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.
Throughout the Bontoc area there is a spear with a bamboo blade, entirely a wooden weapon. The spear is employed in warfare, and is losing its place only as iron becomes plentiful enough and cheap enough to substitute for the bamboo blades or heads. Even in sections in which iron spears are relatively common the wooden spear is used much in warfare, since spears thrown at an enemy are frequently lost.
Sharp-pointed bamboo spikes are often stuck in the trails of war parties when they are returning from some foray in which they have been successful. These spikes are from about 6 inches in length, as among the people of the Bontoc area, to 3 or more feet, as among the Ibilao of southeastern Nueva Vizcaya. The latter people nightly place these long spikes, called “luk’-dun,” in the trails leading to their dwellings. They are placed at a considerable angle, and would impale an intruder in the groin or upper thigh, inflicting a cruel and disabling wound. The shorter spikes either cut through the bottom of the foot or stab the instep or leg near the ankle. They are much dreaded, and, though crude, are very effective weapons.
Metal weapons
The metal spear blade or head is a product of Igorot workmanship. Baliwang, situated about six hours north of Bontoc, makes most of the metal spear blades used in the Bontoc area. Sapao, located about a day and a half to the south, makes excellent metal blades, but they seldom reach the Bontoc culture area, although blades of inferior production from Sapao are found in Ambawan, the southernmost pueblo of the area.
Baliwang has four smithies, in each of which two or three men labor, each man in a smithy performing a separate part of the work. One operates the bellows, another feeds the fire and does the heavy striking during the initial part of the work, and the other — the real blade maker, the artist — directs all the labor, and performs the finer and finishing parts of the blade production.
The smithies are about 12 feet square without side walls. They have a grass roof sloping to within 3 feet of the earth, enlarging the shaded area to near 20 feet square. Near one side of the room is the bellows, called “op-op’,” consisting of two vertical, parallel wooden tubes about 5 feet long and 10 inches in diameter, standing side by side. Each tube has a piston or plunger, called “dot-dot’;” the packing ring of the piston is of wood covered with chicken feathers, making it slightly flexible at the rim, so it fits snugly in the tube. The lower end of the bellows tubes rests in the earth, 4 inches above which a small bamboo tube leads the compressed air to the fireplace from each bellows tube. These small tubes, called “to-bong’,” end near an opening through a brick at the back of the fire, and the air forced through them passes on through the brick to the burning charcoal. The outer end of the to-bong’ is cut at an angle, and as the tubes end outside the opening in the brick, the air inbreathed by the bellows, as the plungers are raised, is drawn from back of the fireplace — thus the fire is not disturbed.
The fuel is an inferior charcoal prepared by the Igorot from pine. This bellows is found throughout the Archipelago and is evidently a Malayan product. It is believed that it came to Bontoc with the Igorot from their earlier home and is not, as some say, a Chinese invention.[29] The Igorot manufacturer of metal pipes uses exactly the same kind of bellows, except that it is very much smaller, and so appears like a toy. It is poorly shown in Pl. CIX.
Much of the iron now employed in the manufacture of Igorot weapons is Chinese bar iron coming from China to the Islands at Candon, in Ilokos Sur. However, the people readily make weapons from any iron they may acquire, greatly preferring the scraps of broken Chinese cast-iron pots, vessels purchased primarily for making sugar. In his choice of cast iron the Igorot exhibits a practical knowledge of metallurgy, since cast iron makes better steel than wrought iron — that is, as he has to work.
FIGURE 5
Ironsmith’s stone hammer.
The anvils of the smithy, numbering four or five, are large rocks set solidly in the earth. The hammers are nearly all stone, though some of the workmen have a small iron hammer used in finishing the weapons.
There are several varieties of stone hammers. One weighing about 30 pounds is 16 inches long, 10 inches wide, and from 4 to 6 inches thick. An inch-deep groove is cut in both edges of the hammer, and into these grooves the short, double wooden handle is attached by a withe. Another hammer, similar to the above in shape and attachment, is about one-third its size and weight. There is a still smaller hammer lashed with leather bands to a single, straight wooden handle; and there is also a round hammer stone about 3 inches in diameter without handle or attachment, which hammer, together with the larger one last mentioned, is largely superseded in some of the smithies by the metal hammer.
