The immediate surroundings of every Igorot group is the home of the a-ni’-to of departed members of the group, though they do not usually live in the pueblo itself.  Their dwellings, sementeras, pigs, chickens, and carabaos —­ in fact, all the possessions the living had —­ are scattered about in spirit form, in the neighboring mountains.  There the great hosts of the a-ni’-to live, and there they reproduce, in spirit form, the life of the living.  They construct and live in dwellings, build and cultivate sementeras, marry, and even bear children; and eventually, some of them, at least, die or change their forms again.  The Igorot do not say how long an a-ni’-to lives, and they have not tried to answer the question of the final disposition of a-ni’-to, but in various ceremonials a-ni’-to of several generations of ancestors are invited to the family feast, so the Igorot does not believe that the a-ni’-to ceases, as an a-ni’-to, in what would be the lifetime of a person.

When an a-ni’-to dies or changes its form it may become a snake —­ and the Igorot never kills a snake, except if it bothers about his dwelling; or it may become a rock —­ there is one such a-ni’-to rock on the mountain horizon north of Bontoc; but the most common form for a dead a-ni’-to to take is li’-fa, the phosphorescent glow in the dead wood of the mountains.  Why or how these various changes occur the Igorot does not understand.

In many respects the dreamer has seen the a-ni’-to world in great detail.  He has seen that a-ni’-to are rich or poor, old or young, as were the persons at death, and yet there is progression, such as birth, marriage, old age, and death.  Each man seems to know in what part of the mountains his a-ni’-to will dwell, because some one of his ancestors is known to inhabit a particular place, and where one ancestor is there the children go to be with him.  This does not refer to desirability of location, but simply to physical location —­ as in the mountain north of Bontoc, or in one to the east or south.

As was stated in a previous chapter, with the one exception of toothache, all injuries, diseases, and deaths are caused directly by a-ni’-to.  In certain ceremonies the ancestral a-ni’-to, are urged to care for living descendants, to protect them from a-ni’-to that seek to harm —­ and children are named after their dead ancestors, so they may be known and receive protection.  In the pueblo, the sementeras, and the mountains one knows he is always surrounded by a-ni’-to.  They are ever ready to trip one up, to push him off the high stone sementera dikes or to visit him with disease.  When one walks alone in the mountain trail he is often aware that an a-ni’-to walks close beside him; he feels his hair creeping on his scalp, he says, and thus he knows of the a-ni’-to’s presence.  The Igorot has a particular kind of spear, the sinalawitan, having two or more pairs of barbs, of which the a-ni’-to is afraid; so when a man goes alone in the mountains with the sinalawitan he is safer from a-ni’-to than he is with any other spear.