often traveled by horsemen.  Up and up the mountain one climbs from about 1,800 feet at Cervantes to about 6,000 feet among the pines, and then slowly descends, having crossed the boundary line between Lepanto and Bontoc subprovinces to the pueblo of Bagnen —­ the last one before the Bontoc culture area is entered.  It is customary to spend the night on the trail, as one goes into Bontoc, either at Bagnen or at Sagada, a pueblo about two hours farther on.

Only along the top of the high mountain, before Bagnen is reached, does the trail pass through a forest —­ otherwise it is always climbing up or winding about the mountains deforested probably by fires.  Practically all the immediate territory on the right hand of the trail between Bagnen and Sagada is occupied by the beautifully terraced rice sementeras of Balugan; the valley contains more than a thousand acres so cultivated.  At Sagada lime rocks —­ some eroded into gigantic, massive forms, others into fantastic spires and domes —­ everywhere crop out from the grassy hills.  Up and down the mountains the trail leads, passing another small pine forest near Ankiling and Titipan, about four hours from Bontoc, and then creeps on and at last through the terraced entrance way into the mountain pocket where Bontoc pueblo lies, about 100 miles from the western coast, and, by Government aneroid barometer, about 2,800 feet above the sea.

Marks of Bontoc culture

It is difficult and often impossible to state the essential difference in culture which distinguishes one group of people from another.  It is more difficult to draw lines of distinction, for the culture of one group almost imperceptibly flows into that of another adjoining it.

However, two fundamental institutions of the people of Bontoc seem to differ from those of most adjoining people.  One of these institutions has to do with the control of the pueblo.  Bontoc has not developed the headman —­ the “principal” of the Spaniard, the “Bak-nan’” of the Benguet Igorot —­ the one rich man who becomes the pueblo, leader.  In Benguet Province the headman is found in every pueblo, and he is so powerful that he often dominates half a dozen outlying barrios to the extent that he receives a large share, often one-half, of the output of all the productive labors of the barrio.  Immediately north of the Bontoc area, in Tinglayan, the headman is again found.  He has no place whatever in Bontoc.  The control of the pueblos of the Bontoc area is in the hands of groups of old men; however, each group, called “intugtukan,” operates only within a single political and geographic portion of the pueblo, so that no one group has in charge the control of the pueblo.  The pueblo is a loose federation of smaller political groups.