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—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′ 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 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 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′.”