Medium of exchange

That a people with such incipient social and political institutions as has the Bontoc Igorot should have developed a “money” is remarkable.  The North American Indian with his strong tendency and adaptability to political organization had no such money.  Nothing of the kind has been presented as belonging to the Australian of ultrasocial development, and I am not aware that anything equal has been produced by other similar primitive peoples.  However, it seems not improbable that allied tribes (say, of Malayan stock) which have solved the problem of subsistence in a like way have a similar currency, although I find no mention of it among four score of writers whose observations on similar tribes of Borneo have come to hand, and nothing similar has yet been found in the Philippines.

The Bontoc Igorot has a “medium of exchange” which gives a “measure of exchange value” for articles bought and sold, and which has a “standard of value.”  In other words he has “good money” probably the best money that could have been devised by him for his society.  It is his staple product —­ palay, the unthreshed rice.

Palay is at all times good money, and it is the thing commonly employed in exchange.  It answers every purpose of a suitable medium of exchange.  It is always in demand, since it is the staple food.  It is kept eight or ten years without deterioration.  Except when used to purchase clothing, it is seldom heavier or more difficult to transport than is the object for which it is exchanged.  It is of very stable value, so much so that as a purchaser of Igorot labor and products its value is constant; and it can not be counterfeited.

Aside from this universal medium of exchange the characteristic production of each community, in a minor way, answers for the community the needs of a medium of exchange.

Samoki buys many things with her pots, such as tobacco and salt from Mayinit; cloth from Igorot comerciantes, breechcloth and basi from the Igorot producers; chickens, pigs, palay, and camotes from neighboring pueblos.  Mayinit uses her salt in much the same way, only probably to a less extent.  Salt is not consumed by all the people.

To-day, as formerly, the live pig and hog and pieces of pork and carabao meat are used a great deal in barter.  As far back as the pueblo memory extends pigs have been used to purchase a particularly good breechcloth called “balakes,” made in Balangao, three days east of Bontoc.

In all sales the medium of exchange is entirely in coin.  Paper will not be received by the Igorot.  The peso (the Spanish and Mexican silver dollar) passes in the area at the rate of two to one with American money.  There is also the silver half peso, the peseta or one-fifth peso, and the half peseta.  The latter two are not plentiful.  The only other coin is the copper “sipen.”