Mental Life
The Igorot does not know many things in common with enlightened men,
and yet one constantly marvels at his practical knowledge. Tylor
says primitive man has "rude, shrewd sense." The Igorot has more --
he has practical wisdom.
Actual knowledge
Concerning cosmology, the Igorot believes Lumawig gave the earth and
all things connected with it. Lumawig makes it rain and storm, gives
day and night, heat and cold. The earth is "just as you see it." It
ceases somewhere a short distance beyond the most distant place an
Igorot has visited. He does not know how it is supported. "Why should
it fall?" he asks. "A pot on the earth does not fall." Above is chayya,
the sky -- the Igorot does not know or attempt to say what it is. It
is up above the earth and extends beyond and below the visible horizon
and the limit of the earth. The Igorot does not know how it remains
there, and a man once interrupted me to ask why it did not fall down
below the earth at its limit.
"Below us," an old Igorot told me, "is just bones."
The sun is a man called "Chal-chal'." The moon is a woman named
"Ka-bi-gat'." "Once the moon was also a sun, and then it was always
day; but Lumawig made a moon of the woman, and since then there is
day and night, which is best."
There are two kinds of stars. "Fat-ta-ka'-kan" is the name of large
stars and "tuk-fi'-fi" is the name of small stars. The stars are all
men, and they wear white coats. Once they came down to Bontoc pueblo
and ate sugar cane, but on being discovered they all escaped again
to chayya.
Thunder is a gigantic wild boar crying for rain. A Bontoc man was
once killed by Ki-cho', the thunder. The unfortunate man was ripped
open from his legs to his head, just as a man is ripped and torn
by the wild boar of the mountains. The lightning, called "Yup-yup,"
is also a hog, and always accompanies Ki-cho'.
Lumawig superintends the rains. Li-fo'-o are the rain clouds -- they
are smoke. "At night Lumawig has the li-fo'-o come down to the river
and get water. Before morning they have carried up a great deal of
water; and then they let it come down as rain."
Earthquakes are caused by Lumawig. He places both hands on the edge
of the earth and quickly pushes it back and forth. They do not know
why he does it.
Regarding man himself the Igorot knows little. He says Lumawig gave man
and all man's functionings. He does not know the functioning of blood,
brain, stomach, or any other of the primary organs of the body. He says
the bladder of men and animals is for holding the water they drink. He
knows that a man begets his child and that a woman's breasts are for
supplying the infant food, but these two functionings are practically
all the facts he knows or even thinks he knows about his body.
Mensuration
Under this title are considered all forms of measurement used by
the Igorot.
Numbers
The most common method of enumerating is that of the finger count. The
usual method is to count the fingers, beginning with the little
finger of the right hand, in succession touching each finger with
the forefinger of the other hand. The count of the thumb, li'-ma,
five, is one of the words for hand. The sixth count begins with the
little finger of the left hand, and the tenth reaches the thumb. The
eleventh count begins with the little finger of the right hand again,
and so the count continues. The Igorot system is evidently decimal. One
man, however, invariably recorded his eleventh count on his toes,
from which he returned to the little finger of his right hand for
the twenty-first count.
A common method of enumerating is one in which the record is kept
with small pebbles placed together one after another on the ground.
Another method in frequent use preserves the record in the number of
sections of a slender twig which is bent or broken half across for
each count.
When an Igorot works for an American he records each day by a notch
in a small stick. A very neat record for the month was made by one
of our servants who prepared a three-sided stick less than 2 inches
long. Day by day he cut notches in this stick, ten on each edge.
When a record is wanted for a long time -- as when one man loans
another money for a year or more -- he ties a knot in a string for
each peso loaned.
The Igorot subtracts by addition. He counts forward in the total
of fingers or pebbles the number he wishes to subtract, and then he
again counts the remainder forward.
Lineal measure
The distance between the tips of the thumb and middle finger extended
and opposed is the shortest linear measure used by the Igorot,
although he may measure by eye with more detail and exactness, as
when he notes half the above distance. This span measure is called
"chang'-an" or "i'-sa chang'-an," "chu'-wa chang'-an," etc.
Chi-pa' is the measure between the tips of the two middle fingers when
the arms are extended full length in opposite directions. Chi-wan'
si chi-pa' is half the above measure, or from the tip of the middle
finger of one hand, arm extended from side of body, to the sternum.
These three measures are most used in handling timbers and boards in
the construction of buildings.
Cloth for breechcloths is measured by the length of the forearm,
being wound about the elbow and through the hand, quite as one coils
up a rope.
