Chapter 9

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 "tuk-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 "Yup-yup," is also a hog, and always accompanies Ki-cho'.

Lumawig superintends the rains. Li-fo'-o are the rain clouds -- they 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.

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' chuk-chuk'-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 half 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 tin-mo-win', 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 "fis-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, "fit-fi-tay'-eg;" the three-quarters waning moon, "ka-tol-pa-ka'-na" or "ma-til-pa'-kan;" the two-quarters waning moon, "ki-sul-fi-ka'-na;" the one-quarter waning moon, sig-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'-meng" or "ma-a-mas'."

FIGURE 9

Recognized phases of the moon.

Fis-ka'-na. Ma-no'-wa. Kat-no-wa'-na. Fit-fi-tay'-eg. Ka-tol-pa-ka'-na. Ki-sul-fi-ka'-na. Sig-na'-a-na. Li'-meng.

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-sip', 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-sip' 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 periods 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'-tub. 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'-ling. It is the first period of the season Ka-sip'. 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-sip', and the last of the year.

The Igorot often says that a certain thing occurred in La'-tub, or will occur in Ba-li'-ling, 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.

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.

Folk tales

The paucity of the pure mental life of the Igorot is nowhere more clearly shown than in the scarcity of folk tales.

I group here seven tales which are quite commonly known among the people of Bontoc. The second, third, fourth, and fifth are frequently related by the parents to their children, and I heard all of them the first time from boys about a dozen years old. I believe these tales are nearly all the pure fiction the Igorot has created and perpetuated from generation to generation, except the Lumawig stories.

The Igorot story-tellers, with one or two exceptions, present the bare facts in a colorless and lifeless manner. I have, therefore, taken the liberty of adding slightly to the tales by giving them some local coloring, but I have neither added to nor detracted from the facts related.

The sun man and moon woman; or, origin of head-hunting

The Moon, a woman called "Ka-bi-gat'," was one day making a large copper cooking pot. The copper was soft and plastic like potter's clay. Ka-bi-gat' held the heavy sagging pot on her knees and leaned the hardened rim against her naked breasts. As she squatted there -- turning, patting, shaping, the huge vessel -- a son of the man Chal-chal', the Sun, came to watch her. This is what he saw: The Moon dipped her paddle, called "pip-i'," in the water, and rubbed it dripping over a smooth, rounded stone, an agate with ribbons of colors wound about in it. Then she stretched one long arm inside the pot as far as she could. "Tub, tub, tub," said the ribbons of colors as Ka-bi-gat' pounded up against the molten copper with the stone in her extended hand. "Slip, slip, slip, slip," quickly answered pip-i', because the Moon was spanking back the many little rounded domes which the stone bulged forth on the outer surface of the vessel. Thus the huge bowl grew larger, more symmetrical, and smooth.

Suddenly the Moon looked up and saw the boy intently watching the swelling pot and the rapid playing of the paddle. Instantly the Moon struck him, cutting off his head.

Chal-chal' was not there. He did not see it, but he knew Ka-bi-gat' cut off his son's head by striking with her pip-i'.

He hastened to the spot, picked the lad up, and put his head where it belonged -- and the boy was alive.

Then the Sun said to the Moon:

"See, because you cut off my son's head, the people of the Earth are cutting off each other's heads, and will do so hereafter."

"And it is so," the story-tellers continue; "they do cut off each other's heads."

Origin of coling, the serpent eagle[36]

A man and woman had two boys. Every day the mother sent them into the mountains for wood to cook her food. Each morning as she sent them out she complained about the last wood they brought home.

One day they brought tree limbs; the mother complained, saying:

"This wood is bad. It smokes so much that I can not see, and soon I shall be blind." And then she added, as was her custom:

"If you do not work well, you can have only food for dogs and pigs."

That day, as usual, the boys had in their topil for dinner only boiled camote vines, such as the hogs eat, and a small allowance of rice, just as much as a dog is fed. At night the boys brought some very good wood -- wood of the pitch-pine tree. In the morning the mother complained that such wood blackened the house. She gave them pig food in their topil, saying:

"Pig food is good enough for you because you do not work well."

That night each boy brought in a large bundle of runo. The mother was angry, and scolded, saying:

"This is not good wood; it leaves too many ashes and it dirties the house."

