circle a cloud of dust raised by one pawing woman,
and the people at the margin of the circle dodging the gravel thrown
back, yet they only laughed and left the woman to pursue her peculiar
and discomforting "step." The dancing women are generally immediately
outside the circle, and from them the rhythm spreads to the spectators
until a score of women are dancing on their toes where they stand
among the onlookers, and little girls everywhere are imitating their
mothers. The rhythmic music is fascinating, and one always feels out
of place standing stiff legged in heavy, hobnailed shoes among the
pulsating, rhythmic crowd. Now and again a woman dances between two
men of the line, forcing her way to the center of the circle. She is
usually more spectacular than those about the margin, and frequently
holds in her hand her camote stick or a ball of bark-fiber thread
which she has spun for making skirts. I once saw such a dancer carry
the long, heavy wooden pestle used in pounding out rice.

A few times I have seen men dance in the center of the circle somewhat
as the women do, but with more movement, with a balancing and tilting
of the body and especially of the arms, and with rapid trembling
and quivering of the hands. The most spectacular dance is that of
the man who dances in the circle brandishing a head-ax. He is shown
in Pls. CLII and CLIII. At all times his movements are in perfect
sympathy and rhythm with the music. He crouches around between the
dancers brandishing his ax, he deftly all but cuts off a hand here,
an arm or leg there, an ear yonder. He suddenly rushes forward and
grinningly feigns cutting off a man's head. He contorts himself in a
ludicrous yet often fiendish manner. This dance represents the height
of the dramatic as I have seen it in Igorot life. His is truly a
mimetic dance. His colleague with the spear and shield, who sometimes
dances on the outskirts of the circle, now charging a dancer and again
retreating, also produces a true mimetic and dramatic spectacle. This
is somewhat more than can be said of the dance of the women with the
camote sticks, pestles, and spun thread. The women in no way "act"
-- they simply purposely present the implements or products of their
labors, though in it all we see the real beginning of dramatic art.

Other areas, and other pueblos also, have different dances. In the
Benguet area the musicians sit on the earth and play the gang'-sa and
wooden drum while the dancers, a man and woman, pass back and forth
before them. Each dances independently, though the woman follows the
man. He is spectacular with from one to half a dozen blankets swinging
from his shoulders, arms, and hands.

Captain Chas. Nathorst, of Cervantes, has told me of a dance in
Lepanto, believed by him to be a funeral dance, in which men stand
abreast in a long line with arms on each other's shoulders. In this
position they drone and sway and occasionally paw the air with one
foot. There is little movement, and what there is is sluggish and
lifeless.


Games

Cockfighting is the Philippine sport. Almost everywhere the natives
of the Archipelago have cockfights and horse races on holidays and
Sundays. They are also greatly addicted to the sport of gambling. The
Bontoc Igorot has none of the common pastimes or games of chance. This
fact is remarkable, because the modern Malayan is such a gamester.

Only in toil, war, and numerous ceremonials does the Bontoc man work
off his superfluous and emotional energy. One might naturally expect
to find Jack a dull boy, but he is not. His daily round of toil
seems quite sufficient to keep the steady accumulation of energy at
a natural poise, and his head-hunting offers him the greatest game
of skill and chance which primitive man has invented.



Formalities

The Igorot has almost no formalities, the "etiquette" which one can
recognize as binding "form." When the American came to the Islands he
found the Christians exceedingly polite. The men always removed their
hats when they met him, the women always spoke respectfully, and some
tried to kiss his hand. Every house, its contents and occupants, to
which he might go was his to do with as he chose. Such characteristics,
however, seem not to belong to the primitive Malayan. The Igorot meets
you face to face and acts as though he considers himself your equal --
both you and he are men -- and he meets his fellows the same way.

When Igorot meet they do not greet each other with words, as most
modern people do. As an Igorot expressed it to me they are "all same
dog" when they meet. Sometimes, however, when they part, in passing
each other on the trial, one asks where the other is going.

The person with a load has the right of way in the trail, and others
stand aside as best they can.

There is commonly no greeting when a person comes to one's house,
nor is there a greeting between members of a family when one returns
home after an absence even of a week or more.

Children address their mothers as "I'-na," their word for mother,
and address their father as "A'-ma," their word for father. They do
this throughout life.

Igorot do not kiss or have other formal physical expression to show
affection between friends or relatives. Mothers do not kiss their
babes even.

The Igorot has no formal or common expression of thankfulness. Whatever
gratitude he feels must be taken for granted, as he never expresses
it in words.

When an Igorot desires to beckon a person to him he, in common with the
other Malayans of the Archipelago, extends his arm toward the person
with the hand held prone, not supine as is the custom in America,
and closes the hand, also giving a slight inward movement of the hand
at the wrist. This manner of beckoning is universal in Luzon.

The hand is almost never used to point a direction. Instead, the head
is extended in the direction indicated -- not with a nod, but with
a thrusting forward of the face and a protruding of the open lips;
it is a true lip gesture. I have seen it practically everywhere in
the Islands, among pagans, Mohammedans, and Christians.


PART 8

Religion


Spirit belief

The basis of Igorot religion is every man's belief in the spirit
world -- the animism found widespread among primitive peoples. It is
the belief in the ever-present, ever-watchful a-ni'-to, or spirit
of the dead, who has all power for good or evil, even for life or
death. In this world of spirits the Igorot is born and lives; there
he constantly entreats, seeks to appease, and to cajole; in a mild
way he threatens, and he always tries to avert; and there at last he
surrenders to the more than matchful spirits, whose numbers he joins,
and whose powers he acquires.

All things have an invisible existence as well as a visible, material
one. The Igorot does not explain the existence of earth, water, fire,
vegetation, and animals in invisible form, but man's invisible form,
man's spirit, is his speech. During the life of a person his spirit is
called "ta'-ko." After death the spirit receives a new name, though
its nature is unchanged, and it goes about in a body invisible to
the eye of man yet unchanged in appearance from that of the living
person. There seems to be no idea of future rewards or punishments,
though they say a bad a-ni'-to is sometimes driven away from the
others.

The spirit of all dead persons is called "a-ni'-to" -- this is the
general name for the soul of the dead. However, the spirits of certain
dead have a specific name. Pin-teng' is the name of the a-ni'-to of
a beheaded person; wul-wul is the name of the a-ni'-to of deaf and
dumb persons -- it is evidently an onomatopoetic word. And wong-ong
is the name of the a-ni'-to of an insane person. Fu-ta-tu is a bad
a-ni'-to, or the name applied to the a-ni'-to which is supposed to
be ostracized from respectable a-ni'-to society.

Besides these various forms of a-ni'-to or spirits, the body itself
is also sometimes supposed to have an existence after death. Li-mum'
is the name of the spiritual form of the human body. Li-mum' is seen at
times in the pueblo and frequently enters habitations, but it is said
never to cause death or accident. Li-mum' may best be translated by
the English term "ghost," although he has a definite function ascribed
to the rather fiendish "nightmare" -- that of sitting heavily on the
breast and stomach of a sleeper.

The ta'-ko, the soul of the living man, is a faithful servant of man,
and, though accustomed to leave the body at times, it brings to the
person the knowledge of the unseen spirit life in which the Igorot
constantly lives. In other words, the people, especially the old men,
dream dreams and see visions, and these form the meshes of the net
which has caught here and there stray or apparently related facts
from which the Igorot constructs much of his belief in spirit life.

The immediate surroundings of every Igorot group is the home of the
a-ni'-to of departed members of the group, though they do not usually
live in the pueblo itself. Their dwellings, sementeras, pigs, chickens,
and carabaos -- in fact, all the possessions the living had -- are
scattered about in spirit form, in the neighboring mountains. There the
great hosts of the a-ni'-to live, and there they reproduce, in spirit
form, the life of the living. They construct and live in dwellings,
build and cultivate sementeras, marry, and even bear children;
and eventually, some of them, at least, die or change their forms
again. The Igorot do not say how long an a-ni'-to lives, and they
have not tried to answer the question of the final disposition of
a-ni'-to, but in various ceremonials a-ni'-to of several generations
of ancestors are invited to the family feast, so the Igorot does not
believe that the a-ni'-to ceases, as an a-ni'-to, in what would be
the lifetime of a person.

When an a-ni'-to dies or changes its form it may become a snake --
and the Igorot never kills a snake, except if it bothers about his
dwelling; or it may become a rock -- there is one such a-ni'-to rock
on the mountain horizon north of Bontoc; but the most common form for
a dead a-ni'-to to take is li'-fa, the phosphorescent glow in the
dead wood of the mountains. Why or how these various changes occur
the Igorot does not understand.

In many respects the dreamer has seen the a-ni'-to world in great
detail. He has seen that a-ni'-to are rich or poor, old or young,
as were the persons at death, and yet there is progression, such
as birth, marriage, old age, and death. Each man seems to know in
what part of the mountains his a-ni'-to will dwell, because some one
of his ancestors is known to inhabit a particular place, and where
one ancestor is there the children go to be with him. This does not
refer to desirability of location, but simply to physical location --
as in the mountain north of Bontoc, or in one to the east or south.

As was stated in a previous chapter, with the one exception of
toothache, all injuries, diseases, and deaths are caused directly by
a-ni'-to. In certain ceremonies the ancestral a-ni'-to, are urged
to care for living descendants, to protect them from a-ni'-to that
seek to harm -- and children are named after their dead ancestors,
so they may be known and receive protection. In the pueblo, the
sementeras, and the mountains one knows he is always surrounded by
a-ni'-to. They are ever ready to trip one up, to push him off the
high stone sementera dikes or to visit him with disease. When one
walks alone in the mountain trail he is often aware that an a-ni'-to
walks close beside him; he feels his hair creeping on his scalp, he
says, and thus he knows of the a-ni'-to's presence. The Igorot has a
particular kind of spear, the sinalawitan, having two or more pairs
of barbs, of which the a-ni'-to is afraid; so when a man goes alone
in the mountains with the sinalawitan he is safer from a-ni'-to than
he is with any other spear.

The Igorot does not say that the entire spirit world, except his
relatives, is against him, and he does not blame the spirits for the
evils they inflict on him -- it is the way things are -- but he acts
as though all are his enemies, and he often entreats them to visit
their destruction on other pueblos. It is safe to say that one feast
is held daily in Bontoc by some family to appease or win the good
will of some a-ni'-to.

At death the spirit of a beheaded person, the pin-teng', goes above
to chayya, the sky. The old men are very emphatic in this belief. They
always point to the surrounding mountains as the home of the a-ni'-to,
but straight above to chayya, the sky, as the home of the spirit of the
beheaded. The old men say the pin-teng' has a head of flames. There
in the sky the pin-teng' repeat the life of those living in the
pueblo. They till the soil and they marry, but the society is exclusive
-- there are none there except those who lost their heads to the enemy.

The pin-teng' is responsible for the death of every person who
loses his head. He puts murder in the minds of all men who are to
be successful in taking heads. He also sees the outrages of warfare,
and visits vengeance on those who kill babes and small children.

In his relations with the unseen spirit world the Igorot has certain
visible, material friends that assist him by warnings of good and
evil. When a chicken is killed its gall is examined, and, if found to
be dark colored, all is well; if it is light, he is warned of some
pending evil in spirit form. Snakes, rats, crows, falling stones,
crumbling earth, and the small reddish-brown omen bird, i'-chu,
all warn the Igorot of pending evil.


Exorcist

Since the anito is the cause of all bodily afflictions the chief
function of the person who battles for the health of the afflicted
is that of the exorcist, rather than that of the therapeutist.

Many old men and women, known as "in-sup-ak'," are considered more or
less successful in urging the offending anito to leave the sick. Their
formula is simple. They place themselves near the afflicted part,
usually with the hand stroking it, or at least touching it, and say,
"Anito, who makes this person sick, go away." This they repeat over
and over again, mumbling low, and frequently exhaling the breath to
assist the departure of the anito -- just as, they say, one blows
away the dust; but the exhalation is an open-mouthed outbreathing,
and not a forceful blowing. One of our house boys came home from
a trip to a neighboring pueblo with a bad stone bruise for which
an anito was responsible. For four days he faithfully submitted to
flaxseed poultices, but on the fifth day we found a woman in-sup-ak'
at her professional task in the kitchen. She held the sore foot
in her lap, and stroked it; she murmured to the anito to go away;
she bent low over the foot, and about a dozen times she well feigned
vomiting, and each time she spat out a large amount of saliva. At no
time could purposeful exhalations be detected, and no explanation of
her feigned vomiting could be gained. It is not improbable that when
she bent over the foot she was supposed to be inhaling or swallowing
the anito which she later sought to cast from her. In half an hour
she succeeded in "removing" the offender, but the foot was "sick"
for four days longer, or until the deep-seated bruise discharged
through a scalpel opening. The woman unquestionably succeeded in
relieving the boy's mind.

When a person is ill at his home he sends for an in-sup-ak', who
receives for a professional visit two manojos of palay, or two-fifths
of a laborer's daily wage. In-sup-ak' are not appointed or otherwise
created by the people, as are most of the public servants. They are
notified in a dream that they are to be in-sup-ak'.

As compared with the medicine man of some primitive peoples the
in-sup-ak' is a beneficial force to the sick. The methods are all
quiet and gentle; there is none of the hubbub or noise found in the
Indian lodge -- the body is not exhausted, the mind distracted, or
the nerves racked. In a positive way the sufferer's mind receives
comfort and relief when the anito is "removed," and in most cases
probably temporary, often permanent, physical relief results from
the stroking and rubbing.

The man or woman of each household acts as mediator between any sick
member of the family and the offending anito. There are several of
these household ceremonials performed to benefit the afflicted.

If one was taken ill or was injured at any particular place in the
mountains near the pueblo, the one in charge of the ceremony goes to
that place with a live chicken in a basket, a small amount of basi
(a native fermented drink), and usually a little rice, and, pointing
with a stick in various directions, says the Wa-chao'-wad or Ay'-ug
si a-fi'-ik ceremony -- the ceremony of calling the soul. It is
as follows:

"A-li-ka' ab a-fi'-ik Ba-long'-long en-ta-ko' is a'-fong sang'-fu." The
translation is: "Come, soul of Ba-long'-long; come with us to the
house to feast." The belief is that the person's spirit is being
enticed and drawn away by an anito. If it is not called back shortly,
it will depart permanently.

The following ceremony, called "ka-taol'," is said near the river,
as the other is in the mountains:

"A-li-ka' ta-en-ta-ko is a'-fong ta-ko' tay la-ting' is'-na." Freely
translated this is: "Come, come with us into the house, because it
is cold here."

A common sight in the Igorot pueblo or in the trails leading out is a
man or woman, more frequently the latter, carrying the small chicken
basket, the tube of basi, and the short stick, going to the river or
the mountains to perform this ceremony for the sick.

After either of these ceremonies the person returns to the dwelling,
kills, cooks, and, with other members of the family, eats the chicken.

For those very ill and apparently about to die there is another
ceremony, called "a'-fat," and it never fails in its object, they
affirm -- the afflicted always recovers. Property equal to a full
year's wages is taken outside the pueblo to the spot where the
affliction was received, if it is known, and the departing soul is
invited to return in exchange for the articles displayed. They take a
large hog which is killed where the ceremony is performed; they take
also a large blue-figured blanket -- the finest blanket that comes
to the pueblo -- a battle-ax and spear, a large pot of "preserved"
meat, the much-prized woman's bustle-like girdle, and, last, a live
chicken. When the hog is killed the person in charge of the ceremony
says: "Come back, soul of the afflicted, in trade for these things."

All then return to the sick person's dwelling, taking with them the
possessions just offered to the soul. At the house they cook the hog,
and all eat of it; as those who assisted in the ceremony go to their
own dwellings they carry each a dish of the cooked pork.

The next day, since the afflicted person does not die, they have
another ceremony, called "mang-mang," in the house of the sick. A
chicken is killed, and the following ceremonial is spoken from the
center of the house:

"The sick person is now well. May the food become abundant; may the
chickens, pigs, and rice fruit heads be large. Bring the battle-ax to
guard the door. Bring the winnowing tray to serve the food; and bring
the wisp of palay straw to sweep away the many words spoken near us."

For certain sick persons no ceremony is given for recovery. They are
those who are stricken with death, and the Igorot claims to know a
fatal affliction when it comes.


Lumawig, the Supreme Being

The Igorot has personified the forces of nature. The personification
has become a single person, and to-day this person is one god,
Lu-ma'-wig. Over all, and eternal, so far as the Igorot understands,
is Lu-ma'-wig -- Lu-ma'-wig, who had a part in the beginning of all
things; who came as a man to help the survivors and perpetuators
of Bontoc; who later came as a man to teach the people whom he had
befriended, and who still lives to care for them. Lu-ma'-wig is the
greatest of spirits, dwelling above in chayya, the sky. All prayers
for fruitage and increase -- of men, of animals, and of crops --
all prayers for deliverance from the fierce forces of the physical
world are made to him; and once each month the pa'-tay ceremony,
entreating Lu-ma'-wig for fruitage and health, is performed for
the pueblo group by an hereditary class of men called "pa'-tay -- a
priesthood in process of development. Throughout the Bontoc culture
area Lu-ma'-wig, otherwise known but less frequently spoken of as
Fu'-ni and Kam-bun'-yan, is the supreme being. Scheerer says the
Benguet Igorot call their "god" Ka-bu-ni'-an -- the same road as
Kam-bun'-yan.

In the beginning of all things Lu-ma'-wig had a part. The Igorot
does not know how or why it is so, but he says that Lu-ma'-wig gave
the earth with all its characteristics, the water in its various
manifestations, the people, all animals, and all vegetation. To-day
he is the force in all these things, as he always has been.

