The Bontoc Culture Group

Bontoc culture area

The Bontoc culture area nearly equals the old Spanish Distrito Politico-Militar of Bontoc, presented to the American public in a Government publication in 1900.[8]

The Spanish Bontoc area was estimated about 4,500 square kilometers.  This was probably too large an estimate, and it is undoubtedly an overestimate for the Bontoc culture area, the northern border of which is farther south than the border of the Spanish Bontoc area.

The area is well in the center of northern Luzon and is cut off by watersheds from other territory, except on the northeast.  The most prominent of these watersheds is Polis Mountain, extending along the eastern and southern sides of the area; it is supposed to reach a height of over 7,000 feet.  The western watershed is an undifferentiated range of the Cordillera Central.  To the north stretches a large area of the present Province of Bontoc, though until 1903 most of that northern territory was embraced in the Province of Abra.  The Province of Isabela lies to the east; Nueva Vizcaya and Lepanto border the area on the south, and Lepanto and Abra border it on the west.

The Bontoc culture area lies entirely in the mountains, and, with the exception of two pueblos, it is all drained northeastward into the Rio Grande de Cagayan by one river, the Rio Chico de Cagayan; but the Rio Sibbu, coursing more directly eastward, is a considerable stream.

To-day one main trail enters Bontoc Province.  It was originally built by the Spaniards, and enters Bontoc pueblo from the southwest, leading up from Cervantes in Lepanto Province.  From Cervantes there are two trails to the coast.  One passes southward through Baguio in Benguet Province and then stretches westward, terminating on the coast at San Fernando, in Union Province.  The other, the one most commonly traveled to Bontoc, passes to the northwest, terminating on the coast at Candon, in the Province of Ilokos Sur.  The main trail, entering Bontoc from Cervantes, passes through the pueblo and extends to the northeast, quite closely following the trend of the Chico River.  In Spanish times it was seldom traveled farther than Bassao, but several parties of Americans have been over it as far as the Rio Grande de Cagayan since November, 1902.  A second trail, also of Spanish origin, but now practically unused, enters the area from the south and connects Bontoc pueblo, its northern terminus, with the valley of the Magat River far south.  It passes through the pueblos of Bayambang, Quiangan, and Banawi, in the Province of Nueva Vizcaya.