Bontoc pueblo is no exception to the rule that every pueblo in the Philippines has a few people with curly or wavy hair. I doubt whether to-day an entire tribe of perfectly straight-haired primitive Malayan people exists in the Archipelago. Fu-nĭt is a curly-haired Bontoc man of about 45 years of age. Many people told me that his father and also his grandfather were members of the pueblo and had curly hair. I have never been able to find any hint at foreign or Negrito blood in any of the several curly haired people in the Bontoc culture area whose ancestors I have tried to discover.
The scanty growth of hair on the face of the Bontoc man is pulledout. A small pebble and the thumb nail or the blade of the battle-ax and the bulb of the thumb are frequently used as forceps; they never cut the hair of the face. It is common to see men of all ages with a very sparse growth of hair on the upper lip or chin, and one of 50 years in Bontoc has a fairly heavy4-inchgrowth of gray hair on his chin and throat; he is shown inPl. XIII. Their bodies are quite free from hair. There is none on the breast, and seldom any on the legs. The pelvic growth is always pulled out by the unmarried. The growth in the armpits is scant, but is not removed.
The iris of the eye is brown—often rimmed with a lighter or darker ring. The brown of the iris ranges from nearly black to a soft hazel brown. The cornea is frequently blotched with red or yellow. The Malayan fold of the upper eyelid is seen in a large majority of the men, the fold being so low that it hangs over and hides the roots of the lashes. The lashes appear to grow from behind the lid rather than from its rim.
The teeth are large and strong, and, whereas in old age they frequently become few and discolored, during prime they are often white and clean. The people never artificially stain the teeth, and, though surrounded by betel-nut chewers with dark teeth or red-stained lips, they do not use the betel.
Since the Igorot keeps no record of years, it is impossible to know his age, but it is believed that sufficient comparative data have been collected in Bontoc to make the following estimates reliable:
At the age of 20 a man seems hardly to have reached his physical best; this he attains, however, before he is 25. By 35 he begins to show the marks of age. By 45 most of the men are fast getting “old”; their faces are seamed, their muscles losing form, their carriage less erect, and the step slower. By 55 all are old—most are bent and thin. Probably not over one or two in a hundred mature men live to be 70 years old.
The following census taken from a Spanish manuscript found in Quiangan, and written in 1894, may be taken as representative of an average Igorot pueblo:
From this census it seems that the Magulang Igorot man is at his prime between the ages of 30 and 40 years, and that the death rate for men between the ages of 40 and 50 is nearly as great as the death rate among children between 5 to 10 years of age, being 52.7 per cent. Beyond the age of 50 collapse is sudden, since all the men more than 50 years old are less than half the number of those between the ages of 40 and 50 years.
The women average4 feet 9⅜ inchesin height. In appearance they are short and stocky. Twenty-nine women from Bontoc and vicinity were measured; the tallest was5 feet 4¾ inches, and the shortest4 feet 4¾ inches. The following table presents the average measurements of twenty-nine women:
These measurements show that the composite woman—the average of the measurements of twenty-nine women—is mesaticephalic. The extremes of cephalic index are 87.64 and 64.89; both are measurements of women about 35 years of age. Of the twenty-nine women twelve are brachycephalic; twelve are mesaticephalic; and five are dolichocephalic.
The Bontoc woman has a “medium,” or mesorhine, nose, as is shown by the above figures. Four of the twenty-nine women have the “narrow” leptorhine nose with nasal index below 70; seven have platyrhine or the “broad” nose with index greater than 85; while seventeen have the “medium” or mesorhine nose with nasal index between 70 and 85. The broadest nose has an index of 97.56, and the narrowest an index of 58.53.
The women reach the age of maturity well prepared for its responsibilities. They have more adipose tissue than the men, yet are never fat. The head is carried erect, but with a certain stiffness—often due, in part, no doubt, to shyness, and in part to the fact that they carry all their burdens on their heads. I believe the neck more often appears short than does the neck of the man. The shoulders are broad, andflat across the back. The breasts are large, full, and well supported. The hips are broad and well set, and the waist (there is no natural waist line) is frequently no smaller than the hips, though smaller than the shoulders. Their arms are smooth and strong, and they throw stones as men do, with the full-arm throw from the shoulder. Their hands are short and strong. Their legs are almost invariably straight, but are probably more frequently bowed at the knees than are the men’s. The thighs are sturdy and strong, and the calves not infrequently over-large. This enlargement runs low down, so the ankles, never slender, very often appear coarse and large. In consequence of this heavy lower leg, the feet, short at best, usually look much too short. They are placed on the ground straight ahead, though the tendency to inturned feet is slightly more noticeable than it is among the men.
Their carriage is a healthful one, though it is not always graceful, since their long strides commonly give the prominent buttocks a jerky movement. They prove the naturalness of that style of walking which, in profile, shows the chest thrust forward and the buttocks backward; the abdomen is in, and the shoulders do not swing as the strides are made.
It can not be said that at base the color of the women’s skin differs from that of the men, but the saffron undertone is more commonly seen than it is in the unclothed men. It shows on the shaded parts of the body, and where the skin is distended, as on the breast and about certain features of the face.
The hair of the head is like that of the man’s; it is worn long, and is twisted and wound about the head. It has a tendency to fall out as age comes on, but does not seem thin on the head. The tendency to gray hairs is apparently somewhat less than it is with the men. The remainder of the body is exceptionally free from hair. The growth in the armpits and the pelvic hair are always pulled out by the unmarried, and a large per cent of the women do not allow it to grow even in old age.
Their eyes are brown, varied as are those of the men, and with the Malayan fold of the upper eyelid.
Their teeth are generally whiter and cleaner than are those of their male companions, a condition due largely, probably, to the fact that few of the women smoke.
They seem to reach maturity at about 17 or 18 years of age. The first child is commonly born between the ages of 16 and 22. At 23 the woman has certainly reached her prime. By 30 she is getting “old”; before 45 the women are old, with flat, pendent folds of skin where the breasts were. The entire front of the body—in prime full, rounded, and smooth—has become flabby, wrinkled, and folded. It is only a short time before collapse of the tissue takes place in all parts of thebody. An old woman, say, at 50, is a mass of wrinkles from foot to forehead; the arms and legs lose their plumpness, the skin is “bagged” at the knees into half a dozen large folds; and the disappearance of adipose tissue from the trunk-front, sides, and back—has left the skin not only wrinkled but loose and flabby, folding over the girdle at the waist.
