Vessels made in Lakub are often decorated with incised patterns (Fig. 22, No. 8), but otherwise the Tinguian ware is plain.  Chinese jars are found in every village, and are highly prized, but the native potters do not imitate them in form or decoration.  Had Chinese blood or influence ever been strong in the region, we might expect to find the potter’s wheel and traces of true glazing, but both are lacking.

Pipe Making.—­Both men and women smoke pipes, consisting of a short reed handle and a small bowl.  Men are the pipe makers, and often show considerable skill in the decoration of their product.

The common pipe-bowl is of clay, which has been carefully shaped with the fingers and a short bamboo spatula.  Designs are incised, and the raised portions are further embellished by the addition of small pieces of brass wire (Fig. 21, Nos. 4-5).  The bowls are baked in a slow fire, and the mouthpieces are added.

A second type of pipe, or cigar holder, is made of bamboo (Fig. 21, Nos. 1-3).  Designs are incised in the sides, oil is applied, and the pipe is held in the smoke of burning rice-straw until the lines become permanently blackened (Fig. 22, Nos. 1-3).

In recent years, Ilocano jewelers have introduced silver pipes, made from coins.  One Tinguian pipe maker has learned the trade, and does a lively business.  He has further beautified his product by attaching pendants representing fish (Fig. 21, No. 6).  Brass pipes of Igorot origin are sometimes seen, but are not made in this region.

Method of Drying Hides.—­Hides of carabao, and sometimes of other animals, are stretched on bamboo frames and are sun-dried (Plate LV).  Later they are placed in water containing tanbark, and are roughly cured.  Such leather is used in the manufacture of the back straps used by the weavers, and in making sheathes for knives, but more commonly it is placed on the ground, and on it rice and cotton are beaten out.

CHAPTER X

DECORATIVE ART

In decorative art the Tinguian offers sharp contrast to the Igorot and Ifugao, both of whom have developed wood carving to a considerable extent.  They also have their bodies tattooed, while the colored lashings on spear shafts, pipe stems, and other objects show a nice appreciation for color and design.  In all these the Tinguian is deficient or lacking; he does no wood carving, tattooing is scanty, while his basket work, except that from two small regions, is plain.  At times he does make some simple designs on canes, on bamboo rice-planters and weaving sticks, on lime boxes and pipe stems, but these are exceptions rather than the rule.  In the region about Lakub, he decorates his jars by cutting the ends of sticks to form small dies which he presses into the newly fashioned clay (Fig. 22, No. 8), while in Manabo and some other villages the pipe makers cut the bowls of the clay pipes in floral designs or inlay small pieces of brass to form scroll patterns (Fig. 22, Nos. 4-7).  These last mentioned designs are so restricted in their manufacture, and are so different from those found elsewhere in Abra, that they cannot be considered as typical.