After the initial shaping, the smith completes the work with the small hammer, and the blade is ready for tempering.  A bamboo tube of water is placed near by, and the blade is again inserted in the fire and brought to a white heat.  Then the smith withdraws it and watches it intently until the white tone begins to turn to a greenish-yellow, when he plunges it into the water.  The tempered blade is now smoothed down with sandstone, and is whetted to a keen edge.  Head-axes, spear-heads, adzes, a few knives, and the metal ends for the spear-shafts are the principal products of the forge.

The blades are by no means of equal temper or perfection, but the smiths of the Tinguian-Kalinga border villages seldom turn out poor weapons, and as a result, their spears and head-axes have a wide distribution over northwestern Luzon.

In view of the wide distribution of this type of forge and method of iron-working; of its persistence in isolated communities, while it has vanished from the coast, or has been superseded by the Chinese methods of work; as well as of other details here described, the writer is of the opinion that the art has not been introduced into the Philippines through trade, but is a possession which many or all of the tribes brought with them from their ancient home, probably somewhere in southeastern Asia.  The effects of trade, in historic times, are evident throughout the Christianized regions, in Chinese and European forges and in foreign types of utensils.  Likewise the influence of the Mohammedanized tribes is very marked in the Sulu archipelago, the western coasts of Mindanao, and even among many of the pagan tribes of that island, but the isolated forges throughout Malaysia and the methods described by early explorers in this field, are practically identical with those just reviewed.

Spinning and Weaving.—­That cotton (kapas) was being raised and the fibre spun into cloth at the time of the Spanish occupation of the Islands, is amply proved by many references in the early chronicles.  Also there was a considerable trade in cotton, silk, and the like, carried on by the Chinese and the Brunei Moro. [233]

The weaving industry seems to have reached its height in the Ilocos provinces, where the processes of ginning, carding, spinning, and weaving were, for the most part, identical with those found in Borneo, Java, the Malay Peninsula, Burma, and a large part of India. [234] The same methods and utensils are used among the Tinguian, but side by side with the more complicated devices, such as the ginning machine and spinning wheel, are found more simple contrivances; so it would appear that we are here dealing with older and more primitive methods of work than are found on the coast. [235]

Every step in the manufacture of cloth is looked after by the women, who raise a limited amount of cotton in the upland fields, pick and dry the crop, and prepare it for weaving.  The bolls are placed on racks, and are sun-dried, after which the husks are removed by hand.