The census of Magulang, page 42, should be again referred to, from which it appears that the death rate among women is greater between the ages of 40 and 50 years than it is with men, being 55.66 per cent. The census shows also that there are relatively a larger number of old women—that is, over 50 years old—than there are old men.
The death rate among children is large. Of fifteen families in Bontoc, each having had three or more children, the death rate up to the age of puberty was over 60 per cent. According to the Magulang census the death rate of children from 5 to 10 years of age is 63.73 per cent.
The new-born babe is as light in color as the average American babe, and is much less red, instead of which color there is the slightest tint of saffron. As the babe lies naked on its mother’s naked breast the light color is most strikingly apparent by contrast. The darker color, the brown, gradually comes, however, as the babe is exposed to the sun and wind, until the child of a year or two carried on its mother’s back is practically one with the mother in color.
Some of the babes, perhaps all, are born with an abundance of dark hair on the head. A child’s hair is never cut, except that from about the age of 3 years the boy’s hair is “banged” across the forehead. Fully 30 per cent of children up to 5 or 6 years of age have brown hair—due largely to fading, as the outer is much lighter than the under hair. In rare cases the lighter brown hair assumes a distinctly red cast, though a faded lifeless red. Before puberty is reached, however, all children have glossy black hair.
The iris of a new-born babe is sometimes a blue brown; it is decidedly a different brown from that of the adult or of the child of five years. Most children have the Malayan fold of the eyelid; the lower lid is often much straighter than it is on the average American. When, in addition to these conditions, the outer corner of the eye is higher than the inner, the eye is somewhat Mongolian in appearance. About one-fifth of the children in Bontoc have this Mongolian-like eye, though it is rarer among adults—a fact due, in part, apparently, to the down curving and sagging of the lower lid as one’s prime is reached and passed.
Children’s teeth are clean and white, and very generally remain so until maturity.
The child from 1 to 3 years of age is plump and chubby; his frontis full and rounded, but lacks the extra abdominal development so common with the children of the lowlands, and which has received from the American the popular name of “banana belly.” By the age of 7 the child has lost its plump, rounded form, which is never again had by the boys but is attained by the girls again early in puberty. During these last half dozen years of childhood all children are slender and agile and wonderfully attractive in their naturalness. Both girls and boys reach puberty at a later time than would be expected, though data can not be gathered to determine accurately the age at puberty. All the Ilokano in Bontoc pueblo consistently maintain that girls do not reach puberty until at least 16 and 17 years of age. Perhaps it is arrived at by 14 or 15, but I feel certain it is not as early as 12 or 13—a condition one might expect to find among people in the tropics.
The most serious permanent physical affliction the Bontoc Igorot suffers is blindness. Fully 2 per cent of the people both of Bontoc and her sister pueblo, Samoki, are blind; probably 2 per cent more are partially so. Bontoc has one blind boy only 3 years old, but I know of no other blind children; and it is claimed that no babes are born blind. There is one woman in Bontoc approaching 20 years of age who is nearly blind, and whose mother and older sister are blind. Blindness is very common among the old people, and seems to come on with the general breaking down of the body.
A few of the people say their blindness is due to the smoke in their dwellings. This doubtless has much to do with the infirmity, as their private and public buildings are very smoky much of the time, and when the nights are at all chilly a fire is built in their closed, low, and chimneyless sleeping rooms. There are many persons with inflamed and granulated eyelids whose vision is little or not at all impaired—a forerunner of blindness probably often caused by smoke.
Twenty per cent of the adults have abnormal feet. The most common and most striking abnormality is that known as “fa′-wĭng”; it is an inturning of the great toe. Fa′-wĭng occurs in all stages from the slightest spreading to that approximating forty-five degrees. It is found widely scattered among the barefoot mountain tribes of northern Luzon. The people say it is due to mountain climbing, and their explanation is probably correct, as the great toe is used much as is a claw in securing a footing on the slippery, steep trails during the rainy reason. Fa′-wĭng occurs quite as commonly with women as with men, and in Ambuklao, Benguet Province, I saw a boy of 8 or 9 years whose great toes were spread half as much as those shown inPl. XXV. This deformity occurs on one or both feet, but generally on both if at all.
An enlargement of the basal joint of the great toe, probably a bunion, is also comparatively common. It is not improbable that it is oftencaused by stone bruises, as such are of frequent occurrence; they are sometimes very serious, laying a person up ten days at a time.
The feet of adults who work in the water-filled rice paddies are dry, seamed, and cracked on the bottoms. These “rice-paddy feet,” called “fung-as′,” are often so sore that the person can not go on the trails for any considerable distance.
I believe not 5 per cent of the people are without eruptions of the skin. It is practically impossible to find an adult whose body is not marked with shiny patches showing where large eruptions have been. Babes of one or two months do not appear to have skin diseases, but those of three and four are sometimes half covered with itching, discharging eruptions. Babes under a year old, such as are most carried on their mother’s backs, are especially subject to a mass of sores about the ankles; the skin disease is itch, called ku′-lĭd. I have seen babes of this age with soresan inchacross andnearly an inchdeep in their backs.
Relatively there are few large sores on the people such as boils and ulcers, but a person may have a dozen or half a hundred itching eruptions the size of a half pea scattered over his arms, legs, and trunk. From these he habitually squeezes the pus onto his thumb nail, and at once ignorantly cleans the nail on some other part of the body. The general prevalence of this itch is largely due to the gregarious life of the people—to the fact that the males lounge in public quarters, and all, except married men and women, sleep in these same quarters where the naked skin readily takes up virus left on the stone seats and sleeping boards by an infected companion. In Banawi, in the Quiangan culture area, a district having no public buildings, one can scarcely find a trace of skin eruption.
There are two adult people in Samoki pueblo who are insane; one of them at least is supposed to be affected by Lumawig, the Igorot god, and is said, when he hallooes, as he does at times, to be calling to Lumawig. Bontoc pueblo has a young woman and a girl of five or six years of age who are imbecile. Those four people are practically incapacitated from earning a living, and are cared for by their immediate relatives. There are two adult deaf and dumb men in Bontoc pueblo, but both are industrious and self-supporting.
