He has no roads for wheels; neither carabaos, cattle, nor horses could go among his irrigated sementeras; and he has relatively few loads of produce coming in and going out of his pueblo.  Such loads as he has can be transported by himself with greater safety and speed than by quadrupeds; and so, since he almost never moves his place of abode, he has little need of animal transportation.

To an extent the river is employed to transport boards, timbers, and firewood to both Bontoc and Samoki during the high water of the rainy season.  Probably one-fourth of the firewood is borne by the river a part of its journey to the pueblos.  But there is no effort at comprehensive water transportation; there are no boats or rafts, and the wood which does float down the river journeys in single pieces.

The characteristic of Bontoc transportation is that the men invariably carry all their heavy loads on their shoulders, and the women as uniformly transport theirs on their heads.

In Benguet all people carry on their backs, as also do the women of the Quiangan area.

In all heavy transportation the Bontoc men carry the spear, using the handle as a staff, or now and then as a support for the load; the women frequently carry a stick for a staff.  Man’s common transportation vehicle is the ki-ma’-ta, and in it he carries palay, camotes, and manure.  He swings along at a pace faster than the walk, carrying from 75 to 100 pounds.  He carries all firewood from the mountains, directly on his bare shoulders.  Large timbers for dwellings are borne by two or more men directly on the shoulders; and timbers are now, season of 1903, coming in for a schoolhouse carried by as many as twenty-four men.  Crosspieces, as yokes, are bound to the timbers with bark lashings, and two or four men shoulder each yoke.

Rocks built into dams and dikes are carried directly on the bare shoulders.  Earth, carried to or from the building sementeras, in the trails, or about the dwellings, is put first in the tak-o-chug’, the basket-work scoop, holding about 30 or 40 pounds of earth, and this is carried by wooden handles lashed to both sides and is dumped into a transportation basket, called “ko-chuk-kod’.”  This is invariably hoisted to the shoulder when ready for transportation.  When men carry water the fang’-a or olla is placed directly on the shoulder as are the rocks.

When the man is to be away from home over night he usually carries his food and blanket, if he has one, in the waterproof fang’-ao slung on his back and supported by a bejuco strap passing over each shoulder and under the arm.  This is the so-called “head basket,” and, as a matter of fact, is carried on war expeditions by those pueblos that use it, though it is also employed in more peaceful occupations.  As a cargador the man carries his burdens on the shoulder in three ways —­ either double, the cargo on a pole between two men; or singly, with the cargo divided and tied to both ends of the pole; or singly, with the cargo laid directly on the shoulder.