The boys are constantly throwing reed spears, and they are fairly expert spearmen several years before they have a steel-bladed spear of their own. Frequently they roll the spherical grape fruit and throw their reeds at the fruit as it passes.
Here, there, and everywhere, singly or in groups, boys perform the Igorot dance step. A tin can in a boy’s hands is irresistibly beaten in rhythmic time, and the dance as surely follows the peculiar rhythmic beating as the beating follows the possession of the can. As the boys come stringing home at night from watching the palay fields, they come dancing, rhythmically beating a can, or two sticks, or their dinner basket, or beating time in the air—as though they held a gangsa8. The dance is in them, and they amuse themselves with it constantly.
Both boys and girls are much in the river, where they swim and dive with great frolic.
During the months of January and February, 1903, when there was much wind, the boys were daily flying kites, but it is a pastime borrowed of the Ilokano in the pueblo. Now and then a little fellow may be seen with a small, very rude bow and arrow, which also is borrowed from the Ilokano since the arrival of the Spaniard.
Puberty is reached relatively late, usually between the fourteenth and sixteenth years. No notice whatever is taken of it by the social group. There is neither feast nor rite to mark the event either for the individual or the group.
This nonobservance of the fact of puberty would be very remarkable, since its observance is so widespread among primitive people, were it not for the fact that the Igorot has developed the olag—an institution calculated to emphasize the fact and significance of puberty.
Though the o′-lâg is primarily the sleeping place of all unmarried girls, in the mind of the people it is, with startling consistency, the mating place of the young people of marriageable age.
A common sight on a rest day in the pueblo is that of a young man and woman, each with an arm around the other, loitering about under the same blanket, talking and laughing, one often almost supporting the other. There seems at all times to be the greatest freedom and friendliness among the young people. I have seen both a young man carrying a young woman lying horizontally along his shoulders, and a young woman carrying a young man astride her back. However, practically all courtship is carried on in the o′-lâg.
The courtship of the Igorot is closely defined when it is said that marriage never takes place prior to sexual intimacy, and rarely prior to pregnancy. There is one exception. This is when a rich and influential man marries a girl against her desires, but through the urgings of her parents.
It is customary for a young man to be sexually intimate with one, two, three, and even more girls at the same time. Two or more of them may be residents of one o′-lâg, and it is common for two or three men to visit the same o′-lâg at one time.
A girl is almost invariably faithful to her temporary lover, and this fact is the more surprising in the face of the young man’s freedom and the fact that the o′-lâg is nightly filled with little girls whose moral training is had there.
Young men are boldly and pointedly invited to the o′-lâg. A common form of invitation is for the girl to steal a man’s pipe, his pocket hat, or even the breechcloth he is wearing. They say one seldom recovers his property without going to the, o′-lâg for it.
When a girl recognizes her pregnancy she at once joyfully tells her condition to the father of the child, as all women desire children and there are few permanent marriages unblessed by them. The young man, if he does not wish to marry the girl, may keep her in ignoranceof his intentions for two or three months. If at last he tells her he will not marry her she receives the news with many tears, it is said, but is spared the gossip and reproach of others, and she will later become the wife of some other man, since her first child has proved her power to bear children.
When the mother notices her condition she asks who the father of the child is, and on being told that the man will not marry her the mother often tries to exert a rather tardy influence for better morals. She says, “That is bad. Why have you done this?” (when the chances are that the unfortunate, girl was born into a family of but one head); “it will be well for him to give the child a sementera to work.” About the same time the young man informs his mother of his relations with the girl, and of her condition, and again the maker of a people’s morals seems to attempt to mold the already hardened clay. She says, “My son, that is bad. Why have you done it? Why do you not marry her?” And the son answers simply and truthfully, “I have another girl.” Without attempt at remonstrance the father gives a rice sementera to the child when it is 6 or 7 years old, for that is the price fixed by the group conscience for deserting a girl with a child.
It is not usual for a married man to go to the o′-lâg, though a young man may go if one of his late mates is still alone. He is usually welcomed by the girl, for there may yet be possibilities of her becoming his permanent wife. A man whose wife is pregnant, however, seldom visits the o′-lâg, because he fears that, if he does, his wife’s child will be prematurely born and die.