Igorot badly injured in war or elsewhere are usually killed at their own request. In May, 1903, a man from Maligkong was thrown to the earth and rendered unconscious by a heavy timber he and several companions brought to Bontoc for the school building. His companions immediately told Captain Eckman to shoot him as he was “no good.” I can not say whether it is customary for the Igorot to weed out those who faint temporarily—as the fact just cited suggests; however, they do not kill the feeble aged, and the presence of the insane and the imbecile shows that weak members of the group are not always destroyed voluntarily.
1Map No. 7 in the Atlas of the Philippine Islands. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1900.)
1Map No. 7 in the Atlas of the Philippine Islands. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1900.)
2R. P. Fr. Angel Perez, Igorrotes, Estudio Geográfico y Etnográfico, etc. (Manila, 1902), p. 7.
2R. P. Fr. Angel Perez, Igorrotes, Estudio Geográfico y Etnográfico, etc. (Manila, 1902), p. 7.
3Op. cit., p. 29.
3Op. cit., p. 29.
Bontoc and Samoki pueblos, in all essentials typical of pueblos in the Bontoc area, lie in the mountains in a roughly circular pocket called Pa-pas′-kan. A perfect circle abouta milein diameter might be described within the pocket. It is bisected fairly accurately by the Chico River, coursing from the southwest to the northeast. Its altitude ranges from about2,750 feetat the river to2,900at the upper edge of Bontoc pueblo, which is close to the base of the mountain ridge at the west, while Samoki is backed up against the opposite ridge to the southeast. The river flows between the pueblos, though considerably closer to Samoki than to Bontoc.
The horizon circumscribing this pocket is cut at the northeast, where the river makes its exit, and lifting above this gap are two ranges of mountains beyond. At the south-southeast there is another cut, through which a small affluent pours into the main stream. At the southwest the river enters the pocket, although no cut shows in the horizon, as the stream bends abruptly and the farther range of mountains folds close upon the near one.
Bontoc lies compactly built on a sloping piece of ground, roughly abouthalf a mile square. Through the pueblo are two water-cut ravines, down which pour the waters of the mountain ridge in the rainy season, and in which, during much of the remainder of the year, sufficient water trickles to supply several near-by dwellings.
Adjoining the pueblo on the north and west are two small groves where a religious ceremonial is observed each month. Granaries for rice are scattered all about the outer fringe of dwellings, and in places they follow the ravines in among the buildings of the pueblo. The old, broad Spanish trail runs close to the pueblo on the south and east, as it passes in and out of the pocket through the gaps cut by the river. About the pueblo at the east and northeast are some fifteen houses built in Spanish time, most of them now occupied by Ilokano men with Igorot or half-breed wives. There also were the Spanish Governmentbuildings, reduced to a church, a convent, and another building used now as headquarters for the Government Constabulary.
The pueblo, now 2,000 or 2,500 people, was probably at one time larger. There is a tradition common in both Bontoc and Samoki that in former years the ancestors of this latter pueblo lived northeast of Bontoc toward the northern corner of the pocket. They say they moved to the opposite side of the river because there they would have more room. There they have grown to 1,200 or 1,500 souls. Still later, but yet before the Spanish came, a large section of people from northeastern Bontoc moved bodily to Lias, about two days to the east. They tell that a Bontoc woman named Fank′-a was the wife of a Lias man, and when a drought and famine visited Bontoc the section of the pueblo from which she came moved as a whole to Lias, then a small collection of people. Still later, La′-nao, a detached section of Bontoc on the lowland near the river, was suddenly wiped out by a disease.
The Igorot is given to naming even small areas of the earth within his well-known habitat, and there are four areas in Bontoc pueblo having distinct names. These names in no way refer to political or social divisions—they are not the “barrio” of the coast pueblos of the Islands, neither are they in any way like a “ward” in an American city, nor are they “additions” to an original part of the pueblo—they are names of geographic areas over which the pueblo was built or has spread. From south to north these areas are A-fu′, Mag-e′-o, Dao′-wi, and Um-fĕg′.
Bontoc is composed of seventeen political divisions, called “a′-to.” The geographic area of A-fu′ contains four a′-to, namely, Fa-tay′-yan, Po-lup-o′, Am-ka′-wa, and Bu-yay′-yĕng; Mag-e′-o contains three, namely, Fi′-lĭg, Mag-e′-o, and Cha-kong′; Dao′-wi has six, namely, Lo-wĭng′-an, Pud-pud-chog′, Si-pa′-at, Si-gi-chan′, So-mo-wan′, and Long-foy′; Um-fĕg′ has four, Po-ki′-san, Lu-wa′-kan, Ung-kan′, and Cho′-ko. Each a′-to is a separate political division. It has its public buildings; has a separate governing council which makes peace, challenges to war, and accepts or rejects war challenges, and it formally releases and adopts men who change residence from one a′-to to another.
Border a′-to Fa-tay′-yan seems to be developing an offspring—a new a′-to; a part of it, the southwestern border part, is now known as “Tang-e-ao′.” It is disclaimed as a separate a′-to, yet it has a distinctive name, and possesses some of the marks of an independent a′-to. In due time it will doubtless become such.
In Sagada, Agawa, Takong, and near-by pueblos the a′-to is said to be known as dap′-ay; and in Balili and Alap both names are known.
The pueblo must be studied entirely through the a′-to. It is onlyan aggregate of which the various a′-to are the units, and all the pueblo life there is is due to the similarity of interests of the several a′-to.
Bontoc does not know when her pueblo was built—she was always where she now is—but they say that some of the a′-to are newer than others. In fact, they divide them into the old and new. The newer ones are Bu-yay′-yĕng, Am-ka′-wa, Po-lup-o′, Cha-kong′, and Po-ki′-san; all these are border a′-to of the pueblo.
The generations of descendants of men who did distinct things are kept carefully in memory; and from the list of descendants of the builders of some of the newer a′-to it seems probable that Cha-kong′ was the last one built. One of the builders was Sal-lu-yud′; he had a son named Tam-bul′, and Tam-bul′ was the father of a man in Bontoc now some twenty-five years old. It is probable that Cha-kong′ was built about 1830—in the neighborhood of seventy-five years ago. The plat of the pueblo seems to strengthen the impression that Cha-kong′ is the newest a′-to, since it appears to have been built in territory previously used for rice granaries; it is all but surrounded by such ground now.
