Sacred days

Teng-ao’ is the sacred day, the rest day, of Bontoc.  It occurs on an average of about every ten days throughout the year, though there appears to be no definite regularity in its occurrence.  The old men of the two ato of Lowingan and Sipaat determine when teng-ao’ shall occur, and it is a day observed by the entire pueblo.

The day is publicly announced in the pueblo the preceding evening.  If a person goes to labor in the fields on a sacred day —­ not having heard the announcement, or in disregard of it —­ he is fined for “breaking the Sabbath.”  The old men of each ato discover those who have disobeyed the pueblo law by working in the field, and they announce the names to the old men of Lowingan and Sipaat, who promptly take from the lawbreaker firewood or rice or a small chicken to the value of about 10 cents, or the wage of two days.  March 3, 1903, was teng-ao’ in Bontoc, and I saw ten persons fined for working.  The fines are expended in buying chickens and pigs for the pa’-tay ceremonies of the pueblo.

Ceremonials

A residence of five months among a primitive people about whom no scientific knowledge existed previously is evidently so scant for a study of ceremonial life that no explanation should be necessary here.  However, I wish to say that no claim is made that the following short presentation is complete —­ in fact, I know of several ceremonies by name about which I can not speak at all with certainty.  Time was also insufficient to get accurate translations of all ceremonial utterances which are here presented.

There is great absence of formalism in uttering ceremonies, scarcely two persons speak exactly the same words, though I believe the purport of each ceremony, as uttered by two people, to be the same.  This looseness may be due in part to the absence of a developed cult having the ceremonies in charge from generation to generation.

Ceremonies connected with agriculture

Pochang

This ceremony is performed at the close of the period Pa-chog’, the period when rice seed is put in the germinating beds.

It is claimed there is no special oral ceremony for Po-chang’.  The proceeding is as follows:  On the first day after the completion of the period Pa-chog’ the regular monthly Pa’-tay ceremony is held.  On the second day the men of ato Sigichan, in which ato Lumawig resided when he lived in Bontoc, prepare a bunch of runo as large around as a man’s thigh.  They call this the “cha-nug’,” and store it away in the ato fawi, and outside the fawi set up in the earth twenty or more runo, called “pa-chi’-pad —­ the pud-pud’ of the harvest field.

The bunch of runo is for a constant reminder to Lumawig to make the young rice stalks grow large.  The pa-chi’-pad are to prevent Igorot from other pueblos entering the fawi and thus seeing the efficacious bundle of runo.