Figure 2.Fig 2.—Parallel camote beds.Fig 2.—Parallel camote beds.
Fig 2.—Parallel camote beds.
Fig 2.—Parallel camote beds.
Figure 3.Fig 3.—Spiral camote beds.Fig 3.—Spiral camote beds.
Fig 3.—Spiral camote beds.
Fig 3.—Spiral camote beds.
The mountain-side sementera for camotes, maize, millet, and beans is prepared simply by being scratched or pickedan inch or twodeep with the woman’s camote stick, the su-wan′. If the plat is new the grass is burned before the scratching occurs, but if it is cultivated annually the surface seldom has any care save the shallow work of the su-wan′; in fact, the surface stones are seldom removed.
In the season of 1903, the first rains came April 5, and the first mountain sementera was scratched over for millet April 10, after five successive daily rains.
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 (seePl. 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 about100 poundsof 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 in10-poundpiles about5 feetapart 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.
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 (seePl. 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, sĭn-lu′-wi, are laid, without covering, on the soft ooze, under3 or 4 inchesof water. They are laid in rowsa few inchesapart, and are so close together that by the time the young plants are3 inchesabove 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 aregrown by the different irrigating peoples of northern Luzon. In Bontoc, ti′-pa is a white beardless variety. Ga′-sang is white, and cha-yĕt′-ĭt 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′-pĕng are also white; tu′-pĕng is sowed in unirrigated mountain sementeras in the rainy season. Gu-mĭk′-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 about2 by 4 inchesin diameter. Six of the varieties are white and two are red. The white ones are the following: Li-no′-ko, pa-to′-ki, ki′-nûb fa-fay′-i, pi-i-nĭt′, ki-wĕng′, and tang-tang-lab′. The red ones are si′-sĭg and pĭt-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-tâk′-no, a-go-bang′-bang, and la-ung′-an and the red are gĭs-gĭs′-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 onlya 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-nĕd′ are light-colored seeds; pi-tĭng′-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 onlyone-fifth of an inchlong. Usually it is pale green in color, though a few are black; both have an exterior white germ. I′-tab is aboutone-third of an inchlong. 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 aboutone-fourth of an inchin length.
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 about4 inchesin 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 (seePl. LIX). When the soil is ready the transplanter grasps a handful of the plants, twists off3 or 4 inchesof the blades, leaving the plant about6 incheslong, 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 about5 inchesapart. 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.
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 arethinned 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.
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 about8 inchesin length; it is called “kong-ok′.” This the boys beat when birds are near, producing an open, resonant sound which may readily be hearda mile.
The wind tosses about over the growing grain various “scarecrows.” The pa-chĕk′ 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 grass6 or 8 feethigh; the leaf, the sa-gi-kak′, hangs4 feetabove 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-lĭn′—the small, brown ricebird3found 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 alsomade in other shapes, as that of man, the lizard, etc. The pole is about20 feethigh, 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 about3 or 4 feetabove the grain (seePl. 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 space4 rods square, and they are certainly effectual, if they look as bird-like to ti-lĭn′ 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.Bird scarer in rice field.Bird scarer in rice field.
Bird scarer in rice field.
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 about15 incheslong and3 incheswide, 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 rightangles parallel cords withina few feetof 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 shocka quarter of a mileand trouble the birds over an areahalf an acrein 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 sticksa few feetabove the grain everythree or four yardsabout 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 than30 feetsquare. The trap has a closely woven, wooden dead fall, about10 or 15 inchessquare; 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 aswhen 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.
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-kü′ ta-mo i-sa′-mi sĭk′-a kĭn-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 areplanted, 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 yetsix or eight rodsdistant; my Igorot boys carrying the photographic outfit—boys who had lived four months in my house—laughingly but positively refused to follow me closer thanthree or four rodsto 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 aboutan inchin diameter) the useless leaves, all arranged for one grasp of the right hand, are stripped off and dropped; the bunch of fruit heads, toppinga 6-inchsection 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 sĭn fĭng-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 thestraw. 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.
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 about8 feetlong,5wide,4 feethigh at the sides and6at 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 abouta footfrom 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 inPl. 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 notgrown 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.
An irrigated sementera60 by 100 feet, having6,000 square feetof 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 the10,000-acreBonanza grain farms in the valley of the Red River of the North, and the5,000-acrecorn farm of Iowa.
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 exceptfor 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.
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.
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 interminglewith 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 about4 feetdeep,5 or 6 feetwide, and8 or 12 feetlong. It is entirely lined with bowlders, and the floor space consists of three sections of about equal size. One end istwo or more feetdeeper 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 about30 incheshigh 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 weighing10 poundsis worth about 3 pesos, and a hog weighing60 or 70 poundsis valued at about 12 pesos.
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 markingssimilar 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.
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.
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′-lâng, 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′-lâng 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′-lâng 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 “sĕg-fi′,” and is worn only when it rains, at which time the suk′-lâng 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 about12 feetlong. They are doubled, and so make the girdle about6 feetin length. The strings are the twisted inner bark of the same plants that play a large rôle 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 (seePl. XXI). Another girdle worn much in Tukukan, Kanyu, and Tulubin is called the “i-kĭt′.” It is made of six to twelve braided strings of bejuco (seePl. LXXX). It is constructed to fit the waist, has loops at both ends, passes oncearound the body, and fastens by a cord passing from one loop to the other. Both the sang-ki-tan′ and the i-kĭt′ 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-kĭt′. It is a twisted rope of bejuco, oftenan inchin diameter, and is much worn in Mayinit. A fourth girdle, called “ka′-chĭng,” 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 aboutone-sixth of an inchin diameter.
At about the age of puberty, say at 15, it is usual for the boy to possess a breechcloth, or wa′-nĭs. 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 (seePl. CXXVand alsoFrontispiece, 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 some8 incheswide and15 incheslong. 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.
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 “kûd-pas′.” Those of the women are of four kinds—the tĭ-na′-pi, the fa-yĭ-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-fĭd′, 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′-kĭs—a woven band about4 incheswide passing twice around the body (seePl. XXIII). The women sometimes wear the braided-string bejuco belt, i-kĭt′, worn by the men.
The lu-fĭd′ and the wa′-kĭs are the extent of woman’s ordinary clothing. For some months after the mother gives birth to a child she wears an extra wa′-kĭs 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 downthe 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 (seePl. 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 inPl. LXXXIV, which is a photograph of a Lepanto Igorot loom.
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 supporteda foot or twofrom 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.
The kay-kay (Pl. LXI) is one of the most indispensable wooden tools in Igorot land. It is a hard-wood implement from5 to 7 feetlong, 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 about2 feetlong andan inchin diameter (Pl. LXXV). It is a heavy, compact wood, and is used by the woman until worn down6 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 aboutsix 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.
Tûg-on′ is a large, long-handled spoon used exclusively as a drinking dipper for the fermented liquor called “sa-fu-ĕng′.”
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-chûs′.”
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 froman inchtoan inch and a halfin width and about6 inchesin 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 gettingout 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.
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 pitsseveral feetdeep on the hillside, shown inPl. 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 thepotter’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, betweena quarter and a half of a miledistant, 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 balls4 or 5 inchesin 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 inPl. LXXXIXa. 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 thehand and a short, round stick. This process is well illustrated inPl. 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, some4 or 5 inchesin 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.