One of the builders of Bu-yay′-yĕng, an a′-to adjoining Cha-kong′, and also one of the newer ones, was Ba-la-ge′. Ba-la-ge′ was the great-great-great-grandfather of Mud-do′, who is a middle-aged man now in Bontoc. The generations of fathers descending from Ba-la-ge′ to Mud-do′ are the following: Bang-ĕg′, Cag-i′-yu, Bĭt-e′, and Ag-kus′. It seems from this evidence that the a′-to Bu-yay′-yĕng was built about one hundred and fifty years ago. These facts suggest a much greater age for the older a′-to of the pueblo.
An a′-to has three classes of buildings occupied by the people—the fawi and pabafunan, public structures for boys and men, and the olag for girls and young women before their permanent marriage; and the dwellings occupied by families and by widows, which are called afong. Each of these three classes of buildings plays a distinct rôle in the life of the people.
The pa-ba-fu′-nan is the home of the various a′-to ceremonials. It is sacred to the men of the a′-to, and on no occasion do the women or girls enter it.
All boys from 3 or 4 years of age and all men who have no wives sleep nightly in the pa-ba-fu′-nan or in the fa′-wi.
The pa-ba-fu′-nan building consists of a low, squat, stone-sided structure partly covered with a grass roof laid on a crude frame of poles; the stone walls extend beyond the roof at one end and form an open court. The roofed part is about8 by 10 feet, and usually is not over5 feethigh in any part, inside measure; the size of the court is approximately the same as that of the roofed section. In some pa-ba-fu′-nan a part of the court is roofed over for shelter in case of rain, but isnot walled in. Under this roof skulls of dogs and hogs are generally found tucked away. Carabao horns and chicken feathers are also commonly seen in such places.
In many cases the open court is shaded by a tree. Posts are found reared above most of the courts. Some are old and blackened; others are all but gone—a short stump being all that projects above the earth. The tops of some posts are rudely carved to represent a human head; on the tops of others, as in a′-to Lowingan and Sipaat, there are stones which strikingly resemble human skulls. It is to the tops of these posts that the enemy’s head is attached when a victorious warrior returns to his a′-to. Both the roofed and court sections are paved with stone, and large stones are also arranged around the sides of the court, some more or less elevated as seats; they are worn smooth and shiny by generations of use. In the center of the court is the smoldering remains of a fire. The only opening into the covered part is a small doorway connecting it with the court. This door is barely large enough to permit a man to squeeze in sidewise; it is often not over2½ feethigh and10 incheswide. The occupants of the pa-ba-fu′-nan usually sleep curled up naked on the smooth, flat stones. A few people have runo slat mats, some of which roll up, while others are inflexible, and they lie on these over the stone pavement. Fires are built in all sleeping rooms when it is cold, and the rooms all close tightly with a door.
In the court of the building the men lounge when not at work in the fields; they sleep, or smoke and chat, tend babies, or make utensils and weapons. The pa-ba-fu′-nan is the man’s club by day, and the unmarried man’s dormitory by night, and, as such, it is the social center for all men of the a′-to, and it harbors at night all men visiting from other pueblos.
Each a′-to, except Chakong, has a pa-ba-fu′-nan. When the men of Chakong were building theirs they met the pueblo of Sadanga in combat, and one of the builders lost his head to Sadanga. Then the old men of Chakong counciled together; they came to the conclusion that it was bad for the a′-to to have a pa-ba-fu′-nan, and none has ever been built. This absence of the pa-ba-fu′-nan in some way detracts from the importance of the a′-to in the minds of the people. For instance, in the early stages of this study I was told several times that there are sixteen (and not seventeen) a′-to in Bontoc. The first list of a′-to written did not include Chakong; it was discovered only when the pueblo was platted, and at that time my informants sought to pass it over by saying “It is Chakong, but it has no pa-ba-fu′-nan.” The explanation of the obscurity of Chakong in the minds of the Igorot seems to be that the a′-to ceremonial is more important than the a′-to council—that the emotional and not the mental is held uppermost, that the people of Bontoc flow together through feeling better than they drive together through cold force or control.
The a′-to ceremonials of Chakong are held in the pa-ba-fu′-nan of neighboring a′-to, as in Sigichan, Pudpudchog, or Filig, and this seems partially to destroy theesprit de corpsof the unfortunate a′-to.
Each a′-to has a fa′-wi building—a structure greatly resembling to the pa-ba-fu′-nan, and impossible to be distinguished from it by one looking at the structure from the outside. The fa′-wi and pa-ba-fu′-nan are shown inPls. XXX,XXXI, andXXXII.Pl. XXIXshows a section of Sipaat a′-to with its fa′-wi and pa-ba-fu′-nan. The fa′-wi is the a′-to council house; as such it is more frequented by the old men than by the younger. The fa′-wi also shelters the skulls of human heads taken by the a′-to. Outside the pueblo, along certain trails, there are simple structures also called “fa′-wi,” shelters where parties halt for feasts, etc., while on various ceremonial journeys.
The fa′-wi and pa-ba-fu′-nan of each a′-to are near together, and in five they are under the same roof, though there is no doorway for intercommunication. What was said of the pa-ba-fu′-nan as a social center is equally true of the fa′-wi; each is the lounging place of men and boys, and the dormitory of unmarried males.
In Samoki each of the eight a′-to has only one public building, and that is known simply as “a′-to.”
One is further convinced of an extensive early movement of the primitive Malayan from its pristine nest by the presence of institutions similar to the pa-ba-fu′-nan and fa′-wi over a vast territory of the Asiatic mainland as well as the Asiatic Islands and Oceania. That these widespread institutions sprang from the same source will be seen clearly in the quotations appearing in the footnote below.1The visible exponent of the institutions is a building forbidden to women, the functions of which are several; it is a dormitory for men—generally unmarried men—a council house, a guardhouse, a guest house for men, a center for ceremonials of the group, and a resting place for the trophies of the chase and war—a “head house.”