The o′-lâg is built where the girls desire it and is said to be commonly located in places accessible to the men; this appears true to one going over the pueblo with this statement in mind.
The life in the o′-lâg does not seem to weaken the boys or girls or cause them to degenerate, neither does it appear to make them vicious. Whereas there is practically no sense of modesty among the people, I have never seen anything lewd. Though there is no such thing as virtue, in the modern sense of the word, among the young people after puberty, children before puberty are said to be virtuous, and the married woman is said always to be true to her husband.
According to a recent translator of Blumentritt9that author is made to say (evidently speaking of the o′-lâg):
Amongst most of the tribes [Igorot] the chastity of maidens is carefully guarded, and in some all the young girls are kept together till marriage in a large house where, guarded by old women, they are taught the industries of their sex, such as weaving, pleating, making cloth from the bark of trees, etc.
Amongst most of the tribes [Igorot] the chastity of maidens is carefully guarded, and in some all the young girls are kept together till marriage in a large house where, guarded by old women, they are taught the industries of their sex, such as weaving, pleating, making cloth from the bark of trees, etc.
There is no such institution in Bontoc Igorot society. The purpose of the o′-lâg is as far from enforcing chastity as it well can be. The old women never frequent the o′-lâg, and the lesson the girls learn there is the necessity for maternity, not the “industries of their sex”—which children of very primitive people acquire quite as a young fowl learns to scratch and get its food.
The ethics of the group forbid certain unions in marriage. A man may not marry his mother, his stepmother, or a sister of either. He may not marry his daughter, stepdaughter, or adopted daughter. He may not marry his sister, or his brother’s widow, or a first cousin by blood or adoption. Sexual intercourse between persons in the above relations is considered incest, and does not often occur. The line of kin does not appear to be traced as far as second cousin, and between such there are no restrictions.
Rich people often pledge their small children in marriage, though, as elsewhere in the world, love, instead of the plans of parents, is generally the foundation of the family. In February, 1903, the rich people of Bontoc were quite stirred up over the sequel to a marriage plan projected some fifteen years before. Two families then pledged their children. The boy grew to be a man of large stature, while the girl was much smaller. The man wished to marry another young woman, who fought the first girl when visited by her to talk over the matter. Then the blind mother of the pledged girl went to the dwelling, accompanied by her brother, one of the richest men in the pueblo, whereupon the father and mother of the successful girl knocked them down and beat them. To all appearances the young lovers will marry in spite of the early pledges of parents. They say such quarrels are common.
If a man wishes to marry a woman and she shares his desire, or if on her becoming pregnant he desires to marry her, he speaks with her parents and with his. If either of her parents objects, no marriage occurs; but he does not usually falter, even though his parents do object. They say the advent of a babe seldom fails to win the good will of the young man’s parents. In the case of the girl’s pregnancy, marriage is more assured, and her father builds or gives her a house. The olag is no longer for her. In her case it has served its ultimate purpose—it has announced her puberty and proved her powers of womanhood. In the case of a desire of marriage before the girl is pregnant she usually sleeps in the olag, as in the past, and the young man spends most of his nights with her. It is customary for the couple to take their meals with the parents of the girl, in which case the young man gives his labors to the family. The period of his labors is usually less than a year, since it is customary for him to give his affectionsto another girl within a year if the first one does not become pregnant.
In other words their union is a true trial union. If the trial is successful the girl’s father builds her a dwelling, and the marriage ceremony occurs immediately upon occupation of the dwelling. The ceremony is in two parts. The first is called “in-pa-ke′,” and at that time a hog or carabao is killed, and the two young people start housekeeping. The kap′-i-ya ceremony follows—among the rich this marriage ceremony occupies two days, but with the poor only one day. The kap′-i-ya is performed by an old man of the ato in which the couple is to live. He suggestively places a hen’s egg, some rice, and some tapui10in a dish before him while he addresses Lumawig, the one god, as follows:
Thou, Lumawig! now these children desire to unite in marriage. They wish to be blessed with many children. When they possess pigs, may they grow large. When they cultivate their palay, may it have large fruitheads. May their chickens also grow large. When they plant their beans may they spread over the ground, May they dwell quietly together in harmony. May the man’s vitality quicken the seed of the woman.