Long distances in the mountains or on the trail are measured by the
length of time necessary to walk them, and the length of time is
told by pointing to the place of the sun in the heavens at the hour
of departure and arrival.
Rice sementeras are measured by the number of cargoes of palay
they produce. Besides this relatively exact measure, sementeras
producing up to five cargoes are called "small," pay-yo' ay fa-nig';
and those producing more than five are said to be "large," pay-yo'
chuk-chuk'-wag.
Measurement of animals
The idea of the size of a carabao, and at the same time a crude
estimate of its age and value, is conveyed by representing on the
arm the length of the animal's horns.
The size of a hog and, as with the carabao, an estimate of its value is
shown by representing the size of the girth of the animal by clasping
the hands around one's leg. For instance, a small pig is represented
by the size of the speaker's ankle, as he clasps both hands around it;
a larger one is the size of his calf; a still larger one is the size
of a man's thigh; and one still larger is represented by the thigh and
calf together, the calf being bent tightly against the upper leg. To
represent a still larger hog, the two hands circle the calf and thigh,
but at some distance from them.
The Bontoc Igorot has no system of liquid or dry measure, nor has he
any system of weight.
The calendar
The Igorot has no mechanical record of time or events, save as he
sometimes cuts notches in a stick to mark the flight of days. He
is apt, however, in memorizing the names of ancestors, holding them
for half a dozen generations, but he keeps no record of age, and has
no adequate conception of such a period as twenty years. He has no
conception of a cycle of time greater than one year, and, in fact,
it is the rare man who thinks in terms of a year. When one does he
speaks of the past year as tin-mo-win', or i-san' pa-na'-ma.
Prominent Igorot have insisted that a year has only eight moons,
and other equally sane and respected men say it has one hundred. But
among the old men, who are the wisdom of the people, there are those
who know and say it has thirteen moons.
They have noted and named eight phases of the moon, namely: The
one-quarter waxing moon, called "fis-ka'-na;" the two-quarters waxing
moon, "ma-no'-wa," or "ma-lang'-ad;" the three-quarters waxing moon,
"kat-no-wa'-na" or "nap-no';" the full moon, "fit-fi-tay'-eg;" the
three-quarters waning moon, "ka-tol-pa-ka'-na" or "ma-til-pa'-kan;"
the two-quarters waning moon, "ki-sul-fi-ka'-na;" the one-quarter
waning moon, sig-na'-a-na" or "ka-fa-ni-ka'-na;" and the period
following the last, when there is but a faint rim of light, is called
"li'-meng" or "ma-a-mas'."
FIGURE 9
Recognized phases of the moon.
Fis-ka'-na.
Ma-no'-wa.
Kat-no-wa'-na.
Fit-fi-tay'-eg.
Ka-tol-pa-ka'-na.
Ki-sul-fi-ka'-na.
Sig-na'-a-na.
Li'-meng.
However, the Igorot do seldom count time by the phases of the moon,
and the only solar period of time they know is that of the day. Their
word for day is the same as for sun, a-qu'. They indicate the time of
day by pointing to the sky, indicating the position the sun occupied
when a particular event occurred.
There are two seasons in a year. One is Cha-kon', having five moons,
and the other is Ka-sip', having eight moons. The seasons do not mark
the wet and dry periods, as might be expected in a country having
such periods. Cha-kon' is the season of rice or "palay" growth and
harvest, and Ka-sip' is the remainder of the year. These two seasons,
and the recognition that there are thirteen moons in one year, and
that day follows night, are the only natural divisions of time in
the Igorot calendar.
He has made an artificial calendar differing somewhat in all pueblos
in name and number and length of periods. In all these calendars
the several periods bear the names of the characteristic industrial
occupations which follow one another successively each year. Eight
of these periods make up the calendar of Bontoc pueblo, and seven
of them have to do with the rice industry. Each period receives its
name from that industry which characterizes its beginning, and it
retains this name until the beginning of the next period, although
the industry which characterized it may have ceased some time before.
I-na-na' is the first period of the year, and the first period of the
season Cha-kon'. It is the period, as they say, of no more work in the
rice sementeras -- that is, practically all fields are prepared and
transplanted. It began in 1903 on February 11. It lasts about three
months, continuing until the time of the first harvest of the rice or
"palay" crop in May; in 1903 this was until May 2. This period is
not a period of "no work" -- it has many and varied labors.
The second period is La'-tub. It is that of the first harvests,
and lasts some four weeks, ending about June 1.
Cho'-ok is the third period. It is the time when the bulk of the palay
is harvested. It occupies about four weeks, running over in 1903 two
days in July.