Once, in the early days, the lower lands about Bontoc were covered
with water. Lu-ma'-wig saw two young people on top of Mount Po'-kis,
north of Bontoc. They were Fa-tang'-a and his sister Fu'-kan. They
were without fire, as all the fires of Bontoc were put out by
the water. Lu-ma'-wig told them to wait while he went quickly to
Mount Ka-lo-wi'-tan, south of Bontoc, for fire. When he returned
Fu'-kan was heavy with child. Lu-ma'-wig left them, going above
as a bird flies. Soon the child was born, the water subsided in
Bontoc pueblo, and Fa-tang'-a with his sister and her babe returned
to the pueblo. Children came to the household rapidly and in great
numbers. Generation followed generation, and the people increased
wonderfully.

After a time Lu-ma'-wig decided to come to help and teach the
Igorot. He first stopped on Ka-lo-wi'-tan Mountain, and from there
looked over the young women of Sabangan, searching for a desirable
wife, but he was not pleased with the girls of Sabangan because they
had short hair. He next visited Alap, but the young women of that
pueblo were sickly; so he came on to Tulubin. There the marriageable
girls were afflicted with goiter. He next stopped at Bontoc, where he
saw two young women, sisters, in a garden. Lu-ma'-wig came to them and
sat down. Presently he asked why they did not go to the house. They
answered that they must work; they were gathering beans. Lu-ma'-wig
was pleased with this, so he picked one bean of each variety, tossed
them into the baskets -- when presently the baskets were filled to the
rim. He married Fu'-kan, the younger of the two industrious sisters,
and namesake of the mother of the people of Bontoc.

After marriage he lived at Chao'-wi, in the present ato of Sigichan,
near the center of Bontoc pueblo. The large, flat stones which were
once part of Lu-ma'-wig's dwelling are still lying in position,
and are shown in Pl. CLIII.

Lu-ma'-wig at times exhibited his marvelous powers. They say he could
take a small chicken, feed it a few grains of rice, and in an hour
it would be full grown. He could fill a basket with rice in a very
few moments, simply by putting in a handful of kernels. He could cut
a stick of wood in the mountains, and with one hand toss it to his
dwelling in the pueblo. Once when out in I-shil' Mountains northeast
of Bontoc, Fa-tang'-a, the brother-in-law of Lu-ma'-wig, said to him,
"Oh, you of no value! Here we are without water to drink. Why do you
not give us water?" Lu-ma'-wig said nothing, but he turned and thrust
his spear in the side of the mountain. As he withdrew the weapon a
small stream of water issued from the opening. Fa-tang'-a started to
drink, but Lu-ma'-wig said, "Wait; the others first; you last." When
it came Fa-tang'-a's turn to drink, Lu-ma'-wig put his hand on him as
he drank and pushed him solidly into the mountain. He became a rock,
and the water passed through him. Several of the old men of Bontoc
have seen this rock, now broken by others fallen on it from above,
but the stream of water still flows on the thirsty mountain.

In an isolated garden, called "fil-lang'," now in ato Chakong,
Lu-ma'-wig taught Bontoc how best to plant, cultivate, and garner her
various agricultural products. Fil-lang' to-day is a unique little
sementera. It is the only garden spot within the pueblo containing
water. The pueblo is so situated that irrigating water can not be
run into it, but throughout the dry season of 1903 -- the dryest
for years in Bontoc -- there was water in at least a fourth of this
little garden. There is evidently a very small. but perpetual spring
within the plat. Taro now occupies the garden and is weeded and
gathered by Na-wit', an old man chosen by the old men of the pueblo
for this office. Na-wit' maintains and the Igorot believe that the
vegetable springs up without planting. As the watering of fil-lang'
is through the special dispensation of Lu-ma'-wig, so the taro left
by him in his garden school received from him a peculiar lease of
life -- it is perpetual. The people claim that all other taro beds
must be planted annually.

Lu-ma'-wig showed the people how to build the fawi and pabafunan,
and with his help those of Lowingan and Sipaat were constructed. He
also told them their purposes and uses. He gave the people names for
many of the things about them; he also gave the pueblo its name.

He gave them advice regarding conduct -- a crude code of ethics. He
told them not to lie, because good men do not care to associate with
liars. He said they should not steal, but all people should take
care to live good and honest lives. A man should have only one wife;
if he had more, his life would soon be required of him. The home
should be kept pure; the adulterer should not violate it; all should
be as brothers.

As has been previously said, the people of Bontoc claim that they
did not go to war or kill before Lu-ma'-wig came.

They say no Igorot ever divorced a wife who bore him a child, yet
they accuse Lu-ma'-wig of such conduct, but apparently seek to excuse
the act by saying that at the time he was partially insane. Fu'-kan,
Lu-ma'-wig's wife, bore him several children. One day she spoke very
disrespectfully to him. This change of attitude on her part somewhat
unbalanced him, and he put her with two of her little boys in a large
coffin, and set them afloat on the river. He securely fastened the
cover of the coffin, and on either end tied a dog and a cock. The
coffin floated downstream unobserved as far as Tinglayan. There the
barking of the dog and the crowing of the cock attracted the attention
of a man who rushed out into the river with his ax to secure such a
fine lot of pitch-pine wood. When he struck his ax in the wood a voice
called from within, "Don't do that; I am here." Then the man opened the
coffin and saw the woman and children. The man said his wife was dead,
and the woman asked whether he wanted her for a wife. He said he did,
so she became his wife.

After a time the children wanted to return to Bontoc to see their
father. Before they started their mother instructed them to follow
the main river, but when they arrived at the mouth of a tributary
stream they became confused, and followed the river leading them
to Kanyu. There they asked for their father, but the people killed
them and cut them up. Presently they were alive again, and larger
than before. They killed them again and again. After they had come
to life seven times they were full-grown men; but the eighth time
Kanyu killed them they remained dead. Bontoc went for their bodies,
and told Kanyu that, because they killed the children of Lu-ma'-wig,
their children would always be dying -- and to-day Bontoc points
to the fewness of the houses which make up Kanyu. The bodies were
buried close to Bontoc on the west and northwest; scarcely were
they interred when trees began to grow upon and about the graves --
they were the transformed bodies of Lu-ma'-wig's children. The Igorot
never cut trees in the two small groves nearby the pueblo, but once a
year they gather the fallen branches. They say that a Spaniard once
started to cut one of the trees, but he had struck only a few blows
when he was suddenly taken sick. His bowels bloated and swelled and
he died in a few minutes.

These two groves are called "Pa-pa-tay'" and "Pa-pa-tay' ad So-kok',"
the latter one shown in Pl. CLIV. Each is said to be a man, but among
some of the old men the one farthest to the north is now said to be a
woman. The reason they assign for now calling one a woman is because
it is situated lower down on the mountain than the other. They are
held sacred, and the monthly religious ceremonial of patay is observed
beneath their trees.

It seems that Lu-ma'-wig soon became irritated and jealous, because
Fu'-kan was the wife of another man, and he sent word forbidding her
to leave her house. About this time the warriors of Tinglayan returned
from a head-hunting expedition. When Fu'-kan heard their gongs and knew
all the pueblo was dancing, she danced alone in the house. Soon those
outside felt the ground trembling. They looked and saw that the house
where Fu'-kan lived was trembling and swaying. The women hastened
to unfortunate Fu'-kan and brought her out of the house. However,
in coming out she had disobeyed Lu-ma'-wig, and shortly she died.

Lu-ma'-wig's work was ended. He took three of his children with
him to Mount Po'-kis, on the northern horizon of Bontoc, and from
there the four passed above into the sky as birds fly. His two other
children wished to accompany him, but he denied them the request; and
so they left Bontoc and journeyed westward to Loko (Ilokos Provinces)
because, they said, if they remained, they would die. What became of
these two children is not known; neither is it known whether those
who went above are alive now; but Lu-ma'-wig is still alive in the
sky and is still the friendly god of the Igorot, and is the force in
all the things with which he originally had to do.

Throughout the Bontoc culture area Lu-ma'-wig is the one and only
god of the people. Many said that he lived in Bontoc, and, so far as
known, they hold the main facts of the belief in him substantially
as do the people of his own pueblo.


"Changers" in religion

In the western pueblos of Alap, Balili, Genugan, Takong, and Sagada
there has been spreading for the past two years a changing faith. The
people allying themselves with the new faith call themselves
"Su-pa-la'-do," and those who speak Spanish say they are "guardia
de honor."

The Su-pa-la'-do continue to eat meat, but wash and cleanse it
thoroughly before cooking. They are said also not to hold any of the
ceremonials associated with the old faith. They keep a white flag
flying from a pole near their dwelling, or at least one such flag
in the section of the pueblo in which they reside. They also believe
that Lu-ma'-wig will return to them in the near future.

A Tinguian man of the pueblo of Pay-yao', Lepanto, a short journey
from Agawa, in Bontoc, is said to be the leading spirit in this faith
of the "guardia de honor." It is believed to be a movement taking
its rise from the restless Roman Catholic Ilokano of the coast.

In Bontoc pueblo the thought of the return of Lu-ma'-wig is laughed
at. The people say that if Lu-ma'-wig was to return they would
know of it. However, two families in Bontoc, one that of Finumti,
the tattooer, and the other that of Kayyad, a neighbor of Finumti,
have a touch of a changing faith. They are known in Bontoc as O-lot'.

I was not able to trace any connection between the O-lot' and the
Su-pa-la'-do, though I presume there is some connection; but I learned
of the O-lot' only during the last few days of my stay in Bontoc. The
O-lot' are said not to eat meat, not to kill chickens, not to smoke,
and not to perform any of the old ceremonies. However, I do not believe
they or in fact the Su-pa-la'-do neglect all ceremonials, because
such a turning from a direct, positive, and very active religious
life to one of total neglect of the old religious ceremonials would
seem to be impossible for an otherwise normal Igorot.


Priesthood

That the belief in spirits is the basis of Igorot religion is shown in
the fact that each person or each household has the necessary power
and knowledge to intercede with the anito. No class of persons has
been differentiated for this function, excepting the limited one of
the dream-appointed insupak or anito exorcists.

That belief in a supreme being is a later development than the belief
in spirits is clear when the fact is known that a differentiated class
of persons has arisen whose duty it is to intercede with Lumawig for
the people as a whole.

This religious intercessor has few of the earmarks of a priest. He
teaches no morals or ethics, no idea of future rewards or punishments,
and he is not an idle, nonproductive member of the group. He usually
receives for the consumption of his family the food employed in the
ceremonies to Lumawig, but this would not sustain the family one week
in the fifty-two. The term "priesthood" is applied to these people
for lack of a better one, and because its use is sufficiently accurate
to serve the present purpose.

There are three classes of persons who stand between the people
and Lumawig, and to-day all hold an hereditary office. The first
class is called "Wa-ku'," of which there are three men, namely,
Fug-ku-so', of ato Somowan, Fang-u-wa', of ato Lowingan, and
Cho-Iug', of ato Sigichan. The function of these men is to decide
and announce the time of all rest days and ceremonials for the
pueblo. These Wa-ku' inform the old men of each ato, and they in turn
announce the days to the ato. The small boys, however, are the true
"criers." They make more noise in the evening before the rest day,
crying "Teng-ao'! whi! teng-ao'!" ("Rest day! hurrah! rest day!"),
than I have heard from the pueblo at any other time.

The title of the second class of intercessors is "Pa'-tay," of whom
there are two in Bontoc -- Kad-lo'-san, of ato Somowan, and Fi'-Iug,
of ato Longfoy.

The Pa'-tay illustrate the nature of the titles borne by all the
intercessors. The title is the same as the name of the ceremony or
one of the ceremonies which the person performs.

Once every new moon each Pa'-tay performs the pa'-tay ceremony in
the sacred grove near the pueblo. This ceremony is for the general
well-being of the pueblo.

The third class of intercessors has duties of a two-fold nature. One
is to allay the rain and wind storms, called "baguios," and to drive
away the cold; and the other is to petition for conditions favorable
to crops. There are seven of these men, and each has a distinct
title. All are apparently of equal importance to the group.

Le-yod', of ato Lowingan, whose title is "Ka-lob'," has charge
of the ka-lob' ceremony held once or twice each year to allay the
baguios. Ang'-way, of ato Somowan, whose title is "Chi-nam'-wi,"
presides over the chi-nam'-wi ceremony to drive away the cold
and fog. This ceremony usually occurs once or twice each year
in January, February, or March. He also serves once each year in
the fa-kil' ceremony for rain. Cham-lang'-an, of ato Filig, has
the title "Po-chang'," and he has one annual ceremony for large
palay. A fifth intercessor is Som-kad', of ato Sipaat; his title is
"Su'-wat." He performs two ceremonies annually -- one, the su'-wat,
for palay fruitage, and the other a fa-kil' for rains. Ong-i-yud',
of ato Fatayyan, is known by the title of "Ke'-eng." He has two
ceremonies annually, one ke'-eng and the other tot-o-lod'; both
are to drive the birds and rats from the fruiting palay. Som-kad',
of ato Sigichan, with the title "O-ki-ad'," has charge of three
ceremonies annually. One is o-ki-ad', for the growth of beans;
another is los-kod', for abundant camotes, and the third is fa-kil',
the ceremony for rain. There are four annual fa-kil' ceremonies,
and each is performed by a different person.


Sacred days

Teng-ao' is the sacred day, the rest day, of Bontoc. It occurs on
an average of about every ten days throughout the year, though there
appears to be no definite regularity in its occurrence. The old men
of the two ato of Lowingan and Sipaat determine when teng-ao' shall
occur, and it is a day observed by the entire pueblo.

The day is publicly announced in the pueblo the preceding evening. If
a person goes to labor in the fields on a sacred day -- not having
heard the announcement, or in disregard of it -- he is fined for
"breaking the Sabbath." The old men of each ato discover those who have
disobeyed the pueblo law by working in the field, and they announce the
names to the old men of Lowingan and Sipaat, who promptly take from the
lawbreaker firewood or rice or a small chicken to the value of about 10
cents, or the wage of two days. March 3, 1903, was teng-ao' in Bontoc,
and I saw ten persons fined for working. The fines are expended in
buying chickens and pigs for the pa'-tay ceremonies of the pueblo.


Ceremonials

A residence of five months among a primitive people about whom no
scientific knowledge existed previously is evidently so scant for
a study of ceremonial life that no explanation should be necessary
here. However, I wish to say that no claim is made that the following
short presentation is complete -- in fact, I know of several ceremonies
by name about which I can not speak at all with certainty. Time was
also insufficient to get accurate translations of all ceremonial
utterances which are here presented.

There is great absence of formalism in uttering ceremonies, scarcely
two persons speak exactly the same words, though I believe the purport
of each ceremony, as uttered by two people, to be the same. This
looseness may be due in part to the absence of a developed cult having
the ceremonies in charge from generation to generation.


Ceremonies connected with agriculture


Pochang

This ceremony is performed at the close of the period Pa-chog',
the period when rice seed is put in the germinating beds.

It is claimed there is no special oral ceremony for Po-chang'. The
proceeding is as follows: On the first day after the completion of
the period Pa-chog' the regular monthly Pa'-tay ceremony is held. On
the second day the men of ato Sigichan, in which ato Lumawig resided
when he lived in Bontoc, prepare a bunch of runo as large around as
a man's thigh. They call this the "cha-nug'," and store it away in
the ato fawi, and outside the fawi set up in the earth twenty or more
runo, called "pa-chi'-pad -- the pud-pud' of the harvest field.

The bunch of runo is for a constant reminder to Lumawig to make the
young rice stalks grow large. The pa-chi'-pad are to prevent Igorot
from other pueblos entering the fawi and thus seeing the efficacious
bundle of runo.

During the ceremony of Lis-lis, at the close of the annual harvest of
palay, both the cha-nug' and the pa-chi'-pad are destroyed by burning.


Chaka

On February 10, 1903, the rice having been practically all transplanted
in Bontoc, was begun the first of a five-day general ceremony for
abundant and good fruitage of the season's palay. It was at the close
of the period I-na-na'.

The ceremony of the first day is called "Su-yak'." Each group of kin --
all descendants of one man or woman who has no living ascendants --
kills a large hog and makes a feast. This day is said to be passed
without oral ceremony.

The ceremony of the second day was a double one. The first was called
"Wa-lit'" and the second "Mang'-mang." From about 9.30 until 11 in
the forenoon a person from each family -- usually a woman -- passed
slowly up the steep mountain side immediately west of Bontoc. These
people went singly and in groups of two to four, following trails to
points on the mountain's crest. Each woman carried a small earthen
pot in which was a piece of pork covered with basi. Each also carried
a chicken in an open-work basket, while tucked into the basket was a
round stick about 14 inches long and half an inch in diameter. This
stick, "lo'-lo," is kept in the family from generation to generation.

When the crest of the mountain was reached, each person in turn voiced
an invitation to her departed ancestors to come to the Mang'-mang
feast. She placed her olla of basi and pork over a tiny fire,
kindled by the first pilgrim to the mountain in the morning and fed
by each arrival. Then she took the chicken from her basket and faced
the west, pointing before her with the chicken in one hand and the
lo'-lo in the other. There she stood, a solitary figure, performing
her sacred mission alone. Those preceding her were slowly descending
the hot mountain side in groups as they came; those to follow her
were awaiting their turn at a distance beneath a shady tree. The fire
beside her sent up its thin line of smoke, bearing through the quiet
air the fragrance of the basi.

The woman invited the ancestral anito to the feast, saying:

"A-ni'-to ad Lo'-ko, su-ma-a-kay'-yo ta-in-mang-mang'-ta-ko
ta-ka-ka'-nen si mu'-teg." Then she faced the north and addressed the
spirit of her ancestors there: "A-ni'-to ad La'-god, su-ma-a-kay'-yo
ta-in-mang-mang'-ta-ko ta-ka-ka'-nen si mu'-teg." She faced the east,
gazing over the forested mountain ranges, and called to the spirits
of the past generation there: "A-ni'-to ad Bar'-lig su-ma-a-kay'-yo
ta-in-mang-mang'-ta-ko ta-ka-ka-nen si mu'-teg."