Thou, Lumawig! now these children desire to unite in marriage. They wish to be blessed with many children. When they possess pigs, may they grow large. When they cultivate their palay, may it have large fruitheads. May their chickens also grow large. When they plant their beans may they spread over the ground, May they dwell quietly together in harmony. May the man’s vitality quicken the seed of the woman.
The two-day marriage ceremony of the rich is very festive. The parents kill a wild carabao, as well as chickens and pigs, and the entire pueblo comes to feast and dance. It is customary for the pueblo to have a rest day, called “fo-sog′,” following the marriage of the rich, so the entire period given to the marriage is three days. Each party to the, marriage receives some property at the time from the parents. There are no women in Bontoc pueblo who have not entered into the trial union, though all have not succeeded in reaching the ceremony of permanent marriage. However, notwithstanding all their standards and trials, there are several happy permanent marriages which have never been blessed with children. There are only two men in Bontoc who have never been married and who never entered the trial stage, and both are deaf and dumb.
The people of Bontoc say they never knew a man and woman to separate if a child was born to the pair and it lived and they had recognized themselves married. But, as the marriage is generally prompted because a child is to be born, so an unfruitful union is generally broken in the hope that another will be more successful.
If either party desires to break the contract the other seldom objects. If they agree to separate, the woman usually remains in their dwelling and the man builds himself another. However, if either person objects, it is the other who relinquishes the dwelling—the man because he can build another and the woman because she seldom seeks separation unless she knows of a home in which she will be welcome.
Nothing in the nature of alimony, except the dwelling, is commonly given by either party to a divorce. There are two exceptions—in case a party deserts he forfeits to the other one or more rice sementeras or other property of considerable value; and, again, if the woman bore her husband a child which died he must give her a sementera if he leaves her.
If either party to a marriage dies the other does not remarry for one year. There is no penalty enforced by the group for an earlier marriage, but the custom is firmly fixed. Should the surviving person marry within a year he would die, being killed by an anito whose business it is to punish such sacrilege. The widowed frequently remarry, as there are certain advantages in their married life. It is quite impossible for a man or woman alone to perform the entire round of Igorot labors. The hours of labor for the lone person must usually be long and tiresome.
Most of the widowed live in the katyufong, the smaller dwelling of the poor. The reason for this is that even if one has owned the better class of dwelling, the fayu, it is generally given to a child at marriage, the smaller house being sufficient and suitable for the lone person, especially as the widowed very frequently take their meals with some married child.
Orphans without homes of their own become members of the household of an uncle or aunt or other near relative. The property they received from their parents is used by the family into whose home they go. Upon marriage the children receive the property as it was left them, the annual increase having gone to the family which cared for them.
If there are no relatives, orphans with property readily find a home; if there are neither relatives nor property, some family receives the children more as servants than as equals. When they are married they are usually not given more than a dwelling.
There are few old and infirm persons who have not living relatives. Among these relatives are usually descendants who have been materially benefited by property accumulated or kept intact by their aged kin. It is the universal custom for relatives to feed and otherwise care for the aged. Not much can be done for the infirm, and infirmity is the beginning of the end with all except the blind.
The chances are that the old who have no relatives have at least a little property. Such persons are readily cared for by some family which uses the property at the time and falls heir to it when the ownerdies. There are a very few blind persons who have neither relatives nor property, and these are cared for by families which offer assistance, and two of these old blind men beg rice from dwelling to dwelling.
All disease, sickness, or ailment, however serious or slight, among the Bontoc Igorot is caused by an a-ni′-to. If smallpox kills half a dozen persons in one day, the fell work is that of an a-ni′-to; if a man receives a stone bruise on the trail an a-ni′-to is in the foot and must be removed before recovery is possible. There is one exception to the above sweeping charge against the a-ni′-to—the Igorot says that toothache is caused by a small worm twisting and turning in the tooth.
Igorot society contains no person who is so malevolent as to cause another sickness, insanity, or death. So charitable is the Igorot’s view of his fellows that when, a few years ago, two Bontoc men died of poison administered by another town, the verdict was that the administering hands were directed by some vengeful or diabolical a-ni′-to.
As a people the Bontoc Igorot are healthful. It is seldom that an epidemic reaches them; bubonic plague and leprosy are unknown to them.