Li'-pas is the fourth period. It is that of "no more palay harvest,"
and lasts for about ten or fifteen days, ending probably about July
15. This is the last period of the season Cha-kon'.
The fifth period is Ba-li'-ling. It is the first period of the season
Ka-sip'. It takes its name from the general planting of camotes,
and is the only one of the calendar periods not named from the rice
industry. It continues about six weeks, or until near the 1st of
September.
Sa-gan-ma' is the sixth period. It is the time when the sementeras to
be used as seed beds for rice are put in condition, the earth being
turned three different times. It lasts about two months. November 15,
1902, the seed rice was just peeping from the kernels in the beds of
Bontoc and Sagada, and the seed is sown immediately after the third
turning of the earth, which thus ended early in November.
Pa-chog' is the seventh period of the annual calendar. It is the
period of seed sowing, and begins about November 10. Although the
seed sowing does not last many days, the period Pa-chog' continues
five or six weeks.
Sa'-ma is the last period of the calendar. It is the period in which
the rice sementeras are prepared for receiving the young plants and in
which these seedlings are transplanted from the seed beds. The last
Sa'-ma was near seven weeks' duration. It began about December 20,
1902, and ended February 10, 1903. Sa'-ma is the last period of the
season Ka-sip', and the last of the year.
The Igorot often says that a certain thing occurred in La'-tub, or
will occur in Ba-li'-ling, so these periods of the calendar are held
in mind as the civilized man thinks of events in time as occurring
in some particular month.
The Igorot have a tradition that formerly the moon was also a sun,
and at that time it was always day. Lumawig told the moon to be
"moon," and then there was night. Such a change was necessary, they
say, so the people would know when to work -- that is, when was the
right time, the right moon, to take up a particular kind of labor.
Folk tales
The paucity of the pure mental life of the Igorot is nowhere more
clearly shown than in the scarcity of folk tales.
I group here seven tales which are quite commonly known among the
people of Bontoc. The second, third, fourth, and fifth are frequently
related by the parents to their children, and I heard all of them
the first time from boys about a dozen years old. I believe these
tales are nearly all the pure fiction the Igorot has created and
perpetuated from generation to generation, except the Lumawig stories.
The Igorot story-tellers, with one or two exceptions, present the
bare facts in a colorless and lifeless manner. I have, therefore,
taken the liberty of adding slightly to the tales by giving them some
local coloring, but I have neither added to nor detracted from the
facts related.
The sun man and moon woman; or, origin of head-hunting
The Moon, a woman called "Ka-bi-gat'," was one day making a large
copper cooking pot. The copper was soft and plastic like potter's
clay. Ka-bi-gat' held the heavy sagging pot on her knees and leaned
the hardened rim against her naked breasts. As she squatted there
-- turning, patting, shaping, the huge vessel -- a son of the man
Chal-chal', the Sun, came to watch her. This is what he saw: The
Moon dipped her paddle, called "pip-i'," in the water, and rubbed
it dripping over a smooth, rounded stone, an agate with ribbons of
colors wound about in it. Then she stretched one long arm inside the
pot as far as she could. "Tub, tub, tub," said the ribbons of colors
as Ka-bi-gat' pounded up against the molten copper with the stone in
her extended hand. "Slip, slip, slip, slip," quickly answered pip-i',
because the Moon was spanking back the many little rounded domes which
the stone bulged forth on the outer surface of the vessel. Thus the
huge bowl grew larger, more symmetrical, and smooth.
Suddenly the Moon looked up and saw the boy intently watching the
swelling pot and the rapid playing of the paddle. Instantly the Moon
struck him, cutting off his head.
Chal-chal' was not there. He did not see it, but he knew Ka-bi-gat'
cut off his son's head by striking with her pip-i'.
He hastened to the spot, picked the lad up, and put his head where
it belonged -- and the boy was alive.
Then the Sun said to the Moon:
"See, because you cut off my son's head, the people of the Earth are
cutting off each other's heads, and will do so hereafter."
"And it is so," the story-tellers continue; "they do cut off each
other's heads."
Origin of coling, the serpent eagle[36]
A man and woman had two boys. Every day the mother sent them into
the mountains for wood to cook her food. Each morning as she sent
them out she complained about the last wood they brought home.
One day they brought tree limbs; the mother complained, saying:
"This wood is bad. It smokes so much that I can not see, and soon I
shall be blind." And then she added, as was her custom:
"If you do not work well, you can have only food for dogs and pigs."
