The so-called richest man in Bontoc, Lak-ay’-eng, has the following visible personal property: 

Articles Value in peso

Fifty carabaos, at 50 pesos each
2,500

Thirty hogs, at 8 pesos each
240

Eight full granaries, with 250 1-peso cargoes
2,000

Eight earrings, at 75 pesos each
600

Coin from sale of palay, hogs, etc.
1,000

Total
6,340

The above figures are estimates; it is impossible to make them exact, but they were obtained with much care and are believed to be sufficiently accurate to be of value.

Personal property of group

All household implements and utensils and all money, food stuffs, chickens, dogs, hogs, and carabaos accumulated by a married couple are the joint property of the two.

Such personal property as hogs and carabaos are frequently owned by individuals of different families.  It is common for three or four persons to buy a carabao, and even ten have become joint owners of one animal through purchase.  Through inheritance two or more people become joint owners of single carabao, and of small herds which they prefer to own in common, pending such an increase that the herd may be divided equally without slaughtering an animal.  Until recent years two, three, and even four or five men jointly owned one battle-ax.

As the Igorot acquires more money, or, as the articles desired become relatively cheaper, personal property of the group (outside the family group) is giving way to personal property of the individual.  The extinction of this kind of property is logical and is approaching.

Real property of individual

The individual owns dwelling houses, granaries, camote lands about the dwellings and in the mountains, millet and maize lands. in the mountains, irrigated rice lands, and mountain lands with forests.  In fact, the individual may own all forms of real property known to the people.

It is largely by the possession or nonpossession of real property that a man is considered rich or poor.  This fact is due to the more apparent and tangible form of real than personal property.  The ten richest people in Bontoc, nine men and a woman, own, it is said, in round numbers one hundred sementeras each.  The average value of a sementera is 10 pesos for every cargo of palay it produces annually.  A sementera producing 10 cargoes is rated a very good one, and yet there are those yielding 20, 25, 30, and even 40 cargoes.

It is practically impossible to get the truth concerning the value of the personal or real property of the Igorot in Bontoc, because they are not yet sure the American will not presently tax them unjustly, as they say the Spaniard did.  But the following figures are believed to be true in every particular.  Mang-i-lot’, an old man whose ten children are all dead, and who says his property is no longer of value because he has no children with whom to leave it, is believed to have spoken truthfully when he said he has the following sementeras in the five following geographic areas surrounding the pueblo: