PART 4

Economic Life

Production

Under the title "Economic life" are considered the various activities

which a political economist would consider if he studied a modern

community -- in so far as they occur in Bontoc. This method was chosen

not to make the Bontoc Igorot appear a modern man but that the student

may see as plainly as method will allow on what economic plane the

Bontoc man lives. The desire for this clear view is prompted by the

belief that grades of culture of primitive peoples may be determined

by the economic standard better than by any other single standard.

Natural production

It would be impossible for the Bontoc Igorot at present to subsist

themselves two weeks by natural production. It is doubtful whether

at any time they could have depended for even as much as a day in a

week on the natural foods of the Bontoc culture area. The country

has wild carabaos, deer, hogs, chickens, and three animals which

the Igorot calls "cats," but all of these, when considered as a

food supply for the people, are relatively scarce, and it is thought

they were never much more abundant than now. Fish are not plentiful,

and judging from the available waters there are probably as many now

as formerly. It is believed that no nut foods are eaten in Bontoc,

although an acorn is found in the mountains to the south of Bontoc

pueblo. The banana and pineapple now grow wild within the area, but

they are not abundant. Of small berries, such as are so abundant in the

wild lands of the United States, there are almost none in the area. On

the outside, near Suyak of Lepanto, there is a huckleberry found so

plentifully that they claim it is gathered for food in its season.

Hunting

A large pile of rocks stands like a compact fortress on the mountain

horizon to the north of Bontoc pueblo. Here a ceremony is observed

twice annually by rich men for the increase of ay-ya-wan', the wild

carabao. It is claimed that there are now seventeen wild carabaos in

Ma-ka'-lan Mountain near the pueblo. There are others in the mountains

farther to the north and east, and the ceremony has among its objects

that of inducing these more distant herds to migrate to the public

lands surrounding the pueblo.

The men go to the great rock, which is said to be a transformed

anito, and there they build a fire, eat a meal, and have the ceremony

called "mang-a-pu'-i si ay-ya-wan'," freely, "fire-feast for wild

carabaos." The ceremony is as follows:

Ay-ya-wan ad Sa-ka'-pa a-li-ka is-na ma-am'-mung is-na.

Ay-ya-wan ad O-ki-ki a-li-ka is-na ma-am'-mung is-na.

Fay-cha'-mi ya'-i nan a-pu'-i ya pa'-tay.

This is an invitation addressed to the wild carabaos of the Sakapa

and Okiki Mountains to come in closer to Bontoc. They are also asked

to note that a fire-feast is made in their honor.

The old men say that probably 500 wild carabaos have been killed by

the men of the pueblo. There is a tradition that Lumawig instructed

the people to kill wild carabaos for marriage feasts, and all of those

killed -- of which there is memory or tradition -- have been used in

the marriage feasts of the rich. The wild carabao is extremely vicious,

and is killed only when forty or fifty men combine and hunt it with

spears. When wounded it charges any man in sight, and the hunter's

only safety is in a tree.

The method of hunting is simple. The herd is located, and as cautiously

as possible the hunters conceal themselves behind the trees near the

runway and throw their spears as the desired animal passes. No wild

carabaos have been killed during the past two years, but I am told

that the numbers killed three, four, six, seven, and eight years ago

were, respectively, 5, 8, 7, 10, and 8.

Seven men in Bontoc have dogs trained to run deer and wild boar. One

of the men, Aliwang, has a pack of five dogs; the others have one

or two each. The hunting dogs are small and only moderately fleet,

but they are said to have great courage and endurance. They hunt out

of leash, and still-hunt until they start their prey, when they cry

continually, thus directing the hunter to the runway or the place

where the victim is at bay.

Not more than one deer, og'-sa, is killed annually, and they claim

that deer were always very scarce in the area. A large net some 3

1/2 feet high and often 50 feet long is commonly employed in northern

Luzon and through the Archipelago for netting deer and hogs, but no

such net is used in Bontoc. The dogs follow the deer, and the hunter

spears it in the runway as it passes him or while held at bay.

The wild hog, la'-man or fang'-o, when hunted with dogs is a surly

fighter and prefers to take its chances at bay; consequently it is

more often killed then by the spearman than in the runway. The wild

hog is also often caught in pitfalls dug in the runways or in its

feeding grounds. The pitfall, fi'-to, is from 3 to 4 feet across,

about 4 feet deep, and is covered over with dry grass.

In the forest feeding grounds of Polus Mountains, between the Bontoc

culture area and the Banawi area to the south, these pitfalls are

very abundant, there frequently being two or three within a space

one rod square.

A deadfall, called "il-tib'," is built for hogs near the sementeras

in the mountains. These deadfalls are quite common throughout the

Bontoc area, and probably capture more hogs than the pitfall and the

hunter combined. The hogs are partial to growing palay and camotes,

and at night circle about a protecting fence anxious to take advantage

of any chance opening. The Igorot leaves an opening in a low fence

built especially for that purpose, as he does not commonly fence in the

sementeras. The il-tib' is built of two sections of heavy tree trunks,

one imbedded in the earth, level with the ground, and the other the

falling timber. As the hog enters the sementera, the weight of his

body springs the trigger which is covered in the loose dirt before

the opening, and the falling timber pins him fast against the lower

timber firmly buried in the earth. From half a dozen to twenty wild

hogs are annually killed by the people of the pueblo. They are said

to be as plentiful as formerly.

Bontoc pueblo does not catch many wild fowls. Fowl catching is an

art she never learned to follow, although two or three of her boys

annually catch half a dozen chickens each. The surrounding pueblos, as

Tukukan, Sakasakan, Mayinit, and Maligkong, secure every year in the

neighborhood of fifty to one hundred fowl each. The sa'-fug, or wild

cock, is most commonly caught in a snare, called "shi'-ay," to which

it is lured by another cock, a domestic one, or often a half-breed or

a wild cock partially domesticated, which is secured inside the snare

set up in the mountains near the feeding grounds of the wild fowls.

The shi'-ay when set consists of twenty-four si'-lu, or running loops,

attached to a cord forming three sides of an open square space. As the

snare is set the open side is placed against a rock or steep base of

a rise. The shi'-ay is made of braided bejuco, and when not in use. is

compactly packed away in a basket for the purpose (see Pl. XLIV). There

are also five pegs fitted into loops in the basket, four of which are

employed in pegging out the three sides of the snare, and the other

for securing the lure cock within the square. Only cocks are caught

with the shi'-ay, and they come to fight the intruder who guides them

to the snare by crowing his challenge. As the wild cock rushes at the

other he is caught by one of the loops closing about him. The hunter,

always hiding within a few feet of the snare, rushes upon the captive,

and at once resets his snare for another possible victim.

A spring snare, called kok-o'-lang, is employed by the Igorot in

catching both wild cocks and hens. It is set in their narrow runways

in the heavy undergrowth. It consists of two short uprights driven into

the ground one on either side of the path. These are bound together at

the tops with two crosspieces. Near the lower ends of these uprights is

a loose crosspiece, the trigger, which the fowl in passing knocks down,

thus freeing the short upright, marked C, in fig. 1. When this is freed

the loop, E, at once tightens around the victim, as the cord is drawn

taut by the releasing of the spring -- a shrub bent over and secured

by the upper end of the cord. This spring is not shown in the drawing.

FIGURE 1

Fig. 1. -- Spring snare, Kok-o'-lang. (A,

Kok-o'-lang; B, I-pit' C,

Ting'-a; D, Chug-shi'; E,

Lo-fid'.)

Bontoc has two or three quadrupeds which it names "cats." One of these

is a true cat, called in'-yao. It is domesticated by the Ilokano in

Bontoc and becomes a good mouser.[23] The kok-o'-lang is used to catch

this cat. Pl. XLVI shows with what success this spring snare may be

employed. The cat shown was caught in the night while trying to enter

a chicken coop. He was a wild in'-yao, was beautifully striped like

the American "tiger cat," and measured 35 inches from tip to tip. The

in'-yao is plentiful in the mountains, and is greatly relished by the

Igorot, though Bontoc has no professional cat hunters and probably

not a dozen of the animals are captured annually.

The Igorot claim to have two other "cats," one called "co'-lang,"

as large as in'-yao, with large legs and very large feet. A Spaniard

living near Sagada says this animal eats his coffee berries. The other

so-called "cat" is named "si'-le" by the Igorot. It is said to be

a long-tailed, dark-colored animal, smaller than the in'-yao. It is

claimed that this si'-le is both carnivorous and frugivorous. These

two animals are trapped at times, and when caught are eaten.

During the year the boys catch numbers of small birds, all of which

are eaten. Probably not over 200 are captured, however, during a year.

The ling-an', a spring snare, is the most used for catching birds. I

saw one of them catch four shrikes, called ta'-la, in a single

afternoon, and a fifth one was caught early the next morning. Pl. XLVII

shows the ling-an' as it is set, and also shows ta'-la as he is caught.

The kok-o'-lang is also employed successfully for such birds as

run on the ground, especially those which run in paths. The si-sim'

is another spring snare set on the open ground. Food is scattered

about leading to it, and is placed abundantly in an inclosure, the

entrance to which is through the fatal noose which tightens when the

bird perches on the trigger at the opening to the inclosure.

When the palay is in the milk a great many birds which feed upon it

are captured by means of a broom-like bundle of runo. As the birds fly

over the sementeras a boy sweeps his broom, the ka-lib', through the

flock, and rarely fails to knock down a bird. The ka-lib' is about 7

feet long, 2 1/2 inches in diameter at the base, and flattened and

broadened to 14 or 15 inches in width at the outer end. What the

ka-lib' really does for the boy is to give him an arm about 9 feet

long and a long open hand a foot and a quarter wide.

Fishing

The only water available to Bontoc pueblo for fishing purposes is the

river passing between it and her sister pueblo, Samoki. In the dry

season, where it is not dammed, the river is not over six and eight

rods across in its widest places, and is from a few inches to 3 feet

deep. All the water would readily pass, at the ordinary velocity of

the stream, in a channel 20 feet wide and 6 feet deep.

Three methods are employed in fishing in this river -- the first,

catching each fish in the hand; the second, driving the fish upstream

by fright into a receptacle; a third, a combined process of driving

the fish downstream by fright and by water pressure into a receptacle.

The Igorot seems not to have a general word for fish, but he has

names for the three varieties found in the river. One, ka-cho', a

very small, sluggish fish, is captured during the entire year. In

February these fish were seldom more than 2 inches in length, and

yet they were heavy with spawn. The ka-cho' is the fish most commonly

captured with the hands. It is a sluggish swimmer and is provided with

an exterior suction valve on its ventral surface immediately back of

the gill opening. This valve seems to enable the fish to withstand the

ordinary current of the river which, in the rainy season, becomes a

torrent. This valve is also one of the causes of the Igorot's success

in capturing the fish, which is not readily frightened, but clings to

the bed of the stream until almost brushed away, and then ordinarily

swims only a few inches or feet. Small boys from 6 to 10 years old

capture by hand a hundred or more ka-cho' during half a day, simply

by following them in the shallow water.

The ka-cho' is also caught in great numbers by the second or driving

method. Twenty to forty or more men fish together with a large,

closely woven, shovel-like trap called ko-yug', and the operation is

most interesting to witness. At the river beach the fishermen remove

all clothing, and stretch out on their faces in the warm, sun-heated

sand. Three men carry the trap to the middle of the swift stream, and

one holds it from floating away below him by grasping the side poles

which project at the upper end for that purpose. The two other men,

below the trap at its mouth, put large stones on their backs between

the shoulder blades, so they will not float downstream, and disappear

beneath the water. As quickly as possible, coming up a dozen times to

breathe during the process, they clear away the rocks below the trap,

piling them in it over its floor, until it finally sinks and remains

stationary on the cleared spot of sandy bed. Their task being ended,

the three trap setters come to shore, and sprawl on the hot sands to

warm their dripping skins, while the sun dries and toasts their backs.

Then the drivers or beaters enter the river and stretch in a line from

shore to shore about 75 feet below the trap. Each fellow squats in

the water and places a heavy stone on his back. One of the men calls,

and the row of strange, hump-backed creatures disappears beneath

the water. There the men work swiftly, and, as later appears,

successfully. Each turns over all the bowlders within his reach

as large or larger than his two fists, and he works upstream 4 to

6 feet. They come up blowing, at first a head here and there, but

soon all are up with renewed breath, waiting the next call to beat

up the prey. This process is repeated again and again, and each

time the outer ends of the line bend upstream, gradually looping

in toward the trap. When the line of men has become quite circular

and is contracting rapidly, a dozen other men enter the river from

the shore and line up on each side of the mouth of the trap, a flank

movement to prevent the fish running upstream outside the snare. From

the circle of beaters a few now drop out; the others are in a bunch,

the last stone is turned, and the prey seeks covert under the rocks

in the trap, which the flankers at once lift above the water. The

rocks are thrown out and the trap and fish carried to the shore.

In each drive they catch about three quarts of fish. These are dumped

into baskets, usually the carrying basket of the man, and when the

day's catch is made and divided each man receives an equal share,

usually about 1 pound per household. A procession of men and boys

coming in from the river, each carrying his share of fish in his

basket hat in his hand and the last man carrying the fish trap,

is a sight very frequently seen in the pueblo.

The ka-cho' is also caught in a small trap, called ob-o'-fu, by the

third method mentioned above. A small strip of shallow water along the

shore is quite effectually cut off from the remainder of the stream

by a row of rocks. The lower end of this strip is brought to a point

where the water pours out and into the upturned ob-o'-fu, carrying

with it the ka-cho' which happen to be in the swift current, the fish

having been startled from their secure resting places by the fishermen

who have gradually proceeded downstream overturning the stones.

A fish called "li'-ling," which attains a length of about 6 inches,

is also caught by the last-described method. It is not nearly so

plentiful as the ka-cho'.

One man living in Bontoc may be called a fisherman. He spends most

of his time with his traps in the river, and sells his fish to the

Ilokano and Igorot residents of the pueblo. He places large traps

in the deep parts of the stream, adjusts them, and revisits them by

swimming under the water, and altogether is considered by the Igorot

boys as quite a "water man." He catches each year many ka-cho' and

li'-ling, and one or more large fish, called "cha-lit." The cha-lit

is said to acquire a length of 3, 4, or 5 feet.

Women and small children wade about the river and pick up quantities of

small crabs, called "ag-ka'-ma," and also a small spiral shell, called

"ko'-ti." It is safe to say that every hour of a rainless day one or

more persons of Bontoc is gathering such food in the river. Immediately

after the first rain of the season of 1903, coming April 5, there

were twenty-four persons, women and small children, within ten rods

of one another, searching the river for ag-ka'-ma and ko'-ti.

The women wear a small rump basket tied around the waist in which they

carry their lunch to the rice sementeras, and once or twice each week

they bring home from a few ounces to a pound of small crustaceans. One

variety is named song'-an, another is kit-an', a third is fing'-a,

and a fourth is lis'-chug. They are all collected in the mud of

the sementeras.

Vegetal production

All materials for timbers and boards for the dwellings, granaries,

and public buildings, all wood for fires, all wood for shields, for

ax and spear handles, for agricultural implements, and for household

utensils, and all material for splints employed in various kinds of

basket work, and for strings (warp and woof) employed in the weaving

of Bontoc girdles and skirts, are gathered wild with no effort at

cultural production. There are three exceptions to this statement,

however. One small shrub, called "pu-ug'," is planted near the house

as a fiber plant, and is no longer known to the Igorot in the wild

state. Much of the bamboo from which the basket-work splints are made

is purchased from people west of Bontoc. And, lastly, there is no

doubt that a certain care is taken in preserving pine trees for large

boards and timbers and for coffins; there is a cutting away of dead

and small branches from these trees. Moreover, the cutting of other

trees and shrubs for firewood certainly has a beneficial effect upon

the forest trees left standing. In fact, all persons preserve the

small pitch-pine trees on private lands, and it is a crime to cut

them on another's land, although a poor man may cut other varieties

on private lands when needed.

Cultural production

Agriculture

In all of Igorot culture the most apparent and strikingly noteworthy

fact is its agriculture. In agriculture the Igorot has reached his

highest development. On agriculture hangs his claim to the rank of

barbarian -- without it he would be a savage.

Igorot agriculture is unique in Luzon, and, so far as known, throughout

the Archipelago, in its mountain terraces and irrigation.

There are three possible explanations of the origin of Philippine

rice terraces. First, that they (and those of other islands peopled

by primitive and modern Malayans, and those of Japan and China) are

indigenous -- the product of the mountain lands of each isolated area;

second, that most of them are due to cultural influences from one

center, or possibly more than one center, to the north of Luzon --

as influences from China or Japan spreading southward from island

to island; third, that they, especially all those of the Islands --

excluding only China -- are due to influences originating south of

the Philippines, spreading northward from island to island.

Terracing may be indigenous to many isolated areas where it is

found, and doubtless is to some; it is found more or less marked

wherever irrigation is or was practiced in ancient or modern

agriculture. However, it is believed not to be an original production

of the Philippines. Certain it is that it is not a Negrito art,

nor does it belong to the Moro or to the so-called Christian people.

Different sections of China have rice terraces, and as early as the

thirteenth century Chinese merchants traded with the Philippines,

yet there is no record that they traded north of Manila -- where

terracing is alone found. Besides, the Chinese record of the early

commerce with the Islands -- written by Chao Jukua about 1250 it is

claimed -- specifically states that the natives of the Islands were

the merchants, taking the goods from the shore and trading them even

to other islands; the Chinese did not pass inland. Even though the

Chinaman brought phases of his culture to the Islands, it would not

have been agriculture, since he did not practice it here. Moreover,

whatever culture he did leave would not be found in the mountains

three or four days inland, while the people with whom he traded were

without the art. The same arguments hold against the Japanese as the

inspirers of Igorot terraces. There is no record that they traded

in the Islands as early as did the Chinese, and it is safe to say,

no matter when they were along the coasts of Luzon, that they never

penetrated several days into the mountains, among a wild, head-hunting

people, for what the agricultural Igorot had to sell.

The historic cultural movements in Malaysia have been not from the

north southward but from Sumatra and Java to the north and east; they

have followed the migrations of the people. It is believed that the

terrace-building culture of the Asiatic islands for the production

of mountain rice by irrigation during the dry season has drawn its

inspiration from one source, and that such terraces where found to-day

in Java, Lombok, Luzon, Formosa, and Japan are a survival of very early

culture which spread from the nest of the primitive Malayan stock and

left its marks along the way -- doubtless in other islands besides

these cited. If Japan, as has Formosa, had an early Malayan culture,

as will probably be proved in due time, one should not be surprised

to find old rice terraces in the mountains of Batanes Islands and

the Loo Choo Islands which lie between Luzon and Japan.

Building the sementera

It must be noted here that all Bontoc agricultural labors, from the

building of the sementera to the storing of the gathered harvest,

are accompanied by religious ceremonials. They are often elaborate,

and some occupy a week's time. These ceremonials are left out of this

chapter to avoid detail; they appear in the later chapter on religion.

There are two varieties of sementeras -- garden patches, called

"pay-yo'" -- in the Bontoc area, the irrigated and the unirrigated. The

irrigated sementeras grow two crops annually, one of rice by irrigation

during the dry season and the other of camotes, "sweet potatoes," grown

in the rainy season without irrigation. The unirrigated sementera

is of two kinds. One is the mountain or side-hill plat of earth,

in which camotes, millet, beans, maize, etc., are planted, and the

other is the horizontal plat (probably once an irrigated sementera),

usually built with low terraces, sometimes lying in the pueblo among

the houses, from which shoots are taken for transplanting in the

distant sementeras and where camotes are grown for the pigs. Sometimes

they are along old water courses which no longer flow during the dry

season; such are often employed for rice during the rainy season.

The unirrigated mountain-side sementera, called "fo-ag'," is built by

simply clearing the trees and brush from a mountain plat. No effort

is made to level it and no dike walls are built. Now and then one is

hemmed in by a low boundary wall.

The irrigated sementeras are built with much care and labor. The earth

is first cleared; the soil is carefully removed and placed in a pile;

the rocks are dug out; the ground shaped, being excavated and filled

until a level results. This task for a man whose only tools are sticks

is no slight one. A huge bowlder in the ground means hours -- often

days -- of patient, animal-like digging and prying with hands and

sticks before it is finally dislodged. When the ground is leveled

the soil is put back over the plat, and very often is supplemented

with other rich soil. These irrigated sementeras are built along

water courses or in such places as can be reached by turning running

water to them. Inasmuch as the water must flow from one to another,

there are practically no two sementeras on the same level which

are irrigated from the same water course. The result is that every

plat is upheld on its lower side, and usually on one or both ends,

by a terrace wall. Much of the mountain land is well supplied with

bowlders and there is an endless water-worn supply in the beds of

all streams. All terrace walls are built of these undressed stones

piled together without cement or earth. These walls are called

"fa-ning'." They are from 1 to 20 and 30 feet high and from a foot

to 18 inches wide at the top. The upper surface of the top layer of

stones is quite flat and becomes the path among the sementeras. The

toiler ascends and descends among the terraces on stone steps made

by single rocks projecting from the outside of the wall at regular

intervals and at an angle easy of ascent and descent (see Pl. LIII).

These stone walls are usually weeded perfectly clean at least once

each year, generally at the time the sementera is prepared for

transplanting. This work falls to the women, who commonly perform it

entirely nude. At times a scanty front-and-back apron of leaves is

worn tucked under the girdle.

In the Banawi district, south of the Bontoc area, there are terrace

walls certainly 75 feet in height, though many of these are not stoned,

since the earth is of such a nature that it does not readily crumble.

It is safe to say that nine-tenths of the available water supply of

the dry season in the Bontoc area is utilized for irrigation. In some

areas, as about Bontoc pueblo, there is practically not a gallon of

unused water where there is space for a sementera.

A single area consisting of several thousand acres of mountain side

is frequently devoted to sementeras, and I have yet to behold a more

beautiful view of cultivated land than such an area of Igorot rice

terraces. Winding in and out, following every projection, dipping

into every pocket of the mountain, the walls ramble along like running

things alive. Like giant stairways the terraces lead up and down the

mountain side, and, whether the levels are empty, dirt-colored areas,

fresh, green-carpeted stairs, or patches of ripening, yellow grain,

the beholder is struck with the beauty of the artificial landscape

and marvels at the industry of an otherwise savage people.

Irrigating

By irrigation is meant the purposeful distribution of water over soil

by man by means of diverting streams or by the use of canals in the

shape of ditches or troughs for conveying and directing part of a

water supply, or by means of some other man-directed power to raise

water to the required level.

The Igorot employ three methods of irrigation: One, the simplest and

most natural, is to build sementeras along a small stream which is

turned into the upper sementera and passes from one to another, falling

from terrace to terrace until all water is absorbed, evaporated,

or all available or desired land is irrigated. Usually such streams

are diverted from their courses, and they are often carried long

distances out of their natural way. The second method is to divert a

part of a river by means of a stone dam. The third method is still more

artificial than the preceding -- the water is lifted by direct human

power from below the sementera and poured to run over the surface.

The first method is the most common, since the mountains in Igorot land

are full of small, usually perpetual, streams. There are practically no

streams within reach of suitable pueblo sites which are not exhausted

by the Igorot agriculturist. Everywhere small streams are carefully

guarded and turned wherever there is a square yard of earth that may

be made into a rice sementera. Small streams in some cases have been

wound for miles around the sides of a mountain, passing deep gullies

and rivers in wooden troughs or tubes.

Much land along the river valleys is irrigated by means of dams, called

by the Igorot "lung-ud'." During the season of 1903 there was one dam

(designated the main dam in Pl. LVII -- see also Pls. LV and LVI)

across the entire river at Bontoc, throwing all the water which did

not leak through the stones into a large canal on the Bontoc side of

the valley. Half a mile above this was another dam (called the upper

dam in Pl. LVII) diverting one-half the stream to the same valley,

only onto higher ground. Immediately below the main dam were two low

piles of stones (designated weirs) jutting into the shallow stream

from the Bontoc side, and each gathering sufficient water for a few

sementeras. Within a quarter of a mile below the main dam were three

other loose, open weirs of rocks, two of which began on a shallow

island, throwing water to the Samoki side of the river. In the stream

a short distance farther down a shallow row of rocks and gravel turned

water into three new sementeras constructed early in the year on a

gravel island in the river.

The main dam is about 12 feet high, 2 feet broad at the top, 8 or

10 at the bottom, and is about 300 feet long. It is built each year

during November and December, and requires the labor of fifteen

or twenty men for about six weeks. It is constructed of river-worn

bowlders piled together without adhesive. The top stones are flat on

the upper surface, and the dam is a pathway across the river for the

people from the time of its completion until its destruction by the

freshets of June or July.

