The Bontoc Igorot

Chapter VII

Æsthetic Life

There is relatively little “color” in the life of the Bontoc Igorot. In the preceding chapter reference was made to the belief that this lack of “color,” the monotony of everyday life, has to do with the continuation of head-hunting. The life of the Igorot is somber-hued indeed as compared with that of his more advanced neighbor, the Ilokano.

Dress

The Bontoc Igorot is not much given to dress—under which term are considered the movable adornments of persons. Little effort is made by the man toward dressing the head, though before marriage he at times wears a sprig of flowers or of some green plant tucked in the hat at either side. The young man's suklang is also generally more attractive than that of the married man. With its side ornaments of human-hair tassels, its dog teeth, or mother-of-pearl disks, and its red and yellow colors, it is often very gay.

About one hundred and fifty men in Bontoc and Samoki own and sometimes wear at the girdle a large 7-inch disk of mother-of-pearl shell. It is called “fi-kûm′,” and its use is purely ornamental. (See Pls. LXXX and XXX.) It is valued highly, and I have not known half a dozen Igorot to part with one for any price. This shell ornament is widespread through the country east and also south of the Bontoc area, but nowhere is it seen plentifully, except on ceremonial days—probably not a dozen are worn daily in Bontoc.

Other forms of adornment, though only a means to a permanent end, are the ear stretchers and variety of ear plugs which are worn in a slit in the ear lobe preparing it for the earring—the sĭng-sĭng, which all hope to possess. The stretcher consists of two short pieces of bamboo forced apart and so held by two short crosspieces inserted between them. The bamboo ear stretcher is generally ornamented by straight incised lines. The plugs are not all considered decorative. Some are bunches of a vegetable pith (Pl. CXXXVIII), others are wads of sugar-cane page 185leaves. Some, however, are wooden plugs shaped quite like an ordinary large cork stopper of a bottle (Pl. CXXXVII). The outer end is often ornamented by straight incised lines or with red seeds affixed with wax or with a small piece of a cheap glass mirror roughly inlaid. The long ear slit is not the end sought, because if the owner despairs of owning the coveted earring the stretchers and plugs are eventually removed and the slit contracts from an inch and one-half to a quarter of an inch or less in length. The long slit is desired because the people consider the effect more beautiful when the ring swings and dangles at the bottom of the pendant ear. The gold earring is the most coveted, but a few silver and many copper rings are worn in substitution for the gold.

Figure 8.

Metal earrings.

(a, gold; b, copper (both are two or three generations old and their patterns are no longer made); c, copper; d, silver.)

This is practically the extent of the everyday adornment worn by the boys and men. Small boys sometimes wear a brass-wire bracelet; but the brass wire, so commonly worn on the wrists, ankles, and necks of the people east, north, and south of the Bontoc area, is not affected by the people of Bontoc.

As has been mentioned, there is an unique display of dress by the man at the head-taking ceremony of the ato, when some of the dancers wear boar-tusk armlets, called “ab-kil′,” and a boar-tusk necklace, called “fu-yay′-ya.”

The necklace quite resembles the Indian bear-claw necklace, but it is worn with the tusks pointing away from the breast, not toward it, as is the case with the Indian necklace. There are about six of these necklaces in Bontoc, and it is almost impossible to buy one, but the armlets are more plentiful. They are worn above the biceps, and some are adorned with a tuft of hair cut from a captured head.

The movable adornments of the woman are very similar to those of the man.

The unmarried woman wears the flowers or green sprigs in the hair, though less often than does the man. She wears the ear stretchers, ear plugs, and earrings exactly as he does. Probably 60 per cent of men and women in some way dress one ear; probably half as many dress both ears.

The chief adornment of the woman is her hairdress. It consists page 186of strings of various beads, called “a-pong′.” The hair is never combed in its dressing, except with the fingers, but the entire hair is caught at the base of the skull and lightly twisted into a loose roll; a string of beads is put beneath this twist at the back and carried forward across the head. The roll is then brought to the front of the head around the left side; at the front it is tucked forward under the beads, being thus held tightly in place. The twist is carried around the head as far as it will extend, and the end there tucked under the beads and thus secured. One and not infrequently two additional strings of beads are laid over the hair, more completely holding it in place.

The first string of beads placed on the head usually consists of compact, glossy, black seeds. Frequently brass-wire rings are regularly dispersed along the string. These beads are shown in Pl. CXLII. The second string, with its white, lozenge-shaped stone beads (Pl. CXXXIX), is very striking and attractive against the black hair. This string reaches its perfection when it is composed solely of spherical agate beads the size of small marbles and the longer white stone beads placed at regular intervals among the reddish agates. It is practically impossible to purchase these beads, since they are heirlooms. The third string is usually of dog teeth. They are strung alternately with black seeds or with sections of dog rib. This string is worn over the hair, running from the forehead around the back of the head, the white teeth resting low on the back hair, and making a very attractive adornment as they stand, points out, against the black hair. (See Pl. CLII.)

Igorot women dress their hair richly in their important ceremonials. In an ĭn-pug-pug′ ceremony of Sipaat ato in Bontoc I saw women wearing seven strings of agate beads on their hair and about their necks. The woman loves to show her friends her accumulated wealth in heirlooms, and the ato or pueblo ceremonies are the most favorable opportunities for such display. All these various hairdress beads are of Igorot manufacture.

I have seen Tukukan women come to Bontoc wearing a solid diadem about the hair. It consisted of a rattan foundation encircling the head, covered with blackened beeswax studded with three parallel rows of encircling bright-red seeds. It made a very striking headdress.

Now and then a woman is seen wearing beads around the neck, but the Bontoc woman almost never has such adornment. They are seen frequently in pueblos to the west, however. The beads for everyday wear are seeds in black, brown, and gray. There is also a small, irregular, cylindrical, wooden bead worn by the women. It is sometimes worn in strings of three or four beads by men. I believe it is considered of talismanic value when so worn.

Many women in Mayinit and some women of Bontoc wear the heirloom girdle, called “a-ko′-san,” made of shells and brass wire encircling a cloth girdle (see Pl. CXL). The cloth is made in the form of a page 187long, narrow wallet, practically concealed at the back by the encircling wire and shells. Within this wallet the cherished agate and white stone hairdress is often hidden away. In Mayinit this girdle is frequently worn beneath the skirt, when it becomes, in every essential and in the effect produced, a bustle. I have never seen it so worn in Bontoc.