The Bontoc Igorot Part 29

"A-ni'-to ad Lo'-ko, su-ma-a-kay'-yo ta-in-mang-mang'-ta-ko ta-ka-ka'-nen si mu'-teg." Then she faced the north and addressed the spirit of her ancestors there: "A-ni'-to ad La'-G.o.d, su-ma-a-kay'-yo ta-in-mang-mang'-ta-ko ta-ka-ka'-nen si mu'-teg." She faced the east, gazing over the forested mountain ranges, and called to the spirits of the past generation there: "A-ni'-to ad Bar'-lig su-ma-a-kay'-yo ta-in-mang-mang'-ta-ko ta-ka-ka-nen si mu'-teg."

As she brought her sacred objects back down the mountain another woman stood alone by the little fire on the crest.

The returning pilgrim now puts her fowl and her basi olla inside her dwelling, and likely sits in the open air awaiting her husband as he prepares the feast. Outside, directly in front of his door, he builds a fire and sets a cooking olla over it. Then he takes the chicken from its basket, and at his hands it meets a slow and cruel death. It is held by the feet and the hackle feathers, and the wings unfold and droop spreading. While sitting in his doorway holding the fowl in this position the man beats the thin-fleshed bones of the wings with a short, heavy stick as large around as a spear handle. The fowl cries with each of the first dozen blows laid on, but the blows continue until each wing has received fully half a hundred. The injured bird is then laid on its back on a stone, while its head and neck stretch out on the hard surface. Again the stick falls, cruelly, regularly, this time on the neck. Up and down its length it is pummeled, and as many as a hundred blows fall -- fall after the cries cease, after the eyes close and open and close again a dozen times, and after the bird is dead. The head receives a few sharp blows, a jet of blood spurts out, and the ceremonial killing is past. The man, still sitting on his haunches, still clasping the feet of the pendent bird, moves over beside his fire, faces his dwelling, and voices the only words of this strangely cruel scene. His eyes are open, his head unbending, and he gazes before him as he earnestly asks a blessing on the people, their pigs, chickens, and crops.

The old men say it is bad to cut off a chicken's head -- it is like taking a human head, and, besides, they say that the pummeling makes the flesh on the bony wings and neck larger and more abundant -- so all fowls killed are beaten to death.

After the oral part of the ceremony the fowl is held in the flames till all its feathers are burned off. It is cut up and cooked in the olla before the door of the dwelling, and the entire family eats of it.

Each family has the Mang'-mang ceremony, and so also has each broken household if it possesses a s.e.m.e.ntera -- though a lone woman calls in a man, who alone may perform the rite connected with the ceremonial killing, and who must cook the fowl. A lone man needs no woman a.s.sistant.

Though the ancestral anito are religiously bidden to the feast, the people eat it all, no part being sacrificed for these invisible guests. Even the small olla of basi is drunk by the man at the beginning of the meal.

The rite of the third day is called "Mang-a-pu'-i." The s.e.m.e.nteras of growing palay are visited, and an abundant fruitage asked for. Early in the morning some member of each household goes to the mountains to get small sprigs of a plant named "pa-lo'-ki." Even as early as 7.30 the pa-lo'-ki had been brought to many of the houses, and the people were scattering along the different trails leading to the most distant s.e.m.e.nteras. If the family owned many scattered fields, the day was well spent before all were visited.

Men, women, and boys went to the bright-green fields of young palay, each carrying the basket belonging to his s.e.x. In the basket were the sprigs of pa-lo'-ki, a small olla of water, a small wooden dish or a basket of cooked rice, and a bamboo tube of basi or tapui. Many persons had also several small pieces of pork and a chicken. As they pa.s.sed out of the pueblo each carried a tightly bound club-like torch of burning palay straw; this would smolder slowly for hours.

On the stone dike of each s.e.m.e.ntera the owner paused to place three small stones to hold the olla. The bundle of smoldering straw was picked open till the breeze fanned a blaze; dry sticks or reeds quickly made a small, smoking fire under the olla, in which was put the pork or the chicken, if food was to be eaten there. Frequently, too, if the smoke was low, a piece of the pork was put on a stick punched into the soil of the s.e.m.e.ntera beside the fire and the smoke enwrapped the meat and pa.s.sed on over the growing field.

As soon as all was arranged at the fire a small amount of basi was poured over a sprig of pa-lo'-ki which was stuck in the soil of the s.e.m.e.ntera, or one or two sprigs were inserted, drooping, in a split in a tall, green runo, and this was pushed into the soil. While the person stood beside the efficacious pa-lo'-ki an invocation was voiced to Lumawig to bless the crop.

The olla and piece of pork were at once put in the basket, and the journey conscientiously continued to the next s.e.m.e.ntera. Only when food was eaten at the s.e.m.e.ntera was the halt prolonged.

A-sig-ka-cho' is the name of the function of the fourth day. On that day each household owning s.e.m.e.nteras has a fish feast.

At that season of the year (February), while the water is low in the river, only the very small, sluggish fish, called "kacho," is commonly caught at Bontoc. Between 200 and 300 pounds of those fish, only one in a hundred of which exceeded 2 1/2 inches in length, were taken from the river during the three hours in the afternoon when the ceremonial fishing was in progress.

Two large scoops, one shown in Pl. XLIX, were used to catch the fish. They were a quarter of a mile apart in the river, and were operated independently.

At the house the fish were cooked and eaten as is described in the section on "Meals and mealtime."

When this fish meal was past the last observance of the fourth day of the Cha'-ka ceremonial was ended.