As she brought her sacred objects back down the mountain another
woman stood alone by the little fire on the crest.

The returning pilgrim now puts her fowl and her basi olla inside her
dwelling, and likely sits in the open air awaiting her husband as he
prepares the feast. Outside, directly in front of his door, he builds
a fire and sets a cooking olla over it. Then he takes the chicken from
its basket, and at his hands it meets a slow and cruel death. It is
held by the feet and the hackle feathers, and the wings unfold and
droop spreading. While sitting in his doorway holding the fowl in
this position the man beats the thin-fleshed bones of the wings with a
short, heavy stick as large around as a spear handle. The fowl cries
with each of the first dozen blows laid on, but the blows continue
until each wing has received fully half a hundred. The injured bird
is then laid on its back on a stone, while its head and neck stretch
out on the hard surface. Again the stick falls, cruelly, regularly,
this time on the neck. Up and down its length it is pummeled, and as
many as a hundred blows fall -- fall after the cries cease, after the
eyes close and open and close again a dozen times, and after the bird
is dead. The head receives a few sharp blows, a jet of blood spurts
out, and the ceremonial killing is past. The man, still sitting on
his haunches, still clasping the feet of the pendent bird, moves
over beside his fire, faces his dwelling, and voices the only words
of this strangely cruel scene. His eyes are open, his head unbending,
and he gazes before him as he earnestly asks a blessing on the people,
their pigs, chickens, and crops.

The old men say it is bad to cut off a chicken's head -- it is like
taking a human head, and, besides, they say that the pummeling makes
the flesh on the bony wings and neck larger and more abundant --
so all fowls killed are beaten to death.

After the oral part of the ceremony the fowl is held in the flames
till all its feathers are burned off. It is cut up and cooked in the
olla before the door of the dwelling, and the entire family eats of it.

Each family has the Mang'-mang ceremony, and so also has each
broken household if it possesses a sementera -- though a lone woman
calls in a man, who alone may perform the rite connected with the
ceremonial killing, and who must cook the fowl. A lone man needs no
woman assistant.

Though the ancestral anito are religiously bidden to the feast,
the people eat it all, no part being sacrificed for these invisible
guests. Even the small olla of basi is drunk by the man at the
beginning of the meal.

The rite of the third day is called "Mang-a-pu'-i." The sementeras of
growing palay are visited, and an abundant fruitage asked for. Early
in the morning some member of each household goes to the mountains
to get small sprigs of a plant named "pa-lo'-ki." Even as early as
7.30 the pa-lo'-ki had been brought to many of the houses, and the
people were scattering along the different trails leading to the
most distant sementeras. If the family owned many scattered fields,
the day was well spent before all were visited.

Men, women, and boys went to the bright-green fields of young palay,
each carrying the basket belonging to his sex. In the basket were
the sprigs of pa-lo'-ki, a small olla of water, a small wooden dish
or a basket of cooked rice, and a bamboo tube of basi or tapui. Many
persons had also several small pieces of pork and a chicken. As they
passed out of the pueblo each carried a tightly bound club-like torch
of burning palay straw; this would smolder slowly for hours.

On the stone dike of each sementera the owner paused to place three
small stones to hold the olla. The bundle of smoldering straw was
picked open till the breeze fanned a blaze; dry sticks or reeds
quickly made a small, smoking fire under the olla, in which was put
the pork or the chicken, if food was to be eaten there. Frequently,
too, if the smoke was low, a piece of the pork was put on a stick
punched into the soil of the sementera beside the fire and the smoke
enwrapped the meat and passed on over the growing field.

As soon as all was arranged at the fire a small amount of basi was
poured over a sprig of pa-lo'-ki which was stuck in the soil of the
sementera, or one or two sprigs were inserted, drooping, in a split
in a tall, green runo, and this was pushed into the soil. While the
person stood beside the efficacious pa-lo'-ki an invocation was voiced
to Lumawig to bless the crop.

The olla and piece of pork were at once put in the basket, and the
journey conscientiously continued to the next sementera. Only when
food was eaten at the sementera was the halt prolonged.

A-sig-ka-cho' is the name of the function of the fourth day. On that
day each household owning sementeras has a fish feast.

At that season of the year (February), while the water is low in
the river, only the very small, sluggish fish, called "kacho," is
commonly caught at Bontoc. Between 200 and 300 pounds of those fish,
only one in a hundred of which exceeded 2 1/2 inches in length,
were taken from the river during the three hours in the afternoon
when the ceremonial fishing was in progress.

Two large scoops, one shown in Pl. XLIX, were used to catch the
fish. They were a quarter of a mile apart in the river, and were
operated independently.

At the house the fish were cooked and eaten as is described in the
section on "Meals and mealtime."

When this fish meal was past the last observance of the fourth day
of the Cha'-ka ceremonial was ended.

The rite of the last day is called "Pa'-tay." It is observed by two
old Pa'-tay priests. Exactly at high noon Kad-lo'-san left his ato
carrying a chicken and a smoldering palay-straw roll in his hand, and
the unique basket, tak-fa', on his shoulder. He went unaccompanied and
apparently unnoticed to the small grove of trees, called "Pa-pa-tay'
ad So-kok'." Under the trees is a space some 8 or 10 feet across,
paved with flat rocks, and here the man squatted and put down his
basket. From it he took a two-quart olla containing water, a small
wooden bowl of cooked rice, a bottle of native cane sugar, and a
head-ax. He next kindled a blaze under the olla in a fireplace of
three stones already set up. Then followed the ceremonial killing
of the chicken, as described in the Mang'-mang rite of the second
day. With the scarcely dead fowl held before him the man earnestly
addressed a short supplication to Lumawig.

The fowl was then turned over and around in the flame until all its
feathers were burned off. Its crop was torn out with the fingers. The
ax was struck blade up solid in the ground, and the legs of the
chicken cut off from the body by drawing them over the sharp ax
blade, and they were put at once into the pot. An incision was cut
on each side of the neck, and the body torn quickly and neatly open,
with the wings still attached to the breast part. A glad exclamation
broke from the man when he saw that the gall of the fowl was dark
green. The intestines were then removed, ripped into a long string,
and laid in the basket. The back part of the fowl, with liver, heart,
and gizzard attached, went into the now boiling pot, and the breast
section followed it promptly. Three or four minutes after the bowl
of rice was placed immediately in front of the man, and the breast
part of the chicken laid in the bowl on the rice. Then followed these
words: "Now the gall is good, we shall live in the pueblo invulnerable
to disease."

The breast was again put in the pot, and as the basket was packed up
in preparation for departure the anito of ancestors were invited to a
feast of chicken and rice in order that the ceremony might be blessed.

At the completion of this supplication the Pa'-tay shouldered his
basket and hastened homeward by a different route from which he came.

If a chicken is used in this rite it is cooked in the dwelling of
the priest and is eaten by the family. If a pig is used the old men
of the priest's ato consume it with him.

The performance of the rite of this last day is a critical half hour
for the town. If the gall of the fowl is white or whitish the palay
fruitage will be more or less of a failure. The crop last year was
such -- a whitish gall gave the warning. If a crow flies cawing over
the path of the Pa'-tay as he returns to his dwelling, or if the dogs
bark at him, many people will die in Bontoc. Three years ago a man
was killed by a falling bowlder shortly after noon on this last day's
ceremonial -- a flying crow had foretold the disaster. If an eagle
flies over the path, many houses will burn. Two years ago an eagle
warned the people, and in the middle of the day fifty or more houses
burned in Bontoc in the three ato of Pokisan, Luwakan, and Ungkan.

If none of these calamities are foretold, the anito enemies of Bontoc
are not revengeful, and the pueblo rests in contentment.


Suwat

This ceremony, performed by Som-kad' of ato Sipaat, occurs in the
first period of the year, I-na-na'. The usual pig or chicken is
killed, and the priest says: "In-fi-kus'-na ay pa-ku' to-mo-no'-ka
ad chay'-ya." This is: "Fruit of the palay, grow up tall, even to
the sky."



Keeng

Ke'-eng ceremony is for the protection of the palay. Ong-i-yud',
of ato Fatayyan, is the priest for this occasion, and the ceremony
occurs when the first fruit heads appear on the growing rice. They
claim two good-sized hogs are killed on this day. Then Ong-i-yud'
takes a ki'-lao, the bird-shaped bird scarer, from the pueblo and
stealthily ducks along to the sementera where he suddenly erects the
scarer. Then he says:



U-mi-chang'-ka Sik'-a
Ti-lin' in kad La'-god yad Ap'-lay
Sik'-a o'-tot in lo-ko-lo'-ka nan fu-i'-mo.



Freely translated, this is --



Ti-lin' [the rice bird], you go away into the north country and the
south country
You, rat, you go into your hole.




Totolod

This ceremony, tot-o-lod', occurs on the day following ke'-eng,
and it is also for the protection of the rice crop. Ong-i-yud' is
the priest for both ceremonies.

The usual hog is killed, and then the priest ties up a bundle of palay
straw the size of his arm, and walks to the south side of the pueblo
"as though stalking deer in the tall grass." He suddenly and boldly
throws the bundle southward, suggesting that the birds and rats follow
in the same direction, and that all go together quickly.


Safosab

This ceremony is recorded in the chapter on "Agriculture" in the
section on "Harvesting," page 103. It is simply referred to here
in the place where it would logically appear if it were not so
intimately connected with the harvesting that it could not be omitted
in presenting that phase of agriculture.


Lislis

At the close of the rice harvest, at the beginning of the season
Li'-pas, the lis-lis ceremony is widely celebrated in the Bontoc
area. It consists, in Bontoc pueblo, of two parts. Each family cooks
a chicken in the fireplace on the second floor of the dwelling. This
part is called "cha-peng'." After the cha-peng' the public part of the
ceremony occurs. It is called "fug-fug'-to," and is said to continue
three days.

Fug-fug'-to in Bontoc is a man's rock fight between the men of Bontoc
and Samoki. The battle is in the broad bed of the river between the
two pueblos. The men go to the conflict armed with war shields, and
they pelt each other with rocks as seriously as in actual war. There
is a man now in Bontoc whose leg was broken in the conflict of 1901,
and three of our four Igorot servant boys had scalp wounds received
in lis-lis rock conflicts.

A river cuts in two the pueblo of Alap, and that pueblo is said
to celebrate the harvest by a rock fight similar to that of Bontoc
and Samoki.

It is said by Igorot that the Sadanga lis-lis is a conflict with runo
(or reed) spears, which are warded off with the war shields.

It is claimed that in Sagada the public part of the ceremony consists
of a mud fight in the sementeras, mud being thrown by each contending
party.


Loskod

This ceremony occurs once each year at the time of planting camotes,
in the period of Ba-li'-ling.

Som-kad' of ato Sigichan is the pueblo "priest" who performs the
los-kod' ceremony. He kills a chicken or pig, and then petitions
Lumawig as follows: "Lo-mos-kod'-kay to-ki'." This means, "May there
be so many camotes that the ground will crack and burst open."


Okiad

Som-kad' of ato Sigichan performs the o-ki-ad' ceremony once each
year during the time of planting the black beans, or ba-la'-tong,
also in the period of Ba-li'-ling.

The petition addressed to Lumawig is said after a pig or chicken
has been ceremonially killed; it runs as follows: "Ma-o'-yed si
ba-la'-tong, Ma-o'-yed si fu'-tug, Ma-o'-yed nan i-pu-kao'." A free
translation is, "May the beans grow rapidly; may the pigs grow rapidly;
and may the people [the children] grow rapidly."


Kopus

Ko'-pus is the name given the three days of rest at the close of the
period of Ba-li'-ling. They say there is no special ceremony for
ko'-pus, but some time during the three days the pa'-tay ceremony
is performed.


Ceremonies connected with climate


Fakil

The Fa-kil' ceremony for rain occurs four times each year, on four
succeeding days, and is performed by four different priests. The
ceremony is simple. There is the usual ceremonial pig killing by the
priest, and each night preceding the ceremony all the people cry:
"I-teng'-ao ta-ko nan fa-kil'." This is only an exclamation, meaning,
"Rest day! We observe the ceremony for rain!" I was informed that
the priest has no separate oral petition or ceremony, though it is
probable that he has.



Kalob

Once or twice each year, or maybe once in two years, in January
or February, a cold, driving rain pours itself on Bontoc from the
north. It often continues for two or three days, and is a miserable
storm to be out in.

If this storm continues three or four days, Le-yod', of ato Lowingan,
performs the following ceremony in his dwelling: "Ma-kis-kis'-kay
li-fo'-o min-chi-kang'-ka ay fat-a'-wa ta-a'-yu nan fa'-ki
lo-lo'-ta." A very free translation of this is as follows: "You fogs,
rise up rolling. Let us have good weather in all the world! All the
people are very poor."

Following this ceremony Le-yod' goes to Chao'-wi, the site of Lumawig's
former dwelling in the pueblo, shown in Pl. CLIII, and there he builds
a large fire. It is claimed the fierce storm always ceases shortly
after the ka-lob' is performed.


Chinamwi

Ang'-way of ato Somowan performs the chi-nam'-wi ceremony once or
twice each year during the cold and fog of the period Sama, when the
people are standing in the water-filled sementeras turning the soil,
frequently working entirely naked.

Many times I have seen the people shake -- arms, legs, jaw, and body --
during those cold days, and admit that I was touched by the ceremony
when I saw it.

A hog is killed and each household gives Ang'-way a manojo of
palay. He pleads to Lumawig: "Tum-ke'-ka ay li-fo'-o ta-a-ye'-o nan
in sa-ma'-mi." This prayer is: "No more cold and fog! Pity those
working in the sementera!"


Ceremonies connected with head taking[35]


Kafokab

Ka-fo'-kab is the name of a ceremony performed as soon as a party
of successful head-hunters returns home. The old man in charge at
the fawi says: "Cha-kay'-yo fo'-so-mi ma-pay-ing'-an. Cha-kay'-mi
in-ked-se'-ka-mi nan ka-nin'-mi to-kom-ke'-ka." This is an exultant
boast -- it is the crow of the winning cock. It runs as follows:
"You, our enemies, we will always kill you! We are strong; the food
we eat makes us strong!"


Changtu

There is a peculiar ceremony, called "chang'-tu," performed now and
then when i'-chu, the small omen bird, visits the pueblo.

This ceremony is held before each dwelling and each pabafunan in the
pueblo. A chicken is killed, and usually both pork and chicken are
eaten. The man performing the Chang'-tu says:

"Sik'-a tan-ang'-a sik'-a lu'-fub ad Sa-dang'-a nan ay-yam' Sik'-a
ta-lo'-lo ad La'-god nan ay-yam' Sik'-a ta-lo'-lo ye'-mod La'-god
nan fa-no wat'-mo yad Ap'-lay."

This speech is a petition running as follows:

"You, the anito of a person beheaded by Bontoc, and you, the anito of
a person who died in a dwelling, you all go to the pueblo of Sadanga
[that is, you destructive spirits, do not visit Bontoc; but we suggest
that you carry your mischief to the pueblo of Sadanga, an enemy of
ours]. You, the anito of a Bontoc person beheaded by some other pueblo,
you go into the north country, and you, the anito of a Bontoc person
beheaded by some other pueblo, you carry the palay-straw torch into
the north country and the south country [that is, friendly anito,
once our fellow-citizens, burn the dwellings of our enemies both
north and south of us]."

In this petition the purpose of the Chang'-tu is clearly defined. The
faithful i'-chu has warned the pueblo that an anito, perhaps an enemy,
perhaps a former friend, threatens the pueblo; and the people seek
to avert the calamity by making feasts -- every dwelling preparing a
feast. Each household then calls the names of the classes of malignant
anito which destroy life and property, and suggests to them that they
spend their fury elsewhere.


Ceremony connected with ato

Young men sometimes change their membership from one a'-to to
another. It is said that old men never do. There is a ceremony of
adoption into a new a'-to when a change is made; it is called "pu-ke'"
or "pal-ug-peg'." At the time of the ceremony a feast is made. and
some old man welcomes the new member as follows:

If you die first, you must look out for us, since we wish to live long
[that is, your spirit must protect us against destructive spirits],
do not let other pueblos take our heads. If you do not take this
care, your spirit will find no food when it comes to the a'-to,
because the a'-to will be empty -- we will all be dead.



PART 9

Mental Life

The Igorot does not know many things in common with enlightened men,
and yet one constantly marvels at his practical knowledge. Tylor
says primitive man has "rude, shrewd sense." The Igorot has more --
he has practical wisdom.


Actual knowledge

Concerning cosmology, the Igorot believes Lumawig gave the earth and
all things connected with it. Lumawig makes it rain and storm, gives
day and night, heat and cold. The earth is "just as you see it." It
ceases somewhere a short distance beyond the most distant place an
Igorot has visited. He does not know how it is supported. "Why should
it fall?" he asks. "A pot on the earth does not fall." Above is chayya,
the sky -- the Igorot does not know or attempt to say what it is. It
is up above the earth and extends beyond and below the visible horizon
and the limit of the earth. The Igorot does not know how it remains
there, and a man once interrupted me to ask why it did not fall down
below the earth at its limit.

"Below us," an old Igorot told me, "is just bones."

The sun is a man called "Chal-chal'." The moon is a woman named
"Ka-bi-gat'." "Once the moon was also a sun, and then it was always
day; but Lumawig made a moon of the woman, and since then there is
day and night, which is best."

There are two kinds of stars. "Fat-ta-ka'-kan" is the name of large
stars and "tuk-fi'-fi" is the name of small stars. The stars are all
men, and they wear white coats. Once they came down to Bontoc pueblo
and ate sugar cane, but on being discovered they all escaped again
to chayya.

