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The Bontoc Igorot

by Albert Ernest Jenks · English · Gutenberg #3308 · 624,105 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Bontoc Igorot

Author: Albert Ernest Jenks


        
Release date: March 18, 2005 [eBook #3308]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BONTOC IGOROT ***




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 sement

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