The bellows operator sits squatting on a slight platform the height of the bellows, and constantly works the plungers up and down with rhythmic strokes.
Two men at first handle the hot iron — one, the real blade maker, holds the white-hot metal with long-handled iron pinchers (purchased in Candon) and his helper wields the 30-pound hammer. He stands with legs well apart, grasps the heavy hammer with both hands, and swings it back and forth between his legs. The blow is struck at the downward, backward swing.
These smiths weld iron, and also temper it to make steel. The following detailed picture of a welding observed in a Baliwang smithy may be duplicated there any day. The two pieces of iron to be welded were separately heated a dull red. One was then laid on the other and both were cooled with water. Wet earth, gathered for the occasion at the side of the smithy, was then put over them; while still covered they were inserted again in the fire. When red-hot they were withdrawn, the little mound of earth covering the two pieces of iron being still in place but having been brought also to a red heat. A few light blows fell on the red mass, and it was again returned to the fire. Four times the iron was withdrawn and received a few blows with a light hammer wielded by the master smith. On being withdrawn the fifth time half a dozen blows were struck by the helper with the 30-pound hammer. Again the iron was heated, but when removed the sixth time the welding was evidently considered finished, as the shaping of the weapon was then begun. Weldings made by these smiths seem to be complete.
The tempering done by the Igorot is crude, and is such as may be seen in any country blacksmith shop in the States. The iron is heated and is tempered by cooling in a small wooden trough of water. There is great difference in the quality of the steel turned out by the Igorot, even by the same man, though some men are recognized as more skillful than others.
There are four styles of spear blades made by Baliwang. The one most common is called “fal-feg’.” It is a simple, single-barbed blade, and ranges from 2 inches to 6 inches in length. This style of blade is the most used in warfare, and the smaller, lighter blades are considered better for this purpose than the heavier ones.
The fang’-kao, or barbless lance blade, is next common in use. It is not a war blade, but is used almost entirely in killing carabaos and hogs. There is one notable exception to this statement — Ambawan has almost no other class of spear. These blades range from 4 to 12 or 14 inches in length.
The other two blades, si-na-la-wi’-tan and kay-yan’, are relatively rare. The former is quite similar to the fal-feg’, except that instead of the single pair of barbs there are other barbs — say, from one to ten pairs. This spear is not considered at all serviceable as a hunting spear, and is not used in war as much as is the fal-feg’. It is prized highly as an anito scarer. When a man passes alone in the mountains anito are very prone to walk with him; however, if the traveler carries a si-na-la-wi’-tan, anito will not molest him, since they are afraid when they see the formidable array of barbs.
Kay-yan’ is a gracefully formed blade not used in hunting, and employed less in war than is si-na-la-wi’-tan. Though the Igorot has almost nothing in his culture for purely aesthetic purposes, yet he ascribes no purpose for the kay-yan’ — he says it looks pretty; but I have seen it carried to war by war parties.
The pueblo of Sapao makes superior-looking steel weapons, though many Igorot claim the steel of the Baliwang spear is better than that from Sapao. In Quiangan I saw a fang’-kao, or lance-shaped blade made in Sapao, having six faces on each side. The five lines separating the faces ran from the tang to the point of the blade, and were as regular and perfect as though machine made. The best class of Sapao blades is readily distinguishable by its regular lines and the smooth and perfect surface finish.
All spearheads are fastened to the wooden shaft by a short haft or tang inserted in the wood. An iron ferrule or a braided bejuco ferrule is employed to strengthen the shaft where the tang is inserted. A conical iron ferrule or cap is also placed on the butt of the shaft. This ferrule is often used, as the spear is always stuck in the earth close at hand when the warrior works any distance from home; and as he passes along the steep mountain trails or carries heavy burdens he commonly uses the spear shaft as a staff.
