Igorot

“ The immediate surroundings of every Igorot group is the home of the a-ni′-to of departed members of the group, though they do not usually live in the pueblo itself. Their dwellings, sementeras, pigs, chickens, and carabaos—in fact, all the possessions the living had—are scattered about in spirit form, in the neighboring mountains. There the great hosts of the a-ni′-to live, and there they reproduce, in spirit form, the life of the living. They construct and live in dwellings, build and cultivate sementeras, marry, and even bear children ”

“ Lumawig, the Supreme Being The Igorot has personified the forces of nature. The personification has become a single person, and to-day this person is one god, Lu-ma′-wĭg. Over all, and eternal, so far as the Igorot understands, is Lu-ma′-wĭg—Lu-ma′-wĭg, who had a part in the beginning of all things; who came as a man to help the survivors and perpetuators of Bontoc; who later came as a man to teach the people whom he had befriended, and who still lives to care for them. Lu-ma′-wĭg is the greatest of spirits, dwelling above in chayya, the sky. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The primitive agriculturist is thought of in history as the victim of warlike neighbors who make predatory forays against him, repeatedly robbing him of his hard-earned accumulations. In Igorot land this is not the case. There are no savage or barbaric people, except the Negritos who are not agriculturists. Sometimes, however, some of the Igorot groups descend to the settlements of the Christians in the lowlands and in the night bring back a few carabaos and hogs. The Igorot of Quiangan are noted for such robberies made on the pueblos of Bagabag and Ibung to the south in central Nueva Vizcaya. ”

“ The chak-lag′ is the most important tattoo of the Igorot, since it marks its wearer as a taker of at least one human head. It therefore stands for a successful issue in the most crucial test of the fitness of a person to contribute to the strength of the group of which he is a unit. It no doubt gives its wearer a certain advantage in combat—a confidence and conceit in his own ability, and, likely, it tends to unnerve a combatant who has not the same emblem and experience. ”

“ The people are neither drunkards, gamblers, nor “sportsmen.” There is little “color” in the life of the Igorot; he is not very inventive and seems to have little imagination. His chief recreation—certainly his most-enjoyed and highly prized recreation—is head-hunting. But head-hunting is not the passion with him that it is with many Malay peoples.
His religion is at base the most primitive religion known—animism, or spirit belief—but he has somewhere grasped the idea of one god, and has made this belief in a crude way a part of his life. ”

“ Chapter IX Mental Life The Igorot does not know many things in common with enlightened men, and yet one constantly marvels at his practical knowledge. Tylor says primitive man has “rude, shrewd sense.” The Igorot has more—he has practical wisdom. ”

“ 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. Page 113
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.” ”

“ The first method is the most common, since the mountains in Igorot land are full of small, usually perpetual, streams. There are practically no streams within reach of suitable pueblo sites which are not exhausted by the Igorot agriculturist. Everywhere small streams are carefully guarded and turned wherever there is a square yard of earth that may be made into a rice sementera. Small streams in some cases have been wound for miles around the sides of a mountain, passing deep gullies and rivers in wooden troughs or tubes. ”

“ Very misleading statements have sometimes been made in regard to the Igorot—customs from different groups have been jumbled together in one description until a man has been pictured who can not be found anywhere. ”

“ The feeling of friendship between the Igorot and insurrectos was so strong that when the insurrectos asked the Igorot to go to Manila to fight the new enemy (the Americans) , 400 warriors, armed only with spear, battle-ax, and shield, went a three weeks’ journey to get American heads. At Caloocan, just outside Manila, they met the American Army early in February, 1899. They threw their spears, the Americans fired their guns—“which must be brothers to the thunder,” the Igorot said—and they let fall their remaining weapons, and, panic stricken, started home. ”

“ In much of the Igorot territory surrounding the Bontoc area “rake off” occurs—it follows the advent of the “headman.” It is one of the direct causes why, in Igorot society, the headman is almost always a rich man. During the hunting stage of human development no “rich man” can come up, as is illustrated by the primitive hunter folk of North America. As soon, however, as there are productions which may be traded in, there is a chance for one man to take advantage of his fellows and accumulate a part of their productions—this opportunity occurs among primitive agricultural people. ”

“ It is impossible for me to represent Igorot music, instrumental or vocal, in any adequate manner, but I may convey a somewhat clearer impression of the rhythm if I attempt to represent it mathematically. It must be kept in mind that all the gang′-sa are beaten regularly and in perfect time—there is no such thing as half notes. ”

“ Here both men and women are busy early and late cultivating the rice, sweet potatoes, and small vegetables on which they live. The men are head-hunters and ardent warriors, [98] each village demanding a head in payment for any taken by a hostile village.
Watching over the Igorot, controlling the winds and the rains, and providing good crops and health for the people, is the Great Spirit, Lumawig, who lives in the sky. He is believed to have created the Igorot and even to have lived among them on the earth. ”

“ Thus the political life of the Igorot, although exceedingly weak on the side of federation or agreement between the independent towns, is centuries of development ahead of the almost institutionless communities of the Ilongot.
The Ilongot appears to be usually a monogamist and the wife is purchased, or at least a dowry called “piyat” is paid in weapons, utensils, liquor, wire, etc. Her position is not at all that of a bought piece of property, but, like the woman in Malayan society generally, she is the companion and almost the equal in influence and independence of the man. ”

“ In the pueblo, the sementeras, and the mountains one knows he is always surrounded by a-ni′-to. They are ever ready to trip one up, to push him off the high stone sementera dikes Page 198or to visit him with disease. When one walks alone in the mountain trail he is often aware that an a-ni′-to walks close beside him; he feels his hair creeping on his scalp, he says, and thus he knows of the a-ni′-to’s presence. The Igorot has a particular kind of spear, the sinalawitan, having two or more pairs of barbs, of which the a-ni′-to is afraid ”