Thunder is a gigantic wild boar crying for rain. A Bontoc man was
once killed by Ki-cho', the thunder. The unfortunate man was ripped
open from his legs to his head, just as a man is ripped and torn
by the wild boar of the mountains. The lightning, called "Yup-yup,"
is also a hog, and always accompanies Ki-cho'.

Lumawig superintends the rains. Li-fo'-o are the rain clouds -- they
are smoke. "At night Lumawig has the li-fo'-o come down to the river
and get water. Before morning they have carried up a great deal of
water; and then they let it come down as rain."

Earthquakes are caused by Lumawig. He places both hands on the edge
of the earth and quickly pushes it back and forth. They do not know
why he does it.

Regarding man himself the Igorot knows little. He says Lumawig gave man
and all man's functionings. He does not know the functioning of blood,
brain, stomach, or any other of the primary organs of the body. He says
the bladder of men and animals is for holding the water they drink. He
knows that a man begets his child and that a woman's breasts are for
supplying the infant food, but these two functionings are practically
all the facts he knows or even thinks he knows about his body.


Mensuration

Under this title are considered all forms of measurement used by
the Igorot.


Numbers

The most common method of enumerating is that of the finger count. The
usual method is to count the fingers, beginning with the little
finger of the right hand, in succession touching each finger with
the forefinger of the other hand. The count of the thumb, li'-ma,
five, is one of the words for hand. The sixth count begins with the
little finger of the left hand, and the tenth reaches the thumb. The
eleventh count begins with the little finger of the right hand again,
and so the count continues. The Igorot system is evidently decimal. One
man, however, invariably recorded his eleventh count on his toes,
from which he returned to the little finger of his right hand for
the twenty-first count.

A common method of enumerating is one in which the record is kept
with small pebbles placed together one after another on the ground.

Another method in frequent use preserves the record in the number of
sections of a slender twig which is bent or broken half across for
each count.

When an Igorot works for an American he records each day by a notch
in a small stick. A very neat record for the month was made by one
of our servants who prepared a three-sided stick less than 2 inches
long. Day by day he cut notches in this stick, ten on each edge.

When a record is wanted for a long time -- as when one man loans
another money for a year or more -- he ties a knot in a string for
each peso loaned.

The Igorot subtracts by addition. He counts forward in the total
of fingers or pebbles the number he wishes to subtract, and then he
again counts the remainder forward.



Lineal measure

The distance between the tips of the thumb and middle finger extended
and opposed is the shortest linear measure used by the Igorot,
although he may measure by eye with more detail and exactness, as
when he notes half the above distance. This span measure is called
"chang'-an" or "i'-sa chang'-an," "chu'-wa chang'-an," etc.

Chi-pa' is the measure between the tips of the two middle fingers when
the arms are extended full length in opposite directions. Chi-wan'
si chi-pa' is half the above measure, or from the tip of the middle
finger of one hand, arm extended from side of body, to the sternum.

These three measures are most used in handling timbers and boards in
the construction of buildings.

Cloth for breechcloths is measured by the length of the forearm,
being wound about the elbow and through the hand, quite as one coils
up a rope.

Long distances in the mountains or on the trail are measured by the
length of time necessary to walk them, and the length of time is
told by pointing to the place of the sun in the heavens at the hour
of departure and arrival.

Rice sementeras are measured by the number of cargoes of palay
they produce. Besides this relatively exact measure, sementeras
producing up to five cargoes are called "small," pay-yo' ay fa-nig';
and those producing more than five are said to be "large," pay-yo'
chuk-chuk'-wag.


Measurement of animals

The idea of the size of a carabao, and at the same time a crude
estimate of its age and value, is conveyed by representing on the
arm the length of the animal's horns.

The size of a hog and, as with the carabao, an estimate of its value is
shown by representing the size of the girth of the animal by clasping
the hands around one's leg. For instance, a small pig is represented
by the size of the speaker's ankle, as he clasps both hands around it;
a larger one is the size of his calf; a still larger one is the size
of a man's thigh; and one still larger is represented by the thigh and
calf together, the calf being bent tightly against the upper leg. To
represent a still larger hog, the two hands circle the calf and thigh,
but at some distance from them.

The Bontoc Igorot has no system of liquid or dry measure, nor has he
any system of weight.


The calendar

The Igorot has no mechanical record of time or events, save as he
sometimes cuts notches in a stick to mark the flight of days. He
is apt, however, in memorizing the names of ancestors, holding them
for half a dozen generations, but he keeps no record of age, and has
no adequate conception of such a period as twenty years. He has no
conception of a cycle of time greater than one year, and, in fact,
it is the rare man who thinks in terms of a year. When one does he
speaks of the past year as tin-mo-win', or i-san' pa-na'-ma.

Prominent Igorot have insisted that a year has only eight moons,
and other equally sane and respected men say it has one hundred. But
among the old men, who are the wisdom of the people, there are those
who know and say it has thirteen moons.

They have noted and named eight phases of the moon, namely: The
one-quarter waxing moon, called "fis-ka'-na;" the two-quarters waxing
moon, "ma-no'-wa," or "ma-lang'-ad;" the three-quarters waxing moon,
"kat-no-wa'-na" or "nap-no';" the full moon, "fit-fi-tay'-eg;" the
three-quarters waning moon, "ka-tol-pa-ka'-na" or "ma-til-pa'-kan;"
the two-quarters waning moon, "ki-sul-fi-ka'-na;" the one-quarter
waning moon, sig-na'-a-na" or "ka-fa-ni-ka'-na;" and the period
following the last, when there is but a faint rim of light, is called
"li'-meng" or "ma-a-mas'."


FIGURE 9

Recognized phases of the moon.

Fis-ka'-na.
Ma-no'-wa.
Kat-no-wa'-na.
Fit-fi-tay'-eg.
Ka-tol-pa-ka'-na.
Ki-sul-fi-ka'-na.
Sig-na'-a-na.
Li'-meng.


However, the Igorot do seldom count time by the phases of the moon,
and the only solar period of time they know is that of the day. Their
word for day is the same as for sun, a-qu'. They indicate the time of
day by pointing to the sky, indicating the position the sun occupied
when a particular event occurred.

There are two seasons in a year. One is Cha-kon', having five moons,
and the other is Ka-sip', having eight moons. The seasons do not mark
the wet and dry periods, as might be expected in a country having
such periods. Cha-kon' is the season of rice or "palay" growth and
harvest, and Ka-sip' is the remainder of the year. These two seasons,
and the recognition that there are thirteen moons in one year, and
that day follows night, are the only natural divisions of time in
the Igorot calendar.

He has made an artificial calendar differing somewhat in all pueblos
in name and number and length of periods. In all these calendars
the several periods bear the names of the characteristic industrial
occupations which follow one another successively each year. Eight
of these periods make up the calendar of Bontoc pueblo, and seven
of them have to do with the rice industry. Each period receives its
name from that industry which characterizes its beginning, and it
retains this name until the beginning of the next period, although
the industry which characterized it may have ceased some time before.

I-na-na' is the first period of the year, and the first period of the
season Cha-kon'. It is the period, as they say, of no more work in the
rice sementeras -- that is, practically all fields are prepared and
transplanted. It began in 1903 on February 11. It lasts about three
months, continuing until the time of the first harvest of the rice or
"palay" crop in May; in 1903 this was until May 2. This period is
not a period of "no work" -- it has many and varied labors.

The second period is La'-tub. It is that of the first harvests,
and lasts some four weeks, ending about June 1.

Cho'-ok is the third period. It is the time when the bulk of the palay
is harvested. It occupies about four weeks, running over in 1903 two
days in July.

Li'-pas is the fourth period. It is that of "no more palay harvest,"
and lasts for about ten or fifteen days, ending probably about July
15. This is the last period of the season Cha-kon'.

The fifth period is Ba-li'-ling. It is the first period of the season
Ka-sip'. It takes its name from the general planting of camotes,
and is the only one of the calendar periods not named from the rice
industry. It continues about six weeks, or until near the 1st of
September.

Sa-gan-ma' is the sixth period. It is the time when the sementeras to
be used as seed beds for rice are put in condition, the earth being
turned three different times. It lasts about two months. November 15,
1902, the seed rice was just peeping from the kernels in the beds of
Bontoc and Sagada, and the seed is sown immediately after the third
turning of the earth, which thus ended early in November.

Pa-chog' is the seventh period of the annual calendar. It is the
period of seed sowing, and begins about November 10. Although the
seed sowing does not last many days, the period Pa-chog' continues
five or six weeks.

Sa'-ma is the last period of the calendar. It is the period in which
the rice sementeras are prepared for receiving the young plants and in
which these seedlings are transplanted from the seed beds. The last
Sa'-ma was near seven weeks' duration. It began about December 20,
1902, and ended February 10, 1903. Sa'-ma is the last period of the
season Ka-sip', and the last of the year.

The Igorot often says that a certain thing occurred in La'-tub, or
will occur in Ba-li'-ling, so these periods of the calendar are held
in mind as the civilized man thinks of events in time as occurring
in some particular month.

The Igorot have a tradition that formerly the moon was also a sun,
and at that time it was always day. Lumawig told the moon to be
"moon," and then there was night. Such a change was necessary, they
say, so the people would know when to work -- that is, when was the
right time, the right moon, to take up a particular kind of labor.


Folk tales

The paucity of the pure mental life of the Igorot is nowhere more
clearly shown than in the scarcity of folk tales.

I group here seven tales which are quite commonly known among the
people of Bontoc. The second, third, fourth, and fifth are frequently
related by the parents to their children, and I heard all of them
the first time from boys about a dozen years old. I believe these
tales are nearly all the pure fiction the Igorot has created and
perpetuated from generation to generation, except the Lumawig stories.

The Igorot story-tellers, with one or two exceptions, present the
bare facts in a colorless and lifeless manner. I have, therefore,
taken the liberty of adding slightly to the tales by giving them some
local coloring, but I have neither added to nor detracted from the
facts related.


The sun man and moon woman; or, origin of head-hunting

The Moon, a woman called "Ka-bi-gat'," was one day making a large
copper cooking pot. The copper was soft and plastic like potter's
clay. Ka-bi-gat' held the heavy sagging pot on her knees and leaned
the hardened rim against her naked breasts. As she squatted there
-- turning, patting, shaping, the huge vessel -- a son of the man
Chal-chal', the Sun, came to watch her. This is what he saw: The
Moon dipped her paddle, called "pip-i'," in the water, and rubbed
it dripping over a smooth, rounded stone, an agate with ribbons of
colors wound about in it. Then she stretched one long arm inside the
pot as far as she could. "Tub, tub, tub," said the ribbons of colors
as Ka-bi-gat' pounded up against the molten copper with the stone in
her extended hand. "Slip, slip, slip, slip," quickly answered pip-i',
because the Moon was spanking back the many little rounded domes which
the stone bulged forth on the outer surface of the vessel. Thus the
huge bowl grew larger, more symmetrical, and smooth.

Suddenly the Moon looked up and saw the boy intently watching the
swelling pot and the rapid playing of the paddle. Instantly the Moon
struck him, cutting off his head.

Chal-chal' was not there. He did not see it, but he knew Ka-bi-gat'
cut off his son's head by striking with her pip-i'.

He hastened to the spot, picked the lad up, and put his head where
it belonged -- and the boy was alive.

Then the Sun said to the Moon:

"See, because you cut off my son's head, the people of the Earth are
cutting off each other's heads, and will do so hereafter."

"And it is so," the story-tellers continue; "they do cut off each
other's heads."


Origin of coling, the serpent eagle[36]

A man and woman had two boys. Every day the mother sent them into
the mountains for wood to cook her food. Each morning as she sent
them out she complained about the last wood they brought home.

One day they brought tree limbs; the mother complained, saying:

"This wood is bad. It smokes so much that I can not see, and soon I
shall be blind." And then she added, as was her custom:

"If you do not work well, you can have only food for dogs and pigs."

That day, as usual, the boys had in their topil for dinner only boiled
camote vines, such as the hogs eat, and a small allowance of rice,
just as much as a dog is fed. At night the boys brought some very
good wood -- wood of the pitch-pine tree. In the morning the mother
complained that such wood blackened the house. She gave them pig food
in their topil, saying:

"Pig food is good enough for you because you do not work well."

That night each boy brought in a large bundle of runo. The mother
was angry, and scolded, saying:

"This is not good wood; it leaves too many ashes and it dirties
the house."

In the morning she gave them dog food for dinner, and the boys again
went away to the mountains. They were now very thin and poor because
they had no meat to eat. By and by the older one said:

"You wait here while I climb up this tree and cut off some
branches." So he climbed the tree, and presently called down:

"Here is some wood" -- and the bones of an arm dropped to the ground.

"Oh, oh," exclaimed the younger brother, "it is your arm!"

Again the older boy called, "Here is some more wood" -- and the bones
of his other arm fell at the foot of the tree.

Again he called, and the bones of a leg dropped; then his other leg
fell. The next time he called, down came the right half of his ribs;
and then, next, the left half of his ribs; and immediately thereafter
his spinal column. Then he called again, and down fell his hair.

The last time he called, "Here is some wood," his skull dropped on
the earth under the tree.

"Here, take those things home," said he. "Tell the woman that this
is her wood; she only wanted my bones."

"But there is no one to go with me down the mountains," said the
younger boy.

"Yes; I will go with you, brother," quickly came the answer from the
tree top.

So the boy tied up his bundle, and, putting it on his shoulder,
started for the pueblo. As he did so the other -- he was now Co-ling'
-- soared from the tree top, always flying directly above the boy.

When the younger brother reached home he put his bundle down, and
said to the woman:

"Here is the wood you wanted."

The woman and the husband, frightened, ran out of the house; they
heard something in the air above them.

"Qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok!" said Co-ling', as he circled
around and around above the house. "Qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok!" he
screamed, "now camotes and palay are your son. I do not need your
food any longer."


Origin of tilin, the ricebird[37]

As the mother was pounding out rice to cook for supper, her little
girl said:

"Give me some mo'-ting to eat."

"No," answered the mother, "mo'-ting is not good to eat; wait until
it is cooked."

"No, I want to eat mo'-ting," said the little girl, and for a long
time she kept asking her mother for raw rice.

At last her mother interrupted, "It is bad to talk so much."

The rice was then all pounded out. The mother winnowed it clean,
and put it in her basket, covering it up with the winnowing tray. She
placed an empty olla on her head and went to the spring for water.

The anxious little girl reached quickly for the basket to get some
rice, but the tray slipped from her grasp and fell, covering her
beneath it in the basket.

The mother returned with the water to cook supper. She heard a bird
crying, "King! king! nik! nik! nik!" When the woman uncovered the
basket, Tilin, the little brown ricebird, flew away, calling:

"Good-bye, mother; good-bye, mother; you would not give me mo'-ting!"


Origin of kaag, the monkey

The palay was in the milk and maturing rapidly. Many kinds of birds
that knew how delicious juicy palay is were on hand to get their share,
so the boys were sent to stay all day in the sementeras to frighten
these little robbers away.

Every day a father sent out his two boys to watch his palay in a
narrow gash in the mountain; and every day they carried their small
basket full of cooked rice, white and delicious, but their mother
put no meat in the basket.

Finally one of the boys said:

"It is bad not to have meat to eat; every day we have only rice."

"Yes, it is bad," said his brother. "We can not keep fat without meat;
we are getting poor and thin, and pretty soon we shall die."

"That is true," answered the other boy; "pretty soon we shall die. I
believe I shall be ka'-ag."

And during the day thick hair came on this boy's arms; and then he
became hairy all over; and then it was so -- he was ka'-ag, and he
vanished in the mountains.

Then soon the other boy was ka'-ag, too. At night he went home and
told the father:

"Your boy is ka'-ag; he is in the mountains."

The boy ran out of the house quickly. The father went to the mountains
to get his boy, but ka'-ag ran up a tall tree; at the foot of the tree
was a pile of bones. The father called his son, and ka'-ag came down
the tree, and, as the father went toward him, ka'-ag stood up clawing
and striking at the man with his hands, and breathing a rough throat
cry like this:

"Haa! haa! haa!"

Then the man ran home crying, and he never got his boys.

Pretty soon there was a-sa'-wan nan ka'-ag[38] with a babe. Then there
were many little children; and then, pretty soon, the mountains were
full of monkeys.


Origin of gayyang, the crow, and fanias, the large lizard

There were two young men who were the very greatest of friends.

One tattooed the other beautifully. He tattooed his arms and his legs,
his breast and his belly, and also his back and face. He marked him
beautifully all over, and he rubbed soot from the bottom of an olla
into the marks, and he was then very beautiful.

When the tattooer finished his work he turned to his friend, and said:
"Now you tattoo me beautifully, too."

So the young men scraped together a great pile of black, greasy soot
from pitch-pine wood; and before the other knew what the tattooed one
was doing he rubbed soot over him from finger tip to finger tip. Then
the black one asked:

"Why do you tattoo me so badly?"

Without waiting for an answer they began a terrible combat. When,
suddenly, the tattooed one was a large lizard, fa-ni'-as,[39] and
he ran away and hid in the tall grass; and the sooty black one was
gay-yang, the crow,[40] and he flew away and up over Bontoc, because he
was ashamed to enter the pueblo after quarreling with his old friend.


Owug, the snake

The old men say that a man of Mayinit came to live in Bontoc, as he
had married a Bontoc woman and she wished to live in her own town.

After a while the man died. His friends came to the funeral, and a
snake, o-wug', also came. When the people wept, o-wug' cried also. When
they put the dead man in the grave, and when they stood there looking,
o-wug' came to the grave and looked upon the man, and then went away.

Later, when the friends observed the death ceremony, o-wug' also came.

"O-wug' thus showed himself to be a friend and companion of the
Igorot. Sometime in the past he was an Igorot, but we have not heard,"
the old men say, "when or how he was o-wug'."

