It should be noted at the outset that highly developed terrace cultivation is found in Japan and China to the north; in parts of Borneo, in the Nias archipelago, in Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumatra, Burma, and India proper, and it is probable that all within this broad belt developed from a single origin.

When we compare the construction of Igorot and Tinguian terraces and the methods of irrigation, we find them quite similar, although those of the former are somewhat superior and of much greater extent.  The planting of the seed rice and the breaking of the soil in the high fields are also much alike, but here the resemblances cease.  In the lower fields, the Tinguian employ the carabao, together with the plow and harrow; the Igorot do not.  The Igorot fertilize their fields, the Tinguian never.  In harvesting, the Tinguian make use of a peculiar crescent-shaped blade to cut the stalk, the Igorot pull each head off separately.  The Tinguian and Ilocano granaries are of a distinctive type radically different from the Igorot, while the methods of thrashing in the two groups are entirely different.  Finally, the ceremonial observances of the Tinguian, so far as the rice is concerned, are much more extensive and intricate than have been described for the Igorot.  In a like manner there are many striking differences between the methods of handling the grain by the Tinguian and those found in Japan and China.  On the other hand, when we come to compare the rice culture of this region with the islands to the south, the similarities are very striking.  The short description given by Marsden for Sumatra [201] would, with a few modifications, apply to the situation in Abra.  The use of the plow and harrow drawn by carabao is found in Java and Sumatra; the common reaping knife of both these islands is identical with the Tinguian, although there is a slight difference in the way it is utilized; the peculiar type of granary found in Abra again appears in Sumatra, while the Tinguian ceremonial acts associated with the cultivation and care of the rice-recall, in several instances, details of such ceremonies in Java.

If Tinguian rice culture did come from the south, through trade or migration, in comparatively recent times we should expect to find evidences of the same culture distributed along the route by which it must have traveled.  We find, however, that few terraces exist in Mindanao and northern Borneo; and the former, at least, are of recent introduction. [202] There is also negative evidence that such fields were rare along the coasts at the time of the Spanish invasion.  In the early documents we meet with frequent statements that the people were agriculturists and raised considerable quantities of rice and vegetables in their clearings; but the writer has discovered only two instances in which mention is made of terraced fields. [203] Had extensive terraces existed on the coast, it seems certain that some notice must have been taken of them.  Yet in the mountains of central and northwestern Luzon, in districts remote from coast influences, are found some of the most remarkable fields of this type in Malaysia; terraces representing such an expenditure of labor that they argue for a long period of construction.