The upper dam is a new piece of primitive engineering. It, with its

canal, has been in mind for at least two years; but it was completed

only in 1903. The dam is small, extending only half way across the

river, and beginning on an island. This dam turns water into a canal

averaging 3 feet wide and carrying about 5 inches of water. The

canal, called "a'-lak," is about 3,000 feet long from the dam at A

in Pl. LVII to the place of discharge into the level area at B. For

about 530 feet of this distance it was impossible for the primitive

engineer to construct a canal in the earth, as the solid rock of

the mountain dips vertically into the river. About fifty sections

of large pine trees were brought and hollowed into troughs, called

"ta-la'-kan," which have been secured above the water by means of

buttresses, by wooden scaffolding, called "to-kod'," and by attachment

to the overhanging rocks, until there is now a continuous artificial

waterway from the dam to the tract of irrigated land.

Considerable engineering sense has been shown and no small amount of

labor expended in the construction of this last irrigating scheme. The

pine logs are a foot or more in diameter, and have a waterway dug

in them about 10 or 12 inches deep and wide. These trees were felled

and the troughs dug with the wasay, a short-handled tool with an iron

blade only an inch or an inch and a half wide, and convertible alike

into ax and adz.

There seems to be a fall of about 22 feet between A at the upper

dam and B at the discharge from the troughs.[24] This fall in a

distance of about 3,000 feet seems needlessly great; however, the

primitive engineer has shown excellent judgment in the matter. First,

by putting the dam (upper dam) where it is, only half the stream had

to be built across. Second, there is a rapids immediately below the

dam, and, had the Igorot built his dam below the rapids, a dam of the

same height would have raised the water to a much lower level; this

would have necessitated a canal probably 10 or 12 feet deep instead

of three. Third, the height of the water at the upper dam has enabled

him to lay the log section of the waterway above the high-water mark

of the river, thus, probably, insuring more or less permanence. Had

the dam been built much lower down the stream the troughs would have

been near the surface of the river and been torn away annually by

the freshets, or the people would be obliged each year to tear down

and reconstruct that part of the canal. As it now is it is probable

that only the short dam will need to be rebuilt each year.

All dams and irrigating canals are built directly by or at the expense

of the persons benefited by the water. Water is never rented to persons

with sementeras along an artificial waterway. If a person refuses

to bear his share of the labor of construction and maintenance his

sementeras must lie idle for lack of water.

All sementera owners along a waterway, whether it is natural or

artificial, meet and agree in regard to the division of the water. If

there is an abundance, all open and close their sluice gates when they

please. When there is not sufficient water for this, a division is made

-- usually each person takes all the water during a certain period of

time. This scheme is supposed to be the best, since the flow should

be sufficient fully to flood the entire plat -- a 100-gallon flow in

two hours is considered much better than an equal flow in two days.

During the irrigating season, if there is lack of water, it becomes

necessary for each sementera owner to guard his water rights against

other persons on the same creek or canal. If a man sleeps in his house

during the period in which his sementeras are supposed to receive

water, it is pretty certain that his supply will be stolen, and, since

he was not on guard, he has no redress. But should sleep chance to

overtake him in his tiresome watch at the sementeras, and should some

one turn off and steal his water, the thief will get clubbed if caught,

and will forfeit his own share of water when his next period arrives.

The third method of irrigation -- lifting the water by direct human

power -- is not much employed by the Igorot. In the vicinity of Bontoc

pueblo there are a few sementeras which were never in a position to be

irrigated by running water. They are called "pay-yo' a kao-u'-chan,"

and, when planted with rice in the dry season, need to be constantly

tended by toilers who bring water to them in pots from the river,

creeks, or canals. On the Samoki side of the valley during a week or

so of the driest weather in May, 1903, there were four "well sweeps,"

each with a 5-gallon kerosene-oil can attached, operating nearly all

day, pouring water from a canal into sementeras through 60 or 80 feet

of small, wooden troughs.

Turning the soil

Since rice, called "pa-ku'." is the chief agricultural product of

the Igorot it will be considered in the following sections first,

after which data of other vegetable products will be given.

Turning the soil for the annual crop of irrigated rice begins in the

middle of December and continues nearly two months. The labor of

turning and fertilizing the soil and transplanting the young rice

is all in progress at the same time -- generally, too, in the same

sementera. Since each is a distinct process, however, I shall consider

each separately. Before the soil is turned in a sementera it has given

up its annual crop of camotes, and the water has been turned on to

soften the earth. From two to twenty adults gather in a sementera,

depending on the size of the plat, of which there are relatively few

containing more than 10,000 square feet. They commonly range from

30 square feet to 1,500 or 2,000. The following description is one

of several made in detail while watching the rice industry of the

Bontoc Igorot.

The sementera is about 20 by 50 feet, or about 1,000 square feet,

and lies in the midst of the large valley area between Bontoc and

Samoki. It is on the Samoki side of the river, but is the property of a

Bontoc family. There are two groups of soil turners in the sementera --

three men in one, and two unmarried women, an older married woman, and

a youth in the other. At one end of the plat two, and part of the time

three, women are transplanting rice. Four men are bringing fertilizer

for the soil. Strange to say, each of the men in the group of three is

"clothed" -- one wears his breechcloth as a breechcloth, and the other

two wear theirs simply as aprons, hanging loose in front. Three of the

men bringing fertilizer are entirely nude except for their girdles,

since they ford the river with their loads between the sementera and

Bontoc and do not care to wet their breechcloths; the other man wears

a bladder bag hanging from his girdle as an apron. One of the young

women turning the soil wears a skirt; the other one and the old woman

wear front-and-back aprons of camote vines; the youth with them is

nude. The three transplanters wear skirts, and one of them wears an

open jacket. Besides these there are three children in and about the

sementera; one is a pretty, laughing girl of about 9 years; one is

a shy, faded-haired little girl of 3 or 4 years; and the other is a

fat chunk of a boy about 5 years. All three are perfectly naked. It is

impossible to say what clothing these toilers wore before I went among

them to watch their work, but it is certain they were not more clothed.

Let us watch the typical group of the three women and the youth:

Each has a sharpened wooden turning stick, the kay-kay, a pole about

6 feet long and 2 inches in diameter. The four stand side by side

with their kay-kay stuck in the earth, and, in unison, they take one

step forward and push their tools from them, the earth under which

the tools are thrust falling away and crumbling in the water before

them. While it is falling away the toilers begin to sing, led by the

elder woman. The purport of the most common soil-turning song is this:

"It is hard work to turn the soil, but eating the rice is good." The

song continues while the implements are withdrawn from the earth

and jabbed in again in a new place, while the syllable pronounced

at that instant is also noticeably jabbed into the air. Again they

withdraw their implements and, singing and working in rhythmic unison,

again jab kay-kay and syllable. The implements are now thrust about

8 inches below the surface; the song ceases; each toiler pries her

section of the soil loose and, in a moment, together they push their

tools from them, the mass of soil -- some 2 feet long, 1 foot wide,

and 8 inches deep -- falls away in the water, and the song begins

again. As the earth is turned a camote, passed by in the camote

harvest, is discovered; the old woman picks it up and lays it on

the dry ground beside her. The little girl shyly comes for it and

stores it in a basket on the terrace wall with a few dozen others

found during the morning.

After a section of earth 10 or 15 feet square has been turned the

rhythmic labor and song ceases. Each person now grasps her kay-kay

with one hand at the middle and the other near the sharpened end and

with it rapidly crumbles and spreads about the new-turned soil. Now

they trample the bed thoroughly, throwing out any stones or pebbles

discovered by their feet, and frequently using the kay-kay further

to break up some small clod of earth. Finally a large section of

the sementera is prepared, and the toilers form in line abreast and

slowly tread back and forth over the plat, making the bed soft and

smooth beneath the water for the transplanting.

It is a delightful picture in the soil-turning season to see the acres

of terraces covered by groups of toilers, relieving their labors with

almost constant song.

I saw only one variation from the above methods in the Bontoc area. In

some of the large sementeras in the flat river bottom near Bontoc

pueblo a herd of seventeen carabaos was skillfully milled round and

round in the water, after the soil was turned, stirring and mixing

the bed into a uniform ooze. The animals were managed by a man who

drove them and turned them at will, using only his voice and a long

switch. It is impossible to get carabaos to many irrigated sementeras

because of the high terrace walls, but this herd is used annually in

the Bontoc river bottom.

After each rice harvest the soil of the irrigated sementera is turned

for planting camotes, but this time it is turned dry. More effort is

needed to thrust the kay-kay deep enough into the dry soil, and it

is thrust three or four times before the earth may be turned. Only

one-half the surface of a sementera is turned for camotes. Raised

beds are made about 2 feet wide and 8 to 12 inches high. The spaces

between these beds become paths along which the cultivator and

harvester walks. The soil is turned from the spaces used as paths

over the spaces which become beds, but the earth under the bed is

not turned or loosened.

Bontoc beds are almost invariably constructed like parallel-sided,

square-cornered saw teeth standing at right angles to the blade of the

saw, which is also a camote bed, and are well shown in Pl. LXII. In

Tulubin this saw-tooth bed also occurs, but the continuous spiral

bed and the broken, parallel, straight beds are equally as common;

they are shown in figs. 2 and 3.

Fig 2. -- Parallel camote beds.

Fig 3. -- Spiral camote beds.

The mountain-side sementera for camotes, maize, millet, and beans is

prepared simply by being scratched or picked an inch or two deep with

the woman's camote stick, the su-wan'. If the plat is new the grass is

burned before the scratching occurs, but if it is cultivated annually

the surface seldom has any care save the shallow work of the su-wan';

in fact, the surface stones are seldom removed.

In the season of 1903, the first rains came April 5, and the first

mountain sementera was scratched over for millet April 10, after five

successive daily rains.

Fertilizing

Much care is taken in fertilizing the irrigated sementeras. The hog

of a few pueblos in the Bontoc area, as in Bontoc and Samoki, is kept

confined all its life in a walled, stone-paved sty dug in the earth

(see Pl. LXXVII). Into this inclosure dry grasses and dead vines are

continually placed to absorb and become rotted by the liquids. As the

soil of the sementera is turned for the new rice crop these pigsties

are cleaned out and the rich manure spread on the beds.

The manure is sometimes carried by women though generally by men,

and the carriers in a string pass all day between the sementeras and

the pueblo, each bearing his transportation basket on his shoulder

containing about 100 pounds of as good fertilizer as agricultural

man ever thought to employ.

The manure is gathered from the sties with the two hands and is dumped

in the sementera in 10-pound piles about 5 feet apart after the soil

has been turned and trod soft and even.

It is said that in some sections of Igorot land dry vegetable matter

is burned so that ash may be had for fertilizing purposes.

I have seen women working long, dry grass under the soil in camote

sementeras at the time the crop was being gathered (Pl. LXIV),

but I believe fertilizers are seldom employed, except where rice

is grown. Mountain-side sementeras are frequently abandoned after

a few years' service, as they are supposed to be exhausted, whereas

fertilization would restore them.

Seed planting

Pad-cho-kan' is the name of the sementera used as a rice seed bed. One

or more small groups of sementeras in every pueblo is so protected from

the cold rains and winds of November and December and is so exposed to

the warm sun that it answers well the purposes of a primitive hotbed;

consequently it becomes such, and anyone who asks permission of the

owner may plant his seed there (see Pl. LXV).

The seed is planted in the beds after they have been thoroughly

worked and softened, the soil usually being turned three times. The

planting in Bontoc occurs the first part of November. November 15,

1902, the rice had burst its kernel and was above water in the Bontoc

beds. The seed is not shelled before planting, but the full fruit

heads, sin-lu'-wi, are laid, without covering, on the soft ooze, under

3 or 4 inches of water. They are laid in rows a few inches apart,

and are so close together that by the time the young plants are 3

inches above the surface of the water the bed is a solid mass of green.

Bontoc pueblo has six varieties of rice. Neighboring pueblos have

others; and it is probable that fifty, perhaps a hundred, varieties are

grown by the different irrigating peoples of northern Luzon. In Bontoc,

ti'-pa is a white beardless variety. Ga'-sang is white, and cha-yet'-it

is claimed to be the same grain, except it is dark colored; it is the

rice from which the fermented beverage, tapui, is made. Pu-i-a-pu'-i

and tu'-peng are also white; tu'-peng is sowed in unirrigated mountain

sementeras in the rainy season. Gu-mik'-i is a dark grain.