The o′-lâg is the dormitory of the girls in an a′-to from the age of about 2 years until they marry. It is a small stone and mud-walled structure, roofed with grass, in which a grown person can seldomstand erect. It has but a single opening—a door some30 incheshigh and10 incheswide. Occupying nearly all the floor space are boards about4 feetlong and from8 to 14 incheswide; each board is a girl’s bed. They are placed close together, side by side, laid on a frame abouta footabove the earth. One end, where the head rests, is slightly higher that the other, while in most o′-lâg a pole for a foot rest runs along the foot of the bedsa few inchesfrom them. The building as shown inPl. XXXIIIis typical of the nineteen found in Bontoc pueblo—though it does not show, what is almost invariably true, that it is built over one or more pigsties. This condition is illustrated inPl. XXIX, where a widow’s house is shown literally resting above the stone walls of several sties. Unlike the fawi and pabafunan, the o′-lâg has no adjoining court, and no shady surroundings. It is built to house the occupants only at night.
The o′-lâg is not so distinctly an ato institution as the pabafunan and fawi. Ato Ungkan never had an o′-lâg. The demand is not so urgent as that of some ato, since there are only thirteen families in Ungkan. The girls occupy o′-lâg of neighboring ato.
The o′-lâg of Luwakan, of Lowingan, and of Sipaat (the last situated in Lowingan) are broken down and unused at present. There are no marriageable girls in any of these three ato now, and the small girls occupy near-by o′-lâg. These three o′-lâg will be rebuilt when the girls are large enough to cook food for the men who build. The o′-lâg of Amkawa is in Buyayyeng near the o′-lâg of the latter; it is there by choice of the occupants.
Mageo, with her twenty families, also has two o′-lâg, but both are situated in Pudpudchog.
The o′-lâg is the only Igorot building which has received a specific name, all others bear simply the class name.2
In Sagada and some nearby pueblos, as Takong and Agawa, the o′-lâg is said to be called Ĭf-gan′.
Mr. S. H. Damant is quoted from the Calcutta Review (vol. 61, p. 93) as saying that among the Năgăs, frontier tribes of northeast India—
Only very young children live entirely with their parents; … the women have also a house of their own called the “dekhi chang,” where the unmarried girls are supposed to live.
Only very young children live entirely with their parents; … the women have also a house of their own called the “dekhi chang,” where the unmarried girls are supposed to live.
Again Mr. Damant wrote:
I saw Dekhi chang here for the first time. All the unmarried girls sleep there at night, but it is deserted in the day. It is not much different from any ordinary house.3
I saw Dekhi chang here for the first time. All the unmarried girls sleep there at night, but it is deserted in the day. It is not much different from any ordinary house.3
Separate sleeping houses for girls similar to the o′-lâg, I judge, are also found occasionally in Assam.4
Whereas, so far as known, the o′-lâg occurs with the Igorot only among the Bontoc culture group, yet the above quotations and references point to a similar institution among distant people—among some of the same people who have an institution very similar to the pabafunan and fawi.
A′-fong is the general name for Bontoc dwellings, of which there are two kinds. The first is the fay′-ü (Pls. XXXIVandXXXVI), the large, open, board dwelling, some12 by 15 feetsquare, with side walls only3½ feethigh, and having a tall, top-heavy grass roof. It is the home of the prosperous. The other is the kat-yu′-fong (Pl. XXXVII), the smaller, closed, frequently mud-walled dwelling of poor families, and commonly of the widows.
The family dwelling primarily serves two purposes—it is the place where the man, his wife, and small child sleep, and where the entire family takes its food.
The fay′-ü is built at considerable expense. Three or four men are required for a period of about two months to get out the pine boards and timbers in the forest. Each piece of timber for any permanent building is completed at the time it is cut from the tree, and is left to season in the mountains; sometimes it remains several years. (SeePl. XXXV.) When all is ready to construct the dwelling the owner announces his intention. Some 200 men of the pueblo gather to erect the building, and two or three dozen women come to prepare and cook the necessary food, for, whereas no wage is paid the laborers, all are feasted at the cost of much rice and several hogs and a carabao or two. The toiling and feasting continue about ten days.
The following description of a fay′-ü is of an ordinary dwelling in Bontoc pueblo: The fay′-ü are all constructed on the same plan, though a few are larger than the one here described, and some few are smaller. The front and back walls of the house are3 feet 6 incheshigh and12 feet 6 incheslong. The two side walls are the same height as the ends, but are15 feet 6 incheslong. The rear wall is built of stones carefully chinked with mud. The side walls consist each of two boards extending the full length of the structure. The front wall is cut near the middlefrom top to bottom with a doorway1 foot 4 incheswide; otherwise the front wall is like the two side walls, except that it has a roughly triangular timber grooved along the lower side and fitted over the top board as a cap. The doorposts are two timbers sunk in the ground; their tops fit into the two “caps,” and each has a groove from top to bottom into which the ends of the boards of the front wall are inserted. A few dwellings have a door consisting of a single board set on end and swinging on a projection sunk in a hole in a doorsill buried in the earth; the upper part of the door swings on a string secured to the doorpost and passing through a hole in the door.
At each of the four corners of the building, immediately inside the walls, is a post set in the ground and standing6 feet 9 incheshigh. The boards of the walls are tied to these corner posts, and the greater part of the weight of the roof rests on their tops. Four other posts, also planted in the ground and about as high as the corner posts, stand about4 feetinside the walls of the house equidistant from the corner post and marking the corners of a rectangle about5½ feet square. They directly support the second story of the building.
There is no floor except the earth in the first story of the Bontoc dwelling, and from the door at the front of the building to the two rear posts of the four central ones there is an unobstructed passage or aisle called “cha-la′-nan.” At one’s left, as he enters the door, is a small room called “chap-an′”5½ feet squareseparated from the aisle by a row of low stones partially sunk in the earth. The earth in this room is excavated so that the floor is about1 footlower than that of the remainder of the building, and in its center the peculiar double wooden rice mortar is imbedded in the earth. It is in the chap-an′ that the family rice and millet is threshed. At the left of the aisle and immediately beyond the chap-an′, separated from it by a board partition the same height as the outside walls of the house, is the cooking room, called “cha-le-ka-nan′ si mo-o′-to.” It is approximately the same size as the threshing room. There are neither boards nor stones to cut this cooking room off from the open aisle of the house, but its width is determined by a low pile of stones built along its farther side from the outer house wall toward the aisle and ending at the rear left post of the four central ones. In the face of this stone wall are three concavities—fireplaces over which cooking pots are placed. Arranged along the outer wall, and about2 feethigh, is a board shelf on which the water jars are kept.
