To thrash the grain, the woman places a bundle on a piece of carabao hide, and, as she rolls it beneath her feet, she pounds it with a long wooden pestle (hala) until all the kernels are beaten loose from the straw. [198] It is then placed in a wooden mortar (luson) of hourglass form or with straight sides, where it is again beaten until the outside husks are loosened, and the grain is somewhat broken (Plate LVI).  Winnowing is accomplished by tossing the contents of the mortar in shallow traps (igau), so that the chaff is blown away, while the grain falls back into the winnower (Plate LVII).

The rice is now ready for cooking; the chaff is collected, and is used as food for the pigs and dogs, while the stalks are saved to be burned, for the ashes are commonly used in lieu of soap.

Rice has also come to have great importance, both as a standard of value and as a medium of exchange.  A single stalk is known as sanga dawa.  When the stalks are equal in size to the leg, just above the ankle, the bundle is called sang-abtek. [199] Ten sang-abtek equal sanga-baal.  One hundred sang-abtek make sanga-oyon.  The measure of cleaned rice is as follows:  Two full hands (one coconut shell full)—­1 sopa (Ilocano supa; Spanish 1/8 ganta). 8 sopa—­1 salop (Spanish ganta or about 2 quarts). 25 salop—­1 kaban.

It is customary to pay laborers in rice; likewise the value of animals, beads, and the like are reckoned and paid in this medium.  During the dry season rice is loaned, to be repaid after the harvest with interest of about fifty per cent.

According to tradition, the Tinguian were taught to plant and reap by a girl named Dayapan.  This woman, who was an invalid, was one day bathing in the stream, when the great spirit Kaboniyan entered her body.  He carried with him sugar-cane and unthreshed rice which he gave to the girl with explicit directions for its use.  Likewise he taught her the details of the Sayang, the most important of the ceremonies.  Dayapan followed instructions faithfully, and after the harvest and conclusion of the ceremony, she found herself to be completely cured.  After that she taught others, and soon the Tinguian became prosperous farmers. [200]

In Part I of this volume a reconstruction of the early life of this people was attempted from their mythology.  The results seemed to indicate that the tales reflect a time before the Tinguian possessed terraced rice-fields, when domestic work animals were still unknown, and the horse had not yet been introduced into the land.  But it was also noted that we are not justified in considering these as recent events.

At this time, with the more complete data before us, it may be well to again subject the rice culture to careful scrutiny, in the hope that it may afford some clue as to the source from which it spread into this region.  It is possible that the Tinguian may have brought it with them from their early home, which may be supposed to have been in southeastern Asia; they may have acquired it through contact with Chinese or Japanese traders, or through commercial relations with the islands to the south; or again it may have developed locally in the Tinguian, Igorot, and Ifugao territory.