The Bontoc Igorot Part 12

The irrigated s.e.m.e.nteras are also planted to camotes by transplanting from these house beds. This transplanting lasts about six weeks in Bontoc, beginning near the middle of July.

Some little sugar cane is grown by the Igorot of the Bontoc area. It is claimed to grow up each year from the roots left at the preceding harvest. At times new patches of cane are started by transplanting shoots from the parent plants. It is said that in January the stalks are cut and set in a rich mud, and that in the season of Baliling, from about July 15 until early in September, the rooted shoots are transplanted to the new beds.

Cultivating

The chief cultivation given to Igorot crops is bestowed on rice, though all cultivated lands are remarkably free from weeds. The rice s.e.m.e.nteras are carefully weeded, "suckers" are pulled out, and the beds are thinned generally, so that each plant will have all needful chance to develop fruit. This weeding and thinning is the work of women and half-grown children. Every day for nearly two months, or until the fruit heads appear, the cultivators are diligently at work in the s.e.m.e.nteras. No tools or agricultural implements other than bare hands are used in this work.

The men keep constant watch of the s.e.m.e.ntera walls and the irrigating ca.n.a.ls, repairing all, thus indirectly a.s.sisting the women in their cultivation by directing water to the growing crop and by conserving it when it is obtained.

Protecting

The rice begins to fruit early in April, at which time systematic effort to protect the new grain from birds, rats, monkeys, and wild hogs commences. This effort continues until the harvest is completed, practically for three months. Much of this labor is performed by water power, much by wind power, and about all the children and old people in a pueblo are busied from early dawn until twilight in the s.e.m.e.ntera as independent guards. Besides, throughout the long night men and women build fires among the s.e.m.e.nteras and guard their crop from the wild hog. It is a critical time with the Igorot.

The most natural, simplest, and undoubtedly the most successful protection of the grain is the presence of a person on the terrace walls of the s.e.m.e.ntera, whether by day or night. Hundreds of fields are so guarded each day in Bontoc by old people and children, who frequently erect small screens of tall gra.s.s to shade and protect themselves from the sun.

The next simplest method is one followed by the boys. They employ a hollow section of carabao horn, cut off at both ends and about 8 inches in length; it is called "kong-ok'." This the boys beat when birds are near, producing an open, resonant sound which may readily be heard a mile.

The wind tosses about over the growing grain various "scarecrows." The pa-chek' is one of these. It consists of a single large dry leaf, or a bunch of small dry leaves, suspended by a cord from a heavy, coa.r.s.e gra.s.s 6 or 8 feet high; the leaf, the sa-gi-kak', hangs 4 feet above the fruit heads. It swings about slightly in the breeze, and probably is some protection against the birds. I believe it the least effective of the various things devised by the Igorot to protect his rice from the mult.i.tudes of ti-lin' -- the small, brown ricebird[25]

found broadly over the Archipelago.

The most picturesque of these wind-tossed bird scarers is the ki'-lao. The ki'-lao is a basket-work figure swung from a pole and is usually the shape and size of the distended wings of a large gull, though it is also made in other shapes, as that of man, the lizard, etc. The pole is about 20 feet high, and is stuck in the earth at such an angle that the swinging figure attached by a line at the top of the pole hangs well over the s.e.m.e.ntera and about 3 or 4 feet above the grain (see Pl. LXVII). The bird-like ki'-lao is hung by its middle, at what would be the neck of the bird, and it soars back and forth, up and down, in a remarkably lifelike way. There are often a dozen ki'-lao in a s.p.a.ce 4 rods square, and they are certainly effectual, if they look as bird-like to ti-lin' as they do to man. When seen a short distance away they appear exactly like a flock of restless gulls turning and dipping in some harbor.

FIGURE 4

Fig. 4. -- Bird scarer in rice field.