That day, as usual, the boys had in their topil for dinner only boiled
camote vines, such as the hogs eat, and a small allowance of rice,
just as much as a dog is fed. At night the boys brought some very
good wood -- wood of the pitch-pine tree. In the morning the mother
complained that such wood blackened the house. She gave them pig food
in their topil, saying:
"Pig food is good enough for you because you do not work well."
That night each boy brought in a large bundle of runo. The mother
was angry, and scolded, saying:
"This is not good wood; it leaves too many ashes and it dirties
the house."
In the morning she gave them dog food for dinner, and the boys again
went away to the mountains. They were now very thin and poor because
they had no meat to eat. By and by the older one said:
"You wait here while I climb up this tree and cut off some
branches." So he climbed the tree, and presently called down:
"Here is some wood" -- and the bones of an arm dropped to the ground.
"Oh, oh," exclaimed the younger brother, "it is your arm!"
Again the older boy called, "Here is some more wood" -- and the bones
of his other arm fell at the foot of the tree.
Again he called, and the bones of a leg dropped; then his other leg
fell. The next time he called, down came the right half of his ribs;
and then, next, the left half of his ribs; and immediately thereafter
his spinal column. Then he called again, and down fell his hair.
The last time he called, "Here is some wood," his skull dropped on
the earth under the tree.
"Here, take those things home," said he. "Tell the woman that this
is her wood; she only wanted my bones."
"But there is no one to go with me down the mountains," said the
younger boy.
"Yes; I will go with you, brother," quickly came the answer from the
tree top.
So the boy tied up his bundle, and, putting it on his shoulder,
started for the pueblo. As he did so the other -- he was now Co-ling'
-- soared from the tree top, always flying directly above the boy.
When the younger brother reached home he put his bundle down, and
said to the woman:
"Here is the wood you wanted."
The woman and the husband, frightened, ran out of the house; they
heard something in the air above them.
"Qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok!" said Co-ling', as he circled
around and around above the house. "Qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok!" he
screamed, "now camotes and palay are your son. I do not need your
food any longer."
Origin of tilin, the ricebird[37]
As the mother was pounding out rice to cook for supper, her little
girl said:
"Give me some mo'-ting to eat."
"No," answered the mother, "mo'-ting is not good to eat; wait until
it is cooked."
"No, I want to eat mo'-ting," said the little girl, and for a long
time she kept asking her mother for raw rice.
At last her mother interrupted, "It is bad to talk so much."
The rice was then all pounded out. The mother winnowed it clean,
and put it in her basket, covering it up with the winnowing tray. She
placed an empty olla on her head and went to the spring for water.
The anxious little girl reached quickly for the basket to get some
rice, but the tray slipped from her grasp and fell, covering her
beneath it in the basket.
The mother returned with the water to cook supper. She heard a bird
crying, "King! king! nik! nik! nik!" When the woman uncovered the
basket, Tilin, the little brown ricebird, flew away, calling:
"Good-bye, mother; good-bye, mother; you would not give me mo'-ting!"
Origin of kaag, the monkey
The palay was in the milk and maturing rapidly. Many kinds of birds
that knew how delicious juicy palay is were on hand to get their share,
so the boys were sent to stay all day in the sementeras to frighten
these little robbers away.
Every day a father sent out his two boys to watch his palay in a
narrow gash in the mountain; and every day they carried their small
basket full of cooked rice, white and delicious, but their mother
put no meat in the basket.
Finally one of the boys said:
"It is bad not to have meat to eat; every day we have only rice."
"Yes, it is bad," said his brother. "We can not keep fat without meat;
we are getting poor and thin, and pretty soon we shall die."
"That is true," answered the other boy; "pretty soon we shall die. I
believe I shall be ka'-ag."
And during the day thick hair came on this boy's arms; and then he
became hairy all over; and then it was so -- he was ka'-ag, and he
vanished in the mountains.
Then soon the other boy was ka'-ag, too. At night he went home and
told the father:
"Your boy is ka'-ag; he is in the mountains."
The boy ran out of the house quickly. The father went to the mountains
to get his boy, but ka'-ag ran up a tall tree; at the foot of the tree
was a pile of bones. The father called his son, and ka'-ag came down
the tree, and, as the father went toward him, ka'-ag stood up clawing
and striking at the man with his hands, and breathing a rough throat
cry like this:
"Haa! haa! haa!"
Then the man ran home crying, and he never got his boys.
Pretty soon there was a-sa'-wan nan ka'-ag[38] with a babe. Then there
were many little children; and then, pretty soon, the mountains were
full of monkeys.
Origin of gayyang, the crow, and fanias, the large lizard
There were two young men who were the very greatest of friends.