"We never kill o-wug'; he is our friend. If he crosses our path on
a journey, we stop and talk. If he crosses our path three or four
times, we return home, because, if we continue our journey then,
some of us will die. O-wug' thus comes to tell us not to proceed;
he knows the bad anito on every trail."


Who took my father's head?

The Bontoc people have another folk tale regarding head taking. In
it Lumawig, their god, taught them how to discover which pueblo had
taken the head of one of their members. They repeat this story as a
ceremony in the pabafunan after every head lost, though almost always
they know what pueblo took it. It is as follows:

"A very great time ago a man and woman had two sons. Far up in the
mountains they owned some garden patches. One day they told the
boys to go and see whether the stone wall about the garden needed
repair; but the boys said they did not wish to go, so the father went
alone. As he did not return at nightfall, his sons started into the
mountains to find him. They bound together two small bunches of runo
for torches to light up the steep, rough, twisting trail. One torch
was burning when they went out, and they carried the other to light
them home again. Nowhere along the trail did they find their father;
he had not been injured in the path, nor could they find where he had
fallen over a cliff. So they passed on to the garden; there they found
their father's headless body. They searched for blood in the bushes
and grass, but they found nothing -- no blood, no enemies' tracks.

"They carried the strange corpse down the mountain trail to their home
in Bontoc. Then they hastened to the pabafunan, and there they told the
men what had befallen their father. The old men counseled together,
and at last one of them said: 'Lumawig told the old men of the past,
so the old men last dead told me, that should any son find his father
beheaded, he should do this: He should ask, "Who took my father's
head? Did Tukukan take it? Did Sakasakan take it?" ' and Lumawig said,
'He shall know who took his father's head.'

"So the boys took a basket, the fangao, to represent Lumawig, and stuck
it full of chicken feathers. Before the fangao they placed a small
cup of basi. Then squatting in front with the cup at their feet they
put a small piece of pork on a stick and held it over the cup. 'Who
took my father's head? -- did Tukukan?' they asked. But the pork and
the cup and the basket all remained still. 'Did Sakasakan?' asked
the boys all was as before. They went over a list of towns at enmity
with Bontoc, but there was no answer given them. At last they asked,
'Did the Moon?' -- but still there was no answer. 'Did the Sun?' the
boys asked, and suddenly the piece of pork slid from the stick into
the basi. And this was the way Lumawig had said a person should know
who took his father's head.

"The Sun, then, was the guilty person. The two boys took some dogs and
hastened to the mountains where their father was killed. There the dogs
took up the scent of the enemy, and followed it in a straight line to
a very large spring where the water boiled up, as at Mayinit where the
salt springs are. The scent passed into this bubbling, tumbling water,
but the dogs could not get down. When the dogs returned to land the
elder brother tried to enter, but he failed also. Then the younger
brother tried to get down; he succeeded in going beneath the water,
and there he saw the head of his father, and young men in a circle
were dancing around it -- they were the children of the Sun. The
brother struck off the head of one of these young men, caught up his
father's head, and, with the two heads, escaped. When he reached his
elder brother the two hastened home to their pueblo."



PART 10

Language


Introduction

The language of the Bontoc Igorot is sufficiently distinct from all
others to be classed as a separate dialect. However, it is originally
from a parent stock which to-day survives more or less noticeably
over probably a much larger part of the surface of the earth than
the tongue of any other primitive people.

The language of every group of primitive people in the
Philippine Archipelago, except the Negrito, is from that same old
tongue. Mr. Homer B. Hulbert[41] has recorded vocabularies of ten
groups of people in Formosa; and those vocabularies show that the
people belong to the same great linguistic family as the Bontoc
Igorot. Mr. Hulbert believes that the language of Korea is originally
of the same stock as that of Formosa. In concluding his article
he says:

We find therefore that out of a vocabulary of fifty words there are
fifteen in which a distinct similarity [between Korean and Formosan]
can be traced, and in not a few of the fifteen the similarity amounts
to practical identity.

The Malay language of Malay Peninsula, Java, and Sumatra is from the
same stock language. So are many, perhaps all, the languages of Borneo,
Celebes, and New Zealand. This same primitive tongue is spread across
the Pacific and shows unmistakably in Fiji, New Hebrides, Samoa,
and Hawaii. It is also found in Madagascar.


Alphabet

The Bontoc man has not begun even the simplest form of permanent
mechanical record in the line of a written language, and no vocabulary
of the language has before been published.

The following alphabet was used in writing Bontoc words in this study:


A as in FAR; Spanish RAMO
A is in LAW; as O in French OR
AY as in AI in AISLE; Spanish HAY
AO as OU in OUT; as AU in Spanish AUTO
B as in BAD; Spanish BAJAR
CH as in CHECK; Spanish CHICO
D as in DOG; Spanish DAR
E as in THEY; Spanish HALLE
E as in THEN; Spanish COMEN
F as in FIGHT; Spanish FIRMAR
G as in GO; Spanish GOZAR
H as in HE; Tagalog BAHAY
I as in PIQUE; Spanish HIJO
I as in PICK
K as in KEEN
L as in LAMB; Spanish LENTE
M as in MAN; Spanish MENOS
N as in NOW; Spanish JABON
NG as in FINGER; Spanish LENGUA
O as in NOTE; Spanish NOSOTROS
OI as in BOIL
P as in POOR; Spanish PERO
Q as CH in German ICH
S as in SAUCE; Spanish SORDO
SH as in SHALL; as CH in French CHARMER
T as in TOUCH; Spanish TOMAR
U as in RULE; Spanish UNO
U as in BUT
U as in German KUHL
V as in VALVE; in Spanish VOLVER
W as in WILL; nearly as OU in French OUI
Y as in YOU; Spanish YA


The sounds which I have represented by the unmarked vowels A, E, I, O,
and U, Swettenham and Clifford in their Malay Dictionary represent by
the vowels with a circumflex accent. The sound which I have indicated
by U they indicate by A. Other variations will be noted.

The sound represented by A, it must be noted, has not always the same
force or quantity, depending on an open or closed syllable and the
position of the vowel in the word.

So far as I know there is no R sound in the Bontoc Igorot language. The
word "Igorot" when used by the Bontoc man is pronounced Igolot. In
an article on "The Chamorro language of Guam"[42] it is noted that
in that language there was originally no R sound but that in modern
times many words formerly pronounced by an L sound now have that
letter replaced by R.



Linguistic inconsistencies

The language of the Bontoc area is not stable, but is greatly
shifting. In pueblos only a few hours apart there are not only
variations in pronunciation but in some cases entirely different
words are used, and in a single pueblo there is great inconsistency
in pronunciation.

It is often impossible to determine the exact sound of vowels, even
in going over common words a score of times with as many people. The
accent seems very shifting and it is often difficult to tell where
it belongs.

Several initial consonants of words and syllables are commonly
interchanged, even by the same speaker if he uses a word more than
once during a conversation. That this fickleness is a permanency
in the language rather than the result of the present building of
new words is proved by ato names, words in use for many years --
probably many hundred years.

One of the most frequent interchanges is that of B and F. This is shown
in the following ato names: Bu-yay'-yeng or Fu-yay'-yeng; Ba-tay'-yan
or Fa-tay'-yan; Bi'-lig or Fi'-lig; and Long-boi' or Long-foi'. It
is also shown in two other words where one would naturally expect to
find permanency -- the names of the men's public buildings in the ato,
namely, ba'-wi or fa'-wi, and pa-ba-bu'-nan or pa-ba-fu'-nan. Other
common illustrations are found in the words ba-to or fa-to (stone)
and ba-bay'-i or fa-fay'-i (woman).

Another constant interchange is that of CH and D. This also is shown
well in names of ato, as follows: Cha-kong' or Da-kong'; Pud-pud-chog'
or Pud-pud-dog'; and Si-gi-chan' or Si-gi-dan'. It is shown also in
chi'-la or di'-la (tongue).

The interchange of initial K and G is constant. These letters are
interchanged in the following names of ato: Am-ka'-wa or Am-ga'-wa;
Lu-wa'-kan or Lu-wa'-gan; and Ung-kan' or Ung-gan'. Other illustrations
are ku'-lid or gu'-lid (itch) and ye'-ka or ye'-ga (earthquake).

The following three words illustrate both the last two interchanges:
Cho'-ko or Do'-go (name of an ato); pag-pa-ga'-da or pag-pa-ka'-cha
(heel); and ka-cho' or ga-de'-o (fish).


Nouns

The nouns appear to undergo slight change to indicate gender, number,
or case. To indicate sex the noun is followed by the word for woman
or man -- as, a'-su fa-fay'-i (female dog), or a'-su la-la'-ki
(male dog). The same method is employed to indicate sex in the case
of the third personal pronoun Si'-a or Si-to-di'. Si'-a la-le'-ki
or Si-to-di' la-la'-ki is used to indicate the masculine gender,
and Si'-a fa-fay'-i or Si-to-di' fa-fay'-i the feminine.

The plural form of the noun is sometimes the same as the
singular. Plural number may also be expressed by use of the word
ang-san (many) or am-in' (all) in addition to the noun. It is sometimes
expressed by repetition of syllables, as la-la'-ki (man), la-la-la'-ki
(men); sometimes, also, by the prefix ka together with repetition of
syllables, as li-fo'-o (cloud), ka-li'-fo-li-fo'-o (clouds). There
seems to be no definite law in accordance with which these several
plural forms are made. When in need of plurals in this study the
singular form has always been used largely for simplicity.


Pronouns

The personal pronouns are:



I
Sak-in'

You
Sik-a'

He, she
Si'-a and Si-to-di'

We
Cha-ta'-ko and Cha-ka'-mi

You
Cha-kay'-yo

They
Cha-i-cha and Cha-to-di'


Examples of the possessive as indicated in the first person are
given below:



My father
A-mak'

My dog
A-suk'

My hand
Li-mak'

Our father
A-ma'-ta

Our dog
A-su'-ta

Our house
A-fong'-ta


Other examples of the possessive are not at hand, but these given
indicate that, as in most Malay dialects, a noun with a possessive
suffix is one form of the possessive.

Scheerer[43] gives the possessive suffixes of the Benguet Igorot
as follows:



My
K, after A, I, O, and U, otherwise 'KO

Thy
} M, after A, I, O, and U, otherwise
'MO

Your


His
} IO

Her


Our (inc.)
'TAYO

Our (exc.)
'ME

Your
'DIO

Their
'CHA or 'RA


These possessive suffixes in the Benguet Igorot language are the same,
according to Scheerer, as the suffixes used in verbal formation.

The verbal suffixes of the Bontoc Igorot are very similar to those
of the Benguet. It is therefore probable that the possessive suffixes
are also very similar.

It is interesting to note that in the Chamorro language of Guam the
possessive suffixes for the first person correspond to those of the
Igorot -- MY is KO and OUR is TA.


Verbs

Mention has been made of the verbal suffixes. Their use is shown in
the following paradigms:



I eat
Sak-in' mang-an-ak'

You eat
Sik-a' mang-an-ka'

He eats
Si-to-di' mang-an'

We eat
Cha-ka'-mi mang-an-ka-mi'

You eat
Cha-kay'-yo mang-an-kay'-o

They eat
Cha-to-di' mang-an-cha'

I go
Sak-in' u-mi-ak'

You go
Sik-a' u-mi-ka'

He goes
Si-to-di' u-mi'

We go
Cha-ka-mi' u-mi-ka-mi'

You go
Cha-kay'-yo u-mi-kay'-yo

They go
Cha-to-di' u-mi-cha'


The suffixes are given below, and the relation they bear to the
personal pronouns is also shown by heavy-faced type:



I
'ak
Sak-in'

You (sing)
'ka
Sik-a'

He
...
Si'-a or Si-to-di'

We
kami or tako
Cha-ka'-mi or Cha-ta'-ko

You
kayo
Cha-kay'-yo

They
cha
Cha-to-di' or cha-i'-cha


The Benguet suffixes as given by Scheerer are:



I
'ko or 'ak

You
'mo or 'ka

He
'to

We {
me


tayo

You
'kayo or 'dio

They
'ra or 'cha


The verbal suffixes seem to be commonly used by the Bontoc Igorot in
verbal formations. The tense of a verb standing alone seems always
indefinite; the context alone tells whether the present, past, or
future is indicated.


Comparative vocabularies

About eighty-five words have been selected expressing simple
ideas. These are given in the Bontoc Igorot language and as far as
possible in the Benguet Igorot; they are also given in the Malay and
the Sulu languages.

Of eighty-six words in both Malay and Bontoc 32 per cent are clearly
derived from the same root words, and of eighty-four words in the Sulu
and Bontoc 45 per cent are from the same root words. Of sixty-eight
words in both Malay and Benguet 34 per cent are from the same root
words, and 47 per cent of sixty-seven Benguet and Sulu words are
from the same root words. Of sixty-four words in Bontoc and Benguet
58 per cent are the same or nearly the same.

These facts suggest the movement of the Philippine people from the
birthplace of the parent tongue, and also the great family of existing
allied languages originating in the primitive Malayan language. They
also suggest that the Bontoc and the Benguet peoples came away quite
closely allied from the original nest, and that they had association
with the Sulu later than with the Malay.

[In the following compilation works have been consulted respectively
as follows: Malay -- Hugh Clifford and Frank Athelstane Swettenham,
A Dictionary of The Malay Language (Taiping, Perak; in parts, Part
I appearing 1894, Part III appearing 1904); Sulu -- Andson Cowie,
English-Sulu-Malay Vocabulary, with Useful Sentences, Tables,
etc. (London, 1893); Benguet Igorot -- Otto Scheerer, The Ibaloi
Igorot, MS. in MS. Coll., The Ethnological Survey for the Philippine
Islands.]



English
Malay
Sulu
Benguet Igorot
Bontoc Igorot

Ashes
Abu
Abu
De-pok
Cha-pu'

Bad
Jahat (wicked)
Mang-i, ngi
...
Ngag

Black
Hitam
Itam
An-to'-leng
In-ni'-tit

Blind
Buta
Buta
Sa-gei a ku'-rab[44]
Na-ki'-mit

Blood
Darah
Duguh
Cha'-la
Cha'-la

Bone
Tulang
Bukog
Pu'-gil
Ung-et'

Burn, to
Bakar
Sunog
...
Fin-mi'-chan

Chicken
Anak ayam
Anak-manok
...
Mo-nok'

Child
Anak
Batah, anak
A-a'-nak
Ong-ong'-a

Come
Mari
Mari
...
A-li-ka'

Cut, to
Potong
Hoyah
Kom-pol'
Ku-ke'-chun

Day
Hari
Adlau
A-kou
A-qu'

Die, to
Mati
Matai
...
Ma-ti'

Dog
Anjing
Erok
A-su'
A'-su

Drink, to
Minum
Hinom, minom
...
U-mi-num'

Ear
Telinga
Tainga
Tang-i'-da
Ko-weng'

Earthquake
Gempa tanah
Linog
Yek-yek
Ye'-ga

Eat, to
Makan
Ka-aun
Kanin
Mang-an', Ka-kan'

Eight
Dilapan
Walu
Gua'-lo
Wa-lo'

Eye
Mata
Mata
Ma-ta
Ma-ta'

Father
Baba
Amah
A-ma
A'-ma

Finger nail
Kuku
Kuku
Ko-go
Ko-ko'

Fire
Api
Kayu
A-pui
A-pu'-i

Five
Lima
Lima
Di'-ma
Li-ma'

Foot
Kaki
Siki
Cha-pan
Cha-pan'

Four
Ampat
Opat
Ap'-pat
I-pat'

Fruit
Buah
Bunga-kahol
Damos
Fi-kus'-na

Get up, to
Bangun
Bangun
...
Fo-ma-ong'

Good
Baik
Maraiau
...
Cug-a-wis'

Grasshopper
Bi-lalang
Ampan
Chu'-ron
Cho'-chon

Ground (earth)
Tanah
Lopah
Bu'-dai
Lu'-ta

Hair of head
Rambut
Buhok
Bu-og
Fo-ok'

Hand
Tangan
Lima
Di-ma
Li-ma', Ad-pa'

Head
Kepala
O
Tok-tok
O'-lo

Hear, to
Dengar
Dungag
...
Chung-nen'

Here
Sini
Di, di-ha-inni
Chiai
Is'-na

Hog
Babi
Baboi
Ke-chil
Fu-tug'

I
Shaya
Aku
Sikak; Sidiak
Sak-in'

Kill, to
Bunoh
Bunoh
Bunu'-in
Na-fa'-kug

Knife
Pisau
Lading
Ta'-ad
Ki-pan'

Large
Besar
Dakolah
Abatek
Chuk-chuk'-i

Lightning
Kilat
Kilat
Ba-gi'-dat
Yup-Yup

Louse
Kutu
Kutu
Ku-to
Ko'-to

Man
Orang
Tau
Da'-gi
La-la'-ki

Monkey
Munyit, Kra
Amok
Ba-ges
Ka-ag'

Moon
Bulan
Bulan
Bu'-lan
Fu-an'

Mortar (for rice)
Lesong
Lusong
...
Lu-song'

Mother
Mak, ibu
Inah
I-na
I'-na

Night
Malam
Dum
Kal-leian, A-da'-wi
Mas-chim, la-fi'

Nine
S'ambilan
Siam
Dsi'-am
Si-am'

No
Tidak
Waim di
...
A-di'

Nose
Hidong
Ilong
A-deng
I-ling'

One
Satu, suatu, sa
Isa
Sa-gei'
I-sa'

Rain
Hujan
Ulan
U'-ran
O-chan'

Red
Merah
Pula, lag
Am-ba'-alang-a
Lang-at'

Rice (threshed)
Padi
Pai
...
Pa-ku'

Rice (boiled)
Nasi
K'aun-an
I-na-pui
Mak-an'

River
Sungei
Sobah
Pa'-dok
Wang'-a

Run, to
Lari
Dag-an
...
In-tug'-tug

Salt
Garam
Asin
A-sin
Si'-mut

Seven
Tujoh
Peto
Pit'-to
Pi-to'

Sit, to
Dudok
Lingkud
...
Tu-muck'-chu

Six
Anam
Unom
An-nim
I-nim'

Sky
Langit
Langit
Dang-it
Chay'-ya

Sleep, to
Tidor
Ma-tog
...
Ma-si-yip'

Small
Kechil
Asivi
O-o'-tik
Fan-ig'

Smoke
Asap
Aso
A-sok
A-sok'

Steal, to
Men-churi
Takau
Magibat
Mang-a-qu'

Stone
Batu
Batu
Ba-to
Ba-to

Sun
Mata-Hari
Mata suga
A-kau, Si-kit
A-qu'

Talk, to
Ber-chakap
Nug-pamong
...
En-ka-li'

Ten
Sa'puloh
Hangpoh
Sam-pu'-lo
Sim-po'-o

There
Di-situ, Di-sana
Ha ietu, dun
Chitan, Chiman
Is'-chi

Three
Tiga
To
Tad'-do
To-lo'

To-morrow
Esok, Besok
Kin-shum
Ka-bua-san
A-swa'-kus

Tree
Poko'kayu
Kahoi
Po-on
Cha-pon', Kay'-o

Two
Dua
Rua, Dua
Chu'-a
Chu'-wa

Walk, to
Ber-jalan
Panau
...
Ma-na'-lun

Water
Ayer
Tubig
Cha-num
Che-num'

White
Puteh
Ma-putih
Am-pu-ti'
Im-po'-kan

Wind
Angin
Hangin
Cha-num
Che-num'

Woman
Prempuan
Babai
Bi-i, a-ko'-dau
Fa-fay'-i

Wood
Kayu
Kahol
Ki'-u
Kay'-o

Yellow
Kuning
...
Chu-yao[45]
Fa-king'-i

Yes
Ya
...
...
Ay

You (singular)
Ankau
Ekau
Sikam
Sik'-a




Bontoc vocabulary

The following vocabulary is presented in groups with the purpose
of throwing additional light on the grade of culture the Igorot
has attained.

