The Bontoc Igorot

Chapter VIII

Religion

Spirit belief

The basis of Igorot religion is every man's belief in the spirit world—the animism found widespread among primitive peoples. It is the belief in the ever-present, ever-watchful a-ni′-to, or spirit of the dead, who has all power for good or evil, even for life or death. In this world of spirits the Igorot is born and lives; there he constantly entreats, seeks to appease, and to cajole; in a mild way he threatens, and he always tries to avert; and there at last he surrenders to the more than matchful spirits, whose numbers he joins, and whose powers he acquires.

All things have an invisible existence as well as a visible, material one. The Igorot does not explain the existence of earth, water, fire, vegetation, and animals in invisible form, but man's invisible form, man's spirit, is his speech. During the life of a person his spirit is called “ta′-ko.” After death the spirit receives a new name, though its nature is unchanged, and it goes about in a body invisible to the eye of man yet unchanged in appearance from that of the living person. There seems to be no idea of future rewards or punishments, though they say a bad a-ni′-to is sometimes driven away from the others.

The spirit of all dead persons is called “a-ni′-to”—this is the general name for the soul of the dead. However, the spirits of certain dead have a specific name. Pĭn-tĕng′ is the name of the a-ni′-to of a beheaded person; wul-wul is the name of the a-ni′-to of deaf and dumb persons—it is evidently an onomatopoetic word. And wong-ong is the name of the a-ni′-to of an insane person. Fu-ta-tu is a bad a-ni′-to, or the name applied to the a-ni′-to which is supposed to be ostracized from respectable a-ni′-to society.

Besides these various forms of a-ni′-to or spirits, the body itself is also sometimes supposed to have an existence after death. Li-mum′ is the name of the spiritual form of the human body. Li-mum′ is seen at times in the pueblo and frequently enters habitations, but it is said never to cause death or accident. Li-mum′ may best be translated by the English term “ghost,” although he has a definite function ascribed to the rather fiendish “nightmare”—that of sitting heavily on the breast and stomach of a sleeper. page 197

The ta′-ko, the soul of the living man, is a faithful servant of man, and, though accustomed to leave the body at times, it brings to the person the knowledge of the unseen spirit life in which the Igorot constantly lives. In other words, the people, especially the old men, dream dreams and see visions, and these form the meshes of the net which has caught here and there stray or apparently related facts from which the Igorot constructs much of his belief in spirit life.

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; and eventually, some of them, at least, die or change their forms again. The Igorot do not say how long an a-ni′-to lives, and they have not tried to answer the question of the final disposition of a-ni′-to, but in various ceremonials a-ni′-to of several generations of ancestors are invited to the family feast, so the Igorot does not believe that the a-ni′-to ceases, as an a-ni′-to, in what would be the lifetime of a person.

When an a-ni′-to dies or changes its form it may become a snake—and the Igorot never kills a snake, except if it bothers about his dwelling; or it may become a rock—there is one such a-ni′-to rock on the mountain horizon north of Bontoc; but the most common form for a dead a-ni′-to to take is li′-fa, the phosphorescent glow in the dead wood of the mountains. Why or how these various changes occur the Igorot does not understand.

In many respects the dreamer has seen the a-ni′-to world in great detail. He has seen that a-ni′-to are rich or poor, old or young, as were the persons at death, and yet there is progression, such as birth, marriage, old age, and death. Each man seems to know in what part of the mountains his a-ni′-to will dwell, because some one of his ancestors is known to inhabit a particular place, and where one ancestor is there the children go to be with him. This does not refer to desirability of location, but simply to physical location—as in the mountain north of Bontoc, or in one to the east or south.

As was stated in a previous chapter, with the one exception of toothache, all injuries, diseases, and deaths are caused directly by a-ni′-to. In certain ceremonies the ancestral a-ni′-to, are urged to care for living descendants, to protect them from a-ni′-to that seek to harm—and children are named after their dead ancestors, so they may be known and receive protection. 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; so when a man goes alone in the mountains with the sinalawitan he is safer from a-ni′-to than he is with any other spear.

The Igorot does not say that the entire spirit world, except his relatives, is against him, and he does not blame the spirits for the evils they inflict on him—it is the way things are—but he acts as though all are his enemies, and he often entreats them to visit their destruction on other pueblos. It is safe to say that one feast is held daily in Bontoc by some family to appease or win the good will of some a-ni′-to.

At death the spirit of a beheaded person, the pĭn-tĕng′, goes above to chayya, the sky. The old men are very emphatic in this belief. They always point to the surrounding mountains as the home of the a-ni′-to, but straight above to chayya, the sky, as the home of the spirit of the beheaded. The old men say the pĭn-tĕng′ has a head of flames. There in the sky the pĭn-tĕng′ repeat the life of those living in the pueblo. They till the soil and they marry, but the society is exclusive—there are none there except those who lost their heads to the enemy.

The pĭn-tĕng′ is responsible for the death of every person who loses his head. He puts murder in the minds of all men who are to be successful in taking heads. He also sees the outrages of warfare, and visits vengeance on those who kill babes and small children.

In his relations with the unseen spirit world the Igorot has certain visible, material friends that assist him by warnings of good and evil. When a chicken is killed its gall is examined, and, if found to be dark colored, all is well; if it is light, he is warned of some pending evil in spirit form. Snakes, rats, crows, falling stones, crumbling earth, and the small reddish-brown omen bird, i′-chu, all warn the Igorot of pending evil.