The Bontoc Igorot

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.

Actual knowledge

Concerning cosmology, the Igorot believes Lumawig gave the earth and all things connected with it. Lumawig makes it rain and storm, gives day and night, heat and cold. The earth is “just as you see it.” It ceases somewhere a short distance beyond the most distant place an Igorot has visited. He does not know how it is supported. “Why should it fall?” he asks. “A pot on the earth does not fall.” Above is chayya, the sky—the Igorot does not know or attempt to say what it is. It is up above the earth and extends beyond and below the visible horizon and the limit of the earth. The Igorot does not know how it remains there, and a man once interrupted me to ask why it did not fall down below the earth at its limit.

“Below us,” an old Igorot told me, “is just bones.”

The sun is a man called “Chal-chal′.” The moon is a woman named “Ka-bi-gat′.” “Once the moon was also a sun, and then it was always day; but Lumawig made a moon of the woman, and since then there is day and night, which is best.”

There are two kinds of stars. “Fat-ta-ka′-kan” is the name of large stars and “tûk-fi′-fi” is the name of small stars. The stars are all men, and they wear white coats. Once they came down to Bontoc pueblo and ate sugar cane, but on being discovered they all escaped again to chayya.

Thunder is a gigantic wild boar crying for rain. A Bontoc man was once killed by Ki-cho′, the thunder. The unfortunate man was ripped open from his legs to his head, just as a man is ripped and torn by the wild boar of the mountains. The lightning, called “Yûp-yûp,” is also a hog, and always accompanies Ki-cho′.

Lumawig superintends the rains. Li-fo′-o are the rain clouds—page 217they are smoke. “At night Lumawig has the li-fo′-o come down to the river and get water. Before morning they have carried up a great deal of water; and then they let it come down as rain.”

Earthquakes are caused by Lumawig. He places both hands on the edge of the earth and quickly pushes it back and forth. They do not know why he does it.

Regarding man himself the Igorot knows little. He says Lumawig gave man and all man's functionings. He does not know the functioning of blood, brain, stomach, or any other of the primary organs of the body. He says the bladder of men and animals is for holding the water they drink. He knows that a man begets his child and that a woman's breasts are for supplying the infant food, but these two functionings are practically all the facts he knows or even thinks he knows about his body.

Mensuration

Under this title are considered all forms of measurement used by the Igorot.

Numbers

The most common method of enumerating is that of the finger count. The usual method is to count the fingers, beginning with the little finger of the right hand, in succession touching each finger with the forefinger of the other hand. The count of the thumb, li′-ma, five, is one of the words for hand. The sixth count begins with the little finger of the left hand, and the tenth reaches the thumb. The eleventh count begins with the little finger of the right hand again, and so the count continues. The Igorot system is evidently decimal. One man, however, invariably recorded his eleventh count on his toes, from which he returned to the little finger of his right hand for the twenty-first count.

A common method of enumerating is one in which the record is kept with small pebbles placed together one after another on the ground.

Another method in frequent use preserves the record in the number of sections of a slender twig which is bent or broken half across for each count.

When an Igorot works for an American he records each day by a notch in a small stick. A very neat record for the month was made by one of our servants who prepared a three-sided stick less than 2 inches long. Day by day he cut notches in this stick, ten on each edge.

When a record is wanted for a long time—as when one man loans another money for a year or more—he ties a knot in a string for each peso loaned.

The Igorot subtracts by addition. He counts forward in the total of fingers or pebbles the number he wishes to subtract, and then he again counts the remainder forward. page 218

Lineal measure

The distance between the tips of the thumb and middle finger extended and opposed is the shortest linear measure used by the Igorot, although he may measure by eye with more detail and exactness, as when he notes half the above distance. This span measure is called “chang′-an” or “i′-sa chang′-an,” “chu′-wa chang′-an,” etc.

Chi-pa′ is the measure between the tips of the two middle fingers when the arms are extended full length in opposite directions. Chi-wan′ si chi-pa′ is half the above measure, or from the tip of the middle finger of one hand, arm extended from side of body, to the sternum.

These three measures are most used in handling timbers and boards in the construction of buildings.

Cloth for breechcloths is measured by the length of the forearm, being wound about the elbow and through the hand, quite as one coils up a rope.

Long distances in the mountains or on the trail are measured by the length of time necessary to walk them, and the length of time is told by pointing to the place of the sun in the heavens at the hour of departure and arrival.

Rice sementeras are measured by the number of cargoes of palay they produce. Besides this relatively exact measure, sementeras producing up to five cargoes are called “small,” pay-yo′ ay fa-nig′; and those producing more than five are said to be “large,” pay-yo′ chûk-chûk′-wag.

Measurement of animals

The idea of the size of a carabao, and at the same time a crude estimate of its age and value, is conveyed by representing on the arm the length of the animal's horns.

The size of a hog and, as with the carabao, an estimate of its value is shown by representing the size of the girth of the animal by clasping the hands around one's leg. For instance, a small pig is represented by the size of the speaker's ankle, as he clasps both hands around it; a larger one is the size of his calf; a still larger one is the size of a man's thigh; and one still larger is represented by the thigh and calf together, the calf being bent tightly against the upper leg. To represent a still larger hog, the two hands circle the calf and thigh, but at some distance from them.