By far the majority of deaths among them is due to what the Igorot calls fever—as they say, “im-po′-os nan a′-wak,” or “heat of the body”—but they class as “fever” half a dozen serious diseases, some almost always fatal.
The men at times suffer with malaria. They go to the low west coast as cargadors or as primitive merchants, and they return to their mountain country enervated by the heat, their systems filled with impure water, and their blood teeming with mosquito-planted malaria. They get down with fever, lose their appetite, neither know the value of nor have the medicines of civilization, their minds are often poisoned with the superstitious belief that they will die—and they do die in from three days to two months. In February, 1903, three cargadors died within two weeks after returning from the coast.
Measles, chicken pox, typhus and typhoid fevers, and a disease resulting from eating new rice are undifferentiated by the Igorot—they are his “fever.” Measles and chicken pox are generally fatal to children. Igorot pueblos promptly and effectually quarantine against these diseases. When a settlement is afflicted with either of them it shuts its doors to all outsiders—even using force if necessary; but force is seldom demanded, as other pueblos at once forbid their people to enter the afflicted settlement. The ravages of typhus and typhoid fever may be imagined among a people who have no remedies for them. The diseased condition resulting each year from eating new rice has locally been called “rice cholera.” During the months of June, July, andAugust—the two harvest months of rice and the one following—considerable rice of the new crop is annually eaten. If rice has been stored in the palay houses until it is sweated it is in every way a healthful, nutritious food, but when eaten before it sweats it often produces diarrhea, usually leading to an acute bloody dysentery which is often followed by vomiting and a sudden collapse—as in Asiatic cholera.
In 1893 smallpox, ful-tâng′, came to Bontoc with a Spanish soldier who was in the hospital from Quiangan. Some five or six adults and sixty or seventy children died. The ravage took half a dozen in a day, but the Igorot stamped out the plague by self-isolation. They talked the situation over, agreed on a plan, and were faithful to it. All the families not afflicted moved to the mountains; the others remained to minister or be ministered to, as the case might be. About thirty-five years ago smallpox wiped out a considerable settlement of Bontoc, called La′-nao, situated nearer the river than are any dwellings at present.
About thirty years ago cholera, pĭsh-ti′, visited the people, and fifty or more deaths resulted.
Some twelve years ago ka-lag′-nas, an unidentified disease, destroyed a great number of people, probably half a hundred. Those afflicted were covered with small, itching festers, had attacks of nausea, and death resulted in about three days.
Two women died in Bontoc in 1901 of beri-beri, called fu-tut. These are the only cases known to have been there.
About ten years ago a man died from passing blood—an ailment which the Igorot named literally “ĭn-ĭs′-fo cha′-la or ĭn-tay′-es cha′-la.” It was not dysentery, as the person at no time had a diarrhea. He gradually weakened from the loss of small amounts of blood until, in about a year, he died.
The above are the only fatal diseases now in the common memory of the pueblo of Bontoc.
It is believed 95 per cent of the people suffer at some time, probably much of the time, with some skin disease. They say no one has been known to die of any of these skin diseases, but they are weakening and annoying. Itch, ku′-lĭd, is the most common, and it takes an especially strong hold on the babes in arms. This ku′-lĭd is not the ko′-lud or gos-gos, the white scaly itch found among the people surrounding those of the Bontoc culture area but not known to exist within it.
Two or three people suffer with rheumatism, fĭg-fĭg, but are seldom confined to their homes.
One man has consumption, o′-kat. He has been coughing five or six years, and is very thin and weak.
Diarrhea, or o-gi′-âk, frequently makes itself felt, but for only one or two days at a time. It is most common when the locusts swarmover the country, and the people eat them abundantly for several days. They say no one, not even a babe, ever died of diarrhea.
Two of the three prostitutes of Bontoc, the cast-off mistresses of Spanish soldiers, have syphilis, or na-na. Formerly one civilian was afflicted, and at present four or five of the Constabulary soldiers have contracted the disease.
Lang-ĭng′-i, a disease of sores and ulcers on the lips, nostrils, and rectum, afflicted a few people three or four years ago. This disease is very common in the pueblo of Ta-kong′, but is reported as never causing death.
Goiter, fi-kĕk′ or fĭn-to′-kĕl, is quite common with adults, and is more common with women than men.
Varicose veins, o′-pat, are not uncommon on the calves of both men and women.
Many old people suffer greatly with toothache, called “pa-tug′ nan fob-a′.” They say it is caused by a small worm, fi′-kĭs, which wriggles and twists in the tooth. When one has an aching tooth extracted he looks at it and inquires where “fi′-kĭs” is.
They suffer little from colds, mo-tug′, and one rarely hears an Igorot cough.
Headache, called both sa-kĭt′ si o′-lo and pa-tug′ si o′-lo, rarely occurs except with fever.
Sore eyes, a condition known as ĭn-o′-ki, are very frequently seen; they doubtless precede most cases of blindness.
The Igorot bears pain well, but his various fatalistic superstitions make him often an easy victim to a malady that would yield readily to the science of modern medicine and from which, in the majority of cases, he would probably recover if his mind could only assist his body in withstanding the disease.
One is surprised to find that sores from bruises do not generally heal quickly.
The Igorot attempts no therapeutic remedies for fevers, cholera, beri-beri, rheumatism, consumption, diarrhea, syphilis, goiter, colds, or sore eyes.
Some effort, therapeutic in its intent, is made to assist nature in overcoming a few of the simplest ailments of the body.
For a cut, called “na-fa′-kag,” the fruit of a grass-like herb named la-lay′-ya is pounded to a paste, and then bound on the wound.
Burns, ma-la-fûb-chong′, are covered over with a piece of bark from a tree called ta-kum′-fao.
Kay-yub′, a vegetable root, is rubbed over the forehead in cases of headache.
Boils, fu-yu-i′, and swellings, nay-am-an′ or kĭn-may-yon′, are treated with a poultice of a pounded herb called ok-ok-ong′-an.
Millet burned to a charcoal, pulverized, and mixed with pig fat is used as a salve for the itch.
An herb called a-kûm′ is pounded and used as a poultice on ulcers and sores.
For toothache salt is mixed with a pounded herb named ot-o′-tĕk and the mass put in or around the aching tooth.
Leaves of the tree kay′-yam are steeped, and the decoction employed as a bath for persons with smallpox.
It must be said that the Bontoc Igorot does not take death very sorrowfully, and he does not take it at all passionately. A mother weeps a day for a dead child or her husband, but death is said not to bring tears from any man. Death causes no long or loud lamentation, no tearing of the hair or cutting the body; it effects no somber colors to deaden the emotions; no earth or ashes for the body—all widespread mourning customs among primitive peoples. However, when a child or mature man or woman dies the women assemble and sing and wail a melancholy dirge, and they ask the departed why he went so early. But for the aged there are neither tears nor wailings—there is only grim philosophy. “You were old,” they say, “and old people die. You are dead, and now we shall place you in the earth. We too are old, and soon we shall follow you.”
All people die at the instance of an anito. There have been, however, three suicides in Bontoc. Many years ago an old man and woman hung themselves in their dwellings because they were old and infirm, and a man from Bitwagan hung himself in the Spanish jail at Bontoc a few years ago.
The spirit of the person who dies a so-called natural death is called away by an anito. The anito of those who die in battle receive the special name “pĭn-tĕng′”; such spirits are not called away, but the person’s slayer is told by some pĭn-tĕng′, “You must take a head.” So it may be said that no death occurs among the Igorot (except the rare death by suicide) which is not due directly to an anito.
Since they are warriors, the men who die in battle are the most favored, but if not killed in battle all Igorot prefer to die in their houses. Should they die elsewhere, they are at once taken home.
On March 19, 1903, wise, rich Som-kad′, of ato Luwakan, and the oldest man of Bontoc, heard an anito saying, “Come, Som-kad′; it is much better in the mountains; come.” The sick old man laboriously walked from the pabafunan to the house of his oldest son, where he had for nearly twenty years taken his food, and there among his children and friends he died on the night of March 21. Just before he died a chicken was killed, and the old people gathered at the house,cooked the chicken, and ate, inviting the ancestral anitos and the departing spirit of Som-kad′ to the feast. Shortly after this the spirit of the live man passed from the body searching the mountain spirit land for kin and friend. They closed the old man’s eyes, washed his body and on it put the blue burial robe with the white “anito” figures woven in it as a stripe. They fashioned a rude, high-back chair with a low seat, a sung-a′-chil (Pl. XLI), and bound the dead man in it, fastening him by bands about the waist, the arms, and head—the vegetal band entirely covering the open mouth. His hands were laid in his lap. The chair was set close up before the door of the house, with the corpse facing out. Four nights and days it remained there in full sight of those who passed.