Camotes, or to-ki', are planted once in a long period in the sementeras

surrounding the buildings in the pueblo. There is nothing to kill them,

the ground has no other use, so they are practically perpetual.

The average size of all the eight varieties of Bontoc camotes is

about 2 by 4 inches in diameter. Six of the varieties are white and

two are red. The white ones are the following: Li-no'-ko, pa-to'-ki,

ki'-nub fa-fay'-i, pi-i-nit', ki-weng', and tang-tang-lab'. The red

ones are si'-sig and pit-ti'-kan.

To illustrate the many varieties which may exist in a small area I

give the names of five other camotes grown in the pueblo of Balili,

which is only about four hours from Bontoc. The Balili white camotes

are bi-tak'-no, a-go-bang'-bang, and la-ung'-an and the red are

gis-gis'-i and ta-mo'-lo.

Millet, called "sa'-fug," is sowed on the surface of the earth. The

sowing is "broadcast," but in a limited way, as the fields are usually

only a few rods square. The seed is generally sowed by women, who

carry a small basket or dish of it in one hand and scatter the seed

from between the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger of the free hand.

There are said to be four varieties of millet in Bontoc. Mo-di' and

poy-ned' are light-colored seeds; pi-ting'-an is a darker seed --

the Igorot says "black;" and si-nang'-a is the fourth. I have never

seen it but I am told it is white.

Maize, or pi'-ki, and beans, practically the only other seeds

planted, are planted annually in "hills." The rows of "hills" are

quite irregular. Maize, as is also millet, is planted immediately

after the first abundant rains, occurring early in April.

The Bontoc man has three varieties of beans. One is called ka'-lap;

the kernel is small, being only one-fifth of an inch long. Usually it

is pale green in color, though a few are black; both have an exterior

white germ. I'-tab is about one-third of an inch long. It is both

gray and black in color, and has a long exterior white germ. The third

variety is black with an exterior white germ. It is called ba-la'-tong,

and is about one-fourth of an inch in length.

Transplanting

Transplanting is always the work of women, since they are recognized

as quicker and more dexterous in most work with the hands than are

the men.

The women pull up the young rice plants in the seed beds and tie them

in bunches about 4 inches in diameter. They transport them by basket

to the newly prepared sementera and dump them in the water so they

will remain fresh.

As has been said, the manure fertilizer is placed about the sementera

in piles. The women thoroughly spread this fertilizer with their hands

and feet when they transplant (see Pl. LIX). When the soil is ready

the transplanter grasps a handful of the plants, twists off 3 or 4

inches of the blades, leaving the plant about 6 inches long, and, while

holding the plants in one hand, with the other she rapidly thrusts them

one by one into the soft bed. They are placed in fairly regular rows,

and are about 5 inches apart. The planter leans enthusiastically over

her work, usually resting one elbow on her knee -- the left elbow,

since most of the women are right-handed -- and she sets from forty

to sixty plants per minute.

When the sementeras are planted they present a clean and beautiful

appearance -- even the tips of the rice blades twisted off are

invariably crowded into the muddy bed to assist in fattening the crop.

As many as a dozen women often work together in one sementera to

hasten the planting. There are usually two or three little girls with

their mothers, who while away the hours playing work. They stuff up

the chinks of the stone walls with dirt and vegetable matter; they

carry together the few camotes discovered in this last handling of

the old camote bed; and they quite successfully and industriously

play at transplanting rice, though such small girls are not obliged

to work in the field.

Camotes are also transplanted. The women cut or pick off the "runners"

from the perpetual vines in the sementeras near the dwellings. These

they transplant in the unirrigated mountain sementeras after the

crops of millet and maize have been gathered.

The irrigated sementeras are also planted to camotes by transplanting

from these house beds. This transplanting lasts about six weeks in

Bontoc, beginning near the middle of July.

Some little sugar cane is grown by the Igorot of the Bontoc area. It

is claimed to grow up each year from the roots left at the preceding

harvest. At times new patches of cane are started by transplanting

shoots from the parent plants. It is said that in January the stalks

are cut and set in a rich mud, and that in the season of Baliling,

from about July 15 until early in September, the rooted shoots are

transplanted to the new beds.

Cultivating

The chief cultivation given to Igorot crops is bestowed on rice,

though all cultivated lands are remarkably free from weeds. The rice

sementeras are carefully weeded, "suckers" are pulled out, and the

beds are thinned generally, so that each plant will have all needful

chance to develop fruit. This weeding and thinning is the work of

women and half-grown children. Every day for nearly two months,

or until the fruit heads appear, the cultivators are diligently at

work in the sementeras. No tools or agricultural implements other

than bare hands are used in this work.

The men keep constant watch of the sementera walls and the irrigating

canals, repairing all, thus indirectly assisting the women in their

cultivation by directing water to the growing crop and by conserving

it when it is obtained.

Protecting

The rice begins to fruit early in April, at which time systematic

effort to protect the new grain from birds, rats, monkeys, and wild

hogs commences. This effort continues until the harvest is completed,

practically for three months. Much of this labor is performed by

water power, much by wind power, and about all the children and old

people in a pueblo are busied from early dawn until twilight in the

sementera as independent guards. Besides, throughout the long night

men and women build fires among the sementeras and guard their crop

from the wild hog. It is a critical time with the Igorot.

The most natural, simplest, and undoubtedly the most successful

protection of the grain is the presence of a person on the terrace

walls of the sementera, whether by day or night. Hundreds of fields

are so guarded each day in Bontoc by old people and children, who

frequently erect small screens of tall grass to shade and protect

themselves from the sun.

The next simplest method is one followed by the boys. They employ

a hollow section of carabao horn, cut off at both ends and about 8

inches in length; it is called "kong-ok'." This the boys beat when

birds are near, producing an open, resonant sound which may readily

be heard a mile.

The wind tosses about over the growing grain various "scarecrows." The

pa-chek' is one of these. It consists of a single large dry leaf,

or a bunch of small dry leaves, suspended by a cord from a heavy,

coarse grass 6 or 8 feet high; the leaf, the sa-gi-kak', hangs 4 feet

above the fruit heads. It swings about slightly in the breeze, and

probably is some protection against the birds. I believe it the least

effective of the various things devised by the Igorot to protect his

rice from the multitudes of ti-lin' -- the small, brown ricebird[25]

found broadly over the Archipelago.

The most picturesque of these wind-tossed bird scarers is the

ki'-lao. The ki'-lao is a basket-work figure swung from a pole and is

usually the shape and size of the distended wings of a large gull,

though it is also made in other shapes, as that of man, the lizard,

etc. The pole is about 20 feet high, and is stuck in the earth at such

an angle that the swinging figure attached by a line at the top of the

pole hangs well over the sementera and about 3 or 4 feet above the

grain (see Pl. LXVII). The bird-like ki'-lao is hung by its middle,

at what would be the neck of the bird, and it soars back and forth,

up and down, in a remarkably lifelike way. There are often a dozen

ki'-lao in a space 4 rods square, and they are certainly effectual,

if they look as bird-like to ti-lin' as they do to man. When seen

a short distance away they appear exactly like a flock of restless

gulls turning and dipping in some harbor.

FIGURE 4

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

The water-power bird scarers are ingenious. Across a shallow,

running rapids in the river or canal a line, called "pi-chug'," is

stretched, fastened at one end to a yielding pole, and at the other to

a rigid pole. A bowed piece of wood about 15 inches long and 3 inches

wide, called "pit-ug'," is suspended by a line at each end from the

horizontal cord. This pit-ug' is suspended in the rapids, by which it

is carried quickly downstream as far as the elasticity of the yielding

pole and the pi-chug' will allow, then it snaps suddenly back upstream

and is ready to be carried down and repeat the jerk on the relaxing

pole. A system of cords passes high in the air from the jerking pole at

the stream to other slender, jerked poles among the sementeras. From

these poles a low jerking line runs over the sementeras, over which

are stretched at right angles parallel cords within a few feet of the

fruit heads. These parallel cords are also jerked, and their movement,

together with that of the leaves depending from them, is sufficient

to keep the birds away. One such machine may send its shock a quarter

of a mile and trouble the birds over an area half an acre in extent.

Other Igorot, as those of the upper Abra River in Lepanto Province,

employ this same jerking machine to produce a sharp, clicking sound in

the sementera. The jerking cord repeatedly raises a series of hanging,

vertical wooden fingers, which, on being released, fall against a

stationary, horizontal bamboo tube, producing the sharp click. These

clicking machines are set up on two supporting sticks a few feet

above the grain every three or four yards about the sementeras.

There are many rodents, rats and mice, which destroy the growing grain

during the night unless great care is taken to cheek them. The Igorot

makes a small dead fall which he places in the path surrounding the

sementera. I have seen as many as five of these traps on a single

side of a sementera not more than 30 feet square. The trap has a

closely woven, wooden dead fall, about 10 or 15 inches square; one

end is set on the path and the other is supported in the air above

it by a string. One end of this string is fastened to a tall stick

planted in the earth, the lower end is tied to a short stick --

a part of the "spring" held rigid beneath the dead fall until the

trigger is touched. The dead fall drops when the rat, in touching

the trigger, releases the lower end of the cord. The animal springs

the trigger either by nibbling a bait on it or by running against it,

and is immediately killed, since the dead fall is weighted with stones.

Sementeras near some forested mountains in the Bontoc area are pestered

with monkeys. Day and night people remain on guard against them in

lonely, dangerous places -- just the kind of spot the head-hunter

chooses wherein to surprise his enemy.

All border sementeras in every group of fields are subject to the

night visits of wild hogs. In some areas commanding piles of earth

for outlooks are left standing when the sementeras are constructed. In

other places outlooks are erected for the purpose. Permanent shelters,

some of them commodious stone structures, are often erected on these

outlooks where a person remains on guard night and day (Pl. LXVIII),

at night burning a fire to frighten the wild hogs away.

At this season of the year when practically all the people of the

pueblo are in the sementeras. it is most interesting to watch the

homecoming of the laborers at night. At early dusk they may be

seen coming in over the trails leading from the sementeras to the

pueblo in long processions. The boys and girls 5 or 6 years old or

more, most of them entirely naked, come playing or dancing along --

the boys often marking time by beating a tin can or two sticks --

seemingly as full of life as when they started out in the morning. The

younger children are toddling by the side of their father or mother,

a small, dirty hand smothered in a large, labor-cracked one; or else

are carried on their father's back or shoulder, or perhaps astride

their mother's hip. The old men and women, almost always unsightly

and ugly, who go to the sementera only to guard and not to toil, come

slowly and feebly home, often picking their way with a staff. There is

much laughing and coquetting among the young people. A boy dashes by

with several girls in laughing pursuit, and it is not at all likely

that he escapes them with all his belongings. Many of the younger

married women carry babies; some carry on their heads baskets filled

with weeds used as food for the pigs, and all have their small rump

baskets filled with "greens" or snails or fish.

A man may carry on his shoulder a huge short log of wood cut in the

mountains, the wood partially supported on the shoulder by his spear;

or he perhaps carries a large bunch of dry grass to be thrown into the

pigpen as bedding; or he comes swinging along empty handed save for

his spear used as a staff. Most of the returning men and boys carry

the empty topil, the small, square, covered basket in which rice for

the noon meal is carried to the sementera; sometimes a boy carries a

bunch of three or four, and he dangles them open from their strings

as he dances along.

For an hour or more the procession continues -- one almost-naked

figure following another -- all dirty, most of them doubtless tired,

and yet seemingly happy and content with the finish of their day of

toil. It is long after dark before the last straggler is in.

Harvesting

Rice harvesting in Bontoc is a delightful and picturesque sight to

an American, and a most serious religious matter to the Igorot.

Though ceremonials having to do with agriculture have purposely

been omitted from this chapter, yet, since one of the most striking

and important features of the harvesting is the harvest ceremonial,

it is thought best to introduce it here.

Sa-fo'-sab is the name of the ceremony. It is performed in a pathway

adjoining each sementera before a single grain is gathered. In the

path the owner of the field builds a tiny fire beside which he stands

while the harvesters sit in silence. The owner says:

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

which, freely rendered, means, "Palay, when we carry you to the

granary, increase greatly so that you will fill it."

As soon as the ceremonial is said the speaker harvests one handful

of the grain, after which the laborers arise and begin the harvest.