The spear shafts are made by the owner of the weapon, it not being customary for anyone to produce them for sale. Some of them are rather attractively decorated with brass and copper studs, and a few have red and yellow bejuco ferrules near the blade. In some pueblos of the Bontoc area, as at Mayinit, spear shafts are worked down and eventually smoothed and finished by a flexible, bamboo knife-blade machine. It consists of about a dozen blades 8 or 10 inches in length, fastened together side by side with string. The blades lie one overlapping the other like the slats of an American window shutter. Each projecting blade is sharpened to a chisel edge. The machine is grasped in the hand, as shown in fig. 6, and is slid up and down the shaft with a slight twisting movement obtained by bending the wrist. The machine becomes a flexible, many-bladed plane.
Baliwang alone makes the genuine Bontoc battle-ax. It is a strong, serviceable blade of good temper, and is hafted to a short, strong, straight wooden handle which is strengthened by a ferrule of iron or braided bejuco. The ax has a slender point opposed to the bit or cutting edge of the blade. This point is often thrust in the earth and the upturned blade used as a stationary knife, on which the Igorot cuts meats and other substances by drawing them lengthwise along the sharp edge. The bit of the ax is at a small angle with the front and back edges of the blade, and is nearly a straight line. The axes are kept keen and sharp by whetstones collected and preserved solely for the purpose. Besao, near Sagada, quarries and barters a good grade of whetstone.
FIGURE 6
Bamboo spear-shaft dresser.
A slender, long-handled battle-ax now and then comes into the area in trade from the north. Balbelasan, of old Abra Province, but now in the northern part of extended Bontoc Province, is one of the pueblos which produce this beautiful ax. The blade is longer and very much slimmer than the Bontoc blade, but its marked distinguishing feature is the shape of the cutting edge. The blade is ground on two straight lines joined together by a short curved line, giving the edge the striking form of the beak of a rapacious bird. The slender, graceful handle, always fitted with a long iron ferrule, has a process on the under side near the middle. The handle is also usually fitted with a decorated metal ferrule at the tip and frequently is decorated for its full length with bands of brass or tin, or with sheets of either metal artistically incised.
The Balbelasan ax is not used by the pueblos making it, or at least by many of them, but finds its field of usefulness east and northeast of Bontoc pueblo as far as the foothills of the mountains west of the Rio Grande de Cagayan. I was told by the Kalinga of this latter region that the people in the mountain close to the Cagayan in the vicinity of Cabagan Nuevo, Isabela Province, also use this ax.
In the southern and western part of the Bontoc area the battle-ax shares place with the bolo, the sole hand weapon of the Igorot of adjoining Lepanto, Benguet, and Nueva Vizcaya Provinces.
The bolo within the Bontoc area comes from Sapao and from the Ilokano people of the west coast. The southern pueblo in the Bontoc area, Ambawan, uses the bolo of Sapao to the entire exclusion of the battle-ax. Tulubin, the next pueblo to Ambawan, and only an hour from it, uses almost solely the Baliwang battle-ax. Such pueblos as Titipan and Antedao, about three hours west of Bontoc, use both the ax and bolo, while the pueblos further west, as Agawa, Sagada, Balili, Alap, etc., use the bolo exclusively — frequently an Ilokano weapon.
The Sapao bolo is, in appearance, superior to that of Ilokano manufacture. It is a broad blade swelling markedly toward the center, and is somewhat similar in shape to the barong of the Sulu Moro of the Sulu Archipelago. This weapon finds its chief field of use in the Quiangan and Banawi areas. In these districts the bolo is fitted with an open scabbard, and the bright blade presents a novel appearance lying exposed against the red scabbard. The Igorot manufacturer of the bolo does not make the scabbard, and most of the bolos used within the Bontoc area are sheathed in the closed wooden scabbard commonly found in Lepanto and Benguet.