“ The furnishing of food seems to spring from the feeling that the man who goes on the journey is the public servant of those who remain—he is doing an unpleasant duty for his ato fellows. If this were carried one step further, if the rice were raised and paid for carrying on some regular function of the Igorot pueblo, it would be a true tax. It may be true, and probably is, in pure Igorot society that if men were sent by an ato on some mission for that ato they would receive support while gone. ”

“ Lu-ma′-wĭg left them, going above as a bird flies. Soon the child was born, the water subsided in Bontoc pueblo, and Fa-tang′-a with his sister and her babe returned to the pueblo. Children came to the household rapidly and in great numbers. Generation followed generation, and the people increased wonderfully.
After a time Lu-ma′-wĭg decided to come to help and teach the Igorot. He first stopped on Ka-lo-wi′-tan Mountain, and from there looked over the young women of Sabangan, searching for a desirable wife, but he was not pleased with the girls of Sabangan because they had short hair. ”

“ The Bontoc Igorot appears to be in a transition stage, not usually emphasized, between the communism of the savage or barbarian in which each person is said to have a share as long as necessities last, and the more advanced forms of society in which many classes are able to divert to their own advantage much which otherwise would not come to them. The Igorot is not a communist, neither in any sense does he get the monopolist’s share. ”

“ They alone build the stone dikes of the sementeras and construct the irrigating ditches and dams; they transport to the pueblo most of the harvested palay. They manufacture and vend basi, and prepare the salted meats. They make all weapons, and all implements and utensils for field and household labors. Contrary to a widespread custom among primitive people, as has been noted, the Igorot man constructs all basket work, whether hats, baskets, trays, or ornaments, and bindings of weapons and implements. Men are the workers of all metal and stone. ”

“ Rick knew that an Igorot was a primitive native of the Philippine Mountain Province. All of them had received a series of lectures on Philippine ethnology from Tony before leaving home. The Igorots bore roughly the same relationship to the regular Filipino as American Indians do to the white American. Ifugao natives were much like the Igorots, but with a slightly more advanced culture. They, too, lived in Mountain Province, the objective of the Spindrift expedition. ”

“ There is yet a long, heavy wooden stock in Bontoc pueblo in which the Igorot were imprisoned. Igorot women were made the mistresses of both officers and soldiers. Work, food, fuel, and lumber were not always paid for. All persons 18 or more years old were required to pay an annual tax of 50 cents or an equivalent value in rice. A day’s wage was only 5 cents, so each family was required to pay an equivalent of twenty days’ labor annually. In wild towns the principal men were told to bring in so many thousand bunches of palay—the unthreshed rice. ”

“ During the year the diet of the men in the Constabulary has been practically the same as that of their darker brothers among whom they were enlisted only twelve months ago. All the members of the Constabulary differ much more in color from the unclothed men than the unclothed differ among themselves. Man after man of these latter may pass under the eye without revealing a tint of saffron, yet there are many who show it faintly. The natural Igorot never washes himself clean. ”

“ In the realm of religion and spirit belief the surface has scarcely been scratched. The only Igorot who became Christians were the wives of some of the Christian natives who came in with the Spaniard, mainly as soldiers. There are now eight or ten such women, wives of the resident Ilokanos of Bontoc pueblo, but those whose husbands left the pueblo have reverted to Igorot faith. ”

“ On the southwest this cuts off the short-haired Lepanto Igorot, whose culture seems to be more allied to that of Benguet than Bontoc.
The men of the Bontoc area know none of the peoples by whom they are surrounded by the names history gives or the peoples designate themselves, with the exception of the Lepanto Igorot, the Ĭt-nĕg′, and the Ilokano of the west coast. They do not know the “Tinguian” of Abra on their north and northwest by that name; they call them “Ĭt-nĕg′.” Farther north are the people called by the Spaniards “Nabayuganes,” “Aripas,” and “Ipugaos;” ”

“ One man living in Bontoc may be called a fisherman. He spends most of his time with his traps in the river, and sells his fish to the Ilokano and Igorot residents of the pueblo. He places large traps in the deep parts of the stream, adjusts them, and revisits them by swimming under the water, and altogether is considered by the Igorot boys as quite a “water man.” ”

“ They invariably, too, take the heads of all killed on a head-hunting expedition. They have skulls of Spaniards, and also skulls of Igorot, secured when on expeditions of punishment or annihilation with the Spanish soldiers.
But the possession of a head is in no way a requisite to marriage. A head has no part in the ceremonies for palay fruitage and harvest, or in any of the numerous agricultural or health ceremonies of the year. It in no way affects a man’s wealth, and, so far as I have been able to learn, it in no way affects in their minds a man’s future existence. ”

“ Agriculture In all of Igorot culture the most apparent and strikingly noteworthy fact is its agriculture. In agriculture the Igorot has reached his highest development. On agriculture hangs his claim to the rank of barbarian—without it he would be a savage.
Igorot agriculture is unique in Luzon, and, so far as known, throughout the Archipelago, in its mountain terraces and irrigation. ”

“ The Igorot woman is a constant laborer from the age of puberty or before, until extreme incapacity of old age stays the hands of toil; but for two or three months following the advent of each babe the mother does not work in the fields. ”

“ Briefly, I believe in the future development of the Bontoc Igorot for the following reasons: He has an exceptionally fine physique for his stature and has no vices to destroy his body. He has courage which no one who knows him seems ever to think of questioning; he is industrious, has a bright mind, and is willing to learn. ”