The water-power bird scarers are ingenious. Across a shallow, running rapids in the river or ca.n.a.l a line, called "pi-chug'," is stretched, fastened at one end to a yielding pole, and at the other to a rigid pole. A bowed piece of wood about 15 inches long and 3 inches wide, called "pit-ug'," is suspended by a line at each end from the horizontal cord. This pit-ug' is suspended in the rapids, by which it is carried quickly downstream as far as the elasticity of the yielding pole and the pi-chug' will allow, then it snaps suddenly back upstream and is ready to be carried down and repeat the jerk on the relaxing pole. A system of cords pa.s.ses high in the air from the jerking pole at the stream to other slender, jerked poles among the s.e.m.e.nteras. From these poles a low jerking line runs over the s.e.m.e.nteras, over which are stretched at right angles parallel cords within a few feet of the fruit heads. These parallel cords are also jerked, and their movement, together with that of the leaves depending from them, is sufficient to keep the birds away. One such machine may send its shock a quarter of a mile and trouble the birds over an area half an acre in extent.

Other Igorot, as those of the upper Abra River in Lepanto Province, employ this same jerking machine to produce a sharp, clicking sound in the s.e.m.e.ntera. The jerking cord repeatedly raises a series of hanging, vertical wooden fingers, which, on being released, fall against a stationary, horizontal bamboo tube, producing the sharp click. These clicking machines are set up on two supporting sticks a few feet above the grain every three or four yards about the s.e.m.e.nteras.

There are many rodents, rats and mice, which destroy the growing grain during the night unless great care is taken to cheek them. The Igorot makes a small dead fall which he places in the path surrounding the s.e.m.e.ntera. I have seen as many as five of these traps on a single side of a s.e.m.e.ntera not more than 30 feet square. The trap has a closely woven, wooden dead fall, about 10 or 15 inches square; one end is set on the path and the other is supported in the air above it by a string. One end of this string is fastened to a tall stick planted in the earth, the lower end is tied to a short stick -- a part of the "spring" held rigid beneath the dead fall until the trigger is touched. The dead fall drops when the rat, in touching the trigger, releases the lower end of the cord. The animal springs the trigger either by nibbling a bait on it or by running against it, and is immediately killed, since the dead fall is weighted with stones.

s.e.m.e.nteras near some forested mountains in the Bontoc area are pestered with monkeys. Day and night people remain on guard against them in lonely, dangerous places -- just the kind of spot the head-hunter chooses wherein to surprise his enemy.

All border s.e.m.e.nteras in every group of fields are subject to the night visits of wild hogs. In some areas commanding piles of earth for outlooks are left standing when the s.e.m.e.nteras are constructed. In other places outlooks are erected for the purpose. Permanent shelters, some of them commodious stone structures, are often erected on these outlooks where a person remains on guard night and day (Pl. LXVIII), at night burning a fire to frighten the wild hogs away.

At this season of the year when practically all the people of the pueblo are in the s.e.m.e.nteras. it is most interesting to watch the homecoming of the laborers at night. At early dusk they may be seen coming in over the trails leading from the s.e.m.e.nteras to the pueblo in long processions. The boys and girls 5 or 6 years old or more, most of them entirely naked, come playing or dancing along -- the boys often marking time by beating a tin can or two sticks -- seemingly as full of life as when they started out in the morning. The younger children are toddling by the side of their father or mother, a small, dirty hand smothered in a large, labor-cracked one; or else are carried on their father's back or shoulder, or perhaps astride their mother's hip. The old men and women, almost always unsightly and ugly, who go to the s.e.m.e.ntera only to guard and not to toil, come slowly and feebly home, often picking their way with a staff. There is much laughing and coquetting among the young people. A boy dashes by with several girls in laughing pursuit, and it is not at all likely that he escapes them with all his belongings. Many of the younger married women carry babies; some carry on their heads baskets filled with weeds used as food for the pigs, and all have their small rump baskets filled with "greens" or snails or fish.