The rite of the last day is called "Pa'-tay." It is observed by two old Pa'-tay priests. Exactly at high noon Kad-lo'-san left his ato carrying a chicken and a smoldering palay-straw roll in his hand, and the unique basket, tak-fa', on his shoulder. He went unaccompanied and apparently unnoticed to the small grove of trees, called "Pa-pa-tay'

ad So-kok'." Under the trees is a s.p.a.ce some 8 or 10 feet across, paved with flat rocks, and here the man squatted and put down his basket. From it he took a two-quart olla containing water, a small wooden bowl of cooked rice, a bottle of native cane sugar, and a head-ax. He next kindled a blaze under the olla in a fireplace of three stones already set up. Then followed the ceremonial killing of the chicken, as described in the Mang'-mang rite of the second day. With the scarcely dead fowl held before him the man earnestly addressed a short supplication to Lumawig.

The fowl was then turned over and around in the flame until all its feathers were burned off. Its crop was torn out with the fingers. The ax was struck blade up solid in the ground, and the legs of the chicken cut off from the body by drawing them over the sharp ax blade, and they were put at once into the pot. An incision was cut on each side of the neck, and the body torn quickly and neatly open, with the wings still attached to the breast part. A glad exclamation broke from the man when he saw that the gall of the fowl was dark green. The intestines were then removed, ripped into a long string, and laid in the basket. The back part of the fowl, with liver, heart, and gizzard attached, went into the now boiling pot, and the breast section followed it promptly. Three or four minutes after the bowl of rice was placed immediately in front of the man, and the breast part of the chicken laid in the bowl on the rice. Then followed these words: "Now the gall is good, we shall live in the pueblo invulnerable to disease."

The breast was again put in the pot, and as the basket was packed up in preparation for departure the anito of ancestors were invited to a feast of chicken and rice in order that the ceremony might be blessed.

At the completion of this supplication the Pa'-tay shouldered his basket and hastened homeward by a different route from which he came.

If a chicken is used in this rite it is cooked in the dwelling of the priest and is eaten by the family. If a pig is used the old men of the priest's ato consume it with him.

The performance of the rite of this last day is a critical half hour for the town. If the gall of the fowl is white or whitish the palay fruitage will be more or less of a failure. The crop last year was such -- a whitish gall gave the warning. If a crow flies cawing over the path of the Pa'-tay as he returns to his dwelling, or if the dogs bark at him, many people will die in Bontoc. Three years ago a man was killed by a falling bowlder shortly after noon on this last day's ceremonial -- a flying crow had foretold the disaster. If an eagle flies over the path, many houses will burn. Two years ago an eagle warned the people, and in the middle of the day fifty or more houses burned in Bontoc in the three ato of Pokisan, Luwakan, and Ungkan.

If none of these calamities are foretold, the anito enemies of Bontoc are not revengeful, and the pueblo rests in contentment.

Suwat

This ceremony, performed by Som-kad' of ato Sipaat, occurs in the first period of the year, I-na-na'. The usual pig or chicken is killed, and the priest says: "In-fi-kus'-na ay pa-ku' to-mo-no'-ka ad chay'-ya." This is: "Fruit of the palay, grow up tall, even to the sky."

Keeng

Ke'-eng ceremony is for the protection of the palay. Ong-i-yud', of ato Fatayyan, is the priest for this occasion, and the ceremony occurs when the first fruit heads appear on the growing rice. They claim two good-sized hogs are killed on this day. Then Ong-i-yud'

takes a ki'-lao, the bird-shaped bird scarer, from the pueblo and stealthily ducks along to the s.e.m.e.ntera where he suddenly erects the scarer. Then he says:

U-mi-chang'-ka Sik'-a Ti-lin' in kad La'-G.o.d yad Ap'-lay Sik'-a o'-tot in lo-ko-lo'-ka nan fu-i'-mo.

Freely translated, this is --

Ti-lin' [the rice bird], you go away into the north country and the south country You, rat, you go into your hole.

Totolod

This ceremony, tot-o-lod', occurs on the day following ke'-eng, and it is also for the protection of the rice crop. Ong-i-yud' is the priest for both ceremonies.

The usual hog is killed, and then the priest ties up a bundle of palay straw the size of his arm, and walks to the south side of the pueblo "as though stalking deer in the tall gra.s.s." He suddenly and boldly throws the bundle southward, suggesting that the birds and rats follow in the same direction, and that all go together quickly.

Safosab

This ceremony is recorded in the chapter on "Agriculture" in the section on "Harvesting," page 103. It is simply referred to here in the place where it would logically appear if it were not so intimately connected with the harvesting that it could not be omitted in presenting that phase of agriculture.

Lislis

At the close of the rice harvest, at the beginning of the season Li'-pas, the lis-lis ceremony is widely celebrated in the Bontoc area. It consists, in Bontoc pueblo, of two parts. Each family cooks a chicken in the fireplace on the second floor of the dwelling. This part is called "cha-peng'." After the cha-peng' the public part of the ceremony occurs. It is called "fug-fug'-to," and is said to continue three days.

Fug-fug'-to in Bontoc is a man's rock fight between the men of Bontoc and Samoki. The battle is in the broad bed of the river between the two pueblos. The men go to the conflict armed with war shields, and they pelt each other with rocks as seriously as in actual war. There is a man now in Bontoc whose leg was broken in the conflict of 1901, and three of our four Igorot servant boys had scalp wounds received in lis-lis rock conflicts.

A river cuts in two the pueblo of Alap, and that pueblo is said to celebrate the harvest by a rock fight similar to that of Bontoc and Samoki.

It is said by Igorot that the Sadanga lis-lis is a conflict with runo (or reed) spears, which are warded off with the war shields.

It is claimed that in Sagada the public part of the ceremony consists of a mud fight in the s.e.m.e.nteras, mud being thrown by each contending party.