The Bontoc Igorot has no system of liquid or dry measure, nor has he any system of weight.

The calendar

The Igorot has no mechanical record of time or events, save as he sometimes cuts notches in a stick to mark the flight of days. He is apt, however, in memorizing the names of ancestors, holding them for page 219half a dozen generations, but he keeps no record of age, and has no adequate conception of such a period as twenty years. He has no conception of a cycle of time greater than one year, and, in fact, it is the rare man who thinks in terms of a year. When one does he speaks of the past year as tĭn-mo-wĭn′, or i-san′ pa-na′-ma.

Prominent Igorot have insisted that a year has only eight moons, and other equally sane and respected men say it has one hundred. But among the old men, who are the wisdom of the people, there are those who know and say it has thirteen moons.

They have noted and named eight phases of the moon, namely: The one-quarter waxing moon, called “fĭs-ka′-na;” the two-quarters waxing moon, “ma-no′-wa,” or “ma-lang′-ad;” the three-quarters waxing moon, “kat-no-wa′-na” or “nap-no′;” the full moon, “fĭt-fi-tay′-ĕg;” the three-quarters waning moon, “ka-tol-pa-ka′-na” or “ma-tĭl-pa′-kan;” the two-quarters waning moon, “ki-sul-fi-ka′-na;” the one-quarter waning moon, sĭg-na′-a-na” or “ka-fa-ni-ka′-na;” and the period following the last, when there is but a faint rim of light, is called “li′-mĕng” or “ma-a-mas′.”

Figure 9.

Recognized phases of the moon.

Fĭs-ka′-na. Ma-no′-wa. Kat-no-wa′-na. Fĭt-fi-tay′-ĕg. Ka-tol-pa-ka′-na. Ki-sul-fi-ka′-na. Sĭg-na′-a-na. Li′-mĕng.

However, the Igorot do seldom count time by the phases of the moon, and the only solar period of time they know is that of the day. Their word for day is the same as for sun, a-qu′. They indicate the time of day by pointing to the sky, indicating the position the sun occupied when a particular event occurred.

There are two seasons in a year. One is Cha-kon′, having five moons, and the other is Ka-sĭp′, having eight moons. The seasons do not mark the wet and dry periods, as might be expected in a country having such periods. Cha-kon′ is the season of rice or “palay” growth and harvest, and Ka-sĭp′ is the remainder of the year. These two seasons, and the recognition that there are thirteen moons in one year, and that day follows night, are the only natural divisions of time in the Igorot calendar.

He has made an artificial calendar differing somewhat in all pueblos in name and number and length of periods. In all these calendars the several periods bear the names of the characteristic industrial occupations which follow one another successively each year. Eight of these page 220periods make up the calendar of Bontoc pueblo, and seven of them have to do with the rice industry. Each period receives its name from that industry which characterizes its beginning, and it retains this name until the beginning of the next period, although the industry which characterized it may have ceased some time before.

I-na-na′ is the first period of the year, and the first period of the season Cha-kon′. It is the period, as they say, of no more work in the rice sementeras—that is, practically all fields are prepared and transplanted. It began in 1903 on February 11. It lasts about three months, continuing until the time of the first harvest of the rice or “palay” crop in May; in 1903 this was until May 2. This period is not a period of “no work”—it has many and varied labors.

The second period is La′-tûb. It is that of the first harvests, and lasts some four weeks, ending about June 1.

Cho′-ok is the third period. It is the time when the bulk of the palay is harvested. It occupies about four weeks, running over in 1903 two days in July.

Li′-pas is the fourth period. It is that of “no more palay harvest,” and lasts for about ten or fifteen days, ending probably about July 15. This is the last period of the season Cha-kon′.

The fifth period is Ba-li′-lĭng. It is the first period of the season Ka-sĭp′. It takes its name from the general planting of camotes, and is the only one of the calendar periods not named from the rice industry. It continues about six weeks, or until near the 1st of September.

Sa-gan-ma′ is the sixth period. It is the time when the sementeras to be used as seed beds for rice are put in condition, the earth being turned three different times. It lasts about two months. November 15, 1902, the seed rice was just peeping from the kernels in the beds of Bontoc and Sagada, and the seed is sown immediately after the third turning of the earth, which thus ended early in November.

Pa-chog′ is the seventh period of the annual calendar. It is the period of seed sowing, and begins about November 10. Although the seed sowing does not last many days, the period Pa-chog′ continues five or six weeks.

Sa′-ma is the last period of the calendar. It is the period in which the rice sementeras are prepared for receiving the young plants and in which these seedlings are transplanted from the seed beds. The last Sa′-ma was near seven weeks' duration. It began about December 20, 1902, and ended February 10, 1903. Sa′-ma is the last period of the season Ka-sĭp′, and the last of the year.

The Igorot often says that a certain thing occurred in La′-tub, or will occur in Ba-li′-lĭng, so these periods of the calendar are held in mind as the civilized man thinks of events in time as occurring in some particular month. page 221

The Igorot have a tradition that formerly the moon was also a sun, and at that time it was always day. Lumawig told the moon to be “moon,” and then there was night. Such a change was necessary, they say, so the people would know when to work—that is, when was the right time, the right moon, to take up a particular kind of labor.