No words follow which represent ideas borrowed of a modern culture;
for instance, I do not record what the Igorot calls shoes, pantaloons,
umbrellas, chairs, or books, no one of which objects he naturally
possesses.

Whereas it is not claimed that all the words spoken by the Igorot
follow under the various headings, yet it is believed that the man's
vocabulary is nearly exhausted under such headings as "Cosmology,"
"Clothing, dress, and adornment," and "Weapons, utensils, etc.:"


English, with Bontoc equivalent


Cosmology




Afternoon
Mug-a-qu'

Afternoon, middle of
Mak-sip'

Air
Si'-yak

Ashes
Cha-pu'

Blaze
Lang-lang

Cloud, rain
Li-fo'-o

Creek
Ki-nan'-wan

Dawn
Wi-wi-it'

Day
A-qu'

Day after to-morrow
Ka-sin' wa'-kus

Day before yesterday
Ka-sin' ug'-ka

Dust
Cha'-pog

Earthquake
Ye'-ga

East
Fa-la'-an si a-qu'

Evening
Ni-su'-yao

Fire
A-pu'-i

Ground (earth)
Lu'-ta

Hill
Chun'-tug

Horizon
Nang'-ab si chay'-ya

Island
Pa'-na

Lightning
Yup-yup

Midnight
Teng-ang si la-fi'

Milky way
Ang'-san nan tuk-fi'-fi[46]

Moon
Fu-an'

Moon, eclipse of
Ping-mang'-et nan fu-an'

Moon, full
Fit-fi-tay'-eg

Moon, waxing, one-quarter
Fis-ka'-na

Moon, waxing, two-quarters
Ma-no'-wa

Moon, waxing, three-quarters
Kat-no-wa'-na

Moon, waning, three-quarters
Ka-tol-pa-ka'-na

Moon, waning, two-quarters
Ki-sul-fi-ka'-na

Moon, waning, one-quarter
Sig-na'-a-na

Moon, period following
Li'-meng

Morning
Fib-i-kut'

Morning, mid
Ma-a-qu'

Mountain
Fi'-lig

Mud
Pi'-tek

Nadir
Ad-cha'-im

Night
La-fi' or mas-chim

Noon
Nen-ting'-a or teng-ang si a-qu'

Periods of time in a year
I-na-na', La'-tub, Cho'-ok, Li'-pas, Ba-li'-ling, Sa-gan-ma',
Pa-chog', Sa'-ma

Plain
Cha'-ta

Pond
Tab-lak'

Precipice
Ki-chay'

Rain
O-chan'

Rainbow
Fung-a'-kan


River
Wang'-a

River, down the river[47]
La'-god

River, mouth of
Sa-fang-ni'-na

River, up the river[48]
Ap'-lay

Sand
O-fod'

Sea
Po'-sang

Season, rice culture
Cha-kon'

Season, remainder of year
Ka-sip'

Sky
Chay'-ya

Smoke
A-sok'

Spring
Ib-ib

Spring, hot
Lu-ag'

Stars, large
Fat-ta-ka'-kan

Stars, small
Tuk-fi'-fi

Stone
Ba-to

Storm, heavy (rain and winds)
O-chan' ya cha-kim

Storm, heavy prolonged (baguio)
Lim-lim

Sun
A-qu'

Sun, eclipse of
Ping-mang'-et

Sunrise
Lap-lap-on'-a

Sunset
Le-nun-nek' nan a-qu'

Thunder
Ki-cho'

To-day
Ad-wa'-ni

To-morrow
A-swa'-kus

Valley, or canon
Cha-lu'-lug

Water
Che-num'

Waterfall
Pa-lup-o'

West
Lum-na-kan' si a-qu'

Whirlwind
Al-li-pos'-pos or fa-no'-on

Wind
Cha-kim

Year
Ta'-win

Year, past
Tin-mo-win

Yesterday
A-dug-ka'

Zenith
Ad-tong'-cho



Human Body




Ankle
Ung-et'

Ankle bone
King-king-i'

Arm
Li'-ma

Arm, left
I-kid'

Arm, right
A-wan'

Arm, upper
Pong'-o

Arm, upper, near shoulder
Tak-lay'

Armpit
Yek-yek'

Back
I-chug'

Beard, side of face
Sap-ki'

Belly
Fo'-to

Bladder
Fi-chung'

Blood
Cha'-la

Body
A'-wak

Bone
Ung-et' or tung-al'

Brain
U'-tek

Breast
So'-so

Breath
Ing-ga'-es

Cheek
Ta-mong' or i-ping'


Chest
Ta'-kib

Chin
Pang'-a

Ear
Ko-weng'

Elbow
Si'-ko

Excreta
Tay-i

Eye
Ma-ta'

Eyebrow
Ki-chi'

Eyelash
Ki-chi'

Eyelid
Ta-nib si ma'-ya

Finger
Li-cheng'

Finger, index or first
Mes-ned' si am-am'-a

Finger, little
Ik-ik-king'

Finger, second
Ka-wa'-an

Finger, third
Mes-ned si nan ka-wa'-an

Finger nail
Ko-ko'

Foot
Cha-pan'

Foot, instep of
O'-son si cha-pan'

Forehead
Ki'-tong

Gall
A-ku'

Groin
Lip-yak'

Hair in armpit
Ki-lem' si yek-yek'

Hair on crown of head
Tug-tug'-o

Hair on head
Fo-ok'

Hair, pubic, man's
Ki-lem' si o'-ti

Hand
Ad-pa' or li'-ma

Hand, inside of
Ta'-lad

Head
O'-lo

Heart
Po'-so

Heel
Pag-pa-ga'-da

Hip
Tip-ay

Intestine
Fu-ang'

Jaw
Pang'-a

Kidney
Fa-tin'

Knee
Gung-gung'-o

Leg
Si-ki'

Leg, calf of
Fit'-kin

Lip, lower
So'-fil ay nin-gub'

Lip, upper
So'-fil

Liver
A-tu'-i

Lung
Fa'-la

Mouth
To-puk'

Navel
Pu'-sig

Neck
Fuk-kang'

Neck, back of
Tung-ed'

Nipple
So'-so

Nose
I-ling'

Nostril
Pa-nang'-e-tan

Palate
A-lang-a-ang'

Penis
O'-ti

Rib
Tag-lang'

Rump
U-fit

Saliva
Tuv'-fa

Shoulder
Po-ke'

Shoulder blade
Gang-gang'-sa

Skin
Ko-chil'

Spinal cord
U'-tuk si ung-et'

Spine
Ka-ung-e-ung-et'

Spirit of living person
Leng-ag'

Spirit of dead person
A-ni'-to


Spirit of beheaded dead
Pin-teng'

Sternum
Los-los-it'

Stomach
Fa'-sag

Sweat (perspiration)
Ling-et

Testicle
Lug-lug'-ong

Thigh
U'-po

Throat
A-lo-go'-og

Thumb
Am-am'-a

Toe
Go-mot'

Toe, first
Mes-ned si am-am'-a si cha-pan'

Toe, fourth
Ik-ik-king' si cha-pan'

Toe, third
Mes-ned si nan ka-wa'-an si cha-pan'

Toe, great
Am-am'-a si cha-pan'

Toe nail
Ko-ko' si go-mot'

Toe, second
Ka-wa'-an si cha-pan'

Tongue
Chi'-la

Tooth
Fob-a'

Urine
Is-fo

Vagina
Ti'-li

Vein
Wath

Vertebrae
Ung-et' si i-chug'

Wrist
Pang-at si'-nang

Wrist joint
Ung-et'



Bodily Conditions




Ague
Wug-wug

Beri-beri
Fu-tut

Blindness, eyelids closed
Na-ki'-mit

Blindness, eyelids open
Fu-lug

Blood, passage of
In-is-fo cha'-la, or in-tay'-es cha'-la

Boil, a
Fu-yu-i'

Burn, a
Ma-la-fub-chong'

Childbirth
In-sa'-cha

Cholera
Pish-ti'

Circumcision
Sig-i-at'

Cold, a
Mo-tug'

Consumption
O'-kat

Corpse
A'-wak

Cut, a
Na-fa'-kag

Deafness
Tu'-wing

Diarrhea
O-gi'-ak

Dumbness
Gna-nak

Eyes, crossed
Li'-i

Eyes, sore
In-o'-ki

Feet, cracked from wading in rice paddies
Fung-as'

Fever
Im-po'-os nan a'-wak

Goiter
Fin-to'-kel or fi-kek'

Headache
Sa-kit' si o'-lo or pa-tug' si o'-lo

Health
Ka-wis' nan a'-wak

Itch or mange
Ku'-lid

Itch, first stage of small sores
Ka'-ti


Pain
In-sa-ki'

Pitted-face
Ga-la'-ga

Rheumatism
Fig-fig

Scar
Sap-luk

Sickness
Nay-yu' nan a'-wak

Smallpox
Ful-tang'

Swelling
Nay-am-an' or kin-may-yon'

Syphilis
Na-na

Toe, inturning
Fa'-wing

Toothache
Pa-tug' nan fob-a'

Ulcers and sores, disease of
Lang-ing'-i

Varicose vein
O'-pat



Consanguineal and Social Relationships




Aunt
A-ki-na

Babe, boy
Kil-lang'

Babe, girl
Gna-an'

Brother
U'-na

Child
Ong-ong'-a

Consanguineal group or family
Sim-pang' a-nak', Sim-pang' a-po',
Sim-pang' a'-fong

Father
A'-ma

Man
La-la'-ki

Man, old
Am-a'-ma

Man, poor
Pu'-chi

Man, rich
Ka-chan-a-yan'

Mother
I'-na

Orphan
Nang-o'-so

Orphan, father dead
Nan-a-ma'-na

Orphan, mother dead
Nan-i-na'-na

People
I-pu-kao'

People, of another pueblo
Mang-i'-li

People, of one's own pueblo
Kay-il-yan'

Person, one
Ta'-ku

Relative
I-ba'

Sister
A-no'-chi

Twins
Na-a-pik'

Wife
A-sa'-wa

Woman
Fa-fay'-i

Woman, old
In-i'-na



Clothing, Dress, and Adornment




Armlet, bejuco
Sung-ub'

Armlet, boar tusk
Ab-kil'

Bag, flint and steel
Pal-ma-ting'-un

Bag, tobacco, cloth
Cho'-kao

Bag, tobacco, bladder carabao or hog
Fi-chong'

Bag, tobacco, bladder deer
Ka'-tat

Beads, string of
A-pong'

Beads, dog tooth
Sa-ong

Beads, seed, black
Gu-sao'


Beads, seed, blue gray
At-lok-ku'-i

Beads, red agate
Si'-lung

Beads, white, large
Fo'-kus

Blanket
E-wis' or pi'-tay

Blanket, girl's
Kud-pas'

Blanket, black, white stripes
Fa-yi-ong'

Blanket, blue
Pi-nag-pa'-gan

Blanket, used to carry baby on back
I-fan'

Blanket, white, blue stripes
Fan-cha'-la

Blanket, white, wide blue stripes
Ti-na'-pi

Breechcloth
Wa'-nis

Breechcloth, bark, red
Ti-nan'-agt

Breechcloth, bark, white
So'-put

Breechcloth, bark, white, burial
Chi-nang-ta'

Breechcloth, blue
Fa'-a

Breechcloth, blue, small stripes
Bi-no-slun'

Breechcloth, woman's menstruation
Fa'-la

Ear plug or ear stretcher
Su-wip'

Earring, three varieties
Sing-sing, i-pit, sing-ut'

Girdle, man's, chain
Ka'-ching

Girdle, man's, bejuco rope
Ka'-kot

Girdle, man's, bejuco string
I-kit'

Girdle, man's, fiber
Song-kit-an'

Girdle, woman's
Wa'-kis

Girdle, woman's, bustle-like
A-ko'-san

Hair, false
Fo-bo-ok'

Hat, man's
Suk'-lang

Hat, man's fez-shaped, of Bontoc pueblo
Ti-no-od'

Hat, man's rain
Seg-fi'

Hat, sleeping
Kut'-lao

Headcloth, burial
To-chong'

Jacket, woman's
La-ma

Necklace, boar tusk
Fu-yay'-ya

Neck ring, brass
Bang-gu

Pipe
Fo-bang'-a

Pipe, clay
Ki-na-lo'-sab

Pipe, brass "anito"
Tin-ak-ta'-go

Pipe, smooth cast metal
Pin-e-po-yong'

Rain protector, woman's
Tug-wi'

Rain protector, camote leaf
Ang-el'

Shell, mother-of-pearl, worn at waist by men
Fi-kum'

Shirt, man's blue burial
Los-a'-dan

Shirt, man's blue burial, red and yellow threads
A-ni'-wis

Skirt, woman's burial
Kay-in'

Skirt, cotton
Lu-fid' i kad-pas

Skirt, cotton, Bognen
Qa'-bou

Skirt, fiber
Pi-tay'

Skirt, made of falatong
Lu-fid'

Skirt, twine of
Mi-no'-kan

Tattoo
Fa'-tek

Tattoo, arm
Pong'-o

Tattoo, breast
Chak-lag'




Foods and Beverages




Beverage, fermented rice
Ta-pu'-i

Beverage, fermented rice, ferment of
Fu-fud

Beverage, fermented sugar cane
Ba'-si

Beverage, fermented sugar cane, ferment of
Tub-fig'

Beverage, fermented vegetables and meats
Sa-fu-eng'

Food, beans and rice
Sib-fan'

Food, camotes and rice
Ke-le'-ke

Food, locusts and rice
Pi-na-lat'

Food, preserved meat
It-tag'

Salt
Si-mut

Salt, cake of
Luk'-sa



Weapons, Utensils, Etc.




