Among the minor products are ginger, laya (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) and a small melon, locally known as melod, which is used as a sweetening. Sugar cane, onas (Saccharum), is raised in considerable quantity, and is used in making an intoxicating drink known as basi. It is also eaten raw in place of a sweetmeat, but is never converted into sugar. Nowadays the juice is extracted by passing the cane between two cylinders of wood with intermeshing teeth. Motive power is furnished by a carabao attached to a long sweep. This is doubtless a recent introduction, but it has entirely superseded any older method.
The cane is raised from cuttings which are set in mud-beds until ready to be transferred to the mountain-side clearings. These lands are prepared in the same manner as the upland rice fields already described. The men dig shallow holes and set each plant upright, while the women follow, filling the hole with water and then pressing earth in with fingers or toes.
In addition to these food crops, considerable plantings of cotton or kapas (Gossypium sp.) and tobacco or tabá-o (Nicotiana tabacum) are raised in the clearings. The former is planted on the hillsides, where it matures in three or four months. The plant seldom reaches a height of two feet, and the bolls are small, doubtless due to lack of care and suitable fertilization.[37]
Tobacco seeds are sprouted in beds similar to those used for the rice, and the same magical device is used to insure a lusty growth. The young plants are carefully watered and shaded until they reach a height of five or six inches. They are then transplanted to hillside clearings, or to unused rice fields, where they are set out about three Page 404to a foot. This transfer generally takes place near the beginning of the dry season, so that the crop will be sure to mature without the damaging effect of water on the leaves. The plants while lusty do not attain the size of those grown in the valley regions of the interior. As soon as the leaves begin to turn a dark yellow, they are cut off and are strung on slender bamboo sticks (Plate [LX]), which are then hung up in the house. When nearly dry, they are laid in piles, and are occasionally turned to prevent rust or mildew from forming.
A small amount of indigo, tayum (Indigofera tinctoria) is raised, generally in open spots near the villages. The plants receive little or no attention, yet still attain a height of about three feet. The leaves and branches are placed in water for a few days, and are then boiled, together with a little lime, the resultant liquor being used as a dye for cotton thread.
No product receives more attention in the lore of the Tinguian than the climbing vine known as lawed (Piper sp.).[38] It was formerly in universal use in connection with the chewing of betel-nut. To-day betel-nut is less common in this region, but this leaf and the areca-nut still play an important part in all ceremonies. According to tradition, it was possible in the old times to tell the fate of an absent friend by noting the condition of a lawed vine planted by him prior to his departure.[39] The vine is now trained on poles and trellises, near to many houses.
Among the larger cultivated plants and trees, the banana (Musa paradisiaca), coconut (Cocos nucifera), and bamboo (Bambusa sp.) are the most important.
At least twenty varieties of bananas are raised in Abra. The fruit of some of these is scarcely larger than the forefinger, while others are quite large. The common type bears a rather small, yellow fruit locally known as saba. In Manabo and several other villages, plantings covering three or four acres are to be found, but the usual plot is small, and is situated near to the house of the owner.
Suckers, which sprout from the roots of mature plants, are set out as needed, either to make new groves or to replace the old stalks, which are cut down after bearing. Both bud and fruit are eaten. The latter are cut on the stem while still green, and are hung in the house to ripen, in order to protect them from bats and fruit-feeding birds.
The coconut (nīog) is not raised in groves, as in the Christianized Page 405districts, but in many villages every house has two or three trees towering above it. Even the interior mountain settlements, like Lingey, Ba-ay, and Likuan, are hidden beneath these trees, thus incidentally disposing of the fable that “the coconut tree will not grow out of sight of the sea.” Young trees have to be protected by fences during the first two or three years of growth, or they will be uprooted by the pigs, but from that time on they require little or no care. They are not tapped for sap, as is customary in most parts of the Philippines, but notches are cut in the tree trunks in order to supply foothold for the fruit gatherer. The nuts are cut off with a knife as soon as ripe, else they may fall and cause death or injury to people below.