Ba-si is manufactured by the men alone.  Tukukan and Titipan manufacture it to sell to other pueblos; it is sold for about half a peso per gallon.  It is drunk quite a good deal during the year, though mostly on ceremonial occasions.  Men frequently carry a small amount of it with them to the sementeras when they guard them against the wild hogs during the long nights.  They say it helps to keep them warm.  One glass of ba-si will intoxicate a person not accustomed to drink it, though the Igorot who uses it habitually may drink two or three glasses before intoxication.  Usually a man drinks only a few swallows of it at a time, and I never saw an Igorot intoxicated except during some ceremony and then not more than a dozen in several months.  Women never drink ba-si.

Ta-pu-i is a fermented drink made from rice, the cha-yet’-it variety, they say, grown in Bontoc pueblo.  It is a very sweet and sticky rice when cooked.  This beverage also is found practically everywhere in the Archipelago.  Only a small amount of the cha-yet’-it is grown by Bontoc pueblo.  To manufacture ta-pu-i the rice is cooked and then spread on a winnowing tray until it is cold.  When cold a few ounces of a ferment called “fu-fud” are sprinkled over it and thoroughly stirred in; all is then put in an olla, which is tied over and set away.  The ferment consists of cane sugar and dry raw rice pounded and pulverized together to a fine powder.  This is then spread in the sun to dry and is later squeezed into small balls some 2 inches in diameter.  This ferment will keep a year.  When needed a ball is pulverized and sprinkled fine over the cooked rice.  An olla of rice prepared for ta-pu-i will be found in one day half filled with the beverage.

Ta-pu-i will keep only about two months.  It is never drunk by the women, though they do eat the sweet rice kernels from the jar, and they, as well as the men, manufacture it.  It is claimed never to be manufactured in the Bontoc area for sale.  A half glass of the beverage will intoxicate.  At the end of a month the beverage is very intoxicating, and is then commonly weakened with water.  Ta-pu-i is much preferred to ba-si.

The Bontoc man prepares another drink which is filthy, and, even they themselves say, vile smelling.  It is called “sa-fu-eng’,” is drunk at meals, and is prepared as follows:  Cold water is first put in a jar, and into it are thrown cooked rice, cooked camotes, cooked locusts, and all sorts of cooked flesh and bones.  The resulting liquid is drunk at the end of ten days, and is sour and vinegar-like.  The preparation is perpetuated by adding more water and solid ingredients —­ it does not matter much what they are.

The odor of sa-fu-eng’ is the worst stench in Bontoc.  I never closely investigated the beverage personally —­ but I have no reason to doubt what the Igorot says of it; but if all is true, why is it not fatal?

Salt