A man may carry on his shoulder a huge short log of wood cut in the mountains, the wood partially supported on the shoulder by his spear; or he perhaps carries a large bunch of dry gra.s.s to be thrown into the pigpen as bedding; or he comes swinging along empty handed save for his spear used as a staff. Most of the returning men and boys carry the empty topil, the small, square, covered basket in which rice for the noon meal is carried to the s.e.m.e.ntera; sometimes a boy carries a bunch of three or four, and he dangles them open from their strings as he dances along.

For an hour or more the procession continues -- one almost-naked figure following another -- all dirty, most of them doubtless tired, and yet seemingly happy and content with the finish of their day of toil. It is long after dark before the last straggler is in.

Harvesting

Rice harvesting in Bontoc is a delightful and picturesque sight to an American, and a most serious religious matter to the Igorot.

Though ceremonials having to do with agriculture have purposely been omitted from this chapter, yet, since one of the most striking and important features of the harvesting is the harvest ceremonial, it is thought best to introduce it here.

Sa-fo'-sab is the name of the ceremony. It is performed in a pathway adjoining each s.e.m.e.ntera before a single grain is gathered. In the path the owner of the field builds a tiny fire beside which he stands while the harvesters sit in silence. The owner says:

"So-mi-ka-ka' pa-ku' ta-mo i-sa'-mi sik'-a kin-po-num' nan a-lang',"

which, freely rendered, means, "Palay, when we carry you to the granary, increase greatly so that you will fill it."

As soon as the ceremonial is said the speaker harvests one handful of the grain, after which the laborers arise and begin the harvest.

In the trails leading past the s.e.m.e.ntera two tall stalks of runo are planted, and these, called "pud-i-pud'," warn all Igorot that they must not pa.s.s the s.e.m.e.ntera during the hours of the harvest. Nor will they ignore the warning, since if they do they are liable to forfeit a hog or other valuable possession to the owner of the grain.

I spent half a day trying to get close enough to a harvesting party to photograph it. All the harvesters were women, and they scolded our party long and severely while we were yet six or eight rods distant; my Igorot boys carrying the photographic outfit -- boys who had lived four months in my house -- laughingly but positively refused to follow me closer than three or four rods to the s.e.m.e.ntera. No photographs were obtained at that time. It was only after the matter was talked over by some of the men of the pueblo that photographs could be willingly obtained, and the force of the warning pud-i-pud'

withdrawn for our party. Even during the time my Igorot boys were in the trail by a harvest party all other Igorot pa.s.sed around the warning runo. The Igorot says he believes the harvest will be blasted even while being gathered should one pa.s.s along a pathway skirting any side of the s.e.m.e.ntera.

Several harvesters, from four to a dozen, labor together in each s.e.m.e.ntera. They begin at one side and pa.s.s across the plat, gathering all grain as they pa.s.s. Men and women work together, but women are recognized the better harvesters, since their hands are more nimble. Each fruited stalk is grasped shortly below the fruit head, and the upper section or joint of the stalk, together with the fruit head and topmost leaf, is pulled off. As most Bontoc Igorot are right-handed, the plucked grain is laid in the left hand, the fruit heads projecting beyond between the thumb and forefinger while the leaf attached to each fruit head lies outside and below the thumb. When the proper amount of grain is in hand (a bunch of stalks about an inch in diameter) the useless leaves, all arranged for one grasp of the right hand, are stripped off and dropped; the bunch of fruit heads, topping a 6-inch section of clean stalk or straw is handed to a person who may be called the binder. This person in all harvests I have seen was a woman. She binds all the grain three, four, or five persons can pluck; and when there is one binder for every three gatherers the binder finds some time also to gather.

The binder pa.s.ses a small, prepared strip of bamboo twice around the palay stalks, holds one end between her teeth and draws the binding tight; then she twists the two ends together, and the bunch is secure. The bunch, the manojo of the Spaniard, the sin fing-e'

of the Igorot, is then piled up on the binder's head until a load is made. Before each bunch is placed on the pile the fruitheads are spread out like an open fan. These piles are never completed until they are higher than the woman's arm can reach -- several of the last bunches being tossed in place, guided only by the tips of the fingers touching the b.u.t.t of the straw. The women with their heads loaded high with ripened grain are striking figures -- and one wonders at the security of the loads.

