As is shown also by the illustrations, the women dance.  They throw their blankets about them and extend their arms, usually clutching tobacco leaves in either hand —­ which are offerings to the old men and which some old man frequently passes among them and collects —­ and they dance with less movement of the feet than do the men.  Generally the toes scarcely leave the earth, though a few of the older women invariably dance with a high movement and backward pawing of one foot which throws the dust and gravel over all behind them.  I have more than once seen the dance circle a cloud of dust raised by one pawing woman, and the people at the margin of the circle dodging the gravel thrown back, yet they only laughed and left the woman to pursue her peculiar and discomforting “step.”  The dancing women are generally immediately outside the circle, and from them the rhythm spreads to the spectators until a score of women are dancing on their toes where they stand among the onlookers, and little girls everywhere are imitating their mothers.  The rhythmic music is fascinating, and one always feels out of place standing stiff legged in heavy, hobnailed shoes among the pulsating, rhythmic crowd.  Now and again a woman dances between two men of the line, forcing her way to the center of the circle.  She is usually more spectacular than those about the margin, and frequently holds in her hand her camote stick or a ball of bark-fiber thread which she has spun for making skirts.  I once saw such a dancer carry the long, heavy wooden pestle used in pounding out rice.

A few times I have seen men dance in the center of the circle somewhat as the women do, but with more movement, with a balancing and tilting of the body and especially of the arms, and with rapid trembling and quivering of the hands.  The most spectacular dance is that of the man who dances in the circle brandishing a head-ax.  He is shown in Pls.  CLII and CLIII.  At all times his movements are in perfect sympathy and rhythm with the music.  He crouches around between the dancers brandishing his ax, he deftly all but cuts off a hand here, an arm or leg there, an ear yonder.  He suddenly rushes forward and grinningly feigns cutting off a man’s head.  He contorts himself in a ludicrous yet often fiendish manner.  This dance represents the height of the dramatic as I have seen it in Igorot life.  His is truly a mimetic dance.  His colleague with the spear and shield, who sometimes dances on the outskirts of the circle, now charging a dancer and again retreating, also produces a true mimetic and dramatic spectacle.  This is somewhat more than can be said of the dance of the women with the camote sticks, pestles, and spun thread.  The women in no way “act” —­ they simply purposely present the implements or products of their labors, though in it all we see the real beginning of dramatic art.

Other areas, and other pueblos also, have different dances.  In the Benguet area the musicians sit on the earth and play the gang’-sa and wooden drum while the dancers, a man and woman, pass back and forth before them.  Each dances independently, though the woman follows the man.  He is spectacular with from one to half a dozen blankets swinging from his shoulders, arms, and hands.