In the morning she gave them dog food for dinner, and the boys again went away to the mountains. They were now very thin and poor because they had no meat to eat. By and by the older one said:

"You wait here while I climb up this tree and cut off some branches." So he climbed the tree, and presently called down:

"Here is some wood" -- and the bones of an arm dropped to the ground.

"Oh, oh," exclaimed the younger brother, "it is your arm!"

Again the older boy called, "Here is some more wood" -- and the bones of his other arm fell at the foot of the tree.

Again he called, and the bones of a leg dropped; then his other leg fell. The next time he called, down came the right half of his ribs; and then, next, the left half of his ribs; and immediately thereafter his spinal column. Then he called again, and down fell his hair.

The last time he called, "Here is some wood," his skull dropped on the earth under the tree.

"Here, take those things home," said he. "Tell the woman that this is her wood; she only wanted my bones."

"But there is no one to go with me down the mountains," said the younger boy.

"Yes; I will go with you, brother," quickly came the answer from the tree top.

So the boy tied up his bundle, and, putting it on his shoulder, started for the pueblo. As he did so the other -- he was now Co-ling' -- soared from the tree top, always flying directly above the boy.

When the younger brother reached home he put his bundle down, and said to the woman:

"Here is the wood you wanted."

The woman and the husband, frightened, ran out of the house; they heard something in the air above them.

"Qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok!" said Co-ling', as he circled around and around above the house. "Qu-iu'-kok! qu-iu'-kok!" he screamed, "now camotes and palay are your son. I do not need your food any longer."

Origin of tilin, the ricebird[37]

As the mother was pounding out rice to cook for supper, her little girl said:

"Give me some mo'-ting to eat."

"No," answered the mother, "mo'-ting is not good to eat; wait until it is cooked."

"No, I want to eat mo'-ting," said the little girl, and for a long time she kept asking her mother for raw rice.

At last her mother interrupted, "It is bad to talk so much."

The rice was then all pounded out. The mother winnowed it clean, and put it in her basket, covering it up with the winnowing tray. She placed an empty olla on her head and went to the spring for water.

The anxious little girl reached quickly for the basket to get some rice, but the tray slipped from her grasp and fell, covering her beneath it in the basket.

The mother returned with the water to cook supper. She heard a bird crying, "King! king! nik! nik! nik!" When the woman uncovered the basket, Tilin, the little brown ricebird, flew away, calling:

"Good-bye, mother; good-bye, mother; you would not give me mo'-ting!"

Origin of kaag, the monkey

The palay was in the milk and maturing rapidly. Many kinds of birds that knew how delicious juicy palay is were on hand to get their share, so the boys were sent to stay all day in the sementeras to frighten these little robbers away.

Every day a father sent out his two boys to watch his palay in a narrow gash in the mountain; and every day they carried their small basket full of cooked rice, white and delicious, but their mother put no meat in the basket.

Finally one of the boys said:

"It is bad not to have meat to eat; every day we have only rice."

"Yes, it is bad," said his brother. "We can not keep fat without meat; we are getting poor and thin, and pretty soon we shall die."

"That is true," answered the other boy; "pretty soon we shall die. I believe I shall be ka'-ag."

And during the day thick hair came on this boy's arms; and then he became hairy all over; and then it was so -- he was ka'-ag, and he vanished in the mountains.

Then soon the other boy was ka'-ag, too. At night he went home and told the father:

"Your boy is ka'-ag; he is in the mountains."

The boy ran out of the house quickly. The father went to the mountains to get his boy, but ka'-ag ran up a tall tree; at the foot of the tree was a pile of bones. The father called his son, and ka'-ag came down the tree, and, as the father went toward him, ka'-ag stood up clawing and striking at the man with his hands, and breathing a rough throat cry like this:

"Haa! haa! haa!"

Then the man ran home crying, and he never got his boys.

Pretty soon there was a-sa'-wan nan ka'-ag[38] with a babe. Then there were many little children; and then, pretty soon, the mountains were full of monkeys.

Origin of gayyang, the crow, and fanias, the large lizard

There were two young men who were the very greatest of friends.

One tattooed the other beautifully. He tattooed his arms and his legs, his breast and his belly, and also his back and face. He marked him beautifully all over, and he rubbed soot from the bottom of an olla into the marks, and he was then very beautiful.

