Three or four days' journey to the south and east of the Tinguian live
the Igorot; but so difficult are the trails over the mountains and
through the swift rivers that there is little intercourse between
the two tribes, consequently each believes the other a people to
be feared. Salt, weapons, and jars are sometimes exchanged, but the
customs and beliefs are not similar. Each group leads its own life
and is governed by its own spirits.
From a distance an Igorot village looks like a group of haystacks
nestling among the hills; but viewed more closely, it is found
to consist of houses whose board sides are almost hidden by the
overhanging grass roofs. The upper part of the house is used as a
storehouse, while below, on a ground floor, the family cooks and
eats. In one end there is a tiny boxlike bedroom where the father,
mother, and small children sleep. After they are two or three years
old the girls spend the night in a dormitory, while the boys sleep
in the men's council house.
These people have splendid terraced fields on the mountain sides where
water is brought from the streams through troughs and ditches. Here
both men and women are busy early and late cultivating the rice,
sweet potatoes, and small vegetables on which they live. The men are
head-hunters and ardent warriors, each village demanding a head in
payment for any taken by a hostile village.
Watching over the Igorot, controlling the winds and the rains, and
providing good crops and health for the people, is the Great Spirit,
Lumawig, who lives in the sky. He is believed to have created the
Igorot and even to have lived among them on the earth. He no longer
visits them in person, they say, but each month they perform a ceremony
at which they pray to him to protect them and entreat him to favor
them with health and good crops.
The following tales are told by the fathers and mothers to the children
to teach them how things came to be as they are.