At the right of the aisle, as one enters the building, is a broad shelf about12 feetlong; in width it extends from the side wall to the two right central posts. On this shelf, called “chûk′-so,” are placed the various baskets and other utensils and implements of everyday use. Beneath it are stored the small cages or coops in which the chickenssleep at night. There are a few fay′-ü in Bontoc in which the threshing room and cooking room are on the right of the aisle and the long bench is on the left, but they are very rare exceptions.
In the rear of the building is a board partition apparently extending from one side wall to the other. The bench at the right of the aisle ends against this partition, and on the left the stone fireplaces are built against it. This rear section is covered over with boards at the height of the outside wall, so that a low box is formed,3½ feethigh and4¼ feetwide. At the rear of the aisle a door3 feethigh and1 foot 4 incheswide swings into this rear apartment, which, when the door is again closed, is as black as night. An examination of the inside of this section shows it to be entirely walled with stones except where the narrow door cuts it. By inside measure it is only3 feet 6 incheswide and6 feet 6 incheslong. This is the sleeping apartment, and is called ang-an′. As one crawls into this kennel he is likely to place his hands among ashes and charred sticks which mark the place for a fire on cold nights. The left end of the ang-an′ contains two boards or beds for the man and his wife. Each board is about18 incheswide and4 feetlong; they are raised2 or 3 inchesfrom the earth, and the head of the bed is slightly higher than the foot. A pole is laid across the apartment at the lower end of the sleeping boards, and on this the occupants rest their feet and toast them before the small fire. At both ends of the ang-an′, outside the store walls, is a small hidden secret space called “kûb-kûb,” in which the family hides many of its choice possessions. During abundant camote5gathering, however, I have seen the kûb-kûb filled with camotes. I should probably not have discovered these spaces had there not been so great a discrepancy between the inside measure of the sleeping room and width of the building.
I know of no other primitive dwellings in the Philippines than the ones in the Bontoc culture area which are built directly on the ground. Most of them are raised on postsseveral feetfrom the earth. Some few have side walls extending to the ground, but even those have a floor raised2, 3, or more feetfrom the ground and which is reached by means of a short ladder.
The second story of the Bontoc dwelling is supported on the four central posts. On all sides it projects beyond them, so that it is about7 feet square; it is about5 feethigh. A door enters the second story directly from the aisle, and is reached by an8-footladder. This second story is constructed, floor and side walls, of boards. The side walls cease at about the height of2 feetwhere a horizontal shelf is built on them extending outside of them to the roof. It is about2 feetwide and is usually stored with unthreshed rice and millet or with jars of preserved meats. Just at the left on the floor, as one enters the second story, is an earth-filled square corner walled in by two poles. On thisearth are three stones—the fireplace, where each year a chicken is cooked in a household ceremony at the close of rice harvests.
Rising above the second story is a third. In the smaller dwellings this third story is only an attic of the second, but in the larger buildings it is an independent story. To be sure, it is entered through the floor, but a ladder is used, and its floor is of strong heavy boards. It is at all times a storeroom, usually only for cereals. In the smaller houses it amounts simply to a broad shelf about the height of one’s waist as he stands on the floor of the second story and his head and upper body rise through the hole in the floor. In the larger houses a person may climb into the third story and work there with practically as much freedom as in the second.
The5-footridgepole of the steep, heavy, grass roof is supported by two posts rising from the basal timbers of the third story. The roof falls away sharply from the ridgepole not only at the sides but at the ends, so that, except at the ridge, the roof appears square. Immediately beneath both ends of the ridgepole there is a small opening in the grass through which the smoke of the cooking fires is supposed to escape. However, I have scarcely ever seen smoke issue from them, and, since the entire inner part of the building from the floor of the second story to the ridgepole is thickly covered with soot, it seems that little unconsumed carbon escapes through the smoke holes. The lower part of the roof, for3½ feet, descends at a less steep angle, thus forming practically an awning against sun and rain. Its lower edge is about4 feetfrom the ground and projects some4 feetbeyond the side walls of the lower story.
The kat-yu′-fong, the dwelling of the poor, consists of a one-story structure built on the ground with the earth for the floor. Some such buildings have a partition or partial partition running across them, beyond which are the sleeping boards, and there are shelves here and there; but the kat-yu′-fong is a makeshift, and consequently is not so fixed a type of dwelling as the fay′-ü.
Piled close around the dwellings is a supply of firewood in the shape of pine blocks3 or 4 feetlong, usually cut from large trees. These blocks furnish favorite lounging places for the women. The people live most of the time outside their dwellings, and it is there that the social life of the married women is. Any time of day they may be seen close to the a′-fong in the shade of the low, projecting roof sitting spinning or paring camotes; often three or four neighbors sit thus together and gossip. The men are seldom with them, being about the ato buildings in the daytime when not working. A few small children may be about the dwelling, as the little girls frequently help in preparing food for cooking.
During the day the dwelling is much alone. When it is so left one andsometimes two runo stalks are set up in the earth on each side of the door leaning against the roof and projecting some8 feetin the air. This is the pud-i-pud′, the “ethics lock” on an Igorot dwelling. An Igorot who enters the a′-fong of a neighbor when the pud-i-pud′ is up is called a thief—in the mind of all who see him he is such.
Bontoc families are monogamous, and monogamy is the rule throughout the area, though now and then a man has two wives. The presidente of Titipan has five wives, for each of whom he has a separate house, and during my residence in Bontoc he was building a sixth house for a new wife; but such a family is the exception—I never heard of another.
Many marriage unions produce eight and ten children, though, since the death rate is large, it is probable that families do not average more than six individuals.
A woman is usually about her daily labors in the house, the mountains, or the irrigated fields almost to the hour of childbirth. The child is born without feasting or ceremony, and only two or three friends witness the birth. The father of the child is there, if he is the woman’s husband; the girl’s mother is also with her, but usually there are no others, unless it be an old woman.
The expectant woman stands with her body bent strongly forward at the waist and supported by the hands grasping some convenient house timber about the height of the hips; or she may take a more animal-like position, placing both hands and feet on the earth.