One tattooed the other beautifully. He tattooed his arms and his legs,
his breast and his belly, and also his back and face. He marked him
beautifully all over, and he rubbed soot from the bottom of an olla
into the marks, and he was then very beautiful.
When the tattooer finished his work he turned to his friend, and said:
"Now you tattoo me beautifully, too."
So the young men scraped together a great pile of black, greasy soot
from pitch-pine wood; and before the other knew what the tattooed one
was doing he rubbed soot over him from finger tip to finger tip. Then
the black one asked:
"Why do you tattoo me so badly?"
Without waiting for an answer they began a terrible combat. When,
suddenly, the tattooed one was a large lizard, fa-ni'-as,[39] and
he ran away and hid in the tall grass; and the sooty black one was
gay-yang, the crow,[40] and he flew away and up over Bontoc, because he
was ashamed to enter the pueblo after quarreling with his old friend.
Owug, the snake
The old men say that a man of Mayinit came to live in Bontoc, as he
had married a Bontoc woman and she wished to live in her own town.
After a while the man died. His friends came to the funeral, and a
snake, o-wug', also came. When the people wept, o-wug' cried also. When
they put the dead man in the grave, and when they stood there looking,
o-wug' came to the grave and looked upon the man, and then went away.
Later, when the friends observed the death ceremony, o-wug' also came.
"O-wug' thus showed himself to be a friend and companion of the
Igorot. Sometime in the past he was an Igorot, but we have not heard,"
the old men say, "when or how he was o-wug'."
"We never kill o-wug'; he is our friend. If he crosses our path on
a journey, we stop and talk. If he crosses our path three or four
times, we return home, because, if we continue our journey then,
some of us will die. O-wug' thus comes to tell us not to proceed;
he knows the bad anito on every trail."
Who took my father's head?
The Bontoc people have another folk tale regarding head taking. In
it Lumawig, their god, taught them how to discover which pueblo had
taken the head of one of their members. They repeat this story as a
ceremony in the pabafunan after every head lost, though almost always
they know what pueblo took it. It is as follows:
"A very great time ago a man and woman had two sons. Far up in the
mountains they owned some garden patches. One day they told the
boys to go and see whether the stone wall about the garden needed
repair; but the boys said they did not wish to go, so the father went
alone. As he did not return at nightfall, his sons started into the
mountains to find him. They bound together two small bunches of runo
for torches to light up the steep, rough, twisting trail. One torch
was burning when they went out, and they carried the other to light
them home again. Nowhere along the trail did they find their father;
he had not been injured in the path, nor could they find where he had
fallen over a cliff. So they passed on to the garden; there they found
their father's headless body. They searched for blood in the bushes
and grass, but they found nothing -- no blood, no enemies' tracks.
"They carried the strange corpse down the mountain trail to their home
in Bontoc. Then they hastened to the pabafunan, and there they told the
men what had befallen their father. The old men counseled together,
and at last one of them said: 'Lumawig told the old men of the past,
so the old men last dead told me, that should any son find his father
beheaded, he should do this: He should ask, "Who took my father's
head? Did Tukukan take it? Did Sakasakan take it?" ' and Lumawig said,
'He shall know who took his father's head.'
"So the boys took a basket, the fangao, to represent Lumawig, and stuck
it full of chicken feathers. Before the fangao they placed a small
cup of basi. Then squatting in front with the cup at their feet they
put a small piece of pork on a stick and held it over the cup. 'Who
took my father's head? -- did Tukukan?' they asked. But the pork and
the cup and the basket all remained still. 'Did Sakasakan?' asked
the boys all was as before. They went over a list of towns at enmity
with Bontoc, but there was no answer given them. At last they asked,
'Did the Moon?' -- but still there was no answer. 'Did the Sun?' the
boys asked, and suddenly the piece of pork slid from the stick into
the basi. And this was the way Lumawig had said a person should know
who took his father's head.
"The Sun, then, was the guilty person. The two boys took some dogs and
hastened to the mountains where their father was killed. There the dogs
took up the scent of the enemy, and followed it in a straight line to
a very large spring where the water boiled up, as at Mayinit where the
salt springs are. The scent passed into this bubbling, tumbling water,
but the dogs could not get down. When the dogs returned to land the
elder brother tried to enter, but he failed also. Then the younger
brother tried to get down; he succeeded in going beneath the water,
and there he saw the head of his father, and young men in a circle
were dancing around it -- they were the children of the Sun. The
brother struck off the head of one of these young men, caught up his
father's head, and, with the two heads, escaped. When he reached his
elder brother the two hastened home to their pueblo."