In the rear of the building is a board partition apparently extending from one side wall to the other. The bench at the right of the aisle ends against this partition, and on the left the stone fireplaces are built against it. This rear section is covered over with boards at the height of the outside wall, so that a low box is formed, 3½ feet high and 4¼ feet wide. At the rear of the aisle a door 3 feet high and 1 foot 4 inches wide swings into this rear apartment, which, when the door is again closed, is as black as night. An examination of the inside of this section shows it to be entirely walled with stones except where the narrow door cuts it. By inside measure it is only 3 feet 6 inches wide and 6 feet 6 inches long. This is the sleeping apartment, and is called ang-an′. As one crawls into this kennel he is likely to place his hands among ashes and charred sticks which mark the place for a fire on cold nights. The left end of the ang-an′ contains two boards or beds for the man and his wife. Each board is about 18 inches wide and 4 feet long; they are raised 2 or 3 inches from the earth, and the head of the bed is slightly higher than the foot. A pole is laid across the apartment at the lower end of the sleeping boards, and on this the occupants rest their feet and toast them before the small fire. At both ends of the ang-an′, outside the store walls, is a small hidden secret space called “kûb-kûb,” in which the family hides many of its choice possessions. During abundant camote[5] gathering, however, I have seen the kûb-kûb filled with camotes. I should probably not have discovered these spaces had there not been so great a discrepancy between the inside measure of the sleeping room and width of the building.
I know of no other primitive dwellings in the Philippines than the ones in the Bontoc culture area which are built directly on the ground. Most of them are raised on posts several feet from the earth. Some few have side walls extending to the ground, but even those have a floor raised 2, 3, or more feet from the ground and which is reached by means of a short ladder.
The second story of the Bontoc dwelling is supported on the four central posts. On all sides it projects beyond them, so that it is about 7 feet square; it is about 5 feet high. A door enters the second story directly from the aisle, and is reached by an 8-foot ladder. This second story is constructed, floor and side walls, of boards. The side walls cease at about the height of 2 feet where a horizontal shelf is built on them extending outside of them to the roof. It is about 2 feet wide and is usually stored with unthreshed rice and millet or with jars of preserved meats. Just at the left on the floor, as one enters the second story, is an earth-filled square corner walled in by two poles. On this earth are three stones—the fireplace, where each year a chicken is cooked in a household ceremony at the close of rice harvests.
Rising above the second story is a third. In the smaller dwellings this third story is only an attic of the second, but in the larger buildings it is an independent story. To be sure, it is entered through the floor, but a ladder is used, and its floor is of strong heavy boards. It is at all times a storeroom, usually only for cereals. In the smaller houses it amounts simply to a broad shelf about the height of one’s waist as he stands on the floor of the second story and his head and upper body rise through the hole in the floor. In the larger houses a person may climb into the third story and work there with practically as much freedom as in the second.
The 5-foot ridgepole of the steep, heavy, grass roof is supported by two posts rising from the basal timbers of the third story. The roof falls away sharply from the ridgepole not only at the sides but at the ends, so that, except at the ridge, the roof appears square. Immediately beneath both ends of the ridgepole there is a small opening in the grass through which the smoke of the cooking fires is supposed to escape. However, I have scarcely ever seen smoke issue from them, and, since the entire inner part of the building from the floor of the second story to the ridgepole is thickly covered with soot, it seems that little unconsumed carbon escapes through the smoke holes. The lower part of the roof, for 3½ feet, descends at a less steep angle, thus forming practically an awning against sun and rain. Its lower edge is about 4 feet from the ground and projects some 4 feet beyond the side walls of the lower story.
The kat-yu′-fong, the dwelling of the poor, consists of a one-story structure built on the ground with the earth for the floor. Some such buildings have a partition or partial partition running across them, beyond which are the sleeping boards, and there are shelves here and there; but the kat-yu′-fong is a makeshift, and consequently is not so fixed a type of dwelling as the fay′-ü.
Piled close around the dwellings is a supply of firewood in the shape of pine blocks 3 or 4 feet long, usually cut from large trees. These blocks furnish favorite lounging places for the women. The people live most of the time outside their dwellings, and it is there that the social life of the married women is. Any time of day they may be seen close to the a′-fong in the shade of the low, projecting roof sitting spinning or paring camotes; often three or four neighbors sit thus together and gossip. The men are seldom with them, being about the ato buildings in the daytime when not working. A few small children may be about the dwelling, as the little girls frequently help in preparing food for cooking.
During the day the dwelling is much alone. When it is so left one and sometimes two runo stalks are set up in the earth on each side of the door leaning against the roof and projecting some 8 feet in the air. This is the pud-i-pud′, the “ethics lock” on an Igorot dwelling. An Igorot who enters the a′-fong of a neighbor when the pud-i-pud′ is up is called a thief—in the mind of all who see him he is such.