When the tattooer finished his work he turned to his friend, and said: "Now you tattoo me beautifully, too."

So the young men scraped together a great pile of black, greasy soot from pitch-pine wood; and before the other knew what the tattooed one was doing he rubbed soot over him from finger tip to finger tip. Then the black one asked:

"Why do you tattoo me so badly?"

Without waiting for an answer they began a terrible combat. When, suddenly, the tattooed one was a large lizard, fa-ni'-as,[39] and he ran away and hid in the tall grass; and the sooty black one was gay-yang, the crow,[40] and he flew away and up over Bontoc, because he was ashamed to enter the pueblo after quarreling with his old friend.

Owug, the snake

The old men say that a man of Mayinit came to live in Bontoc, as he had married a Bontoc woman and she wished to live in her own town.

After a while the man died. His friends came to the funeral, and a snake, o-wug', also came. When the people wept, o-wug' cried also. When they put the dead man in the grave, and when they stood there looking, o-wug' came to the grave and looked upon the man, and then went away.

Later, when the friends observed the death ceremony, o-wug' also came.

"O-wug' thus showed himself to be a friend and companion of the Igorot. Sometime in the past he was an Igorot, but we have not heard," the old men say, "when or how he was o-wug'."

"We never kill o-wug'; he is our friend. If he crosses our path on a journey, we stop and talk. If he crosses our path three or four times, we return home, because, if we continue our journey then, some of us will die. O-wug' thus comes to tell us not to proceed; he knows the bad anito on every trail."

Who took my father's head?

The Bontoc people have another folk tale regarding head taking. In it Lumawig, their god, taught them how to discover which pueblo had taken the head of one of their members. They repeat this story as a ceremony in the pabafunan after every head lost, though almost always they know what pueblo took it. It is as follows:

"A very great time ago a man and woman had two sons. Far up in the mountains they owned some garden patches. One day they told the boys to go and see whether the stone wall about the garden needed repair; but the boys said they did not wish to go, so the father went alone. As he did not return at nightfall, his sons started into the mountains to find him. They bound together two small bunches of runo for torches to light up the steep, rough, twisting trail. One torch was burning when they went out, and they carried the other to light them home again. Nowhere along the trail did they find their father; he had not been injured in the path, nor could they find where he had fallen over a cliff. So they passed on to the garden; there they found their father's headless body. They searched for blood in the bushes and grass, but they found nothing -- no blood, no enemies' tracks.

"They carried the strange corpse down the mountain trail to their home in Bontoc. Then they hastened to the pabafunan, and there they told the men what had befallen their father. The old men counseled together, and at last one of them said: 'Lumawig told the old men of the past, so the old men last dead told me, that should any son find his father beheaded, he should do this: He should ask, "Who took my father's head? Did Tukukan take it? Did Sakasakan take it?" ' and Lumawig said, 'He shall know who took his father's head.'

"So the boys took a basket, the fangao, to represent Lumawig, and stuck it full of chicken feathers. Before the fangao they placed a small cup of basi. Then squatting in front with the cup at their feet they put a small piece of pork on a stick and held it over the cup. 'Who took my father's head? -- did Tukukan?' they asked. But the pork and the cup and the basket all remained still. 'Did Sakasakan?' asked the boys all was as before. They went over a list of towns at enmity with Bontoc, but there was no answer given them. At last they asked, 'Did the Moon?' -- but still there was no answer. 'Did the Sun?' the boys asked, and suddenly the piece of pork slid from the stick into the basi. And this was the way Lumawig had said a person should know who took his father's head.

"The Sun, then, was the guilty person. The two boys took some dogs and hastened to the mountains where their father was killed. There the dogs took up the scent of the enemy, and followed it in a straight line to a very large spring where the water boiled up, as at Mayinit where the salt springs are. The scent passed into this bubbling, tumbling water, but the dogs could not get down. When the dogs returned to land the elder brother tried to enter, but he failed also. Then the younger brother tried to get down; he succeeded in going beneath the water, and there he saw the head of his father, and young men in a circle were dancing around it -- they were the children of the Sun. The brother struck off the head of one of these young men, caught up his father's head, and, with the two heads, escaped. When he reached his elder brother the two hastened home to their pueblo."