Pipe production, and smoking
The Igorot of Bontoc area make pipes of wood, clay, and metal. All their pipes have small bores and bowls. In Benguet a wooden pipe is commonly made with a bowl an inch and a half in diameter; it has a large bore also. In Banawi I obtained a wooden pipe with a bowl 8 1/4 inches in circumference and 4 inches in height, but having a bore averaging only half an inch in diameter.
Nearly all pueblos make the pipes they use, but pipes of clay and metal are manufactured by the Igorot for Igorot trade. I never learned that wooden pipes are made by them for commercial purposes.
The wooden pipe of the area varies from simple tubular forms, exactly like a modern cigar holder, to those having bowls set at right angle to the stem. All wooden pipes are whittled by the men, and some of them are very graceful in form and have an excellent polish. They are made of at least three kinds of wood — ga-sa’-tan, la-no’-ti, and gi-gat’. Most pipes — wooden, clay, or metal — have separable stems.
A few men in Agawa, a pueblo near the western border of the area, make beautiful clay pipes, called “ki-na-lo’-sab.” The clay is carefully macerated between the fingers until it is soft and fine. It is then roughly shaped by the fingers, and afterwards, when partially hardened, is finished with a set of five light, wooden tools.
The finished bowls are in three different colors. When baked about nine hours the pipes come forth gray. Those coming out red have been burned about twelve hours, usually all night. The black ones are made by reburning the red bowls about half an hour in palay straw.
Two men in Sabangan and one each in Genugan and Takong — all western pueblos — manufacture metal “anito” pipes. To-day brass wire and the metal of cartridge shells are most commonly employed in making these pipes.
The process of manufacture is elaborate and very interesting. First a beeswax model is made the exact size and shape of the finished metal pipe. All beeswax, called “a-tid’,” used in pipe making comes from Barlig through Kanu, and the illustration (Pl. CVIII) shows the form in which it passes in commerce in the area. A small amount of wax is softened by a fire until it can be flattened in the palm of the hand. It is then rolled around a stick the size of the bore in the bowl. The outside of the wax bowl is next designed as is shown in the illustration (Pl. CVIII). A careful examination of the illustration will show that the design represents the sitting figure of a man. He is resting his elbows on his knees and holding his lower jaw in his hands — eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingers are all represented. This design is made in the wax with a small knife. The wax for the short stem piece is flattened and folded around a stick the size of the bore of the stem. The stem piece is then set into the bowl and the design which was started on the bowl is continued over the stem.
When the wax pipe is completed a projecting point of wax is attached to the base of the pipe, and the whole is imbedded in a clay jacket, the point of wax, however, projecting from the jacket. The clay used by the pipe maker is obtained in a pit at Pingad in the vicinity of Genugan. Around the wax point a clay funnel is built. The clay mold, called “bang-bang’-a,” is thoroughly baked by a fire. In less than an hour the mold is hardened and brown, and the wax pipe within it has melted and the wax been poured out of the mold through the gate or opening left by the melting point of wax, leaving the mold empty.
A small Malayan bellows, called “op-op’,” the exact duplicate in miniature of the double tubular bellows described in the preceding section on “metal weapons,” furnishes the draught for a small charcoal fire. The funnel of the clay mold is filled with pieces of metal, and the entire thing is buried in the fired charcoal. In fifteen minutes the metal melts and runs down through the gate at the bottom of the funnel into the hollow, wax-lined mold. Since the entire mold is hot, the metal does not cool or harden promptly, and the pipe maker taps and jars the mold in order to make the metal penetrate and fill every part.
The mold is set aside to cool and is then broken away from the metal core. To-day the pipe maker possesses a file with which to smooth and clean the crude pipe. Formerly all that labor, and it is extensive, was performed with stones.
It requires two men to make the “anito” pipes — tin-ak-ta’-go. One superintends all the work and performs the finest of it, and the second pumps the bellows and smooths and cleans the pipe after it is cast. The two men make four pipes per day, but the purchaser of an “anito” pipe puts days of toil on the metal, smoothing and perfecting it by cleaning and digging out the design until it becomes really a beautiful bit of primitive art.