One-half the front wall of the dwelling and the interior partitions except the sleeping compartment were removed to make room for those who sat in the dwelling. Most of these came and went without function, but day and night two young women sat or stood beside the corpse always brushing away the flies which sought to gather at its nostrils.
During the first two days few men were about the house, but they gathered in small groups in the vicinity of the fawi and pabafunan, which were onlythree or four rodsdistant. Much of the time a blind son of the dead man, the owner of the house where the old man died, sat on his haunches in the shade under the low roof, and at frequent intervals sang to a melancholy tune that his father was dead, that his father could no longer care for him, and that he would be lonely without him. On succeeding days other of the dead man’s children, three sons and five daughters, all rich and with families of their own, were heard to sing the same words. Small numbers of women sat about the front of the house or close in the shade of its roof and under its cover. Now and then some one or more of them sang a low-voiced, wordless song—rather a soothing strain than a depressing dirge. During the first days the old women, and again the old men, sang at different times alone the following song, called “a-na′-ko” when sung by the women, and “e-ya′-e” when by the men:
Now you are dead; we are all here to see you. We have given you all things necessary, and have made good preparation for the burial. Do not come to call away [to kill] any of your relatives or friends.
Now you are dead; we are all here to see you. We have given you all things necessary, and have made good preparation for the burial. Do not come to call away [to kill] any of your relatives or friends.
Nowhere was there visible any sign of fear or awe or wonder. The women sitting about spun threads on their thighs for making skirts; they talked and laughed and sang at will. Mothers nursed their babes in the dwelling and under its projecting roof. Budding girls patted and loved and dimpled the cheeks of the squirming babes of more fortunate young women, and there was scarcely a child that passed in or out of the house, that did not have to steady itself by laying a handon the lap of the corpse. All seemed to understand death. One, they say, does not die until the anito calls—and then one always goes into a goodly life which the old men often see and tell about.
In a well-organized and developed modern enterprise the death of a principal man causes little or no break. This is equally true in Igorot life. The former is so because of perfected organization—there are new men trained for all machines; and the latter is true because of absence of organization—there is almost no machinery to be left unattended by the falling of one person.
On the third day the numbers increased. There were twenty-five or thirty men in the vicinity of the house, on the south side of which were half a dozen pots of basi,11from which men and boys drank at pleasure, though not half a dozen became intoxicated. Late in the afternoon a double row of men, the sons and sons-in-law of the deceased, lined up on their haunches facing one another, and for half an hour talked and laughed, counted on their fingers and gesticulated, diagrammed on their palms, questioned, pointed with their lips and nodded, as they divided the goodly property of the dead man. There was no anger, no sharp word, or apparent dissent; all seemed to know exactly what was each one’s right. In about half an hour the property was disposed of beyond probable future dispute.
There were more women present the third day than on the second, and at all times about one-third more women than men; and there were usually as many children about as there were grown persons. In all the group of, say, 140 people, nowhere could one detect a sign of the uncanny, or even the unusual. The apparent everydayness of it all to them was what struck the observer most. The young women brushing away the flies touched and turned the fast-blackening hands of the corpse to note the rapid changes. Almost always there were small children standing in the doorway looking into that blackened, swollen face, and they turned away only to play or to loll about their mothers’ necks. Always there were women bending over other women’s heads, carefully parting the hair and scanning it. Women lay asleep stretched in the shade; they talked, and droned, and laughed, and spun.
During the second day men had succeeded in catching in the mountains one of the half-wild carabaos—property of the deceased—and this was killed. Its head was placed in the house tied up by the horns above and facing Som-kad′, so the faces of the dead seemed looking at each other, while on the third day the flesh, bones, intestines, and hide were cooked for the crowd. During the third and fourth days one carabao, one dog, eight hogs, and twenty chickens were killed, cooked, and eaten.