The labor, lasting three or four hours, is unassisted by medicines or baths; but those in attendance—the man as well as the woman—hasten the birth by a gently downward drawing of the hands about the woman’s abdomen.
During a period of ten days after childbirth the mother frequently bathes herself about the hips and abdomen with hot water, but has no change of diet. For two or three days she keeps the house closely, reclining much of the time.
The Igorot woman is a constant laborer from the age of puberty or before, until extreme incapacity of old age stays the hands of toil; but for two or three months following the advent of each babe the mother does not work in the fields. She busies herself about the house and with the new-found duties of a mother, while the husband performs her labors in the fields.
The Igorot loves all his children, and says, when a boy is born, “It is good,” and if a girl is born he says it is equally “good”—it is the fact of a child in the family that makes him happy. People in theIgorot stage of culture have little occasion to prize one sex over the other. The Igorot neither, even in marriage. One is practically as capable as the other at earning a living, and both are needed in the group.
Six or seven days after birth a chicken is killed and eaten by the family in honor of the child, but there is no other ceremony—there is not even a special name for the feast.
If a woman gives birth to a stillborn child it is at once washed, wrapped in a bit of cloth, and buried in a camote sementera close to the dwelling.
The Igorot do not understand twins,—na-a-pĭk′, as they say. Carabaos have only one babe at a birth, so why should women have two babes? they ask. They believe that one of the twins, which unfortunate one they call “a-tĭn-fu-yang′,” is an anito child; it is the offspring of an anito.6The anito father is said to have been with the mother of the twins in her unconscious slumber, and she is in no way criticised or reproached.
The most quiet babe, or, if they are equally quiet, the larger one, is said to be “a-tĭn-fu-yang′,” and is at once placed in an olla7and buried alive in a sementera near the dwelling.
On the 13th of April, 1903, the wife of A-li-koy′, of Samoki, gave birth to twin babies. Contrary to the advice and solicitations of the old men and the universal custom of the people, A-li-koy′ saved both children, because, as he pointed out, an Ilokano of Bontoc had twin children, now 7 years old, and they are all right. Thus the breaking down of this peculiar form of infanticide may have begun.
Both married and unmarried women practice abortion when for any reason the prospective child is not desired. It is usual, however, for the mother of a pregnant girl to object to her aborting, saying that soon she would become “po′-ta”—the common mate of several men, rather than the faithful wife of one.
Abortion is accomplished without the use of drugs and is successful only during the first eight or ten weeks of pregnancy. The abdomen is bathed for several days in hot water, and the body is pressed and stroked downward with the hands. The foetus is buried by the woman. Only the woman herself or her mother or other near female friend is present at the abortion, though no effort is made at secrecy and its practice is no disgrace.
All male babes are called “kil-lang′” and all girl babes “gna-an′.” All live practically the same life day after day. Their sole nourishment is their mother’s milk, varied now and then by that of some other woman, if the mother is obliged to leave the babe for a half day or so. When the babe’s first teeth appear it has a slight change of diet; its attendant now and then feeds it cooked rice, thoroughly masticated and mixed with saliva. This food is passed to the child’s mouth directly from that of the attendant by contact of lips—quite as the domestic canary feeds its young. The babes are always unclothed, and for several months are washed daily in cold water, usually both morning and night. It is a common sight at the river to see the mother, who has come down with her babe on her back for an olla of water, bathe the babe, who never seems at all frightened in the process, but to enjoy it—this, too, at times when the water would seem to be uncomfortably cold. One often sees the father or grandmother washing the older babes at the river.
But in spite of these baths the Igorot babe, at least after it has reached the age of six or eight months, when seen in the pueblo is almost without exception very dirty; a child of a year or a year and a half is usually repulsively so. Its head has received no attention since birth, and is scaly and dirty if not actually full of sores. Its baths are now relatively infrequent, and its need of them as it plays on the dirt floor of the dwelling or pabafunan even more urgent than when it spent most of its time in the carrying blanket.
Babes have no cradles or stationary places for rest or sleep. A babe, slumbering or awake, is never laid down alone because of the fear that an anito will injure it. At night the babe sleeps between its parents, on its mother’s arm. It spends its days almost without exception sitting in a blanket which is tied over the shoulder of one of its parents, its brother, or its sister. There it hangs, awake or asleep, sitting or sprawling, often a pitiable little object with the sun in its eyes and the flies hovering over its dirty face. Frequently a child of only 5 or 6 years old may be seen with a babe on its back, and older children are constant baby tenders. Babes may be found in the fawi and pabafunan where the men are lounging (Pl. XXXII), and the old men and women also care for their grandchildren. Grown people quite as commonly carry the babe astride one hip if they have an empty hand which they can put around it, and often a mother along the trail carries it at her breast where it seemingly nurses as contentedly as when in the shade of the dwelling.
Children are generally weaned long before they are 2 years old, buttwice I have seen a young pillager of 5 years, while patting and stroking his mother’s hips and body as she transplanted rice, yield to his early baby instinct and suckle from her pendant breasts.
After the child is about 2 years of age it is not customary for it to sleep longer at the home of the parents; the girl goes nightly to the olag, and the boy to the pabafunan or the fawi. However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule, and the age at which the child goes to the olag or fawi depends much on circumstances. The length of time it sleeps with the parents doubtless depends upon the advent or nonadvent of another child. If a little girl has a widowed grandmother or aunt she may sleep for a few years with her. During the warmer months one or two children may sleep on the stationary broad bench, the chukso, in the open part of the parents’ house. It is safe to say that after the ages of 6 or 7 all children are found nightly in the olag, pabafunan, or fawi. I have seen a group of little girls from 4 to 10 years old, immediately after supper and while some families were still eating, sitting around a small blaze of fire just outside the door of their olag. The Igorot child as a rule knows its parents’ home only as a place to eat. There is almost an entire absence of anything which may be called home life.
The Igorot has no definite system of naming. Parents may frequently change the name of a child, and an individual may change his during maturity. There are several reasons why names are changed, but there is no system, nor is it ever necessary to change them.