When a pueblo wants a few tin-ak-ta’-go it sends for the manufacturer, and he comes to the pueblo with his helper and remains as long as necessary. Ay-o’-na, of Genugan, annually visits Titipan, Ankiling, Sagada, Bontoc, and Samoki. He usually furnishes all material, and receives a peseta for each pipe, but the pueblo furnishes the food. In this way a pipe maker is a journeyman about half the year.
Tukukan makes a smooth, cast-metal pipe, called “pin-e-po-yong’,” and Baliwang makes tubular iron pipes at her smithies. They are hammered out and pounded and welded over a core. I have seen several of such excellent workmanship that the welded seam could not be detected on the surface.
In the western part of the area both men and women smoke, and some smoke almost constantly. Throughout the areas occupied by Christians children of 6 or 7 years smoke a great deal. I have repeatedly seen girls not over 6 years of age smoking rolls of tobacco, “cigars,” a foot long and more than an inch in diameter, but in Bontoc area small children do not smoke. In most of the area women do not smoke at all, and boys seldom smoke until they reach maturity.
In Bontoc the tobacco leaf for smoking is rolled up and pinched off in small sections an inch or so in length. These pieces are then wrapped in a larger section of leaf. When finished for the pipe the tobacco resembles a short stub of a cigar. Only half a dozen whiffs are generally taken at a smoke, and the pipe with its tobacco is then tucked under the edge of the pocket hat. Four pipes in five as they are seen sticking from a man’s hat show that the owners stopped smoking long before they exhausted their pipes.
Fire making
The oldest instrument for fire making used by the Bontoc Igorot is now seldom found. However, practically all boys of a dozen years know how to make and use it.
It is called “co-li’-li,” and is a friction machine made of two pieces of dry bamboo. A 2-foot section of dead and dry bamboo is split lengthwise and in one piece a small area of the stringy tissue lining the tube is splintered and picked quite loose. Immediately over this, on the outside of the tube, a narrow groove is cut at right angles to it. This piece of bamboo becomes the stationary lower part of the fire machine. One edge of the other half of the original tube is sharpened like a chisel blade. This section is grasped in both hands, one at each end, and is at first slowly and heavily, afterwards more rapidly, drawn back and forth through the groove of the stationary bamboo, making a small conical pile of dry dust beneath the opening.
After a dozen strokes the sides of the groove and the edge of the friction piece burn brown, presently a smell of smoke is plain, and before three dozen strokes have been made smoke may be seen. Usually before one hundred strokes a larger volume of smoke tells that the dry dust constantly falling on the pile has grown more and more charred until finally a tiny friction-fired particle falls, carrying combustion to the already heated dust cone.
The machine is carefully raised, and, if the fire is permanently kindled, the pinch of smoldering dust is inserted in a wisp of dry grass or other easily inflammable material; in a minute or two flames burst forth, and the fire may be transferred where desired.
The pal-ting’, the world-wide flint and steel-percussion fire machine, is found with all Bontoc men.
At Sagada there is a ledge of exposed and crumbling rock from which most of the men of the western part of the Bontoc culture area obtain their “flint.” The “steel” is any piece of iron which may be had — probably a part of the ferrule from the butt of a spear shaft is used more than is any other one kind of iron.
The pal-ting’ is secured either in a very small basket or a leather roll which is fastened closed by a string. In this receptacle a small amount of dry tree cotton is also carried. The pal-ting’ receptacle is carried about in the large bag hanging at the girdle.
Fire is made by a tiny percussion-heated particle of the stone as it flies away under the sharp, glancing blow of the “steel” and catches in the dry cotton held by the thumb nail on the upper surface of the stone.
If the fire maker wishes to light his pipe, he tucks the smoldering cotton lightly into his roll of tobacco; a few draws are sufficient to ignite the pipeful. If an out-of-door fire is desired the cotton is first used to ignite a dry bunch of grass. Should the fire be needed in the dwelling, the cotton is placed on charcoal. Blowing and care will produce a good, blazing wood fire in a few minutes.
