Aside from these various basket utensils and implements there are the three kinds of fish traps described in the section on fishing.
There are also three varieties of basket-work hats. The rain hat called “sĕg-fi′,” is made in Bontoc, and may be in imitation of those worn nearer the western coast. This with the suk-lâng, the pocket hat always worn by the men and boys, and the kut′-lao, or sleeping hat, worn by children and adults of both sexes, are described under the head of “Clothing.”
Weapon production
Igorot weapons are few and relatively simple. The bow and arrow, used wherever the Negrito is in Luzon, is not known to the Igorot warrior of the Bontoc culture area. Small boys in Bontoc pueblo make for themselves tiny bows 1½ or 2 feet long with which they snap light arrows a few feet. But the instrument is of the crudest, merely a toy, and is a thing of the day, being acquired from the culture of the Ilokano who live in the pueblo. The Igorot claim they never employed the bow and arrow, and, to-day at least, consider the question as to their ever using it as very foolish, since, they say, pointing to the child’s toy, “It is nothing.”
In 1665–1668 Friar Casimiro Diaz wrote of the Igorot that they used arrows,[6] but it is believed his statement did not apply to the Bontoc man. Igorot-like people throughout northern Luzon commonly do not have this weapon, yet the large Tinguian group of Abra, west and north of Bontoc, and the Ibilao of southeastern Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, and adjacent Isabela employ the bow constantly.
The natural projectile weapon of the Negrito is the bow and arrow; that of the Malayan seems to be the blowgun—at present, however, largely replaced by the spear, though in some southern islands, especially in Paragua, it has held its own.
Wooden weapons
Shields are universally made and used by the Igorot. They are made by the men of each pueblo, and are seldom bought or sold. They are cut from single pieces of wood, and are generally constructed of very light wood, though some are heavy. The hand grip is cut in the solid timber, is almost invariably made for the left hand, and will usually accommodate only three fingers—the thumb and little finger remaining outside the grip and free to press forward the upper and lower ends of the shield, respectively, slanting it to glance a blow of a spear.