In the trails leading past the sementera two tall stalks of runo are

planted, and these, called "pud-i-pud'," warn all Igorot that they

must not pass the sementera during the hours of the harvest. Nor will

they ignore the warning, since if they do they are liable to forfeit

a hog or other valuable possession to the owner of the grain.

I spent half a day trying to get close enough to a harvesting party

to photograph it. All the harvesters were women, and they scolded our

party long and severely while we were yet six or eight rods distant;

my Igorot boys carrying the photographic outfit -- boys who had

lived four months in my house -- laughingly but positively refused

to follow me closer than three or four rods to the sementera. No

photographs were obtained at that time. It was only after the matter

was talked over by some of the men of the pueblo that photographs

could be willingly obtained, and the force of the warning pud-i-pud'

withdrawn for our party. Even during the time my Igorot boys were

in the trail by a harvest party all other Igorot passed around the

warning runo. The Igorot says he believes the harvest will be blasted

even while being gathered should one pass along a pathway skirting

any side of the sementera.

Several harvesters, from four to a dozen, labor together in

each sementera. They begin at one side and pass across the plat,

gathering all grain as they pass. Men and women work together,

but women are recognized the better harvesters, since their hands

are more nimble. Each fruited stalk is grasped shortly below the

fruit head, and the upper section or joint of the stalk, together

with the fruit head and topmost leaf, is pulled off. As most Bontoc

Igorot are right-handed, the plucked grain is laid in the left hand,

the fruit heads projecting beyond between the thumb and forefinger

while the leaf attached to each fruit head lies outside and below the

thumb. When the proper amount of grain is in hand (a bunch of stalks

about an inch in diameter) the useless leaves, all arranged for one

grasp of the right hand, are stripped off and dropped; the bunch

of fruit heads, topping a 6-inch section of clean stalk or straw is

handed to a person who may be called the binder. This person in all

harvests I have seen was a woman. She binds all the grain three,

four, or five persons can pluck; and when there is one binder for

every three gatherers the binder finds some time also to gather.

The binder passes a small, prepared strip of bamboo twice around

the palay stalks, holds one end between her teeth and draws the

binding tight; then she twists the two ends together, and the bunch

is secure. The bunch, the manojo of the Spaniard, the sin fing-e'

of the Igorot, is then piled up on the binder's head until a load

is made. Before each bunch is placed on the pile the fruitheads are

spread out like an open fan. These piles are never completed until

they are higher than the woman's arm can reach -- several of the last

bunches being tossed in place, guided only by the tips of the fingers

touching the butt of the straw. The women with their heads loaded

high with ripened grain are striking figures -- and one wonders at

the security of the loads.

When a load is made it is borne to the transportation baskets in some

part of the harvested section of the sementera, where it is gently slid

to the earth over the front of the head as the woman stoops forward. It

is loaded into the basket at once unless there is a scarcity of binders

in the field, in which case it awaits the completion of the harvest.

In all agricultural labors the Igorot is industrious, yet his humor,

ever present with him, brings relief from continued toil. The harvest

field is no exception, since there is much quiet gossip and jest

during the labors.

In 1903 rice was first harvested May 2. The harvest continued one

month, the crop of a sementera being gathered here and there as it

ripened. The Igorot calls this first harvest month the "moon of the

small harvest." During June the crop is ripened everywhere, and the

harvest is on in earnest; the Igorot speaks of it as the "moon of

the all harvest."

I had no view of the harvest of millet or maize; however, I have seen

in the pueblo much of each grain of some previous harvest. The millet

I am told, is harvested similarly to the rice, and the clean-stalked

bunches are tied up in the same way -- only the bunches are four or

five times larger.

The fruit head, or ears, of the maize is said to be plucked off the

stalks in the fields as the American farmer gathers green corn or

seed corn. It is stored still covered with its husks.

The camote harvest is continued fairly well throughout the

year. Undoubtedly some camotes are dug every day in the year from the

dry mountain-side sementeras, but the regular harvest occurs during

November and December, during which time the camotes are gathered

from the irrigated sementeras preparatory to turning the soil for

the transplanting of new rice.

Women are the camote gatherers. I never saw men, nor even boys,

gathering camotes. At no other time does the Igorot woman look so

animal like as when she toils among the camote vines, standing with

legs straight and feet spread, her body held horizontal, one hand

grasping the middle of her short camote stick and the other in the soil

picking out the unearthed camotes. She looks as though she never had

stood erect and never would stand erect on two feet. Thus she toils day

after day from early morning till dusk that she and her family may eat.

Storing

No palay is carried to the a-lang', the separate granary building,

or to the dwelling for the purpose of being stored until the entire

crop of the sementera is harvested. It may be carried part way,

but there it halts until all the grain is ready to be carried home.

It is spread out on the ground or on a roof in the sun two or three

days to dry before storing. When the grain is to be stored away an

old man -- any man -- asks a blessing on it that it may make men,

hogs, and chickens well, strong, and fat when they consume it. This

ceremony is called "ka-fo'-kab," and the man who performs it is known

by the title of "in-ka-fa'."

The Igorot granary, the a-lang', is a "hip-roofed" structure about 8

feet long, 5 wide, 4 feet high at the sides and 6 at the ridgepole. Its

sides are built of heavy pine planks, which are inserted in grooved

horizontal timbers, the planks being set up vertically. The floor

is about a foot from the earth. The roof consists of a heavy, thick

cover of long grass securely tied on a pole frame. It is seldom that

a granary stands alone -- usually there are two or more together, and

Bontoc has several groups of a dozen each, as shown in Pl. LXXII. When

built together they are better protected from the rain storms. The

roofs also are made so they extend close to the earth, thus almost

entirely protecting the sides of the structure from the storms. All

cracks are carefully filled with pieces of wood wedged and driven

in. Even the door, consisting of two or three vertical planks set in

grooved timbers, is laboriously wedged the same way. The building is

rodent proof, and, because of its wide, projecting roof and the fact

that it sets off the earth, it is practically moisture proof.

Most palay is stored in the granaries in the small bunches tied at

harvest. The a-lang' is carefully closed again after each sementera

crop has been put in. There are granaries in Bontoc which have

not been opened, it is said, in eight or more years, except to

receive additional crops of palay, and yet the grain is as perfectly

preserved as when first stored. Some palay, especially that needed

for consumption within a reasonable time, is stored in the upper part

of the family dwelling.

Maize and millet are generally stored in the dwelling, in the second

and third stories, since not enough of either is grown to fill an

a-lang', it is said.

Camotes are sometimes stored in the granary after the harvest of

the irrigated fields. Often they are put away in the kubkub, the two

compartments at either end of the sleeping room on the ground floor

of the dwelling. At other times one sees bushels of camotes put away

on the earth under the broad bench extending the full length of the

dwelling. In the poorer class of dwellings the camotes are frequently

dumped in a corner.

Beans are dried and shelled before storing and are set away in a

covered basket, usually in the upper part of the dwelling. Only one

or two cargoes are grown by each family, so little space is needed

for storage.

Since rice is the staple food and may be preserved almost

indefinitely. the Igorot has developed a means and place to care for

it. Maize and millet, while probably capable of as long preservation,

are generally not grown in sufficient quantity to require more storage

space than the upper part of the dwelling affords. The Igorot has not

developed a way to preserve his camotes long after harvest; they are

readily perishable, consequently no place has been differentiated as

a storehouse.

Expense and profit

An irrigated sementera 60 by 100 feet, having 6,000 square feet of

surface, is valued at two carabaos, or, in money, about 100 pesos. It

produces an average annual crop of ten cargoes of palay, each worth

1 peso. Thus there is an annual gross profit of ten per cent on the

value of the permanent investment.

It requires ten men one day to turn the soil and fertilize the

plat. The wage paid in palay is equivalent to 5 cents per laborer,

or 50 cents. Five women can transplant the rice in one day; cost,

25 cents. Cultivating and protecting the crop falls to the members

of the family which owns the sementera, so the Igorot say; he claims

never to have to pay for such labor. Twenty people can harvest the

crop in a day; cost, 1 peso.

The total annual expense of maintaining the sementera as a productive

property is, therefore, equivalent to 1.75 pesos. This leaves 8.25

pesos net profit when the annual expense is deducted from the annual

gross profit. A net profit of 8.25 per cent is about equivalent to

the profit made on the 10,000-acre Bonanza grain farms in the valley

of the Red River of the North, and the 5,000-acre corn farm of Iowa.

Zooculture

The carabao, hog, chicken, and dog are the only animals domesticated

by the Igorot of the Bontoc culture area.

Cattle are kept by Benguet Igorot throughout the extent of the

province. Some towns, as Kabayan, have 300 or 400 head, but the Bontoc

Igorot has not yet become a cattle raiser.

In Benguet, Lepanto, and Abra there are pueblos with half a hundred

brood mares. Daklan, of Benguet, has such a bunch, and other pueblos

have smaller herds.

In Bontoc Province between Bontoc pueblo and Lepanto Province a few

mares have recently been brought in. Sagada and Titipan each have

half a dozen. Near the east side of the Bontoc area there are a few

bunches of horses reported among the Igorot, and in February, 1903, an

American brought sixteen head from there into Bontoc. These horses are

all descendants of previous domestic animals, and an addition of half

a hundred is said to have been made to the number by horses abandoned

by the insurgents about three years past. Some of the sixteen brought

out in 1903 bore saddle marks and the brands common in the coastwise

lands. These eastern horses are not used by the Igorot except for food,

and no property right is recognized in them, though the Igorot brands

them with a battle-ax brand. He exercises about as much protecting

control over them as the Bontoc man does over the wild carabao.

Carabao

The people of Bontoc say that when Lumawig came to Bontoc they had

no domestic carabaos -- that those they now have were originally

purchased, before the Spaniards came, from the Tinguian of Abra

Province.

There are in the neighborhood of 400 domestic carabaos owned in Bontoc

and Samoki. Most of them run half wild in the mountains encircling

the pueblos. Such as are in the mountains receive neither herding,

attention in breeding, feed, nor salt from their owners. The young

are dropped in February and March, and their owners mark them by

slitting the ear, each person recognizing his own by the mark.

A herd of seventeen, consisting of animals belonging to five

owners, ranges in the river bottom and among the sementeras close

to Bontoc. These animals are more tame than those of the mountains,

but receive little more attention, except that they are taught to

perform a certain unique labor in preparing the sementeras for rice,

as has been noted in the section on agriculture. This is the only

use to which the Bontoc carabao is put as a power in industry. He

is seldom sold outside the pueblo and is raised for consumption,

chiefly on various ceremonial occasions.

Four men in Bontoc own fifty carabaos each. Three others have a

herd of thirty in joint ownership. Others own five and six each,

and again a single carabao may be the joint property of two and even

six individuals. Carabaos are valued at from 40 to 70 pesos.

Hog

Bontoc has no record of the time or manner of first acquiring the hog,

chicken, or dog. The people say they had all three when Lumawig came.

Sixty or 70 per cent of the pigs littered in Bontoc are marked

lengthwise with alternate stripes of brick-red or yellowish hair,

the other hair being black or white; the young of the wild hog is

marked the same. All the pigs, both domestic and wild, outgrow this

red or yellow marking at about the age of six months, and when they

are a year old become fine-looking black hogs with white marking not

unlike the Berkshire of the States. There is no chance to doubt that

the Igorot domestic hog was the wild hog in the surrounding mountains

a few generations ago.

The Bontoc hog is bred, born, and raised in a secure pen, yet wild

blood is infused direct, since pigs are frequently purchased by

Bontoc from surrounding pueblos, most of whose hogs run half wild and

intermingle with the wild ones of the mountains. That the domestic

hog in some places in northern Luzon does thus interbreed with the

wild ones is a proved fact. In the Quiangan area I was shown a litter

of half-breeds and was told that it was customary for the pueblo sows

to breed to the wild boar of the mountains.

The Bontoc hog in many ways is a pampered pet. He is at all times kept

in a pen and fed regularly three times each day with camote vines

when in season, with camote parings, and small camotes available,

and with green vegetal matter, including pusleys, gathered by the

girls and women when there are no camote vines. All of his food is

carefully washed and cooked before it is given to him.

The pigsty consists of a pit in the earth about 4 feet deep, 5

or 6 feet wide, and 8 or 12 feet long. It is entirely lined with

bowlders, and the floor space consists of three sections of about

equal size. One end is two or more feet deeper than the other, and it

is into this lower space that the washings of the pen are stored in

the rotted straw and weeds, and from which the manure for fertilizer

is taken. The other end is covered over level with the outside earth

with timbers, stones, and dirt; it is the pig's bed and is entered

by a doorway in the stone wall. Most of these "beds" have a low,

grass roof about 30 inches high over them. Underneath the roof is an

opening in the earth where the people defecate. Connecting the "bed"

section and the opposite lower section of the sty is an incline on

which the stone "feed" troughs are located.