To-day friction matches are known throughout the area, although probably not one person in one hundred has ever owned a box of matches.
The fire syringe, common west of Bontoc Province among the Tinguian, is not known in the Bontoc culture area.
Division of labor
Under this title must be grouped all forms of occupations which are considered necessary to the life of the pueblo.
Up to the age of 5 or 6 years Bontoc children do not work. As has been said in a previous chapter, during the months of April and May many little girls from 5 to 10 work and play together for long hours daily gathering a few varieties of wild plants close about the pueblo for food for the pigs. This labor is unnecessary as soon as the camote vines become large enough for gathering. During June and July these same girls gather the camote vines for pig food. About August this labor falls to the women.
Mention has also been made of the fact that during the latter half of April and May the boys and girls of all ages from 6 or 7 years to 13 or 14 guard the palay sementeras against the birds from earliest dawn till heavy twilight.
Little girls often help about the dwelling by paring camotes for the forthcoming meal.
At all times the elder children, both boys and girls, are baby tenders while their parents work.
Man is the sole hunter and warrior, and he alone fishes when traps or snares are employed.
Only men go to the mountains to cut and bring home firewood and lumber for building purposes; widowed women sometimes bring home dead fallen wood found along the trails. Only men construct the various private and public buildings. They alone build the stone dikes of the sementeras and construct the irrigating ditches and dams; they transport to the pueblo most of the harvested palay. They manufacture and vend basi, and prepare the salted meats. They make all weapons, and all implements and utensils for field and household labors. Contrary to a widespread custom among primitive people, as has been noted, the Igorot man constructs all basket work, whether hats, baskets, trays, or ornaments, and bindings of weapons and implements. Men are the workers of all metal and stone. They are the only cargadors, though in the Kiapa area of Benguet Province women sometimes go on the trails as paid burden bearers for Americans.
Only men are said to tattoo and circumcise. They determine the days of rest and of ceremony for the pueblo, and all pueblo ceremonies are in their hands; so also are the ceremonies of the ato — only men are “priests,” except for private household ceremonials.
Men constitute the “control element” of the pueblo. They are the legislative, executive, and judicial power for the pueblo and each ato; they are considered the wisdom of their people, and they alone, it is said, give public advice on important matters.
The woman is the only weaver of fabrics and the only spinner of the materials of which the fabrics are made. On the west coast the Ilokano men do a great deal of the spinning, but the Igorot man has not imitated them in the industry, though he has often seen them. Women are the sole potters of Samoki, and they alone transport and vend their wares to other pueblos. In the Mayinit salt industry only the woman tends the salt house, gathering the crude salt solution.
Only the women plant the rice seed, and they alone transplant the palay; they also care for the growing plants and harvest most of the crops. In the transplanting and harvesting of palay the woman is given credit for greater dexterity than the man; men harvest palay only when sufficient women can not be found. Women plant, care for, harvest, and transport to the pueblo all camotes, millet, maize, and beans.
The men and women together construct and repair irrigated sementeras, men usually digging the earth while the women transport it. Together they prepare the soil of irrigated sementeras, and carry manure to them from the pigpens. Men at times do the women’s work in harvesting, and women sometimes assist the men to carry the harvest to the pueblo. Either threshes out and hulls the rice, though the woman does more than half this work. Both prepare foods for cooking, cook the meals, and serve them. Both bring water from the river for household uses, though the woman brings the greater part. Each tends the babe while the other works in the field. Both care for the chickens and pigs, even to cooking the food for the latter. Men and women catch fish by hand in the river, manufacture tapui, and in the salt industry both evaporate the salt solution and vend the salt.
In the treatment of the sick and the driving out of afflicting anito, men and women alike serve.
Little work is demanded of the old people, though the labors they perform are of great value to the pueblo, as the strong are thus given more time for a vigorous industrial life.
Great service is rendered the pueblo by the councils of the old men, and they are the “priests” of all ceremonials, except those of the household.
The old men do practically nothing at manual labor in the field. However, numbers of old men and women guard the palay sementeras