When a load is made it is borne to the transportation baskets in some part of the harvested section of the s.e.m.e.ntera, where it is gently slid to the earth over the front of the head as the woman stoops forward. It is loaded into the basket at once unless there is a scarcity of binders in the field, in which case it awaits the completion of the harvest.

In all agricultural labors the Igorot is industrious, yet his humor, ever present with him, brings relief from continued toil. The harvest field is no exception, since there is much quiet gossip and jest during the labors.

In 1903 rice was first harvested May 2. The harvest continued one month, the crop of a s.e.m.e.ntera being gathered here and there as it ripened. The Igorot calls this first harvest month the "moon of the small harvest." During June the crop is ripened everywhere, and the harvest is on in earnest; the Igorot speaks of it as the "moon of the all harvest."

I had no view of the harvest of millet or maize; however, I have seen in the pueblo much of each grain of some previous harvest. The millet I am told, is harvested similarly to the rice, and the clean-stalked bunches are tied up in the same way -- only the bunches are four or five times larger.

The fruit head, or ears, of the maize is said to be plucked off the stalks in the fields as the American farmer gathers green corn or seed corn. It is stored still covered with its husks.

The camote harvest is continued fairly well throughout the year. Undoubtedly some camotes are dug every day in the year from the dry mountain-side s.e.m.e.nteras, but the regular harvest occurs during November and December, during which time the camotes are gathered from the irrigated s.e.m.e.nteras preparatory to turning the soil for the transplanting of new rice.

Women are the camote gatherers. I never saw men, nor even boys, gathering camotes. 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. She looks as though she never had stood erect and never would stand erect on two feet. Thus she toils day after day from early morning till dusk that she and her family may eat.

Storing

No palay is carried to the a-lang', the separate granary building, or to the dwelling for the purpose of being stored until the entire crop of the s.e.m.e.ntera is harvested. It may be carried part way, but there it halts until all the grain is ready to be carried home.

It is spread out on the ground or on a roof in the sun two or three days to dry before storing. When the grain is to be stored away an old man -- any man -- asks a blessing on it that it may make men, hogs, and chickens well, strong, and fat when they consume it. This ceremony is called "ka-fo'-kab," and the man who performs it is known by the t.i.tle of "in-ka-fa'."

The Igorot granary, the a-lang', is a "hip-roofed" structure about 8 feet long, 5 wide, 4 feet high at the sides and 6 at the ridgepole. Its sides are built of heavy pine planks, which are inserted in grooved horizontal timbers, the planks being set up vertically. The floor is about a foot from the earth. The roof consists of a heavy, thick cover of long gra.s.s securely tied on a pole frame. It is seldom that a granary stands alone -- usually there are two or more together, and Bontoc has several groups of a dozen each, as shown in Pl. LXXII. When built together they are better protected from the rain storms. The roofs also are made so they extend close to the earth, thus almost entirely protecting the sides of the structure from the storms. All cracks are carefully filled with pieces of wood wedged and driven in. Even the door, consisting of two or three vertical planks set in grooved timbers, is laboriously wedged the same way. The building is rodent proof, and, because of its wide, projecting roof and the fact that it sets off the earth, it is practically moisture proof.

Most palay is stored in the granaries in the small bunches tied at harvest. The a-lang' is carefully closed again after each s.e.m.e.ntera crop has been put in. There are granaries in Bontoc which have not been opened, it is said, in eight or more years, except to receive additional crops of palay, and yet the grain is as perfectly preserved as when first stored. Some palay, especially that needed for consumption within a reasonable time, is stored in the upper part of the family dwelling.

Maize and millet are generally stored in the dwelling, in the second and third stories, since not enough of either is grown to fill an a-lang', it is said.