As soon as a pig is weaned he is kept in a separate pen, and one family

may have in its charge three or four pens. The sows are kept mainly

for breeding, and there are many several years old. The richest man in

Bontoc owns about thirty hogs, and these are farmed out for feeding and

breeding -- a common practice. When one is killed it is divided equally

between the owner and the feeder. When a litter of pigs is produced

the bunch is divided equally, the sow remaining the property of the

owner and counting as one in the division. Throughout the Island of

Luzon it is the practice to leave most male animals uncastrated. But

in Bontoc the boar not intended for breeding is castrated.

Hogs are raised for ceremonial consumption. They are commonly bought

and sold within the pueblo, and are not infrequently sold outside. A

pig weighing 10 pounds is worth about 3 pesos, and a hog weighing 60

or 70 pounds is valued at about 12 pesos.

Chicken

The Bontoc domestic chickens were originally the wild fowl, found in

all places in the Archipelago, although some of them have acquired

varied colorings and markings, largely, probably, from black and

white Spanish fowl, which are still found among them. The markings

of the wild fowl, however, are the most common, and practically all

small chickens are marked as are their wild kin. The wild fowl bears

markings similar to those of the American black-breasted red game,

though the fowls are smaller than the American game fowl. Each of

the twelve wild cocks I have had in my hands had perfect five-pointed

single combs, and the domestic cock of Bontoc also commonly has this

perfect comb. I know of no people within the Bontoc area who now

systematically domesticate the wild fowl, though this was found to be

the custom of the Ibilao southeast of Dupax in the Province of Nueva

Vizcaya. Those people catch the young wild fowl for domestication.

The Bontoc domestic fowl are not confined in a coop except at night,

when they sleep in small cages placed on the ground in the dwelling

houses. In the daytime they range about the pueblo feeding much in

the pigpens, though they are fed a small amount of raw rice each

morning. Their nests are in baskets secured under the eaves of the

dwelling, and in those baskets the brooding hens hatch their chicks,

from eight to twenty eggs being given a hen. The fowl is raised

exclusively for ceremonial consumption, and is frequently sold in

the pueblo for that purpose, being valued at from half a peso to a

peso each. A wild fowl sells for half a peso.

In Banawi of the Quiangan area, south of Bontoc, one may find large

capons, but Bontoc does not understand caponizing.

Dog

The dog of the Bontoc Igorot is usually of a solid color, black,

white, or yellow, really "buckskin" color. Where he originated is

not known. He has none of the marks of the Asiatic dog which has left

its impress everywhere in the lowlands of the west coast of Luzon --

called in the Islands the "Chino" dog, and in the States the "Eskimo"

dog. The Igorot dog is short-haired, sharp-eared, gaunt, and sinewy,

with long legs and body. In height and length he ranges from a

fair-sized fox terrier to a collie. I fail to see anything in him

resembling the Australian dingo or the "yellow cur" of the States. The

Ibilao have the same dog in two colors, the black and the "brindle"

-- the brown and black striped. In fact, a dog of the same general

characteristics occurs throughout northern Luzon. No matter what may be

his origin, a dog so widely diffused and so characteristically molded

and marked must have been on the island long enough to have acquired

its typical features here. The dog receives little attention from

his owners. Twice each day he is fed sparingly with cooked rice or

camotes. Except in the case of the few hunting dogs, he does nothing

to justify his existence. He lies about the dwelling most of the time,

and is a surly, more or less evil-tempered cur to strangers, though

when a pueblo flees to the mountains from its attacking enemies the

dog escapes in a spiritless way with the women and children. He is

bred mainly for ceremonial consumption.

In Benguet the Igorot eats his dog only after it has been reduced

to skin and bones. I saw two in a house so poor that they did not

raise their heads when I entered, and the man of the house said

they would be kept twenty days longer before they would be reduced

properly for eating. No such custom exists in Bontoc, but dogs are

seldom fat when eaten. They are not often bought or sold outside the

pueblo. A litter of pups is generally distributed about the town, and

dogs are constantly bought and sold within the pueblo for ceremonial

purposes. They are valued at from 2 to 4 pesos.

Clothing production

Man's clothing

Up to the age of 6 or 7 years the Igorot boys are as naked as when

born. At that time they put on the suk'-lang, the basket-work hat

worn on the back of the head, held in place by a cord attached at

both sides and passing across the forehead and usually hidden by

the front hair. The suk'-lang is made in nearly all pueblos in the

Bontoc culture area. It does not extend uninterruptedly to the western

border, however, since it is not worn at all in Agawa, and in some

other pueblos near the Lepanto border, as Fidelisan and Genugan,

it has a rival in the headband. The beaten-bark headband, called

"a-pong'-ot," and the headband of cloth are worn by short-haired men,

while the long-haired man invariably wears the hat. The suk'-lang

varies in shape from the fez-like ti-no-od' of Bontoc and Samoki,

through various hemispherical forms, to the low, flat hats developing

eastward and perfected in the last mountains west of the Rio Grande

de Cagayan. Barlig makes and wears a carved wooden hat, either

hemispherical or slightly oval. It goes in trade to Ambawan.

The men of the Bontoc area also have a basket-work, conical rain

hat. It is waterproof, being covered with beeswax. It is called

"seg-fi'," and is worn only when it rains, at which time the suk'-lang

is often not removed.

About the age of 10 the boys frequently affect a girdle. These girdles

are of four varieties. The one most common in Bontoc and Samoki is the

song-kit-an', made of braided bark-fiber strings, some six to twelve

in number and about 12 feet long. They are doubled, and so make the

girdle about 6 feet in length. The strings are the twisted inner bark

of the same plants that play a large role in the manufacture of the

woman's skirt. This girdle is usually worn twice around the body,

though it is also employed as an apron, passing only once around the

body and hanging down over the genitals (see Pl. XXI). Another girdle

worn much in Tukukan, Kanyu, and Tulubin is called the "i-kit'." It

is made of six to twelve braided strings of bejuco (see Pl. LXXX). It

is constructed to fit the waist, has loops at both ends, passes once

around the body, and fastens by a cord passing from one loop to the

other. Both the sang-ki-tan' and the i-kit' are made by the women. A

third class of girdles is made by the men. It is called ka'-kot,

and is worn and attached quite as is the i-kit'. It is a twisted rope

of bejuco, often an inch in diameter, and is much worn in Mayinit. A

fourth girdle, called "ka'-ching," is a chain, frequently a dog chain

of iron purchased on the coast, oftener a chain manufactured by the

men, and consisting of large, open links of commercial brass wire

about one-sixth of an inch in diameter.

At about the age of puberty, say at 15, it is usual for the boy to

possess a breechcloth, or wa'-nis. However, the cloth is worn by a

large per cent of men in Bontoc and Samoki, not as a breechcloth but

tucked under the girdle and hanging in front simply as an apron. Within

the Bontoc area fully 50 per cent of the men wear the breechcloth

simply as an apron.

There are several varieties of breechcloths in the area. The simplest

of these is of flayed tree bark. It is made by women in Barlig,

Tulubin, Titipan, Agawa, and other pueblos. It is made of white

and reddish-brown bark, and sometimes the white ones are colored

with red ocher. The white one is called "so'-put" and the red one

"ti-nan'-ag." Some of the other breechcloths are woven of cotton

thread by the women. Much of this cotton is claimed by the Igorot

to be tree cotton which they gather, spin and weave, but much also

comes in trade from the Ilokano at the coast. Some is purchased in the

boll and some is purchased after it has been spun and colored. Many

breechcloths are now bought ready made from the Ilokano.

Men generally carry a bag tucked under the girdle, and very often

indeed these bags are worn in lieu of the breechcloth aprons -- the

girdle and the bag apron being the only clothing (see Pl. CXXV and

also Frontispiece, where, from left to right, figs. 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7

wear simply a bag). One of the bags commonly worn is the fi-chong',

the bladder of the hog; the other, cho'-kao, is a cloth bag some 8

inches wide and 15 inches long. These cloth bags are woven in most

of the pueblos where the cotton breechcloth is made.

Old men now and then wear a blanket, pi'-tay, but the younger men

never do. They say a blanket is for the women.

Some few of the principal men in many of the pueblos throughout the

area have in late years acquired either the Army blue-woollen shirt,

a cotton shirt, or a thin coat, and these they wear during the cold

storms of January and February, and on special social occasions.

During the period of preparing the soil for transplanting palay

the men frequently wear nothing at the middle except the girdle. In

and out of the pueblo they work, carrying loads of manure from the

hogpens to the fields, apparently as little concerned or noticed as

though they wore their breechcloths.

All Igorot -- men, women, and children -- sleep without breechcloth,

skirt, or jacket. If a woman owns a blanket she uses it as a covering

when the nights are cold. All wear basket-work nightcaps, called

"kut'-lao." They are made to fit closely on the head, and have a small

opening at the top. They may be worn to keep the hair from snarling,

though I was unable to get any reason from the Igorot for their use,

save that they were worn by their ancestors.

Woman's clothing

From infancy to the age of 8 and very often 10 years the little girls

are naked; not unfrequently one sees about the pueblo a girl of a dozen

years entirely nude. However, practically all girls from about 5 years,

and also all women, have blankets which are worn when it is cold, as

almost invariably after sundown, though no pretense is made to cover

their nakedness with them. During the day this pi'-tay, or blanket, is

seldom worn except in the dance. I have never seen women or girls dance

without it. The blankets of the girls are usually small and white with

a blue stripe down each side and through the middle; they are called

"kud-pas'." Those of the women are of four kinds -- the ti-na'-pi,

the fa-yi-ong', the fan-che'-la, and the pi-nag-pa'-gan. In Barlig,

Agawa, and Tulubin the flayed tree-bark blanket is worn; and in

Kambulo, east of Barlig, woven bark-fiber blankets are made which

sometimes come to Bontoc.

Before a girl puts on her lu-fid', or woven bark-fiber skirt, at

about 8 or 10 years of age, she at times wears simply the narrow

girdle, later worn to hold up the skirt. The skirt is both short and

narrow. It usually extends from below the navel to near the knees. It

opens on the side, and is frequently so scant and narrow that one leg

is exposed as the person walks, the only part of the body covered on

that side being under the girdle, or wa'-kis -- a woven band about 4

inches wide passing twice around the body (see Pl. XXIII). The women

sometimes wear the braided-string bejuco belt, i-kit', worn by the men.

The lu-fid' and the wa'-kis are the extent of woman's ordinary

clothing. For some months after the mother gives birth to a child

she wears an extra wa'-kis wrapped tightly about her, over which the

skirt is worn as usual. During the last few weeks of pregnancy the

woman may leave off her skirt entirely, wearing simply her blanket

over one shoulder and about her body. Women wear breechcloths during

the three or four days of menstruation.

During the period when the water-soaked soil of the sementera is turned

for transplanting palay the women engaged in such labor generally lay

aside their skirts. Sometimes they retain a girdle and tuck an apron of

camote leaves or of weeds under it before and behind. I have frequently

come upon women entirely naked climbing up and down the steep, stone

dikes of their sementeras while weeding them, and also at the clay

pits where Samoki women get their earth for making pottery. In May,

1903, it rained hard every afternoon for two or three hours in Bontoc

pueblo, and at such times the women out of doors uniformly removed

their clothing. They worked in the fields and went from the fields

to their dwellings nude, wearing on their heads while in the trail

either their long, basket rain protector or a head covering of camote

vines, under which reposed their skirts in an effort to keep them

dry. Sometimes while passing our house en route from the field to the

pueblo the women wore the girdle with the camote-vine apron, called

pay-pay. Often no girdle was worn, but the women held a small bunch

of leaves against the body in lieu of an attached apron. Sometimes,

however, their hands were occupied with their burdens, and their

nudity seemed not to trouble them in the least. The women remove their

skirts, they say, because they usually possess only one at a time,

and they prefer to go naked in the rain and while working in the wet

sementeras rather than sit in a wet skirt when they reach home.

Few women in the Bontoc area wear jackets or waists. Those to the

west, toward the Province of Lepanto, frequently wear short ones,

open in front without fastening, and having quarter sleeves. Those

women also wear somewhat longer skirts than do the Bontoc women.