A child usually receives its first personal name between the years of 2 and 5. This first name is always that of some dead ancestor, usually only two or three generations past. The reason for this is the belief that the anito of the ancestor cares for and protects its descendants when they are abroad. If the name a child bears is that of a dead ancestor it will receive the protection of the anito of the ancestor; if the child does not prosper or has accidents or ill health, the parents will seek a more careful or more benevolent protector in the anito of some other ancestor whose name is given the child.
To illustrate this changing of names: A boy in Tukukan, two hours from Bontoc, was first named Sa-pang′ when less than a year old. At the end of a year the paternal grandfather, An-ti′-ko, died in Tukukan, and the babe was named An-ti′-ko. In a few years the boy’s father died, and the mother married a man in Bontoc, the home of her childhood. She moved to Bontoc with her boy, and then changed his name to Fa-li-kao′, her dead father’s name. The reason for this last change was because the anito of An-ti′-ko, always in or about Tukukan, could not care for the child in Bontoc, whereas the anito of Fa-li-kao′ in Bontoc could do so.
The selection of the names of ancestors is shown by the following generations:
Mang-i-lot′ (4) is the baby name of an old man now about 60 years old; it was the name of his great-grandfather (1). Numbers 5a, 5b, 5c, and 5dare the sons of Mang-i-lot′ (4), all of whom died before receiving a second name. The child Kom-lĭng′ (5 a) was given the name of his paternal grandfather (3). Ta-kay′-yĕng (5b) bears the name of his maternal great-grandfather. Tĕng-ab′ (5c) and Ka-wĕng′ (5d) both bear the names of uncles, brothers of the boy’s mother. The present name of Mang-i-lot′ (4) is O-lu-wan′; this is the name of a man at Barlig whose head was the first one taken by Mang-i-lot′. A man may change his name each time he takes a head, though it is not customary to do so more than once or twice.
Girls as well as boys may receive during childhood two or three names, that they may receive the protection of an anito. In Igorot names there is no vestige of a kinship group tracing relation through either the paternal or maternal line.
The people are generally reticent about telling their names; and when they do tell, the name given is usually the one borne in childhood; an old man will generally answer “am-a′-ma,” meaning simply “old man.”
Most boys are circumcised at from 4 to 7 years of age. The act of circumcision, called “sĭg-i-at′,” occurs privately without feasting or rite. The only formality is the payment of a few leaves of tobacco to the man who performs the operation. There are one or two old men in each ato who understand circumcision, but there is no cult for its performance or perpetuation.
The foreskin is cut lengthwise on the upper side forhalf an inch. Either a sharp, blade-like piece of bamboo is inserted in the foreskin which is cut from the inside, or the back point of a battle-ax is stuck firmly in the earth, and the foreskin is cut by being drawn over the sharp point of the blade.
The Igorot say that if the foreskin is not cut it will grow long, as does the unclipped camote vine. What the origin or purpose of circumcision was is not now known by the people of Bontoc. The practice isbelieved to have come with them from an earlier home; it is widespread in the Archipelago.
The life of little girls is strangely devoid of games and playthings. They have no dolls and, I have never seen them play with the puppies which are scattered throughout the pueblo much of the year—both common playthings for the girls of primitive people. It is not improbable that the instinct which compels most girls, no matter what their grade of culture, to play the mother is given full expression in the necessary care of babes—a care in which the girls, often themselves almost babes, have a much larger part than their brothers. Girls also go to the fields with their parents much more than do the boys.
Girls and boys never play together in the same group. Time and again one comes suddenly on a romping group of chattering, naked little boys or girls. They usually run noiselessly into the nearest foliage or behind the nearest building, and there stand unmoving, as a pursued chicken pokes its head into the grass and seems to think itself hidden. They need not be afraid of one, seeing him every day, yet the instinct to flee is strong in them—they do exactly what their mothers do when suddenly met in the trail—they run away, or start to.
Several times I have found little girls building tiny sementeras with pebbles, and it is probable they play at planting and harvesting the crops common to their pueblo. They have one game called “I catch your ankle,” which is the best expression of unfettered childplay and mirth I have ever seen.
After the sun had dropped behind the mountain close to the pueblo, from six to a dozen girls ranging from 5 to 10 or 11 years of age came almost nightly to the smooth grass plat in front of our house to play “sĭs-sĭs′-ki” (I catch your ankle). They laid aside their blankets and lined up nude in two opposing linestwelve or fifteen feetapart. All then called: “Sĭs-sĭs′-ki ad wa′-ni wa′-ni!” (which is, “I catch your ankle, now! now!”). Immediately the two lines crouched on their haunches, and, in half-sitting posture, with feet side by side, each girl bounced toward her opponent endeavoring to catch her ankle. After the two attacking parties met they intermingled, running and tumbling, chasing and chased, and the successful girl rapidly dragged her victim by the ankle along the grass until caught and thrown by a relief party or driven away by the approach of superior numbers. They lined up anew every five or ten minutes.
During the entire game, lasting a full half hour or until night settled on them or a mother came to take home one of the little, romping, wild things—just as the American child is called from her games to an early bed—peal after peal of the heartiest, sweetest laughter rang a constant chorus.The boys have at least two systematic games. One is fûg-fûg-to′, in imitation of a ceremonial of the men after each annual rice harvest. The game is a combat with rocks, and is played sometimes by thirty or forty boys, sometimes by a much smaller number. The game is a contest—usually between Bontoc and Samoki—with the broad, gravelly river bed as the battle ground. There they charge and retreat as one side gains or loses ground; the rocks fly fast and straight, and are sometimes warded off by small basket-work shields shaped like the wooden ones of war. They sometimes play for an hour and a half at a time, and I have not yet seen them play when one side was not routed and driven home on the run amid the shouts of the victors.
The other game is kag-kag-tin′. It is also a game of combat and of opposing sides, but it is not so dangerous as the other and there are no bruises resulting. Some half-dozen or a dozen boys play kag-kag-tin′ charging and retreating, fighting with the bare feet. The naked foot necessitates a different kick than the one shod with a rigid leather shoe; the stroke from an unshod foot is more like a blow from the fist shot out from the shoulder. The foot lands flat and at the side of or behind the kicker, and the blow is aimed at the trunk or head—it usually lands higher than the hips. This game in a combat between individuals of the opposing sides, though two often attack a single opponent until he is rescued by a companion. The game is over when the retreating side no longer advances to the combat.