On the fourth day the crowd increased. Custom lays idle all field tools of an ato on the burial day of an adult of that ato; but the day Som-kad′ was buried the field work of the entire pueblo stood stillbecause of common respect for this man, so old and wise, so rich and influential, and probably 200 people were about the house all the day. By noon two well-defined groups of chanting old women had formed—one sitting in the house and the other in front of it. Wordless, melancholy chants were sung in response between the groups. The spaces surrounding the house became almost packed—so much so that a dog succeeded in getting into the doorway, and the threatenings and maledictions that drove it away were the loudest, most disturbed expressions noted during the four days.
Before the house, which faced the west, lay the large pine coffin lid, while to the south of it, turned bottom up, was the coffin with fresh chips beside it hewn out that morning in further excavation. Children played around the coffin and people lounged on its upturned bottom. Near the front of the house a pot of water was always hot over a smoldering, smoking fire. Now and then a chicken was brought, light wood was tossed under the pot, the chicken was beaten to death—first the wings, then the neck, and then the head. The fowl was quickly sprawled over the blaze, its feathers burned to a crisp, and rubbed off with sticks. Its legs were severed from the body with the battle-ax and put in the pot. From its front it was then cut through its ribs with one gash. The back and breast parts were torn apart, the gall examined and nodded over; the intestines were placed beneath a large rock, and the gizzard, breast of the chicken, and back with head attached dropped in the pot. During the killing and dressing neither of the two men who prepared the feast hurried, yet scarcely five minutes passed from the time the first blow was struck on the wing of the squawking fowl until the work was over and the meat in the boiling pot. The cooking of a fowl always brought a crowd of boys who hung over the fragrant vessel, and they usually got their share when, in about twenty minutes, the meat came forth. Three times in the afternoon a fowl was thus distributed. Cooked pork was passed among the people, and rice was always being brought. Twice a man went through the crowd with a large winnowing tray of cooked carabao hide cut in little blocks. This food was handed out on every side, people tending children receiving double share. The people gathered and ate in the congested spaces about the dwelling. The heat was intense—there was scarcely a breath of air stirring. The odor from the body was heavy and most sickening to an American, and yet there was no trace of the unusual on the various faces.
New arrivals came to take their last look at Som-kad′, now a black, bloated, inhuman-looking thing, and they turned away apparently unaffected by the sight.
The sun slid down behind the mountain ridge lying close to the pueblo, and a dozen men armed with digging sticks and dirt basketsfiled along the trail somefifteen rodsto the last fringe of houses. There they dug a grave in a small, unused sementera plat where only the old, rich men of the pueblo are buried. A group of twenty-five old women gathered standing at the front of the house swaying to the right, to the left, as they slowly droned in melancholy cadence:
You were old, and old people die. You are dead, and now we shall place you in the earth. We too are old, and soon we shall follow you.
You were old, and old people die. You are dead, and now we shall place you in the earth. We too are old, and soon we shall follow you.
Again and again they droned, and when they ceased others within the house took up the strain. During the singing the carabao head was brought from the house, and the horns, with small section of attached skull, chopped out, and the head returned to the ceiling of the dwelling.
Presently a man came with a slender stick to measure the coffin. He drove a nursing mother, with a woman companion and small child, from comfortable seats on the upturned wood. The people, including the group of old women, were driven away from the front of the house, the coffin was laid down on the ground before the door, and an unopened8-gallonolla of “preserved” meat was set at its foot. An old woman, in no way distinguishable from the others by paraphernalia or other marks, muttering, squatted beside the olla. Two men untied the bands from the corpse, and one lifted it free from the chair and carried it in his arms to the coffin. It was most unsightly, and streams of rusty-brown liquid ran from it. It was placed face up, head elevated even with the rim, and legs bent close at the knees but only slightly at the hips. The old woman arose from beside the olla and helped lay two new breechcloths and a blanket over the body. The face was left uncovered, except that a small patch of white cloth ravelings, called “fo-ot′,” was laid over the eyes, and a small white cloth was laid over the hair of the head. The burden was quickly caught up on men’s shoulders and hurried without halting to the grave. Willing bands swarmed about the coffin. At all times as many men helped bear it as could well get hold, and when they mounted the face of a7-footsementera wall a dozen strong pairs of hands found service drawing up and supporting the burden. Many men followed from the house one brought the coffin cover and another the carabao horns—but the women and children remained behind, as is their custom at burials.