In Agawa, and near-by pueblos to the west, and in Barlig and

vicinity to the east, the women make and wear flayed-bark jackets

and skirts. From Barlig bark jackets for women come in trade

to Tulubin. They are not simply sheets of bark, but the bark is

strengthened by a coarse reinforcement of a warp sewed or quilted.

Many of the women's skirts and girdles woven west of Bontoc pueblo

are made also of the Ilokano cotton. The skirts and girdles of Bontoc

pueblo and those found commonly eastward are entirely of Igorot

production. Four varieties of plants yield the threads; the inner

bark is gathered and then spun or twisted on the naked thigh under

the palm of the hand (see Pl. LXXXIII).

All weaving in Igorot land is done by the woman with the simplest

kind of loom, such as is scattered the world over among primitive

people. It is well shown in Pl. LXXXIV, which is a photograph of a

Lepanto Igorot loom.

Implement and utensil production

Introduction

It is only after one has brought together all the implements and

utensils of an Igorot pueblo that he realizes the large part played

in it by basket work. Were basketry and pottery cut from the list of

his productions the Igorot's everyday labors would be performed with

bare hands and crude sticks.

Where is the Igorot's "stone age"? There are stone hammers and

stones used as anvils in the ironsmith's shop. There are stone

troughs or bowls in most pigpens in which the animal's food is

placed. Very rarely, as in the Quiangan area, one sees a large, flat

stone supported a foot or two from the earth by other stones. It

is used as a bench or table, but has no special purpose. There are

whetstones for sharpening the steel spear and battle-ax; there is the

stone of the "flint-and-steel" fire machine; and of course stones are

employed as seats, in constructing terrace walls, in dams, and in the

building of various inhabited structures, but that is all. There is no

"stone age" -- no memory of it -- and, if the people were swept away

to-day, to-morrow would reveal no trace of it. It is believed that

the Igorot is to-day as much in the "stone age" as he ever has been

in his present land. He had little use for stone weapons, implements,

or utensils before he manufactured in iron.

Before he had iron he was essentially a user and maker of weapons,

implements, utensils, and tools of wood. There are many vestiges of

the wood age to-day; several show the use of wood for purposes usually

thought of as solely within the sphere of stone and metal. Among

these vestiges may be noted the bamboo knife used in circumcision;

the sharp stick employed in the ceremonial killing of domestic hogs

in Benguet; the bamboo instrument of ten or a dozen cutting blades

used to shape and dress the hard, wooden spear shafts and battle-ax

handles; the use of bamboo spearheads attached to hard-wood shafts;

and the bamboo spikes stuck in trails to impale the enemy.

In addition to the above uses of wood for cutting flesh and working

wood there follow, in this and subsequent chapters, enough data

regarding the uses of wood to demonstrate that the wood age plays a

large part in the life of a primitive people prior to the common use

of metals. Without metals there was practically no occasion for the

development of stone weapons and tools in a country with such woods

as the bamboo; so in the Philippines we find an order of development

different from that widespread in the temperate zones -- the "stone

age" appears to be omitted.

Wooden implements and utensils

The kay-kay (Pl. LXI) is one of the most indispensable wooden tools

in Igorot land. It is a hard-wood implement from 5 to 7 feet long,

sharpened to a dull, flat edge at one end; this end is fire tempered

to harden and bind the fibers, thus preventing splitting and excessive

wear. The kay-kay is obtained in the mountains in the vicinity of most

pueblos, so it is seldom bought or sold. It is the soil-turning stick,

used by both men and women in turning the earth in all irrigated

sementeras for rice and camotes. It is also employed in digging

around and prying out rocks to be removed from sementeras or needed

for walls. It is spade, plow, pickax, and crowbar. A small per cent of

the kay-kay is shod with an iron point, rendering them more efficient,

especially in breaking up new or sod ground.

The su-wan', the woman's camote stick, is about 2 feet long and an

inch in diameter (Pl. LXXV). It is a heavy, compact wood, and is

used by the woman until worn down 6 or 8 inches, when it usually

becomes the property of a small girl for gathering wild plants for

the family pigs. The su-wan' of the woman of Bontoc and Samoki comes,

mostly in trade, from the mountains near Tulubin. It is employed in

picking the earth loose in all unirrigated sementeras, as those for

camotes, millet, beans, and maize. It is also used to pick over the

earth in camote sementeras when the crop is gathered. Perhaps 1 per

cent of these sticks is shod with an iron point. Such an instrument

is of genuine service in the rough, stony mountain lands, but is

not so serviceable as the unshod stick in the irrigated sementeras,

because it cuts and bruises the vegetables.

The most common wooden vessel in the Bontoc area is the kak-wan',

a vessel, or "pail" holding about six or eight quarts. In it the

cooked food of the pigs is mixed and carried to the animals. Every

household has two or more of them.

A few small, poorly made wooden dishes, called "chu'-yu," are found

in each dwelling, from which the people eat broth of fish or other

meats. All are of inferior workmanship and, in common with all things

of wood made by the Igorot, are the product of the man's art. Both

the knife and fire are used to hollow out these bowls.

A long-handled wooden dipper, called "ka-od'," is found in every

dwelling. It belongs with the kak-wan', the pig-food pail.

Tug-on' is a large, long-handled spoon used exclusively as a drinking

dipper for the fermented liquor called "sa-fu-eng'."

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

A few very crude eating spoons, about the size of the dessert spoon

of America, are found in most dwellings. They are usually without

ornament, and are called "i-chus'."

Metal implements and utensils

The wa'-say is the only metal implement employed at all commonly in the

area; it is found in each family. It consists of an iron, steel-bitted

blade from an inch to an inch and a half in width and about 6 inches

in length. It is attached to the short, wooden handle by a square haft

inserted into the handle. Since the haft is square the implement may

be instantly converted into either an "ax" with blade parallel to

the handle or an "adz" with blade at right angle to the handle.

This is the tool used in felling and cutting up all trees, and in

getting out and dressing all timbers and boards. It is the sole

carpenter tool, unless the man by chance possess a bolo.

There are no metal agricultural implements in common use. As was noted

earlier in the chapter, the soil-turning stick and the woman's camote

stick are now and then shod with iron, but they are rare.

There are a few large, shallow Chinese iron boilers in the area,

used especially for boiling sugar, evaporating salt in Mayinit,

and for cooking carabao or large quantities of hog on ceremonial

occasions. There are probably not more than two or three dozen such

boilers in Bontoc pueblo, though they are becoming much more plentiful

during the past three years -- since the Igorot has more money and

goes more often to Candon on the coast, where he buys them.

Pottery

Most of the pottery consumed in the Bontoc area is the product

of Samoki, the sister pueblo of Bontoc. Samoki pottery meets no

competition down the river to the north until in the vicinity of

Bitwagan, which makes and vends similar ware both up and down the

river. To the south there is also competition, since Data makes and

sells an excellent pot to Antedao, Fidelisan, Sagada, Titipan, and

other near-by pueblos. It is probable, also, that Lias and Barlig, to

the east, are supplied with pottery, and, if so, that their source is

Bitwagan. But Bitwagan and Data pots are really not competitors with

those of Samoki; they rather supply areas which the Samoki potters

can not reach because of distance and the hostility of the people.

There are no traditions clustering around pottery making in Samoki. The

potters say they taught themselves, and have always made earthenware.

To-day Samoki pottery is made of two clays -- one a reddish-brown

mineral dug from pits several feet deep on the hillside, shown in

Pl. LXXXII, and the other a bluish mineral gathered from a shallow

basin situated on the hillside nearer the river than the pits, and

in which a little water stands much of the year.

Formerly Samoki made pottery of only the brown clay, and she used

cut grass intermixed for a temper, but she claims those earlier pots

were too porous to glaze well. Consequently the experiment was made

of adding the blue surface clay, in which there is a considerable

amount of fresh and decaying vegetable matter -- probably sufficient

to give temper, although the potters do not recognize it as such.

Samoki consists of eight ato, one of which is I-kang'-a. occupying

the outer fringe of dwellings on the northwest side of the pueblo. It

is claimed that all of the women of I-kang'-a, whether married or

single, are potters. Even women who marry men of the I-kang'-a ato,

and who come to that section of the pueblo to live, learn and follow

the potter's art. A few married women in other ato also manufacture

pottery. They seem to be married daughters of I-kang'-a ato.

A fine illustration of community industry is presented by the ato

potters of Samoki. It could not be learned that there are any definite

regulations, other than custom, demanding that all women of I-kang'-a

manufacture pots, or any regulation which forces daughters of that

ato to discontinue the art when they marry outside. But custom has

fixed quite rigidly such a regulation, and though, as just stated,

a few I-kang'-a women married into other ato of Samoki do manufacture

pottery, yet no I-kang'-a women married into other pueblos carry on

the art. It may be argued that a lack of suitable clay has thwarted

manufacture in other pueblos, but clay is common in the mountains of

the area, and the sources of the materials used in Samoki are readily

accessible to at least the pueblo of Bontoc, where also there are

many Samoki women living.

The clay pits lie north of Samoki, between a quarter and a half

of a mile distant, and the potters go to them in the early morning

while the earth is moist, and dig and bring home the clays. The woman

gathers half a transportation basket of each of the clays, and while

at the pits crudely works both together into balls 4 or 5 inches in

diameter. In this form the clay is carried to the pueblo.

All the pottery is manufactured in the shade of the potter's dwelling,

and the first process is a thorough mixing of the two clays. The balls

of the crudely mixed material are put into a small, wooden trough, are

slightly moistened, and then thoroughly worked with a wooden pestle,

the potter crouching on her haunches or resting on her knees during

the labors. She is shown in Pl. LXXXIX A. After the clay is mixed

it is manipulated in small handfuls, between the thumb and fingers,

in order that all stones and coarse pieces of vegetable matter may

be removed. When the mortarful has thus been handled it is ready for

making pots.

A mass of this clay, thoroughly mixed and plastic, is placed on a

board on the earth before the kneeling or crouched potter. She pokes

a hole in the top of this mass with thumbs and fingers, and quickly

enlarges it. As soon as the opening is large enough to admit one hand

it is dug out and enlarged by scraping with the ends of the fingers,

and the clay so gathered is immediately built onto the upper rim of the

mass. The inside is next further scraped and smoothed with the side

of the forefinger. At this juncture a small mass of clay is rolled

into a strip between the hands and placed on the upper edge of the

shaping mass, completely encircling it. This roll is at once shaped by

the hands into a crude, flaring rim. A few swift touches on the outer

face of the crude pot removes protruding masses and roughly shapes the

surface. The rim is moistened with water and smoothed inside and out by

the hand and a short, round stick. This process is well illustrated in

Pl. XC. The first stage of manufacture is completed and the vessel is

set in the sun with the rim of an old broken pot for a supporting base.

In the course of a few hours the shaped and nearly completed rim

of the pot becomes strong and set by the heat of the sun. However,

the rough and irregular bowl has apparently retained relatively a

larger amount of moisture and is in prime condition to be thinned,

expanded, and given final form. The pot is now handled by the rim,

which is sufficiently rigid for the purpose, and is turned about on

its supporting base as is needed, or the base is turned about on the

earth like a crude "potter's wheel." A smooth discoidal stone, some 4

or 5 inches in diameter, and a wooden paddle are the instruments used

to shape the bowl. The paddle is first dipped in water and rubbed over

one of the flattish surfaces of the stone slightly to moisten it, and

is then beaten against the outer surface of the bowl, while the stone,

tapped against the inner surface, prevents indenting or cracking,

and, by offering a more or less nonresisting surface, assists in

thinning and expanding the clay. After the upper part of the bowl

has been thus completed the potter sits on her feet and haunches,

with her knees thrust forward from her. Again and again she moistens

her paddle and discoidal stone, and continues the spanking process

until the entire bowl of the pot is shaped. It is then set in the

sun to dry -- this time usually bottom side up.

After it has thoroughly dried, both the inner and outer surfaces are

carefully and patiently smoothed and polished with a small stone,

commonly a ribbon agate. During this process all pebbles found

protruding from the surface are removed and the pits are filled with

new clay thoroughly smoothed in place, and the thickness of the pot

is made more uniform. The vessel is again placed on its supporting

base in the sun, and kept turned and tilted until it has become well

dried and set. Two and sometimes three days are required to bring

a pot thus far toward completion, though during the same time there

are several equally completed by each potter.

