The native village.--Houses.--Pitapit.--Native
institutions.--Lumawig.
The next day, the 9th, Father Clapp very kindly offered to show
Strong and me the native village, an invitation we made haste to
accept. This village, if village it be, marches with the Christian
town, so that we at once got into it, to find it a collection of huts
put down higgledy-piggledy, with almost no reference to convenience of
access. Streets, of course, there were none, nor even regular paths
from house to house; you just picked your way from one habitation to
the next as best you could, carefully avoiding the pig-sty which each
considerable hut seemed to have. I wish I could say that the Igorot
out of rude materials had built a simple but clean and commodious
house! He has done nothing of the sort: his materials are rude enough,
but his hut is small, low, black, and dirty, so far as one could tell
in walking through. The poorer houses have two rooms, an inner and an
outer, both very small (say 6 × 6 feet and 4 × 6 feet respectively,
inside measurement), cooking being done in the outer and the inner
serving as a sleeping-room. There is no flooring; although the fire
is under the roof (grass thatch), no smoke-hole has been thought
of, and as there are no window-openings, and the entrance is shut
up tight by night and the fire kept up if the weather be cold, the
interior is as black as one would expect from the constant deposit
of soot. The ridge-pole of the poorer houses is so low that a man
of even small stature could not stand up under it. The well-to-do
have better houses, not only larger, but having a sort of second
story; these are soot-black, too. We made no examination of these,
not even a cursory one. The pig-sty is usually next to the house,
and is nothing but a rock-lined pit, open to the sky, except where
the house is built directly over it.
It is astonishing that these people should not have evolved a better
house, seeing that the Ifugaos have done it, and the Kalinga houses,
which we were to see in a day or two, are really superior affairs.
Passing by a certain house, Father Clapp stopped and said, "Here is
where Pitapit was born," and stood expectant. Strong and I looked
furtively at each other; it was evident that we were supposed to
know who Pitapit was. But as we did not, the question was put:
"Who is Pitapit?" Father Clapp, gazing pityingly upon us, as though
we had asked who George Washington was, then enlightened us. Pitapit
is a Bontok boy of great natural qualities, so great, indeed, that he
was sent to the States to a church school, where he had recently won
a Greek prize in competition! Father Clapp was naturally very proud
of this, as he well might be. The fact of the matter is that Igorot
children are undeniably bright; given the chance, they will accomplish
something. And I repeat what I have said before: we are trying to
give them and their people a chance, the only one they have ever had.
We remarked, as we walked about this morning, that although Father
Clapp seemed to know some of the people we met and would speak to them,
they never returned his greeting. None of these highlanders have any
words or custom of salutation. In the Ifugao country, however, they
shake hands, and would frequently smile when on meeting them we would
say, "_Mapud!_"--_i.e._, "Good!"--the nearest thing to a greeting
that our very scanty stock of Ifugao words afforded. But the Igorot
never shook hands with us nor offered to: they have no smile for the
stranger, though they seem good-humored enough among themselves.
Poor as we found the village on the material side, it has nevertheless
some interesting institutional features. For example, it has sixteen
wards, or _atos_, and each _ato_ has its meeting-place, consisting
of a circle of small boulders, where the men assemble to discuss
matters affecting the _ato_, such as war and peace; for the _ato_
is the political unit, and not the village as a whole. A remarkable
thing is the family life, or lack of it rather: as soon as children
are three or four years old, they leave the roof under which they
were born and go to sleep, the boys in a sort of dormitory called
_pabajunan_, occupied as well by the unmarried men, [37] and the girls
in one called _olog_. And, as one may ask whether pearls are costly
because ladies like them or whether ladies like pearls because they
are costly, so here: Is the Igorot house so poor an affair because
of the _olog_, etc., or does the _olog_ exist because the house is
poor? Be this as it may, and to resume, the children go on sleeping
in their respective _pabajunan_ and _olog_ until they are grown up
and married. A sort of trial marriage seems to exist; the young men
freely visit the _olog_--indeed, are expected to. If results follow,
it is a marriage, and the couple go to housekeeping; otherwise all the
parties in interest are free. Marriage ties are respected, adultery
being punished with death; but a man may have more than one wife,
though usually that number is not exceeded. However, a man was pointed
out to us, who maintains in his desire for issue, but without avail,
a regular harem, having no fewer than fifteen wives in different
villages, he being a rich man.
Among other things shown us by Father Clapp was a circle of highly
polished boulders, said traditionally to be the foundation of the house
of Lumawig, the Deity of the Bontok. One stone was pierced by a round
hole, made by Lumawig's spear: on arriving, he decided he would remain
permanently in Bontok, and began by sticking the shaft of his spear
in the stone in question--a very minor example, by the way, of his
magical powers. More interesting, perhaps, than the ruins of Lumawig's
house was a sacred grove on a hill rising just back of the village,
in which, according to Father Clapp, certain rites and ceremonies
are held once a year. The matter is one for experts, but it appears
strange that this people should have a sacred grove, as being unusual.
We wound up our stay in Bontok by going to a grand dinner in Government
House, given by Pack. [38]