At the grave the coffin rested on the earth a moment12while a few more basketfuls of dirt were thrown out, until the grave was about5 feetdeep. The coffin was then placed in the grave, the cover laid on, and with a joke and a laugh the pair of horns was placed facing it at the head. Instantly thirty-two men sprang on the piles of fresh, loose dirt, and with their hands and the half dozen digging sticks filled and coveredthe grave in the shortest possible time, probably not over one minute and a half. And away they hurried, most of them at a dogtrot, to wash themselves in the river.
From the instant the corpse was in the coffin until the grave was filled all things were done in the greatest haste, because cawing crows must not fly over, dogs must not bark, snakes or rats must not cross the trail—if they should, some dire evil would follow.
Shortly after the burial a ceremony, called “kap-i-yan si na-tü′,” is performed by the relatives in the dwelling wherein the corpse sat. It is said to be the last ceremony given for the dead. Food is eaten and the one in charge addresses the anito of the dead man as follows:
We have fixed all things right and well for you. When there was no rice or chicken for food, we got them for you—as was the custom of our fathers—so you will not come to make us sick. If another anito seeks to harm us, you will protect us. When we make a feast and ask you to come to it, we want you to do so; but if another anito kills all your relatives, there will be no more houses for you to enter for feasts.
We have fixed all things right and well for you. When there was no rice or chicken for food, we got them for you—as was the custom of our fathers—so you will not come to make us sick. If another anito seeks to harm us, you will protect us. When we make a feast and ask you to come to it, we want you to do so; but if another anito kills all your relatives, there will be no more houses for you to enter for feasts.
This last argument is considered to be a very important one, as all Igorot are fond of feasting, and it is assumed that the anito has the same desire.
The night following the burial all relatives stay at the house lately occupied by the corpse.
On the day after the burial all the men relatives go to the river and catch fish, the small kacho. The relatives have a fish feast, called “ab-a-fon′,” at the hour of the evening meal. To this feast all ancestral anito are invited.
All relatives again spend the night at the house, from which they return to their own dwellings after breakfast of the second day and each goes laden with a plate of cooked rice.
In this way from two to eight days are given to the funeral rite, the duration being greater with the wealthier people.
Only heads of families are buried in the large pine coffins, which are kept ready stored beside the granaries everywhere about the pueblo. As in the case of Som-kad′, all old, rich men are buried in a plat of ground close to the last fringe of dwellings on the west of the pueblo, but all other persons except those who lose their heads are buried close to their dwellings in the camote sementeras.
The burial clothes of a married man are the los-a′-dan, or blue anito-figured burial robe, and a breechcloth of beaten bark, called “chi-nang-ta′.” In the coffin are placed a fa′-a, or blue cotton breechcloth made in Titipan, the fan-cha′-la, a striped blue-and-white cotton blanket, and the to-chong′, afoot-squarepiece of beaten bark or white cloth which is laid on the head.
A married woman is buried in a kay-ĭn′, a particular skirt made forburial in Titipan, and a white blue-bordered waistcloth or la-ma. In the coffin are placed a burial girdle, wâ′-kĭs, also made in Titipan, a blue-and-white-striped blanket called bay-a-ong′, and the to-chong′, the small cloth or bark over the hair.
The unmarried are buried in graves near the dwelling, and these are walled up the sides and covered with rocks and lastly with earth; it is the old rock cairn instead of the wooden coffin. The bodies are placed flat on their backs with knees bent and heels drawn up to the buttocks. With the men are buried, besides the things interred with the married men, the basket-work hat, the basket-work sleeping hat, the spear, the battle-ax, and the earrings if any are possessed. These additional things are buried, they say, because there is no family with which to leave them, though all things interred are for the use of the anito of the dead.
In addition to the various things buried with the married woman, the unmarried has a sleeping hat.
Babes and children up to 6 or 7 years of age are buried in the sementera wrapped in a crude beaten-bark mantle. This garment is folded and wrapped about the body, and for babes, at least, is bound and tied close about them.
Babies are buried close to the dwelling where the sun and storm do not beat, because, as they say, babes are too tender to receive harsh treatment.
For those beheaded in battle there is another burial, which is described in a later chapter.