There remains yet the burning and glazing. Samoki burns her pots

in the morning before sunrise. Immediately on the outskirts of the

pueblo there is a large, gravelly place strewn with thin, black ash

where for generations the potters coming and going have completed

their primitive ware. Usually two or more firings occur each week,

and several women combine and burn their pots together. On the earth

small stones are laid upon which one tier of vessels is placed, each

lying upon its side. Tier upon tier of pots is then placed above the

first layer, each on its side and each supported by and supporting

other pots. The heat is supplied by pine bark placed beneath and

around the lower layer. The pile is entirely blanketed with dead

grass tied in small bunches which has been gathered, prepared, and

kept in the houses of the potters for the purpose. The grass retains

its form long after the blaze and glow have ceased, and clings about

the pile as a blanket, checking the wasteful radiation of heat and

cutting out the drafts of air that would be disastrous to the heated

clay. As this blanket of grass finally gives way here and there the

attending potters replenish it with more bunches. The pile is fired

about one hour; when sufficiently baked the pots are lifted from

the fire by inserting in each a long pole. Each potter then takes

a vessel at a time, places it red hot on its supporting base on the

earth before her, and immediately proceeds, with much care and labor,

to glaze the rim and inside of the bowl. The glaze is a resin obtained

in trade from Barlig. It is applied to the vessel from the end of

a glazing stick -- sometimes a pole 6 or 7 feet long, but usually

about a yard in length. After the rim and inner surface of the bowl

have been thoroughly glazed the potter begins on another vessel --

turning the last one over to one or two little girls, from 4 to 6

years of age, who find great happiness in smearing the outer surface

of the now cooling and dull-brown pot with resin held in bunches in

the hands. This outer glaze, applied by the young apprentices, who,

in play, are learning an art of their future womanhood, is neither

so thick nor so carefully laid as is the glaze of the rim and inner

surface of the vessel. When the glazing is completed the pot is still

too hot to be borne in the hands; however, the glaze has become rigid

and hard.

Analyses made at the Bureau of Government Laboratories, Manila, show

that the clays used in the Samoki pots contain the following mineral:

Analyses of Samoki pottery clays

Minerals.

Brown pit clay

Blue surface clay

Per cent

PER CENT

Silica

54.46

60.99

Oxide of aluminum

16.77

17.71

Ferric oxide of iron

11.14

9.53

Oxide of calcium

0.53

0.59

Loss by ignition

16.81

10.65

Oxide of magnesium

Trace

Trace

Oxide of potassium

Trace

--

Oxide of sodium

--

Trace

Carbon dioxide

--

Trace

The botanist of the Bureau of Government Laboratories[26] says in

the report of his analysis of the resin used to glaze these pots:

This gum is known as Almaciga (Sp.). It is produced by some

species of the dipterocarpus or shorea -- which it is impossible

to determine. ... It should not be confounded with the other common

almaciga from the trees of the genus Agathis.

The Government analyst[27] who analyzed the clays and examined the

finished and glazed pots says of the Samoki pot that about two-thirds

of the organic matter in the clay is consumed in the baking or burning

of the pot. The organic matter in the middle one-third of the wall

of the pot is not consumed. The clay is a remarkably hard one and

is difficult of ignition; this is the reason it makes good cooking

vessels. He further says that the glaze is not a true glaze. It seems

that the resin does nothing except lose its oils when applied to the

red-hot pots, and there is left on the surface the unconsumed carbon.

Basket work

All basket work is done by the men. Much of the time when they are in

the fawi or pabafunan, gossiping and smoking, they are busied making

the ordinary and necessary utensils of the field and dwelling. The

basket work is all crude, with the possible exception of some of the

hats worn by the men.

As is brought forth later under the head of "Commerce," much basket

work is done by only one or two communities, and from them passes

in trade over a large area. Most of the basket work of the area is

of bejuco or bamboo. There are two varieties of bamboo used in the

area -- a'-nis and fi'-ka. A'-nis is found in the area and fi'-ka is

brought in in trade from the southwest.

The most important piece of basket work is the ki-ma'-ta, the

man's transportation basket, made of a'-nis bamboo; it is shown in

Pl. CXX. It is made by many pueblos, and is found throughout the

area. It consists of two baskets joined firmly to a light, wooden

crossbar called "pa'-tang." The entire ki-ma'-ta weighs about 5 pounds,

and with it the Igorot carries loads weighing as much as 100 pounds.

The man has another basket called "ko-chuk-kod'," which is used

frequently by him, also sometimes by women, for carrying earth when

building the sementeras. The ko-chuk-kod' is made in Bontoc and

Samoki. It is not shown in any of the illustrations, but is quite

similar to the tay-ya-an', or large transportation basket of the woman,

yet is slimmer. It is also similar in shape and size to the woman's

transportation basket in Benguet which is worn on the back supported

by a headband.

The woman has two important a'-nis bamboo transportation baskets,

which are constantly employed. One called "lu'-wa," the shallow lower

basket shown in Pl. LXXV, is made only in Samoki; the other tay-ya-an',

shown in Pl. XCIII, holds about three pecks. It is made only in Bontoc

and Samoki.

Ag-ka-win' is the small rump basket almost invariably worn by women

when working in the irrigated sementera. It is of fi'-ka bamboo, is

made commonly in Bontoc and Samoki, and occasionally in Tulubin. The

field toiler often carries her lunch to the field in the ag-ka-win',

and when she returns the basket is usually filled with crustaceans

and mollusks picked up in the wet sementera or gathered in the river,

or with weeds or grasses to be cooked as "greens."

The woman's rain protector, a scoop-shaped affair about 4 feet long,

called "tug-wi'," is said to be made only in Ambawan and Barlig. It

consists of a double weave of coarse splints, between which is a

waterproof layer of a large palm leaf. It is worn over the head,

and is an excellent protection from the rain. It may well have been

suggested to primitive man by the banana leaf, which I have repeatedly

seen carried over the head and back by the Igorot in many sections

of northern Luzon during the rains. I have also seen it used many

times in Manila by Tagalog who were caught out in a storm without an

umbrella. The rain protector is shown lying in front of the house in

Pl. XXXVII.

Tak-o-chug' is the man's dirt scoop made of a'-nis bamboo. It resembles

the tug-wi' in shape, but is only about 1 1/2 feet long. It is employed

in handling earth, and conveying the dirt to the ko-chuk-kod', or

dirt transportation basket.

A basket very similar to tak-o-chug', but called "sug-fi'," is employed

by the woman in her housework in handling vegetables. It is shown in

Pl. XCIV, containing camote parings.

The to'-pil is the man's "dinner pail." It is made of a'-nis bamboo,

is a covered basket, and is constructed to contain from one and a

half to three quarts of solid food. In it men and boys carry their

lunch to the fields. All the pueblos make the to'-pil.

Another basket, called "sang'-i," is generally employed in carrying the

man's food. It is used for long trips from home, although I have seen

it used simply for carrying the field lunch. It is made of bejuco in

Ambawan, Barlig, and Tulubin, and passes widely in the area through

commerce. It is worn on the back, secured by bejuco straps passing

in front of the shoulders.

Fang'-ao is the sang'-i with a waterproof bejuco covering. As it

is worn on the back, the man appears to be wearing a cape made of

hanging vegetable threads. This is the basket commonly known as the

"head basket," but it is used for carrying food, blankets, anything,

on the trail. It is made in Ambawan, Barlig, and Kanyu, and is found

pretty well scattered throughout the area. It is shown, front and

back view, in Pl. XCV.

Fa'-i si gang'-sa is an open-work bejuco basket, in shape very similar

to the sang'-i, used to carry the gang'-sa, or metal drum. It is worn

slung on the back as is the sang'-i.

A house basket holding about a peck, called "fa-lo'-ko," is made

of a'-nis bamboo. It is used in various capacities, for vegetables

and cereals, in and about the house. It is made in all the pueblos

and is shown in Pl. XCIV. A few other household baskets are often

found. Among these are the large, bottle-shaped locust basket, i-wus',

a smaller basket, ko'-lug, of the same shape used to hold threshed

rice, and the open-work spoon basket, so'-long, which usually hangs

over the fireplace in each dwelling.

The large winnowing tray, lig-o', shown bottom up in Pl. XCIII, is

made in Samoki and Kanyu of a'-nis bamboo. There are two sizes of

winnowing trays, both of which are employed everywhere in the area.

Several small a'-nis bamboo eating trays, called "ki'-ug," are shown

in Pl. XCIV. These food dishes are used on ceremonial occasions,

and some of them can not be purchased. They are made in all pueblos.

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

passes widely in the pueblo.

Aside from these various basket utensils and implements there are

the three kinds of fish traps described in the section on fishing.

There are also three varieties of basket-work hats. The rain hat called

"seg-fi'," is made in Bontoc, and may be in imitation of those worn

nearer the western coast. This with the suk-lang, the pocket hat

always worn by the men and boys, and the kut'-lao. or sleeping hat,

worn by children and adults of both sexes, are described under the

head of "Clothing."

Weapon production

Igorot weapons are few and relatively simple. The bow and arrow,

used wherever the Negrito is in Luzon, is not known to the Igorot

warrior of the Bontoc culture area. Small boys in Bontoc pueblo

make for themselves tiny bows 1 1/2 or 2 feet long with which they

snap light arrows a few feet. But the instrument is of the crudest,

merely a toy, and is a thing of the day, being acquired from the

culture of the Ilokano who live in the pueblo. The Igorot claim they

never employed the bow and arrow, and, to-day at least, consider the

question as to their ever using it as very foolish, since, they say,

pointing to the child's toy, "It is nothing."

In 1665 -- 1668 Friar Casimiro Diaz wrote of the Igorot that they

used arrows,[28] but it is believed his statement did not apply to

the Bontoc man. Igorot-like people throughout northern Luzon commonly

do not have this weapon, yet the large Tinguian group of Abra, west

and north of Bontoc, and the Ibilao of southeastern Nueva Vizcaya,

Nueva Ecija, and adjacent Isabela employ the bow constantly.

The natural projectile weapon of the Negrito is the bow and arrow;

that of the Malayan seems to be the blowgun -- at present, however,

largely replaced by the spear, though in some southern islands,

especially in Paragua, it has held its own.

Wooden weapons

Shields are universally made and used by the Igorot. They are made

by the men of each pueblo, and are seldom bought or sold. They are

cut from single pieces of wood, and are generally constructed of very

light wood, though some are heavy. The hand grip is cut in the solid

timber. is almost invariably made for the left hand, and will usually

accommodate only three fingers -- the thumb and little finger remaining

outside the grip and free to press forward the upper and lower ends

of the shield, respectively, slanting it to glance a blow of a spear.

Within the present boundary of Bontoc Province there are three

distinct patterns of wooden shields in use in three quite distinct

culture areas. There is still another shield immediately beyond the

western border of the province but which is believed to be produced

also in the Bontoc area.

First, is the shield of the Bontoc culture area. It is usually about

3 feet long and 1 foot wide, is blackened with a greasy soot, though

now and again one in original wood is seen. The upper part or "chief"

of the shield is cut, leaving three points projecting several inches

above the solid field; the lower end or "base" is cut, leaving two

points. Across both ends of the shield is a strengthening lace of

bejuco, passing through perforations from front to back. The front

surface of the shield is most prominent over the deep-cut hand grip

at the boss or "fess point," toward which a wing approaches on both

the dexter and sinister sides of the front of the shield, being carved

slightly on the field. This is the usual Bontoc shield, but some few

have meaningless straight-line decorations cut in the field.

In the Tinglayan culture area, immediately north of Bontoc, the usual

shield is very similar to the above, except that various sections

of both the face and back of the shield are of natural wood or are

colored dull red. The strengthening of bejuco lacings and the raised

wings are also found.

Still farther north is the Kalinga shield -- a slim, gracefully formed

shield, differing from the typical Bontoc weapon chiefly in its more

graceful outline. It is of a uniform black color and has the bejuco

lacings the same as the others.

The fourth variety, made at Bagnen, immediately across the Bontoc

border, in Lepanto, and probably also made and certainly used near at

hand in Bontoc, is quite similar to the Bontoc type but is smaller

and cruder. It is uncolored, and on its front has crude drawings of

snakes and frogs (or perhaps men) drawn with soot paint.

Banawi area, south of the Bontoc area. has a shield differing

markedly from the others. It is longer, usually somewhat wider,

and not cut at either end. The lower end is straight across at right

angles to the sides; the upper end rises to a very obtuse angle at

the middle. The front is usually much plainer than is that of the

other shields mentioned.