Ax, battle
Pi'-tong

Ax, cutting edge of
To-pek'

Ax, handle of
Pa-lik'

Ax, handle, bejuco ferrule of
Tok'-no

Ax, handle, iron ferrule of
Ka-lo'-lot

Ax, handle, top point of blade of
Pow-wit'

Ax, working tool
Wa'-say

Ax, working tool, blade turned as adz
Sa'-ka

Ax, working tool, handle of
Pa-ka'-cha

Basket, baby's food bottle
Tuk-to'-pil

Basket, ceremonial, chicken
Fi-ki'

Basket, dinner
To'-pil

Basket, fish
Kot-ten'

Basket, fish, small
Fak-king'

Basket, gangsa
Fa'-i si gang'-sa

Basket, grasshopper
I-wus'

Basket, house, holding about a peck
Fa-lo'-ko

Basket, man's carrying
Ka-lu'-pit

Basket, man's dirt
Ko-chuk-kod'

Basket, man's dirt scoop
Tak-o-chug'

Basket, man's transportation
Ki-ma'-ta

Basket, man's transportation, handle of
Pa'-tang

Basket, man's traveling
Sang'-i

Basket, man's traveling, with rain-proof covering (so-called "head
basket")
Fang'-ao

Basket, salt
Fa-ni'-ta

Basket, side, small, for tobacco
A-ku'-pan

Basket, spoon
So'-long

Basket, threshed rice
Ko'-lug

Basket, tobacco, small
Ka-lu'-pit

Basket, woman's rum
Ag-ka-win'

Basket, woman's transportation
Lu'-wa

Basket, woman's transportation, large
Tay-ya-an'

Basket, woman's vegetable
A-fo-fang

Basket, woman's vegetable scoop
Sug-fi'

Bellows
Op-op'

Bellows, piston of
Dot-dot'

Bellows, tube of, to fire
To-bong'

Bird scarer, carabao horn
Kong-ok'

Box, small wooden, for hair grease
Tug-tug'-no

Chair, for corpse
Sung-a'-chil

Coffin
A-lo'-ang

Deadfall, for wild hogs
Il-tib'


Dish, small wooden
Chu'-yu

Dish, small wooden, bowl-shaped
Suk-ong'

Drumstick
Pat-tong'

Fire machine, bamboo
Co-li'-li

Fire machine, flint and steel
Pal-ting'

Fire machine, flint and steel, cotton used with as tinder
A-mek'

Gong, bronze
Gang'-sa

Gong, bronze (two varieties)
Ka'-los, Co-ong'-an

Gourd, large bejuco-bound, for meat
Fa'-lay

Head pad, woman's, for supporting load on head
Ki'-kan

Jews-harp, wooden
Ab-a'-fu

Jug, gourd, for basi
Tak-ing'

Knife, man's small
Ki-pan'

Ladle, common wooden, for rice
Fa'-nu

Ladle, gourd
Ki-ud

Ladle, narrow wooden
Fak-ong'

Loom
In-a-fu'-i

Mortar, double, for threshing rice
Lu-song'

Needle
Cha-kay'-yum

Net, grasshopper
Se-chok'

Olla, roughly spherical jar
Fang'-a

Olla, more paralleled-side jar
Fu-o-foy'

Olla, preserved meat
Tu-u'-nan

Paddle, olla-molding
Pip-i

Pail, wooden, for feeding pigs
Kak-wan'

Pestle, rice
Al'-o

Pit-fall, for hogs
Fi'-to

Plate, eating, of braided bamboo
Ki'-ug

Scarecrows
Pa-chek', ki'-lao

Scarecrows, water power, line of
Pi-chug'

Scarecrows, water power, wood in rapids
Pit-ug'

Sieve, rice
A-ka'-ug

Snare, wild chicken
Shi'-ay

Snare, spring, bird
Si-sim' and Ling-an'

Snare, spring, wild chicken and cat
Kok-o'-lang

Spear
Fal-feg'

Spear, blade of
Tu'-fay

Spear, blade, barbless
Fang'-kao

Spear, blade, many-barbed
Si-na-la-wi'-tan

Spear, blade, single-barbed
Fal-feg'

Spear, blade
Kay-yan'

Spoon, large wooden, for drinking
Tug-on'

Spoon, large wooden, for pig's feed
Ka-od'

Spoon, small wooden, for eating
I-chus'

Stick, soil-turning
Kay-kay

Stick, woman's camote
Su-wan'

Sweep runo, for catching birds
Ka-lib'

Tattooing instrument
Cha-kay'-yum

Torch
Si-lu'

Trap, fish, funnel, large
O-kat'

Trap, fish, funnel, small
Ob-o'-fu

Trap, fish, scoop
Ko-yug'

Trap, wild-cat
Fa-wang'

Tray, winnowing
Lig-o'

Trough, for salt at Mayinit
Ko-long'-ko

Tube, for basi
Fu-us

Whetstone
A-san'




Home and Field




Canal, irrigating
A'-lak

Council house for men
Fa'-wi

Council house, open court of
Chi-la'

Council house, open court of, posts in
Po-si'

Council house, roofed portion of
Tung-fub'

Council house, closed room of
A'-fo

Council house, closed room, doorway of
Pan-tu

Council house, closed room, fireplace of
A-ni-chu'-an

Council house, closed room, floor of
Chap-ay'

Council house, wall of
To-ping

Dam, in river
Lung-ud'

Dormitory, boys'
Pa-ba-fu'-nan

Dormitory, girls'
O'-lag

Dwelling
A'-fong

Dwelling, better class of
Fay'-u

Dwelling, better class, aisle in
Cha-la'-nan

Dwelling, better class, door of
Tang-ib

Dwelling, better class, first room on left of aisle
Chap-an'

Dwelling, better class, second room on left of aisle
Cha-le-ka-nan' si mo-o'-to

Dwelling, better class, sleeping room of
Ang-an'

Dwelling, better class, small recesses at ends of sleeping room
Kub-kub

Dwelling, better class, stationary shelf in
Chuk'-so

Dwelling, poorer class
Kat-yu'-fong

Fence, garden
A'-lad

Granary
A-lang'

Lands, public
Pag-pag'

Sementera, rice
Pay-yo'

Sementera, abandoned
Nud-yun a pay-yo'

Sementera, large, producing more than five cargoes
Pay-yo' chuk-chuk'-wag

Sementera, small, producing less than five cargoes
Pay-yo' ay fa-nig

Sementera, irrigated by hand
Pay-yo' a kao-u'-chan

Sementera, unirrigated mountain
Fo-ag'

Sementera, used as seed bed
Pad-cho-kan'

Stones, groups of in pueblo, said to be places to rest and talk
O-bub-fu'-nan

Troughs, irrigation
Ta-la'-kan

Troughs, irrigation, scaffolding of
To-kod'

Walls, sementera
Fa-ning'



Animals




Ant, large black
Ku'-sim

Ant, large red
A-lala-sang'

Ant, large red, pincers of
Ken'-ang

Ant, small red
Fu'-wis

Bedbug
Ki'-teb

Bee
Yu'-kan

Bee, wax of
A-tid'

Bird
Ay-ay'-am

Butterfly, large
Fi-no-lo-fo'-lo

Butterfly, small
Ak-a'-kop

Carabao
No-ang'


Carabao, backbone of
Tig-tig-i'

Carabao, body of
Po'-to

Carabao bull
Tot'-o

Carabao calf
I-na-nak' ay no-ang'

Carabao cow
Kam-bat'-yan

Carabao cow, udder of
So'-so

Carabao, dew claw of
Pa-king-i'

Carabao, foot of
Ko'-kod

Carabao, fore leg of
Kong-kong'-o ay pang-u-lo

Carabao, forequarters of
Pang-u-lo

Carabao, hair of
Tot-chut'

Carabao, hind leg of
Kong-kong'-o ay o-chi-chi'

Carabao, horn of
Sa-kod'

Carabao, white mark on neck of
La-fang'

Carabao, point of shoulder of
Mok-mok-ling pang-u-lo

Carabao, rear quarters of
O-chi-chi'

Carabao, rump of
Ba-long'-a

Carabao, tail of
I'-pus

Carabao, wild
Ay-ya-wan'

Caterpillar
Ge'-cheng

Chicken
Mo-nok'

Chicken, cock
Kao-wi'-tan

Chicken, cock, spur of
Pa-ging-i'

Chicken, cock, wild
Sa'-fug

Chicken, comb of
Ba-long-a-bing'

Chicken, crop of
Fi-chong'

Chicken, ear lobe of, white
Ko-weng'

Chicken, egg
Et-log'

Chicken, foot of
Go-mot'

Chicken, gall of
Ak-ko'

Chicken, gizzard of
Fit-li'

Chicken, heart of
Leng-ag'

Chicken, hen
Mang-a'-lak

Chicken, leg of
Pu-yong' or o-po'

Chicken, liver of
A'-ti

Chicken, mandible of
To-kay'

Chicken, pullet
Chi'-sak

Chicken, stomach of
Fu-ang'

Chicken, tail of
Ga-tod'

Chicken, toe of
Ga'-wa

Chicken, toe nail of
Ko-ko'

Chicken, wattles of
Ba-long-a-bing'

Chicken, wing of
Pay-yok'

Chicken, young
Im'-pas

Crab
Ag-ka'-ma

Crab (found in sementeras)
Song'-an

Cricket
Fil-fil'-ting

Crow
Gay-yang

Deer
Og'-sa

Dog
A'-su

Dog, male
La-la'-ki ay a'-su

Dog, female
Fa-fay'-i ay a'-su

Dog, puppy
O-ken'

Dragon fly
Lang-fay'-an

Fish, large, 3 to 5 feet long
Cha-lit'

Fish, 6 to 10 inches long
Li'-ling


Fish, small
Ka-cho'

Flea
Ti'-lang

Fly (house fly)
La'-lug

Hawk
La-fa'-an

Hog
Fu-tug'

Hog, barrow
Na-fit-li'-an

Hog, boar
Bu'-a

Hog, boar, tusk of
Tang-o'-fu

Hog, sow
O-go'

Hog, wild
La'-man or fang'-o

Hog, young
A-mug'

Horse
Ka-fay'-o

Horse, colt
I-na-nak' ay ka-fay'-o

Horse, mare
Fa-fay'-i ay ka-fay'-o

Horse, stallion
La-la'-ki ay ka-fay'-o

Lizard
Fa-ni'-as

Locust
Cho'-chon

Locust, young, without wings
O-non

Louse
Ko'-to

Louse, nit
I'-lit

Maggot
Fi'-kis

Monkey
Ka-ag'

Mosquito
Tip'-kan

Mouse
Cho-cho'

Owl
Ko-op'

Rat
O-tot'

Snail, in river
Ko'-ti

Snail, in sementera (three mollusks)
Kit-an', Fing'-a, Lis'-chug

Snake
O-wug'

Spider
Ka-wa'

Wasp
A-tin-fa-u'-kan

Wild-cat
In'-yao

Wild-cat (so called)
Si'-le, co'-lang

Worm
Ka-lang'



Vegetal Life




Bamboo
Ka-way'-gan

Bamboo, used for baskets
A'-nis

Bamboo, used to tie bunches of palay
Fi'-ka

Bamboo, used to tie bunches of palay, fiber of
Ping-el

Banana
Fa'-lat

Banana, green variety
Sa-ging

Banana, yellow variety
Mi-nay'-ang

Bark
Sip-sip

Bark, from which brown fiber is made
Lay-i'

Bark, inner, for spinning
Ko-pa'-nit

Bean, black and gray
I'-tab

Bean, black, small
Ba-la'-tong

Bean, pale green, small
Ka'-lap

Bejuco (rattan)
Wu-e

Bud
Fo'-a

Camote
To-ki'


Camote, blossom of
Tup-kao'

Camote, red, two varieties
Si'-sig, Pit-ti'-kan

Camote vine
Fi-na-li'-ling

Camote, white, six varieties
Li-no'-ko, Pa-to'-ki, Ki'-nub fa-fay'-i, Pi-i-nit', Ki-weng',
Tang-tang-lab'

Flower
Feng'-a

Forest
Pag-pag

Fruit
Fi-kus'-na

Leaf
To-fo'-na

Limb, tree
Pang'-a

Maize
Pi'-ki

Millet
Sa'-fug

Millet, dark grain, "black"
Pi-ting'-an

Millet, white, three varieties
Mo-di', Poy-ned', Si-nang'-a

Plant, cultivated for spinning fiber
Pu-ug'

Plant, wild, fiber gathered for spinning
A-pas

Plant, wild, fiber of above
Las-las'

Rice
Pa-ku'

Rice, beard of
Fo-ok'

Rice, boiled
Mak-an'

Rice, head of
Sin-lu'-wi

Rice, kernel of
I-ta'

Rice, red varieties, smooth
Chay-yet'-it, Gu-mik'-i

Rice, red variety, bearded
Fo-o'-kan

Rice, roots of
Tad-lang'

Rice, shelled grain
Fi-na-u'

Rice, stalk of
Pang-ti-i'

Rice, white, four varieties
Ti'-pa, Ga'-sang, Pu-i-a-pu'-i, Tu'-peng

Root, of plant
La-mot'

Runo
Lu'-lo

Squash
Ka-lib-as'

Tree
Kay'-o, cha-pon'

Tree, dead
Na-lu'-yao

Tree, knot on
Ping-i'

Tree, stump of
Tung-ed'

Vine, wild, from which fiber for spinning is gathered
Fa-ay'-i

Wood, from which pipes are made, three varieties
Ga-sa'-tan, La-no'-ti, Gi-gat'

Wood, fire
May-i-su'-wo

Wood, fire, pitch pine
Kay'-o

Wood, fire, from all other trees
Cha'-pung




Verbs




Burn, to
Fin-mi'-chan

Come (imperative)
A-li-ka'

Cut, to
Ku-ke'-chun

Die, to
Ma-ti'

Drink, to
U-mi-num'

Eat, to
Mang-an'; ka-kan'

Get heads, to
Na-ma'-kil

Get up, to
Fo-ma-ong'

Go, I
Um-i-ak'

Hear, to
Chung-nen'

Kill, to
Na-fa'-kug

Run, to
In-tug'-tug

Sit down, to
Tu-muck'-chu

Sleep, to
Ma-si-yip'

Steal, to
Mang-a-qu'

Talk, to
En-ka-li'

Wake, to
Ma-na'-lun



Adjectives




All
Am-in'

Bad
An-an-a-lut' or ngag

Black
In-ni'-tit

Good
Cug-a-wis'

Large
Chuk-chuk'-i

Lazy
Sang-a-an'

Long
An-cho'

Many
Ang-san

Red
Lang-at'

Small
Fan-ig'

White
Im-po'-kan

Yellow
Fa-king-i



Adverbs




Here
Is'-na

No
A-di'

There
Is'-chi

Yes
Ay



Cardinal Numerals




1
I-sa'

2
Chu'-wa

3
To-lo'

4
I-pat'

5
Li-ma'

6
I-nim'

7
Pi-to'

8
Wa-lo'

9
Si-am'

10
Sim po'-o

11
Sim po'-o ya i-sa'

12
Sim po'-o ya chu'-wa

13
Sim po'-o ya to-lo'

14
Sim po'-o ya i-pat'

15
Sim po'-o ya li-ma'

16
Sim po'-o ya i-nim

17
Sim po'-o ya pi-to'

18
Sim po'-o ya wa-lo'

19
Sim po'-o ya si-am'

20
Chu-wan po'-o

21
Chu-wan po'-o ya i-sa'

30
To-lon' po'-o

31
To-lon' po'-o ya i-sa'

40
I-pat' po'-o

41
I-pat' po'-o ya i-sa'

50
Li-man' po'-o

51
Li-man' po'-o ya i-sa'

60
I-nim' po'-o

61
I-nim' po'-o ya i-sa'

70
Pi-ton' po'-o

71
Pi-ton' po'-o ya i-sa'

80
Wa-lon' po'-o

81
Wa-lon' po'-o ya i-sa'

90
Si-am' ay po'-o

91
Si-am' ay po'-o ya i-sa'

100
La-sot' or Sin la-sot'

101
Sin la-sot' ya i-sa'

102
Sin la-sot' ya chu'-wa

200
Chu'-wan la-sot'

201
Chu'-wan la-sot' ya i-sa'

300
To-lon' la-sot'

301
To-lon' la-sot' ya i-sa'

400
I-pat' la-sot'

401
I-pat' la-sot' ya i-sa'

500
Li-man' la-sot'

501
Li-man' la-sot' ya i-sa'

600
I-nim' la-sot'

601
I-nim' la-sot' ya i-sa'

700
Pi-ton' la-sot'

701
Pi-ton' la-sot' ya i-sa'

800
Wa-lon' la-sot'

801
Wa-lon' la-sot' ya i-sa'

900
Si-am' ay la-sot'

901
Si-am' ay la-sot' ya i-sa'

1,000
Sin li'-fo

1,001
Sin li'-fo ya i-sa'

1,100
Sin li'-fo ya sin la-sot'

1,200
Sin li'-fo ya chu'-wan la-sot'

1,300
Sin li'-fo ya to-lon' la-sot'

1,400
Sin li'-fo ya i-pat' la-sot'

1,500
Sin li'-fo ya li-man' la-sot'

1,600
Sin li'-fo ya i-nim' la-sot'

1,700
Sin li'-fo ya pi-ton' la-sot'

1,800
Sin li'-fo ya wa-lon' la-sot'

1,900
Sin li'-fo ya si-am' la-sot'

2,000
Chu'-wa ay li'-fo

3,000
To-loy' li'-fo

4,000
I-pat' li'-fo

5,000
Li-may' li'-fo

6,000
I-nim' li'-fo

7,000
Pi-ton' li'-fo

8,000
Wa-lon' li'-fo

9,000
Si-am' ay li'-fo

10,000
Sin po'-oy li'-fo

11,000
Sin po'-o ya i-sang ay li'-fo

12,000
Sin po'-o ya nan chu'-wa li'-fo

[49]13,000
Sin po'-o ya nan to'-lo li'fo



Ordinal Numerals[50]




First
Ma-ming'-san

Second
Ma-mid-du'-a

Third
Ma-mit-lo'

Fourth
Mang-i-pat'

Fifth
Mang-a-li-ma'

Sixth
Mang-a-nim'

Seventh
Mang-a-pi-to'

Eighth
Mang-a-wa-lo'

Ninth
Mang-nin-si-am'

Tenth
Mang-a-po'-o

Eleventh
Mang-a-po'-o ya i-sa'


Twelfth
Mang-a-po'-o ya chu'-wa

Thirteenth
Mang-a-po'-o ya to'-lo

Twentieth
Ma-mid-du'-a' po'-o

Twenty-first
Ma-mid-du'-a' po'-o ya i-sa'

Thirtieth
Ma-mit-lo'-i po'-o

Thirty-first
Ma-mit-lo'-i po'-o ya i-sa'

Fortieth
Mang-i-pat' ay po'-o

Forty-first
Mang-i-pat' ay po'-o ya i-sa'

Fiftieth
Mang-a-li-ma' ay po'-o

Fifty-first
Mang-a-li-ma' ay po'-o ya i-sa'

Sixtieth
Mang-a-nim ay po'-o

Sixty-first
Mang-a-nim ay po'-o ya i-sa'

Seventieth
Mang-a-pi-to' ay po'-o

Seventy-first
Mang-a-pi-to' ay po'-o ya i-sa'

Eightieth
Mang-a-wa-lo' ay po'-o

Eighty-first
Mang-a-wa-lo' ay po'-o ya i-sa'

Ninetieth
Mang-a-si-am ay po'-o

Ninety-first
Mang-a-si-am ay po'-o ya i-sa'

One hundredth
Mang-a-po'-o ya po'-o

One hundred and first
Mang-a-po'-o ya po'-o ya i-sa'

Two hundredth
Ma-mid-dua' la-sot'

Two hundred and first
Ma-mid-dua' la-sot' ya i-sa'

Three hundredth
Ma-mit-lo'-i la-sot'

Three hundred and first
Ma-mit-lo'-i la-sot' ya i-sa'

Four hundredth
Mang-i-pat' ay la-sot'

Four hundred and first
Mang-a-pat' ay la-sot' ya i-sa'

Thousandth
Ka-la-so la-sot' or ka-li-fo-li'-fo

Last
A-nong-os'-na



Distributive Numerals




One to each
I-sas' nan i-sa'

Two to each
Chu-was' nan i-sa'

Three to each
To-los' nan i-sa'

Ten to each
Po-os' nan i-sa'

Eleven to each
Sim po'-o ya i-sas' nan i-sa'

Twelve to each
Sim po'-o ya chu'-wa is nan i-sa'

Twenty to each
Chu-wan' po-o' is nan i-sa'






NOTES

[1] -- The proof sheets of this paper came to me at the Philippine
Exposition, St. Louis, Mo., July, 1904. At that time Miss Maria del
Pilar Zamora, a Filipino teacher in charge of the model school at the
Exposition, told me the Igorot children are the brightest and most
intelligent of all the Filipino children in the model school. In
that school are children from several tribes or groups, including
Christians, Mohammedans, and pagans.

