Marks of Bontoc culture
It is difficult and often impossible to state the essential difference in culture which distinguishes one group of people from another. It is more difficult to draw lines of distinction, for the culture of one group almost imperceptibly flows into that of another adjoining it.
However, two fundamental institutions of the people of Bontoc seem to differ from those of most adjoining people. One of these institutions has to do with the control of the pueblo. Bontoc has not developed the headman—the “principal” of the Spaniard, the “Bak-nan′” of the Benguet Igorot—the one rich man who becomes the pueblo, leader. In Benguet Province the headman is found in every pueblo, and he is so powerful that he often dominates half a dozen outlying barrios to the extent that he receives a large share, often one-half, of the output of all the productive labors of the barrio. Immediately north of the Bontoc area, in Tinglayan, the headman is again found. He has no place whatever in Bontoc. The control of the pueblos of the Bontoc area is in the hands of groups of old men; however, each group, called “intugtukan,” operates only within a single political and geographic portion of the pueblo, so that no one group has in charge the control of the pueblo. The pueblo is a loose federation of smaller political groups.
The other institution is a social development. It is the olag, an institution of trial marriage. It is not known to exist among adjoining people, but is found throughout the area in which the intugtukan exists; they are apparently coextensive. I was repeatedly informed that the olag is not found in the Banawi area south of Bontoc, or in the Tinglayan area east, or among the Tinguian to the north, or in Benguet far southwest, or in Lepanto immediately southwest—though I have some reason to believe that both the intugtukan and olag exist in a crumbling way among certain Lepanto Igorot.
Besides these two institutions there are other differing marks of culture between the Bontoc area and adjoining people. Some of these were suggested a few pages back, others will appear in following pages.
Without doubt the limits of the spread of the common culture have been determined mainly by the physiography of the country. One of the two pueblos in the area not on the common drainage system is Lias, but Lias was largely built by a migration from Bontoc pueblo—the hotbed of Bontoc culture. Barlig, the other pueblo not on the common drainage system (both Barlig and Lias are on the Sibbu River), lies between Lias and the other pueblos of the Bontoc culture area, and so naturally has been drawn in line and held in line with the culture of the geographic area in which it is located—its institutions are those of its environment.