[2] -- There are many instances on record showing that people have been
planted on Pacific shores many hundred miles from their native land. It
seems that the primitive Pacific Islanders have sent people adrift from
their shores, thus adding a rational cause to those many fortuitous
causes for the interisland migration of small groups of individuals.

"In 1696, two canoes were driven from Ancarso to one of the
Philippine Islands, a distance of eight hundred miles. They had
run before the wind for seventy days together, sailing from east to
west. Thirty-five had embarked, but five had died from the effects of
privation and fatigue during the voyage, and one shortly after their
arrival. In 1720, two canoes were drifted from a remote distance
to one of the Marian Islands. Captain Cook found, in the island of
Wateo Atiu, inhabitants of Tahiti, who had been drifted by contrary
wind in a canoe, from some islands to the eastward, unknown to the
natives. Several parties have, within the last few years, (prior to
1834), reached the Tahitian shores from islands to the eastward, of
which the Society Islands had never before heard. In 1820, a canoe
arrived at Maurua, about thirty miles west of Borabora, which had
come from Rurutu, one of the Austral Islands. This vessel had been at
sea between a fortnight and three weeks; and, considering its route,
must have sailed seven or eight hundred miles. A more recent instance
occurred in 1824: a boat belonging to Mr. Williams of Raiatea left
that island with a westerly wind for Tahiti. The wind changed after the
boat was out of sight of land. They were driven to the island of Atiu,
a distance of nearly eight hundred miles in a south-westerly direction,
where they were discovered several months afterwards. Another boat,
belonging to Mr. Barff of Huahine, was passing between that island
and Tahiti about the same time, and has never since been heard of;
and subsequent instances of equally distant and perilous voyages in
canoes or open boats might be cited." -- (Ellis) Polynesian Researches,
vol. I, p. 125.

"In the year 1799, when Finow, a Friendly Island chief, acquired
the supreme power in that most interesting group of islands, after a
bloody and calamitous civil war, in which his enemies were completely
overpowered, the barbarian forced a number of the vanquished to embark
in their canoes and put to sea; and during the revolution that issued
in the subversion of paganism in Otaheite, the rebel chiefs threatened
to treat the English missionaries and their families in a similar
way. In short, the atrocious practice is, agreeably to the Scotch law
phrase, "use and wont," in the South Sea Islands." -- John Dunmore
Lang, View of the Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation,
London, 1834, pp. 62, 63.

[3] -- The Christianized dialect groups are: Bikol, of southern
Luzon and adjacent islands; Cagayan, of the Cagayan Valley of Luzon;
Ilokano, of the west coast of northern Luzon; Pampango and Pangasinan,
of the central plain of Luzon; Tagalog, of the central area South
of the two preceding; and the Visayan, of the central islands and
northern Mindanao.

[4] -- No pretense is now made for permanency either in the
classification of the many groups of primitive people in the
Philippines or for the nomenclature of these various groups; but the
groups of non-Christian people in the Archipelago, as they are to-day
styled in a more or less permanent way by The Ethnological Survey,
are as follows: Ata, north and west of Gulf of Davao in southeastern
Mindanao; Batak, of Paragua; Bilan, in the southern highlands west
of Gulf of Davao, Mindanao; Bagobo, of west coast of Gulf of Davao,
Mindanao; Bukidnon, of Negros; Ibilao or Ilongot, of eastern central
Luzon; Igorot, of northern Luzon; the Lanao Moro, occupying the
central territory of Mindanao between the Bays of Iligan and Illana,
including Lake Lanao; Maguindanao Moro, extending in a band southeast
from Cotabato, Mindanao, toward Sarangani Bay, including Lakes Liguasan
and Buluan; Mandaya, of southeastern Mindanao east of Gulf of Davao;
Mangiyan, of Mindoro: Manobo, probably the most numerous tribe in
Mindanao, occupying the valley of the Agusan River draining northward
into Butuan Bay and the extensive table-land west of that river,
besides in isolated territories extending to both the east and west
coasts of the large body of land between Gulf of Davao and Illana
Bay; Negrito, of several areas of wild mountains in Luzon, Negros,
Mindanao, and other smaller islands; the Sama, of the islands in
Gulf of Davao, Mindanao; Samal Moro, of scattered coastal areas in
southern Mindanao, besides the eastern and southern islands of the
Sulu or Jolo Archipelago; the Subano, probably the second largest
tribal group in Mindanao, occupying all the mountain territory west
of the narrow neck of land between Illana Bay and Pangul Bay; the Sulu
Moro, of Jolo Island; the Tagabili, on the southern coast of Mindanao
northwest of Sarangani Bay; the Tagakola, along the central part of
the west coast of Gulf of Davao, Mindanao; Tagbanua, of Paragua;
Tinguian, of western northern Luzon; Tiruray, south of Cotabato,
Mindanao; Yakan Moro, in the mountainous interior of Basilan Island,
off the Mindanao coast at Zamboanga. Under the names of these large
groups must be included many more smaller dialect groups whose precise
relationship may not now be confidently stated. For instance, the
large Igorot group is composed of many smaller groups of different
dialects besides that of the Bontoc Igorot of which this paper treats.

[5] -- IMPERATA ARUNDICEA.

[6] -- BUBALUS KERABAU FERUS (Nehring).

[7] -- Pages 72 -- 74 of the Report of the Director of the Philippine
Weather Bureau, 1901 -- 1902; Part First, The Climate of Baguio
(Benguet), by Rev. Fr. Jose Algue, S. J. (Manila, Observatory Printing
Office, 1902.)

[8] -- Map No. 7 in the Atlas of the Philippine Islands. (Washington,
Government Printing Office, 1900.)

[9] -- R. P. Fr. Angel Perez, Igorrotes, Estudio Geografico y
Etnografico, etc. (Manila, 1902), p. 7.

[10] -- Op. cit., p. 29.

[11] -- Major Godwin-Austen says of the Garo hill tribes, Bengal,
India:

"In every village is the 'bolbang,' or young men's house. ... In this
house all the unmarried males live, as soon as they attain the age
of puberty, and in this any travelers are put up." -- The Journal of
the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. II,
p. 393. See also op. cit., vol. XI, p. 199.

S. E. Peal says:

"Barracks for the unmarried young men are common in and around Assam
among non-Aryan races. The institution is here seen in various stages
of decline or transition. In the case of 'head-hunters' the young
men's barracks are invariably guardhouses, at the entrance to the
village, and those on guard at night keep tally of the men who leave
and return." -- Op. cit., vol. XXII, p. 248.

Gertrude M. Godden writes at length of the young men's house of the
Naga and other frontier tribes of northeast India: "Before leaving
the Naga social customs one prominent feature of their village
society must be noticed. This is the DEKHA CHANG, an institution in
some respects similar to the bachelors' hall of the Melanesians,
which again is compared with the BALAI and other public halls of
the Malay Archipelago. This building, also called a MORANG, was used
for the double purpose of a sleeping place for the young men and as
a guard or watch house for the village. The custom of the young men
sleeping together is one that is constantly noticed in accounts of
the Naga tribes, and a like custom prevailed in some, if not all,
cases for the girls. ... "The young men's hall is variously described
and named. An article in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago,
1848, says that among the Nagas the bachelors' hall of the Dayak
village is found under the name of 'Mooring.' In this all the boys
of the age of 9 or 10 upward reside apart. In a report of 1854 the
'morungs' are described as large buildings generally situated at the
principal entrances and varying in number according to the size of
the village; they are in fact the main guardhouse, and here all the
young unmarried men sleep. In front of the morung is a raised platform
as a lookout, commanding an extensive view of all approaches, where
a Naga is always kept on duty as a sentry. ... In the Morungs are
kept skulls carried off in battle; these are suspended by a string
along the wall in one or more rows over each other. In one of the
Morungs of the Changuae village, Captain Brodie counted one hundred
and thirty skulls. ... Besides these there was a large basket full of
broken pieces of skulls. Captain Holroyd, from whose memorandum the
above is quoted, speaks later of the Morung as the 'hall of justice'
in which the consultations of the clan council are held.

"The 'MORANGS' of another tribe, the 'Naked' Naga, have recently
been described as situated close to the village gate, and consist
of a central hall, and back and front verandahs. In the large front
verandah are collected all the trophies of war and the chase, from a
man's skull down to a monkey's. Along both sides of the central hall
are the sleeping berths of the young men. ...

"Speaking of the Mao and Muran tribes [continues Miss Godden],
Dr. Brown says, 'the young men never sleep at home, but at their clubs,
where they keep their arms always in a state of readiness.' ...

"With the Aos at the present day the custom seems to be becoming
obsolete; sleeping houses are provided for bachelors, but are seldom
used except by small boys. Unmarried girls sleep by twos and threes
in houses otherwise empty, or else tenanted by one old woman.

"The analogy between the DAKHA CHANG, or MORANG, of the Nagas and the
men's hall of the Melanesians is too close to be overlooked, and in
view of the significance of all evidence concerning the corporate life
of early communities a description of the latter is here quoted. I am
aware of no recorded instance of the women's house, other than these
Naga examples. 'In all the Melanesian groups it is the rule that there
is in every village a building of public character where the men eat
and spend their time, the young men sleep, strangers are entertained;
where as in the Solomon Islands the canoes are kept; where images are
seen, and from which women are generally excluded; ... and all these
no doubt correspond to the balai and other public halls of the Malay
Archipelago.' " -- Op. cit., vol. XXVI, pp. 179 -- 182.

Similar institutions appear to exist also in Sumatra.

In Borneo among the Land Dyaks "head houses," called "pangah," are
found in each village. Low says of them: "The Pangah is built by
the united efforts of the boys and unmarried men of the tribe, who,
after having attained the age of puberty, are obliged to leave the
houses of the village; and do not generally frequent them after they
have attained the age of 8 or 9 years." -- Sir Hugh Low, Sarawak,
its Inhabitants and Productions (London, 1848), p. 280.

Lieutenant F. Elton writes of the natives of Solomon Islands: "In
every village they have at least one so-called tamboo house of TOHE,
generally the largest building in the settlement. This is only for
the men, it being death for a female to enter there. It is used as a
public place and belongs to the community. Any stranger coming to the
village goes to the tamboo house and remains there until the person he
is in quest of meets him there." -- The Journal of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. XVII, p. 97.

Mr. H. O. Forbes writes of the tribes of Timor (islands between New
Guinea and Australia) that they have a building called "Uma-lulik." He
says: "The LULIK can be at once recognized, were it by nothing
else than by the buffalo crania with which it is decorated on the
outside." An officer who holds one of the highest and certainly the
most influential positions in the kingdom has charge of the building,
and presides over the sacred rites which are conducted in them. ... The
building is cared for by some old person, sometimes by a man and his
wife, but they must not both -- being of opposite sex -- stay all
night." -- Op. cit., XIII, pp. 411, 412.

[12] -- The o'-lag of Buyayyeng is known as La-ma'-kan; that of Amkawa,
in Buyayyeng, is Ma-fa'-lat; that of Polupo is Ma-lu-fan'. The
two of Fatayyan are Ka-lang'-kang and A-la'-ti. Ta-ting' is the
o'-lag in the Tang-e-ao' section of Fatayyan. Chung-ma' is the
one in Filig. Lang-i-a' and Ab-lo' are the two of Mageo, both in
Pudpudchog. The o'-lag of Chakong is called Kat'-sa, and that of
Lowingan is Si-mang'-an. The one of Pudpudchog is Yud-ka'. Sung-ub'
is the o'-lag of Sipaat, situated in Lowingan. Kay-pa', Tek-a-ling,
and Sak-a-ya' are, respectively, the o'-lag of Sigichan, Somowan,
and Pokisan. Ag-lay'-in is the o'-lag of Luwakan, and Tal-pug and
Say-ki'-pit are o'-lag of Choko and Longfoy, respectively.

[13] -- The Journal of The Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland, vol. XXVI, pp. 179, 180.

[14] -- Op. cit., vol. XXII, p. 248.

[15] -- Sweet potato, IPOMOEA BATATAS. -- J.H.

[16] -- An anito, as is developed in a later chapter, is the name
given the spirit of a dead person. The anito dwell in and about the
pueblo, and, among other of their functions, they cause almost all
diseases and ailments of the people and practically all deaths.

[17] -- Earthenware pot. -- J.H.

[18] -- Gong. -- J.H.

[19] -- David J. Doherty, M.D., translator of The Philippines,
A Summary Account of their Ethnological, Historical, and Political
Conditions, by Ferdinand Blumentritt, etc. (Chicago, 1900), p. 16.

[20] -- A fermented drink.

[21] -- A fermented drink.

[22] -- The accompanying photo was an instantaneous exposure, taken
in the twilight. The people could not be induced to wait for a time
exposure.

[23] -- No true cats are known to be indigenous to the Philippines,
but the one shown in the plate was a wild mountain animal and was a
true cat, not a civet. Its ancestors may have been domestic.

[24] -- This estimate was obtained by a primitive surveying outfit
as follows:

A rifle, with a bottle attached used for a liquid level, was sighted
from a camera tripod. A measuring tape attached to the tripod showed
the distance of the rifle above the surface of the water. A surveyor's
tape measured the distance between the tripod and the leveling rod,
which also had an attached tape to show the distance of the point
sighted above the surface of the water.

I am indebted to Mr. W. F. Smith, American teacher in Bontoc, for
assisting me in obtaining these measurements.

The strength of the scaffolding supporting the troughs is suggested
by the statement that the troughs were brimming full of swift-running
water, while our "surveying" party of four adults, accompanied by
half a dozen juvenile Igorot sightseers, weighed about 900 pounds,
and was often distributed along in the troughs, which we waded,
within a space of 30 feet.

[25] -- MUNIA JAGORI (Martens).

[26] -- Mr. Elmer D. Merrill.

[27] -- Mr. F. A. Thanisch.

[28] -- Igorrotes, Estudio Geografico y Etnografico sobre algunos
Distritos del Norte de Luzon, by R. P. Fr. Angel Perez (Manila), 1902.

[29] -- This typical Malayan bellows is also found in Siam, and is
shown in a half tone from a photograph facing page 186 of Maxwell
Somerville's Siam on the Meinam from the Gulf to Aynthia (London,
Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1897).

There is also a crude woodcut of this bellows printed as fig. 2,
Pl. XIV, in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland, vol. XXII. With the illustration is the
information that the bellows is found in Assam, Salwin, Sumatra,
Java, Philippines, and Madagascar.

[30] -- It is believed to be either a PORCELAIN (PORCELANA) or a SPIDER
(MAIOIDEA) crab.

[31] -- Analysis made for this study by Bureau of Government
Laboratories, Manila, P.I., February 21, 1903.

[32] -- Charles A. Goessmann in Universal Cyclopaedia, vol. X (1900),
p. 274.

[33] -- The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo (2 vols.,
London, 1896); pp. 140 -- 174, vol. II.

[34] -- A party, consisting of the Secretary of the Interior for
the Philippine Islands, Hon. Dean C. Worcester; the governor and
lieutenant-governor of Lepanto-Bontoc, William Dinwiddie and Truman
K. Hunt, respectively; Captain Chas. Nathorst of the Constabulary,
and the writer, was in Banawi in time to witness the procession and
burial but not the previous ceremonies at the dwelling.

[35] -- See also the story, "Who
took my father's head?" Chapter IX, p 225.

[36] -- The bird called "co-ling'" by the Bontoc Igorot is the
serpent eagle (SPILOMIS HOLOSPLILUS Vigors). It seems to be found in
no section of Bontoc Province except near Bontoc pueblo.

There were four of these large, tireless creatures near the pueblo,
but an American shot one in 1900. The other three may be seen day
in and day out, high above the mountain range west of the pueblo,
sailing like aimless pleasure boats. Now and then they utter their
penetrating cry of "qu-iu'-kok."

[37] -- MUNIA JAGORI (Martens).

[38] -- "A wife monkey."

[39] -- An iguana some two feet long.

[40] -- CORONE PHILIPPA (Bonap.).

[41] -- The Korean Review, July, 1903, pp. 289 -- 294.

[42] -- William Edwin Safford, American Anthropologist, April --
June, 1903, p. 293.

[43] -- Otto Scheerer (MS.), The Ibaloi Igorot, MS. Coll., Ethnological
Survey for the Philippine Islands.

[44] -- One blind.

[45] -- From Ilokano.

[46] -- Many small stars

[47] -- The country northward

[48] -- The country southward

[49] -- It is probable they seldom count as high as 13,000

[50] -- These people say they have no separate adverbs denoting
repetition of action -- as, once, twice, thrice, four times, ten times,
etc. They use the ordinal numerals for this purpose also.






End of Project Gutenberg's The Bontoc Igorot, by Albert Ernest Jenks